The Geographer's Library

THE SHENG (AIR)
“You hear how the wind approaches?”
“It approaches quickly, violently, and I know not where from.”
“Nor do I. Draw close the shutters: I would keep warm.”
—ardal gogarty, Have I Lived Too Long, Too Long?
Abulfaz Akhundov—whose ability to flatten and lengthen his short vowels,
round out his r’s, and keep his v’s and w’s separate in mind, use, and
mouth had earned him the temporary name of Chester “Chet” Muncie—tied
his Kmart blue-and-red rep tie first in a four-in-hand and then in a Windsor
before finally settling, as he knew he must, on a clumsily tied half-Windsor
deliberately shoved three centimeters down and to the left from his top collar
button. Since arriving, he had seen no man wearing any other type of knot.
Abulfaz’s butterfingered half-Windsor was the knot of someone who
nominally accepts but never enjoys wearing a tie, who believes that excessive
attention paid to attire signifies dandyism or effeminacy, and who thinks that
by paying evidently minimal attention to his knot, he shows his tacit contempt
for it. In fact, Abulfaz noted as he winced at his reflection while thinking
of his natty father, all it showed was that he was a slob; the notion that a
man would do something poorly or incompletely because he objected to it
was most common among adolescents, American office workers, and Russian
military personnel. He grabbed the knot between his thumb and forefinger
and squeezed while pushing in opposite directions with his fingers, until
the knot became oblong and slipped even farther from his collar: a man at the
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