If three keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community say “in terms of” 105 times in an hour, how many times will one keyly committed core component of the counter-cultural community say “prior to” in terms of 23 minutes?
Elsewhere Other-Accessible:
• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Titus Graun: Heresy, Homotextuality, Hive-Mind
• All O.o.t.Ü.-F. posts engaging issues around I.T.O.
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:
• Conteur Compatissant – Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant, translated by Marjorie Laurie (Everyman’s Library 1934)
• Riff-Raph – 100 Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces, Gordon Kerr (Flame Tree Publishing 2011)
• Fall of the Wild – A Fall of Moondust, Arthur C. Clarke (1961)
• Orchid and Oak – Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, W.E. Vine et al (Thomas Nelson 1984)
• Hoare Here – Risingtidefallingstar, Philip Hoare (Fourth Estate 2017)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
Biblia anagrammatica, or, The anagrammatic Bible: a literary curiosity gathered from unexplored sources and from books of the greatest rarity, Rev. Walter Begley, Privately Printed for the Author, 1904
I. ANAGRAMMATIC DIALOGUES COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF THE LETTERS OF THE SALUTATIO ANGELICA: “AVE, MARIA, GRATIA PLENA; DOMINVS TECVM”
After considerable research, I have only discovered two writers who have attempted this excessively difficult literary device. One was the eccentric Pierre de St. Louis, a Carmelite, whose book is dated 1672, and the other an Hungarian priest, who gave his contribution to the public in a work published as recently as 1869.
Luc. i. 28.
Ave, Maria, plena gratia; Dominus tecum.
Anagrammata.
Pierre de St. Louis, Carmelite, 1672.
Nigra sum. At Janua Coeli demum aperta.
Amica pia et Rosa grata, Lumenve Mundi.
Gemma Vitis in ea clara Domu pure nata.
Virgo clemens pia miranda, Eva mutata.
Regia summa Patrona, Clientem adjuva.
Virgo meum lumen, pia et sacrata Diana.
Ira placata rigidum mutas Evae nomen.
O Musa, jam ad te levia carmina pergunt.
Area mea totiusve Mundi ampla Regina.
Mater Carmeli. In eo, pia, munda, augusta.
Magna diu semper, Carmeli o Janua Tuta.
In Te valida via, magna sperat cor meum.
Amate prodigium naturas sine macula.
Semper inviolatam, argute canam. Audi.
Gemma tuis pie cara, in Domu Lauretana,
Jam tum via miranda per angelos vecta
Permagna Domus aurea in alta emicuit.
Vera, Alma Domus Agri Piceni tuta mane.
Amica ad te unam, jam Peregrinus volat.
Tu Dia, quam Pia, ore angeli arcanum sume.
Sanctuarium a Dei mei Angelo paratum.
Eia, Pia, Caram Mundo genitura salutem.
Ea pia, edita Regula omnium sanctarum.
Virgo casta Diana Emmanuelem rapuit.
Alma Porta jam antea Decus Virgineum.
Summa Diva ac Virgo plane intemerata.
Tam magna Deipara, una te jure colimus.
Via mea, Paradisi gratum Lumen, te cano
Intus a gaudio camera impleatur. Amen.
Mater cujus amaritudo ei plane magna
Elucens Virgo, tu jam pia Mater amanda.
In Amanda vivam ego. Petrus Carmelita
Mea Virago Lauretana est prima mundi.
Mira simul et pia, erga Numen advocata.
O Luna magnum a Dei pietate sacrarium.
O Unica sanave Margarita, Dei templum.
Summa Regina Poli, tute ac jure amanda.
Tu Regia, non Eva prima, sed Immaculata.
Sum Luna Picena amata, Virgo Mater Dei
Tu mea ardua ara, olim in Picenum gesta.
O veri Dei Munus, Palma, caritate magna.
Alma vere Integra, Pudica. Nos jam muta.
Due Regina et viam tutam sine malo para.
Num pia amata, et sacra Virgo de Lumine.
Eva intacta Deum jam paris angelorum.
Ita amata parens miraculo Deum genui.
Ardua sancta pia meum Genitorem alui.
Tu pia amica Mundo. Salve Regina Mater,
O augusta mire pia. Nunc Dei Mater alma.
Ipsa ter magna aut nimium decora. Vale.
Optima, cara Mater Numinis. Vale. Gaude.
This very eccentric Carmelite who framed the above fifty-one anagrams, and the first anagrammatic dialogue in Part I., some pages back, has been presented entire, and not tithed. The reasons of this special privilege are that he is rare to a degree, an “original” here and always, and the specimens above have been picked out, for the first time, from different parts of his work, for which, and for more about him, see the Bibliography.
• Biblia anagrammatica (1904)
• καθῐλᾰρ-εύομαι c. gen., and —ύνω c. dat., sine expl., Suid. — Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon
‘We’re stepping out of a binary’ – celebrating the art of marginalized LGBT Muslims
[…] The show features artwork themed around issues of Islamophobia, racism and homophobia to “highlight the struggles common among contemporary Muslim queer, trans and gender non-conforming communities,” said co-curator and activist Yas Ahmed. — ‘We’re stepping out of a binary’, The Guardian, 22/i/2018.
