King Death was a rare old fellow! / He sate where no sun could shine; / And he lifted his hand so yellow, / And poured out his coal- black wine / Hurrah! for the coal- black wine!
—Thomas Morton, The School of Reform; or, How to Rule a Husband, A Comedy in Five Acts, 1805. As quoted in Artist of Wonderland: the Life, Political Cartoons, and Illustrations of Tenniel by Frank Morris, 2005.

Around the pale- blue dome of the heavens a few pearl- colored clouds hung motionless, as though the wind had been withdrawn to other skies. Not a crimson leaf floated downward through the soft, silvery light that filled the atmosphere and created the sense of lonely, unimaginable spaces. This light overhung the far- rolling landscape of field and meadow and wood, crowning with faint radiance the remoter low- swelling hill- tops and deepening into dreamy half- shadows on their eastern slopes. Nearer, it fell in a white flake on an unstirred sheet of water which lay along the edge of a mass of sombre- hued woodland, and nearer still it touched to spring- like brilliancy a level, green meadow on the hither edge of the water, where a group of Durham cattle stood with reversed flanks near the gleaming trunks of some leafless sycamores. Still nearer, it caught the top of the brown foliage of a little bent oak- tree and burned it into a silvery flame. It lit on the back and the wings of a crow flying heavily in the path of its rays, and made his blackness as white as the breast of a swan. In the immediate foreground, it sparkled in minute gleams along the stalks of the coarse, dead weeds that fell away from the legs and the flanks of a white horse, and slanted across the face of the rider and through the ends of his gray hair, which straggled from beneath his soft black hat.
—James Lane Allen, "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky," originally published in The Century Magazine, April 1888.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Artist Jaime Pitarch discovered the secret of focusing one's Third Eye:

A hairdresser's apocalypse:
The curled will end not with bangs but a wimple.

"The rock incubates a void."  A bit of wisdom from a peppermint tin of mailart by Geof Huth and endwar.

Piecing together the secret of power . . .


 

Big diamonds, big blue diamonds, how they sparkle / But what can they do to warm your soul? / When you’re lonesome in the moonlight, and need some lovin’ / Big diamonds, big blue diamonds, are so cold.
—Earl J. Carson, "Big Blue Diamonds," first recorded by Little Willie John in 1962.

Today's Question:

Did the Beatles cross the Atlantic for an appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964?

With hindpsych, the answer is "yes"!  In our Tarot spread, the card on the left is the Knight of Pentacles.  A hard worker who is dedicated to his chosen course, this knight symbolizes the Beatles.  The knight is face to face with the center card, the Page of Cups.  The Page of Cups is a symbol of an outpouring of emotions and a new love affair.  The page represents America's reception of the Beatles.  Note that behind the page is a body of water, symbolic of the Atlantic Ocean.  The final card in our spread is the Ten of Pentacles.  This is a symbol of affluence—supreme business success, long-term abundance, and all-around good fortune.  Note that the knight begins with a single coin and ends with a tenfold bounty.  We can say with confidence that the Beatles cross the Atlantic for an appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964, and that it is a pivotal moment in their career.  We can now move on.

by mybloodyself

Inventing New Colors

Is it humanly possible to invent a new color? Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Mark Fairchild says "yes"! In fact, he suggests that all observant people invent new colors at various times of their lives. Dr. Fairchild explains: "As a color scientist, I think of colors as perceptions, that is things that we see. Of course those perceptions are not just caused by our brain (except when we are dreaming); they are caused by how our eyes and brain respond to the world around us. For color it is the light and objects that we are responding to. Most people would take this question to mean 'has anyone invented a light or object of a new color?' Personally, I have not, but I have invented new ways to understand and describe how we perceive and produce colors in places like the movies. Other people certainly have invented new materials that produce colors that people couldn't make before. Things like new paints, new inks, new kinds of televisions. That has happened often through the history of science. But, if we come back to color being a perception, then it is even easier to say that we invent new colors. I think we all do it quite often if we pay attention to the world around us. Have you ever had a time when you looked at something and it seemed like a totally new experience? Maybe a special rainbow, or a peculiar bird, or a strange way the light bounces around your room? If you have noticed a new experience like that, then I think you could say you have invented a new color. That is because color is truly a perception that is unique to you and any new color experiences could be considered 'inventions.' I like to just think of them as interesting parts of our world that make it fun to study science; in my case color science."

You can explore Dr. Fairchild's research on color perception and imaging at his website.

[Read the entire article in my guest blog at ColourLovers.com.]

"An Abecedary" by Paul Dean:

Are maps poems?

The Making Maps blog highlights these symbols for nautical dangers and their poetic descriptions.

How many ways can one get tossed aside?  John Walkenbach checked Google and discovered the following:

• Tossed aside like a 7th grade boyfriend
• Like a forgotten dream
• Like a worn-out pair of boots
• Like a rag doll
• Like a useless bag of linseed
• Like a dog after his job was done
• Like a soiled tissue
• Like a dirty mop
• Like a master artist's sketch
• Like a broken appliance
• Like a taco wrapper
• Like a child's doll
• Like a piece of trash
• Like a wad of yesterday's news
• Like a used play thing
• Like a spent cigarette
• Like a sack of pork chops
• Like a Big Mac box
• Like a fat pedestrian
• Like a fad
• Like a goddamn rubber glove
• Like a moldy beanbag chair
• Like a dirty napkin

(Via J-Walk Blog.  Linked illustrations courtesy of Abecedarian.)

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw / Was the sun through yellow curtains, and a rainbow on the wall / Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay / We'll put on the day / There's a sun show every second
—Joni Mitchell, "Chelsea Morning," 1969.

Piecing together the secret of the phoenix . . .


 

Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)

Earth-Moon-Earth "is a form of radio transmission whereby messages are sent in morse–code from earth, reflected from the surface of the moon, and then received back on earth. The moon reflects only part of the information back – some is absorbed in its shadows, 'lost' in its craters.  Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata has been translated into morse-code and sent to the moon via E.M.E.  Returning to earth 'fragmented' by the moon’s surface, it has been re-translated into a new score, the gaps and absences becoming intervals and rests."

View the sent score and the crater-filled score received back, and hear excerpts of the score here.

If a cartoonist goes back to the drawing board, where does a satirist go?  Back to the irony board.

Bluebird blue as the sky- blue heart / Of my girl whose heart is the sky
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), "A Bird is Singing," from The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated by Donald Revell, 2004.