W O R D S

Sooterkin exists. Sooterkin exists to please itself. Sooterkin exists to please others. Sooterkin exists to please you, as you please. However, Sooterkin chooses to please nobody.

Sooterkin's existence began recently. Sooterkin's existence may continue indefinitely. Or Sooterkin's existence my cease. As it pleases.

Sooterkin has little to lose, and, as such, loses little. Sooterkin has much to gain. Despite this, it gains little. Sooterkin maintains.

We are Sooterkin.

Background

The 20th century saw an incredible transformation in the way mankind lives. Man has changed from a distributed population of general-purpose subsistence farmers to a highly mobile & centralized population of specialists. Many of these changes started during the industrial revolution, but the years since 1900 have accelerated this transformation to an incredible degree. The last 100 years have seen many of man's dreams come to fruition. Some examples:

The abundance of energy is what has enabled many of the innovations listed above. Abundant energy, and the technology to exploit it, are what fired the industrial revolution. It is what enables most of the people in the first world to spend most of their time worrying about something other than where their next meal is coming from. And what allows most of us time to do something other than exist.

Prior to the industrial revolution, art other than folk art was the exclusive domain of professional artists sponsored by wealthy patrons. The same forces that allow people to be something other than subsistence farmers allow many of us to pursue artistic interests at will. Today's information age also allows direct access to the artist and his art by people all over the world. However, this is a double-edged sword for both artist and patron:

What is Sooterkin?

Sooterkin is our art. Being highly specialized cogs in a highly specialized society, we need not spend a large proportion of our time worrying about subsistence. This leaves substantial leisure time. And Sooterkin is how we spend some of that time.

This website is an attempt to provide you, the patron, with access to our art. As our perception of the artistic merit of our work is our own, and not subject to the whimsy or editorializing of others, beware.

Oh Fortuna!

Genuine Chinese Restaurant Fortune Cookie Fortunes

Silence is Foo!

The modern day "foo" has many possible origins in 20th century slang, but we were startled to see Daffy Duck hold up a sign that said "Silence is Foo!" in a cartoon from 1938.

Spam is Good Foo

The oddest stuff shows up in spam. Or maybe not so odd, the other day. These turned up on Chrismas Eve, in an "Herbal Viagra" email ad from Ana Kent, whoever she is.

• All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.
• The injuries that befall us unexpectedly are less severe than those which are deliberately anticipated.

Here's a good one from early 2006. It claims to be from "Edna D. Mississippi", though the email address ends in .ru:

Yet so far his progress was in the right direction, and he resolved to experiment no further with the instrument, but to let it go as it would, so long as it supported him above the water. However irregular the motion might be, it was sure, if continued, to bring him to land in time, and that was all he cared about just then

When night fell his slumber was broken and uneasy, for he wakened more than once with a start of fear that the machine had broken and he was falling into the sea

Above to learn more or to bring an end to receiving more info and then to see location

Random Free Association:

• Subject: acrimony or anaplasmosis constitutive boomerang coattail
• Body (extract): singleton see hunk luxurious continent it's backbone try gambol try systemwide

Press

The Rolfing Sfone Interview

Web Site Review - Fort Wayne Startlegram

Sooterkin in Context

What is sooterkin? And why? Maybe a survey of the literature will help. Here are some places to look:

• A Poem: Alexander Pope, "The Dunciad, Book the First"
• A Book: Tom Gilling, "The Sooterkin"
• Another Definition: Sooterkin - a joke upon the Dutch women, supposing that, by their constant use of stoves, which they place under their petticoats, they breed a kind of small animal in their bodies, called a sooterkin, of the size of a mouse, which when mature slips out. (from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose)
• A Third Definition: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sooterkin, a rare word of Dutch origin is (1) an imaginary kind of afterbirth formerly attributed to Dutch women; (2) slang for a Dutchman; and a term applied to literary compositions of a supplementary or imperfect character. As an example of this last meaning it offers two examples from Carlyle. (from VictorianWeb.Org)
• Other meanings: A project that is started, botched, and quickly abandoned; sweetheart or mistress; or (derived from soot) a chimney sweep; finally, slang for Dutchman. (www.takeourword.com)
• The word is probably derived from the Old Dutch soetekijn, from soet ("sweet"). Once adopted into English, the soet was corrupted to soot, hence some of the changing meanings (ibid)
• Another Quote: There goes a Report of the Holland Women, that together with their Children, they are delivered of a Sooterkin, not unlike to a Rat, which some imagine to be the Off-spring of the Stoves. (Cleveland, c.1658) (ibid)
• Some Synonyms: birth n. nativity; origin, beginning, nascency, genesis; extraction, lineage; (new birth) regeneration, renaissance, regenesis, palingenesis. Associated Words: natal, native, pre-natal, post-natal, ante-natal, abortion, congenital, connate, connascent, connascence, horoscope, genial, genethliac, genethlialogy, genethliacs, sooterkin, uniparous, biparous, pluriparous, viable, viability, primiparous, natality. (from the Project Gutenberg EBook of Putnam's Word Book, by Louis A. Flemming)