hiatus

Pl. hiatus, hiatuses. [a. L. hiatus gaping, gap, opening, f. hiare to gape.]

1. a. A break in the continuity of a material object; a gaping chasm; an opening or aperture. Now rare.

1563 W. Fulke Meteors (1640) 17b, These holes called Hiatus, differ from wide gapings, in nothing, but that they be lesse, and therefore seeme deepe pits or holes, and not gaping. 1599 Broughton's Let. xiii. 44 Hades was below, and Abraham's bosome was aboue, and betweene them both a great huge Hiatus. 1675 R. Burthogge Causa Dei 319 He saw two Openings or Hiatus in the Earth. 1695 Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth iii. i. 117 The Water of this orb communicates with that of the Ocean, by means of certain Hiatus's or Chasmes passing betwixt it and the bottom of the Ocean. 1737 Franklin Lett. Wks. 1840 VI. 5 Those hiatuses at the bottom of the sea, whereby the abyss below opens into it and communicates with it. 1885 Manch. Exam. 22 June 5/3 One side of the mountain was rent into a large hiatus about 200 yards square.

c. humorously. A rent or hole in a garment.

1761 Sterne Tr. Shandy IV. xxvii, The hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches was sufficiently wide to receive the chesnut.

2. a. A gap or interruption of continuity in a chronological or other series; a lacuna which destroys the completeness of a sentence, account, writing, etc.; a missing link in a chain of events, etc.

1613 Jackson Creed ii. xix. §6 To forewarne the Reader of the hiatus in our aduersaries collections. 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. ii. iii. §17 A Dunce-Monk, being to make his Epitaph at Night left the Verse thus gaping, Hic sunt in fossa Bedæ I ossa, till he had consulted with his Pillow, to fill up the Hiatus. 1676 W. Hubbard Happiness of P. 57 When there are such Chasmaes and hiatus's in the superiour or inferiour parts of a state, they are sad Omens, portending ruine. 1797 Monthly Mag. III. 264 It was printed in the usual Greek characters, with all the hiatus filled up by conjecture. 1844 H. Rogers Ess. I. ii. 59 In 1671+there is another hiatus in his correspondence. It extends over three years. 1874 Carpenter Ment. Phys. i. i. §1 A Material Instrument, whose function it is to bridge over the hiatus between the individual Consciousness and the External World.

b. Logic. A step wanting in a chain of proof; a gap in reasoning or evidence.

a1850 J. C. Calhoun Wks. (1874) II. 269 Where is that hiatus between the premises and the conclusion?

3. Gram. and Pros. The break between two vowels coming together without an intervening consonant in successive words or syllables. Also attrib. and Comb., as hiatus-consonant, -filler, -glide; hiatus-filling adj.
The break or interval of silence is necessary in order that the two vowels may be separately heard, when there is no intervening consonant to mark the division between them.

1706 Pope Let. to Walsh 22 Oct., The Hiatus which has the worst effect, is, when one Word ends with the same Vowel that begins the following. 1875 Lowell Spenser Prose Wks. 1890 IV. 309 note, He [Milton] also shuns a hiatus which does not seem to have been generally displeasing to Spenser's ear. a1898 Mod. The article an has been reduced to a, except before vowels, where hiatus would result. 1945 Mod. Lang. Notes Dec. 550 The spelling donmore for Dunmowe may indicate the development of a hiatus-filling r in sandhi. 1948 D. Diringer Alphabet ii. vi. 350 The letters were also used as ‘hiatus-consonants’. 1953 K. H. Jackson Lang. & Hist. Early Brit. 278 The hiatus-glide with native e was 6. Ibid. 367 The hiatus-filler here is 7 rather than 6. 1968 Language XLIV. 454 The general outlines of this ‘hiatus diphthongization’ have been known for more than three-quarters of a century.



I'll be back at the Manse mid-June beloved readers.

off to Hazelwood Herb Farm this a.m. to get a big jar of the best habanero jelly in the world... 

from the peerless Ben Katchor's Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

On Election Day, Mr. Knipl has a light supper...

Why Conservatives Should Thank Chuck Cadman

"But if you are talking about government functioning in the interests of ordinary Canadians, families, communities and the nation, Parliament functioned better yesterday than it has at any time in the past twenty years. Forget the lack of so-called 'decorum,' the name-calling, the opportunism of the Liberals and the motives of Belinda Stronach. Who cares? If you are keeping your eye on the prize, for the first time in a long time, Canadians actually got out of a federal government what they have been saying for over a decade that they want: a return to activist government which operates in their interests and not in the exclusive interests of corporations and the wealthy.

