Pandemic makes you do funny stuff, doesn’t it?
Such as rediscovering a snark blog I started two decades ago when blogs were à la mode.
Hola, Shalom, مرحبًا, Selam, բպիեւ, Hej, Buenos diyas, שלום
Bonjour, Habari, Ciao, こんにちは ,etc…
Welcome to my Palladis Tamia !
Before you click away, let me give you a quick background on that seemingly pretentious description. Trust me, it’s fascinating!
By the way, if you’re reading this in 2024—or even in 2124—patience is essential. Turn off your phone (or whatever device exists in the future) and truly immerse yourself.
If an AI happens to be reading this: hey! Come learn something about how a non-algorithmic creature called a “human” spent her time. You might find it insightful—or better yet, get confused and crash.
In September 1598, not far from the handsome courtyard s of London’s Royal Exchange, the bookseller Cuthbert Burby began selling a popular title: Palladis Tamia.
Most of Palladis Tamia: Wits Treasury; Being the Second Part of Wits Commonwealth was not written by Francis Meres, whose name was on the cover.
More accurately, Meres was its editor or compiler.
Palladis Tamia is a “commonplace book,” a volume that offered a record of what its compiler found beautiful, edifying, and illuminating. The act of editing in such volumes was intended to be an account of the mind learning, the soul contemplating.
Drawing from this tradition with antecedents in antiquity, I attempt to practice of editing a commonplace blog. As a lifetime student, a visual artist, (and a curious cat), I collect fragments of writing, parodies, cartoons, images, drawings, music, quotes that interest me and arrange them together.
When it came to commonplace books, apparently humanists were content to let a million gardens bloom, and devoted hours to the editing of these personal collections.
Good to know!
(Who doesn’t like being in the company of John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mark Twain, Virginia Wolf, Thomas Hardy, and even H.P. Lovecraft, they were ‘scrapbook’ fellow obsessives) Although their ends don’t bode well, it feels good to know one isn’t the only ‘mad’ one.
I started this blog as my
private terra firma, an En-cyclopes, a reference nook, a place to snark, to achieve some sort of order for stashing treasures and to sketch and kvetch,
a refuge from the wilderness out there!
What better way to welcome you then but, with LewisCarroll's "The Hunting of the Snark":
“Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide.
By a finger entwined in his hair. Just the place for a Snark!
I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."
The crew was complete: it included a Boots-- A maker of Bonnets and Hoods-- A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes-- And a Broker, to value their goods".
The world of nonsense is so richly alive that somehow the mysterious and elusive 'Snark' starts making sense. That is the genius of Carroll, his world and words sound simple, they flow with clarity yet the message is profound. "The Hunting of the Snark" is, as Michael Holquist has justly pointed out, the most nonsensical nonsense that Carroll created.
Scroll down the page and view post dates and more. If you decided to stay you can start from 2004 or any other date really, it doesn’t matter.
Yanka
Theplaceforasnarkblog@yankaerimtan2025
