Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 08:27:38 +0100
From: Willard McCarty <Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: hiatus, -us (n. m.), "opening, abyss, open mouth"
Dear Colleagues:
>From tomorrow until 12 July I will be away from my Victorian pile and its
much more recent computing machinery, wending my way through Germany to
Debrecen, Hungary, and so out of touch for periods of time. I'll do my best
to attend to Humanist while I am in transit and at the ALLC/ACH, but days
may go by without the usual stimulating publications. Once was a time when
members had serious withdrawal symptoms at even the smallest hiatus, but now
the volume if not the quality of material coming to you via the Internet is
such that Humanist must take satisfaction in being one among many sources of
stimulation. A memorable line from a memorable British movie of the 1960s
(The Knack, and How to Get It, VERY politically incorrect now) --
"anything not in constant use atrophies" -- is true of the online world
even more so than of the physiological. Virtual things have all the
permanence of smoke. I apologise for not being able to keep the smoke
signals coming, but be assured that the fire, though dampened down for
these two weeks, will continue to burn. Please don't hesitate to send your
fresh-cut or seasoned logs; they'll be safe until the fire next time.
Hmm, a rather apocalyptic mood. Must go look at the entrails and patterns
made by the flights of birds to see what this means.
Yours,
WM
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dr. Willard McCarty, Senior Lecturer, King's College London
voice: +44 (0)171 873 2784 fax: +44 (0)171 873 5801
e-mail: Willard.McCarty@kcl.ac.uk
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/>
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