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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
Inspired by Gary Barwin, who writes of "The parabolic light cast by a lamp. Perhaps in a cave." --- June writes: I wish I were clever enough to draw a diagram of what illuminates Professor Oddfellow!
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Prof. Oddfellow responds with a diagram: 
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 Is it true, as 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 . . . EMMA by Jane AustenEmma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Suddenly, a shot rang out.
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FIRST QUARTER (PROGRESSIVE)"A semicolon of twinkling starlight against a uniform background glow." —Stephen James O'Meara, Steve O'Meara's Herschel 400 Observing Guide (2007)
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Why I Have Never Left Portmeirion(for Ken Smith, in the style of Emily Dickinson's "I Never Saw a Moor" I never saw the port, I never heard the sea; Yet I waved down a flagstone boat (an Atlas guided me). A Golden Dragon's treasure: the Buddha's missing hand; A wild, Gwyllt-y pleasure: the estuary sand. The Watch House has no clocks, The bell tower makes no sound; Yet the humming of a Mermaid's rocks has rendered me spellbound.
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Hindpsych: Erstwhile Conjectures by the Sometime Augur of Yore |
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Today's Question:
Was King Ludwig II of Bavaria declared insane just days before his mysterious death in 1886?
With hindpsych, the regrettable answer is "yes." On the left side of our striking Tarot spread, the Moon card speaks of Ludwig's vivid imagination and his shadow self. Indeed, Ludwig was famous for his moonlit excursions and night owl schedule. His enemies would have used this card as evidence of chasing after fantasies (at best) and entertaining distorted thoughts.
In the central card, the hands of the lovers don't touch—Ludwig's connection to love isn't through physical union. Rather, a higher ideal (the angel) governs a mountaintop in the clouds—home of Neuschwanstein castle. This card would have reminded Ludwig's enemies of the king's failure to secure an alliance through marriage, not to mention the rumors of the king's homosexuality.
On the right, the young man of the Two of Pentacles skillfully juggles a couple of gold coins. This of course symbolizes the king's playful nature as well as his confident investment in personal projects. His enemies would have used this card as evidence of reckless spending—note the infinity symbol around the coins.
The moon faces left; the juggler of coins faces right; the lovers in the middle don't touch. We see an unmistakable polarity in this spread of cards. Is it evidence of a strong Anima/Animus personality or of mental instability? Ludwig's enemies saw imbecilic dancing in the juggler and heard mad howling from the moonlit wolves. They declared the king insane and deposed him in 1886.
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* Historians must reconstruct the past out of hazy memory. "Once upon a time" requires "second sight." The "third eye" of intuition can break the "fourth wall" of conventional perspectives. Instead of "pleading the fifth," historians can take advantage of the "sixth sense" and be in "seventh heaven." All with the power of hindpsych, the "eighth wonder of the world." It has been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Therein lies the importance of Tarot readings for antiquity. When we confirm what has already occurred, we break the shackles of the past, freeing ourselves to chart new courses into the future. |
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Here's Jesse's spot-on Prof. Oddfellow impression! And it's true: our dictionary of magic words looks best when viewed through novelty eyewear. Thanks for putting the hologram back into grammar, Jesse!
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It seems a rare thing to encounter a source citation within song lyrics. The first time we noticed the phenomenon was back in 1988, in They Might Be Giants' song "Ana Ng": When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge: "I don't want the world, I just want your half"
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“The marina and launching ramps are waiting for your boat.” —Westways
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Did You Hear the One I Just Made Up? |
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If, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "wine is bottled poetry," then Mint Juleps are georgics, vodka is blank verse, and a set of drinks is a roundelay. --- Jonathan Caws-Elwitt posits: And Irish whiskey is a limerick?
Prof. Oddfellow answers:
Yes! And did you know that after a few shots it doubles as an anapestic?
June quips:
I thought tequila would be a lime-rick.
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FIRST QUARTER (FUTURE)"The day is again punctuated." —Tony Banham, Not the Slightest Chance (2003)
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What is the origin of the set of dots we use to indicate an omission from writing?
Prof. Oddfellow has traced the dots back to this unretouched mathematical illustration from 1918, showing how to construct an ellipse using circle arcs. Note the three dots on the right side of the central line. Our ellipsis dots are, fittingly, born of the ellipse!
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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* A manual for typographers published in 1917 acknowledged that there are many beautiful forms of the ampersand, yet it forbade their use in "ordinary book work." Extraordinary books are another matter. Our lavishly illustrated Ampersand opus explores the history and pictography of the most common coordinating conjunction. |
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Puzzles and Games :: Which is Funnier |
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True or False: Shakespeare’s “Prince Hal is less humorous than Falstaff.”
