Sunday, June 30, 2019
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Friday, June 28, 2019
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Scel lemm duib

Next is a translation by Flann O'Brien, who kept the three stresses per line of the original in an attempt to convey what he called the “steel-pen exactness” of the 9th century original (which you can hear read aloud here):
Here’s a song –
stags give tongue
winter snows
summer goes.
High cold blow
sun is low
brief his day
seas give spray.
Fern clumps redden
shapes are hidden
wildgeese raise
wonted cries.
Cold now girds
wings of birds.
Icy time -
that’s my rhyme.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Friday, June 21, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Monday, June 17, 2019
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Friday, June 14, 2019
The Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly
http://www.1890s.ca/Volumes.aspx?p=The%20Yellow%20Book
In April 1894 a young bookseller’s clerk, John Lewis May, assisted the manager of The Bodley Head in arranging the shop window. As he later recalled: “I filled the window of the little shop in Vigo Street—the original Bodley Head—with Yellow Books, and nothing but Yellow Books, creating such a mighty glow of yellow at the far end of Vigo Street that one might have been forgiven for imagining for a moment that some awful portent had happened, and that the sun had risen in the West”. The “mighty glow of yellow” emanating from this unnatural dawn continued long past the launch of the avant-garde magazine of art and literature, and indeed long past its final issue three years later in April 1897. In 1913, Holbrook Jackson, describing the impact of The Yellow Book, explained: “It was newness in excelsis: novelty naked and unashamed. People were puzzled and shocked and delighted, and yellow became the colour of the hour, the symbol of the time-spirit. It was associated with all that was bizarre and queer in art and life, with all that was outrageously modern”. A more recent commentator on the 1890s, Simon Houfe, echoes Jackson’s judgment, declaring that The Yellow Book and the 1890s are synonymous, the periodical functioning as “both a microcosm of the fin de siècle and an important trend-setter”.
In April 1894 a young bookseller’s clerk, John Lewis May, assisted the manager of The Bodley Head in arranging the shop window. As he later recalled: “I filled the window of the little shop in Vigo Street—the original Bodley Head—with Yellow Books, and nothing but Yellow Books, creating such a mighty glow of yellow at the far end of Vigo Street that one might have been forgiven for imagining for a moment that some awful portent had happened, and that the sun had risen in the West”. The “mighty glow of yellow” emanating from this unnatural dawn continued long past the launch of the avant-garde magazine of art and literature, and indeed long past its final issue three years later in April 1897. In 1913, Holbrook Jackson, describing the impact of The Yellow Book, explained: “It was newness in excelsis: novelty naked and unashamed. People were puzzled and shocked and delighted, and yellow became the colour of the hour, the symbol of the time-spirit. It was associated with all that was bizarre and queer in art and life, with all that was outrageously modern”. A more recent commentator on the 1890s, Simon Houfe, echoes Jackson’s judgment, declaring that The Yellow Book and the 1890s are synonymous, the periodical functioning as “both a microcosm of the fin de siècle and an important trend-setter”.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Catechism of Cliché
What is a bad thing worse than?
Useless.
What can one do with fierce resistance?
Offer it.
But if one puts fierce resistance, in what direction does one put it?
Up.
In which hood is a person who expects money to fall out of the sky?
Second child.
If a thing is fraught, with what is it fraught?
The gravest consequences.
What does one sometimes have it on?
The most unimpeachable authority.
What is the only thing one can wax?
Eloquent.
How are allegations dealt with?
They are denied.
Yes, but then you are weakening, Sir. Come now, how are they denied?
Hotly.
What is the behaviour of a heated altercation?
It follows.
What happens to order?
It is restored.
Alternatively, in what does the meeting break up?
Disorder.
What does the meeting do in disorder?
Breaks up.
In what direction does the meeting break in disorder?
Up.
In what direction should I shut?
Up.
When things are few, what also are they?
Far between.
What are stocks of fuel doing when they are low?
Running.
How low are they running?
Dangerously.
What does one do with a suggestion?
One throws it out.
For what does one throw a suggestion out?
For what it may be worth.
What else can be thrown out?
A hint.
In addition to hurling a hint on such lateral trajectory, what other not unviolent action can be taken with it?
It can be dropped.
What else is sometimes dropped?
The subject.
Useless.
What can one do with fierce resistance?
Offer it.
But if one puts fierce resistance, in what direction does one put it?
Up.
In which hood is a person who expects money to fall out of the sky?
Second child.
If a thing is fraught, with what is it fraught?
The gravest consequences.
What does one sometimes have it on?
The most unimpeachable authority.
What is the only thing one can wax?
Eloquent.
How are allegations dealt with?
They are denied.
Yes, but then you are weakening, Sir. Come now, how are they denied?
Hotly.
What is the behaviour of a heated altercation?
It follows.
What happens to order?
It is restored.
Alternatively, in what does the meeting break up?
Disorder.
What does the meeting do in disorder?
Breaks up.
In what direction does the meeting break in disorder?
Up.
In what direction should I shut?
Up.
When things are few, what also are they?
Far between.
What are stocks of fuel doing when they are low?
Running.
How low are they running?
Dangerously.
What does one do with a suggestion?
One throws it out.
For what does one throw a suggestion out?
For what it may be worth.
What else can be thrown out?
A hint.
In addition to hurling a hint on such lateral trajectory, what other not unviolent action can be taken with it?
It can be dropped.
What else is sometimes dropped?
The subject.





