And they got it because the NDP's leader Jack Layton was able to leverage just 19 seats - a fifth of what the over-represented Conservatives have - to achieve a package of progressive funding arrangements for the environment, cities, affordable housing, child care and universities. All the machinations aside, that is what happened May 19th as the Liberal government managed to win a budget vote by the skin of its teeth"

"Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana," by Edith Helena is a vocal imitation of a violin playing Mascagni's well known composition. It is one of the most novel and at the same time most clever Records so far made for the Edison catalogue. Miss Helena sings this on the vaudeville stage, playing a violin in pantomime the while. In our Record the final notes are sung just to convince the listeners that the violin is being imitated.

— April 1907 Edison Phonograph Monthly [announcing the June records] "  

251004detail1

originally uploaded by Hardicanute.

1st DJ: Do you want to go the movies tonight?
2nd DJ: Dunno, who's the projectionist?

Baghdad Burning

"Now Newsweek have retracted the story- obviously under pressure from the White House. Is it true? Probably… We've seen enough blatant disregard and disrespect for Islam in Iraq the last two years to make this story sound very plausible. On a daily basis, mosques are raided, clerics are dragged away with bags over their heads… Several months ago the world witnessed the execution of an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque. Is this latest so very surprising?

Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk of being forced to eat pork, not being allowed to pray, being exposed to dogs, having Islam insulted and generally being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It is infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this. That's not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in charge have decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.

By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides."

formative influences 5. Frank Gorshin 1934-2005

Riddle me this... 

Tyee Election Central Blog has a good round-up of news & views about the BC election. Very happy the Island is back to being a sea of NDP orange. (not pictured)

Bolinas, California

About Robert Creeley (1926-2005)--a fine close reading/memoir by Stan Persky
 

Aquatic Park, San Francisco


"Nature is a Haunted House--but Art--a House that tries to be haunted" Los Angeles, Trauma, and Orphic Anxiety in the Work of Jack Spicer, by Alicia Cohen

"Spicer's world is not spatially stable like the world we find represented in the poetry of Whitman. In the world of Spicer's poetry, things do not stay in their proper places. In a spatially stable world, not only does the road one walks have constancy; one doesn't hear voices calling out from the spirit world as one traverses it, nor suffer the traumas of a dead man's crucifixion long past. Spicer, as Orphic poet, remembers the death and vertigo of the murdered and disembodied by opening to alien voices not his own. The difference between visible spatial regularity--roads that "go somewhere"--which is found in Whitman, and an unrepresentable world of spatial irregularity--where you are lucky if you can even know the road is there--is the heart of the difference between the poetries of Whitman and Spicer. Whitman's work is obsessed with gorgeous vistas of an American landscape, and with the vital living bodies of healthy men and women of a democratic polis. Spicer can barely see a thing, but his landscape is loud with invisible voices. He loves too, but without the comfort of laying his eyes upon the beloved's beautiful, stable form. Only their strange and often incoherent voices are embodied in the language of the poem."

McMartin Gives BC Libs 51 Seats...I'm not so sure, but either way don't forget to vote!

amongst much else at gmtplus9 is an mp3 (Sunday 8th) of one of my very favorite songs, "How Much I've Lied" by Gram Parsons.

The hollow double tonk--timbre somewhere between a Fender Rhodes and a child's knuckle on a picture window--of the raven overhead evokes the tart agnosticism of Dolphy on the Village Vanguard dates, each solo built up from a couple of notes like cell division, flipping like real estate, vocalic, a wet knot of material unravelling and then its the laces and then its a new knot again, a little tight which is good: meanwhile Coltrane has installed the drapes, driven you to the airport and won't shut up. An epidemic of scattered applause greeted the New Thing, as out of the cthonic mists of Hawthornian repression came the men whose beards had been struck by lightning. Wedding the iron control of Sousa with the prophetic indignation of John Brown they stood at the pillars of the Williamsburg Bridge blowing as if the very rivets would begin to loosen, the hinges of capital buckle and hesitate. And let us have a moment of silence before six punters look up in time to slap their palms twice against their wrists before resuming a loud-voiced, multi-pocket token search.
 

rich, interestingly illustrated essay on a sequence in Abel Ferrara's "Body Snatchers", which had BC's own Meg Tilly in an amazing performance--Come Into My Sleep

"The impassive stepmother waits for her spouse in the hallway, hoping to convince him to not resist --for life will be beautiful if, like everybody else, he just renounces emotion and individuality. And she recites the bewitching chant that "Body Snatchers" reworks from a tormented love scene in Budd Boetticher's "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" (1960): "Where you gonna go? Where ya gonna run? Where ya gonna hide? Nowhere. Coz there's no one ... like you ... left." "

(via GreenCine Daily)
 

Krugman--Staying What Course?

