Today would have been H. Palmer Hall’s 75th birthday. I had the pleasure of publishing the essay from which today’s WORK is taken in the inaugural issue of Eclectica more than 20 years ago. RIP.
I remember Petra perfectly after more than two decades, the sound of her voice whispering “ich liebe dich,” the way she looked when she dove naked into the water at Hippie Hollow, the arch of her back when she dried her hair after a swim, the way her bare feet felt next to mine, the sheer wonder of her pale hair as the dry wind blew it into my face while she napped, the slightly salty taste of her skin in the hot Texas summer sun. She will always remain as she was then and I would not know her now in her mid-fifties. As poorly versed as we were in that language that is not considered a language of love, but of war, German will always be for me an erotic language.
—H. Palmer Hall
—from “The Woman of My German Summer: A Sixties Idyll”
—found in Eclectica (Vol. 1, No. 1)
interoception /in-tair-oh-SEP-shən/. noun. The sense of conditions and stimuli within the body. Compare to exteroception (the sense of stimuli acting on the body) and proprioception (the sense of the position of the body, and parts of the body, to other bodies or parts of the body). Thanks for the WORD, Reader S.
“We gain access to the body’s wisdom through interoception, which literally means ‘perceiving within.’” (Daniel J. Siegel)
“In addition to proprioception, there is another not-commonly-known sense called interoception. This is the sense of knowing how your body is feeling from the inside. It is not based in thinking about how your body is, but on the direct experiencing of it. It is an internal, embodied feeling, a felt sense. Someone asks you how you are feeling and you say ‘fine.’ How do you know you are fine? Interoception.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn)
“That will prepare you to understand the gist of interoception, which is the origin of feeling. After that, we’ll discover the unexpected and frankly astonishing influence that interoception has over your thoughts, decisions, and actions every day.” (Lisa Feldman Barrett)
“Buddhist meditation increases the thickness of the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula (structures associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing)…” (Sarah Lazar)
“Frances Glessner Lee’s miniature murder scenes are dioramas to die for” → How a Chicago Heiress Trained Homicide Detectives With an Unusual Tool: Dollhouses
An Edgar Degas notebook online, complete and in high-resolution.
I continue to be fascinated by the Container project, creating “books that aren’t books.” They’ve announced their next two projects, available soon → E, UIO, A is “a series of 30 typewritten letters in envelopes with hand-inked elements and other embellishments” and Tem is a boxed set of “origami gemstones cradled in containers of plaster-fused gauze.”
An interesting essay that makes fitting use of creative web design/presentation → Long live the group chat: a look at the beauty, ubiquity, and therapy of group chats for black and brown people.
Got the morbs. Coffee sisters. Parrot and monkey time. Some great stuff in this Dictionary of Victorian Slang.
Wow → Scuba Diving Magazine’s 2017 Underwater Photo Contest Winners.
Adam Aleksic, aka theETYMOLOGYnerd (a fun site to browse) has created quite an array of etymology infographics on topics as diverse as Star Wars, the anatomy of the eye, and Harry Potter spells.
Links to a variety of “games with a purpose,” where your playing contributes to language research and other projects. Cool. → GWAP.
Today in 1856, Gustave Flaubert publishes the first installment of his new novel Madame Bovary. The serialization of what is now considered one of the most important and influential novels every written would continue until December 15. Shortly after, French public prosecutors charged Flaubert (and the owner and printer of La Revue de Paris) with obscenity. The prosecutor’s speech is a literary read in itself, a passionate argument full of flights such as this: “…from this first fault, this first fall, she glorified adultery, she sang the song of adultery, its poesy and its delights. This, gentlemen, to me is much more dangerous and immoral than the fall itself!” Flaubert and the others would be acquitted, driving the popularity of the novel even higher. English readers might be interested in Julian Barnes’ assessment of the problems of translating, generally, and Flaubert and Madame Bovary in particular.
A beautiful moment to witness → ► 66 year old Bodybuilder William Reed sees color for first time.
Introverts, ambiverts and clumsy conversationalists like myself might find these conversational silence cards a tempting handout.
Reader G.: “…the Humble Comma is the absolute best example of using punctuation (while imbibing its virtues) that I have ever read. Someone should make an inspirational poster out of that and put it up in high school English classrooms everywhere.”
Reader B. adds: “Commas: William Shatner must surely be a divine force.”
Reader T.: “Sounds like reader ‘V’ is a bona fide snowflake. Need to grow up, indeed.”
Reader D.: “I have to admit: for the longest time I thought ‘fazed’ was actually ‘phazed’ and derived from Star Trek and being stunned.”
Reader J.: “Light as sound? I get it, like sound stored as a tactile surface. And I totally don’t get it. And I love it.”
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? Try Notabilia http://ktxc.to/nb for a new WORK every day and concīs http://ktxc.to/concismag publishing original short pieces of all kinds.
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 #356 of katexic clippings. You can also browse the full archives of this newsletter.