From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Did you know that John Venn's innovations overlapped with some of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's diagrams?

A "dangling ampersand," like a dangling shoelace, can affect any of us.  Our whimsical look at the phenomenon appears today at the ever-hilarious SPOGG (Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar).

What's this blue book's value?

 

Eleanor sat back under the shade of her white umbrella. The air seemed to hum with the heat. The air seemed to smell of soap and chemicals. How thoroughly people wash in England, she thought, looking at the yellow soap, the green soap, and the pink soap in the chemist’s window.
—Virginia Woolf, The Years, 1937.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

An Animated Collage of a Hans Freibusch Mural

At the fairy-tale Welsh village of Portmeirion, Hans Feibusch's classical-style ceiling mural graces the archway of the Gate House.  The figures are pagan deities, reminiscent of ancient zodiacal personages at play in the heavens.  Acrobatically tumbling through the ethers, one figure atop a horse reaches out to join hands with another whose cape billows like a parachute.  Though their fingers haven’t yet touched, their eyes are locked.  The composition suggests a Yin/Yang balance and a clockwise cyclical flow.  These figures may symbolize a connection, bonding, or affinity.  They epitomize the quest for the Other that stretches us as human beings, at the risk of breaking our hearts.

The mural is too large to be photographed in a single frame.  We have animated the reconstruction of the complete image from 23 separate photographs.  Click here to choose your perspective.

From our outpost at Blogspot:

Our magician friend and tech wizard Gordon Meyer offers this handy eye chart for focusing on the upcoming publication of Magic Words: A Dictionary. Our new edition of the dictionary features Gordon's magic spell for bringing a snowman to life.

Which word is funnier: pizza or sandwich?

Clue:  This is according to the book Drawing on the Funny Side of the Brain

Answer:  Pizza, as it is “more specific.”  (The answer is in black text on the black background.  Highlight it to view.)

Citation:  Christopher Hart, Drawing on the Funny Side of the Brain (1998), p. 107

The Land of Ultimate Bliss has pools of the seven jewels, filled with the eight waters of merit and virtue. The bottom of each pool is pure, spread over with golden sand. On the four sides are stairs of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and crystal; above are raised pavilions adorned with gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, mother- of- pearl, red pearls, and carnelian.

In the pools are lotuses as large as carriage wheels: green colored of green light; yellow colored of yellow light; red colored of red light; white colored of white light; subtly, wonderfully, fragrant and pure. . . .

[I]n that Buddhaland, when the soft wind blows, the rows of jewelled trees and jewelled nets give forth subtle and wonderful sounds, like one hundred thousand kinds of music played at the same time.
—Buddha, The Amitabha Sutra, as translated by Ronald Epstein, 1970.

"Other, seemingly more profound, thoughts took over his brain, thoughts such as, To what extent would a given quantity of catnip have affected quantum mechanics in Schrodinger’s theoretical catbox? and Why was C selected to symbolize the speed of light when Z is obviously the fastest letter in the alphabet?"  —Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, 2000

Saint Ornate
Patron of Embellishments.

Saint Ornate is quoted as saying, "There is the beauty of the natural world and the beauty we add in to it.  Mother Nature surely went overboard, let us join her." 

Devotees exhibit love through overuse.

_____

Jonathan quips:

I dreamed of a funhouse mirror, which warped and inverted my reflection.  Then, suddenly, the funhouse transformed into my own living room, and the strange reflection became an interrocolon, who was visiting for tea.

A great book . . . though I couldn't fathom pages 26-27.

Our colorful friend DJ Misc has a fun collection white-space "rivers"—typographic columns of gaps in a text.  This one, for example, has a delightful em-dash "bridge" crossing the river of white space.  Here and here are two more dramatic examples.

Joining in the fun, we discovered a deliciously ironic river of white space, in a text on how the White River area of the Black Hills region was affected by "rapid weathering and vigorous erosion."  DJ Misc has added it to his collection.