Category: links and bookmarks

Fiddleheads And The Melancholy Thistle – “…ancient native plants have great names, resonant of folklore and the old times.”

They Caught And Drowned God: PRIMEVAL AND OTHER TIMES, Olga Tokarczuk – “This world went on for a very long time, and bored God to death.“

The Bastards Of Old England – ROBIN HOOD: A TRUE LEGEND, Sean McGlynn – “Eustace the Farting, Foul-Mouthed, Cross-Dressing Monk and Notorious Medieval Pirate...”

CAT CALL, Kristen Sollée’s New Book About Cats, Myth & Magic – “…feminine feline archetypes reveal the ways in which women have been revered and reviled around the world—in Greek and Egyptian mythology, the European witch trials, Japanese folklore, and contemporary film.”

random collection morningcomputer 21mar22 – “It is too often accepted that during the 19th and early 20th centuries it was the male writers who developed and pushed the boundaries of the weird tale, with women writers following in their wake—but this is far from the truth.” 

I haven’t quite succumbed to the urge to add a “garden” or “horticultural therapy” category to LTD yet, but this was a nice surprise worth noting. I don’t do the social media, but I can link to countrygardenuk.com right here as a thank you for the free seeds thrown in with my order of yarrow seeds for the pollinator/wildlife-corridor section I’m planning to plant up. Autumn is set to kick in on Friday, so these will go in the ground at the weekend.

Full gallery at this link.

Oulipo: Perverb

Perverbs are obtained by crossing proverbs. If we join the first part of “All roads lead to Rome” to the second part of “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” we obtain the perverb “All roads gather no moss.” The remaining parts yield a second perverb, “A rolling stone leads to Rome.” Perverbs have two main Oulipian uses, here exemplified: they can be organized into strophic poems; they can be “interpreted” as narratives.

In East Anglia people suffering from ague, a form of malaria characterised by fits of shivering, used to call on the ‘Quake doctors’. If the doctor couldn’t charm away the fever with a magic wand, the patient was required to wear shoes lined with tansy leaves, or take pills made of compressed spider’s webs before breakfast. A locally famous Essex ‘Quake doctor’ in the 19th century was Thomas Bedloe of Rawreth. A sign outside his cottage said, “Thomas Bedloe, hog, dog and cattle doctor. Immediate relief and perfect cure for persons in the Dropsy, also eating cancer” !

A spirited young man journeys into the mountains of China in search of a Buddhist hermit master. Along the trail he meets an unexpected cast of dedicated recluses; the gaunt ascetic, the persevering nun, a wise old master and his disciples, all who, despite living far from the world, teach him all about how to live within it.

Filtered for hermits.

The ancient settlement was accompanied by 2,807 graves from different time periods. The ground in this area was adorned with devotional rock inscriptions, one of which addressed to the ancient god Khaal.

Via this fascinating piece on the bookplates of eighteen authors.

THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE BOOK, Umberto Eco, Jean-Claude Carrière, Jean-Philippe de Tonnac

Our uncalled-for longevity mustn’t blind us to the fact that the world of knowledge is in constant flux and that of course we can only have a proper handle on it for a limited period of time.

Kafka Broke Einstein

NUMERO ZERO: The Last Of Umberto Eco

It’s a short and sweet little book, like a tiny aftershock from FOUCAULT’S PENDULUM…

Taking a moment to look back on my mark-making here over the last month and pick out the pieces I thought worked better than others, mostly for my own consideration going forward:

The Penguin Originals, A Forgotten Imprint – a stylish book imprint that I remember existing for only a short time.

Henning Mankell’s Hearse – I’m re-reading some Mankell, chilly undertaker of Nordic Noir.

Working From Home Every Day Carry: Housebound WFH EDC Pack May 2022. Related, Is It Still An EDC If You Don’t Leave The House?

The Bastards Of Old England – ROBIN HOOD: A TRUE LEGEND, Sean McGlynn

My Own Timeline In Black And White: Eddie Campbell’s THE YEARS HAVE PANTS

Podcast Selection, May 2022

Travelling Without Moving (morning computer)