Ipsi

« Ipsi profecti a palude ad ripas Sequanae e regione Luteciae contra Labieni castra considunt. » (J. Cæsar)

Μηδοι

Herodotus (4.37.1) informs us that the Μηδοι (Medes or Medians) lived north of the Persians, and south of the Saspires, while H. T. Peck’s Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (Minxburgh, 1898 [os]) specifies that the area inhabited by the Μηδοι was “bounded on the north by the Araxes [River], on the west and southwest by the range of mountains called Zagros and Parachoatras (Mountains of Kurdistan and Louristan), which divided it from the Tigris and Euphrates valley, on the east by the Desert, and on the northeast by the Caspii Montes (Elburz Mountains). It was a fertile country, well peopled, and one of the most important provinces of the ancient Persian Empire. After the Macedonian conquest it was divided into two parts — Great Media and Atropatené. See Atropatené.” We do not deem it amiss to report here that Peck seems to be following E. S. Shuckburgh’s 1889 (os) translation of Polybius’s Histories: “Of the natural strength and extent of the district it would be impossible to speak highly enough. For [the country of the Μηδοι] lies nearly in the centre of Asia and in its size, and in the height of its steppes compares favourably with every other district of Asia. And again it overlooks some of the most warlike and powerful tribes. On the east lie the plains of the desert which intervenes between Persia and Parthia; and, moreover, it borders on and commands the ‘Caspian Gates,’ and touches the mountains of the Tapyri, which are not far from the Hyrcanian Sea. On the south it slopes down to Mesopotamia and the territory of Apollonia. It is protected from Persia by the barrier of Mount Zagrus, which has an ascent of a hundred stades, and containing in its range many separate peaks and defiles is subdivided by deep valleys, and at certain points by cañons, inhabited by Cosseans, Corbrenians, Carchi, and several other barbarous tribes who have the reputation of being excellent warriors. Again on the west it is coterminous with the tribe called Satrapeii, who are not far from the tribes which extend as far as the Euxine. Its northern frontier is fringed by Elymaeans, Aniaracae, Cadusii, and Matiani, and overlooks that part of the Pontus which adjoins the Maeotis. Media itself is subdivided by several mountain chains running from east to west, between which are plains thickly studded with cities and villages.”

Oracle

A claim, clear or obscure, often given orally, but sometimes via tracings of coal dust, ramifications of coral, leachings of acorn and taro, and so on, of things real or imaginary that shall come to pass, enabling, by any and all means, me and U Readers to get out of this predicament, this eleven-letter word for a cement-soled prediction portended by the mish-mash of adjectives and adverbs adhering like fly scat to these palm-sized rectangles of paper people keep handing me at Subborainizy or Barbès-Rochechouart, but, strangely, no where else.

La Cuna

I remember my mother singing this lullaby to me when I was clamped in the typical Tixputo crib: * acula nuca, laña cuña llana, cuca la ñuca luna. * anula caca luna, cal nunca, aulla, “Ña Cuca-Luna, acuna *-llaca!” Una uña — clac! — a luna cuña la “lunalaclanu analcu.”

A possible Appalachian version goes like this: The cradle supports the nape, clamps the flat wedge, charms the jointless (i.e., full) moon. The cradle nixes the sulks, but is never too stern, and cries out, “ Mrs. Cunt-Moon, rock the scruffy little pouch-rat’s cradle!” A fingernail — squeak! — invents (a neologism), “sclorpion-moon-town-beyond-the-river.”

For the Flouzianians: Le berceau adosse la nuque, serre la cale plate, aguiche la lune sans doigts. Le berceau annule le mal luné, dur jamais, hurle, “Mme. Con-Lune, berce le berceau du zigoto!” Un ongle — scliffe! — a la lune invente “scorplunion-hameau-à-travers-la-rivière.”

And my fellow Tixputanita, Ouida, Appalachifies it thus: This crib constrains a baby’s baldback napcomb, binds flat and conical its skull’s front, charms a dactyl-lacking moon. This crib puts paid to your surly moods, but ain’t too strict, and howls, “Ms. Moon-Cunt, rock that scruffy bastard pouch-rat’s crib!” A digit-claw — scriiiiik! — against that moon scratch-coins, “sclorpimoon-town-across-that-nullah” (that is, Tixpu).

« Sonaron muy pertinentes estas palabras ensayísticas, dichas allí, nada menos que en * misma del género literario del ensayo. »
— E. Vila-Matas, Doctor Pasavento

Glebe

“the living by owning over the surfers of the * whose sway craven minnions had caused to revile” [J. Joyce, Finnegans Wake].

