Sullen & Abyss

Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings

A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey (1967)

Sullen

“Under the dead light of the Passaic afternoon the desert became a map of infinite disintegration and forgetfulness. This monument of minute particles blazed under a bleakly glowing sun, and suggested the sullen dissolution of entire continents, the drying up of oceans- no longer were there green forests and high mountains- all that existed were millions of grains of sand, a vast deposit of bones and stones pulverized into dust.” P.74

 |ˈsələn|

adjective

• (esp. of water) slow-moving : rivers in sullen, perpetual flood.

• bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy : a sullen pout | figurative a sullen sunless sky. A sullen person is gloomy, untalkative, and ill-humored by nature, but a glum person is usually silent because of low spirits or depressing circumstances

ORIGIN Middle English (in the senses [solitary, averse to company,] and [unusual] ): from Anglo-Norman French sulein, from sol ‘sole.’

Abyss

“Passaic seems full of “holes” compared to New York City, which seems tightly packed and solid, and those holes in a sense are the monumental vacancies that define, without trying, the memory-traces of an abandoned set of futures.” P.72

|əˈbis|

noun

• a void

• a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm

• figurative a wide or profound difference between people; a gulf : the abyss between the two nations.

• figurative the regions of hell conceived of as a bottomless pit

• ( the abyss) figurative a catastrophic situation seen as likely to occur : teetering on the edge of the abyss of a total political wipeout.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [infernal pit] ): via late Latin from Greek abussos ‘bottomless,’ from a- ‘without’ + bussos ‘depth.’