Hotdog 2

Pierre Curie’s skull was eggshell on the cobblestones of Paris, thought Doris, flipping pikelets.

Three people weighing and packing eggs
Reference Number: 1/1-008480-G

Hotdog 1

Serial is an ongoing publication by Cilla McQueen with images from the collections of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

The first chapter of Serial is titled 'Higgs'; it was published in full on 23 November 2009.

Chapter 2 is titled 'Hotdog'. Keep an eye on this blog for installments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Hotdog 1

Marie Curie stirred sludge in a cauldron with an iron bar as tall as herself, reducing pitchblende to a grain of light.

c-axis rotation photographs of hyacinth from Snowy River
C. Osborne Hutton, 'Contributions to the Mineralogy of New Zealand—Part V'. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 88, 1960-61.

Higgs

'Higgs' is the first part of Cilla McQueen's 'Serial', which is being published on this blog in small sections every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Here is the full text of 'Higgs'. Next, we begin 'Hotdog'.

Through waist-high grass cut through the empty section.
Bend to retrieve the glossy supplement falling out of the newspaper.
Slip ankle-deep in muddy water

Jump the stream, land in tough bracken.
A narrow track through lupins up the bank to the road, not a short cut.

One wet shoe, damp pages stick together, gold high heels dancing,
a dress the colour of wild lupins, mascara, holidays, bin it.

Feel for keys, braille-fingered over pen, lipstick, purse, phone, cards, diary, paper-clip. Not a jingle.

Hurry back down the bank steeper from above,
retrace the slippery track under the lupins,
brush off lupin flowers in a clearing edged with serried russet stalks,
no passage visible.

Until a tabby cat
appears, stares, disappears.

Find the opening, stride through tall resistance, arms covering the face;
slide into the stream.
The keys unseen. Nor palpable among the boggy roots.

Go home. With a chisel ruin the frame, climb through the window.
A duplicate, a duplicate,

A cup of tea, make scones for Eric the Red
who might turn up tonight with his telescope.
The almanac open at the page on Caelum,
etched in the heavens between Columba and Eridanus.

Look up, affected by the gaze from the apple tree outside the window
of the same tabby cat, or one similar.

Nought but the grin etched in mind,
the last miaow of Blossom who died bolt upright like a Queen.

Alpha Caeli, Eric states, has a diminutive M-class red dwarf companion
in a very wide orbit.
Lacaille saw a pair of chisels tied with ribbon

He cleans his glasses on his tie and puts them on again straight.
We might just be looking at NGC 1595 or NGC 1598!

The scones are satisfying.

Murphy’s particle, he repeats emphatically.
You have to allow for the Higgs, sine qua non,
absolutely nothing at all.

The more imagination grasps at the idea the greater the void created.

The arches of Eric’s eyebrows uphold three horizontal lines across his freckled forehead. The wrinkles deepen as he glances up, keen-eyed.
Are you with me?

Images, from top

Tussock grass plant aciphylla colensoi, 1961
Reference Number: 1/4-044636-F

Buller [1846?]
Reference Number: WC-325

Poul Gnatt and Julie Barker on sand dunes at Bethells Beach, January 1954
Reference Number: KW-0001-G

Flowers in fields near Sfax, Tunisia
Reference Number: DA-03012-F

Plan showing the structure of an observatory tent
Reference Number: B-091-008

Ann Finnimore surrounded by vases of flowers
Reference Number: 1/2-147836-F

View of Mt Dumas, Campbell Island
Reference Number: PA12-1423-012

Trowel for cultivating window boxes
Reference Number: 114/111/02-G

Study, Sir Frederic Truby King's house, Melrose, Wellington
Reference Number: PAColl-6301-87

View through a window, (Wellington ?)
Reference Number: 35mm-25542-26-F

Old Man rock or Queen Victoria, Puponga, ca 1939
Reference Number: 1/2-009677-F

Maori needle, tattooing chisel and bird holding ring
Reference Number: 1/1-007559-G

Beneath the pale moonbeam's misty light, just you and I dear
Reference Number: E-628-038

Blast cloud as explosives are used to create the spillway intake at the Benmore hydroelectric project
Reference Number: PAColl-8557-35

Rooms with a view; the Empire Hotel on the corner of Shakespeare Road and Brewster Street.
Reference Number: B-155-018

Taieri Pet at Middlemarch
Reference Number: WA-28295-F

Jo. Bap. Piranesi Veneti architectus. F. Polanzani faciebat.
Reference Number: C-091-001

Higgs 17

The arches of Eric’s eyebrows uphold three horizontal lines across his freckled forehead. The wrinkles deepen as he glances up, keen-eyed.
Are you with me?

Jo. Bap. Piranesi Veneti architectus. F. Polanzani faciebat. 1750. Super permissu.
Reference Number: C-091-001

Higgs 16

The more imagination grasps at the idea the greater the void created.

Taieri Pet at Middlemarch
Reference Number: WA-28295-F

Higgs 15

Murphy’s particle, he repeats emphatically.
You have to allow for the Higgs, sine qua non,
absolutely nothing at all.

Rooms with a view; the Empire Hotel on the corner of Shakespeare Road and Brewster Street.
Reference Number: B-155-018

Higgs 13

He cleans his glasses on his tie and puts them on again straight.
We might just be looking at NGC 1595 or NGC 1598!

Beneath the pale moonbeam's misty light, just you and I dear
Reference Number: E-628-038

Higgs 12

Alpha Caeli, Eric states, has a diminutive M-class red dwarf companion
in a very wide orbit.
Lacaille saw a pair of chisels tied with ribbon

Maori needle, tattooing chisel and bird holding ring
Reference Number: 1/1-007559-G

Higgs 11

Nought but the grin etched in mind,
the last miaow of Blossom who died bolt upright like a Queen.

Old Man rock or Queen Victoria, Puponga, ca 1939
Reference Number: 1/2-009677-F

Higgs 10

Look up, affected by the gaze from the apple tree outside the window
of the same tabby cat, or one similar.

View through a window, (Wellington ?)
Reference Number: 35mm-25542-26-F

Higgs 9

A cup of tea, make scones for Eric the Red
who might turn up tonight with his telescope.
The almanac open at the page on Caelum,
etched in the heavens between Columba and Eridanus.

Study, Sir Frederic Truby King's house, Melrose, Wellington
Reference Number: PAColl-6301-87