Bill Cheng's Blog, page 24
August 17, 2014
scottcheshire:
I have been Inventoried! I am honored…
Also,...
I have been Inventoried! I am honored…
Also, here is your chance to start following Ms. Hodson’s Inventory project. It is always fresh and strange and sort of dream-in-the-daytime beautiful.
And I am ashamed to say I have not read her book, Pity the Animal, yet! And so now I commit to buying and reading asap - you should too:
http://chelseahodson.com/writing/
Inventory #594: High as the Horses’ Bridles by Scott Cheshire
——-
REGARDING A BARRIER
Just like in junior high school, it’s in the stairwells you find the kids. In the halls and every darkened corner. They ditch parents first chance they get, and the parents don’t mind because inside is not the would outside. No crime, here, not in his house. No borough factions, or fights. Queens, Brooklyn, or Bronx. Best of all, no unbelievers. We’re a clean people, have a good time with your brothers and sisters.
—Scott Cheshire
August 16, 2014
highwaydiamonds:
runecestershire:
lessthansix:
eglantinebr:
m...
A dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
London 1760
Johnson’s dictionary has some unusual definitions in it.
Distiller: One who makes and sells pernicious and inflammatory spirits.
Dull: Not exhilaterating (sic); not delightful; as, to make dictionaries is dull work.
Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Far-fetch: A deep stratagem. A ludicrous word.
Pastern: The knee of a horse. (This is wrong. When Johnson was once asked how he came to make such a mistake, Boswell tells us he replied, ”Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”)
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
Pension: An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
To worm: To deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue, which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad
I particularly enjoy his definition of dull.
He reminds me both of Jack Aubrey, and of Blackadder. Good company for him.
It keeps getting better!
Oh lord, how I love this. It goes from strength to strength and then adds the Blackadder cherry on top. (Don’t care what anyone says, the best Blackadder series is the 18th C. series.)
sagansense:
astronomy-to-zoology:
what is this monster?
Its a...
what is this monster?
Its a Bobbit Worm (Eunice aphroditois), a type of polychaete worm
Read more about the discovery of a 10-foot-long Bobbit Worm via Wired, watch the Bobbit Worm in action, and good luck sleeping…
This is Eunice aphroditois, also known as the bobbit worm, a mix between the Mongolian death worm, the Graboids from Tremors, the Bugs from Starship Troopers, and a rainbow — but it’s a really dangerous rainbow, like in Mario Kart. And it hunts in pretty much the most nightmarish way imaginable, digging itself into the sea floor, exposing a few inches of its body — which can grow to 10 feet long — and waiting.
Using five antennae, the bobbit worm senses passing prey, snapping down on them with supremely muscled mouth parts, called a pharynx. It does this with such speed and strength that it can split a fish in two. And that, quite frankly, would be a merciful exit. If you survive initially, you get to find out what it’s like to be yanked into the worm’s burrow and into untold nightmares.
A Daily Mail story suggested that the bobbit worm can permanently paralyze human appendages with its bristles, though Carrera-Parra and Salazar-Vallejo question this. They say a different family of worms, the fireworms, have harpoon-shaped chaetae — bristles of sorts — that release a toxin that can cause severe skin irritation, but bobbit worms “do not have abundant chaetae and their chaetae are not used for defensive purposes, but for improving traction for crawling over the sediment or inside their galleries or tubes.”
August 15, 2014
officialbookface:
So excited to finally be reading this book!...
So excited to finally be reading this book! This is possibly my last pleasure read before the school year starts.
Submitted by ivegotstoriestotell.
August 13, 2014
THE BLACK EMERALD is released and i write a bunch of stuff about it
http://www.instarbooks.com/books/the-black-emerald.html
http://www.instarbooks.com/books/the-black-emerald.html
http://www.instarbooks.com/books/the-black-emerald.html
So this is a little belated because I Was Traveling and then I Was Recovering From Travel. But my new…
August 11, 2014
August 10, 2014
historical-nonfiction:
Some crabs near Danno-ura in Japan have...
Some crabs near Danno-ura in Japan have patterns on their shells bearing an uncanny resemblance to a face of a samurai. When caught, these crabs are thrown back in commemoration of the Heike samurai clan, who lost a naval battle there in 1185. The patterns on the crabs’ shells are inherited, and it is believed that the patterns evolved because fishermen tended to throw back crabs with patterns resembling faces. Crabs with patterns most resembling a face had a better chance of survival. Eventually, the pattern of the face of a fierce, scowling samurai evolved.
August 8, 2014
harpercollins:
Charles Bukowski would have turned 94 this 8/16....
Charles Bukowski would have turned 94 this 8/16. Our countdown to #HappyBDayBukowski continues with this quote from Factotum.
