whose dinner?

famous for fifteen people

"This essay, written by Momus in 1991, was published by the Swedish fanzine Grimsby Fishmarket in 1992 ..."

rock and roll band / Marty

*** Unhemmed recommends ***

Pop in your earphones & get down to numberdan's brand new 'Rock and Roll Band'!

And here's an idea (maybe it's just a fraction of an idea) for the artwork:

"Poor old Marty!"

"Good old Marty!"

John Berryman, 1968

INTERVIEWER: You admire Stephen Crane, we know, and many of his characters are named "Henry"; is this the origin of the name?

BERRYMAN: Oh, no—that's all just accident and junk. I'll tell you how the name Henry came into being. One time my second wife and I were walking down an avenue in Minneapolis and we decided on the worst names that you could think of for men and women. We decided on Mabel for women, and Henry for men. So from then on, in the most cozy and adorable way, she was Mabel and I was Henry; and that's how Henry came into being.

(read more of it here ...)

birds / going organic

An educational short from 1977.

I'm a little bit anxious that I've linked to John Stammers's very funny poem "I Don't 'Go Organic' Often, But When I Do" before; if I have, it's evidence, if such were needed, of incipient doolalliness. But not to worry, now I've put it here, with a bit of luck I'll be able to find it when I need it again.

literature-map

I don't know what to say about this, so I'll just point at it with my mouth open. (Isn't that just what always seems to happen in these parts anyway?)

Actually, there is one thing I'd like to say about it: it needs a spellcheck. (Albert Cammus? T S Elliot? Exypery?) And it could be a bit more upfront about where its cartography comes from.
I'm now pointing at it with my mouth closed.

Szydłowiec and environs

scrummy

On Friday night I ate bibimbap, which was tasty, but not quite as tasty as its name. Bibimbap! I fondly hope that one day I'll be able to eat a more fully Korean version of the dish, so I can see how it compares with its Polish counterpart, which seemed to be missing a large number of the ingredients listed here, but was scrummy nonetheless.

I was reminded of the bibimbap by this fantastic sestina on 'Six Kinds of Noodles'.

Something from a different barrel, as they say in these parts: please note the new additions to the list of links, one of which will plug you into buildings, whilst the other mostly does sounds (though it does other things too).

current favourite sentence

I've stolen this feature off my friend James. Hope he doesn't mind! I rather think that he won't when he reads this:

"I think of some of the haughty-ass theoretico-jive that's come out of my mouth at various conferences and coffeehouse readings over the years, and I shudder." - samizdat

Kurt Vonnegut

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918)

With a little help from Bartleby, unhemmed proudly presents 'Trees', a poem at least one reader already has off pat:

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The afore-mentioned unnamed reader when performing 'Trees' makes a significant improvement by omitting the second, third, fourth and fifth couplets. This gives the thing more oomph, and means that we're not troubled by the idea of trees having hungry mouths and hair-dos (don't buy it), and looking at God the whole time (don't buy it). If you google 'trees', Kilmer's ditty is about the eighth link you get.

stamp of the month

Louis Edouard Fournier

1889, depicting Shelley's 1822 beach cremation. The painting's not square, but cropped, leaving Mary Shelley out of the frame. You can see the picture in full if you go here, or if you do something I've long wanted to do but never done, that is, go to Liverpool.

Odd that Trelawny seems to be examining the dinky screen on the back of his digital camera and that Byron looks like he's sporting the jeans-inside-your-boots fashion that's pretty fashionable in Warsaw.

The internet is unusually unforthcoming about Louis Fournier. Who was he? A one-hit wonder, perhaps.

Richard Holmes doesn't give anything away, but tells us that the 'celebrated' painting shows 'a miraculously undamaged corpse offered up to Heaven on a martyr's pyre, with Trelawny and Byron striking solemn Romantic poses (actually they went swimming), and a pious Mary kneeling on the wind-swept beach in floods of tears (although in fact she was never there at all)'.

