Word Clippings
Read to the end for monkeys arresting a cat
God, what an ugly week this is turning out to be. We’re at the beginning of a heatwave here and when I woke up this morning to find the wind had shifted and was bringing the smoke of the wildfires into town (although it’s not as bad now). Still, it’s supposed to get to maybe 35C today and I’m not looking forward to that.
In better news, the first couple of my book reviews have been published, in Heavy Feather Review and Sage Cigarettes. Awful People, the novel by Scott Mitchel May that I reviewed for HFR, is the one I hope you’ll pick up. The genre aspect of it didn’t quite work for me, but that’s only a small part, and there’s something that rings very true about the wide array of Wisconsinite dirtbags the novel serves up.
Anyway, I was organizing some files on my laptop this week and I found one labelled “kindle clippings.” The document is half a million words in length somehow, full of things I highlighted on my old kindle (RIP). A lot of it is useless, things I highlighted by accident or terms I meant to look up and never got around to doing, but there’s also some real gems. So I thought I’d share them below. No real theme here, just bits I found amusing as I scrolled through.
I tried to remember the first time I read each book. I was still in high school when I read The Sun Also Rises and On the Road. They made me very excited about life. The books assumed that life was really great and that happiness was awesome. I learned recently that much of the 20th Century's happiness was caused by the industrial use of oil, natural gas, and coal. Which led to a food surplus. Which meant these old great novels, where the reader is supposed to assume that the zeitgeist is creating all this new happiness, it is actually false and that many of the books of the 20th Century can be shelved under, “Massive Oil use and its Effects on Humans.”
— Best Behavior by Noah Cicero
Khwārazmians are the most barbarous of people, both in speech and customs. Their language sounds like the cries of starlings. In their country there is a village one day’s journey away called Ardakuwa whose inhabitants are known as Kardalīya, and their speech sounds exactly like the croaking of frogs.
— Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North (Penguin Classics)
Coming from the bathhouse, on returning to the house I looked at my beard. It was a block of ice, which I had to thaw in front of the fire. I slept in a house, inside which was another, inside which was a Turkish felt tent. I was wrapped in clothes and furs, but in spite of that my cheek froze to the pillow. I saw cisterns in that country lagged with sheepskins, so that they would not crack or burst, but it did no good. In truth, I saw the earth split and great crevasses form from the intense cold. I saw a great tree split in two from the same cause. … Compared to this, the days of cold in Khwārazm were like summer days. We forgot all that had happened to us in the past and almost perished.
— Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North (Penguin Classics)
‘They’re going to overtake us, aren’t they? Not right now, not tomorrow,’ Chiku said, rising from her seat, ‘but one day we’ll wake up and the Tantors will be looking back at us, saying, “Catch up, slowcoaches.”’ ‘In terms of available brain volume,’ Eunice said, ‘they do have an undeniable advantage over us monkeys. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about. They’re only elephants – why in heaven’s name would they hold a grudge against us?’ Chiku stooped to pick up one of the toy boxes. ‘I can’t think of a reason in the world.’
— On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds
Later I read of a pet octopus who developed another way to signal that she wanted the owner’s attention. If the person was out of the room, the octopus would pull off the magnet on the inside of the tank which, with another magnet on the outside of the tank, held a glass-cleaning tool in place. The outside magnet would then crash loudly to the ground, summoning the human much as one might call a butler by ringing a servant’s bell. … Many home aquarists report that their octopuses appear to enjoy watching television with them. They particularly like sports and cartoons, with lots of movement and color.
— The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
He stepped forward and swiftly jerked the tapestry down from the wall. And behind was Chun the Unavoidable. Liane screamed. He turned on paralyzed legs and they were leaden, like legs in a dream which refused to run. Chun dropped out of the wall and advanced. Over his shiny black back he wore a robe of eyeballs threaded on silk. Liane was running, fleetly now. He sprang, he soared. The tips of his toes scarcely touched the ground. Out the hall, across the square, into the wilderness of broken statues and fallen columns. And behind came Chun, running like a dog. Liane sped along the crest of a wall and sprang a great gap to a shattered fountain. Behind came Chun. Liane darted up a narrow alley, climbed over a pile of refuse, over a roof, down into a court. Behind came Chun.
— The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
There had been no theatrical performances worthy of mention in the town since the Duke of Kent's old theatre in Argyle Street had been appropriated to the school under Mr. Bromley. In the autumn of this year a company of players, Messrs. Price, Chamock, Placide, etc., fitted up an old store on Fairbank's wharf as a theatre. Placide, Price and Mrs. Young were considered good performers and attracted large audiences. At the close of their career the manager got into jail for debt, when Placide, the best comic actor of the company, distinguished himself by escaping from prison and passing the sentry at the jail gate in the night, who supposed it was a Newfoundland dog, Mr. Placide being famous for imitating the bark and whine of the canine species.
— History of Halifax City by Thomas B. Akins
Alright, I think we’re done here. This has been Adams Notes for July 17, 2024. I’ll send a Pepys post out next week and then I’ll see you again in August.
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