Elsewhere other-accessible:
• Oh My Guardian #1
• Oh My Guardian #2
• Oh My Guardian #3
• Oh My Guardian #4
• Reds under the Thread
Pre-previously on Overlord-in-terms-of-the-Über-Feral, I looked at how Tolkien used the word “noise” and concluded that he didn’t use it well:
He heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound. […] There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a snarling noise. – “Fog on the Barrowdowns”, Book One, VIII
Now I want to look at a much better writer: Ian Fleming. At first glance, he might seem to be using “noise” badly too in this bit of Live and Let Die (1954):
At about the time he [a treasure-seeking fisherman] should have reached the island the whole village of Shark Bay was awakened by the most horrible drumming noise. It seemed to come from inside the island. It was recognized as the beating of Voodoo drums. It started softly and rose slowly to a thunderous crescendo. Then it died down again and stopped. It lasted about five minutes. – ch. 16, “The Jamaica Version”
Should “drumming noise” not simply have been “drumming”? Well, no: Fleming got it right. The phrase “X noise” or “noise of X” should be used either when a noise resembles X but isn’t X or when there’s some doubt about whether it is X. In the extract above, Fleming’s choice of words captures what must have gone on in the minds of the observers, or rather the auditors: “What is that horrible noise from the island? It sounds like drums. Wait, it is drums. But how on earth could etc.” This is confirmed by what Fleming writes next: “It seemed to come… It was recognized as…”
And once the noise has been recognized, it can be described without qualification. This bit comes later in the chapter:
Strangways described his horror when, an hour after they had left to swim across the three hundred yards of water, the terrible drumming had started up somewhere inside the cliffs of the island.
In the previous chapter, there’s a use of “noise” that I’m not so sure about:
After a quarter of an hour’s meticulous work there was a slight cracking noise and the pane came away attached to the putty knob in his hand. – ch. 15, “Midnight Among the Worms”
Would “slight cracking” have been better? It’s not as clear-cut as “drumming noise”, but I think Fleming got it right again. “Cracking” is ambiguous, because it could have meant that the glass cracked physically but not audibly. Fleming was writing considerately, leaving his readers in no doubt about what he meant.
Now try this from Evelyn Waugh’s Put Out More Flags (1942), as Basil Seal watches one of his girlfriends panicked by an air-raid:
But Poppet was gone, helter-skelter, downstairs, making little moaning noises as she went.
Waugh was an even better writer than Fleming, but did he misuse “noises” there? I don’t think so. These alternatives don’t conjure the scene as effectively:
• But Poppet was gone, helter-skelter, downstairs, emitting little moans as she went.
• But Poppet was gone, helter-skelter, downstairs, uttering little moans as she went.
The noises Poppet was making weren’t real moans and the trailing phrase “making little moaning noises” mimics what Basil would have heard as Poppet fled downstairs.
I conclude that, unlike Tolkien, Fleming and Waugh were making nice noise:
nice, adj. and adv. … Particular, strict, or careful with regard to a specific point or thing. Obs. Fastidious in matters of literary taste or style. Obs. – Oxford English Dictionary
• The past 16 years have involved a lot of questioning and reflecting, both in terms of what it means to be “good”, but also on the various racist myths about Muslims. — Let’s be clear: Muslims are neither good nor bad. We’re just human, Farah in terms of Elahi, The Guardian, 14/xii/2017.
Elsewhere other-available:
• Oh My Guardian #1
• Oh My Guardian #2
• Oh My Guardian #3
• Reds under the Thread
• Es war, als ob er irgendwohin horchte, auf irgend ein unheimliches Geräusch. — Thomas Mann, Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1897)
• He seemed somehow to be listening, listening to some uncanny noise from nowhere. — “Little Herr Friedemann” (translated by David Luke)
“… for comic effect he also drew on neglected Arabic words, including buldah, or ‘freedom from hair of the space between the eyebrows’, and bahsala, to ‘remove one’s clothes and gamble with them’.” — Christopher de Bellaigue, The Islamic Enlightenment: The Modern Struggle between Faith and Reason (2017), writing of the Lebanese Christian Maronite novelist Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1805-87) (ch. 5, Vortex, pg. 167)
“Noise” may have an interesting etymology. Some think it comes from “nausea”, which itself comes from Greek naus, meaning “ship”. Neither the putative etymology of “noise” nor the undisputed etymology of “nausea” would have been news to J.R.R. Tolkien. He was, after all, a professional scholar of literature and languages.
But that’s why The Lord of the Rings is often a puzzling book. Why did someone so interested in words and languages write so clumsily? As I’ve said before: I wish someone would translate Lord of the Rings into English. But perhaps if Tolkien had been a better writer I wouldn’t have read Lord of the Rings so often. And perhaps if he’d been a better writer there would have been no Lord of the Rings at all. Even so, it’s hard to excuse writing like this:
He heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound. […] There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a snarling noise. – “Fog on the Barrowdowns”, Book One, VIII
Why did he use “sound” and “noise”? They’re redundant, because creak, scrape and snarl already describe sounds or noises. You could argue that the additional words are there to balance the sentences, but if they hadn’t been there I don’t think anyone would have missed them:
He heard behind his head a creaking and scraping. … There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a snarling.
Later in the book Tolkien gets it right:
At that moment there came a roaring and a rushing: a noise of loud waters rolling many stones. – “Flight to the Ford”, Book One, XII
Then he gets it wrong again:
Turning quickly they saw ripples, black-edged with shadow in the waning light: great rings were widening outwards from a point far out in the lake. There was a bubbling noise, and then silence. – “A Journey in the Dark”, Book Two, IV
This would have been better:
There was a bubbling, and then silence.
It’s crisper, clearer and doesn’t strike an ugly twentieth-century note in an archaic setting. And it should have been what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in the first place. I don’t know why he didn’t and I don’t know why his editors or those who read early drafts of Lord of the Rings didn’t point out his error. That’s why I’d like to visit the Library of Babel and find a copy of Lord of the Rings written by Clark Ashton Smith.
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 