Blog on cut grass lies frail

comprise

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Comprise has been thoroughly skunked, to use Garner’s evocative term. Even professional writers and academics seem not to understand its proper usage. Yet the proper usage is simple: a whole comprises its parts, while the parts compose the whole. The constant and consistent misuse baffles.

nikon z5

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Capsule review: Nikon Z5

Functional, practical, accessible, acceptable. In a word, fine. Not a device to inspire passion or even affection—can any digital camera ?

Rating: ★★★☆☆

anagram

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Brevity is the soul of wit ;
To wish verbosity, futile.

reading log

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

2026

[in progress] To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor • Andrew Seth Meyer
The Left Hand of Darkness • Ursula K. Le Guin
[in progress] We Had It Coming: and other fictions • Luke O’Neil
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 • Eric Foner
How China Works • Xiaohuan Lan
Spring Snow • Yukio Mishima
The Great Global Transformation • Branko Milanović
The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View • Ellen Meiksins Wood
A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism • Jairus Banaji
The Jakarta Method • Vincent Bevins
What Every Web Developer Should Know About HTTP • K. Scott Allen
The Perspective of the World • Fernand Braudel
The Wheels of Commerce • Fernand Braudel

2025

Clown Town • Mick Herron
The Structures of Everyday Life • Fernand Braudel
Murphy • Samuel Beckett
The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 • Eric Hobsbawm
L’ère du capital: 1848-1875 • Eric Hobsbawm
The Age of Revolution: 1749-1848 • Eric Hobsbawm
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union • Vladislav M. Zubok
The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 • S.C.M. Paine
The Penguin History of the USA • Hugh Brogan
Kleine Geschichte Chinas • Kai Vogelsang

about

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death

It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,

White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne’s lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer’s pace.

• Philip Larkin, High Windows

inane asylum

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-21
kids curse, kurds kiss.

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-17
correggio advanced renaissance art by actually looking at a baby before painting one.

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-16
zen koan’t.

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-16
spray nozzle on a faucet : “for when you want to get water everywhere but in the sink”™.

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-15
okay, this book will be the one that makes me understand capitalism.

me @cutgrassliesfrail.com • 2026-04-14
wait, they don’t love you like i love you is a perfect lyric and karen o sings it perfectly.

reconstruction

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Capsule review: Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Eric Foner)

The inability to plan for the consequences of a war and what to do with the conquered ; the haste to move on to the business of America, business ; a childish faith in free market and free labor ideology ; the prerogatives of Capital when challenged by Labor sweeping all other concerns away ; and, of course, ineradicable white supremacy, violently enforced. Quintessential America.

Like many historians, Foner sometimes spends too much space on the details of political horse-trading and backroom deals, but he is otherwise excellent when focusing on the ground-level social realities of the period.

Rating: ★★★★☆

spring snow

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Capsule review: Spring Snow (Yukio Mishima)

A perfect novel. Mishima writes prose with Flaubertian control, detachment, and elegance (a word itself often used in the story) and every element comes together masterfully. Even parts that may seem extraneous to the central story—the visiting princes, Honda’s attendance at a criminal trial, various philosophical digressions—offer their own counterpoints and add meaningfully to the whole.

A striking image, coming after Satoko reflects on her time with Kiyoaki inevitably coming to its end:

Behind him [Honda] heard the sound—so faint that he thought he must be imagining it at first—of Satoko pouring the sand from the shoe she had taken off. To Honda, it sounded like the most enchanting hourglass in the world.

Rating: ★★★★★

summer

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Capsule review: Summer

Worst season, with a bullet. Cold beats hot any day.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

spondees

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

English is chock-full of spondees, arriving out of mere happenstance or as set phrases. Some pleasing examples:

make work
makeshift
dry run
slow roll
smoke test
trash heap
breadcrumb
crockpot
clean cut
time crunch
stick shift
drive train
clean break
off book
dipshit
freak show
try hard
bookworm
blood bath
dead drop
dead end
smash cut
hell bent
meltdown
crosshatch
mismatch
mishmash
crisscross
grid lock
pit stop