Mabel Rankin

Last week, Poland's premier novelty covers band, the Mabel Rankin Beat Quartet, went into a fancy recording studio for the day and laid down six original numbers with the able and amiable assistance of a man called Tomasz, who usually records real musicians. Or adverts for tyres. You can here four of the songs here. Lucky you! (You might also check out EddyFR. I don't know him from Adam. What to make of him?)

herring

the big występ

The venue:
The star (I rotated her, but she just rotated right back; I repeated the rotation, but the photo remains stubbornly horizontal):The other stars (and the same technical problem, plus some blurring - oh, and it was artfully cropped too, but no longer):The verruca, I mean, the farruca (both rotated & cropped!):
The guajira (aka the one with the fans):The allegrias:
Shawls aloft (Em wasn't in this one):
The finale (never have so many Polish women - and one man - danced the sevillanas en masse):

dinosaur

I was excited to find out just now that the original line-up of Dinosaur Jr have made a new record (it'll be out in May).
So excited that I wanted to put
something celebratory up here. It wasn't easy - what with me being so fussy and all - finding a suitable picture. An image search for J Mascis and friends yields lots of hair, childlike scrawl, all manner of vaguely gothic stuff and guitar amps. And the young girl hitching up her slacks, cigarette in mouth, on the cover of Green Mind. I vividly remember Mark Lamarr saying that Freak Scene was his favourite record when he had a late-night show on the old Radio 5. You can hear it on their myspace page & it still sounds really good. The photo here is from the BBC website's Keeping It Peel pages, which look like a generous slice of anorak paradise. ("The top 125 Peel Sessions of all time have been selected by the people who knew John best - his family, friends, studio engineers, producers and musicians, and we've provided snippets of audio from each to ensure you get the best round-up of what made the Peel Sessions truly unique." Pity it's just snippets.)

what are the other ones, Graeme?

Graeme Diamond, principal editor of the OED, in today's Independent: "Wiki joins a small but distinguished group of words which are directly or ultimately borrowings into English from Hawaiian."

i feel like a moa

anonymous people with accents

This place - that's the Speech Accent Archive - is great! Well, I've only listened to a few so far, but it's been great fun.

A man from Edinburgh says something unlikely.

A Glaswegian says the same thing.

Can you guess where this guy is from? Or this one? And what are snow peas?

One last one especially for Em.

(Thanks to the archives of The Midnight Bell for pointing me this way. Does Sean know that The Slaves of Solitude is now in print?)

frangipani

This is the best site - by a country mile - that I've found for learning about Australia in French.

the Embarrasses

There is an Embarrass in Minnesota.

And another in Wisconsin.

Which do you prefer?

the orchid and the yucca

Pray for these plants. They are in our care, so they'll need all the help they can get. As you can see from the before-and-after diptych above, the orchid (I think it's an orchid - the label just says Roślina doniczkowa, i.e., potted plant) and the yucca have been repotted. On a brief break from Empson this morning, I engaged in my most intensive burst of gardening this millennium. Happily it wasn't too cold out on the balcony today, but I did feel the want of gardening gloves. A trowel would have come in handy too.

in which Boswell lets a gag loose & mentions one of my favourite islands (mercifully, his illustrious friend keeps schtum)

'Next morning, Thursday, March 21 [1776], we set out in a post-chaise to pursue our ramble. It was a delightful day, and we drove through Blenheim park. When I looked at the magnificent bridge built by John Duke of Marlborough, over a small rivulet, and recollected the Epigram made upon it -

'The lofty arch his high ambition shows,
The stream, an emblem of his bounty flows:'

and saw that now, by the genius of Brown, a magnificent body of water was collected, I said, 'They have drowned the Epigram.' I observed to him, while in the midst of the noble scene around us, 'You and I, Sir, have, I think, seen together the extremes of what can be seen in Britain: - the wild rough island of Mull, and Blenheim Park.''

Brockwell Park lido

I'm very sad about the demise of Brockwell Park lido. You can see a picture of the hole in the ground where it once was here, (though you'll need to scroll upwards a little bit). And if you like, you can write and tell me if the rest of the blog is worth reading or not.
The lido was even cooler than this picture makes it look.

Nippon

unhemmed has been quiet recently. I can tell you why: me and Em have had the great good fortune of being in Japan, and there doing vigorous tourism, for almost a fortnight. My plan is to deposit the photos I took somewhere in webland & I've just made a start:

prizewinningphotos.blogspot.com

I'm not sure if I'll be able to maintain the high level of captioning and selection. We'll see how we go.

something we've not seen

The Prime Minister of Mirth

This is George Robey, a music hall performer who was billed as the Prime Minister of Mirth. Robey wasn't his real surname. He took his stage-name from a Birmingham company called Roby. It got misprinted and he liked the mistake so much that he kept it.

