(125)An archive,
of tangled threads
an list of words or terms relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief collection of thoughts.
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About;
Similar to a Round (which see).
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Admirable;
better allow it to accumulate for the present
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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Admonitor;
as soon as there is sufficient accumulation
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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blank;
(adj.)—early 13c., “white, pale, colorless,” from Old French blanc “white, shining,” from Frankish blank “white, gleaming,” or some other Germanic source (compare Old Norse blakkr, Old English blanca “white horse;” Old High German blanc, blanch; German blank “shining, bright”), from Proto-Germanic blangkaz “to shine, dazzle,” extended form of PIE root *bhel- (1) “to shine, flash, burn,” also “shining white.”
Meaning “having empty spaces” evolved c. 1400. Sense of “void of expression” (a blank look) is from 1550s. Spanish blanco, Italian bianco are said to be from Germanic. Related: Blankly, blankness.
1
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blanket;
(n.)—c. 1300, “coarse white woolen stuff”, also “a large oblong piece of woolen cloth used for warmth as a bed-covering” (also as a cover for horses), from Old French blanchet “light wool or flannel cloth; an article made of this material,” diminutive of blanc “white” (see blank (adj.)), which had a secondary sense of “a white cloth.”
As an adjective, “providing for a number of contingencies,” 1886 (blanket-clause in a contract). Wet blanket (1830) is from the notion of a person who throws a damper on social situations in the way a wet blanket smothers a fire.
1
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Blow;
The body is a wind instrument, everything a language. Quinn Latimer ends her poem, Rhine Song, with, ‘everything is / a language so open / your mouth and blow.1 ’ The strength of the waves against rock, the ringing in my ears. The shouting of my neighbour, the late night crashing on doors. The final blow breaks the little yellow glass window in the front door, a frosted fracture visible long after the event. Pale pane and the cold air that rushes in through you / pale pain.
- Latimer, Quinn, Like a Woman, Essays, Readings, Poems, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017, pp. 137-138.
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Cast Off;
The manner of finishing.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Cast On;
The manner of commencing the work.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Cast Over;
Similar to Over (which see).
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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–cene;
articulated by Donna Haraway as ‘the recent now’. From the Greek Kainos, Haraway speaks the suffix –cene as a ‘thick, ongoing now. The now that collects up inheritances, that makes ongoing possible. The Kainos of times that are not reducible to an instantaneous present that is always disappearing into the past.’ 1
In a recent Yale University address, Haraway explains this proposition as invitation, ‘We can live in a thick present’, she argues, ‘not an instantaneous present, a thick now where taking care of each other, human and non-human, for partial healing and for flourishing, remain at stake.’ 2 . I am thinking of what it takes to reach backwards, arms lunging, in order to make steady this tumbling ground of the present.
More on the thick present in Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble. Experimental Futures. (2016). Durham. Duke University Press.
- Anthropocene Consortium Series: Donna Haraway, 2016
- Donna Haraway, ‘Making Oddkin: Story Telling for Earthly Survival’ 2017
Crochet Coral Reef Bleached Reef, at the Museum of Arts and Design (NYC). A project by Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring. 2019. Photo by Jenna Bascom for MAD. -
Codeswitch;
In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, in the context of a single conversation or situation.
I came across term as the title to an exhibition of quilts by Sandford Biggers , now on at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
‘The title of the exhibition, Codeswitch, refers to both the artists’ quilt series known as the Codex series and to the idea of code-switching itself, or shifting from one linguistic code to another depending on the social context. The Codex series includes mixed media paintings and sculptures done directly on or made from pre-1900 antique quilts. This process, like linguistic code-switching, recognizes language plurality, as the quilts signal their original creator’s intent as well as the new layers of meaning given to them through Biggers’s artistic intervention.’ 1
‘According to African American oral tradition, people escaping slavery via the underground railroad relied on a code sewn into quilts, which were hung in windows or over clotheslines to mark the route to freedom. The legend remains controversial, but when New York-based artist Sanford Biggers stumbled upon it more than a decade ago, he was intrigued by the possibility that the handmade bedding might have carried hidden messages. Since then, he has transformed dozens of pre-1900 quilts into mixed-media artworks, over 60 of which are slated to be on view starting in September at the Bronx Museum of Art, pending the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions. “I thought it would be interesting to add extra layers of code,” says Biggers, who draws on urban culture, Buddhism and history to construct his own secret iconography. “I’m actually communicating with the original creators of that quilt,” he explains, “so when these are viewed in the future it can be read as a sort of transgenerational conversation.”’ 2
- Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch was co-organized by Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, New Orleans, and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York .
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sanford-biggers-quilts-bronx-museum-180975510/
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Codeswitch (again);
To say something in secret: Code-switching can be used when a person wants to relay a message to another person with the intention that no one else around them can understand if they converse in another language. 1
See Shorthand.
- Martin, Judith N.; Nakayama, Thomas K. (16 May 2017). Intercultural communication in contexts (Seventh ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-07-352393-4. OCLC 969438815
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Confluence;
A coming together, also of rivers. I trace my finger along the lines of my son’s globe that is a mess of half translated placenames and find that this knot of squiggles here in South Eastern Australia has lost the word Murray, so that it reads only Darling.
