nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

hannah and her sisters, woody allen dir.

quotes 

e.e. cummings, somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond:

"(I do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."

we watched this the other night.

that last line of the poem,

i am not sure i have read better,

for a line of love.

woody allen is obviously best advertisement for ny ever.

it made me want to visit again

and walk those streets.

first time round,

i was reading f scott fitzgerald,

so was in 20s and 30s new york.

found myself dreaming of excess and glamour,

and disappointments,

in grand old hotel foyers

and under striped apartment awnings.

we did see woody allen pay jazz

at the carlyle.

that was pretty great.

she seems a fascinating woman, edith sitwell.

i just finished reading

taken care of: the autobiography of edith sitwell

little augury has some brilliant posts on her

(and from which many of these images come).

::the peacock::

there was a peacock in the grounds of their estate, renishaw,

who was edith's best friend for a while growing up:

"he would wait for me until i left my mother's room, then,

with another harsh shriek would fly down into the large gardens.

we walked around these, with my arm around his lovely neck,

that shone like tears in a dark forest.

if it had not been for his crown, which made him slightly taller than me,

we should have been of the same height...this romance lasted for months.

then my father bought Peaky a wife
(in my eyes a most dull and insignificant bird)

and he discarded my companionship."

::on poetry::

i often think i should be reading poetry,

but i never really do.

this autobiography by edith sitwell

did not make me admire her poetry altogether,

but she gives illuminating insight

into how poetry is made,

rythym, tempo, dissonance and assonance.

she used synaesthesia or sense transference quite a lot in her poems:

"(because) the language of one sense was
insufficient to cover the meaning,

the sensation, I used the language of another,

and by this means attempted to pierce down to the essence

of the thing seen, by discovering in it attributes which at

first sight appear alien, but which are acutely related"

Some that I liked:

"Each dull blunt wooden stalactite

Of rain creaks, hardened by the light."

and these two are nice:

"Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,

Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree."

(according to Edith, there was "a great trouble with the critics"

about those lines...her words in response:

"'A wan grassy sea'? Is not the sea often the colour of summer grass?

'A swan bosomed tree'. Has nobody seen a tree covered with snow?")

::on eccentricity::

"eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe,

a form of madness. it is often a kind of innocent pride,

and the man of genius and the aristocrat

are frequently regarded as eccentrics because

genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of

and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."

she also has very good words to say about him,

which i am always all for.

collective nouns

we went to williamstown on sunday to eat chips and potato cakes on the rocks by the sea.
the question of the collective noun for octopus came up. there is not much information on it (maybe because they are lone rangers in the sea? i have no idea on these questions), but:

the most likely answer to the question, "what is the collective noun for octopus?"
a tangle of octopuses.
(octopi as the plural is a bit of a red herring, from wiki: "Fowler's Modern English Usage states that 'the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses,' and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic.")

octopuses seem like really great creatures. this is a little bit on a story that circulates about a very sneaky smart octopus. it escapes from its tank nightly to go eat some fish or similar from another tank, then crawls back to its own tank before morning, with no one the wiser, until staff begin to notice the depleting fish population in other tank. search "smart octopus" and you will also find some good stuff of octopuses opening jars, escaping through 1-inch holes, etc. etc. they are now up there on my list of favourite (not usually a pet) animals .

but collective nouns, that was my original point.
i think they are a wonderful, very underrated aspect of english.
this omniglot blog entry lists some great ones, and also has a good comment by someone named mike, relating the english collective noun system to the japanese pluralisation system. in japanese "counter words" act as pluralisers, and vary for each object being counted. for example, the counter word for inanimate objects depends on the shape of the item: a different counter for long things; a different one for flat things; a different one for mechanised things etc. etc. mike's comment gives some examples to illustrate this.

the below are some great collective nouns
from AskOxford (collective nouns for animals),
and also omniglot blog:

A plague of locusts
A troop of monkeys
A superfluity of nuns
A parliament of owls
A pandemonium of parrots
A conspiracy of ravens
An absence of waiters
A gaggle of swans
A congress of baboons
An army of caterpillars
An obstinacy of buffalo
A murder of crows
A school of dolphins
A parade of elephants
A busyness of ferrets
An embarassment of parents
A stand of flamingoes
A siege of herons


the pictures featured here are some of tim walker's collected animals.
the top one, swans, have a great range of possible collective nouns, including:
a bank of swans; a bevy of swans; a drift of swans; a lamentation of swans. see AskOxford for more.

edit: i just saw this brilliant artwork by allison shulnik via a drawing diary.
there is a drawing of a blue octopus there:)

edit #2: via the comments i see this site is doing wonderful work with the collective.
unfortunately, i am not very twitter-y and actually have no idea how twitter works.
but please have a look at their great collection.

a cluster (or clutter) of cats;
a glaring of cats (which i think is more appropriate here)

a colony of rabbits; a kindle of rabbits

a rabble of butterflies; a flight of butterflies (plus other creatures in there as well)

i just really love this tim walker image.
there probably is a collective noun for grasses, but i don't know it...