Creative land: patuki

Creative Land: Place and Procreation on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea, By James Leach, page 76

I remember recently having the eerie feeling when I sat down to drink a coffee on my doorstep that we are not so far away from myths and from history after all. Wouldn't it be weird if "phatic" had yet another etymology -- namely that it was appropriated from the Papua New Guinneans?

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new shit has come to light

I'm in Thessaloniki and I've taken the opportunity to query one of my Greek colleagues about the root words of "phatic". She takes it beyond "tell" and "show" to "light". So the phenomenon is somehow a "coming to light."

The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer)

In a paper attempting to outline the conceptual domain of comparative psychology , Herbert Spencer discusses the quality of impulsiveness in relation with human races (bearded and unbearded). Among his "sundry questions of interests" about the relationship between mental energy, evolution, complexity, etc. are the following notes: ( b ) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature - such as that of the Bushman - is unfit for social; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ( c ) What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters - such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality , the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings , the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant; and th...

Vitruvius Pollio, The origin of the dwelling house

Chapter 1 of Book II of "Ten Books on Architecture", available from Project Gutenberg . Sections 1, 2, and 7 (from the Richard Schofield translation published by Penguin rather than the one here) are quoted on pp. 218-219 of Spheres II by Peter Sloterdijk. Pay particular attention to Section 2. 1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual,...

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