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Confluence (2);
con·flu·ence
1: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point
2: the flowing together of two or more streams
b: the place of meeting of two streams
c: the stream or body formed by the junction of two or more streams : a combined flood
Orra White Hitchcock (1828-1840) drawing of Connecticut River valley. One of 61 drawings done by Orra White Hitchcock for use in Professor Edward Hitchcock’s classes on geology and natural history. 1 drawing; 143 x 50 cm., Pen and ink on linen Source: Amherst College Archives & Special Collections -
confusion will eat a way;
At times, this land will shake your understanding of the world
and confusion will eat away at your sense
of humanity
but at least you will feel normal.
– Vernon Ah Kee -
Conglomerate;
A conglomerate is a sedimentary rock composed of many different kinds of rocks naturally bound together. A family, just like a rock, can be composed of many parts.
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Coterminous;
having a common boundary with or; Coextensive (with) in space, time or meaning. 1
- The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. p522
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Decrease;
There are several ways of Decreasing, and the methods are also known as Narrowing, or Taking in; but when the word Decrease is used in the instructions without other explanations, it is understood to mean KNIT two stitches together. To Decrease see Fig. 507.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Dowsing;
A form of divination. A contemplation of grafting.
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Dropped Stitch;
Stitches are Dropped in Knitting for the purpose of making open spaces, or when Decreasing; but no stitch should be Dropped unless it has been caught, and will not unravel the work.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Einmarsch;
There are but few firm holders
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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Entrechat;
(probably from Italian intrecciare: ‘to weave’ or ‘to braid’), jump in ballet, beginning in the fifth position, during which the dancer crosses his straight legs at the lower calf.
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Erratic;
from err – to wander. Not even or regular in pattern of movement. Intervals of instability. Acting, moving, or changing in ways that are not expected or usual. To stray. Prone to unexpected change. Fluid, mutable wanderings. The transposition of material. Of a lichen; having no attachment to the surface on which it grows. As sensation. Sometimes queering. Eccentric, queer. Queering the landscape
Margaret Woodward with Balanced Rock, CT. -
Extinction Event;
1,500 ammonites drifted down to the same place over 100,000 years. How on Earth can this be? Every ammonite was a living being. But at the Ammonite Wall, how to relate to them as so much life, and not just a long moment of mass death? An extended extinction event. My mother was one living being, now she has died. In that sense, she is extinct, as there can never be anyone else who is just exactly her. Every death is an extinction, and so every life is momentous.
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Failure;
“It failed catastrophically,” Menke says of the collapse of one wall of the Palisades, the giant basalt cliffs that hug the Hudson River as it winds towards New York. “It must have been an emphatically energetic event — awe-inspiring in the bigness of it.”
1
A rockfall made of trying.
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FATIGUE;
4106 Very much fatigued to-day, and do not feel like writing.1
- The Traveler’s VADE MECUM: or Instantaneous Letter Writer by Mail or Telegraph, for the Convenience of Persons Traveling on Business or for Pleasure, and for Others, Whereby a Vast Amount of Time, Labour and Trouble is Saved. New York: Published by A.S. Barnes and Co. Cincinnati: H.W. Derby and Co. London: Sampson, Low and Son. 1853, p152
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Firmament;
sphere of the fixed stars, which according to Ptolemaic thought was believed to revolve around the planet earth. Also known as the Eighth Sphere.
The Angel of the Eighth Sphere (from the Tarocchi, series A: Firmaments of the Universe, #48), before 1467. Master of the E-Series Tarocchi (Italian, 15th century). Engraving; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 1924.432.48 -
Floofiness;
Floofiness refers to a yarn’s “halo area, where ephemeral fuzzy fibers stick out,” Dr. Matsumoto said, and it changes the way two pieces of yarn interact with each other, their friction and energy exchange. “I’d love to write a paper using the word ‘floofy’ as a technical term.”
1
- ‘Knitting Is Coding’ and Yarn Is Programmable in This Physics Lab, by Siobhan Roberts, New York Times, May 17, 2019.
Image: Network of neurons. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/neurons-brain-cells-brain-structure-440660/ -
Flows;
(n.) something irregularly or clumsily composed; it moves there steadily and continuously; pathways through matter, mo(ve)ments of value, ephemeral routes through an infrastructural ‘stack’.
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Fluctuate;
to be always-already. To change continually. To be in flux. Motion. Irregular. To shift from one to an other. To oscillate wildly. To move within range of the feeder.
Cornell Lab Feeder Watch Cam at Sapsucker Woods, 2020-05-07 -
Foreshadow;
to shadow, indicate or typify beforehand; to prefigure; to pressage.
1- Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Second Edition, 1955, p718
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Forgive;
You’ll know when you’re ready
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Fragment;
FRAG’MENT, noun [Latin fragmentum, from frango, to break.]
- A part broken off; a piece separated from any thing by breaking. Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing is lost. John 6:12.
- A part separated from the rest; an imperfect part; as fragments of ancient writings.
- A small detached portion; as fragments of time. 1
- Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
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Friendship;
FRIEND’SHIP, noun frend’ship. 1. An attachment to a person, proceeding from intimate acquaintance, and a reciprocation of kind offices, or from a favorable opinion of the amiable and respectable qualities of his mind. Friendship differs from benevolence, which is good will to mankind in general, and from that love which springs from animal appetite. True friendship is a notable and virtuous attachment, springing from a pure source, a respect for worth or amiable qualities. False friendship may subsist between bad men, as between thieves and pirates. This is a temporary attachment springing from interest, and may change in a moment to enmity and rancor. There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. There is little friendship in the world. The first law of friendship is sincerity.
