Hermenautic Circle blog

Van (approx. 4" across)

Dill Pixels has added a photo to the pool:

I'm guessing early 50s on this one.

Dill Pixels has added a photo to the pool:

The. Best. Illustrated. Fantasy. Book. Ever. Artist: Garth Williams, who illustrated other classics such as Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Our family copy, shown here, is in pieces, with some pages missing and torn. Even the reprints (there weren't many) cost a fortune, if you can find them. 1950.

His name was Paul and I met him at band camp. Well, choir camp. He may have been disturbed, but I always had a thing for the hard to get guys. We finally spoke on the last day of camp and decided to exchange addresses. Yes. Actual, physical, addresses.

We wrote letters for weeks before he asked me to be his girlfriend. I was thirteen and thrilled, he was 16 and tormented. But I didn't care. It was so romantic. I even kept all of his letters.

Finally my parents agreed to drive me out to see him. FINALLY And we went to the natural history museum. My ridiculous attempt at a cover for what I was sure was coming. And so, under cover of the planetarium, he kissed me.

I felt right and wrong at the same time. I had never been kissed, much less french kissed before. This, of course, was shortly followed by a clumsy attempt to feel me up that left me feeling dirty for hours...

In the end, it wasn't meant to be. The kiss was over and the magic was gone. I never saw him again.

Waupaca, Wis. (AP) — A man who was upset with his wife for not buying beer took vengeance by shooting one of the family’s two pet goats, prosecutors say.

Peter W. Mischler, 48, was charged this week in Circuit Court with mistreatment of animals, possession of a firearm while intoxicated and disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.

The complaint said Mischler came home Saturday from hunting and became angry with his 22-year-old daughter for letting the goats out and making a mess. While she was talking on the phone to her mother, authorities said, he told her to tell his wife to bring home some beer, but his wife refused.

He then threatened to shoot the goats, according to the complaint.

After his wife arrived home, she and the daughter heard four gunshots and went outside and found one of the two goats with its entrails hanging out, authorities said. They said that goat had to be killed later by a sheriff’s deputy.

Mischler posted a $1,000 cash bond set by Circuit Judge Raymond Huber and was released.

A hearing was scheduled for Dec. 4.

jay: part of me hopes that really bad things happen to this guy right now, but the rest of me thinks that his life is already an incredibly slow painful grind into some form of hell anyway, and i wouldn’t want anything to hasten his descent.

R. Walker posted a photo:

Martin Isaac has added a photo to the pool:

Reach For Tomorrow
Arthur C. Clarke

Printed in the United States of America
First printing: March 1956
Second printing: December 1957
Third printing: December 1963

Reach For Tomorrow presents a second collection of Clarke's stories — the first was the highly successful Expedition to Earth. From "Rescue Party" (his first published story, and still one of his most famous) to "Jupiter Five", one of his more recent stories, the amazing range of Clarke's ideas is fully represented. The science is authentic, the fiction — beautifully tempered with British understatement — is strikingly effective. The book is Arthur C. Clarke at his best — and what is better in modern science fiction?

GAUHATI, India (AP) — In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.

jay: i’m with you, paris. the man helps you when you help yourself. take that, drunken elephants.

Locavore.

Oxford announced its Word of the Year today, plus the list of runners-up (which included, in alphabetical order: aging in place, bacn, cloudware, colony collapse disorder, cougar, MRAP vehicle, mumblecore, social graph, tase (or taze), previvor, and upcycling).

It’s always fun to be involved in picking the word of the year, although after two years of researching, arguing, persuading, and negotiating (not to mention the concentrated application of some world-class Google-fu) to promote my candidates for Oxford’s WOTY (2005: podcast, 2006: carbon neutral), it was a relief to let Ben Zimmer take over the heavy lifting … and it means I can do a little second-guessing and show you some of the words on my list that didn’t make it to the short list. Call them the runners-up to the runners-up, a sort of semi-honorable mention.

There weren’t many, but the ones too good to let get away include:

brick: to cause an electronic device to become permanently nonfunctional (this word got a lot of play when people’s cracked iPhones were bricked by the firmware update)

hypermiler: someone who uses various driving strategies to maximize fuel efficiency

griefer: someone who deliberately promotes discord, especially in online environments

jatropha: a plant whose nuts can be used to produce biodiesel

unconference: a conference where the agenda or schedule is set by the attendees

There you have it … if you’re hungry for more Word-of-the-Year (or as we call it, WOTY) action, there’s always the American Dialect WOTY vote in early January. (This year it’s in Chicago!)

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let …

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let …

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let …

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let …

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let …

A Few First Kisses



A courtyard kid's game of catch and kiss,
and I slowed down.
Caught by my neighbor,
we entered my stairwell
and pressed our mouths,
as if they were elbows or knees.
Afterwards, the other children laughed:
never intending
consummation of the competition.

Us kids crowd round the twirling bottle,
yet too young for postures.
Parents upstairs, little we cared,
and atop the tables were brown bowls
filled with brittle pretzels.
She was the first whirl: comical girl from Japan.
All sweat and odd knots,
our tongues felt foreign between each other's teeth.
We held hands for the evening,
despite our newborn itch.

She lay in my lap
as I sat on the curb.
The block was lined with kegs, grills,
young boys and girls,
we were all drunk on stale beer.
I sunk my neck to reach her.
Our inverted mouths met.
My heart and belly held warm wax
as our lips flickered like amber flame
about a twisted wick.
Once done she thanked me for her first
and I learned thirst.
One day we'd kiss in a torrent,
and like a Pavlov dog
I no longer mind the rain.

She spoke of Plato and Socrates
as she sipped her vodka & lime.
I offered to walk her home
but instead she led me to a bench
where the woods commence
of northern New York.
Her face was fixed with the perfect kissable mouth.

We woke in bed beside one another,
beneath the heated sheets of an august morning.
She slept and I pressed against her.
She woke with reciprocity.
We knew it was wrong
and it ended in departure.

Another returned.
We kissed knelt before my wooden porch door.
Neither of us knew what it entailed,
and perhaps never will.

I read her Joyce from my pillow
in the pre-dawn black of my bedroom,
all at her request.
Alongside my recital,
she found my kisses to be O so dirty.

At the tail-end of the party,
last one of the year,
we met and danced
and met once more.
She had a caramel complexion
and loved that I could keep tempo
between her rotund hips.
The last thing we exchanged was numbers,
and I never called her.

Lips, lips, and tender tongues.
Kiss & tell, everyone.

My friend Mimi Pond recently had one of her cartoons appear in animated form on Slate TV. I've been a huge fan of her work for many years and it was such a treat to see it animated. Plus, anybody who's been in a bad relationship (I guess that's probably all of us at one time or another) should be able to relate.

Lynnola has added a photo to the pool:

Boom Box (clear ripple)






TV (clear ripple with blue screen)



Log (frosty clear, green leaf)





Log (root beer and amber, green leaf)

This was a commission for a displaced London guy. (Approx. 17" X 9")