WORK

“Outside”

My grandmother sends a letter
from the older country,

large spaces between the words
waiting for me to be born.

In the bedroom upstairs my mother
writes with a red pen in the book of birth.

Outside, the nights are cooler. By the light
of her notebook my sister

imagines her own imagination. She wants
to write everything down at once.

Days are getting shorter.
Leaves are pulling colour from the air.

The school bus stops in front of the house
and the driver calls out. My sister

runs down the steps
toward the open doors

thinking she will know me.

—Robert Gore
—from Contemporary Verse 2

WORD(S)

pawky /PAW-kee/. adjective. Shrewd, cunning, canny. In Scottish dialect: haughty, insolent. From northern English dialect pawk (trick).

“She was at her triturations. Spooning to death in a salver a speckled slug, marked like an ocelot, viscous and sticky. A whitish paste. Crooning a low threnody to her pawky trade.” (Cormac McCarthy)

“Though he is not known as a satirist, his Blood Meridian, about a ruthless band of bounty hunters looking for Indian scalps in Texas in the 1850s, can be read at least in part as a bloody pasquinade on the heroic literature of westward expansion. A pawky gallows humor is a reliable if underappreciated element in much of McCarthy’s work…” (Michael Chabon, from Maps and Legends)

“In this milieu, you suddenly see the urgent meaning of that phrase about everybody needing a good laugh. The Algonquin Round Table could never have been so remorselessly pawky.” (Martin Amis)

“He went on in his pawky way trying to make clear to her his mystical faith in these men who went ragged and hungry because they had chosen once for all between what he called in all seriousness their souls, and this world.” (Katherine Anne Porter)

WEB

1. Readers will have noticed my slowly developing obsession with Caravaggio. That’s what you pay me for! → “The mystery of Caravaggio’s death solved at last—painting killed him”.

2. $2 bills have made an appearance here before. Apparently I share this interest with some South Americans → The Curious Case of $2 Bills in Ecuador

3. For use by “the less formal male” in approaches to “the less formal female” → 19th Century Escort Cards

4. “I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.”

5. Today in 1963, screenwriter and producer Stephen Russell Davies—better known by his pen name Russell T Davies—is born in Swansea, Wales. Some will know him as the creator of the original Queer as Folk television series, many more for his successful reboot of the Doctor Who franchise in 2005. He’s currently at work on Tofu, the third in a trilogy of series about gay life and culture, that began with Cucumber and Banana. As a fan, his work bringing Doctor Who back is enough for recognition, but his outstanding Fresh Air interview, which is funny, humble and insightful—and has nothing to do with Doctor Who—put me over the top.

WATCH/WITNESS

View the entire Rand McNalley HISTOMAP: 4000 Years of World History on a Single Map

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader C. writes: “My favorite use of scaramouch. Freddy Mercury for the win…” — You might enjoy some of the discussons on the song at SongMeanings.net

• Reader S. writes w/r/t the toilet repair that resulted in a museum: “The story about the trattoria-turned-museum is the stuff of my fondest dreams. If only…”

• Reader N. hooks me up with some music: “Have you ever heard the piano duet ‘Scaramouche’ by Darius Milhaud? Here’s an excerpt.¶ It’s very lively and sometimes played on one piano with four hands. You can also find it performed with saxophone or clarinet and orchestra. Milhaud was a member of ‘Les Six’ which also included Poulenc and Honneger. If you like ‘Scaramouche’ you can move on to ‘Le Boeuf sur le toit’ (The Ox on the Roof), a ballet farce and a famous bar in Paris. The bar was named after the ballet and not the other way around.” — Wonderful! I’ve listened to multiple performances of the full piece and Le Bœuf sur le toit (how could I resist a farcical surrealist ballet quoting scores of Brazilian songs made into a show with the help of Cocteau?

• The same Reader N. saw right through me: “I really enjoyed your collection of quotations about the word. Although Jane Austen and Martin Amis may seem to be strange bed-fellows, he has remained as devout an Austenista as can be since he first read her novels as a teenager.” — The pairing tickled me because I remembered Amis discussing Austen multiple times in his nonfiction (and his differences with this father on the topic, if I recall correctly).

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

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WORK

“The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.”

Exchanging messages with a reader and I realized that one of the reasons I adore both asyndeton (our last WORD) and polysyndeton (today’s WORD) is because both are methods of manipulating lists, a device I am obsessed with.

WORK

“Reaching the cascade, or rather cataract, the roaring of which had a long time announced its vicinity, my soul was hurried by the falls into a new train of reflections. The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent from the dark cavities which mocked the exploring eye produced an equal activity in my mind. My thoughts darted from earth to heaven, and I asked myself why I was chained to life and its misery. Still the tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited were pleasurable; and, viewing it, my soul rose with renewed dignity above its cares. Grasping at immortality—it seemed as impossible to stop the current of my thoughts, as of the always varying, still the same, torrent before me; I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come.”