Mornington Crescent

This tremendous photo was taken by my friend Asher; many thanks to him for letting me put it up. I was very fond of these high-rises when I used to live in London. What am I saying? I'm still very fond of them. I particularly like the fact that they are colour-coded in primary colours. Also, they're sufficiently tall that you can catch sight of them from all kinds of unlikely places. I like the pigeons too, even though they're being so sinister. And I'm a sucker for the red-brown glaze of the tube station, whose centenary you might like to celebrate on 22 June. But who is it a statue of? I ought to head along to londonstatuarylog.co.uk and find out ...

the day we ate Rousseau

It was, I think, Sunday 10th December. Last year.

morpho and Morph

The morpho butterfly, all the way from Brazil, wishing you a happy 24th December.

And, although passionate nostalgia for children's TV of yore needs no encouragement from unhemmed, I couldn't resist this grainy still of Morph:

Sonnet 130

I just found this whilst looking for something else. Great delivery! And quite a back catalogue. Be sure to check out Aelfric!

sometimes cardboard leaves you speechless

mon cher cousin

today i honk pretty bad of garlic

The Tapioca Sisters

"THE DANCES (not necessarily in this order): Perfumed Sleeves (Elegy), Nanoha, Dark Hair, Love Among the Saucepans, The Battle of Yashima, Gift from Edo, The Curse, Snow, The Coy One, Bird of Miyako, Eight Scenes, Tea, Moon of Remembrance, The Maiden at the Well"

Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters (1943-1948), p. 280

metro

Scoptophiliac oddity.

advent (better late than never)

horn'd sorites / an enthymematical progression

A tip of the hat to the OED, and we're off ... Best of good luck! It's something of a slalom. Or is that just me?

1. Logic. ‘A series of propositions, in which the predicate of each is the subject of the next, the conclusion being formed of the first subject and the last predicate’ (Mansel).
In the GOCLENIAN form, ‘the subject of each proposition is the predicate of the next, the conclusion being formed of the last subject and the first predicate’.
1551 T. WILSON Logike Hiij, We ioyne many causes, and many effectes together, wherof is made an argument, called Sorites. 1588 FRAUNCE Lawiers Log. II. ix. 99 As of many graynes is made a heape of corne, so of many degrees an argument called Sorites by this enthymematicall progression. 1654 Z. COKE Logick 148 Sorites is an imperfect Syllogism [etc.]. 1693 DRYDEN Persius VI. (1697) 296 note, Chrysippus the Stoick invented a kind of Argument, consisting of more than three Propositions; which is call'd Sorites, or a Heap. 1838 SIR W. HAMILTON Logic xix. (1866) I. 369 The Sorites can be resolved into as many simple syllogisms as there are middle terms between the subject and predicate of the conclusion. 1870 JEVONS Elem. Logic xviii. 156 The chain of syllogisms commonly called the Sorites.

b. An instance of this type of syllogism. Also as pl. (quot. 1798).
1581 J. BELL Haddon's Answ. Osor. 223b, The Logicians that have described the fourme of a Sorites. 1588 FRAUNCE Lawiers Log. II. ix. 99 A sorites [is] but enthymematicall progression by certain degrees. 1620 T. GRANGER Div. Logike 285 A Syllogisme many wayes cryptike, is a Dilemma, and a Sorites. 1643 SIR T. BROWNE Relig. Med. I. §18 An easie Logick may..with lesse than a Sorites resolve all things into God. 1725 WATTS Logic III. ii. §6 A Sorites is when several middle terms are chosen to connect one another successively [etc.]. 1798 EDGEWORTH Pract. Educ. (1811) II. 361 We have seen syllogisms, crocodiles, enthimemas, sorites, &c. explained and tried upon a boy of nine. 1860 H. ROGERS Ess. III. 277 An ingenious sorites, by which we may at any time dispense with the positive testimony of an historian. 1870 K. H. DIGBY Halcyon Hours 261 No horn'd soritès here would I employ, No captious argument that would annoy.

c. In allusive use.
1711 ADDISON Spect. No. 239 {page}10 These Disputants convince their Adversaries with a Sorites, commonly called a Pile of Faggots.

2. transf. A series, chain, or accumulation of some thing or things.
1664 POWER Exp. Philos. III. 191 Though Democritus his pit be never so deep, yet by a long Sorites of Observations, and chain of Deductions, we may at last fathom it. a1670 HACKET Abp. Williams I. xiii. (1693) 11 Such a long Sorites of Sciences and Tongues. 1875 M. COLLINS in F. Collins Lett. & Friendsh. (1877) II. 24 Note this significant fact or sorites of facts.

b. Math. (See quots.)
1880 J. J. SYLVESTER in Coll. Math. Papers (1909) III. 440 Any such determinate representation of a fractional quantity I shall term a sorites. Ibid., The elements of a sorites are analogous to the partial quotients of a regular continued fraction.

