She marked her place with a yarrow stem and closed the book and set it in her lap. She wondered if literature might lose some of its interest when she reached an age or state of mind where her life was set on such a sure course that the things she read might stop seeming so powerfully like alternate directions for her being.
—Charles Frazier
—from Cold Mountain (1997)
corybantic /KOR-ə-BAN-tik/. adjective. Wildly excited; frenzied. Derived from Corybant, a priest of Cybele, Greek (and Phrygia’s only known) Goddess of fertility and nature, whose worship included loud music and riotous dancing. Celebrants, then and now, literally and figuratively, are sometimes called corybants or corybantes.
“That most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio, is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than the ear-drums. It penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel of distractions—news items, mutually irrelevant bits of information, blasts of corybantic or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama that bring no catharsis, but merely create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional enemas.” (Aldous Huxley)
“They filled the cavernous depths of the dining room from end to end, behaving as though they were extras in one of those continental films his wife pretended to love, eating with such abandon, gesturing so exuberantly, rising from the tables to dance with such corybantic fervour that he felt half dead.” (Beryl Bainbridge)
“I was able to discern a hefty blonde, no doubt Annie herself, clad in a yellow track-suit, leaping up and down and shouting commands in time to the music. The corybants she commanded were mainly young, but among them I spotted a breathless Ballard, pale and eager, leaping as best he could, clad in a bright purple track-suit and elaborately constructed plimsolls…” (John Mortimer)
“But in that moment of solitude prosaic, earthbound Mr. Pinfold had been one with hashish-eaters and Corybantes and Californian gurus, high on the back-stairs of mysticism. His mood on the road to Cairo was barely less ecstatic.” (Evelyn Waugh)
Interesting that the two most important sources in this article give largely contradictory advice. But I guess we who journal do so for all kinds of reasons…depending on the person, the day, the mood… → What’s All This About Journaling?
Continuing down the candy trail. → In Japan, the Kit Kat Isn’t Just a Chocolate. It’s an Obsession.
Faithful Reader B. shared this story with the click-baity (for a certain set that includes me) title How Instagram Saved Poetry. I thought about it and was equally intrigued and troubled. It reminded me of another recent article on the Instagram poetry phenomenon, Instagram Poetry Is A Huckster’s Paradise. I thought about that and was sad, but I wasn’t sure what I was sad about. Stephen Marche’s The Crisis of Intimacy in the Age of Digital Connectivity started to put it all together for me, and it’s about a lot more than poetry, writing or even art.
“Day and night he wrote visas. He issued as many visas in a day as would normally be issued in a month. His wife, Yukiko, massaged his hands at night, aching from the constant effort. When Japan finally closed down the embassy in September 1940, he took the stationery with him and continued to write visas that had no legal standing but worked because of the seal of the government and his name.” → The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting
On the little-known novel Hunter, by the author of The Turner Diaries, and its role in extremist actions. Written in 1995 but even more relevant today. → After the Massacre
Great news, word nerds! → Green’s (Amazing) Dictionary of Slang will soon be free.
Tiny Books Fit in One Hand. Will They Change the Way We Read?
For your eyeballs: Simon Schubert’s “Paperwork” creased paper art & Joe Reginella’s Memorial Statues Mark[ing] Fictional Disasters in NYC & 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year winners
For your earholes: the oldest surviving Duke Ellington radio broadcast, known only to a small handful of connoisseurs and never made available to the public (includes the story of the recording and solid musical notes and links) & ► The Hot 8 Brass Band covers Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
Today in 2008, Barack Obama becomes the first person of African-American (or bi-racial) descent to be elected President of the United States.
Spotify dropped ► “Animal Spirits” into my Discover Weekly list this week (ironically, it turns out) and it brought me some (vaguely Jackson 5 style) joy. Tune in and turn it up. Some other Vulfpeck favorites: ► “Dean Town” (that bass player crushes it!) & ► “Cory Wong” with its clever “script-over” style. They are just so fun to watch and listen to.
“Let’s ► explore how cinematographers and directors create shapes inside the frame to add visual storytelling to their films.” Includes examples from Sleeping Beauty, Psycho, Fargo, The Graduate and dozens more.
