Author: Leach, Amy
Title: Things That Are (Essays)
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Year: 2012
Link: https://worldcat.org/en/title/755905560
page xi (Donkey Derby):
Usually all we have to do when we go a-conquering is build a boat, find a benefactress, recruit a ribald crew, and wear radiant glinting helmets. With these four easy steps my kind has conquered faraway lands, and seas and moons and molecules. However, even after thousands of years, we have had no luck conquering Tomorrow. Over and over again, we have set sail in pursuit of Tomorrow only to discover Tomorrow's antecedents. It is a recurring disappointment, like never leaving Spain.
page 148 (The Wild What):
Several centuries ago the stars reconstellated into figures more relevant to the times. The Earth had been industrializing, mechanizing, electrifying, while the stars were still trotting out swans and goats and bears every night. Men of the world advised the stars to update their subjects, to figure forth printing shops and electricity generators. Obligingly the stars complied, and for a while the sky was up to snuff; the stars were sophisticated and worldly; but then shops supplanted shops and machines surpassed machines and the sky was left behind, littered with musty antiques.
page 180 (The Glossary):
VASTY (As differentiated from "vast") Has approximately the same meaning as "biggy", "hugey", and "giganticky." Do not let anyone tell you these words are not words; all words are words.