Of course, the Greeks, as usual, had a name for it. Parerga means spare items, incidentals, fugitive pieces, short diversions, such trivia as from time to time form the staple of these columns. They are, if you will, decorative relaxations of the mind. They are, with all of us, the fruit of curiosity, zest, memory, a perpetual delight in conning experience, and, above all, of good talk. Small talk, maybe. But in these days of hurry and distractions, so many things are noted for a fleeting second ("spells" some one has called them), and then slip away like quicksilver. So it is one of the pleasures of life to sit down once in a while and let Memory, the Mother of the Nine Muses, recall these moments, and thus, in a wayward fashion, bring the living past into the crowded present.
The territory in which Parerga are to be found