Rupi Kaur and the Instapoets previously in Katexic: Meet Rupi Kaur, Queen of the ‘Instapoets’ & Why Rupi Kaur and Her Peers Are the Most Popular Poets in the World & On Instafame & Reading Rupi Kaur
Reader M.: “Add this one to your sex robot files: World’s first sex robot resort lets customers pay to take bots’ ‘virginity’”
Reader E.: “Everyone is dancing with, or recoiling from, the General Dynamics robots. But this little pogo-stick-style-hopping (monopedal) example is just as mesmerizing in its own way.”
Reader A.: “Interested in the mention of Pride and Prejudice in the books started, but not finished. I remember avoiding Austen for much of my Bachelor of Arts, until I came to my senses and took a class with John Wiltshire which involved reading all her novels. ¶ I feel that their is a bit of myth and (mis)judgement around Austen’s work. One of the best things I did, although I would rather reread Mansfield Park or Emma than Pride and Prejudice. ¶ On another text, I started reading Game of Thrones. Then I watched the show and gave up going back.”
Reader G.: “I was a little surprised by the list of books people were giving up on. I consider Nathaniel Hawthorne’s books to be the ones I remember giving up on. But I enjoyed most of the Game of Thrones series, although having it also be a TV show means that I watched some and read some and have yet to complete either version all the way through, it is a very time consuming series and pushed my boundaries of how much violence I could stomach. ¶ But Pride and Prejudice is delightful as all her books are. ¶ I also loved all of Orwell’s books and found them easy reads. ¶ I remember starting the Lord of the Rings trilogy several times in high school before I finally got through it all the way. ¶ Overall I found the list surprising based on my own experience.”
Reader B.: “1. ‘wondering if catarrh can ever be cathartic’ - man, I do love Ashbery. ¶ 2. Interesting how the top two failed reading books each represent a jump from other media. ¶ 3. For Q, I agree that it’s good storytelling (hey, the author should read a book on this…), but I’m still struck by the weird echo with this one.”
And then they added another Katexic story, for which I am so grateful!
The old man rested on the balcony. Gazing over the zinc balustrade he beheld a vast sky gently studded with delicate clouds. A breeze passes over the pine and birch woods lining the horizon. Below them the ancient lake, dotted with swimmers and boats, glimmered in the afternoon light.
He grimaced and sighed. His few remaining strands of hair trembled across his chilly scalp. The melancholy was unshakeable. Every shred of energy and beauty beyond the balcony just pinned his gloom more tightly to his awareness. He clenched both fists with desolate fury, then let them sag in glum futility. He closed his eyes.
The sun gradually declined to the horizon, cloud by cloud. The old man heard the breeze pick up into a wind that chilled his weary frame. Eyes still closed, he could just make out the sounds of people retreating from the waters below. He imagined the sky darkening in the meticulous fashion it always displayed this time of year, ruthlessly. Again he sighed, expecting the immediate triumph of night.
Behind him a doorknob jolted, then a door crashed open against drywall. “Mr. Jacoby!” came a cry from within.
The old man twitched his hands on the chair, spastically half-spinning it around on the balcony’s time-worn marble. “Calhoun,” he snarled. “I told you never, ever to interrupt my afternoon meditation. You know this is a time sacred to my peace of mind - a tranquillity all too easily mangled by intrusion!”
Panting, the young man skidded on the dark room’s Moroccan rug. “I know, ah, sir. But this, this -”
“Yes?”
“…it’s from L.”
The old man froze in mid-rage. His eyes expanded, brows trembling. His left hand seemed to drift upwards on its own power, while his right clutched the chair’s leather handle. It couldn’t be, he assured himself. It couldn’t be L., of all things. Not since the disaster. Especially not since the unending pit on the lunar surface, the plague of catarrh dreams, the demolition of Trump Tower, and the discovery of the disturbingly human-like Antarctic songbird clan. This isn’t L.’s time, he assured himself, and certainly not the hour of K., and yet found a musical hum surfacing from his withered throat. I cannot permit such joy. It is too much for an age that does not - that can not - deserve it. Yet he turned his weathered, tear-worn face to Calhoun, who waited patiently in the dusk-darkened room.
“Where” - he coughed - “where is it?” And found himself humming audibly now.
“Right here, sir.” A trembling young arm extended itself from the murk towards the old man. Upon a red-gloved hand rested a shining envelope bearing but a single word on its crisp surface. “Katexic.”
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