« L’yogî aux sens vaincus, rassasié de la distinction et de la science, qui de la cîme, où il est placé, voit d’un œil égal la * de terre, la pierre et l’or, est appelé un youkta, un sage. » [Mahābhārata, Bhishma Parva, 1,072.]

“Greek rebels cheer when Helen enters her Greek temple (the steepled * where jewelled steeples shelter her ephebes)” [C. Bök, Eunoia].

« Les ouvriers sont attachés à la même *, subissent la même oppression, obéissent à des aspirations communes. » [E. Cheysson, La lutte des classes, Revue Internationale de Sociologie, 1893.]

“And also the advowson, donation, presentation, and free disposition of the rectory or parsonage of Shandy aforesaid, and all and every the tenths, tythes, *-lands” [L. Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman].

« Puis ce qui n’avait été que facultatif, devint obligatoire; ces pratiques devinrent légales et finirent par attacher le paysan à la * et à le réduire au servage. » [C.-D. Anghel, Chronique du mouvement social : Roumanie, Revue International de Sociologie, 1893.]

« Les religions ont rendu à certains peuples le même service que les hommes ont rendu à certaines espèces d’animaux; elles les ont domptés, attachés à la *, domestiqués! » [L. Stein, Origine psychique et caractère sociologique de la religion, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« Les campagnes bientôt suivirent la ville; et en effet, la population rurale occupée, elle aussi, de travail industriel, n’était qu’une prolongation de la classe ouvrière urbaine, les griefs des gens de la campagne étaient ceux des gens de métier de la ville ils se réunirent à Poperinghe, formèrent une colonne qui s’avança pour aider les frères artisans à Ypres; avec eux se réunissait partout la * on entra dans la cité. » [A. Milhaud, La lutte des classes en Flandre au moyen âge : artisans contre marchands, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« Les paysans gardèrent une liberté assez étendue; seulement ils perdirent leur signification politique et ça et là ils devinrent attachés à la * ou à la suite de rébellions inefficaces se trouvèrent réduits à la tenance. » [C. N. Starcke, Mouvement social : Danemarck, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« Aux paysans incomba la cons cription; ils étaient accablés par les corvées, les champarts et une multitude d’autres impôts; ils devenaient, en outre, attachés à la *. » [C. N. Starcke, Mouvement social : Danemarck, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« Et même dans les classes les plus misérables de notre pays, des martyrs de la *, on recourt souvent encore à des aliments plus funestes, tels que le maïs pourri, les châtaignes, et même — horribile dictu — les glands. » [A. Groppali, Mouvement social : Italie, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« Et en effet quelle est la communauté d’intérêts qu’il peut y avoir entre le paysan du Nord et le serf de la * au Sud, entre le métayer de l’Italie centrale et le feudataire de la Sicile? » [A. Groppali, Mouvement social : Italie, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1897.]

« La plèbe des tribus formait les vrais travailleurs de la *, qui la cultivaient pour les détenteurs, moyennant un cinquième de la récolte brute, d’où le nom de khrammess donné à cette catégorie. » [Ch. Roussel, Mouvement social : Algérie, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1903.]

« C’est ainsi qu’en face du fermier insolvable devenant dans l’empire romain un colon, c’est-à-dire un homme attaché à la *, se dresse le paysan libre, mais dépourvu de moyens d’existence, qui, en Russie, afin de se procurer le capital qui lui manque (le serebro) devient dès le XV^e siècle, sous le nom de serebrennik, le prototype du serf ou du vilain. » [M. Kovalewsky, La classe sociale, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1903.]

« A vrai dire, quelle idée d’une patrie plus grande que le hameau où il gémit attaché à la *, mais plus petite que la vague humanité présidée par le lointain monarque spirituel de Rome, peut sourdre du cerveau et du coeur de l’homme, quand il voit sa province changer constamment de propriétaire selon la fortune des combats ou des héritages? » [H. Blondel, Le patriotisme et la morale, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1903.]

« Avec sa servitude, ils brisèrent la protection partielle contre l’arbitraire que lui assuraient jadis la loi, les moeurs, les privilèges des corporations, l’indissoluble union à la * féodale, la fixité même du montant des corvées. » [E. Rignano, Du régime économique déterminé par le droit de propriété actuel, Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1903.]

« Il n’est point indispensable que tous les enfants du paysan restent attachés à la *; mais seulement que chacun d’eux obtienne, non point la même part, mais une part de valeur égale. » [A. Lambert, review of Albert Chéron. — De la transmission intégrale des exploitations agricoles ou industrielles dans le droit suisse. Paris, 1902. Arthur Rousseau, 1 vol. in-8°. Revue Internationale de la Sociologie, 1904.]

