Seven hundred and eighty-six

A throwaway reference in Adiga's The White Tiger (in the Indian cinema, before the film begins 'the number 786 would flash against the black screen -- the Muslims think this is a magic number that represents their god', p.8) sent me to Wikipedia:

The Arabic letters of the opening phrase of the Qur'an sum to the numerical value 786 in the system of Abjad numerals. Not all Muslims place emphasis on this numerological analysis; however, some — mostly in Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Bangladesh — use 786 as a substitute for the phrase بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم bism illāh ir-raḥmān ir-raḥīm ("in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate")

There is something satisfying-looking about '786', I'd say. Maybe it's that it starts on a holy number (seven), then steps up one (as it might be, into the trans-holy) before falling back respectfully to one below. You can imagine a musical phrase following that cadence; and indeed, the the key phrase itself starts on the holy 'name' (bism), before reaching higher to the actual name itself (illāh) and then falling gracefully backwards to divine attributes ('ir-raḥmān ir-raḥīm')

Slip Kid

First track on 1975's underrated Who by Numbers. I primp my ears: the rhythym starts with a dried-peas being shaken and some syncopated boingy b'dooms. Then, barely audible in the background, Townshend counts four 2:4 bars, to cue in the rest of the band. Does he really say: 'one, two, three, four, five, six, bin, bag'? I believe he does.

It's one of the Lifehouse songs, of course: and in some sense about the travails, and marginalisation, of youth. Beyond that I really can't parse it. When I was younger I believe (without thinking about it too much) I took the title to be a variant of 'latch-key kid', but I don't now think so.

Salt

In his book, Friendship's Bonds: Democracy and the Novel in Victorian England (University of Pennsylvania Press 2004: Google books has a chunk of it, here) Richard Dellamora argues 'Western concepts of the nation-state have been constituted in part in relation to the story of Sodom in Genesis. In other words, Judeo-Christian concepts of state depend upon the imaginary projection of a condemned opposite, called Sodom' [18]. He traces the way key nineteenth-century texts chart the opprobrium attached to 'dangerously near, dangerously assimilated' national or ethnic groups, 'intimate Others'--the Jews, for instance--and 'Victorian distrust or dislike of homosexuality as the extreme version of male intimacy.' It puts a new twist on the interpretation of Fagin in Oliver Twist, for instance, with his grimy, secret, intimate/dangerous harem of boys.

One point that Dellamore makes is that for Victorian theologians 'sodomy' was, at least, until the end of the century, parsed in a more wide-ranging way than just male homosexual sex. Some things aren't covered: I wondered, for instance, about how (assuming Dellamora is right) it affects the development of nationhood that one's intimate-Other is always already laid waste and constituted only on a refugee level. Isn't there a kind of implied triumphalism in this? But mostly it got me thinking about the saltiness of the Sodomitic situation ... which is to say, the way salt has to do with desolation and infertility, but also with life and sexuality (I've talked about this, a little obliquely, before). By this logic, homosexuality would be 'saltier' than straight sex; that's right, I think.

Go

Phonetically, almost onomatopoeically appropriate word: go. The consonants releases the vowel, almost launches it.

Fly poem

And, yes, this mocha-coloured fly
inhabits light,
the white spaces with the distant
fringing of blue where none live.
It is all he has ever known.

He is on my forearm,
rubbing his eyes in disbelief
at the splendour of his domain.

Tweedledum/deeiana

A glancing point of similarity, this, but given how widely read Landor's Imaginary Conversations were in the nineteenth-century perhaps this passage (from 'Conversation between Chaucer, Boccaccio and Petrarca') was at the back of Carroll's mind when he wrote the Tweedledee and -dum episode. Landor's Chaucer takes up much of this conversation with a lengthy tale about the bumbling, cowardly but endearing English knight Sir Magnus Lucy. Sir Magnus is 'a knight of ample possessions and of no obscure family, in the shire of Warwick.' He yearns to be a warrior, but is too childish.

The good Lady Joan [his Mum] would never let him enter the lists at jousts and tournaments, to which indeed he showed small inclination, nor would she encourage him to practise or learn any martial exercise. He was excused from the wars under the plea that he was subject to epilepsy; somewhat of which fit or another had befallen him in his adolescence, from having eaten too freely of a cold swan, after dinner. To render him justice, he had given once an indication of courage. A farmer's son upon his estate, a few years younger than he had become a good player at quarter-staff, and was invited to Charlecote, the residence of the Lucys, to exhibit his address in this useful and manly sport. The lad was then about sixteen years old, or rather more ; and another of the same parish, and about the same standing, was appointed his antagonist. The sight animated Sir Magnus; who, seeing the game over and both combatants out of breath, called out to Peter Crosby the conqueror, and declared his readiness to engage with him, on these conditions: First, that he should have a helmet on his head with a cushion over it, both of which he sent for ere he made the proposal, and both of which were already brought to him, the one from a buck's horn in the hall, the other from his mother's chair in the parlor; secondly, that his visor should be down; thirdly, that Peter should never aim at his body or arms; fourthly and lastly, for he would not be too particular, that, instead of a cudgel, he should use a bulrush, enwrapped in the under-coat he had taken off.

The fight goes ahead, although a wag puts sneezing powder (seriously: 'a powder of a sternutatory quality' Landor calls it) in Sir Magnus's helmet and he collapses crying aloud that he is dying. ('crying, "Oh Jesu! Jesu! I am in the agonies of death: receive my spirit!" John Crosby kicked the ankle of the farmer who sat next him on the turf, and whispered, "He must find it first".') All very ho-ho, no doubt; but also more than a little Tweedledumdeeish, no?

Venice

Come to Venice looks like a repudplication, almost a tautology; but it's not (Wikipedia says, rather sternly: 'connections with the Latin verb 'venire' [to come] or [Slo]venia are fanciful'). Maybe that's right, but if not then Venice should stand as a warning. Cities should be careful with their names. 'Come!' said Venice, and the waters responded ...