From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:


Thanks for inspiration: Gordon Meyer and the Bureau of Land Management.

This puzzle grid contains a 9-letter word meaning "containing air." Can you find it?  All letters in the word must touch (in any direction), and no square may be reused.

The following hints are in black text on a black background. Highlight to view.

Hint regarding word's location: The word begins in the fourth row.

Hint regarding first letter: The word begins with a P.

Answer: Pneumatic.

There is also an 8-letter adjective describing a person who insists on absolute adherence to traditoinal rules.

Answer: Puristic.

Spoken Word Correction Fluid:

"Scratch that."
"Forget it."
"I take that back."
"The jury is instructed to ignore that outburst."
"Can we start all over?"

Did you hear the one I just made up about the fortune teller who got stranded on a tropical island?  She wasn't bored—she could read palms.

Confidence

This puzzle grid contains a 9-letter word meaning "catching sight of." Can you find it?

The following hints are in black text on a black background. Highlight to view.

Hint regarding word's location: The word occurs in the bottom three rows.

Hint regarding first letter: The word begins with a G.

Answer: Glimpsing.

There is also an 8-letter word meaning "allowing."

Answer: Enabling.

I accidentally scratched my left eye with my fingernail.  It wasn't a severe wound--there wasn't any blood or even tears, for that matter.  But the eye kept hurting, so I finally went to the eye doctor to have it checked out.  Luckily, the doctor said my eye was healing just fine, but the way he described the wound was intriguing.  Peering at my eye through his instruments, he said, "It's like I'm looking at a constellation of stars."  Apparently, there were some microscopic fragments of glass on my fingernail when I cut my eye (I can't imagine where they came from!), and they were twinkling at the doctor.  With my interest in astrology and the concept of the eyes being the "window of the soul," I found it fascinating that the doctor saw a star field in my eye.  Then he said something even more intriguing.  He described the tiny cut in my eye as a "comet trail," and he talked about how it was flying toward the corner of my eye.  I've been trying to analyze the symbolic significance of my diagnosis.  The left eye is traditionally associated with feminine insight.  A comet is traditionally considered a harbinger of some sort.  So does a comet trailing through my feminine insight toward my nose ("third eye" area) seem to announce a shift in my outlook?

Remember that dark era when ventriloquists were getting blacklisted?  I understand that type of Charlie McCarthyism is being voiced again in puppet governments.

I dreamed I had yet another name: HEMIcolon.  Hemi means "relating to or affecting a half."  I affected half the Library of Congress.

But my dream-visit to Washington turned into a nightmare.  I dreamed that Theodore Roosevelt "recruited two of the finest legal consultants in New York State to scrutinize every semicolon that came out of either House," just as documented in THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris.

Saint Dubium
Patron of Questionable Merits.

Saint Dubium rules over Gothic architecture, bohemian poetry, most lawsuits, innumerable gadgets, a host of guidebooks, grandiose claims, local bands, and non-prescription topical ointments.

Concealing One's Tracks

Did you hear the one I just made up about the guy who was addicted to home repair jobs?

He was in constant need of a fix.

You have made it abundantly clear what is important in your life.  Through body language, speech, gestures, facial expressions, postures, eye contact, and written words, you have effectively communicated your point.  Here’s your report card with a great big “A.”  It’s underlined, italicized, and in ALL CAPS!  Show and Tell is over for today.  So take your gold star and run back to Mommie.

I dreamed I was in a tall, rectangular tower with two other people (unknown to me now, but I believe they were older than I, one perhaps my mother), and I knew that at the very top of the tower was a collection of gargoyles, grotesqueries, and occult books.   I assumed that we would float up to the top, but in the blink of an eye we were somehow already standing up there.  There were shelves on the walls, full of grotesque statuettes (some carved, some plush), and the very sight of them filled me with tremendous bliss.  I even remarked to my companions that I was experiencing total bliss just witnessing these shelves.  They were blissful as well.  It wasn't a kind of giddiness, because none of us were laughing, but I was certainly all smiles.  I was experiencing pure contentment and the feeling that all was perfect, and I wanted nothing more in the world than to keep gazing on these superficially ugly objects.

As H.P. Blavatsky wrote, "According to the Gnostics, the two principles of Good and Evil are immutable Light and Shadow, good and evil being virtually one and having existed through all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested worlds.  Were it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate it nor even realize it.  Shadow is that which enables light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality.  Therefore shadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary which completes light or good: it is its creator on Earth."

Compliments, Personal Observations, and Questions Designed to Make You Feel Interesting, Special