« Les diamants de Mirny, donc, il fallut creuser pour aller les chercher, casser le permafrost à coups de dynamite, forer un trou dantesque, large comme la ville elle-même — on y aurait plongé tête en bas les tours d’habitation de cinquante étages qui y poussèrent bientôt tout autour —, et, muni d’une torche frontale, descendre au fond de l’orifice, piocher les parois, excaver la terre, ramifier des galeries en une arborescence souterraine latéralisée au plus loin, au plus dur, au plus noir, étayer les couloirs et y poser des rails, électrifier la boue, alors fouir la *, gratter la caillasse et tamiser les boyaux, guetter l’éclat splendide. » [M. de Kerangal, Naissance d’un pont. Paris: Verticales, 2010, pp. 11–12.]

Glom

The encouraging porp and glomp of my compatriot and companionable senimalist in promiscuous textuality, la feue Ada Romer, assisted my endeavors to eglomerate from their glomerular agglomerate the glomerous conglomeration of these glomuliferous Words to Make a Story Out of, the budding polyps of which bore the working title, Words to Glom a Story Out of, from which said moniker my all-too-soon departed divastigatrix’s cajolery eventually instigated that I should desist in dubbing them thus en masse, and that I instead glomectomate the glomus of glom, disposing of the morbid, retaining the mordant, and mold the latter into the motile, cosmetic muscle of make or mark (I chose the former), the reason being that M. S. Litarn, a Nordic Anglomaniac hailing from the banks of the Glomma, had already conglomerated his or her glomangiomastic glomeruli under the latter rubric which gloms so richly the multitudinous glomera — redolent of an appropriation of a stolen stash of snatch-muffins, of a grab bag of ogled kennings — of which glom is capable, as, for example, various of my transglommifications from the copper-glimmery Saxo-Frankish blicken of S. E. Spitmarkx’s Luftig-Pfeilschriftige Abbildung show below in the following airy arrowscripts:

“Thoughts glom the shoulder of the word. | Die Gedanken blicken auf die Schulter der Wort.” [§ 3.1.]

“The copper-glimmer of thought gloms the sandpattern. | Der Kupferschimmer des Gedankes blickt den Sandmustern.” [§ 4.5.]

“We make to ourselves glommings of doorcracks. | Wir machen uns Blicken der Türspalten.” [§ 5.6.]

“The glomming is a mouth of windiness. | Der Blick ist ein Mund der Windigkeit.” [§ 5.8.]

“The glomming is a doorcrack. | Der Blick ist ein Türspalt.” [§ 6.1.]

“The glomming thumbs a human syllable in airy smoke. | Der Blick daumt eine menschliche Silbe im luftigem Rauch.” [§ 8.1.]

“The face of deluded objects is a glomming of the word. | Das Gesicht der wahnen Gegenständen ist ein Blick des Wortes.” [§ 9.1.]