1
- Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
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Fungible;
Term used in finance and commerce to mean able to be substituted for something of equal value or utility.
Originates from Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungor (“I perform, I discharge a duty”) (English function) + -ible (“able to”). Originally a legal term, going back to Roman law: res fungibilis (“replaceable things”).
Synonyms: interchangeable, exchangeable, replaceable.
Antonym: nonfungible
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Gifting;
‘The gift is not a gift, the gift only gives to the extent it gives time. The difference between a gift and every other operation of pure and simple exchange is that the gift gives time. There where there is gift, there is time. What it gives, the gift, is time. But the gift of time is also a demand of time. The thing must not be restituted immediately and right away. There must be time, it must last, there must be waiting—without forgetting (l’attente—sans oubli). It demands time, the thing, but it demands a delimited time, neither an instant nor an infinite time, but a time determined by a term, in other words, a rhythm, a cadence. The thing is not in time; it is or it has time, or rather it demands to have, to give, or to take time—and time as rhythm, a rhythm that does not befall a homogenous time but that structures it originally.’ (after The Gift by Marcel Mauss, 1925).
1
- Jacques Derrida, Given Time: 1. Counterfeit Money (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 41.
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Glitch;
A sudden, usually temporary, malfunction or fault of equipment, but also a brief irregularity in the rotation of a pulsar. The brightest pulsar in our sky is the Vela Pulsar. Visible only in the southern hemisphere, the Vela Pulsar is spinning 11 times a second and approximately every three years it momentarily speeds up, glitches. But of course the Vela Pulsar is 10,000 light years away from Earth; everything we observe has already happened a long time ago.
Laptop monitor as a result of water damage. Catherine Rose Evans, 2020. -
Grenuela;
if mutually agreeable
1
- Bedford McNeill (1905) McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants. p398
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Hapticality;
the ability to feel through others.
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Hole;
These are formed in open Fancy Knitting in the following manner: For a small hole—Make a stitch with an Over in the previous row, and Drop that stitch without Knitting in the place where the open space is required. For a large hole: In the previous row pass the wool round the pin either two, three, or four times, according to the size if the hole required, and when these Overs are reached in the next row, knit the first, Purl the second, and repeat Knitting and Purling until they are all formed into stitches.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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How to touch without touching;
Maybe all we have is proximity. I read once, or was I told, I can’t remember, that we can never really touch something, that we never make real contact. As the atoms that build our finger tips, our lips, our bodies, approach another solid, they repel what they encounter. So this sensation we call touch is actually the pressure of a micro repulsion, as tender as it may be.
How to touch without touching, Catherine Rose Evans, 2021 -
In the nick of time;
- Just in time, done at the absolute last moment, in letzter Sekunde. A phrase in which nick means ‘the critical or decisive moment,’ a meaning now obsolete. Not to be confused with nick’s other meaning:
- A small cut or notch on the surface of something. Because in this sense, a ‘nick in time’ is a different thing entirely.
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Join Together;
To work as shown in Fig. 514: Put the two pins containing the work together, the one holding the longer piece at the back. Take a spare pin and put it through the first stitch upon the front pin, and the first stitch upon the back, and KNIT the two together; continue to Knit the stitches together in this manner until all stitches are absorbed.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Julian Period;
This is year 6734 of the current Julian Period. Used mainly by astronomers, the Julian Period is a chronological count of years used to measure the interval between two events, to offer a kind of universal measure of time irrespective of different calendars, eras or chronologies.
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Knit;
[Anglo Saxon Cnittan, threads woven by the hand. See Finger Knitting.]
The first and chief stitch in Knitting, and sometimes called Plain Knitting. It is executed by means of long needles or pins, formed of bone, steel, or wood; one thread only is worked, which is formed into loops, and passed from one pin to another.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Knittable;
Petition local authorities for.
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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Knotted;
Petition has been refused
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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Knottiness;
A joint petition.
1
- Bedford McNeill, (1905), McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants
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Labour;
An inch is taken, a constant stream from a body yearning to be ‘free’. We are stained in the colour of the market, a fleshy capital. No longer human, but metered out in daily tickings of the clock. A ‘secondary’ support structure for an immutable chasm.
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Lifeline;
A lifeline is a strand of yarn that is inserted into the work so that, 1 . if an error is encountered, it is easy to rip back to that point. Leave lifelines in your work until the piece is complete.
- Interweave Knitting Glossary
Unknown person. Maned three-toed sloth, 1626. Held in the The Paper Museum of Cassiano Dal Pozzo collection, Royal Collection Trust. -
loess;
Deposits of silt laid down by aeolian processes over extensive areas of the mid-latitudes during glacial and postglacial times.
