Not a WHAT!? entry because it’s weird or bizarre, but because it feels like Gary Gulman’s comedy is based on direct observations of my brain…and thus I suspect it will resonate with many Clamorites as well.
from On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
“But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shamble after as I’ve been doing all my life, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ What did they call such young people in Goethe’s Germany?”
—Jack Kerouac
—from On the Road
carnage
carnage /KAR-nəj/. noun. Extensive, indiscriminate slaughter, most often of human beings. A collection of carcasses. From French carnage, from Italian carnaggio (murder, slaughter), from Latin carnaticum (slaughter of animals), from carnum (flesh). Various sources note that “[Robert] Southey tried to make a verb of it,” so I’ve included that example as well.
[Read more…]
Links: January 22, 2017
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Thousands of terms for drunks and drunkenness → The Drunktionary :: Pairs with our previous links to an interactive “Timeline of Slang Terms for Drink, Drunks and Drunkenness” and maybe “Drunk Shakespeare: The Trendy Way to Stage the Bard’s Plays in the US & the UK.”. Oh, and Thomas Nashe on Eights Kinds of Drunkard.
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I encourage you to check out the free and open FutureLearn course Japanese Culture Through Rare Books, if only to watch (or download!) the extensive series of videos on Japanese books, materials, binding and culture. Fascinating.
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I try to stay away from direct politics here, but: Postal Service business is up, deficit is all politics.
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I prefer the magazine title “Those Magnificent Women and Their Typing Machines” → These Women Reporters Went Undercover to Get the Most Important Scoops of Their Day.
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Everything is f**ked: The syllabus :: Pairs well with Calling Bullsh*t in the Age of Big Data — Syllabus and “F*ck Nuance” a paper by Kieran Healy.
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Words of the Year 2016 from: Oxford English Dictionaries & Dictionary.com & The Chronicle of Higher Education & Merriam-Webster & The American Dialect Society (PDF).
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Today in 1561, Sir Francis Bacon—philosopher, writer, scientist and orator—is born in London. Bacon was a true renaissance man, excelling as a philosopher and scientist…and the field in which they overlapped. Bacon’s most significant legacy is likely his thoughts on the scientific approach to the natural world and what that means for our own conception of our place within and, possibly, over it. This was a particularly vital area given that Bacon lived and wrote during a time when science was beginning to challenge—and sometimes displace—religious thought. I’ve learned most from Bacon’s work through his letters and his commonplace book, even if the latter has been used by deluded conspiracy theorists to claim he (as leader of a cabal) must have been the real author of Shakespeare’s work (though the story of the audacious, brilliant, unrelated and not-a-little-cuckoo Delia Bacon, who originated the theory, is fascinating).
The Globemakers
“When Peter Bellerby couldn’t find the perfect handmade globe for his father’s 80th birthday, he took matters into his own hands. He spent the next few years learning and perfecting the lost art of globemaking, which turned out to be a difficult, detailed process.”
Fingers of Steel
“Chris Heck fought his way up over the most dangerous, life-threatening tricks, with numerous sore finger injuries, and nervous breakdowns to where he is today.”
from A Gentle Madness (Nicholas Basbanes)
“Professor Theodor Mommsen, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902, wrote a thousand learned essays and books […]. The German scholar’s devotion to literature was legendary. Once, Mommsen, the father of twelve, was a passenger on a “horse car” bound for Berlin and was deeply immersed in a book. Annoyed at the wailing of a young boy sitting nearby, he demanded that the noisy child identify himself so that he could be reprimanded by name. “Why, Papa, don’t you know me?” the boy cried. “I’m your little Heinrich.” On January 26, 1903, Mommsen was similarly absorbed in another book he had just climbed a ladder to get from the topmost shelf of his library. While peering at the volume, the eighty-five-year-old historian held a candle too close to his head and set his long white locks on fire. He alertly threw the skirts of his study gown over his head and smothered the flames, but his face was scorched and his hair consumed; his death ten months later was attributed in part to the freak accident.”
—Nicholas Basbanes
—from A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books
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