What's that big electrical cord that also connects the ship to the dock? It's not a power cord to run machinery aboard ship; it's a grounding strap, to prevent sparks from static electricity. Something else you're sure to notice on a tanker is a big warning sign about the fire hazard. Frederick Allen, the editor of American Heritage of Invention & Technology, has remarked that all tankers seem to be named No Smoking.
All the miscellaneous fittings and fixtures on wharves and piers and elsewhere in nautical neighborhoods are known by the charming term port furniture.
Islands are possible only in literature. Topical islands are in a time without History. They are paragraphs. They are not part of the central body of the text. Isloated writing is always a testimonial. The castaway embodies the contradiction of beieng a speaker without a society.
There is a story of Rikyu which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea masters. Rikyu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikyu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikyu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground"
"Young fool," chided the tea master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept. "Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! What Rikvu demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.