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LONELINESS;
6083 I am fond of loneliness.
6084 I am wearied of this loneliness.1- The Traveler’s VADE MECUM: or Instantaneous Letter Writer by Mail or Telegraph, for the Convenience of Persons Traveling on Business or for Pleasure, and for Others, Whereby a Vast Amount of Time, Labour and Trouble is Saved. New York: Published by A.S. Barnes and Co. Cincinnati: H.W. Derby and Co. London: Sampson, Low and Son. 1853, p219
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Loop;
Under - Over - Through
Turkey - Peacock - Goose 1
Long before I learnt to tie my shoe laces, my body was already looping. Our smallest genetic parcels are tightly packed into thread-like structures, coiled up over themselves, loop over loop. To protect their ends during replication, there are small sections of DNA at each end called telemeres, just like that plastic cap at the end of a shoelace. (See also Cast Off.)- Song lyrics by The Knife, (2010), The Colouring of Pigeons. Bert’s Songs Ltd.
Scanning electron microscope photograph of the human X and Y chromosomes. -
Loss (another);
I lost another friend yesterday
Repeat the row.
I have been practicing waiting as your capacity to bend life/time, touches. Even when we prepare for you, in big or small ways we are still thrown by your realness. Caught in your shroud you loop us into backwards and forwards, distorting time, holding our disbelief.
There are veterans who seem better prepared for you—see you coming and can harden the ground and core. Who can swallow better than others or have worn a path—or maybe not? Is it possible to become immune?
Cast off
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Loss (in exhaustion);
‘When we are done with accounting for our exhaustions, we are still left with the question of how, for instance, we value a person’s life—the sum total of the value of their time on earth. The thing is, you can gauge the value of a thing only when you know what you miss when you lose it. The problem is, you would not be in a position to judge the worth of your life were you to lose it. And so, to one school of thinking, the worth of a life can only be gauged from what its absence means to those who inherit the loss.’
1
- e-flux, Journal #27 - Planktons in the Sea: A Few Questions Regarding the Qualities of Time). Raqs media Collective.
Small circle near the Calanais Standing Stones, Isle of Lewis. -
Losses (and deficit);
New and accumulating deficits for things I’m unsure now if I ever had. It’s hard to comprehend a human deficit. Did I ever own them? Is there a stockpile of finite losses that are whittled away over a lifetime? Is someone keeping score. Do we get a quota?
You bring a sadness in all the missings, but you are not forgotten. A falling star with a long tail.
The good thing about moss stitch is that it’s reversible. There is no right or wrong side.
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Malleabalise;
to make malleable.
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Malleable;
Malleable has two meanings. On the one hand to beat with a hammer or pound into various shapes without breaking or returning to the original shape, mostly pertaining to metals. On the other, being adaptable, yielding and amenable.
Pete Matilla’s sculpture for Collision at The Unconformity, Queenstown, 2021. -
Marks;
These are used in Knitting patterns to save the trouble of recapitulation. When an asterisk is twice put, it indicates that the instructions for Knitting between the two asterisks are to be repeated from where the first asterisk is placed to the last, thus: Knit 3, asterisk Purl 1, Knit 6, Over, repeat from asterisk twice, would if written out at full length be: Knit 3, Purl 1, Knit 6, Over, Purl 1, Knit 6, Over.
When a row is worked to a certain stitch, and then is repeated backwards, either the place is marked by the letters A and B, or by a cross (+).
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Meteor Storm;
Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America 189 years ago on the night of November 12-13th, 1833, pictured in E. Weiß’s Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888). -
Minerality;
to become attentive to our minerality is, according to Kathryn Yusoff, to appreciate that we are in extremely close contact (entwined, even) with matters and energies that form the nonhuman dimensions of collective human subjectivity. 1
- Bianca Hester, ‘Groundwork’, 2021
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Misnomer;
A name that is intentionally or inadvertently incorrect.
A diamond that is not a diamond.Quartz
Transparent of smoky
doubly terminated
eighteen faceted word crystals
six on each point,
six around the center.
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Missings;
I just saw what you wrote on the shape of missings and I wanted to thank you for adding that small s to the end of of this already-too-a-full thing. I wanted to say, this thing that is both plural and dissolving, I feel full of it too. I keep going back to try and grip onto little pieces of something solid. But I can’t even tell in which direction I’m reaching. Those finite losses you mention, they hang around, make-felt what was always and already feeling, no? The past. Swells like a belly stuffed with popping corn. And the mouth, poor mouth. Tries day after day to hold it back from spilling.
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Modified Julian Date;
Since its introduction in 1583, the Julian Date has been Reduced, Truncated, and even Modified to meet different needs, usually due to the limitations imposed by computer processing and memory. So much for all that universality.
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Multi Messenger Astronomy;
astronomy based on the coordinated observation and interpretation of disparate “messenger” signals. Interplanetary probes can visit objects within the Solar System, but beyond that, information must rely on “extrasolar messengers”.
The four extrasolar messengers are electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos, and cosmic rays. They are created by different astrophysical processes, and thus reveal different information about their sources. Wikipedia
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Mutual;
held in common by two or more parties. Reciprocal. A financial organisation that is owned by its members and dividing some or all of its profits between them. A type of financial fund that pools money from many people to invest in stocks, bonds or other assets. Each investor in the fund owns shares which represent a part of these holdings.
A wandering tree fern supported by green metal pole. The Cataract Gorge Reserve, Launceston, lutruwita/Tasmania. -
Mutuality;
- The state or quality of being mutual; reciprocation; community; interchange.
- interchange of marks of affection; familiarity.
