Category Archives: commonplace

how to gather cinnamon

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“Cinnamon they collect in a yet more marvellous manner than this: for where it grows and what land produces it they are not able to tell, except only that some say (and it is a probable account) that it grows in those regions where Dionysos was brought up; and they say that large birds carry those dried sticks which we have learnt from the Phenicians to call cinnamon, carry them, I say, to nests which are made of clay and stuck on to precipitous sides of mountains, which man can find no means of scaling. With regard to this then the Arabians practise the following contrivance:— they divide up the limbs of the oxen and asses that die and of their other beasts of burden, into pieces as large as convenient, and convey them to these places, and when they have laid them down not far from the nests, they withdraw to a distance from them: and the birds fly down and carry the limbs of the beasts of burden off to their nests; and these are not able to bear them, but break down and fall to the earth; and the men come up to them and collect the cinnamon. Thus cinnamon is collected and comes from this nation to the other countries of the world.”

(Herodotus, Histories, 3.111, trans. G. C. Macaulay. Referenced in Piers Moore Ede’s review of John Keay’s The Spice Route, in The Times Literary Supplement, 6 January 2006.)

from “life and its shadow: the art/life dichotomy”

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“. . . what differentiates the artist’s book from normal books is that the artist’s book always transcends its subject matter, including its own text. Within the category of artists’ books there exist many varieties of book-related works. One subcategory is the ‘bookwork,’ usually a one-of-a-kind or multiple which comments through its very existence on the question: ‘what is a book?’ For example, there is Alison Knowles’s Big Book (1967), which was discarded when it wore out but which had pages, a spine and copyright notice, a fold-out page, a telephone line to the outside world, a grass tunnel in which one could sleep, and many other features not usually found in books or other works of art. Less literally a hybrid of environment, book, and perhaps residence, one could cite a piece by Susan Share, Stream of Consciousness (1979), in which the pages were cut and folded so as to form a paper spring, not unlike a child’s ‘Slinky’ toy. When the work was allowed to move from one space to another beside it, it suggested a paper waterfall. Stream of Consciousness had no words. The fold used was a ‘leporello,’ a zigzag fold found in many oriental books and some Western ones. If I ask myself, ‘Is it the text which makes a book a book?’ I must answer ‘No – its bookness comes from its shape, from the experience of moving from page to page – that is what gives a book its identity.’ This work defines its physical space and reality neatly and efficiently. It may be art but what gives it its meaning is its relationship to the living and interactive world around it.”

(Dick Higgins, in Sculpture Magazine)

5. hemulen

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“The Hemulen woke up slowly and recognized himself and wished he had been someone he didn’t know. He felt even tireder than when he went to bed, and here it was – another day which would go on until evening and then there would be another one and another one which would be the same as all days are when they are lived by a hemulen.

[ . . . ]

Suddenly the Hemulen thought that all he ever did was to move things from one place to another or talk about where they should be put, and in a moment of insight he wondered what would happen if he left things alone.”

(Tove Jansson, Moominvalley in November, trans. Kingsley Hart)

start

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“We can safely assert, even, that human civilization has added no essential feature to the general idea of play. Animals play just like men. We have only to watch young dogs to see that all the essentials of human play are present in their merry gambols. They invite one another to play by a certain ceremoniousness of attitude and gesture. They keep to the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard, your brother’s ear. They pretend to get terribly angry. And – what is most important – in all these doings they plainly experience tremendous fun and enjoyment. Such rompings of young dogs are only one of the simpler forms of animal play. There are other, much more highly developed forms: regular contests and beautiful performances before an admiring public.”

(Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens: a study of the play element in culture.)

found epigraphs, cont’d.

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“. . . Kearns had the fortune to meet the two fighters who in my opinion had the best ring names of all time – Honey Melody and Mysterious Billy Smith. Smith was also a welterweight champion. ‘He was always doing something mysterious,’ Kearns says. ‘Like he would step on your foot, and when you looked down, he would bite you on the ear. If I had a fighter like that now, I could lick heavyweights. . . .”

(A. J. Liebling, The Sweet Science, p.69, quoted in Alice Notley’s notes on Ted Berrigan’s “Sonnet XIX”.)

eagleton for [some other] day

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“. . . but he suffered from the empiricist illustion that what was real was what you could smell with your own fingers. Samuel Johnson held much the same view – and if Johnson is the kind of ‘character’ the English adore, it is not only because they take a stoutly individualist delight in the idiosyncratic, but because a ‘character’ represents the tangible truth of a person rather than the abstract truth of an idea.

Hence the English obsession with biography, which is among other things a covert anti-intellectualism.”

(Terry Eagleton, “Reach-Me-Down Romantic” in the London Review of Books, 19 June 2003)

mandeville

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“Though Sir John Mandeville (in his Travels, among the earliest and most heroic of plagiaries in the French) confessed, “Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there”: what matter? Here above, the concrete cliffs had disappeared, only their lights studding darkness which posed as space and postured firmament.”

(The Recognitions, p. 387.)

the girl (ii)

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The girl (II)

On a bench along an avenue sat a girl. All around her lay gardens with charming houses inside, and the girl, you might say, was lovely to look at.

Everyone who saw her sitting quietly on her own had a desire to engage her in conversation. Soon someone stepped up and offered her a book to read. Thanking him, she turned down his offer, however, saying she wished nothing more than to sit quietly.

The rejected one withdrew, and then another courteous individual approached to ask whether he might have the pleasure of inviting her to dinner.

Her response to this generous petition was to reply that she had no desire to eat, she was luxuriating in the simplicity of her wants, which afforded her complete satisfaction with herself and the world around her. She thought it more pleasant to sit quietly than go to a restaurant.

When the inquirer had left, there appeared before her attractive face a person who tried to persuade her to venture a gondola ride with him.

Such an excursion would lead to something else unnecessary, she instructively brought forth, adding she would rather think quietly upon her bench about some arbitrary matter than be prevailed upon to amuse herself.

When the chivalrous one had left the scene of his efforts to be gallant and generous, she was offered a bouquet of flowers. She shook her head, stating she wished to sit quietly and not so much as stir a finger to accept this small tribute, which might allow her to give herself airs.

Small birds were trilling in the treetops, the sun shone down the avenue, people strolled to and fro, and water swam past the girl.

She was grateful to the sun, the twittering she found delightful, and the people she compared to the water that came and went.

(Robert Walser, trans. Susan Bernovsky)