Author: Greg Ross
Woe
Closing lines of a letter to Samuel Pepys from his brother-in-law, 1686:
I am Sir Stopped with a Torent of Sorofull Lamentation, for Oh god I have lost, oh I have lost such a loss, that noe man is or cann be Sensible but my Selfe: I have lost my wife, Sir, I have lost my wife; and such a wife, as your Honour knows has (may be) not lefte her felow, I cannot say any more at present being overwhelmed …
From the King James Bible, 2 Samuel 18:33, on David’s grief at the loss of his son:
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept: and as he went, thus he said: O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
Poet Paul Monette wrote this elegy after his lover Roger Horwitz died of AIDS on Oct. 22, 1986:
for hours at the end I kissed your temple stroked
your hair and sniffed it it smelled so clean we’d
washed it Saturday night when the fever broke
as if there was always the perfect thing to do
to be alive for years I’d breathe your hair
when I came to bed late it was such pure you
why I nuzzle your brush every morning because
you’re in there just like the dog the night
we unpacked the hospital bag and he skipped
and whimpered when Dad put on the red
sweater Cover my bald spot will you
you’d say and tilt your head like a parrot
so I could fix you up always always
till this one night when I was reduced to
I love you little friend here I am my
sweetest pea over and over spending all our
endearments like stray coins at a border
but wouldn’t cry then no choked it because
they all said hearing was the last to go
the ear is like a wolf’s till the very end
straining to hear a whole forest and I
wanted you loping off whatever you could
still dream to the sound of me at 3 P.M.
you were stable still our favorite word
at 4 you took the turn WAIT WAIT I AM
THE SENTRY HERE nothing passes as long as
I’m where I am we go on death is
a lonely hole two can leap it or else
or else there is nothing this man is mine
he’s an ancient Greek like me I do
all the negotiating while he does battle
we are war and peace in a single bed
we wear the same size shirt it can’t it can’t
be yet not this just let me brush his hair
it’s only Tuesday there’s chicken in the fridge
from Sunday night he ate he slept oh why
don’t all these kisses rouse you I won’t won’t
say it all I will say is goodnight patting
a few last strands in place you’re covered now
my darling one last graze in the meadow
of you and please let your final dream be
a man not quite your size losing the whole
world but still here combing combing
singing your secret names till the night’s gone
Monette himself died of AIDS nine years later.
Math Notes
2015 = 4 + 8 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 7 + 4 + 1 + 4 + 3 + 9 + 5 + 8 + 6 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 9 + 6 + 0 + 4 + 7 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 3 + 2 + 8 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 9 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 6 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 0 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 9 + 9 + 2 + 8 + 9 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 3 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 3 + 1 + 8 + 8 + 3 + 5 + 1 + 0 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 8 + 3 + 9 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 9 + 2 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 7 + 6 + 4 + 9 + 5 + 1 + 8 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 5 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 8 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 6 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 8 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 8 + 9 + 6 + 5 + 0 + 2 + 9 + 2 + 1 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 8 + 7 + 7 + 9 + 7 + 2 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 8 + 8 + 6 + 9 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 5 + 4 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 8 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 9 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 3 + 7 + 6 + 3 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 5 + 5 + 9 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 3 + 0 + 7 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 6 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 3 + 7 + 0 + 2 + 5 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 7 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 3 + 3 + 6 + 3 + 4 + 7 + 5 + 8 + 8 + 5 + 2 + 6 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 6 + 0 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 0 + 8 + 2 + 5 + 6 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 9 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 2 + 5 + 7 + 6 + 8 + 8 + 0 + 6 + 9 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 1 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 9 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 5 + 0 + 8 + 4 + 3 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 1 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 0 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 7 + 6 + 8 + 2 + 0 + 6 + 8 + 2 + 7 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 9 + 8 + 5 + 3 + 6 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 0 + 7 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 7 + 8 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 2 + 9 + 5 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 7 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 5
2015137 = 484933196777114074143958601296047191303238888328493788893417124636461282
535535197030813992895783308595683263188351090196322513839445959271157649518041540
183146596171102022830089650292177587797290188691282775436095410100384042181289460
837638885592477530746168643702581379873363475885265666608606690825611326960945242
512576880699871340946150843683152340103534181032663014193776820682723644342223985
362021659566308072475404600254478282295167446136474609375
(Thanks, Pablo.)
