Words&Dirt

“Who doesn’t love a good story?  But stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.  Some news stories, science stories for instance, never really end.  They’re all middle.  It’s a narrative nightmare.

Try to fix the problem by tacking on a provisional ending, and the reports appear more conclusive than they really are.”

––The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, by Brooke Gladstone, pg. 65

“‘Until we washed ashore near Surat, I fancied I had my thumb on the “stan” phenomenon,’ Jack said.  ‘Turks live in Turkestan.  Balochs live in Balochistan.  Tajiks live in Tajikistan.  Of course none of ’em ever stay put in their respective ‘stans, which causes the world no end of trouble, but in principle it is all admirably clear.  But now here we are in Hindoostan.  And I gather that it soon comes to an end, if we go that way.’  Jack waved his right arm, which, since they were going south, meant that he was gesturing towards the west.  ‘But––’ (now sweeping his left arm through a full eight points of the compass, from due south to due east) ‘––in those directions it goes on practically forever.  And every person speaks a different language, has skin a different color, and worships a different graven image; it is as variegated as this’ (indicating a pied hillside of weavers).  ‘Leading to the question, what is the basis for ‘stanhood or ‘stanitude?  To lump so many into one ‘stan implies you have something in common.’

Surendranath leaned forward in his palanquin and looked as if he were just about to answer, then settled back into his cushions with a faint smile under the twin spirals of his waxed mustachio.  ‘It is a mystery of the Orient,’ he said gravely.

‘For Christ’s sake, you people need to get organized,’ Jack said.”

––The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 453-4