Abecedarian : I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought

I Found a Penny Today, So Here’s a Thought

July 5, 2011

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A hand without fingerprints
still leaves a smudge
—Geof Huth

#poetry

July 2, 2011

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"Something that appears unusual today might be an everyday event tomorrow."
—Gustav Meyrink, The White Dominican

#gustav meyrink #unusual

July 1, 2011

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July is the month:

to promote yourself
of freedom
of song
of roses
of great variety
of the tempest's power
for threshing
of vacations
of the least bird movement
of transition
of the insectivora
for proverbial meteorology
of patriotism and revolutions
when the wooden spoon begins to get busy
of the ruby
when things really heat up in Copenhagen
when fuchsias come into their own

[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]

#july #list

June 24, 2011

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"Memories that come back to life are like ghosts; they emerge, as if from a tiny point, then swell until they suddenly take on a spatial presence of greater beauty and immediacy than they ever had before."
—Gustav Meyrink, Walpurgisnacht

#memory #ghosts #gustav meyrink

June 23, 2011

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Things beyond compare:

the taste of yeast
the world
Paris
the moon
the human figure
the sense of accomplishment
Yahweh
thy destiny
the excellence of Italian cookery
the beauty of a rose
a blue-sided, white-capped mountain, reflected in a broad, placid, shimmering lake, and framed between fleeting clouds, graceful trees and verdant lawn

[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]

#beyond compare #bullet list

This quotation . . .

"As one goes through it, one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it." —R. D. Laing (via Clifford Pickover)

. . . reminds us of this illustration from Harper's magazine, 1912:

#vintage illustration #umbrella

June 19, 2011

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"The Fall did not begin with eating the apple, that is base superstition. It was hanging pictures in houses that did it! Scarcely has the plasterer made the wall sheer and smooth than the Devil appears in the guise of an 'artist' and paints you a 'hole' in it with a view into the distance. From there it's only one step to the bottomless pit where you're hanging in full fish and soup on the dining-room wall yourself next to Isidor the Handsome or some other crowned idiot with a pear-shaped head and a Cro-Magnon jaw, watching yourself eat."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

#gustav meyrink

June 12, 2011

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"Even if our work is rooted in realism, we have to believe there is more to our world than meets the eye." —Sara Zarr

(via Martha Brockenbrough)

#unseen world #realism #more than meets the eye

June 11, 2011

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"Strange how colourful life can be if you take the trouble to look at it from close to and turn your back on the so-called important things, which only bring vexation and suffering."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

#gustav meyrink

June 10, 2011

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"It is far too easy to talk of a dead author behind the backs of his books."
—Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

#books #nabokov

June 8, 2011

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"It is one of the oddest things in the world that you can read a page or more and think of something utterly different." —Christian Morgenstern

(via Futility Closet)

#reading

June 5, 2011

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"We got it the first time, Kurt [Vonnegut], when the books were written by Voltaire."
—William Keckler

June 1, 2011

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Sometimes the smartest thing . . .

cannot be defended intellectually
is to let it roll off your back
is to wait until next year
is take on a humble task that needs doing
is to give up and try from a completely different point of view
is to shut your mouth and listen
is to get out early
is to apologize
is to play along
is to give up
is to stop it altogether
is delegating
to bring to a gunfight is a knife
is to go with the flow
is to stay out of the way
is to cut your losses
is to be scared
is to follow your heart
to turn a complete about-face and offer something in total opposition to a trend
is pack up, jump on your horse and gallop off to greener pastures

[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]

#smartest thing #list

May 25, 2011

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For an acquaintance who dreams of lazy afternoons in a hammock but whose backyard sports just a single tree, here's a spoof of a poem by dear cousin Emily:

To make a hammock
It takes some netting and one tree.
Netting and a tree
And reverie.
The reverie alone will do
If trees are few.

#poem

May 20, 2011

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"We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners."
—Salman Rushdie

#salman rushdie #cornered

May 15, 2011

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"Do anything once; then, best of all, never again."
—Doug Nufer, Never Again (2004)

#never again

May 11, 2011

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Author Miracle Jones releases his fictions on flash drives attached to little sculptures. "I envision that someday even lamps and toasters will be filled with fiction, comics, and movies," he says. "Top hats will contain whole worlds!" Jones promises that tomorrow's bookcase will be filled with exquisitely crafted talismans. See his intriguing explanation here.

May 9, 2011

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Speaking of one-letter words, Annie Dillard collected her favorite maritime navigation codes, such as:

A - I am undergoing a speed trial.

D - Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty.

F   - I am disabled. Communicate with me.

G - I require a pilot.

F - Your lights are out, or burning badly.

U - You are standing into danger.

X - Stop carrying out your intentions.

K - You should stop your vessel instantly.

L   - You should stop. I have something important to communicate.

Our favorite:

R   - You may feel your way past me.

#annie dillard #one-letter words #navigation codes

May 3, 2011

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Vladimir Nabokov asserts that one is the only real number:

"All things belong to the same order of things, for such is the oneness of human perception, the oneness of individuality, the oneness of matter, whatever matter may be. The only real number is one, the rest are mere repetition." —The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

#number

May 1, 2011

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William Keckler notes:

I realized what a millstone Google has become, what an albatross, when I thought back over the enigmas, events, non-events, improbabilities and tidbits of surreal hopefulness I have most recently Googled.

This list would include:

1. "recreational activities of unicorns"
2. "People who have been killed by rainbows"
3. "If you drop a multivitamin on the floor and can't find it, can a superpowerful insect develop?"
4. "the lifespan of a clipped toenail" (again lost on the floor, presumably to be used as a weapon by the vitamined-up bug)
5. "animals and insects that resemble Lady Gaga"
6. "has anyone been charged with date raping himself or herself"
7. "did Buddha have a masseur or masseuse?"
8. "erotic attraction to snowmen or snowwomen"
9. "who invented the snowbunny"
10. "how common was cursing among caveman"
11. "numbers between 0 and 9 which have been forgotten"
12. "the longest recorded 'sorry, wrong number' conversation in history"
13. "stalked and killed for dialing a wrong number"
14. "the i.q. of dust bunnies"
15. "people who disappeared attempting time travel"
16. "people who wrote love letters to popes"
17. "the funniest cartoon by a caveman discovered"
18. "who made the first ass xerox?"
19. "annotated history of the snowbunny"
20. "fear of alphabetical order"

. . . and more here

#list

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