—Mary Wollstonecraft
—from Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

WORD(S)

polysyndeton /POL-ee-SIN-də-tahn/. noun. The use of several conjunctions—usually repeated—in succession. AKA “overly many conjunctions.” A very common biblical device and one which often adds gravity, mystery, breathlessness, or expansiveness to a phrase. From Greek polu (poly) + sundetos (bound together).

“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” (King James Bible)

“Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war—not history’s forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars.” (James Goldman)

“Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath and the ruling part.” (Marcus Aurelius)

“Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand
the time of the day.” (William Shakespeare)

“It came boring out of the east like some ribald satellite of the coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance and the long light of the headlamp running through the tangled mesquite brakes and creating out of the night the endless fenceline down the dead straight right of way and sucking it back again wire and post mile on mile into the darkness after where the boilersmoke disbanded slowly along the faint new horizon and the sound came lagging and he stood still holding his hat in his hands in the passing ground-shudder watching it till it was gone.” (Cormac McCarthy)

WEB

1. Apocalypse Then: Medieval Illuminations from the Morgan celebrating “the completion of a facsimile of the Morgan’s Las Huelgas Apocalypse—the latest dated (1220) and largest surviving manuscript of a Spanish tradition of illuminated commentaries on the Apocalypse by the monk Beatus of Liébana”

2. I was initially unsure of this “cradle Christian’s” take on David Foster Wallace, but she nails how his work isn’t religious, but can be complementary to it and—most importantly—that far from being an ironic hipster, Wallace was sincere (in hindsight, perhaps overly so) → “Everybody Worships: On David Foster Wallace”

3. In part thanks to the popularity of The Imitation Game, the Alan Turing notebook that had been kept a secret due to a “a deeply personal message written in the blank centre pages of the notebook” sold for over a million dollars to an anonymous buyer. More history lost to the highest bidder.

4. And speaking notebooks found: “Wounded First World War soldier’s notebook of 99 years ago is discovered in drawer by relative”

5. Today in 1564, William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, inaugurating the daty traditionally observed as his birthday (and St. George’s Day). Shakespeare’s actual date of birth remains unknown, but the symmetry with the date of his death—April 23, 1616—has proven irresistible to historians and aficionados alike. Treat yourself to some words from the Bard! Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets are available all over, such as at Open Source Shakespeare. If you’re a serious reader, you need printed books, and you can’t go wrong with the Arden Shakespeare series which has more supplementary materials, information and notes than most readers will ever need, along with a few necessities from other publishers such as the unconflated Quarto text of King Lear from Oxford Press. Or listen to Shakespeare’s Restless World, a podcast that explores the world of shakespeare through 20 objects from his time. Or watch some clips from the Improvised Shakespeare Company. Or learn about—and possibly support Elsinore—a “time-traveling narrative adventure game based in the world of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” Or just take in Shakespeare’s entire works one Tweet at a time.

WATCH/WITNESS

You probably don’t know what you’re looking at above…take 4.5 minutes to watch and learn the extraordinary story behind the late Paul Smith’s art.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader W. asks: “What happened to the watch/witness? We want and wonder where it went.” — I’d like to claim it was a test to see if anyone cared, but really I managed to be both too busy and too slothful to fit it in!

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

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Today’s WORD—and likely several more over the next weeks—comes from the delightful book Figures of Speech by Arthur Quinn. Characterized by a subtle, dry wit I sometimes aspire to and a love of Shakespeare I share, anyone who loves words and languages should have a copy of this short, idiosyncratic, intentionally incomplete and funny tour of the more interesting rhetorical figures and devices.

WORK

“Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold… brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.”

Today’s WORK is from a story that’s a little bit Bruce (Sterling) and a little bit (Paul) Bowles.

WORK

He feels too sick to do anything about it, too sick to go to work. The signal comes for a water delivery, but he’s too weak to walk, let along fight his way through the crowd at the airstrip. The virus proliferates, uses his body’s strength to propagate itself. Ten copies, a thousand copies, a hundred million. It wants him to network, to find its next host, but he’s too contagious; everyone and everything rejects him. Of course he used his last credit on the arm. He has no money for a doctor. At last he connects with a freeware triage, which tells him that he’s in critical condition, and offers him treatments that cost more than he earns in a year. His firewall is crumbling. Offers run right through him, subprime bids for his organs, corporate indentures. Your fatal condition cured in return for ten years’ labor: new life just a click away. The organ dealers say they replace whatever they take with high-grade implants, but everyone knows they put in trash. Cursing the prosthetician’s filthy operating bay, he falls deeper and deeper into trance.

He knows what is coming. Cold sweats and massive synaesthetic pain. Soon, in an hour or two, he will experience massive central nervous failure and then death. After that, rampant looting. Cannibal phages running over his skin, swarms taking whatever’s left of his shelter and possessions. This is what the death of the poor looks like. Absolute annihilation. Tomorrow, no one will even remember he was here.

He drags himself to the door of his hut, to take a last look at the light. Overhead the plume swarms and wheels, eyes trained down on him. The dust begins to silt up against his side in a little dune.

