Though few people believe in elves outside of Iceland (where the majority entertains the possibility that the "hidden people" exist), elfish mischief afflicts every high-tech society that has traded the Otherworld of folklore for the virual world of computers.  We call a sudden malfunction a "glitch," an acronym for "gremlins loose in the computer housing" (Nigel P. Cook, Practical Digital Electronics, 2003.  Similarly, Safire's Political Dictionary defines a glitch as "the mischief of a computerized gremlin").  Gremlins are, of course, troublemaking sprites, namesakes of those pesky unexplained characters that appear in text documents.  One might be tempted to posit that the folk of fairyland believe in themselves, even if non-Icelanders daren't allow for the possibility (all evidence to the contrary).  Meanwhile, let us recall this nuggest of wisdom from How to Believe in Your Elf: "Know the enemy and know your elf."

Describing our Hexopedia, Jim G. confirms that the book is some sort of magical object: "the writing style reminds me of a sort of kaleidescopic array of letters and words and images, almost as if it is in motion.  The effect is totally unique — draws you in."  

From The Life of George Barnwell by Edward Litt Leman Blanchard, 1841.

From Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

A soul thirsting for the ideal, from Belle and the Dragon by Arthur Edward Waite, 1894.

Someone should "write an epic of Hell on the sky in letters of sulphurous fire." —Beachcomber, By the Way (1931)

Momus suggests that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out.'"
Decide for yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.  Suddenly, a shot rings out.

(Thanks, June!)

Thanks to The Unmutual, dedicated to the cult TV series The Prisoner, for highlighting our unusual Tarot prediction for the ambitious musical event "Festival No. 6," held at Portmeirion, Wales.  Our Tarot spread follows the Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do song from The Sound of Music.

 

Here's a precursor to the Prince song "Alphabet St.," from What was the Gunpowder Plot? by John Gerard, 1897.  (Q: Did you spot the doubled letters in the illustration?)

From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.

Here are some vintage forensics from the Mirror yearbook of Bates College, 1921.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

From The Choice Works of Thomas Hood, 1881.  The parlor game of Klexographie inspired the famous Rorschach inkblot test, and here's our online widget for using inkblots to answer deep questions.

You may recall our 5-minute canoe journey on a frozen lake in search of unicorn sounds, but we just added subtitles to the video (four years late, but who's counting?).  Be sure to click on YouTube's "Subtitles/CC" button, because the audio is often somewhat murky due to environmental sounds as well as mumbling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZoaAFmCdW4

Here are some ghostly presences from Peter Ibbetson by George Du Maurier, 1892.

"Do you understand now why you could not make terms for Russia?"  From The Angel of the Revolution by George Chetwynd Griffith Jones, 1893.

Here's a toast to gambling, from Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

This wizard used his powers to conjure sixty lemon pies, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1921.  Jonathan notes: "And it looks like when you order a full five dozen, they come with a pieman!"   Also very much of interest: The Young Wizard's Hexopedia.

The phrase, "if you've seen one toe" delivers zero Google results, so we presume nobody has "seem 'em all."  Our illustration is from Kantner's Illustrated Book of Objects and Self-Educator, 1879.  (Via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.)

The tenant of the treasure house, from Jethou by Ernest Richard Suffling, 1892.

From Love Lyrics and Valentine Verses by Charles Maurice Davies, 1875.

Fortune-telling by means of words, from China: A History of the Laws, Manners, and Customs of the People by John Henry Gray, 1878.

There was a time before the Internet axiom, "What has been seen cannot be unseen."  We find proof in Seen & Unseen, or Monologues of a Homeless Snail by Yone Noguchi, 1897.

The phrase "Love is self-devouring" delivers but a single Google result!  Here's the uroboros encircling Cupid, from Sir Walter Ralegh: A Tragedy by William John Dixon and illustrated by N. C. Bishop-Culpeper, 1897.