1
- Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary, (1955), p1187
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non-;
wu wei, the art of not-doing, action through non-action. An alignment with the natural world that resists force and coercion through gentleness. A tender existence. Wu wei, a practice that may be guided by observance of the paradox of water. A substance fluid, soft, and yielding. A flow that incises gorges through mountains. See: the ethics of sitting with forgetfulness.
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Now;
There is no now. A clock on a high mountain runs slower than one at sea level. There is no single time, no universal ‘now.’ We must think of time as a localised phenomenon. Every object in the universe has its own time running.
1
- Carlo Rovelli. Time, Space and Nature of Reality through the Lens of Quantum Theory with Dr Carlo Rovelli, Bridging the Gaps: A Portal for Curious Minds (July, 2021.)
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Orogeny;
A mountain building event. When two (or more) landmasses crash together, forming a new place made of both.
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Over;
TO INCREASE: In plain Knitting, pass the thread to the front of the work through the pins and back again over the pins; or in Purl Knitting, when the thread is already at the front of the work, pass it over the needle and right around it, so that it again comes out at the front. The Over makes a new stitch when Knitted off on the next row, and the method of Increasing by Overs is one commonly employed in Knitting patterns.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Pass the Thread Back;
When changing Purling to Knitting, pass the thread which is at the front of the work for Purling to the back.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Pass the Thread Forward;
When changing Knitting to Purling, the thread that is at the back of the work for Knitting is passed between the stitches to bring it to the front for Purling. This movement of the thread is generally understood, but not expressed, although the term is sometimes used in old books.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Perfuse;
“In practice, it is impossible to measure the extent to which mycelium perfuses the Earth’s structures, systems and inhabitants - its weave is too tight . Mycelium is a way of life that challenges our animal imaginations.”
1
- To permeate or suffuse with a liquid, colour, or quality.
- In medicine, specifically the pumping of a fluid through an organ or tissue.
- To force blood or other fluid to flow from an artery through the vascular bed of a tissue or to flow through the lumen of a hollow structure.
- See congestive heart failure.
- Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures 2021 Vintage: UK, p52
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Perishables;
‘The time of human life is a finite, perishable thing. Which is why two quantities, X and Y of perishable human time, can be brought into a relationship of fungibility only by means of a third thing, Z, that we agree upon as being imperishable, at least in comparison to human life. For thousands of years, this Z was condensed into units of precious metals, especially gold, which were treated as valuable precisely because their durability and their apparent imperishability made them appear as things that lived outside of time.’
1
- e-flux, Journal #27 - Planktons in the Sea: A Few Questions Regarding the Qualities of Time). Raqs media Collective.
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Profile;
profile (n.) 1650s, “a drawing of the outline of anything,” especially “a representation of the human face in side view,” from older Italian profilo “a drawing in outline,” from profilare “to draw in outline,” from pro “forth” (from PIE root per- (1) “forward”) + filare “draw out, spin,” from Late Latin filare “to spin, draw out a line,” from filum “thread” (from PIE root gwhi- “thread, tendon”). Meaning “a side view” is from 1660s. Meaning “biographical sketch, character study” is from 1734. See profile maps.
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punch cards;
Chained paper of a predetermined size (with holes / with the absence of holes) to be read by a loom.
Joseph Marie Jacquard, inventor of jacquard attachment. 1840s. In the collection of the National Museum of American History. -
punch cards (2);
Uniform paper cards of a predetermined size (with holes / with the absence of holes) to be read by a computer.
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Purl;
Also known as Back, Reversed, Ribbed, Seam, and Turned. It is the stitch next in importance to Knit, and produces the ribs or knots in the front of the work where they are required, or, when worked as the back row, gives the appearance of Round Knitting to a straight piece of work.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Purl (another);
- (of a stream or river) flow with a swirling motion and babbling sound.
- a purling motion or sound: of all the rivers I have known, it is to you I will always return, you who empties herself into all oceans at once. Less a purl, more a roaring rush.
Guglielmini’s profile of speeds in a river (Aquarum fluentium mensura), late 17th Century. Taken from Bertoloni Meli, Domenico, Thinking with Objects, The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 2006. -
Quiescence;
Quiescence comes from the Latin ‘quiescere’, to rest or become quiet, a temporary cessation of activity, it is also the period in which a glacier is slow-moving or stagnant.
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Quietitude;
Did I miss something? I often ask myself what is the connection between hearing and listening? Some years ago I started to lose my hearing. Quietly, silently and indiscernibly to me, it was receding. I slowly entered a state of what I think of as ‘quietitude’, placed somewhere between solitude and quietness. This state softly enveloped me, where background noise became muted, conversations became distant and confusing and, without even realising, the sounds of birds, wind, traffic and waves stopped registering. Yet despite these changes, I was still listening – listening and hearing the deafening roar of silence, or the loud ringing of my ears.
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Radical Affection;
“a call for tender acts of individual and collective imagination through which new axes of caring, connection, and resilience might be forged”.
1
- Carolyn F Strauss, Slow Spatial Reader: Chronicles of Radical Affection. 2021. Valiz: Amsterdam.
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Recess;
a space waiting to be made full; of potential, for receding into. An arm off of a larger body. A temporary withdrawal or cessation from the usual labour or activity; pauses, intervals and halts. To resist exploitation, even momentarily.