—Hari Kunzru
—from “Drone” (found in Granta #130)

WORD(S)

mamihlapinatapai /MAM-ə-lah-pi-nə-tah-PAY-ee/. noun. A Yaghan word for, as the Guinness Book of World Records has it, “a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves.” Think two strangers’ sudden, smoldering, wordless look of lovelust across the table. Or, more generally, a moment of silent, mutual understanding. Some Yaghan experts claim the word is a fictional compound coinage. If so, we all owe the unknown linguistic prankster a bit of gratitude. In game theory, the “Volunteer’s Dilemma” is also known as mamihlapinatapai.

“As two people sitting in a dull waiting room both hope that the other will start a conversation, that is mamihlapinatapai. And when two people look into each other’s eyes, with that sudden realisation that lips can be used for something other than talking, but both too afraid to draw the other to them, that is Mamihlapinatapai Rex.” (Christopher J. Moore)

“Wine lovers will immediately seize on it [mamihlapinatapai] to describe that moment when your eyes catch those of your drinking partner and you realise you both know that the wine in your glass is corked.” (Neil Pendock)

“[mamihlapinatapai] expresses the befuddlement that can strike us when love at first sight hits. It describes the sensation of being ‘at a loss which way to go.’” (Erin McKean)

WEB

1. I thought this was an April Fool’s prank, but apparently not… → World’s first head transplant volunteer could experience something “worse than death”. See also, earlier: Human head transplants could be a reality in just two years.

2. “1944: The Times Discovers Pizza”

3. “Twelve Actual AP Headlines Which, When Followed By ‘Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah,’ Can Be Sung To The Tune of ‘Camptown Races’” [thanks, Reader S.]

4. Some good (and some not-so-good) ideas here…but anything that gets readers writing in books, dog-earing pages and memorizing is alright by me. → 40 Tiny Tasks For a Richer Reading Life

5. Today in 1992, Leona Helmsley, the “Queen of Mean”, who reportedly said “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes,” begins her 19-month prison stint for tax evasion. Helmsley wasn’t all mean, though: in addition to generous donations to the families of 9/11 firefighters and other organizations while she was alive, Helmsley also willed nearly $4 billion to the Helmsley Trust—which supports a range of medical research initiatives—and a $12 million trust fund to her dog (later reduced by the courts to a meager $2 million). Later, Suzanne Pleshette would be nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Helmsley (and, in the opening sequence, apparently an extra for the Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” music video) in [►the television movie “The Queen of Mean”].

WATCH/WITNESS

“Jellyfish I” — Veronika Richterová uses, fuses and otherwise abuses PET bottles to create an astounding array of sculptures.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader J. on the Oyster Books Top 100 Books of the Decade So Far: “It’s just possible that the one thing more thankless than publishing best-of lists is further disseminating them: you’re inviting this curse? I’ll say only two things: (1) I just ordered Skippy Dies (I have a cat named Skippy, and the title was irresistible, not to mention tempting); and (2) no Pynchon, Oates, or Murakami (but loads of Tartts, Kings, Strayeds, Eggerses, Moores, Mandels, Doerrs, etc.)? Skippy and I feel so left out! (And don’t get me started on the poetry.)” — I don’t try to keep up with Oates, but the Pynchon is a puzzler. Has Murakami published this decade? And there’s nothing wrong with The Goldfinch! I’ve read perhaps a dozen of the titles listed and they were good reads, worth exploring…*

• Reader B. expands on nefandous: Your nefandous had another exponent, the spectacular wordsmith HP Lovecraft:

“Three of the men who had been with Ammi returned the next morning to see the ruins by daylight, but there were not any real ruins. Only the bricks of the chimney, the stones of the cellar, some mineral and metallic litter here and there, and the rim of that nefandous well.” (“The Colour Out Of Space”)

“The poor fellow was chanting the familiar stations of the Boston-Cambridge tunnel that burrowed through our peaceful native soil thousands of miles away in New England, yet to me the ritual had neither irrelevance nor home feeling. It had only horror, because I knew unerringly the monstrous, nefandous analogy that had suggested it.” (At the Mountains of Madness)

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Daily(ish) email overwhelming you? Email chris+weekly@katexic.com to switch to the weekly digest edition.

WORK

“If I’m a guy who doesn’t seem so merry,
It’s just because I’m so misunderstood.
When I was young I ate a dictionary,
And that did not do me a bit of good.
For I’ve absorbed so many words and phrases—
They drive me dizzy when I want to speak.
I start explaining but each person gazes
As if I spoke in Latin or in Greek.”

—Ira Gershwin
—from “I Forgot What I Started to Say”
—found in The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin

WORD(S)

nefandous /nə-FAN-dəs/. adjective. Unmentionable. Execrable. Too disturbing to be spoken of. Too terrible for words. From Latin nefandous (same meaning), from from ne- (not) + fandus (to be spoken).