When we learned that our favorite website, Long-Forgotten Haunted Mansion, was drifting into a peaceful slumber, our first wish was that the site forever spook but never petrify.  (See our anagram.)  But the site's intrepid investigator, HGB2, offers some anagrams of his own:

As Long-Forgotten slumbers on in a state of hibernation, you may begin to feel melancholy and alone. I would suggest going out into that serene and lovely front yard, letting the grass and the trees restore your spirits. In other words, if you yourself feel long forgotten, our advice is: Go to front glen.

On your way out, as you leave the building, you might mutter absentmindedly—and with perhaps with a hint of bitterness—the cliché, "Last person out, turn off the lights," forgetting that there's no electricity in the world of the Mansion. Amused, we remind you: No front toggle.

If we allow it, this may recall to our minds that it isn't the technology that charms us, but simple, timeless tricks and illusions. So easily we forget that it's an old-fashioned magic show: Forget not long.

(See why we shudder at the thought of Long-Forgotten going on hiatus?!)

"A sentence should be so constructed that the writer's thought shall produce the strongest impression of which it is capable." —Practical English Grammar and Correspondence, 1889

"O hold your tongue, my pretty parrot, lay not the blame upon me."  From Illustrated British Ballads, Old and New, 1894.

Here's a precursor to Wenceslao Moreno's "Señor Wences" act, from A History of Advertising from the Earliest Times by Henry Sampson, 1874.

"This nonsense must be stopped, he said."  From An African Millionaire by Grant Allen, 1897.

The great transformation from Belle and the Dragon by Arthur Edward Waite, 1894.

"Scores of strange beasts hurried out from under them," from Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour by Charles Dixon, 1895.

Here's how we were challenged to write an entire book whose narrator reads the mind of the reader:

Here's a precursor to the song "The Man in the Moon (is a Lady)," in the musical Mame (1966).  From Astronomy for Amateurs by Camille Flammarion, 1904.  See our previous proof that the craters of the moon line up exactly with the Mona Lisa's facial features.

"It bears repeating.  Reading a good poem once is rarely enough."
—Paul Hostovsky, Eat This Poem: A Literary Food Blog

"I fell at the foot of one of the large trees," from Phantastes by George MacDonald, 1894.

"The perfected discovery," from Crooked Places by Edward Garrett, 1894.

From Goddelycke Wenschen, 1629.

We're delighted that the distinguished poet Gary Barwin has lexiconjured two pwoermds in our honor (and we like the asterisks, too!):

We found what sounds like the perfect summation of what magicians are ultimately striving to do.  All a magician wants is for someone to come "Face to face with the crowning wonder of his series of mysteries."  Put that way, it sounds so simple, so reasonable.  From The Mystery of Hall-in-the-Wood by Rosa Mulholland, 1893.

From The Greymare Romance by Edwin John Ellis, 1891.

"Hold my hand tight.  Which do you prefer, wetting your head or your feet?"  From Seven Xmas Eves, 1894.

From the Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina, 1919.

Thanks to Tom Sarbeck for saying this of our hard-to-find dictionary of one-letter words:

Compiler Craig Conley says, "In Shakespeare's time, R was called littera canina, 'the dog's letter,' because it sounded like a dog's growl."

There may be word lovers who won't read stuff like that; I'm not one of them.

Conley provided me with more motivation to buy his dictionary's Kindle edition; he said that since he wrote its first edition he hasn't had to buy a single drink.

What are these mysteriously named musical notes from Supplement to Spons' Dictionary of Engineering, Civil, Mechanical, Military, and Naval (1879)?  We're uncomfortably reminded of the nineteen "forbidden notes" of the Boîte Diabolique, revealed in the hilarious British comedy series Look Around You.

The aurora flashed crimson in The Icelander's Sword by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1894.

From the Mirror yearbook of Bates College, 1921.  (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)

"Come down sir, will you, and take my skin off."  From A Plunge into the Sahara by G. Demage, 1894.

From Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

A synaesthete told us we're like a flexible acrylic notebook cover of translucent cyan blue.  "Translucent cyan" is an anagram of "uncanny clatters," so it all begins to make sense.

How things have changed.  Today we're encouraged to drink lots of water, but back in 1911, when drinking water was considered irresponsible, "if you just must drink water," then at least let it be bottled.  From Polk-Husted Directory Co.'s Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda Directory.