3. A sophistical argument turning on the definition of a ‘heap’.
1768-74 TUCKER Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 140 The like attack as was made of old by the Academics and Sceptics against the judgment of the senses, with their sophism of the sorites, or argument of the ‘heap’.

4. A heap, pile.
1871 M. COLLINS Marq. & Merch. III. ix. 230 Such sorites of flaming anthracite may possibly cause cephalalgia.

Hence soritic a., soritical.
1656 BLOUNT Glossogr., Soritical, pertaining to such an Argument [sc. Sorites]. a1693 Urquhart's Rabelais III. xxxviii. 320 Soritick fool. 1877 BLACKMORE Cripps II. v. 73 Nebules of logic, dialectic fogs, and..the pelting of soritic hail.

the things critics say! no. 1

"It would need a Gaston Bachelard to do justice to the psycho-analysis of sea-weed, which is a really suggestive and strange thing to contemplate; children can unmisgivingly delight in sea-weed, but adults would be reluctant to admit the compound of sensations it can elicit."
Christopher Ricks, Keats and Embarrassment, 1974, p. 91.

Ugandan Discussions

Reading Timothy Garton Ash in the paper today, I wondered if the Private Eye cover he mentions would be online. It is. And so are all the others. Knock me down with a feather!

i do like ...

... record shops.

sliders

This is one of the nicest things Hazlitt says about Coleridge in The Spirit of the Age:

"Hardly a speculation has been left on record from the earliest time, but it is loosely folded up in Mr Coleridge’s memory ... Mr Coleridge ... has only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjects expand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, or losing themselves in endless obscurity."

Although it's not all that nice, because it ends up with STC either startled or plunged in obscurity. However, my empirically-minded question is this: what are we supposed to imagine when Hazlitt talks about drawing the 'sliders'? Is it something to do with stargazing? The OED very nearly answers this question, but not quite. This is what you get in the 'slider' entry under 4b:

1681 GREW Musæum IV. ii. 366 A Slider, with a thin Plate-Spring, which plays against the said Teeth. 1692 Capt. Smith's Seaman's Gram. II. xxiv. 130 A small Line must be drawn quite thro' the Slider. 1733 TULL Horse-Hoeing Husb. xxii. 339 (Dubl.), To fix in this Wreath from coming off, we make use of the Slider. 1763 Museum Rust. I. 78 The aperture in the floor of the third cell is shut by means of the slider. 1790 Phil. Trans. LXXXI. 27 The front of this vessel is a plate of glass, and the back a tin~plate slider. 1834-6 Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VIII. 751/1 In a groove under the dovetail is a slider L, moved by a wire K. 1839 URE Dict. Arts 983 Betwixt these guides, friction-roller sliders are placed,..to which sliders the corves are suspended. 1884 Law Times LXXVIII. 8/1 An upright rod, up and down which worked a slider which contained the cartridge.

fig. 1825 HAZLITT Spirit of Age 64 He has only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjects expand before him.

Ideas, anyone?

a cup of joe

From a site called answerbag. I really like the comments:

Josephus Daniels (1862-1948) was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Navy by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Among his numerous reforms of the Navy was the abolition of the officers' wine mess. From that time on, the strongest drink aboard navy ships was coffee and over the years, a cup of coffee became known as "a cup of Joe".

Comments

* jana2005: it is unuseful
* Bibliophile_kg: this is a common story about "cup of Joe", however 2 etymologists on the web disagree. see my entry.
* IAmDeath: Cool!

Mencius

One-Star

I enjoyed hearing Jamie McKendrick read his poems last week & there was one I liked particularly called 'One-Star'. You can have a read of it here, should you be so inclined. You'll need to scroll down quite a long way to find it.

Bob and Ena 1

BOB: I like a party that's packed with people, so that there's a good frowst going on.

ENA: A frowst?

BOB: Yup. A good frowst.

ENA: I can't think ...

BOB: Yes?

ENA: ... of anything worse!

BOB: Come now! What kind of parties do you like?

Świętozmarłych

no 2 ways about it: one of the top 27 LPs of all time

enantiomorph A form which is related to another as an object is related to its image in a mirror; a mirror image.

pneumatology The science, doctrine, or theory of spirits or spiritual beings.

Nertz! A. adj. ‘Nuts’, crazy. Now somewhat rare.

