Yes, I like Max's dives into word origins. You feel the grittiness and
shrillness of the here-and-now is turning into something more considered
and more cultured. And I like 'Our whole immune system is like a
library' as a quote.
Edward
On 13/03/2020 19:37, Bjørn Magnhildøen via NetBehaviour wrote:
i think that's nice deconstruction of 'news' as a virus
hysteria brings out the best in people
On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 6:09 PM Max Herman via NetBehaviour
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi all,
Some odd emails are arriving. Such as, from the local Theater,
announcing that my tickets to /Twelfth Night/ are canceled, as are
performances of /The Bacchae/ and a new work called /CenterPlay/.
Canceled by what? A non-living yet self-reproducing molecule. An
ironic creator of empty theaters, unplayed plays both
Shakespearean and hockey. How novel!
I got another email from the Public Broadcasting System called
"what you need to know about the Novel Coronavirus."
Novel, is a word, it means book, or narrative, new narrative,
nouvelle, and in this sense is old as /Don Quixote/ or /Moll
Flanders/, not that new anymore (though perhaps newer than /Hamlet
Prince of Denmark)/.
At one time it meant "the new books" arguably, neobiblia, novi
libri. Corona means crown, but going farther back meant garland
for military service, from the PIE "bend," as in, you bend a
branch of leaves so that you can place it on someone's head, "they
fought." (Art is from a similar PIE root for joint, arthritis,
arm, a bend that bends?) An identifier of something done and of
identification. Virus means poisonous fluid, possibly from PIE
"ueis-" to melt away, flow, rot perhaps? I often think of the PIE
root weid- to see, but I don't know if they are related. Flow,
see? I try to imagine two hominids trying to talk to each other
at some point, one more motivated, the other patient, one
scribbling with a stick or spoken words, saying "see? see what I
mean?" scribble scribble chatter chatter.
So, book-garland-poisonflow? In any case, it all seems very like
haunting, very like memory. The novel is what we don't know yet,
right? A virus isn't new if we have memory of it. Our whole
immune system is like a library. We each have our own, but we also
are part of each other's. Similar perhaps to how libraries are
connected.
All of which calls to mind Hippocrates I think.
Best regards,
Max
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=novel
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=corona
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=virus
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=vision
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=art
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=medicine
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Telomere-structure-A-Telomeres-are-composed-by-a-double-strand-region_fig2_323523320
Chapter Four: Hippocratic Medicine and Greek Tragedy
https://brill.com/view/book/9789004232549/B9789004232549-s005.xml
https://www.etymonline.com/word/*weid-?ref=etymonline_crossreference
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=*weis-
PS - sadly or happily, that same Public Broadcasting Service email
announces Niall Ferguson's new TV show Networld, tragically or
comically, debuting on March 17, the night I was supposed to see
/Twelfth Night/, the night on which Saint Patrick drove the snakes
out of Ireland.
https://www.pbs.org/video/niall-fergusons-networld-preview-cpi5cf/?utm_source=whattowatchnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=secondarypromo6&utm_content=20200228&utm_campaign=networld_2020
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