Author: Don

Beware the millicent

A visit to the poetry corner: Lewis Carroll meets Anthony Burgess, as translated by John-Lewis Lookingglass.

The Rasoodocky

Twas dobby and the chellovecks—
That’s Pete, George, Dim, and me, the boss—
Did sit and drink some vellocet
When came this great goloss

“Beware the millicent, my droog!
His nozh to skrik, his hands that skvat!
Beware the staja godman well,
who vreds boys in their spat!”

I took my shlaga in my hand,
And said “Come malchiks, ookadeet!”
Then viddied I old Billy Boy
This did I gavoreet:

“Ho, ho! If it’s not stinking Bill,
I thought I nuked the smell of cal!
Come take it in the yarbles now,
You eunuch jelly thou!”

Bill dropped the young devotchka down
That they had stripped nagoy
He spat and flashed his britva out
And crarked “Let’s get ‘em, boys!”

One, two! Plesk, shive!
My brothers, ‘twas a glorious drat
They creeched and horned and dropped their knives
And ittied skorry back

Twas dobby, grand, and horrorshow
We droogs retired, fagged and fashed
I raised my glass of honeygold,
“A toast! To our next crast!”

Like curious thoughts

Apropos of nothing in particular, Lord Dunsany.

IN ZACCARATH

“Come,” said the King in sacred Zaccarath, “and let our prophets prophesy before us.”

A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the nomads on the plains.

There was the King with all his underlords, and the lesser kings that did him vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their jewels upon them.

Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thousand lights and the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of that hoard of queens, or the flash of their laden necks?

There was a necklace there of rose-pink pearls beyond the art of the dreamer to imagine. Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers, where torches, soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, burned and gave off a scent of blethany?

(This herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit of Mount Zaumnos, scents all the Zaumnian range, and is smelt far out on the Kepuscran plains, and even, when the wind is from the mountains, in the streets of the city of Ognoth. At night it closes its petals and is heard to breathe, and its breath is a swift poison. This it does even by day if the snows are disturbed about it. No plant of this has ever been captured alive by a hunter.)

Enough to say that when the dawn came up it appeared by contrast pallid and unlovely and stripped bare of all its glory, so that it hid itself with rolling clouds.

“Come,” said the King, “let our prophets prophesy.”

Continue reading “Like curious thoughts”

Fifty shades of puce

Did machines write Fifty Shades of Crap Grey? Perhaps.

For those who missed it, here’s Dave Barry’s review of the book.

… Why was this book so incredibly popular? When so many women get so emotionally involved in a badly written, comically unrealistic porno yarn, what does this tell us? That women are basically insane? Yes.

(Via Dustbury and Robbo.)

A further depressing note: I spotted some “Fifty Shades” etc. wine this morning. Um, no thanks. (I was tempted to pick up a bottle of “Bourgeois Pig” on a different shelf for the sake of the label.)

Advisory

If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues, I will not obey those rules.

For background, see Patterico and Dustbury.

I hope it doesn’t come to this, though. I’d really prefer not to discuss politics here more than absolutely necsssary. If I did, I would sound a lot like Mean Lizzie in her recent rant, and I’m already on blood pressure medication. I’d much rather post pictures of pretty girls cosplaying as battleships than contemplate old wrecks like Hillary.

Kongou

David Hilbert, plumbing contractor

Hilbert

Back when I sewed regularly, I seldom used printed fabrics. Partly it was because I mostly made outfits for the SCA, where prints were rarely appropriate, but mainly because most of the designs available then were dull and uninteresting.

That is no longer the case. I recently visited Spoonflower.com and found all kinds of interesting things there, such as the plumbing nightmare above, based on the space-filling Hilbert curve.

Other designs include:

Continue reading “David Hilbert, plumbing contractor”

Bubble vision

I assumed that I would spend the latter part of my life listening to Bach, sipping scotch and watching western civilization slowly decline through a pleasant silver age. However, stories such as J.G. Ballard’s “The Garden of Time” (pdf) and Gene Wolfe’s “And When They Appear” often come to mind these days. It’s possible I’ve been too optimistic:

Paradoxically, the key strengths of civilizations are also their central weaknesses. You can see that from the fact that the golden ages of civilizations are very often right before the collapse.

The Renaissance in Italy was very much like the Classic Maya. The apogee was the collapse. The Renaissance status rivalry between cities through art and science and warfare and architecture was a beautiful disaster, and it only lasted about 150 years. The Golden Age of Greece was the same thing: status rivalry with architecture, literature, and all these wonderful things—along with warfare—at the end of which Greece was conquered by Macedonia and remained under the control of foreign powers for 2,300 years.

We see this pattern repeated continuously, and it is one that should make us nervous. I just heard Bill Gates say that we are living in the greatest time in history. Now you can understand why Bill Gates would think that, but even if he is right, that is an ominous thing to say.

(Via Isegoria.)