Ken Isaacs’s Superchair (1967), with a page from R. Buckminster Fuller’s ‘I Seem to Be a Verb’ (1970), designed by Quentin Fiore and Jerome Agel, in the background. -
Reflection;
REFLEC’TION, noun [from reflect.]
- The act of throwing back; as the reflection of light or colors. The angle of incidence and the angle of reflection are always equal.
- The act of bending back.
- That which is reflected. As the sun in water we can bear, yet not the sun, but his reflection there.
- The operation of the mind by which it turns its views back upon itself and its operations; the review or consideration of past thoughts, opinions or decisions of the mind, or of past events.
- Thought thrown back on itself, on the past or on the absent; as melancholy reflections; delightful reflections. Job’s reflections on his once flourishing estate, at the same time afflicted and encouraged him.
- The expression of thought.
- Attentive consideration; meditation; contemplation. This delight grows and improves under thought and reflection.
- Censure; reproach cast. He died, and oh! may no reflection shed its pois’nous venom on the royal dead.
1
- Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
passenger self portrait -
Relations;
My family are all buried in the same place. Is that why the ammonites fell here on the basin floor? It is hard to imagine, because of how long it took - 100,000 years. Unless - can there be deep time memories? How swans always build their nests in the same nook. We have magnetite in our brains, just like granite mountains. There are corporeal navigational systems in birds and bodies. Bodily compasses. Or can we call it memory? We are all chimeras. There are cells from our grandmothers, uncles, brothers, sisters and mothers living inside of all of us. Can we go further – do we have memories of the material we are made of (we are made of star stuff…) Of limestone and tuff, of calcium carbonate and coral, of ammonites. What about cells, about atoms, about mountains? Of mineral memories? I am sure this is not scientifically accurate, but could it be something else accurate, a possibility?
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Remembered;
Held in language, or in muscle and bone, or in the corner of the eye
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Residence Time;
The amount of time it takes for a substance to enter the ocean and then leave the ocean is called residence time. Human blood is salty, and sodium, Gardulski tells me, has a residence time of 260 million years.
1
- Sharpe, Christina, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Duke University Press: Durham and London, 2016.
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Riffles;
The shallower, faster moving sections of a stream. Look for areas with a fast current where rocks break the water surface. That’s a riffle. Riffles are important to fish habitat. As water rushes over the rocks it adds oxygen to the water. See purl (another).
1 -
Round;
When Knitting with four or five pins, each time the stitches have been once knitted.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Seam;
A name given to Purl Knitting, but usually indicating the one Purled Stitch down the leg of a stocking, to form the seam, and which aids in counting the stitches.
1
- Caulfeild, S.F.A. & Saward, B.C., The Dictionary of Needlework, Blaketon Hall Ltd: Exeter, 1989; facsimile edition of the second edition of The Dictionary of Needlework published in London, 1885.
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Scintillations;
6375 There were scintillations from the meteor in its progress. 1
- Abraham Chittenden Baldwin (1853) The Traveler’s Vade Mecum; or, Instantaneous Letter Writer by Mail or Telegraph, for the convenience of persons traveling on business or for pleasure, and for others, whereby a vast amount of time, labor, and trouble is saved.
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Secret;
Forgotten
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Seismometer;
I broke down on the street sobbing last night when I came back, as my glasses fell off when I took my mask off after getting off the train - and I didn’t notice. Once home a little later - I did and thought - fuck where are my glasses - hunted through the house and realised they must have fallen off when I took the mask off, but it was so cold and stormy and almost a gale so I didn’t notice. So, I went out into the storm and traced my steps, the light on my phone a weak hand held lighthouse. And in the end I did find them - down by the station - almost intact - the very end of one arm broke off… you can’t see that as it is hidden behind my ear - I still can wear them, but will need to fix somehow as it’s sharp. And why was I sobbing you might ask. I began sobbing once I found them. A secret unspeakable truth. At 11:45 at night on September 12th, 2020 I had the glasses next to me on the floor while I was doing my nightly stretches - when I got the message from Samara that we needed to speak ASAP. I knew then in that instant my mother had begun to die - and as I sat up - I put my hand down wrong and landed on the glasses - where the arm hinge bent slightly - wearable but a little off balance. And I have worn them that way ever since - somehow like a clock that stopped at the moment she began to leave me. And I fucking lost it thinking I had lost the glasses, but hadn’t and had found them, but never with her again. It is such a deep and complex animal, this grief, this loss, the dementia, all of it.
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Semihora;
There is an undercurrent of feeling in favour of
1
- Bedford McNeill (1905) McNeill’s Code: Arranged to Meet the Requirements of Mining, Metallurgical and Civil Engineers, Directors of Mining, Smelting and Other Companies, Bankers, Stock and Share Brokers, Solicitors, Accountants, Financiers and General Merchants.
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Shorthand;
Intimates speak in shorthand.
This is shorthand for that, and that is shorthand for us.
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphein (to write). It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek brachys (short), and tachygraphy, from Greek tachys (swift, speedy), depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal. (Wikipedia)
Pitman’s English and Shorthand Dictionary, Centenary Edition, (1917)
Based on the original work of Sir Isaac Pitman with lists of proper names, grammalogues and contractions, and an analytical introduction on the formation of shorthand outlines the definitions.
