|k| clippings: 2016-04-05 — a faint fractal, a chime

WORK

“Self Portrait”

In the dream, I am holding my grandmother’s leg like a tube sock filled with batteries. I am trying to fit the bones back together but neither the bones nor I have learned how to do this. We wobble. The leg rolls between us like an egg and we are praying nothing will tear. My grandmother is there too. She is watching me fumble with her body and smiling. Leave it, Patrick, she says. Let me tell you that story about the priest and the pianist again. I keep guiding her bones into each other, edge against fractured edge, listening for something to click.

—Patrick Kindig
—from Willow Springs #77

WORD(S)

hanko /HONG-koh/. noun. A stamp, most often made of stone, wood or bone, traditionally used in Japan and China in place of a signature on official documents. Hanko come in three types: one for casual use—usually self-inking and thus portable and easily available for signing for mail deliveries and such, one for banking and an official, registered, version. Hanko are also known as chops in colloquial British English. See detailed information about hanko. From Japanese han (seal, stamp) + ko (literally child, but also a suffix used to form nouns).

“I met Miyoshi-sensei’s father once, at my welcome banquet at a Chinese restaurant. The mayor presented me with my hanko, a narrow bamboo cylinder carved with the characters for my name.” (Melanie Watrous)

“Originally the use of these circular or square ink stamps was limited to the aristocratic classes, but in the Edo period the use of hanko to prove identity became more common. By the Meiji period (1867–1912) laws requiring people to use hanko to mark official documents made them ubiquitous.” (John Walker)

“This time, however, rather than having a large brush in his hand, he had replaced it with a very small, one-inch square hanko…” (Peggy Keener)

WEB

1. Remarkable! → Microsoft and the Rembrandthuis museum have collaborated on a project that analyzed Rembrandt’s entire catalog and then used “deep learning algorithms” on the data to produce the “Next Rembrandt” painting. It reminds me of a radically sophisticated version of Gene Kogan’s neural-network based Style Transfers series.

2. Dimly Lit Meals for One, sharing “heartbreaking tales of sad food and even sadder lives.”

3. Sad and fascinating and full of feels → The ballad of Fred and Yoko: How one of the world’s foremost Beatles collectors died homeless on the streets of Little Rock

4. Network visualization: mapping Shakespeare’s tragedies Fun graphics and a free downloadable poster.

5. Today in 1614, Pocohantas—born Matoaka, known as Amonute—marries John Rolfe, becoming “Rebecca Wolfe” and solving Rolfe’s vexing conundrum of marrying a “heathen.” Pocohantas (sometimes translated as “playful one”) was the daughter of Wahunsonacock, known as Powhatan to the English, the supreme chief of a network of tribes whose relationship with the English colonists was, at best, tense. In 1613, the English abducted Pocohantas, hoping to negotiate a peace settlement with her father that included freeing some English captives. Powhatan eventually agreed, but by then she had converted to Christianity and reportedly fallen in love with John Rolfe. Though the captives were not released, nearly 8 years of cooperation between the English and the Powhatan followed—a time now called “The Peace of Pocohantas.” In a letter requesting permission to marry Pocohantas, John Rolfe wrote:

“[I am] motivated not by the unbridled desire of carnal affection, but for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our country, for the Glory of God, for my own salvation … namely Pocahontas, to whom my hearty and best thoughts are, and have been a long time so entangled, and enthralled in so intricate a labyrinth that I was even a-wearied to unwind myself thereout…”

WATCH/WITNESS

Andy Woodruff’s Beyond the Sea series of maps shows what’s really across from you when you stare out over the sea. Hint, it’s not necessarily what you think. The article contains many larger images and fascinating details about Woodruff’s map-making process.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. comments and queries: “Thank you for another wunderkammer. ¶ The Stout quote: do you know who’s speaking? The rest of the sentence sounds like Archie.” — You got it…it’s Archie in conversation with Fritz. And those passages always make me hungry, gulosity or no…

• Reader C. on Trollope, reading and memory: “Trollope is so right about the generally feeble nature of human memory. I wonder if the real distinction between most great writers and scientists and the rest of us isn’t simply better memories. Not necessarily in the most traditional sense of exact recall, but in a more generalized and significant capacity?”

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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