It is now one of those intensely golden sunsets which kindles the whole horizon into one blaze of glory, and makes the water another sky. The lake lay in rosy or golden streaks, save where white- winged vessels glided hither and thither, like so many spirits, and little golden stars twinkled through the glow, and looked down at themselves as they trembled in the water.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852.

"When picking code names for new software versions, generally you want to stay away from anything that implies mythological or 'often mentioned, never seen' status -- users may get the wrong idea.  That said, given the long wait that loyal Retrospect users have had for new developments on the Mac side from EMC Insignia (formerly Dantz), I'll forgive the unfortunate choice of 'Unicorn' for the beta of the Retrospect client for Mac ..." —Michael Rose, The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Doctor Who riddles:

1. What's Doctor Who's favorite English rock band?
2. What's Doctor Who's favorite household appliance?
3. What's Doctor Who's favorite American sitcom from the mid-to-late 1980's?
4. What's Doctor Who's favorite American restaurant chain that targets male customers with a serving staff comprising only waitresses?
5. What's Doctor Who's favorite genre of book or film?
6. What's Doctor Who's favorite chocolate-flavored soft drink?
7. What's Doctor Who's favorite improv comedy show?
8. What's Doctor Who's favorite Dr. Seuss story?
9. What's Doctor Who's favorite Australian rock band that combines elements of sixties power-pop, bubblegum pop, Beatle-esque harmonies, psychedelia and grungy garage rock?
10. What's Doctor Who's favorite smoking device?
11. What's Doctor Who's favorite Wham-O toy?
12. What's Doctor Who's favorite Mayan deity?
13. What's Doctor Who's favorite escapologist?  (Thanks Ken and Ann!)
14. What's Doctor Who's favorite Spanish crooner?  (Thanks Ken and Ann!)
15. What's Doctor Who's favorite glam-rock group?  (Thanks Ken and Ann!)
16. What's Doctor Who's favorite Greek chickpea dip  (Thanks Ken and Ann!)
17. What's Doctor Who's favorite bootleg liquor?  (Thanks Ken and Ann!)

Answers:
1. The Who
2. A Hoover.
3. "Who's the Boss?"
4. Hooters.
5. the Whodunnit
6. Yoo-hoo
7. "Whose Line is it Anyway?"
8. Horton Hears a Who!
9. Hoodoo Gurus
10. A hookah
11. the Hula Hoop
12. Hunab Ku
13. Houdini
14. Julio Iglesias
15. Mott the Hoople
16. Hummus
17. Hooch (or in Chinese, Huangjiu)

Finally, a set of hourglasses for every occasion, including:

• the 1 minute manager
• the 2 minute warning
• the 3 minute egg
• the 4 minute mile
• the 5 minute break
• the 6 minute walk test
• the 7 minute difference
• the 8 minute epic
• the 9 minute chariot race

Piecing together the secret of the sea . . .


 

It was a green sunset. The reds, the oranges, the purples which Amanda automatically associated with sunsets had been snuffed out in the soggy cloud pile, and the nearly invisible sun that sank — beyond the fields, sloughs, rock islands and tide flats — into Puget Sound, it looked like an unripe olive photographed through gauze.
—Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction, 1971.

Come in the evening, or come in the morning;
Come when you're looked for, or come without warning;
Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you,
And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you!
—John Williamson Palmer, Folk Songs (1861)

Don't miss the twee pop band Original Silly Pillows, who coincidentally have a song called "Come in the Evening" (hear it on their MySpace page).

by superdove

Blonde Pony Tails: The Human-Horse Connection

by cwalker71.

Humans have been fascinated by white horses for millennia. Geneticists have now pinpointed the "genetic architecture" that connects blonde manes in people and equines. The study of white horses goes all the way back to ancient Rome, where depigmented horses were identified as "candidus" (white) or "glaucus" (gray). The PLoS Genetics journal notes that two thousand years ago, the white horse was held sacred by the Saxons. It served as an augur for the German tribes, its behavior considered a sign of divine approval or disapproval. The white horse was so revered that it featured on the flags of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Even earlier, white horses were celebrated by the Celts in Great Britain. The White Horse of Uffington (Oxfordshire, England) is Bronze Age hillside artefact, dating back approximately 3,000 years. The figure of a 374-foot long horse (perhaps representing the Celtic horse goddess Epona) was cut into the soil, its white coat naturally pigmented by the chalk beneath the turf.

The PLoS Genetics journal points out that most white horses carry a "graying-with-age mutation." They are born with a solid-colored coat which turns white by age of four to six. However, occasionally a pony is born with a solid white coat. Take, for example, the solid white mare named Cigale, born in 1957 out of solid brown parents from the Swiss Franches-Montagnes Horse population. Geneticists have studied all of Cigale's white-born descendants and isolated an inherited mutation in their pigment forming cells. Different horse populations, such as white Thoroughbreds, Arabians, and Camarillo White Horses, reveal independent pigmentation mutation events. In other words, the white horses in each equine family exhibit their own special brand of mutation leading to their white coats. But the common chromosomal factor appears to be what geneticists call the KIT gene, responsible not only for white horses but also for blonde people.

White horses appear in the religious literature of many lands. Here's a small sampling:

• In the New Testament's Book of Revelation, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse rides a white horse.
• In Japan, the white horse is a Shinto symbol of purity and divine authority.
• In Islam, the Prophet ascended to heaven on the back of a white horse.
• In Hinduism, the god Kalki rides a white horse while brandishing a comet-like sword.
• In Nordic lore, the god Odin rises a white horse named Sleipnir.
• In Greek mythology, the white and winged Pegasus sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus decapitated her.

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

"When the smoke from the fire seeps in through the nostrils, irritates the throat, and stings the eyes, we shut out the world of burning text, unable to remember what letterforms once lived on those sheets curling into ash."
—Geof Huth

I sit on a purple bed, / Outside, the wall is red, / Thereby the apple hangs, / And the wasp, caught by the fangs, . . .

Gold wings across the sea! / Moonlight from tree to tree, / Sweet hair laid on my knee, / O, sweet knight, come to me!
—William Morris, "Golden Wings," 1858.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Piecing together the secret of the scarab . . .


 

At last: a Rubik's Cube that even I can solve blindfolded (in 26 moves, no less!)

What's the motto of the Toy Surprise creators at the Cracker Jack candy factory? 

"Think inside the box."

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

"It is the sound that dreaming makes when it turns the earth."
—J. Karl Bogartte

Rahel took off her new fingers, and had her old finger- colored fingers back. Not yellow, not green, not blue, not red. Not yellow.
—Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, 1998

I dreamed I attended the gala Semicolon Ball at the Ducal Palace, where I danced the night away with John McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun.  John recalls the exhilaration that was National Grammar Day:


---

TootsNYC wrote:

Saint Marko
Patron of the Street Corner.

Saint Marko is known as the:

• Watcher of watchers (people-watchers, night watchmen, everyday doings, etc.)
• Patron of Metacommunication ("master of talking about talking about...")
• Stockboy of the universe's good ideas
• Spiritual accountant for the entities of Science, Religion, and Humanity
• Caretaker of the most contorted imaginations, returning them to higher ground when they fall off the deep end of reality's waterfall

His most common symbol is a hairpin, in honor of his guardianship over hairpin turns.

He has had a color palette created in his name.



The symbols on the so-called "Runic Tablet of Saint Marko" depict various types of intersections.

(Thanks to Codename Gimmick!)

Piecing together the secret of the runes . . .