CUTTING IN: SEA AND SPAR BETWEEN

As the DEAR NAVIGATOR site states:

"Sea and Spar Between is a poetry generator which defines a space of language populated by a number of stanzas comparable to the number of fish in the sea, around 225 trillion. Each stanza is indicated by two coordinates, as with latitude and longitude. They range from 0 : 0 to 14992383 : 14992383."

and:

"The words in Sea and Spar Between come from Emily Dickinson’s poems and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Certain compound words (kennings) are assembled from words used frequently by one or both."

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There is a strange beauty built into the fabric of these stanzas. Some work better than others, but they each sing a note that is in harmony with their source works and with one another.

This is a map of sorts, meant to be viewed. This is a sea of sorts, meant to be navigated. This is a landscape of sorts, meant to be wandered.

I am adrift, floating, staring up at constellations of words.

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Sea and Spar Between
by Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland
http://blogs.saic.edu/dearnavigator/winter2010/nick-montfort-stephanie-strickland-sea-and-spar-between/

CUTTING IN: LEVIATHAN

"Shall you perhaps lead Leviathan about on a leash? Or will he consent to play slave to your beck and call? Or perhaps you would carve the great armored creature in pieces, selling chunks of crocodile in a market, like pounds of fish? Careful, you sport with death."

—pages 349-350, Job: And Death No Dominion by Daniel Berrigan

 (Previously posted on TWT HERE.)

LONGEST NIGHT

presses in
it does

this precious
precious

thing

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 Copyright © 2012 by Troy's Work Table

WORDS OF THE DISEASED

"The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight that those of the healthy.  Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease.  That sense of time, ah, the diseased man's sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave.  Then, too, the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air.  Then, too, then, too, then too."
—page 661, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer.

ONLINE COLOR RESOURCES

Color Schemer Online, V2

Color Scheme Designer

HTML Color Chart

ONLINE WRITING RESOURCES

The Free Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

How J Say: Dictionary of English Pronunciation

Online Etymology Dictionary

Chicago Manual of Style

The Elements of Style, 1918 edition

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving was a family affair, including people of three extended families, gathered in one home.  The meal was a loosely-structured Thanksgiving potluck that covered all of the staple dishes.

TWT seems to be the only beer drinker, although others enjoyed their wine.  Seeing the need for celebration, TWT ventured into the beer cellar.  The beer chosen to accompany the meal was The Abyss from Deschutes Brewing.  The bottle was a 2007 vintage, having sat untouched for five years, mellowing into its current ambrosial nectar.

Nearly five years ago, I wrote that "I cannot wait to have the other bottle after a few years of bottle conditioning!"  Well, obviously I can.  In fact, I almost forgot it was there.

It was an excellent accompaniment to the ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, and various vegetables.

The nose still retained its fig, charred log, and licorice aromas.  The flavors had melded together, swirling one forward and then another—fig, plum, espresso beans, campfire smoke, wood bark, tobacco leaf.  The thick dark liquid clung to the sides of a glass like a wine more than a beer.  In the mouth it was equally thick and oily, coating the tongue and palate.  Finally, the high alcohol content (11% abv) warmed the gullet in a subtle manner, sneaking up with its heat, while making its effect quickly apparent.

It is definitely a sipping beer, one not to be quaffed but to be savored and enjoyed.  Letting it warm a bit in the glass and the hand made it sing even more.

DEAD WRITERS

"For dead writers are like gods who are always hungry, no matter how many sacrifices they inhale."
—from "Rocket and Lightship" by Adam Kirsch, as found in the November 2012 issue of Poetry.

FROST PARK: NINEVEH

There was no apparent theme for Frost Park Chalk Off 5:29, so TWT decided to draw something that has been creeping into his dreams.  Why?  Who knows?  But, there it is.

The bottom layer includes seven sections and the color green.  Each successive layer has one less section than the prior and the next color on the color wheel, until the final single white dome.  Perched upon it is one of the chimerical creatures of Assyrian mythology and architecture—body of a lion or bull, head of a man, and wings of an eagle or angel.

FROST PARK: COUNTERPANE

Frost Park Chalk Off 5:28 seemed to have a theme of either partisanship or bipartisanship.  Therefore, Troy's Work Table tried to play within those themes while also revisiting elements of one of his favorite chapters of Moby-Dick, "The Counterpane."

The counterpane quilt became the flag attached to the "pole" of the harpoon, with Queequeg and Ishmael merged into a "bipartisan whale," all basking in the light of a lamp fueled by whale oil.

Oh, obsession!