ATTENTION TO ALL CREATIVE MINDS:
photographers, actors, designers, writers, models, artists, stylists, MUAHs, artistic directors.,.. and others alike
there is the challenge described:
Swan-dive down the rabbit hole of the internet and sometimes you land in the most unexpectedly beautiful places. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is one such underwater cave. This most whimsically named website is a collection of invented words and their definitions offer a nomenclature to phenomena we’ve all experienced but struggle to describe.
I only stumbled across it because I wanted to use something unusual to name our magazine issues from the start back in October 2018. I came across the website by accident and my search led me to the list of words and their definitions on an unassuming website. It was like a rainbow in a box. This word-nerd website was like a discovery of the new continent, no a new planet, a bookworm’s secret garden, a magic fairytale forest that hovers between etymology and neologism.
Sure, all words were invented by someone somewhere, neologisms in their own right, until they’re formally or informally adopted into our lexicon. But some experiences defy taxonomy. Enter the post-Linnaean realm of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Creator John Koenig has shared the gift of his imaginative words with a world in dire need of emotive language. For the privileged logophiles who have time for existential crises, and for those who loathe the modern slush pile of words dumbing down our modern vernacular like totes and obvs, covfefe and hamberder, Koenig’s craftsmanship couldn’t be more timely. His words are as precise as they are lovely with a hue of magical realism. They are as efficient as tools and as intricately beautiful as origami swans.
This gentleman straight-up invents words to name those nameless watercolor human experiences we can’t yet quantify, what the tip-of-the-tongue can’t quite articulate to someone who wasn’t there. His words have a way of labeling ideas with care and nostalgia and nuance. It’s like finding a cookbook of recipes whose ingredients you’ve always known but never knew the dishes had names. He’s not an alchemist, per se. But he unbraids the chemistry of sensation and neatly labels it for us.
Nomenclature has an ugly imperialist history but in this case an oppressor is not claiming for himself what is already named, what has always existed. He’s giving people who didn’t know they had shared experiences new words to articulate them with awe and accuracy. And reading some of them is a surprisingly quiet and intimate experience with faceless strangers, like silently appreciating the same sunrise or super blood wolf lunar eclipse.
We often lack the imagination to invent our own words, there are no hanging gardens in our minds with perfect fruit ready to pluck. I am so very grateful for this linguistically gifted Babylonian who can. Some words are simple delights like finding a coin on a sidewalk. Others are as colossal and complex as animatronic dinosaurs made out of metal spoons. From small to staggering, all of his definitions are simultaneously unexpected and familiar. Reading through them feels like what the early days of Burning Man must have felt like, before Kanye and Silicon Valley VIP passes— astonishing construction in the middle of barrenness and a camaraderie in creativity that compels strangers to share.
As C.S. Lewis said about friendship, “You too? I thought I was the only one.”
Let's see what new word we can use for our next issue:
OPIA
translated as
n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsKBTIdR99o
ANNOUNCING COMPETITION
on the best concept / style photograph or set of photographs that will fit into the category "OPIA" with the focus on FLAWLESS PHOTOGRAPHY theme.
We publish the best photos in OCTOBER issue 2020 of MARQUIS FASHION MAGAZINE.
The due date for submission is 19 August 2020 1200pm
The works of art should be sent in the form of a direct dropbox link or direct wetransfer link with the full list of credits and your story of inspiration to accompany it
to natasha.marchev@gmail.com or in PM.
Your photos should be a highly acclaimed art in fashion - each image should be like a part of a collective story for the magazine pages therefore making it more readable for everyone who opens it.
good luck!
photographers, actors, designers, writers, models, artists, stylists, MUAHs, artistic directors.,.. and others alike
there is the challenge described:
Swan-dive down the rabbit hole of the internet and sometimes you land in the most unexpectedly beautiful places. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is one such underwater cave. This most whimsically named website is a collection of invented words and their definitions offer a nomenclature to phenomena we’ve all experienced but struggle to describe.
I only stumbled across it because I wanted to use something unusual to name our magazine issues from the start back in October 2018. I came across the website by accident and my search led me to the list of words and their definitions on an unassuming website. It was like a rainbow in a box. This word-nerd website was like a discovery of the new continent, no a new planet, a bookworm’s secret garden, a magic fairytale forest that hovers between etymology and neologism.
Sure, all words were invented by someone somewhere, neologisms in their own right, until they’re formally or informally adopted into our lexicon. But some experiences defy taxonomy. Enter the post-Linnaean realm of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Creator John Koenig has shared the gift of his imaginative words with a world in dire need of emotive language. For the privileged logophiles who have time for existential crises, and for those who loathe the modern slush pile of words dumbing down our modern vernacular like totes and obvs, covfefe and hamberder, Koenig’s craftsmanship couldn’t be more timely. His words are as precise as they are lovely with a hue of magical realism. They are as efficient as tools and as intricately beautiful as origami swans.
This gentleman straight-up invents words to name those nameless watercolor human experiences we can’t yet quantify, what the tip-of-the-tongue can’t quite articulate to someone who wasn’t there. His words have a way of labeling ideas with care and nostalgia and nuance. It’s like finding a cookbook of recipes whose ingredients you’ve always known but never knew the dishes had names. He’s not an alchemist, per se. But he unbraids the chemistry of sensation and neatly labels it for us.
Nomenclature has an ugly imperialist history but in this case an oppressor is not claiming for himself what is already named, what has always existed. He’s giving people who didn’t know they had shared experiences new words to articulate them with awe and accuracy. And reading some of them is a surprisingly quiet and intimate experience with faceless strangers, like silently appreciating the same sunrise or super blood wolf lunar eclipse.
We often lack the imagination to invent our own words, there are no hanging gardens in our minds with perfect fruit ready to pluck. I am so very grateful for this linguistically gifted Babylonian who can. Some words are simple delights like finding a coin on a sidewalk. Others are as colossal and complex as animatronic dinosaurs made out of metal spoons. From small to staggering, all of his definitions are simultaneously unexpected and familiar. Reading through them feels like what the early days of Burning Man must have felt like, before Kanye and Silicon Valley VIP passes— astonishing construction in the middle of barrenness and a camaraderie in creativity that compels strangers to share.
As C.S. Lewis said about friendship, “You too? I thought I was the only one.”
Let's see what new word we can use for our next issue:
OPIA
translated as
n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsKBTIdR99o
ANNOUNCING COMPETITION
on the best concept / style photograph or set of photographs that will fit into the category "OPIA" with the focus on FLAWLESS PHOTOGRAPHY theme.
We publish the best photos in OCTOBER issue 2020 of MARQUIS FASHION MAGAZINE.
The due date for submission is 19 August 2020 1200pm
The works of art should be sent in the form of a direct dropbox link or direct wetransfer link with the full list of credits and your story of inspiration to accompany it
to natasha.marchev@gmail.com or in PM.
Your photos should be a highly acclaimed art in fashion - each image should be like a part of a collective story for the magazine pages therefore making it more readable for everyone who opens it.
good luck!
