Today, your pick of poisons: for those of you so inclined (or disinclined) a WORK and a WORD suitable for Valentine’s day, whatever your disposition.

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“Opal”

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“When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid.”

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“February”

Snow falls on fallen snow

Werner Herzog’s advice for filmmakers is pretty sound advice for—well—everyone.

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Always take the initiative. There is nothing wrong with spending a night in a jail cell if it means getting the shot you need. Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey. Beware of the cliché. Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief. Learn to live with your mistakes. Study the law and scrutinise contracts. Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern. Keep your eyes open. That roll of unexposed celluloid you have in your hand might be the last in existence, so do something impressive with it. There is never an excuse not to finish a film. Carry bolt cutters everywhere. Thwart institutional cowardice. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Take your fate into your own hands. Don’t preach on deaf ears. Learn to read the inner essence of a landscape. Ignite the fire within and explore unknown territory. Walk straight ahead, never detour. Learn on the job. Manoeuvre and mislead, but always deliver. Don’t be fearful of rejection. Develop your own voice. Day one is the point of no return. Know how to act alone and in a group. Guard your time carefully. A badge of honour is to fail a film-theory class. Chance is the lifeblood of cinema. Guerrilla tactics are best. Take revenge if need be. Get used to the bear behind you. Form clandestine Rogue cells everywhere.

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I wrote to you on the first of this month, and am now going to write on the last of it, to close a year that has laid so many ominous eggs. Whether the next will crush or hatch them we shall soon have some chance of foreseeing.

Happy InCoWriMo/LetterMo! In case you missed yesterday’s note, I’m . To answer a few common questions: 1) I will ship internationally, so if you asked, you shall receive! 2) Each pack comes with one of each design. 3) I haven’t run out yet.

Katexic loves good old-fashioned snail mail. And February is International Correspondence Writing Month (InCoWriMo) or, if you prefer, Month of Letters (LetterMo).

So, while supplies last, we’re celebrating with a freebie for the Clamor (that’s you!): a three-pack of folded notecards with one each of the designs below. Each card is 6x5.5 in., printed on ivory, white or kraft cardstock, with matching envelope, and blank inside…ready for you to start—or continue—a correspondence featuring that unmatched handwritten touch. 

Claim your free notecards by REPLYing to this (or any other) newsletter, letting me know where to send them! Happy writing!

The designs include "Mathemaku for Macbeth" by Bob Grumman, the |k|lassic logo, and a card for lexicophiles:

WORK

“Still Morning”

It appears now that there is only one age and it knows nothing of age as the flying birds know nothing of the air they are flying through or of the day that bears them up through themselves and I am a child before there are words arms are holding me up in a shadow voices murmur in a shadow as I watch one patch of sunlight moving across the green carpet in a building gone long ago and all the voices silent and each word they said in that time silent now while I go on seeing that patch of sunlight

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“The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?”

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…would you describe your work in typography as an obsession and, if so, why does this particular discipline require this level of engagement?

More serendipity (did you know that word was coined by Horace Walpole?), this time in the form of a famous phrase/idea I’d heard attributed to authors from Tolstoy to Twain, not to mention politicians including Ronald Reagan (the truth, in order: nyet, not really, and nope).

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“The Fine Print”

    In the sharp tundral air at the edge of a lamp-lit lot, the history of a dog scrambles after the history of a wolf     five feet from the side of the road.

I’ve been reading Alan Jacobs’ excellent book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. I wholeheartedly endorse Jacobs’ book and his simple principle to “read at whim.” But in the kind of coincidence that makes putting these newsletters together so much fun, today’s WORK from Julian Barnes sprang instantly to mind the first time I read Jacobs’ imperative phrase…

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“We Are Not Responsible”

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives. We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations. In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on. Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments. If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way. In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself. Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we are unable to find the key to your legal case. You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile. You are not presumed to be innocent if the police have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet. It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color. It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights. Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude. You have no rights that we are bound to respect. Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you.

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Dear Uncle Ted,

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Some of my favorite songs: ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ by Neil Young; ‘Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me’ by the Smiths; ‘Call Me’ by Aretha Franklin; ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ by anybody. And then there’s ‘Love Hurts’ and ‘When Love Breaks Down’ and ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’ and ‘The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness’ and ‘She’s Gone’ and ’I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself ’and … some of these songs I have listened to around once a week, on average (three hundred times in the first month, every now and again thereafter), since I was sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one. How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can that not turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong? What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to the sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives.

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“The books I liked became a Bible from which I drew advice and support; I copied out long passages from them; I memorized new canticles and new litanies, psalms, proverbs, and prophecies, and I sanctified every incident in my life by the recital of these sacred texts. My emotions, my tears, and my hopes were no less sincere on account of that; the words and the cadences, the lines and the verses were not aids to make believe: but they rescued from silent oblivion all those intimate adventures of the spirit that I couldn’t speak to anyone about; they created a kind of communion between myself and those twin souls which existed somewhere out of reach; instead of living out my small private existence, I was participating in a great spiritual epic.”

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“In Martinique, I had visited rustic and neglected rum-distilleries where the equipment and the methods used had not changed since the eighteenth century. In Puerto Rico, on the other hand, in the factories of the company which enjoys a virtual monopoly over the whole of the sugar production, I was faced by a display of white enamel tanks and chromium piping. Yet the various kinds of Martinique rum, as I tasted them in front of ancient wooden vats thickly encrusted with waste matter, were mellow and scented, whereas those of Puerto Rico are coarse and harsh. We may suppose, then, that the subtlety of the Martinique rums is dependent on impurities the continuance of which is encouraged by the archaic method of production. To me, this contrast illustrates the paradox of civilization: its charms are due essentially to the various residues it carries along with it, although this does not absolve us of the obligation to purify the stream. By being doubly in the right, we are admitting our mistake. We are right to be rational and to try to increase our production and so keep manufacturing costs down. But we are also right to cherish those very imperfections we are endeavouring to eliminate. Social life consists in destroying that which gives it its savour.”

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“The Sciences Sing a Lullabye”

says: go to sleep. Of course you’re tired. Every atom in you has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes nonstop from mitosis to now. Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

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“What we’re losing when we tweet and e-mail people and send Facebook messages rather than write letters is a formal, considered form of correspondence. When you sit down to write a letter, you’re in a completely different frame of mind than you are when you write an e-mail or a tweet, and you really kind of dig deep rather than just, you know, having ten tabs open at once and flicking backwards and forwards and never properly focusing on the job at hand. So I think we’re losing something really quite deep.”