Sunday, September 21, 2008

Camp Concentration 008 - Sylph portrait


(Treponema Pallidum)

The feeling of being watched:
“There is a feeling that all four off-white walls are of one-way glass, that every drooping milky globe of light masks a microphone”. (p. 24, June 3 entry)


(Dr. Busk to Louis Sacchetti):
“Under the microscope, Pallidine looks much the same as any other spirochete. It is, as the name suggests, spiral in shape, with seven coils. The average Treponema pallidum is much larger, though it may have as few as six coils in rare instances. If you’d like to see one, I’m sure… No? They’re really rather pretty. They propel themselves by stretching out lengthwise, concertina-fashion, then contracting. Very graceful. ‘Sylphlike’ is what the textbooks call it. I’ve spent entire hours just watching them swim about in plasma”. (CC, p. 61, June 13 entry)

Syphilis as sylph:
“Mordecai, the alchemist, winked. ‘Abracadabra,’ he said meaningfully. Then, quick as a sylph, he was gone”. (CC, p. 46, June 7 entry)

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