“Witchcraft is the most nefandous high treason!” (Cotton Mather)

“He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in the year 1828, and told me, in a very calm way, with an occasional pinch from the mull, to refresh his memory, some of the details of those frightful murders, never rivalled in horror until the wretch Dumollard, who kept a private cemetery for his victims, was dragged into the light of day.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

“…the real purpose of the cCmndhd kids was to restore the past and lost glories of the family, who allegedly had been major wool brokers around the time of Shakespeare and well on their way to living in Kensington and spelling their name Smith before some combination of scrapie, long-term climatic change, nefandous conduct by jealous Outer Qwghlmians, and a worldwide shift in fashions away from funny-smelling thirty-pound sweaters…” (Neal Stephenson)

WEB

1. “For six years, La Blogothèque has changed the way people experience music. We film beautiful, rare and intimate sessions with your favorite artists, and the ones you are soon to fall in love with.” → “La Blogothèque”

2. “What might have Danny dreamt about? What was the question on his mind? And what was the answer? My personal theory of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.” → ►Danny’s Dream, an animated short.

3. A 19 question survey that helps identify your “circadian rhythm type” and advice for better sleep and rest. It was pretty accurate for me. → Welcome to the Automated Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire.

4. “The 38 most amazing vulgar slang terms from colonial times”.

5. Today in 1976, the U. S. Treasury Department reintroduces the $2 bill as a cost-savings measure: “About $75 million worth of bills of varying denominations are printed each day. The printing cost of any bill is 1.525 cents. ‘Ones’ now account for 55 to 60 percent of the number of pieces of currency in circulation. By replacing about half the ‘ones’ with an equivalent dollar volume of ‘twos’, thus decreasing the number of bills in circulation, the Federal Government will save about $27 million (in 1976 dollars) in printing, handling, storage, and shipping costs between 1976 and 1981. Similarly, individuals will need to carry fewer ‘ones’, thereby facilitating small cash transactions and reducing the number of pieces of currency retailers and banks must handle. Decreased handling, in turn, will help to lower business operating costs.” The redesigned 1976 $2 bill features John Trumbull’s famous drawing depicting the creation of the Declaration of Independence. Despite the government’s optimism, the $2 bill remains elusive in everyday use…so much so that there are blogs devoted to stories of using (or sometimes unsuccessfully trying to use) them.

WATCH/WITNESS

The Decayed Book is a fascinating video that shows Mark Cockram making a fine, leatherbound book, which is interesting enough, but then—well, the title is a tip…

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader J. (p)(f)unnies: “I always enjoy Katexic, but, I have to say, ”Suicide Food“ takes the cake (and eats it too).”

• Reader B. on Dorothy Sayers’ choice phrase: “‘to knock down time’? what an expression! ¶ It compares nicely to the typically homicidal American version, ‘to kill time’.”

• Reader K. puts recent WORDs to good use: "I’m having a bit of trouble with one of my employees and awkwardly penciled this out this morning:

Here I sit upon my curple
A business call two minutes hence
I grumpy text a string of grawlix
Does no one here have common sense?

Since her hiring a year ago
The office ladies have gone tense
I sigh and give my mimp a moment
I text: Let the firings commence!"

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Daily(ish) email overwhelming you? Email chris+weekly@katexic.com to switch to the weekly digest edition.

WORK

“Do not, I implore you, continue in that indolent and soul-destroying habit of picking up a book ‘to distract your mind’ (‘distract’ is the word for it) or ‘to knock down time’ (there is only too little time already, and it will knock us down soon enough). The only respectable reason for reading a book is that you want to know what is in it. Do not choose your literature by the half-witted process of asking the young woman at the library for ‘a nice book’ and enquiring anxiously of her, ‘Shall I like it?’”

—Dorothy Sayers
—from “A Note on Creative Reading”

WORD(S)

curple /KƏR-pəl/. noun. The rump; the buttocks. Particularly an equine’s hind-quarters, AKA a horse’s ass. A corruption of crupper, which could refer to either the rump of a horse or a strap that passed under the tail to secure a saddle. From the French croupière, from medieval Latin and Italian groppa.

“I’m afraid that John Durie has cracked his curple, at least his mouth is closed.” (James Carmichael)

“I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,
Douce hingin owre my curple,
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.”
(Robert Burns)

WEB

1. I don’t pretend these lists mean anything, but I find them useful for exploration (and the occasional debate)…and many of my favorite recent reads show up → The Oyster Review editors pick the 100 Best Books of the Decade So Far

2. Advertisements featuring animals that desire to be eaten. I have to admit I’ve always found them kind of  creepy (and not just animals…how about the talking M&Ms?) → Suicide Food

3. I knew the reasons already, but any article that links to postmortem photography deserves a look → Why didn’t people ever smile in old photographs?

4. The Sheltering Sky, Lucky Jim, and A Dance to the Music of Time rate just one star…others fare better. → Salman Rushdie’s Goodreads account.

5. Today in 1710, with the support of luminaries such as Jonathan Swift, John Locke and Daniel DeFoe, “The Statute of Anne”—the first government statute regulating copyright—is enacted in England, Wales and Scotland. The statute begins, “Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty…” and then goes on to outline, among other things, protections for copying of published work for a term of 14 years. The significance of the act can hardly be overstated, for better and for worse, because it was the first to establish copyright as a public law (rather than private agreement between publishers) and to locate the ownership of the work with the writer rather than the publisher. All of this to fulfill the statute’s full title: “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.”

