For your earholes: I’ve updated the Katexic/KUAC page with more (3–7 minute) WORD audio segments, including pieces on penumbra, etymythology, omphalos, “beyond the pale” and fake/fake news.
Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
—May Sarton
—from Journal of a Solitude (1973)
aibohphobia /IY-boh-FOH-bee-yə/. noun. An irrational fear or distrust of palindromes. Etymological origin is obvious. Origin of the coinage is unclear, but the word is first found in Stan Kelly-Bootle’s Ambrose Bierce-inspired The Devil’s DP Dictionary and its successor The Computer Contradictionary. Bootle was known for his wordplay even while writing computer programming articles and textbooks…and his folk-singing career.
See also: ebohphobe and ailihphilia.
There’s nothing like standing in front of a piece of art, but how many will we ever have the chance to see in person? That’s why I appreciate Open Culture’s list of links to nearly two million pieces of art and more than 100,000 art books. All free, naturally.
The U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002–2017 report is generally positive, but I am stoked by the significant increase in poetry readers. The page includes an interactive data tool and links to the raw data used to write the report.
New podcast! The Keepers – “stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians. Keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep.” && Old podcast (and one of my favorites) returns! – Ear Hustle – “stories of life inside prison, shared and produced by those living it.” || See also: Podstand, where you can “browse people’s podcast subscriptions, and share your own.”
A collaboration between Longreads and Oregon Public Broadcasting, Bundyville is a beautifully produced series about the infamous ranching family that combines longform articles and audio/podcasts.
Of his hard-to-describe but endlessly-browsable site The Door of Perception, Ben Roth writes: “[it] is an ever-growing compilation of things that talk to me on a deep level. Passing on that feeling of resonance is a way of caring. I wanna take you with me on a path towards the light of consciousness.” An incredible collection of sometimes trippy, often mind-bending, usually enlightening stuff.
“The US prison system is broken. It sucks up billions of dollars each year and destroys lives. Could a Thai princess and an accidental criminal justice reform activist in the Pacific Northwest have the answers?” → Stripped: The Search for Human Rights in US Women’s Prisons || See also: in The Conversation: quite a story of art behind bars—and survival—in an increasingly perverted penal system.
In the (often maddening) Blind Spots, “ favorite artists” listen to famous albums they’ve never heard before. It would be be better if the sides were a bit less lopsided as far as accomplishments (so far) go, but still mostly fun.
This week in radically different photography sites → Irenaeus Herok’s aerial shifting sands photos! && The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are open for your votes (previously: CWPA galleries).
Just for funsies → Smash Mouth’s “All Star” translated to Aramaic and back into English && Funny Pub Signs
Today in 1620, the Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, England, bound for the New World. The 102 passengers (including nearly forty “Separatists” who called themselves “Saints”) were intending to establish a settlement in what would come to be Virginia but instead landed near what is now Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Establishing a settlement named Plymouth, half the colonists would die of disease in the first year, but the colony survived thanks to help from most of the local Indian tribes. In thanks, the descendants of the settlers committed multiple acts of genocide against the Native Americans on their way to creating the country that would elect Donald J. Trump as its president.
“► Pauvre Pierrot (aka Poor Pete) is an 1892 French short animated film directed by Émile Reynaud. It consists of 500 individually painted images and lasts about 15 minutes. ¶ It is one of the first animated films ever made…”
I thought I knew everything about ► the history of the word “OK,” but I was mistaken. Thanks, Reader S. for the nudge.
Reader H.: “A few years ago a novel The Hummingbird by Stephen Kiernan came out. It was about Nobua Fujita and his initial bombing run and all the subsequent journeys to America.” – Thank you for the tip! I wouldn’t have realized Kiernan’s book involved Fujita based on the description!
Reader M.: “‘Oh, so you think you can tell, Helvetica from Ariel’? I see what you did there and I’m not sure I like it.”
Reader C.: “Yes-or-BS is simple and fun. I’m batting way less than .1000 after getting the JOANIE McJOANFACE story right.”
Reader K.: “That puffer fish video was disturbing. Readers might also like to watch the crazy fast and swallowing whole frogfish in action.”
Last week we had a comment/poem…today a comment/story! Reader B.:
The miners had been at work for weeks in this sector, drilling and digging through these new, previously untapped seems. The materials were pried loose and hauled back out through the fresh shafts, into the old pits, and out, presumably, onto the surface (the miners worked long shifts, and by the time they left their work, the surface was cleared, scoured of any signs of their output. They did not know who conducted this labor.)
Still they had only received trace reports of Katexic. Their most sensitive equipment, maintained with exquisite attention, indicated that a vein or even a seam must be within this section of the mountain. All of the indicators were present: the lines of gold in the spectrum, the vowel-heavy muttering sound whose source could never be discerned precisely, warm spots plainly felt every twelve meters, and the same, sad, one-handed figure in every miner’s dream.
Frustration did not gnaw them as they gnawed at the mountain’s mesozoic roots. The miners were stolid and steadfast in their Katexic pursuit. It was going to be there. It had to be there.
One afternoon (although time was meaningless in the shafts) their devices suddenly emitted flickering lights, even those unequipped with LEDs. Davies, the new man, fell to the ground, clutching his head. The sound of laughter erupted from the rock face they were addressing, a sound terrifying yet delighfu-
TRANSMISSION ENDS
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