It Takes a Village
Many persons know the story of the swallow which had entangled its claw, by some means, in a piece of thread fastened to a spout on the wall of the Collége des Quatre Nations, at Paris. Its strength being exhausted, the bird hung at the end of the thread, which it kept raising in the endeavours to fly, uttering plaintive cries. All the swallows from between the Pont des Tuileries and Pont Neuf, and perhaps still further, gathered together, to the number of some hundreds, all uttering cries of pity and alarm. After some hesitation and a tumultuous conference, one of them seemed to have found a means of delivering their unfortunate companion, and no doubt communicated it to the others. They placed themselves in order, and each coming in turn, struck the thread with the beak, somewhat after the fashion of ’tilting at the ring.’ These thrusts, aimed at the same point, succeeded each other every moment, and greatly incommoded the poor captive; but in a short time the thread was severed, and the poor bird set at liberty! The flock remained till night, chattering all the time; but in a tone which had nothing of inquietude, and was expressive only of mutual congratulation.
— Ernest Menault, The Intelligence of Animals, 1869
In a Word
cagamosis
n. marital unhappiness
Phony Pony
Early automobiles tended to frighten horses, so in 1904 Henry Hayes proposed attaching a life-size fake horse to the front of each car, to give the illusion that they were ordinary carriages.
The horse’s head would be fitted with a lensed lamp, its mouth would hold a horn, and its hollow interior could store fuel, tools, and extra tires. The saddle could even bear a rider.
It’s not too late to implement this.
Literary Complaints
Charles Dickens to London clockmaker John Bennett:
My Dear Sir — Since my hall clock was sent to your establishment to be cleaned it has gone (as indeed it always has) perfectly well, but has struck the hours with great reluctance; and, after enduring internal agonies of a most distressing nature, it has now ceased striking altogether. Though a happy release for the clock, this is not convenient to the household. If you can send down any confidential person with whom the clock can confer, I think it may have something on its works that it would be glad to make a clean breast of.
W.S. Gilbert to the Times:
Sir, — Allow me to corroborate Dean Gregory’s statement as to the degeneration that has overtaken a company [the London and Northwestern Railway] which, until recently, was justly regarded as a pattern to all other lines in the matter of punctuality and rapidity of despatch. … In the face of Saturday the officials of the company stand helpless and appalled. This day, which recurs at stated and well-ascertained intervals, is treated as a phenomenon entirely outside the ordinary operations of nature, and, as a consequence, no attempt whatever is made to grapple with its inherent difficulties. To the question, ‘What has caused the train to be so late?’ the officials reply, ‘It is Saturday’ — as who should say, ‘It is an earthquake.’
Mark Twain to a gas and electric lighting company in Hartford, Conn.:
Gentlemen, — There are but two places in our whole street where lights could be of any value, by any accident, and you have measured and appointed your intervals so ingeniously as to leave each of those places in the centre of a couple of hundred yards of solid darkness. When I noticed that you were setting one of your lights in such a way that I could almost see how to get into my gate at night, I suspected that it was a piece of carelessness on the part of the workmen, and would be corrected as soon as you should go around inspecting and find it out. My judgment was right; it is always right, when you are concerned. For fifteen years, in spite of my prayers and tears, you persistently kept a gas lamp exactly half way between my gates, so that I couldn’t find either of them after dark; and then furnished such execrable gas that I had to hang a danger signal on the lamp post to keep teams from running into it, nights. Now I suppose your present idea is, to leave us a little more in the dark.
Don’t mind us — out our way; we possess but one vote apiece, and no rights which you are in any way bound to respect. Please take your electric light and go to — but never mind, it is not for me to suggest; you will probably find the way; and any way you can reasonably count on divine assistance if you lose your bearings.
S.L. Clemens.
Fowl Play
From a 1947 competitive examination for high school seniors conducted by Stanford’s math department:
My grandfather’s papers included an old invoice:
72 turkeys $-67.9-
The first and last digits are illegible. What are the missing digits, and what was the price of one turkey?
Looking-Glass Art
That’s Rembrandt’s engraving The Three Trees on the left, and its mirror image.
Art historian Heinrich Wölfflin found that reversing the image produces a distinctly different aesthetic effect. In the first image, “the group of trees at the right gives an impression of energy”; in the second, “the trees are devaluated and emphasis now seems to rest on the flat, extended plain.”
But curiously, writes Chris McManus in Right Hand, Left Hand, “although ordinary viewers say [such reversals] look different, they cannot reliably decide which is the original and which the mirror-image, unless they have seen the picture before.” Whom can we credit for the second composition?
Sense and Sensibility
We detect that a rhododendron flower is odorless by smelling it. But do we smell its odorlessness? We detect that tofu is flavorless by tasting it. But do we taste its flavorlessness?
— Roy Sorensen, Seeing Dark Things, 2008