WATCH/WITNESS

Nine animators created a video journey to accompany Dan Deacon’s song “When I Was Done Dying”

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader J. shares another reason to celebrate: “Just FYI, it’s also Jazz Appreciation Month!” — JAM!

• Reader B. enjoyed the Old Time Radio and shares a book: “Thank you for the radio theater link. Audio art is always a pleasure. ¶ For more on Burgoyne’s campaign, this book was very good.”

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Daily(ish) email overwhelming you? Email chris+weekly@katexic.com to switch to the weekly digest edition.

Apparently, April is both National Poetry Month, as mentioned here before (including arguments for and against), and USPS Letter Writing Month. I inadvertently celebrated both by mailing a lot of poems to people earlier this week.

WORK

“Never write a grumbling or an ill-tempered letter, Littera scripta manet. An ill-tempered utterance always seems worse on paper than when it is spoken. If in a moment of bitterness you should write an offensive letter, one calculated to widen rather than heal the breach between yourself and another person, tear it up and put it in the fire. Many people have an impulse when they have any grievance to pour it out on paper to the offender, or to some other person, but it is an impulse to be severely checked. Bitter words should never be spoken, but much less should they be written. The wounds made by ill natured remarks in letters heal more slowly perhaps than any others. Never send to the post at once a letter written in a sour or angry mood; if it is a relief to you to write it do so, but let no eyes but your own see it. Never send such a letter merely because you have not time to write another. No letter is infinitely better than a disagreeable one. If you should ever receive an ill-tempered letter, whether you are in the habit of keeping the letters you receive or not, destroy it at once. The sting it makes is more likely to disappear if the letter is known to be no longer in existence.”

—Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton
—from Letter-writing: Its Ethics and Etiquette, with Remarks on the Proper Use of Monograms, Crests and Seals (1891)

Note: Littera scripta manet … The Written Letter Abides (as seen on the seal of the US National Archives and Records Administration)

WORD(S)

grawlix /GRAW-lix/. noun. A series of typographic symbols used in place of an offensive word or phrase. Coined by Mort Walker in the satirical article “Let’s Get Down to Grawlixes” (which I can’t find online, thanks for $%@&#! nothing, Google) the term took off and has become a standard part of the lexicon of comics. As you can see for yourself, the grawlix originated as a mix of typographic and other symbols. See also: jarns, quimps, and nittles.

Sadly, most of Walker’s other awesome comic-related coinages failed the popularity test, including plewds (the flying sweat droplets that indicate hard work or stress), briffits (the clouds of dust that indicate the swift departure of a character), and squeans (the starbursts, circles and spirals that indicate dizziness or drunkenness).

WEB

1. Speaking of letters…Kirk Douglas has A Letter and a Challenge for all of us. While writing, you can watch his classic Dean Martin celebrity roast.

2. The best of the Shakespeare Insult Generators

3. Outslide cherry picks interesting slides from public SlideShare presentations. Some are bizarre, others are a kind of visual poetry…

4. Thanks, Scott Walker, for your dedication → End near for Dictionary of American Regional English?

5. Today in 1820, on the island of Milos, peasant farmer Yorgos Kentrotas discovers an ancient buried statue while plowing the fields…the Aphrodite of Milos, better known as the Venus de Milo. Carved around 150 B.C. by Alexandros from Antioch, the sculpture originally portrayed Aphrodite/Venus holding an apple (“Milos” means “apple” in Greek)…or at least that’s the general consensus. Some argue the statue really portrays the sea goddess Amphitrite, who was worshipped on the island at the time. The arms were found, in pieces, near the rest of the sculpture but lost at sea when the boat transporting them sank. Standing 6-feet, 8-inches high (with measurements proportional to 33–26–38, the same as “the most nearly perfect woman” Elsie Scheel) without her original plinth—and weighing approximately 500 Emma Stones —the formidable statue would originally have been tinted with colored pigments and adorned with jewelry. A significant portion of Venus Demilo’s fame is the result of French government propaganda, eager to establish the importance of its purchase after having to return the prized Medici Venus that Napolean had looted from Italy.

WATCH/WITNESS

“Alison Lapper Pregnant” by Marc Quinn. Read a story about Lapper and the sculpture.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader M. riffs on the WORK from Eileen Myles. She writes: “I think painting is desire, not a form of it.” — Indeed. I think the same can be said, at its best, about the creative act no matter the medium.

• Reader B. writes of John Burgoyne: “That Burgoyne quote (mimp! what an insane, irresistible word) connects so strangely with Gentleman Johnny’s subsequent military operations in Canada and New York. So strangely, and also so well. I can picture him leading a miniature version of the high life in camp, with mimpery and fine china, as his army worked its way south towards Saratoga and history-shaking doom.” — I knew nothing of Burgoyne, so thank you for the tip leading to a very pleasant meander around the historical record of this controversial general and playwright (and a fun listen to a 1975 CBS Radio Mystery Theatre program involving Burgoyne and the Indian spirit Windandingo).

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

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WORK

I think writing
is desire
not a form
of it.