You will find nothing even remotely resembling the above or the below in Litarn. At the risk of redundancy, however, I shall recount the circumstances under or on top of which I, aided and abetted by Ada, glommed glom. Following my rendezvous hebdomadaire which had become a weekly habit in the post-Moéu monde morne into which my once gay mundo had sunk, I descended from the fifth or sixth floor of 65-bis, rue Poussin, but instead of opting to glom, as was typically mon habitude, the Montreuil-bound nine at porte d’Auteuil, I decided to profit from the preternatural warmth western Paris seemed still to hive with on this late autumn afternoon — the lithe bees of the sixteenth arrondissement, in fact, were heatedly intromitting their compact gilded bodies into the gaping throats of the suggestively named ganteline, or clustered bellflower (Campanula glomerata L.), which was tardively girdling the dull flanks of the aforesaid edifice with livid solferino skirts of damask glomerules, while back home (if, that is, one’s lieu d’exil can ever be called “home”) back home in the eighteenth arrond., if they ever ventured there at all, our anthophilic friends had already waxed shut their hexagons for hibernation — I decided, in a word, to face the sunset and brave the Bois. It was well I did, for it was there, on that singularly late autumn afternoon, as I mournfully strolled through the rustling russet shells of withered chestnut leaves along the allée des Fortifications, past the hedge-leaping equids of the hippodrome, and into that limpid amber light that seems always to be hiding just beyond the western and eastern limits (but never to the north or south — odd) of Paris, it was there, in the bois de Boulogne, as I crunched along the grovelling gravel of the chemin des Gravilliers, that I first ogled it gloweringly in the creeping crepusculum, that I first glared at it glutinously, and then, as golden reinettes glowed from their espaliered arbors, I grabbed and clutched and, in a word, snatched at it gluttonously, until, beneath a lone persimmon tree dangling its seductive saffron fruit, I paused at last to admire the hefty haft of my meaty catch, to turn it this way and that in my expert palm, then to let it cling to me lepastically (that is, like a scaur) whilst — with all the gongs and glockenspiels and glass harmonicas of Gluck ringing gloriously beneath a castrato’s melismatic moan — I glided like a glowworm’s glossolalic glissando (vid. R. Roussel, Impressions d’Afrique) into that deep glen’s gloaming where, to digits deft enough to untangle strand by strand the sweet green blades of cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata L.), tumid pillbugs of the species Glomeris marginata (Villers, 1789) could be palped in the act of stridulating on the dark humid loam — then, in the calm, glad glade once again, with the glacial wind of gratitude gilding my gander’s gold, I gloated, spent and patulous, my glaucous eyes glazed half-closed after having had my gladiolus globbed, glossed, and glutted by the glove-like glottis of that glittering glamour girl with a glib gleam, glint, or glimmer in her glistening ocular globules and a heady sprig of Durango root (Datisca glomerata C. Presl) gracing her mischievous grin — for it was no mere troglomorphic yakshi-vision that my still bruised though recently therapized smara (Skt: memory, desire) had conjured out of the glomming there, I mean here, in my fifth or sixth exile, but a paradisiacal muse of rhythmic trance, an avid apsara of vivid incantation, an incantation, moreover, whom or which or that I had espied, esperado, espalmé, and very near espigado, esprité, and espoused oceans ago in my first visit to Owlstain’s Glamporium — yes, you’ve guessed it: it was Ada Romer herself, momping about in the dwindling shade of that magical arbre de kaki, rhythmically fondling and mouthing the snaky coils and scrotal sac of a gaita tixputana whose billowing air bladder was of tender goatskin sewn and whose polished bite- and finger-shafts were hewn from solid cylindrical chunks of that miel-y-plátano scented wood known to New Lexicans as granadillo rojo (Dalbergia glomerata Hemsl.). Her eyes, kohl-rimmed, smiled in mimickry of the flat brown lunate pods of that tree. She continued, as I approached, to blow and squeeze, coaxing from that throbbing organ a reedy, breathy sort of samba. I saw that her irises were dilated from that trance-inspiring potion partook of by only the divinest of naïads and most obliging of nymphs, at the base of which solution Intrussyan glomusha (Datura stramonium L.) writhes and coils naga-like, and I began, one by one, to dehisce her delicate quaking carpels, to gently tease out from between petal-pliant husks a parsimonious quartet of pulsating grains, to knead and knuckle their spongy, though springy, musculature until, upon the surface of their glistening membranes, tiny beads of a hot oily honey-like substance glowed, to press the tongue of my thumb into these warm waxy malleable seeds, expelling, thus, all their delicious sap, and then to mold with my fingers’ lips the resulting mass of glue and pulp into a single lubricious bolus, a rare and generous glyph — glom: the first, while Ada played on, her bagpipe bleating (though some wags toss out vicious word that I tore them when I spread and pinned, and that Ada’s alae are still bleeding...) — glom: the first, in other words, of the many glagolithic shapes and shards I intended and still do to deploy as slabwork and grouting of the fine-grained tesselation composing my Serious Novelistic Encounter (SNE) destined to bear no other title but — what else? — Words to Glom Make a Story Out of — glom: able to convey senses not unrelated to the Scots glaum or glam (Litarn: “bordering Kintail, the Falls of Glomach may be reached by the intrepid Englishman, by means of a difficult footpath of several leagues through the wild, remote countryside of Ross-shire, Scotland”), the Sanskrit glaha, the Romani džanglo — glom: a savvy gambler, a cunning sage, a wise thief learned, like Arjuna, in the ways of guile and gauntlet — antique virtues, archaic arts. Glum too often, obscured by gloom, passed over in the gloam, our modern lexicons fail to let glom glow where it should: so many times have I pursued that primordial slug as it spooled out the languorous magic of its stentorian scat through the chaste verdure (“the thermophilic chemoorganotrophe Dictyoglomus thermophilum is an anaerobic bacterium that elaborates the xylan-digesting enzyme xylanase with which English paper manufacturers have been able to pretreat wood pulp in order to obtain high levels of whiteness without having to commit recourse, as your Scottish or French paper manufacturers are wont to do, to chlorine bleach” — Litarn again) of a newly fledged Wörterbuch only to find a moldy glitch at the spot where glom, omnivorous mogul of slow moans in old loggias, should logically be. In other words, thus, I have glommed glom (in accordance with the twilit rites d’automne au Bois as described above) into the cornerstone of my Words to Make a Story Out of from which U Readers may see its uliginous hyphae groping turgidly into the marbled glair of two pairs of eyes (organs of glomming) locked in the staring mutual glom of groping for words to make a story out of.