Reader M. has a question for all of you: “What’s bothered me for 15 years is one reads a book, loves it and then goes to reread it and the magic is gone. There is no word in the English Language for this. Do you think your followers might come up with something?”
The only thing I could think of was “readgret” but that’s both an ugly portmanteau and not specific enough…
After he had defeated the Egyptians in battle and accepted their surrender, Harun-in’-Rashid decided to teach his new subjects a lesson. “Egypt’s rulers called themselves gods,” he said, “and so they were arrogant enough to challenge me. Now they will be ruled by the lowest of my slaves,” and he made Khosaib, a stupid negro, Egypt’s new governor. Khosaib, however, was so stupid that when a group of farmers came to him for help because the cotton they’d planted on the banks of the Nile had been destroyed by heavy rains, he replied, “You should have planted wool instead.”
A pious man heard what Khosaib said and recited these lines:
If knowledge were the measure of all wealth,
the ignorant would live in poverty.
Yet here is a man who should be starving,
and his prosperity leaves the wise speechless-
which proves that getting rich is not a skill,
and who knows why God granted him such luck?
It happens: Sages must stand aside like beggars
for stupid men who are given royal robes.
If an alchemist dies bitter in his failure,
know that somewhere a fool found gold in the trash.
—Sa’di (trans. by Richard Jeffrey Newman)
—found in Selections from Saadi’s Gulistan
chrisom /KRI-zəm/. noun. A child’s baptismal robe (originally a face cloth) or, upon death before 30 days old, a burial shroud. Derived from pronunciation of chrism, a sacramental balm or oil. From Greek khriein (to anoint). See also chrisomes (children who die in their first month of life).
“Mozart’s pain
I heard then, in the cranny of the hurricane,
As since the chrisom caught me up immersed
I have heard nothing but the sough of the sea”
(John Berryman)“Christening was a festival with apostle-spoons and a white chrisom cloth, basins, ewers, and towels at the parish church.” (Park Honan)
“The place dripped radiance; was filling like a chrisom with radiance.” (A. Merritt)
This week’s link cluster: the brain. First, the fascinating and sad story of Henry Molaison, the “man who couldn’t remember” and the research into—and ultimately custody of—his brain (Thanks, Reader B.!). Then, a unique brain of a different kind, that of the world’s greatest free-climber, Alex Honnold, who essentially doesn’t feel fear (I become nauseated watching him climb on video). Finally, a glimpse at the plasticity of the brain and a bright future for some victims of paralysis: ‘Brain training’ technique restores feeling and movement to paraplegic patients.
And, Reader B. strikes again with CuratedAI, “A literary magazine written by machines, for people.”
It just might be that book lovers live longer. But if you’re smart, you should be watching more trashy films. How to find the time? Maybe I’ll just stick with the benefits of being bad-tempered and pessimistic.
Which hip hop artists have the largest vocabularies…and how do they shape up against Shakespeare? You might be surprised…
The UC Berkeley Chancellor spent $9000 on an “escape hatch” to “provide egress” from student protestors.
A nice bit about commonplace books (everyone should keep one!) and a picture of an interesting historical example with hand-cut alphabetical tabs → Commonplace Books and Uncommon Readers [Thanks, Reader C.]
A weird case: an artist being sued in order to be forced to claim he is the creator of a painting.
The Strangers Project is a collection of over 20,000 anonymous handwritten “journal entries” shared spontaneously by passing strangers. I ask people to write about anything they want—as long as it’s true. [Thanks, Reader G!]
American naturalist and Alaska explorer Robert Kennicott’s death was a mystery; 150 years later, his skeleton helped solve it.
Today in 1784, Russian fur trader Grigory Shelikhov founds Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. From this base, the Russians would explore the Alaskan mainland and assert their claim over the territory they would later sell to the United States for $7.2 million dollars…or two cents per acre.
1920’s Surrealist Erotica is Amazingly NSFW. Astonishing photography by Olga Solarics (1896 – 1969) of the Atelier Manassé.
During the 2004 Olympics in Athens, commentator Mary Carillo put on a segment that started out describing the professional game of badminton…then morphed into a kind of performance art.
Reader B. on 17 Maps That Will Change The Way You Look At The World Forever: “This is why everyone needs to own a globe. ¶ …I wrote about how baffled I was by the sun setting pretty much in the north. It freaked me out. I think I wrote you a letter about it, because you are in Alaska and probably don’t think twice about it.”
Reader A. shares a great map resource: “For the map pile: OldNYC - some 80,000 historic images of New York City mapped to their location. There are ways to participate like notifying of images that are rotated and transcribing notes on the back of photos.”
Reader F. adds: “Lovers of map links might like this little guy, showing ‘the real value of $100’ in each state.”
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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