—Eileen Myles
—from “For Jordana”

WORD(S)

mimp /MIMP/. noun or verb. An affected pursing of the lips. An overly prim look. To act in an overly precise, fussy manner. Origin uncertain: the OED states that it may derive from mim, which itself is though perhaps, to be “imitative of the action of pursing up the mouth.”

“She took up her book and began so prettily, and so sensibly, where another miss would have mimp’d.” (Hester Lynch Thrale)

“Paphian Mimp, a certain plie of the lips, considered needful for ‘the highly genteel.’ Lady Emily told Miss Alscrip, ‘the heiress,’ that it was acquired by placing one’s self before a looking-glass, and repeating continually the words ‘nimini pimini;’ ‘when the lips cannot fail to take the right plie.’” (John Burgoyne)

“‘Look at she a-settin’ up ther, mimpin!, idling, playing the fine lady.” (George Dartnell)

“I am so teased and so lectured by the old folks that I sit mimpetty mimp before them merely for peace sake…” (Charlotte Smith)

WEB

1. I’m not going to describe this experimental reading project lest you miss out on the pleasure of discovering it for yourself. Slightly NSFW (as the videos progress) → hysterical literature

2. Because there isn’t enough origami—much less moneygami—released into the wild → Banknote Origami Dogs Released onto Streets of London

3. A compelling series of video essays about film that are astute and wide-ranging → Every Frame a Painting

4. “…posting tweets starting with ‘I just want…’ + random Flickr image.” Some of the combinations are startlingly good. → Desire Bot

5. Today in 1930, the Twinkie—the snack cake of (urban) legendary longevity and a mythical courtroom defense (though there was an informally titled “Twinkie law” on the books in Minneapolis), is born. A lot of people like Twinkies…but no one quite as much as ►this guy. I couldn’t match that even if offered the original banana-flavored filling Twinkies boasted until World War II (isn’t it cute that they used to use real fruit to flavor junk food?), when a banana shortage forced a change in formula…but then I long for the return of ►Twinkie the Kid. Now I’m hungry for a Chocodile.

WATCH/WITNESS

“Do you know why my eyes are like this? …”
from Mikaël Theimer’s Humans of the Street series.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader C. shares a vital Jesse James related link: Visit the Jesse James Wax Museum

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Daily(ish) email overwhelming you? Email chris+weekly@katexic.com to switch to the weekly digest edition.

WORK

“Nearing the Moon”

Face facts. The moon is not the moon.
The moon is a lump of rock and sand and interplanetary debris.
But the moon is not that either. The moon
is a bump on the forehead of a blindman,
who, having tripped and fallen in an alley,
curses his blindness. Now we begin to approach it.

—Halvard Johnson
—from Winter Journey

WORD(S)

pelf /pelf/. noun. Spoils. Stolen goods. Ill-gained and corrupting wealth. From Anglo-French pelf, Old French pelfre (booty, spoils); see also: pilfer.

“ Here enter not base pinching Usurers, Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers.” (Rabelais [translated by Thomas Urquhart])

“The Gulag Tour, so the purser tells me, never quite caught on…Moscow is impressive—grimly fantastic in its pelf. And Petersburg, too, no doubt, after its billion-dollar birthday: a tercentenary for the slave-built city ‘stolen from the sea.’ It’s everywhere else that is now below the waterline.” (Martin Amis)

“Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power.” (James Joyce)

WEB

1. This made me laugh…which was much needed. Thanks, Reader S. → The Gluten Free Museum (includes Caravaggio).

2. “In his vastness and mobility, Chesterton continues to elude definition: He was a Catholic convert and an oracular man of letters, a pneumatic cultural presence, an aphorist with the production rate of a pulp novelist. Poetry, criticism, fiction, biography, columns, public debate—the phenomenon known to early–20th-century newspaper readers as ‘GKC’ was half cornucopia, half content mill.” → A Most Unlikely Saint [Hat-tip: Reader C.]

3. The History of Lorem Ipsum (including its origins in Cicero)

4. London Upside-Down, New York Subways and Skyscrapers, An Imagined Underground…maps and illustrations, real and imagined, by the other Picasso… → Works of Renzo Picasso

5. Today in 1882, the famous outlaw Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford, a young member of his by-then greatly diminished gang. Like many characters of the wild American west, the exploits of James and his gang were greatly embellished…and in conflicting directions. On the one hand, James is often thought of as a kind of Robin Hood character, robbing from the rich, prompted by the expansion of the railroad into his land. Neither appears to be true. On the other hand, James is often pictured as a cold-blooded killer…but that was really the m.o. of his brother, Frank. And, of course, rumors of his death being staged remain despite the prominent display of the body immediately afterwards and conclusive DNA testing in 1995.

WATCH/WITNESS

“&” by Gabriel Schama. Visit Schama’s website and gallery.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader W. feels it would be prudent “to let readers in on your little joke about visiting the ‘Museum of Hoaxes’ in San Diego, which doesn’t actually exist.” — Fair enough. But note I did say readers could ‘try to visit’ the museum…"

• Reader B. leads the way: “this triggered a memory (this? words without prefixes) … in Felicia Lamport’s Light Metres … she has a section of couplets and a quattrain or two … that turn on this …” — B. included a snippet from Google Books that led me to the original William Safire article including “The Deprefixers”. Scroll down…it’s delightful.

