15 August 2008
Want.
{The Harumph. Outmoded? Discuss.}
{The book discussed below is one I'd certainly love to read. While reviewing the review, the mention of the harumph was just too funny not to share. I immediately thought of Disapproving Rabbits, and tried myself to harumph, to little success.}
From Robert Fulford's book review of The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head by Raymond Tallis published on National Post:
"Consider the way a human face speaks with silent eloquence. In the view of Raymond Tallis, an eminent British doctor and a talented writer, the face of a man or woman constitutes 'the most sign-packed surface in the universe.' Consider the way a human face speaks with silent eloquence. In the view of Raymond Tallis, an eminent British doctor and a talented writer, the face of a man or woman constitutes 'the most sign-packed surface in the universe.'
"In his new book, The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head (Yale University Press), Tallis sets out to make his readers into 'astonished tourists of the piece of the world that is closest to them, so they never again take for granted the head that looks at them from the mirror.' He begins his examination with the face.
He also examines willed behaviour, providing detailed data on kissing and possibly the first analysis ever of harrumphing. Oxford defines a harrumph as an ostentatious clearing of the throat, expressing disapproval. Tallis says it's close to a suppressed bark, typically triggered by a newspaper item about a fashion or trend the harrumpher deplores. "Harrumphs are particularly associated with the idea of a member of the Establishment, whose overweight body provides the perfect instrument for manufacturing it," complete with jowls that shake while the sound emerges.
Few harrumphers practise this favourite tic in private. Like laughing, it's not often a solitary indulgence. (Tallis says we laugh 30 times more frequently when we are with others than when we are alone.) The harrumph probably deserves more space than Tallis gives it. Is it dying out? Does it express social attitudes only of the old and cranky? I have heard people fail miserably when trying to produce a satisfactory harrumph. All they can manage is a pathetic snort. Harrumphing is no simple matter. There is a rumour they still teach it in the better private schools."
14 August 2008
Rainbow Hearts, Crystal Hearts, Summer.
13 August 2008
{Good Thoughts}
Please Be Still • Mati Rose • Volume 25 •
11 August 2008
{Some Things Last a Lifetime}
{What of the Homes Awash in a Silver Light}
One of my most beloved poems of all time appeared on http://www.writersalmanac.org/ today.
The Continuous Life
by Mark Strand
What of the neighborhood homes awash
In a silver light, of children hunched in the bushes,
Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender,
Signs that the irregular pleasures of moving
From day to day, of being adrift on the swell of duty,
Have run their course? O parents, confess
To your little ones the night is a long way off
And your taste for the mundane grows; tell them
Your worship of household chores has barely begun;
Describe the beauty of shovels and rakes, brooms and mops;
Say there will always be cooking and cleaning to do,
That one thing leads to another, which leads to another;
Explain that you live between two great darks, the first
With an ending, the second without one, that the luckiest
Thing is having been born, that you live in a blur
Of hours and days, months and years, and believe
It has meaning, despite the occasional fear
You are slipping away with nothing completed, nothing
To prove you existed. Tell the children to come inside,
That your search goes on for something you lost—a name,
A family album that fell from its own small matter
Into another, a piece of the dark that might have been yours,
You don't really know. Say that each of you tries
To keep busy, learning to lean down close and hear
The careless breathing of earth and feel its available
Languor come over you, wave after wave, sending
Small tremors of love through your brief,
Undeniable selves, into your days, and beyond.
"The Continuous Life" by Mark Strand from New Selected Poems. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.