~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait of Phileas Fogg from Around the World in Eighty Days.

“His eyebrows, his beard, faded into a smoke, into nothing at all.” —Louis Golding, Magnolia Street

"So difficult, isn't it, to draw hard-and-fast lines between what one rationally believes, and what one trusts is true, and what seems to admit of more than one explanation."
—E. F. Benson, Trouble For Lucia

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.

Ha! I know the facial expression well, having experienced that "amperbang moment" once or twice (i.e. too many times) myself.

7-letter words:
• dummies • kaliums • kalmias • limiest • limulus • mussily	• slimily • stimuli • summits • tummies • umlauts
8-letter words:
• slimiest • stimulus	• sweatily • swimmily
9-letter words:
• slummiest

It was revealed that there is no such language as Gaelic.

People were just making "funny noises with their mouth."

Apparently, it's just a slightly more clever form of Pig Latin.

*       *       *

The Welsh language was diagnosed with a genetic condition which explained its odd situations with regard to vowels.

Gene therapy was initiated, and in a few short months, Welsh was a "normal, healthy language."

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait John Bartholomew Gouch from Sunlight and Shadow.

The book title is eerily appropriate, as we see Gouch in both his corruptible and incorruptible states.

 

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait from Daniel Pratt’s biography.

“Complete with owl eyes and spectral beard.” —Osbert Sitwell, qtd. in Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.

The position today of what is said to be the science of physics is so desperate, and so confused, that its exponents are trying to incorporate into one system both former principles and the denial of them.  Even in the anaemia and frazzle of religion, today, there is no worse state of desperation, or decomposition.  The attempt to take the principle of uncertainty—or the principle of unprincipledness—into science is about the same as would be an attempt by theologians to preach the word of God, and also include atheism in their doctrines.  (Wild Talents)

As dedicated fans of Swedish music, we were tickled to hear that producer/composer Ludwig Tjernlund found our Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound while browsing the web for inspiration:

Whenever I’m working late in the studio, I usually end up browsing the web for inspiration. 

So, I’m in the middle of editing some drum samples… getting bored of seeing the same waveforms allover, I turn to my trusty web browser (safari) for some browsing. Makes sense, right?

So I find this…

Rock on!

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait from Henry Sidgwick: A Memoir.

“I do not allow any cold steel ever to profane this ghostlybeard of mine.” —Frederic Townsend, Spiritual Visitors

 

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait from Biography of Zadock Pratt.

“His face is the face of a spirit dimly bright.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.

"It is the custom here, that we go just a little beyond, that we consider each direction with the possibilities of madness and its grand, all-inclusive theatrics, where even minor dreams are worth their weight in gold, when balanced against the darkness out of which they have gestated and taken their cues from the fiercest and loveliest of all the animals."
—surrealist J. Karl Bogartte, "The Weapons of Love"

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait from Walt Whitman’s Complete Writings, recalling his allusion to “window-pierc’d façades.”

“Even if we cannot see the colored shapes as the ghostly portrait of a man, we do see the colors as something.” —Marc Bekoff

 

In my experience, poets are much more brittle than the paper they write, type or publish upon. And this was true even in the pre-acid-free era.

Craig Conley is a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure.  A voracious researcher, he possesses both the focus required to compile book-length arcana on a given topic and the objectiveness to consider sources other scholars might ignore.  It is precisely this tendency to "overlook" that forms the basis for Conley's Field Guide.  As he states in the book's introduction, "Because we live in a highly visual world, we rarely exercise the full range of our hearing.  Yet our ears can detect things that our eyes automatically reject.  By listening as opposed to looking, we can avoid overlooking.  Practice can be richly rewarding, whether one is listening for unicorns in particular or neglected delights in general."  And so Conley mines the known literature on unicorns, nobly eschewing distinctions between historical accounts, fantasy novels, and instances of metaphor, organizing the brief excerpts and other tidbits found into 51 short lessons in the art of "deep listening" necessary to perceive the fabulous beasts.  Soundwave diagrams impart insight into audible tendencies of the unicorn as rustling, laughter, mimicry of orchestral instruments, soft nickering, cries of ruin, and the creature's alarm "sneeze."  More complex diagrams contribute to the mapping of the once well-maintained highways between magic and science, illuminating such correspondences as the Fibonacci Spiral with the shape of the outer ear and the comparative curl of the unicorn's horn with that of the human cochlea.  Conley also offers an companion compact disc with four tracks of listening exercises set in a sylvan soundscape.  Narrator Michael Warwick guides the listener through the first half of the CD, then departs, leaving only the birdsong and delicate, layered crackle and murmur of the forest and whatever one might discover there.  This book and recording are fine works of practical esoterica.  Highly recommended.
—The Pamphleteer

Perhaps Portmeirion’s greatest achievement is the creation of a built environment that forces its occupants to question preconceptions about the world that they inhabit. As author Craig Conley points out, the setting is more of a virtual reality. The project exists as a series of contradictions that allow nothing to be taken at face value. The village has a town hall, but no residents and a lighthouse with no light. It is a port on an estuary too shallow for most watercraft. The result is a series of opportunities for expectations to be defied which, in turn, prompts visitors into a mindset of inquisition.

~ Mysterious Beards ~

Portrait of Henry Longfellow from Evangeline.

In the ghostly signature, there is no “fellow” in “Longfellow,” as befits the nature of the spirit world.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.

~ Headlessness ~

Portrait from The life of Horace Greeley.

“He developed into a benevolent and magnanimous spectre, and, as far as it was possible for a headless apparition to be so, he was an interesting ghost.” —Edward Gordon, “The Ghost of Dundrumlie”

 

~ Headlessness ~

Portrait from Memoir of Elder Benjamin Taylor.

"The stars and catherine wheels of light that filled his head dissipated.” —Wilbur Smith, Time to Die

INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.