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

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WORK

“My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”

—Ursula K. LeGuin
—from “Winged”

WORD(S)

mooncalf /MOON-kaf/. noun. An unholy fool, a dolt, a simpleton. An ill-conceived enterprise. In older usage a mooncalf might refer to a deformed animal or some misbegotten monster, based on the folk superstition that abortive fetuses (of cows and people) were the product of the moon’s influences. Also, now thankfully obsolete, a uterine mole or tumor.

“The potion works not on the part design’d,
But turns his brain, and stupifies his mind;
The sotted moon-calf gapes”
(Martial, translated by Dryden, from Juvenal’s Satires)

“…a very big man came into the room carrying a can of beer. He had a doughy mooncalf face, a tuft of fuzz on top of an otherwise bald head, a thick brutal neck and chin, and brown pig eyes…” (Raymond Chandler, from “The King in Yellow”)

“ In his pockets, it turned out, puppets were tucked, with strings and bars. A wistful female child, a wolfman with a snarling smile and a fur coat, a strange mooncalf, luminous green with huge eyes.” (A.S. Byatt, from The Children’s Book)

“We recruited fools for the show. We had spots for a number of fools (and in the big all-fool number that occurs immediately after the second act, some specialties). But fools are hard to find. Usually they don’t like to admit it. We settled for gowks, gulls, mooncalfs. A few babies, boobies, sillies, simps. A barmie was engaged, along with certain dum-dums and beefheads. A noodle. When you see them all wandering around, under the colored lights, gibbering and performing miracles, you are surprised.” (Donald Barthelme, from “The Flights of Pigeons from the Palace”)

WEB

1. “What can we learn by examining only the first and final shot of a film? This video plays the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side.” → First and Final Frames

2. Via Reader C. comes an interesting story about Jon Bream, his massive music collection, and an interview about his music reviewing career. → “Star Tribune music critic Jon Bream parts with his 25,000-piece record collection”

3. Cynthia Ozick on generations of writers, their separation and their kinship → “Writers Old and Young: Staring Across the Moat”

4. “Conservatives, Please Stop Trashing the Liberal Arts” [Use the first Google search result to access the whole article. Stupid paywalls.]

5. Today is April Fools’ Day. There are various theories about the exact date and origin, but mentions of April Fools’ Day go as far back as Chaucer, in the late 1300s, and detailed stories of pranks and mayhem are documented back to the 1500s. A few classic pranks include ►the 1957 BBC News report on the “spaghetti harvest” that prompted hundreds to write in about how to grow their own spaghetti trees and the Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell hoax that fooled millions. That last link is one of many great pages to be found on the Museum of Hoaxes website (if you are ever in San Diego you should try to visit). Mark Twain said, “The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”

WATCH/WITNESS

click for larger
“Ship of Fools” by Hieronymus Bosch. Originally part of a triptych (see a partial reconstruction), Bosch’s painting depicts a ship sailing to nowhere with a variety of carousing fools aboard.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. shares one of my favorite uses of the WORD ‘ravel’ (more from Shakespeare on the website…someday): "For ravel, what came to my mind is Macbeth:

Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast,–

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

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Today’s WORD is nearly a phantonym, illustrating one of those playful qualities of language that led me to creating these dispatches in the first place.

WORK

Most have trouble with “it’s” and “its,” so I proposed a mnemonic device: “When is it its? When it’s not it is. When is it it’s? When it is it is.”

—Jessica Mitford
—from Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking

WORD(S)

aprosexia /a-proh-SEX-ee-ə/. noun. Not what it sounds or looks like, aprosexia is the abnormally severe inability to focus one’s attention. We’re talking here about a state well beyond that of the classic absent-minded professor and into the realm of a medical condition sometimes thought to be caused by “adenoid vegetations” (eww). From Greek a (negative) + prosexein (turn attention to) from pros (toward) + echein (to hold).

“In 1887, Guye, of Amsterdam, published a paper on defective nasal respiration, in which be coined the term ‘aprosexia,’ defining it as a lack of power of concentrating the mind, or inability to fix and hold the attention.” (Derrick Vail, from The Cincinatti Lancet-clnic)

“The word aprosexia is not connected with sex; via Greek a (negative) + prosexein (turn, the attention) it is applied to an abnormal inability to concentrate. Fixing persistently on one idea is hyperprosexia; turning constantly to side issues is paraprosexia. Man’s major drives are for security and power; sex is a side issue, to keep him going.” (Joseph Shipley, from The Origins of English Words)

“Aprosexia is the inability to concentrate on anything…some of us call that the Internet.” (from AsapSCIENCE)

WEB

1. Using 3-D printing, the Prado has created the first fine art exhibition for the blind. See also, the New York Times story. Pairs well with “Blind Painter Uses Touch And Texture To Create Incredibly Colorful Paintings”.

