octogenarian

i read cat's cradle first in florence, found coins and the third language of those four months. we passed it around, further creasing the blue and silver binding. he brought a hardcover narcissus and goldmund to mexico, i sat beside him, not speaking. at the end of the flight, he showed me the edge, golden letters, the finest lines, deepset in the off-gray, royal blue cover.

this was passed too, given away, returned.

d. question 23.

["is addiction just a bad word for passion?"]


do we pursue a passion and an addiction pursues us?
is a passion internal and an addiction external?
are we outside of a passion, attempting to get in, while inside an addiction, trying to get out?

angelus novus

"A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one picturs the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that he angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."
Walter Benjamin, "Thesis on the Philosophy of History." 1940

Oneiric (film theory)

the depiction of dream-like states in films, or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state to analyze a film

For the real houses of memory, the houses to which we return in dreams, the houses that are rich in unalterable oneirism, do not readily lend themselves to description. - bachelard, poetics of space

cipher

fame, noise

in the dictionary, the archaic definition of fame is rumor.
the contemporary definition of a rumor is a 'story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts, or, gossip, hearsay.
the archaic definition of rumor is a continuous, confused noise, clamor, din.

fiction

–noun

1. the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form.

2. works of this class, as novels or short stories: detective fiction.

3. something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story: We've all heard the fiction of her being in delicate health.

4. the act of feigning, inventing, or imagining.

5. an imaginary thing or event, postulated for the purposes of argument or explanation.

6. Law . an allegation that a fact exists that is known not to exist, made by authority of law to bring a case within the operation of a rule of law.

Origin:
1375–1425; late ME < L fictiōn- (s. of fictiō ) a shaping, hence a feigning, fiction, equiv. to fict ( us ) molded (ptp. of fingere )

—Synonyms
3. fable, fantasy. Fiction, fabrication, figment suggest a story that is without basis in reality. Fiction suggests a story invented and fashioned either to entertain or to deceive: clever fiction; pure fiction. Fabrication applies particularly to a false but carefully invented statement or series of statements, in which some truth is sometimes interwoven, the whole usually intended to deceive: fabrications to lure speculators. Figment applies to a tale, idea, or statement often made up to explain, justify, or glorify oneself: His rich uncle was a figment of his imagination.

—Antonyms
3. fact.

source: fiction. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiction (accessed: October 15, 2010).


fiction

late 14c., "something invented," from L. fictionem (nom. fictio ) "a fashioning or feigning," from fingere "to shape, form, devise, feign," originally "to knead, form out of clay," from PIE *dheigh- (cf. O.E. dag "dough;" see dough). As a type of literature, 1590s.

source: fiction. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiction (accessed: October 15, 2010).