Clue: This is according to a Shakespeare scholar.
Answer: False. “Prince Hal himself is no less humorous than Falstaff, while his wit has a dignity and a sarcastic edge not observable in the fat knight’s random and reckless sallies.” (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Richard Grant White, Studies in Shakespeare (1885), p. 29.
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From our Magic Words outpost at Blogger: In his novel The Book of Jokes
(2009), Momus' narrator lives in a preposterous world governed by the
laws of bad jokes and dirty jokes. But the narrator has a revelation
concerning the magic of words: I have discovered that
there is a way to escape this grim fate—the misfortune of joke dharma.
The solution, I believe, is that I should assume, myself, the
responsibility of telling the very jokes which constrain and define me,
and to make, each time, a small alteration in their telling, an
alteration which restores a few shreds of dignity, human decency, beauty
and sensuality to the tale.
It might begin by embroidery; I
add a few details which are not normally included in the rush to the
punchline. I must ensure that the story is so well-told that my
audience loses interest in the farcical pay-off, the money-shot. I tell
the tale several times, from different angles and with different
emphases, forcing my listeners to pay attention to small formal
questions, adverbs rather than verbs, hows rather than whats.
By these methods, little by little, I believe I can improve my world.
Even if you are not in the same grim situation as me, you might want to
try this technique for yourself. (51-52)
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INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the puzzle image below to reveal one possible solution.
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Q. And, after all, is not eating well what the culinary arts are all about? A. Yes, it is. Q. That was actually a rhetorical question. Aren't you supposed to be on break? —humorist, playwright, neologist, palindromist, parodist, and wit Jonathan Caws-Elwitt
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought |
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“Now and again, perhaps, the heavens will fall, and your ship will come home laden with gold and silk and ruddy wine.” —Richard Middleton
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Puzzles and Games :: Which is Funnier |
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Which is funnier: a crow’s cawing or blue jay’s squawking?
Clue: This is according to Beat poet Allen Ginsberg
Answer: Blue jay squawking (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Allen Ginsberg, Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958-1996 (2001), p. 373.
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I was surprised to discover today that I was quoted in Wikipedia's " acoustic music" entry: Writing for Splendid, music reviewer Craig Conley suggests, "When music is labeled acoustic, unplugged, or unwired, the assumption seems to be that other types of music are cluttered by technology and overproduction and therefore aren't as pure."
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WAXING CRESCENT (PRESENT PERFECT)"semicolon [;], star [*]" —Roget's International Thesaurus (1962)
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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Puzzles and Games :: Which is Funnier |
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What is funnier than laughing when you shouldn't be laughing?
Clue: This is according to novelist Rick Hamilin.
Answer: Nothing. (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Rick Hamilin, Reading Between the Lines (2006), p. 111.
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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Did You Hear the One I Just Made Up? |
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I looked for a punch line when I found a Lorem Ipsum generator with all sorts of language links at the top. (See screenshot.) Here's my own punch line in honor of Robert Heinlein: I translated Lorem Ipsum into Martian, but it was all grok to me.
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From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:
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Printed collections of Forgotten Wisdom diagrams are available: Volume I from Mindful Greetings and Volumes II, III and IV from Amazon. Selected posters are also available via Zazzle. |
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Yes, you may . . . on one condition: "that there are no pre-conditions." — Golda Meir, International Documents on Palestine, 1974
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Puzzles and Games :: Which is Funnier |
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What is funnier than unhappiness?
Clue: This is according to playwright Samuel Beckett
Answer: Nothing (The answer is in black text on the black background. Highlight it to view.)
Citation: Simon Critchley, Very Little—Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature (2004), p. 184.
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Lloyd Wright's mountaintop memorial to Emanuel Swedenborg in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
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Dr. Awkward writes: ok, i've been struggling with this for years - in high school english i learned that it's verboten to punctuate after a set of quotation marks, but following this rule seems rather jarring - looking for an elegant solution...
I'll share my secrets. When quotation marks and punctuation become awkward, the most elegant solution is to paraphrase and avoid directly quoting. Contrariwise, quote generously enough to offset and thereby avoid quotation marks altogether. For example: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, dignissim libero. Felis metus:
Magna mi id facilisi, est nostra, placerat amet sit, proin mollis commodo tincidunt lorem est, neque wisi vitae sed blandit. Sed tincidunt rem hendrerit cubilia fusce, pellentesque tincidunt tellus in. Ut ac metus curabitur eu. Nunc sollicitudin blandit sit consectetuer a non.
Quam posuere non sociosqu, id nec blandit sed nulla aliquam ut, diam id dolor ipsa habitasse. Et id hendrerit a ut, hendrerit erat ornare quisque donec odio platea.
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Original Content Copyright © 2019 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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