"But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans? That John Bolton will yell at them?"

Don Quixote & his books from Stefan Mart - Homage to an Unknown Artist

"Stefan Mart was the name (or pseudonym) of the narrator and illustrator of the picture book Tales of the Nations, published in Hamburg in 1933 by the "Cigarettenbilderdienst Hamburg-Bahrenfeld" ("Cigarette Picture Service"). It won the hearts of innumerable children and grown-ups in the course of the six years that it was in print. This was due above all to the 150 colour illustrations: they were small in size, but strong in expression, each a microcosm packed with action, each a feast for the eyes like a beautifully set jewel; everything was finely-drawn and clear, indeed with the exaggerated clarity of the caricature; they all radiated the shining, flaming colourfulness of modern painting."


(via the excellent Drawn!)


 

via Metafilter images and records of The First International Polar Year 1881-1884 

impressive site (with PDF's & much else) for the newly launched Clay Sanskrit Library, a series of handy, reasonably priced Loeb Library-like versions of the Indian classics... 

Portland's Bruce Conkle has a new show, "Lament for the Whale-A-Go-Go", May 14 (opening starts at 7) to June 3rd at AVA Gallery, 160 Tenth St. in historic Astoria. 

Letters to Walken 

Under the window at the moment of sleep the filament of the weedwhacker strums hard but damped the first four tines from the kleenex side of a giant comb harmonica. A short length of stick, loosely gripped as in Drums 101, twirls in your palm along the black matte jailhouse bars of the fence, a smothered bell whose resonant itch burrows into your wrist. The recycling box bounces onto the lawn
from the edge of the frame a split second before the truck appears, the new one, which offsets its comparitive slightness and drab yellow detailing with the big chrome grin of its retro grill, the esprit of its contractors, whose practiced nonchalance can't quite disguise their fervor for breaking glass, being outdoors. Perhaps 2/3 of an inch below the surface of the rainbarrel the porchfish sunbathes lengthwise across a lozenge of light, orange to a point of mild distortion, seeming to wake with a start at those infrequent points when its dorsal fin breaks the surface tension, or when the light is interrupted.  

handsome, easy-to-use Canadian Geographic Atlas Online

(amongst much else at wood's lot)

about the bubbly cherry concoction from Salisbury NC,Cheerwine. Includes a history and recipes. Much superior to Dr. Pepper in my view.

(painting by Robert R. Toth) 

from the Tyee--NDP's Krog Silent on Rigged Nanaimo Development

"No other developer ever had a crack at this on the same terms as this developer,” says Ricker, adding more would likely have been interested if they’d known it would involve the handover of public land. “It’s capitalism at its worst . . . It’s totally ridiculous for the NDP to be supporting a strong-arming American developer.”"

This might be a deal breaker for me--and I've got the guy's sign on my lawn.

Mr. Boswell dines with Professor Kant I'm not sure, I think this may be a wheeze of some sort, but I liked it anyway...

"Herr Kant said, that his grandfather had come from Scotland above a hundred years ago16, & that he owed his dispassionate temperament to his scottish Ancestors. Scotsmen, he said, are marked above men of all other Nations, by their Prudence, Perseverence, & Coolness. His words ravishd me. I told Herr Kant, that I had Acquaintance with the branch of his Family, wc had remaind in Edinburgh. This was heedless of me, & to evade inquiry into their Circumstances17, I hurry'd on, to tell him, that I had as cousins the von Boswell18 family in Tilsit, whose Founder had gone from Auchinleck to sweden, & had come down into germany with the Lion of the North.19 Mr Kant's Pride in his scottish Blood, & my connexion with the noble german Faniily, wc bears my Name, made him and me "hale fellows well met." You sure was mighty comfortable.

Mr Kant is small in stature, extreamly thin, & has one shoulder higher than t'other. He has a lofty forehead, & large blue eyes, in wc there is a look of Melancholy, tho' his Manner is chearfull, and not that of a pensive & gloomy Metaphysician. His wig did not fit well, and from time to time his manservant put it right. His nose is red. His fingers are staind with tobacco. His linnen is of purest white. He was drest in a yellow velvet cloak, black silk bretches, & blue stockings with silver buckles. His voice is low, but I think that he can speak to a large auditory." 

Never Mind!

"THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation."

4. The Hardy Boy's Detective Manual. A lot more interesting than the novels. 

3. Tom Swift and His Subocean Geotron

"The young scientist-inventor embarks on one of the most challenging missions of his adventure-packed career. The mission: recover a valuable cache left on earth thousands of years ago by colonists from another planet. Can Tom locate it before his deadly foes the Kranjovians seize the capsule? " 

2. "History Can Be Fun" from the author of "Ferdinand". 

apropos of Anodyne of late, formative childhood reading

1.Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson, reviewed here by a young reader--

"When I first saw it with the rabbit hip-hopping over everything, I expected it would be full of excitement and it was. I read two or three books every week. I like to read exciting books."

