Good morning, Doppio readers!
I'm just now, this very moment, returning from a week of vacation on San Juan Island (a knitting retreat I attend with my mother and son annually). I haven't even checked my work email or Slack yet. Before I dive back into the day-to-day, here are a few links to pieces that have given me joy recently:
Stan Carey, a linguist I follow, recently read and tweeted about a book on the history of so-called magic mushroom. The book makes generous use of the term "bemushroomed," he notes, and I'm now happily watching for excuses to use the word myself. Carey writes beautifully about the archaic "be-" prefix on his blog, here. From the post: "Prefixing a word with be- often lends the sense ‘about, around, all over’ or ‘completely’. It can also intensify it, as in the line ‘Snails, much despised, bekicked, and becrushed’ in George Kearley’s natural history book Links in the Chain (1863)."
I was mesmerized by this personal essay about non-Hodgkins lymphoma from a young and marvelously skilled writer, Carag Maxwell, in The Irish Times: "I sellotaped joints and thumbtacked limbs, filling my ribcage with whatever I could find. My heart stayed tucked in my pocket, still warm and ashy." Gorgeous prose; I hope to see more from Maxwell in future Doppios. Read the essay here.
Last time: Le Guin changes her mind, and a "story-first" infographic about the world's flags.
Onward,
Katelyn Reilly
COO, Steyer Content
(206) 409-2948
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