2. “Thug: A Life of Caravaggio in Sixty-Nine Paragraphs”.

3. A provocatively titled (and written) essay along with a dozen high-profile responses → “Against Empathy”

4. Pulp Drunk: Mexican Pulp Art book covers.

5. Today in 1858, Hymen Lipman patents the first combination pencil and eraser, noting that his invention is “particularly valuable for removing or erasing lines, figures, &c., and not subject to be soiled or rnislaid on the table or desk.” Four years later, Hymen sold his patent for $100,000 (more than 2.5 million in today’s dollars)…and a good thing too: a few years later the purchaser tried to sue the Faber company for infringement and ended up with an invalidated patent when the US Supreme Court ruled that Lipman’s invention was “actually a combination of two already known things with no new use” and that letting such a patent stand would be “as if a patent should be granted for an article … consisting of a stick twelve inches long, on one end of which is an ordinary hammer, and on the other end is a screw-driver … The instruments placed upon the same rod might be more convenient for use than when used separately. Each, however, continues to perform its own duty, and nothing else. No effect is produced, no result follows, from the joint use of the two.”

WATCH/WITNESS

Continuing the theme of decollation…

“David with the Head of Goliath” (Caravaggio) is both a depiction of the myth and a doubled self-portrait in which a young Caravaggio holds the head of the (then current) older Caravaggio. Click the image for larger views.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Many thanks to the many Readers who had my back when I asked about words which can also mean their opposites (such as ravel), pointing me to contranym and auto-antonym. I think I like the less prosaic antagonym or Janus word even better.

• Reader C. writes in with two great links: “…do you follow Bobulate? Liz Danzico describes the etymology behind her blog’s name: ¶ ‘Bobulate’ comes from an email exchange Liz had with a friend which tracked lists of words that sounded better without their prefixes and/or suffixes. The original list didn’t live on, but the name did. Standing for ‘intentional organization;’ to be thrown into order, as if against one’s will, if it were a real word, it would mean the opposite of ‘discombobulated.’ ¶ Danzico links to this gem.”

• Reader K. creates a litmus test: “I forwarded the quote by Richard Feynman to a friend of mine. He replied ‘That makes my head hurt.’ I’m now reevaluating our friendship. ¶ And I would like to forward the Viagra story to a number of friends of mine, but don’t want anyone to take it personally.”

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

And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.

Daily(ish) email overwhelming you? Email chris+weekly@katexic.com to switch to the weekly digest edition.

WORK

“It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to see life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing—atoms with curiosity—that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders.”

WORK

“…I believe in the complexity of the human story and that there’s no way you can tell that story in one way and say, . Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing; the same person telling the story will tell it differently. I think of that masquerade in Igbo festivals that dances in the public arena. The Igbo people say, . The masquerade is moving through this big arena. Dancing. If you’re rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving…”

WORK

“Embodiment”

how a birch shirks its skins : strange grain of the language of prayer : to disturb words addressed to where God is is what writing is : alphabet alive beneath the alphabet so far into whiteness each mind to itself creation come crawling matter out of nothing : always longing inquiries at the threshold a question unanswered : not skin but the look of skin : what once overheard the talk of God became matter : ask the birch did the soul have a choice :

WORK

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”

—Terry Pratchett —from

WORK

“Poet’s Work”

Grandfather    advised me:       Learn a trade

WORK

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.’”

WORK

"To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle’s words, ‘having no hope and without God in the world,’—all this is a vision to dizzy and appall; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution.

WORK

from “Topics Suitable for Composition”

WORK

How can you answer that boy?

A short issue today, buttressed by a long comment I couldn’t bring myself to shorten or synopsize…it’s just too good (and true).

WORK

“The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”

WORK

“All I really want to know is how other people are making it through life---where do they put their body, hour by hour and how do they cope inside of it?”

On Twitter, a reader asks, “Is there a word—or can we create one—for when your muse disturbs your sleep schedule? CreativeGloaming? MuseLag?” Can the Clamor help? I got nothin’.

WORK

Today’s work comes from Reader D., who included it with her important comment at the end of this issue.

WORK

WORK

The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. […] For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

WORK

“I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak. It is in quest of this surreality that I am going, certain not to find it but too unmindful of my death not to calculate to some slight degree the joys of its possession.”

Sad news of poet Philip Levine’s passing a few days ago, so please excuse a slightly longer than usual WORK. Many, many readers will know Levine from his (rightfully) oft-anthologized poems “Animals Are Passing From Our Lives” (featured here before) and “What Work Is”. Levine was, by all accounts of mutual friends, not just a fine poet but an extremely generous reader and teacher—which are often the same thing—as well. RIP.

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.

WORK

“Opal”

WORK

“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.”

WORK

“February”

Snow falls on fallen snow

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

WORK

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.

WORK

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

WORK

“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?”

WORK

…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).

WORK

WORK

“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…

WORK

WORK

“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.

WORK

Dear Uncle Ted,

WORK

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.

WORK

“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.”

WORK

“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.”

WORK

“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.

WORK

“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.”