Every Aboriginal newborn is assigned a ‘tjukurpa’ – a story from the time of the world’s creation which, in its details, will tell them everything they need to know about where to find food, medicine and water for hundreds of miles around. It will teach them about magic and spirits and detail an elaborate moral code. A tjukurpa is a cross between a Bible parable, a Just So story, a supermarket plan and a travel guide. It is a multi-dimensional map of life that speaks of time, space and meaning. Events in the story’s plot – battles and birthplaces and hideouts – correspond to actual facets of the physical landscape, so you will know that you can find carrots, for instance, in the spot where the bush carrot beat the bush potato in a fight. Tjukurpas are incredibly complex. They are taught in stages, with each new level of detail being revealed by elders when an individual is considered ready. They are imparted in as many ways as possible: dance, song, body-painting, rock-carving and sand-drawings that cover a hectare. But they are highly secret. They are passed down strictly between members of the same ‘skin group’. Men do not know the women’s tjukurpas, and women do not know the men’s. White people have only ever been told as much as the youngest Aboriginal children. The paintings that artists such as Shorty produce are highly codified and obscured, so that their tjukurpas remain hidden. But they are all based on these essential, ancient lessons.
It is said that the Australian Aboriginals belong to the oldest surviving culture on earth. It appears profoundly different from ours. But I have come to believe that, in one crucial sense, we are just like the Aboriginals. We share their means of negotiating reality. Our lives, to an almost unimaginable degree, depend on stories.
—Will Storr
—from The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science
garboil / garboyle /GA(R)-boil/. noun. A tumult; a confusion; a commotion; an uproar; a hubbub; a hurlyburly. From Old Italian garbuglio (a tangle, a mess) < possibly from Latin bullīre (to boil).
“Far from the moiling crowd and garboyle of the world.” (The National Review)
“Yet others have disappeared, snatched from their places of refuge, to vanish into the prisons of the Exfernal Powers, denied trial, forbidden even to know the names of their accusers. Their minds may already have been destroyed by drugs and torture, their bodies melted into garboil.” (Margaret Atwood)
“…the most terrifying din and the principal uproar arises from the anguished howls of the devils, who, lying in wait in that confused garboil, receive chance blows from swords and suffer ruptures in the continuity of their substances, which are both aerial and invisible.” (Francois Rabelais)
“Then in ’82 there had been the Egyptian garboil I mentioned a moment ago; Joe Wolseley had asked for me point-blank, and with the press applauding and the Queen approving and Elspeth bursting into tears as I rogered her farewell, what the blazes could I do but fall in?” (George MacDonald Fraser)
I’m an unashamed member of #TeamSpeed when it comes to most audiobooks and podcasts. I am not alone in this ‘overclocking’.
There’s something beautifully weird and obsessive about Waclaw Szpakowski’s “labrynthine” single-line drawings.
Speaking of the beautiful weird, have a listen to Emil Amos’ Drifter’s Sympathy show.
Play The Great Language Game and see what languages you recognize.
Browse The Food Lab’s Top 30 Hot Sauces. My favorites are all in there except WUJU. Any others missing?
Thanks, Reader B. for sharing an intriguing story On Dracula’s Lost Icelandic Sister Text.
From Reader C., some links that should convince even the crustiest Clamorites that Twitter can be useful: @medievalpoc, featuring fascinating information about people of color in European Art History, and @discarding_imgs, routinely sharing tasty medieval images.
Remembering Nüshu, the 19th-Century Chinese Script Only Women Could Write
It’s a good day for sweets and the sweetums who love ’em: on this day in 1906, Kellogg’s is founded as the “Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company,” an offshoot of the Kellogg brothers work at a religion-based sanitarium (T.C. Boyle’s fabulous book Road to Wellville is based on this history); today in 1913, more than 100 years after its debut, Cracker Jack began putting toys in their tasty, eponymous product; and today in 1985, Cherry Coke is rolled out to the public a few years after a very successful taste test at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Available for streaming this month only, TOWER is a riveting—partially animated and partially live action—look into the infamous 1966 University of Texas Tower shooting.
“First and foremost, I, Luna Cobra, am the inventor of eyeball, or sclera, tattooing (tattooing the white of the eye in a solid or mix of colours). I first attempted the procedure on sighted human eyeballs in 2007 on three well-informed and consenting parties. Since then, I have fine-tuned both the technique and materials to increase the safety and minimize the risks of tattooing the eyeball.”
Reader T. riffs: “Thanks for the nudge into old-time TV on YouTube with the link to ‘Frankfurter Sandwiches.’ Mr. Harry Rose is cool, but ‘second hand rose’ Peggy Lennon, who also wrapped her talents around the ‘Frankfurter,’ is a revelation. Speaking of gems on YouTube, may I also suggest going back in further to old-time radio? The premiere episode of Gunsmoke is one of my all-time favorites of any medium.”
Reader J. brings on more about the apocalyptic: “Yes, Beyond Thunderdome! which borrows some of its linguistic babble from the great Ridley Walker. Also I’d much recommend two horsewomen of better apocalypses than Margaret Atwood’s–Doris Lessing (especially her Memoirs of a Survivor, but also the spooky pair, Mara and Dann and The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog) and Angela Carter (her absolutely wonderful Heroes and Villains).”
Reader B. wasn’t happy with the same selection: “I certainly disagree with Tea’s book list, which is biased towards recent works and leaves out both giants and excellent exempla. For example: Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. Or, more recently, Cormac M’s The Road. Margaret Atwood’s recent trilogy. Not a single post-nuclear title? Not one? Not Earth Abides or On the Beach? Or Canticle for Liebowitz?”
I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.
Enjoy the WORK section? Check out my other little project: concīs » http://concis.io/
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/.
You just read issue #330 of katexic clippings. You can also browse the full archives of this newsletter.