Contrary to popular belief, dropped H's don't fall but rather fly.  From La Morale Merveilleuse by P. Christian, 1844.

[For Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.]

"Before the Battle of the Books," from The Works of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Swift.

Literary Sandwiches  (for June, inspired by Jonathan Caws-Elwitt)

The Henry James: juxtaposes Old World cheeses (corrupt and alluring) with New World heirloom tomatoes.  The sandwich is presented brashly open and facing abuse.  It is served with its ghost-doppelganger (not shown) so as to nurture alternate American and European lives.  The sandwich comes with suspicions that it is gay.

The William James: so enormous that diners may, through free will, request an abridged serving.  The William James asks, do we run from an enormous sandwich because we are afraid, or are we afraid because we run?  (Spoiler: we are afraid because we run.)  Note that only the sandwich's material self is provided; the social self, spiritual self, and pure ego are available with our other self-service condiments.

The Alice James: for those knowing neither hope nor peace, this sandwich invites you to "abandon the pit of your stomach" in the struggle between the body of this meal and your moral power.  This is a sandwich you'll write about in your diary.

"But danger and opportunity are two sides of the same coin!"  From Kamen Rider Wizard.

Love triumphant and defeated, from Physiological Mysteries and Revelations in Love, Courtship and Marriage: An Infallible Guide-Book for Married and Single Persons, in Matters of the Utmost Importance to the Human Race by Eugene Becklard, 1845.

The lionized poet William Keckler scooped this page from The Young Wizard's Hexopedia on Flickr, where the spell has found a very appreciative following.

"The morning toilette lasted for some time."  From A Plunge into the Sahara by G. Demage and illustrated by P. Crampel, 1894.

Here's a certain Mr. X from the Atlanta City Directory, 1913, p. 61.

From The Life of George Barnwell by Edward Litt Leman, 1841.

A tip of the hat to nobody in particular, from The Principles of Advertising Arrangement by Frank Alvah Parsons, 1912.

"Occupying herself in mixing me an effervescing draught in a great crystal goblet," from Jewel Mysteries I Have Known by Max Pemberton, 1894.

Here's an ornate capital A from La Morale Merveilleuse by P. Christian, 1844.

"Whisper the one word, dearest."  From The Cap Becomes a Coronet by Frederick Bingham, 1894.

If only they all came with warning signs.  From School Architecture by the Georgia Dept. of Education, 1911.  The caption reads, "Don't use this."

Anonymous asks, "If I may, I was told I have to find my voice.  Any ideas?  Suggestions?"

This vintage diagram explains all.  [Its context is technically unrelated (you may or may not recognize its original purpose), but no matter.]  We see the form of a lower-case i, and that's crucial.  Note that the lower-case i has a head on its shoulders, unlike the capital I, which is merely a construct (a girder and two beams, eh?).  And so the capital I/ego decapitates the genuine expression of the little i.  The dot of the i makes this diagram a universal "You are here" map.  One's voice can never to be "found," for it's impossible for it to go missing.  It's always here, at ground zero.  The question can only be, what has been overlaid and is hiding that dot?  Is it a respected voice one has been emulating?  Is it an artificial attempt to meet perceived requirements or expectations?  Emulations refer to the past, and expectations allude to the future.  It's only in the eternal present moment that one's unique voice resonates.  In terms of writing projects, it's perhaps most difficult to express one's true voice in an assignment or an homage.  The key is to work on a project so idiosyncratic that there are no precedents.  (For example, we recently challenged ourselves to come up with a guide to The Care and Feeding of a Spirit Board.  Nothing even remotely like it had ever been written, so it was unexplored territory where no other voices echoed.)  That's the key, but it's a trick key, and the trick is to allow yourself to get so caught up in the current of writing that your capital I gets left behind.  But forget all that -- the vintage diagram says it better.

A lie never stops to put on its hat, as we learn in Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

From St. Nicholas magazine, 1921.

"It's like singing to a lot of 'ap'ny ices!"  From Under the Rose by F. Anstey, 1894.