I play to rearrange the furniture of my mind. My latest efforts to stir the pot: juxtapose art and words in "Daily Quote."
While wandering through Umberto Eco's book on Ugliness I came across his reference to the "Hisperic Aesthetic." How did I never hear about this before? It explains so much—from James Joyce to British linguistic snobbery. And how ironic: "Hisperic" (medieval Latin variety of Hespericus, western/Latin or urbane, also possible wordplay on Hibernia and Hesperides from which we get Hebrides) implies opposites of central and outlier, center and margin. The Book of Kells: word play and visual play. To be Celtic, nonclassical and irregularly knotted. Leave the Romans to their sunlit symmetry. English was born in a swamp. Metaphors be with you.