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From our Magic Words outpost at Blogger: "[ John Milton's] poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power, and there would seem at first to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give up their dead." —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Milton |
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Play it Forward(our guest blog for Bernie DeKoven's Deep Fun) Does the march of progress allow space for somersaults? In other words, can we PLAY toward a better condition? In each of the following quotations, the word WORK has been playfully changed to PLAY. "We need to PLAY toward developing peace in all of our thoughts, words, and actions." — William B. Gudykunst, Bridging Differences, 2003 "We need to PLAY toward a world where healthy anger is the norm and destructive anger the exception." — Jane Middelton-Moz, Boiling Point: The High Cost of Unhealthy Anger to Individuals and Society, 1999 "In order to have clarity, we need to PLAY toward seeing the world as accurately as possible." — Judith V. Jordan, Linda M. Hartling, & Maureen Walker, The Complexity of Connection, 2004 "We need to PLAY toward prevention of overwhelming stress situations that all too frequently result in mental hospitalization." — Robert Lefferts, Getting a Grant, 1978 "We need to PLAY toward ... a collective sense of meaning and significance." — Chris Hackler, Health Care for an Aging Population, 1994 "We need to PLAY toward trusting that whatever happens is 'good.'" — Dzigar Kongtrul, Light Comes Through, 2008 "By accepting the fact that all will not be pleasant at work and that we need to PLAY toward satisfaction and fun in our job, we can more readily dismiss unpleasant happenings." — Jennie Wilting, People, Patients, and Nurses, 1980 "We need to PLAY toward a society that has social policies that reflect humanitarian values." — Emelicia Mizio & Anita J. Delaney, Training for Service Delivery to Minority Clients, 1981 "We need organizational makeovers and we need to PLAY toward the change more rapidly than we have thought in the past." — Lloyd C. Williams, Business Decisions, Human Choices, 1996 "We need to PLAY toward protecting Mother Earth and all living beings." — Jane Middelton-Moz, Welcoming Our Children to a New Millennium, 1999 "We need to PLAY toward our survival as a species." — Bill G. Gooch, Lois Carrier, & John Huck, Strategies for Success, 1983 "PLAY is intrinsically satisfying, ie fulfilling; PLAY means survival; and PLAY provides a level of social connectedness to the larger community." — Samuel M. Natale & Brian M. Rothschild, Values, Work, Education, 1995 Are the altered quotations above still true? Law professor Mary Brandt Jensen reminds us that in the language of copyright law, to "perform" a work is to "recite, render, play, dance, or act it." Perhaps more of our work can be performed with a playful spirit, so as to transform our sense of duty into genuine enthusiasm.
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- juggernaut
- thunderdome
- transhuman
- electrolyte
- halcyon
- bourgeoise
- tarmac
- mundane
- odyssey
- expressway
- cobblestones
- favela
- consecrating
- galvanized
- supersonic
- masquerade
- Martian invasion
- testosterone
- supernova
- boogaloo
- Himalayas
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"The poem is not the sum of the impressions, as a heap of diamond dust is the sum of its shining particles; nor is the poet merely a sensitized medium for their reception and transmission. Beneath the poem lie also innumerable blendings and fusings of impressions, brought about below the level of conscious mental processes." — John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu, 1927 |
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We were delighted to stumble upon a seemingly absurd reference to " lengthy one-letter words." The context was newfangled electric typewriters with overly-sensitive touch-response: the slightest droop of the wrist, spelling lengthy one-letter words: mmmmm or zzzzzzzz
Of course, lengthy one-letter words add up to another passion of ours: all-consonant and all-vowel words! Can you guess our definitions for mmmmm and zzzzzzzz? |
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Consonant-ly suprisingOn my travels trough the WWW I have come across a huge amount of useless, informative, amazing and scary sites. But I wanted to share this one with everyone. The Dictionary of All-Consonant WordsJust a quick browse through here threw up such gems as: qch.interj. a casual, cough-like utterance meaning oh. <"How’s Andy,” he asked casually. "Qch, fine,” said the other. — Dorothy L. Sayers, The Five Red Herrings. hgkh.n. the sound of someone struggling not to drown in a vat of fresh cream, as in the graphic novella Hearts and Minds by Scott McCloud; see also sppt, blpb. C-rch.n. a judicious alien Luminoth who lies silently "in a small corridor within the depths of a high fortress,” in the video game "Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.”
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"When a new mode of imagining erupts into literature, it dislocates the rhetoric of its time, and is of subtler stuff than that rhetoric—'the infinite arrives barefoot on this earth,' says Hans Arp." —Christopher Middleton's introduction to Jakob Von Guten by Robert Walser--- William Keckler writes: I love the Hans Arp quote. Or was it Jean Arp? It must be hard to live in Alsace-Lorraine where one never knows one's true name or nationality.
Binary human beings should make a comeback.
I'm fairly certain one of my favorite poetry presses in America, Burning Deck, published Mr. Middleton's own poetry, as well as some of his translations. Unfortunately, I don't own those books, though I probably own a hundred other titles from that awesome press run by legends Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop.
I think it's cool to see you zero degrees of separation away from them with this post, Craig!
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We question the premature apostrophe in a banner made in honor of the recently incarcerated singer/songwriter Boy George. In the purple ribbon, the apostrophe appositely hovers between the O and the Dowd, but the mark skips ahead one place in the initials (perhaps to indicate hopes for an early release from prison). Does the unexpected period between the O and D subliminally suggest an abbreviation for "overdose," as drugs figured into the charges? In any case, here's a " get out of jail free" card for you, Boy George. |
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