55 books
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11 voters
Sailboats
“
Whatever the water touched was riparian: that moist layer of air and rich earth along the shore was an Eden for many forms of life. Some drowned in a daily flood, while those that knew how, thrived. There was something riparian too about the people who spent most of their time on the water. Those whose language and equilibrium had been dictated by the elements around them. Who’d learned to hang on in the ever-shifting swell and drift of water under their feet. Contrast and contradictions abounde
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― At the Waterline
― At the Waterline
“
the presence of an old salt aboard the Elizabeth Seaman was profoundly reassuring. “Iron men in wooden boats,” they were called, as opposed to the wooden men in iron boats of today, like Kittredge, Farmingdale, and Eddie himself. Old salts partook of an origin myth, being close to the root of all things, including language. Eddie had never noticed how much of his own speech derived from the sea, from “keeled over” to “learning the ropes” to “catching the drift” to “freeloader” to “gripe” to “bra
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