by James SPILLANE

While work­ing in Ke­nai, Alaska…

Gloam­ing: The fall of the evening as the time of dusk or gloom; the twi­light (I thought about this last night com­ing home, or back to my ho­tel room what­ev­er you want to call it, and the snow was falling soft­ly and it just seemed so gloam­ing, at the same time I al­so thought about the Ra­dio­head song: “The Gloaming.”)

Blovi­ate: To orate pompous­ly; used es­pe­cial­ly of politi­cians and news (Flick­ing through the chan­nels back in the ho­tel room, I al­so thought about how much I do this my­self when Suzie called me a Chat­ty Kathy — it just brought me to my knees.)

Solferi­no: The col­or of rosani­line; an in­tense­ly chro­mat­ic and lu­mi­nous pur­plish rose-col­or (This morning’s sun­rise of which I took a pic­ture, and then I took three more, over and over again it re­mind­ed me of the fires that Ke­nai had, ex­cept this was the re­ward, the beau­ty af­ter the destruction.)

Tra­mon­tane: Be­ing or sit­u­at­ed be­yond the moun­tains — such as the Alps (Like “Siena,” of “Burnt Si­en­na,” “Tra­mon­tane” is a place-name; it’s a town close to the Alps in Italy, so when you use this word you are say­ing that you feel the moun­tains much like they feel when look­ing to­wards the Alps in Italy.)

Vi­cis­si­tude: Reg­u­lar change or suc­ces­sion of one thing to an­oth­er (Every­thing seems to be hap­pen­ing for a rea­son and things seem to be lead­ing to the next, al­most as if we are storytellers.)

Es­uri­ent: In­clined to eat and hun­gry (About 10am I felt this way, so hap­py to eat at 11am… the Hun­gar­i­an mush­room soup cap­i­tal of the world.)

Be­night­ed: In­tel­lec­tu­al­ly or moral­ly ig­no­rant, un­en­light­ened (This re­al­ly comes from the Haru­ki Mu­raka­mi nov­el 1Q84, where the leader is talk­ing to folks about a time be­fore peo­ple knew.)

Sough: A mur­mur­ing sound, a rush­ing or whistling sound, like that of wind or deep sigh (I kept hear­ing this all day, al­most to the point of check­ing my ears as a swim­mer does get­ting out of the pool.)

… More to fol­low. We live incredibly!

Filed under Dispatches on June 21st, 2019

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