1928 J. P. MCEVOY Show Girl iii. 47 You'd be plumb nerts.

B. int. Expressing annoyance, exasperation, incredulity, etc.

1931 B. MEREDITH Speakeasy Girl iv. 52 ‘Nerts!’ muttered Roy in disgust. 1975 J. ASHBERY Self-portrait in Convex Mirror 42 Aw nerts, One of them might say, this guy's too much for me. (OED)

daguerreotype

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1848

unhappy returns

Coleridge was born on 21st October 1772, making today his 234th anniversary. Unhemmed probably wouldn't be marking the occasion if I hadn't just read this. It's no exaggeration to say that he didn't like his birthday much, or at least that some of his birthdays got him down, reminding him of all the things he felt he hadn't achieved. He celebrated - if that's the right word - on the wrong day, under the mistaken impression that he came into the world on the 20th. This mistake, for some reason, really appeals to me.

On the evidence of his notebooks, his 32nd birthday looks to have been particularly rough:

'O my God! or if I dare not continue in that awful feeling! yet oh whatever is good in me, even tho' not in the Depth, tho' not in that which is the Universal & Perfect in us, yet oh! by all the ministering Imperfections of my Nature that were capable of subserving the Good - O why have I shunned & fled like a cowed Dog from the Thought that yesterday was my Birth Day, & that I was 32 - So help me Heaven! as I looked back, & till I looked back, I had imagined I was only 31 - so completely has a whole year passed, with scarcely the fruits of a month! O Sorrow & Shame! I am not worthy to live! - Two & thirty years - & this last year above all others! - I have done nothing! No I have not even layed up any materials, any inward store, of after action! - O no! still worse! still worse! body & mind, habit of bedrugging the feelings, & bodily movements, & habit of dreaming without distinct or rememberable ...'

According to Seamus Perry's commentary, the 'next four leaves have been cut out of the book'.

The following year was quite bad too:

'My Birth Day! - O Thought of Agony! O Thought of Despair! drive me not to utter Madness! -'

I thought that there were some more of these sad and extraordinary birthday entries, but I can't seem to find them. I was very pleased to discover (in the chronology included in this book) that on his 50th Coleridge took a dip in the sea at Ramsgate.

lamo1234

'Ernie Rogers, a twenty-three-year-old guitar player in San Bernardino, may represent the ultimate realization — and corruption — of YouTube's democratic ideal. Although on his user profile he bills himself as a “typical guy,” Rogers, who goes by the name lamo1234, has watched more than nine hundred thousand videos on YouTube since May. That averages out to approximately two hundred and fifty per hour, not allowing for sleep. What he watches, primarily, is his own guitar solos (or the first few seconds of them), over and over, to boost his view counts to levels that will make others take notice. His strategy seems to have been successful: one of his solos, a medley of Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, and Beethoven licks, has been viewed two hundred thousand times—and only sixty thousand of those viewings were by him. Unfortunately, this strategy leaves little time for actually playing music. “Next year, the No. 1 spot on YouTube is going to be me, every day,” he told me. “I just need to make my band.”'

'It Should Happen To You', Ben McGrath in The New Yorker, 16th October

Lon Chaney, Sr.

Hi, Lon. Have we met?

exaggerate, moi?

The end of the world.

the North Wall of the Eiger

This face of the mountain - it's in the Swiss Alps - has apparently claimed the lives of many climbers.

unsavoury business

"Around 1495 Henry VII made an important reorganization of his private living space in which he separated off a Privy region for the unsavoury business of doing his accounts and going to the lavatory."

Colin Burrow reviewing Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII by Alistair Fox in Essays in Criticism 41 (1991).

Walt does birds

"the wildpigeon and highhold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and redshouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white-ibis and indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle"

- from Walt Whitman's 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass (read the whole thing here

Recourse to the OED reveals that the "qua-bird" and the "night-heron" are one and the same, which is very slightly disappointing. The very pretty "orchard-oriole" in this photo is clearly taking the mickey out of the bird that stars in the Twin Peaks titles. Googling "highhold" yields a dense crop of what seem to be links to a role-playing game that features Highhold Castle as a location; buried amongst them is a link sending us to back to Whitman. The OED knows of no "highhold", but it seems pretty safe to assume that it's the same as a "highholder", which is an American woodpecker also called a flicker and that looks a bit like a pigeon. The "surf-duck" probably doesn't look like this. Its name is so funky that googling it doesn't get you very close to an actual duck. However, running "surf [space] duck" makes instantly plain that what we're dealing with is no less a waterbird than the mighty scoter. I was once in a rockband called Scoter with this man.

Thoor Ballylee

Until today, I'd always imagined Yeats's tower as a round one. I suppose I pictured it as a taller, narrower version of Joyce's Martello tower.