By Arthur Reynolds, M.A., Oxon. London, p172 -
Sift;
SIFT, verb transitive. 1. To separate by a sieve, as the fine part of a substance from the coarse; as, to sift meal; to sift powder; to sift sand or lime. 2. To separate; to part. 3. To examine minutely or critically; to scrutinize. Let the principles of the party be thoroughly sifted. We have sifted your objections.
1
- Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
Cape Neddick, Maine -
Slip;
To Slip a stitch, proceed thus: Take a stitch off of the left pin, and slip it on to the right pin without securing it in any way. The Slipped Stitch in Fig. 522 is shown upon the right pin.
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Soft;
‘hush, be quiet. We’re talking about soft little things.’
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superimposition;
[double exposure, G.S. Smallwood, Chicago, undated], Library of Congress photography collections. -
Tender;
- . -. -.…-.
Purl space knit space purl knit space purl knit knit space knit space knit purl knit
- . -. -.…-.
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Tenderness;
In her essay Scenography of Friendship, Svetlana Boym draws the reader into a world of ‘diasporic intimacy’—a kind of tender, non-posessive friendship of shared longing. Boym writes; ‘Tenderness is not about complete disclosure, saying what one really means, and getting closer and closer. It excludes absolute possession and fusion. Not goal-oriented, it defies symbols of fulfillment. In the words of Roland Barthes, “tenderness … is nothing but an infinite, insatiable metonymy” and a “miraculous crystallization of presence.” In tenderness, need and desire are joined. Tenderness is always polygamous, non-exclusive. “Where you are tender, you speak your plural.”’
1
- For a discussion of diasporic intimacy, see Boym’s Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001) and Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), pp. 224–225.
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Terminus;
I learnt about the concept of ‘terminus’ from philosopher Brian Massumi whilst I was practising-with the Senselab in Montréal. In an illuminating conversation for the Senselab’s Infelxions journal, Massumi writes: ‘The first making of the moment, the inauguration of the event, is that absolute coincidence between the past and the dawning present. Not a subject thinking or being toward the world, but the world reconstituting itself around an actively present germ of the past. There’s already, in that immeasurable instant of incipience, an activation of tendencies toward the future. The future has a kind of felt presence, an affective presence, as an attractor. Because each tendency tends toward a certain kind of outcome. It is attracted by its own end. That end point is what James calls a terminus…It is the contrasts between termini that interfere and resonate, and modulate what comes [next].’
1
- Brian Massumi. INFLeXions No. 3 - Micropolitics: Exploring Ethico-Aesthetics (Oct. 2009)
Wendy Morrow, Rehearsing Fossil 2018 for Lost Rocks (2017–21) by APE. The Hobart Gunpowder Magazine, Queen’s Domain, nipaluna / Hobart. -
Texxture;
refers not really to surface or even depth so much as to an intimately violent, pragmatic, medium, inner level (at first more phenomenological than conceptual/ metaphysical) of the stuff-ness of material structure… it complicates the internal… Food and sex may be the common hedonistic domains of this quality, for even more than in friction, slipperiness, nappiness, or fuzziness, this texture resides in properties of crunchiness, chewiness, brittleness, elasticity, bounciness, sponginess, hardness, softness, consistency, striatedness, sogginess, stiffness, or porousness. In Heisenberg’s model of vision, the observer’s gaze transforms the object one would like to know, because this look implies the deflection of light off of the object. Analogously, for TEXXTURE, the Heisenberg principle, almost identical to the problem of feedback in observation, becomes even more literally and epistemologically violent. For touch and physical pressure transform the materials one would like to know, assess, love.
1
- Renu Bora, Outing Texture, Novel Gazing, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Ed.), 1997, Duke University Press
Still, The Octopus/La Pieuvre, directed by Jean Paul Painlevé, 1928. -
the blindness of the seeing eye;
“the strange state of mind in which one knows and does not know a thing at the same time” — Sigmund Freud
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The Eighth Sphere;
see entry for Firmament.
A published Event, Erratic Ecologies Field Station, Or an emergent apparatus for speculative research (2019) (detail). -
The Return;
These days I have been struggling, trying to press back those overwhelming organs of the past. Rushing back and forth, the resistance, a line made of fierce. Or fog to the sting of grief. Each day. I cannot say exactly what grips but something savage is at work. Each hour. As I try to sure up the sides of this grieving well with additional staves of fresh timber, the trauma continues to leak here and here, do you see where I am pointing? Each time I return to the site of that holding, a new hole seems to perforate the skin. Just big enough for the point of a pencil. To mark for eternity, what is open. What remains. Think of something really good she says. Think of a place that makes you feel safe. The directive is more complicated than it seems. Before me now, that great stand of ancient yews in Borrowdale. Arms of twisted fibre, reaching up and around that deep green valley. Me, feet in liverwort, thick with envy for the still.
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The Return (arboreal);
The Trees Fleeing from Man, Destructor of the Forests. Illustration for Apel·les Mestres’s poem Liliana. Pen and ink drawing on paper, 1905. -
thread vein;
A thread vein is a very thin vein, especially one that can be seen through the skin. Sometimes called a spider vein.
