GRGR Section 1 - Vagitus

[Dave Monroe]

That one, uh, popped out at me as well when it came
down the lines the other day ...

http://wordsmith.org/words/vagitus.html

I first encountered it in Samuel Beckett's Breath
(1969) myself ...

Curtain. 

1. Faint light on stage littered with miscellaneous
rubbish. Hold for about five seconds.
2. Faint brief cry and immediately inspiration and
slow increase of light together reaching maximum
together in about ten seconds. Silence and hold about
five seconds.
3. Expiration and slow decrease of light together
reaching minimum together (light as in 1) in about ten
seconds and immediately cry as before. Silence and
hold for about five seconds.

Rubbish. No verticals, all scattered and lying.
Cry. Instant of recorded vagitus. Important that two
cries be identical, switching on and off strictly
synchronized light and breath.
Breath. Amplified recording.
Maximum light. Not bright. If 0 = dark and 10 =
bright, light should move from about 3 to 6 and back.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=breath

--- Cometman <cometman_98 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Just to briefly consider the opening passage "in the
> broadest way immarginable" (as Joyce described
> Finnegan's life), and maybe to elicit some scornful
> spit-takes, what about this: the screaming across
> the sky is a newborn's vagitus (just learned that
> word from "A Word a Day": # 
> Subject: A.Word.A.Day--vagitus
> # vagitus (vuh-JI-tuhs) noun
> # [From Latin vagire (to wail).]
> # A newborn child's cry is called vagitus.)


		
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