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The Fall of the House of Usher - **

Ligeia - ** 1/2

In a well-balanced, reasoning mind there is no such thing as an intuition - an inspired guess! You can guess, of course - and a guess is either right or wrong. If it is right you call it an intuition. If it is wrong you usually do not speak of it again. But what is often called an intuition is really an impression based on logical deduction or experience.

"This [murder] is a most distressing business. Most distressing. How it will affect our business I really cannot think!"
"You'll have a boom," said Inspector Kelsey encouragingly. "You'll see! You won't be able to serve teas fast enough!"
"Disgusting," said Miss Merrion. "Truly disgusting. It makes one despair of human nature."
But her eyes brightened nevertheless.

'I know,' I said, 'that you retired years ago--'
'C'est vrai. To grow the vegetable marrows! And immediately a murder occurs - and I send the vegetable marrows to promenade themselves to the devil.'

Last night I had a terrifying dream in black and white with violent expressionist contrasts, between darkness and light. All I remember is the final image, a beast-like face of a dead body, coming out of the darkness toward me. "It's death", I tell myself petrified by fear. And death comes and takes me quite literally. I woke up with a stiff head, stinking of adrenaline.

It would have been (and indeed it is) frightening to realize that yes, the world is full of signs addressed to me, positively screaming to be deciphered, only my mind, this ganglion encased in bone tissue, cannot find a coherent meaning in them, let alone a tunnel or an escape.

Counting one's blessings olives...

Trust issues
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As I asked [the customer] what he had liked best, he said "The friendly chubby cheeked face on the left reminds me of my grandfather. He looked just like that". And as I said, I had painted a still-life, and the friendly grandpa-face with the round cheeks was actually a pumpkin.

Perhaps we only read so we can return to an age when we could still cry holding a book, sometime between childhood and adolescence, the sweet spot of our life.

Basic artistic skills and a familiarity with occult caligraphy are part of a wizard's early training, yet in Rincewind's fingers chalk broke and pencils shattered. It was probably due to a deep distrust of getting things down on paper when they were doing all right where they were.

"Good grief, it was only a sheep when all's said and done!"
The warder grinned widely. "Ah, a lot of men have gone to the gallows sayin' that in the past. 's'matterofact, you're the first sheep-stealer we've had here for years. You're gonna get a big crowd."
"Baah!"
"Maybe a flock, too," said the warder.
"That's another thing," said Rincewind. "Why's this sheep in my cell?"
"Evidence, mate."

"This is the neighbourhood, that's what we've got to work with. Luckily they are the children of simple people, who've got common sense..."

I knew these people with common sense. They'd call on me in the evening, after class, carrying a pack of cigarettes even though they know I don't smoke, and they'd insist I spank their kids any chance I got.

Pretty much the same way my teachers taught it to me, some 30 years later:

"I threw myself into my new life like a demented man. I studied old literature with inept teachers, and I studied various monks who'd written three lines in palaeoslavonic, following foreign rules, because the historical hole of a late-blooming culture had to be justified somehow."

Ankh-Morpork beer was technically ale, that is to say, gravy made from hops. It had texture. It had flavour, even if you didn't always want to know what of. It had body. It had dregs. You could eat the last half-inch of it with a spoon.

"Time here is," the kangaroo shrugged, "not the same. It was... glued together differently, right?"
"Search me," said Rincewind. "I'm a man sitting here listening to a kangaroo. I'm not arguing."
"I'm trying to find words you might understand," said the kangaroo.
"Good, keep going, you'll get there."

I'm not amused, Amazon 😒...

Dear Amazon,
This is not nearly as funny as you think.
No Considerably less love,
Ms. Smartarse

Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The 100 Metres, the Mile, the Marathon - he'd run them all. Later, when he'd learned what the world actually meant, he'd been equally certain he wasn't one. He was a person who divided the world into people who were trying to kill him and people who weren't. That didn't leave much room for fine details like what colour anyone was.

Like a busy government which only passes expensive laws prohibiting some new and interesting thing when people have actually found a way of doing it, the universe relied a great deal on things NOT being tried at all.

"There's probably even more [lights] than our eyes can see right now, just considering how time has slowed to a stop," I pointed out. "LEDs and fluorescent lights, for example, only work by flickering rapidly on and off. A good portion of those must've been frozen in an unilluminated state."
"Why can't you just shut up and enjoy the beauty of it for what it is?"

We both get along well with Martha, but, objectively speaking, she does have a significant affliction. Heinrich calls it a poetic constitution, while I'd say storage problem. Dementia sounds stupid, and it means word for word: without understanding.

Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines. Even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be.

"What weapon is this?" Visander held the frilly stick out to Elisabeth.
"It's called a parasol. You carry it about."
"Does it work like a pistol?"

Sarcean reacted, suppressed the reaction, and considered her anew.

Maybe it's the medium (audio), maybe the genre (YA)... but I'm having a hard giving a crap about any of the characters. 😮‍💨

"I'm afraid your mother has convinced herself that [your ex] is the reason you left for Argentina, and that you'd come back as soon as you made up with him."
"You two are not helicopter parents, but rather an entire flight squadron!" I heaved a sigh.
"I'm not sure what that means but it doesn't sound like a compliment."