This reminds me of a poem I love by Bernadette Mayer:
I don’t mean to get all
Parallel universey on you
But I am at once the spider
The spider web, and
Me observing them -
Time;
‘When thinking about the qualities or, to use a more precise term, the qualia of time—the ineffable, intrinsic, private, directly apprehensible sense of what happens when we are confronted with duration—be it in waiting for a bus, the arms of a lover, the walls of a prison, or by the shores of a sea—we realize that every instance of the apprehension of time’s qualia is layered on the memory of other experiences, that in some incomprehensible way, the time spent in the arms of a lover is understood not just in reference to itself, but also in contrast to the time spent waiting our turn at a ticket counter. And often, at the ticket counter or on the assembly line, waiting while the clock weighs down on us, we are recalling the intensity and the comfort of the time spent in the arms of a lover. When we trade time, which time are we trading, which layer of qualia, and how can these add up and be accounted for when our own clocks drift away from each other, from time to time?’
1
- e-flux, Journal #27 - Planktons in the Sea: A Few Questions Regarding the Qualities of Time). Raqs media Collective.
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Time (again);
‘It is time that has us, not we that have time…Our time began when we were born, and will end when we die. We have done nothing to earn it, so we cannot pretend that it is ours. How do we share and exchange that which is not ours? What does it mean to use words like sharing, exchange, and reciprocity in relation to something that cannot be owned?’
1
- e-flux, Journal #27 - Planktons in the Sea: A Few Questions Regarding the Qualities of Time). Raqs media Collective.
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Underwriting;
in it’s simplest sense, is to write under something, especially under something written; to subscribe. An underwriter agrees to pay for or finance an undertaking by adding one’s name to a document. A ledger. We are thinking about a framework we might come to call an Underwriting Exchange. We are talking about the practice of readers underwriting artists by guaranteeing payment in advance for a process, service, object, idea, relationship or language. More than crowdfunding, underwriting (embracing speculative risk) becomes the fluctuating value itself—the economy of investment exchange. A constantly fluctuating value driven by language, proximity and the markets. In equal measure.
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Value;
always in excess of measure, in excess of its-self, value is what cannot be possessed. Shimmer, gloss, pulse, value is the qualitative edge of the being of relation. 1
- Manning, Erin. For A Pragmatics of the Useless. 2020. Duke University Press
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Vein;
noun. 1: any of the tubes that carry blood from all parts of the body towards the heart
2: the frame of a leaf or an insect’s wing
3: a narrow area of a different colour in some types of stone, wood and cheese
4: a thin layer of minerals or metal contained in rock, synonym seam
a narrow water channel in rock or earth or in ice, a lode, a bed of useful mineral matter. something suggesting veins (as in reticulation) specifically: a wavy variegation (as in marble)
5a: a distinctive mode of expression: style
b: a distinctive element or quality: strain introduced a welcome vein of humor
c: a line of thought or action
6a: a special aptitude: inherited an artistic vein
b: a usually transitory and casually attained mood
c: top form
transitive verb. veined; veining; veins: to pattern with or as if with veins
An image I (Jen Bervin, tendril) made from a textile magazine by drawing the image on the reverse though. It was published on the cover of Denver Quarterly a very long time ago, and yet I thought of it all day today. -
Woolgathering;
To indulge in aimless thoughts or daydreams. Originally a reference to the act of gathering loose tuffs of wool caught on fences and bushes as sheep passed by, a slow task with little reward that meant the collector had to wander in a seemingly aimless manner.
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work;
Lately I have found myself asking, is this the work? or this or this? Brittle re-enactments, memories spiked. Brined. Wandering. I spend hours lining up words on the foreshore of my tongue. Allow them to self-organise. Transpose. The mouth, both vessel and cavity, at once ringed by language and scattered in glittering shards of LaBelle’s oral imaginary. The work of holding what cannot be held. Feathered globe of dandelion. In just one breath.
WENCESLAUS HOLLAR (1607-77). Etching of a pink-mouth murex shell (Phyllonotus erythrostomus) c.1645. Held in The Royal Collection Trust. -
YARKE;
Slightly tender. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p66.
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YARMO;
Tender but not rotten. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p66.
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YARPY;
Tender on the tip. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p66
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YARYP;
Tender on the flesh. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p66
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YAVUR;
Do not give so much yield. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p67
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YAVYS;
Doubtful yielding wools. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p67
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YAWEP;
Give a little more yield. 1
- Private Cable Code of Bell and Wilson Wool Exchange, Melbourne C.1. Australia. Cable Address “BELLWILSON” Melbourne, p67
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Yield;
- to produce or provide, especially in relation to agriculture,
- to surrender to arguments, demands or pressure, but also,
- (of a mass or structure) to give way under force. See also Yielding.
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Yielding;
The tree outside the bedroom window glows like an over-ripe persimmon drunk in the afternoon heat. An Angophora costata, or smooth barked Sydney apple gum. Her trunks rise upwards two floors, go this-way-then-that. Shimmers not an arm’s length from the sun. I think of all the ways she has acquiesced, in order to make pliable her stature. Undressed for the most part, her canopy towers above us offering a celebrated haven for the local birdlife. Like mine, her arms fold into elbows where small creases bend the weight and snare, now and then, the immovable object of our house. Orange gun metal bark sheds carefully when it can. Smooth barked Sydney apple gum skins my window in a fizz of pooling silver. Pressures of cambium and sapwood coursing wildly out of sight.