I can still remember how worried I was about those bunnies... 

"A Pair of Cats Dancing the Salsa" from C.A.S. Cloud Gallery

(thanks Bifurcated Rivets)
 

Bootleg Browser--numerous booties from a variety of bands... 

It/ll be better tomorrow--site for a forthcoming documentary about Hubert Selby Jr. 

novelist Jonathan Coe's search for the uncut Wilder masterpiece Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

"Of course I have a copy of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes on video, but I don't watch it very often. I even have, on tape now, the audio and video versions of those missing scenes. But it comforts me to know that they are still incomplete, and that there remain other scenes from the film which are lost, perhaps irretrievably. This is how it should be. After all, I have not really been searching for the complete film all these years. I have been searching for something even more unreachable: trying to recapture, somehow, the sense of wonder, of security, of happiness I felt when I first saw the film on that Sunday evening, when it made me forget, for two blissful hours, my fear of returning to school the next day. It is that young self I have been trying to bring back to life. " 

in a fun piece on the UK election, Simon Schama remembers Supermac--

"(Many years on, I'd seen The Enemy close up. Tripping over a rug in the Christ's College senior common room, I rose to find myself face to face with Harold Macmillan's whiskers. 'There there,' Supermac drawled, not missing a beat, 'gratitude understandable; prostration quite unnecessary.') "

Washingtonians wise to keep an eye on B.C.'s election--a solid primer from the Seattle P-I...

"B.C. voters have experienced both activist government and sharp cutbacks as they search for the right combination. In order to solve major problems in the years ahead, Washington voters may need to consider options British Columbia has tried. This election is a referendum on a radical change in course that may help define a future confluence of the two approaches. "

Green Outreach

"The Greens aren’t just using creationism to reach out to Christian voters. John Hof’s Family Life Committee, a pro-life activism group, has been stunned by the early results of their election abortion survey. Three Green candidates have already identified themselves as pro-life: Chris Aikman (Comox Valley), Don Roberts (Prince George-Mount Robson), and Kathleen Stephany (Langley).

“It is my proposal that elective abortions not be paid for by the system,” said Stephany. “My proposal is also to work strongly to reduce the number of elective abortions by offering all women who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy, counseling, and emotional support.”"

arcane critical reference of the week invokes Jennifer Aniston's crap job in Office Space in a review of the new New Order album...

"It's the aural equivalent of 15 pieces of flair--flashy and notable, but the minimum allowed." 

nothing in the mail, almost but not quite muggy, a bit of blue, a little breeze, a book I don't really want to read and the Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings turned up past the point of hearing the phone, or myself thinking, or the cats hurling them against the windowframe... 

Springsteen Without Tears

"Does it derogate Springsteen to claim that he is, in essence, a white minstrel act? Not at all. Only by peeling back all the layers of awful heartland authenticity and rediscovering the old Jersey bullshitter underneath can we begin to grasp the actual charms of the man and his music. " 

review and an interview with my buddy Pete and the team behind short film Bad Blood (starring Alan Cumming) at Tribeca...  

Billy Bragg, Blair's Poodle

"Yeah. That's it, that's what's on offer. You either get that or the Tories. You think the Tories won't privatize, etc.? These are the choices you have to make. They are the only parties that can win the election. I think you have to, unfortunately, hold your nose and do what you can to stop things sliding back."

lessons for BC voters in the sublime Kung Fu Hustle??--

"It's easy to be blown away by the pure visual style of Stephen Chow's film, but it's the subtler messages that have more impact. The most interesting part of the film, is not the road runner antics, or the different schools of martial arts beating each other silly: it's the message that even the poorest of the poor can fight back. For some reason, it made me think about Chile, when ordinary average people took to the street with pots and pans to dispose a despot. (Which is something I'd like to see happen in British Columbia before May 17th, since there is already a large number of people living on Vancouver streets according to a recent report from the Social Planning and Resource Council. There is also a local Beast that needs taking down. Where is the One when you really need him?)"

Oscar Wilde--The soul of man under Socialism

"High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. 'He who would be free,' says a fine thinker, 'must not conform.' And authority, by bribing people to conform, produces a very gross kind of overfed barbarism amongst us."

fine May Day roundup at Daily Bleed

"Those who have by an unrighteous power made merchandise of the earth, giving all to some, & none to others, declare themselves tyranicall & usurping."