|k| clippings: 2016-03-24 — for what is found there

WORK

I think your friend who is against books and reading is quite right.

Lao-Tzu says: true words are not pleasant, pleasant words are not true. The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.

The Brahmanes say that in their books there are many predictions of times in which it will rain. But press those books as strongly as you can, you can not get out of them a drop of water. So you can not get out of all the books that contain the greatest precepts the smallest good deed.

—Leo Tolstoy
—from a letter to Percy Redfern, February 23, 1903

WORD(S)

caducity /kə-DYOO-si-tee/. noun. Senility, infirmity. Being perishable or transitory. Also, frailty or a tendency to fall. In legal vocabulary, the “lapsing of a testamentary gift.” From Latin caducus (liable to fall, perishable), from cadere (to fall).

“Winter: Temple of caducity. ¶ Eroded by lichen, the low branches have fallen. And no encumbrance midway up. No snaking of vines or ropes. You can roam about at leisure between the senile masts (all crinkled and lichen-cloaked like old Creole men), their locks entangled in the heights.” (Francis Ponge)

“…the flesh and the stone – the erect and the super-incumbent – the upraised sickle and the sickle brought down – the pooling shadows and the puddling blood – the Heavensent and the Hell-bound – the caducity of flesh and the endurance of stone…” (Nick Cave)

“Indeed, ‘descent’ is an apt word, for he is descended now, through a combination of caducity and destitution, to a very low condition.” (Geraldine Brooks)

WEB

1. Freedom APA, an “alternative amateur press association” with quarterly mailings for members, is “intended to be fun & embrace the spirit of amateur journalism, zine making, letter writing, graphic arts, mail art, DIY printing, poetry, homemade music, creative projects, podcasting & more.” I’ve seen a few comments that their first few mailings were delightful. → Announcing FREEDOM APA

2. “Why do our brains contain music-selective neurons?” → Your Brain’s Music Circuit Has Been Discovered

3. Debilitating illnesses in literature, ranked

4. On “psychobiotics” and the question, “can we soothe our brains by cultivating our bacteria?” → Microbes can play games with the mind

5. Today in 1976, the Argentinian military’s right-wing executes a coup d’état, overthrowing President Isabel Perón (who had inherited the position not even two years before), and extending and intensifying the Argentinean “Dirty War”. The military junta, which was installed with the United States’ complicity would murder (“disappear”) up to 30,000 people during its rule. Not coincidentally, US President Barack Obama has just announced he will be declassifying secret files related to US involvement in the Dirty War.

WATCH/WITNESS

80 seconds of an ostrich chasing two cyclists on an Australian coastal road. Because…ostrich of amazing size and speed! Related: How Johnny Cash was nearly killed by an ostrich in 1981, How to Survive an Encounter with an Ostrich and Meanwhile, in a Chinese Zoo, a Man Bit an Ostrich to Death.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B.: “I love the tight drastic turns between lines in [Peggy Shumaker’s poem] ‘Turnstone’.”

• Reader M. on Peggy Shumaker: “I’ll never forget hearing Peggy Shumaker read at a reading you dragged me to in the early 90s. Hearing her and Lucille Clifton read changed my life. I became a poetry fan then and there.”

• A different Reader M. on last issue’s WORD: “I really didn’t need to see the word ‘meatus’ while in a meeting. But I’ll just run with it…”

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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