Placed in the midst of arid deserts, where the fleet but timid antelope, and the cunning but powerless monkey fall his easy and unresisting prey; or roaming through the dense forests and scarcely penetrable jungles, where the elephant and the buffalo find in their unwieldy bulk and massive strength no adequate protection against the impetuous agility and fierce determination of his attacks, he sways an almost undisputed sceptre, and stalks boldly forth in fearless majesty.
The Tower Menagerie (Bengal Lion)
He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold-beaters’ shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch.
David Copperfield
Cat Power – “Good Woman”
You Are Free
I originally thought “Free” was the best track off this classic album, but I’ve since changed my mind to the much more beautiful and traditional “Good Woman.” This is the kind of song that lives forever – it feels as if it might have been written at any time in the last hundred years. (insound)
Vocabulary: Unspoken, Unclaimed, And Unrefined Edition
sorites: form of arguing in which intermediate arguments and conclusions are left unspoken
corrivation: the joining of two streams or rivers into one (obvious on reflection)
diapason: a range of standard musical pitches, or the exercise of said range
neoteric: modern, recent, or someone tending toward such trends
exegetical: criticism or interpretation of a text, esp. scripture
colloguing: to plot or conspire; to confer or inform secretly
advowsons: the right to present for a vacant church office
coadjutor: an assistant, esp. one bishop to another
bewray: to betray or expose (bee-ray, not boo-ray)
incult: uncultivated, unrefined, naturally wild
ingenite: inherent or inborn; congenital
divagation: to wander or digress
To those who live in the narrow circle of human interests and human feelings, there ever exists, unheeded, almost unnoticed, before their very eyes, the most humbling proofs of their own comparative insignificance in the scale of creation, which, in the midst of their admitted mastery over the earth and all it contains, it would be well for them to consider, if they would obtain just views of what they are and what they were intended to be.
Let them exercise their sublime and boasted reason, I said to myself, in endeavoring to comprehend infinity in any thing, and we will note the result! If it be in space, we shall find them setting bounds to their illimitable void, until ashamed of the feebleness of their first effort, it is renewed, again and again, only to furnish new proofs of the insufficiency of all of earth, even to bring within the compass of their imaginations truths that all their experiments, inductions, evidence and revelations compel them to admit.
Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
The Delgados – “All You Need Is Hate”
Hate
Satire? Or is there more truth here than we’d like to believe? Either way, it’s a great song, the standout from an interesting but grossly overproduced album.
