infinityisalie: I preffered B-Side (which closed right?) and Mystery Train in Amherst to Turn it Up, although I do like the frightening stairway in. Also, I hope you grabbed The Worlds Greatest Burrito at Bueno y Sano, located where the far inferior Cha Cha Cha used to reside.
Hugh Jass: I want to change the punctuation so it says the opposite of what was intended, in Yoda-postfix: Walk, do not. Run on ramp.
Holy Cuteness: I like your blogs, espacially the adorablog design!
Akash: Half of the world. What is it ? The world is divided up into seas and continents. There are hot places and there are cold. There are many religions in the world. There are animals, insects, fish etc. There are gases, liquids, metals etc. There is man and woman. There is good and bad. There is happy and sad. The answer is non of the above or even closely related to the above. need help with this one and ASAP....
rick: wait, is the name of your font "big gay"?
sushiesque: currently, the name of my font is "this is a test". I've only done I, J, and H (in that order), and it gets bigger and gayer with each successive letter.
Quise: Ok I have a riddle for you all. "my presence is needed, even though many do like like me around, I can create life and sound but also cause fear..... what am I?
Jack Morava: You might like `The Crying of Lot 49' by Thomas Pynchon (nowhere near as good as Valis, tho). There's a huge wiki page about it... (:+{)}
chris: You should submit this to "Why a Tittle?" ! I'm a huge fan of your page.
obo: Wheeeee! http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/fontstructions/show/le_petit
infinityisalie: The Rather Difficult Font Game http://fontgame.ilovetypography.com/
« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
I found a t-shirt in my apartment that isn't mine. At first glance it looked like a plain black t-shirt, faded by years of wear, but the little white flecks of screen print suggested otherwise. The design has crumbled off into illegibility, but I know exactly what it was and who it belongs to.
A mix cd for the first reader* to reach the same conclusion. Extra credit: A Crunky bar for anybody who guesses the identity of the owner.
*Disqualified: People I already told.
Back in November, Gwynne made friends with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and I carried around a new camera with which I was just barely acquainted. The result is up on Babble.com now.
The Carle Museum is fun even if you don't like museums, or even children's literature—in addition to all that caterpillar memorabilia, the gift shop/bookstore's got a not-actually-age-appropriate corner full of charming discoveries. (I brought home a nineteenth-century board game, Paths of Life by J.H. Cotterell, in a facsimile edition published by the Toronto Public Library. Players move about a map of an allegorical country littered with place-names like "Fibbing Thicket", "Prudent Slope", "Gluttonsbury", and—the ultimate destination of losing players—"Bottomless Pit".) And any excuse for Zipcarring out to western Massachusetts will do.
Above: Gwynne, about to be consumed by the largest, hungriest caterpillar.
"Gwynne is a Christian, but not the kind that sucks." She has a new blog.
Photograph from a party thrown by certain Quakers a couple years ago. They don't suck either.
For economy of space as well as of temper (for lamps of all kinds are sore trials), I had a gasalier of three lights over the table. The effect was to cause great heat in the upper regions [...]; the backs of the books on the top shelves were perished, and crumbled away when touched, being reduced to the consistency of Scotch snuff.William Blades, The Enemies of Books (London: E. Stock, 1888).
"Red rot" is a form of leather decomposition familiar to archivists, conservation librarians, and bibliophiles: humidity and light and handling turn old book bindings into a weak, powdery felt. It is sometimes treated with a mixture of wax, resin, ethanol, and hydroxypropylcellulose, created at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia and dubbed "red rot cocktail".
A more palatable mixture of the same name was concocted in November for a party at the hallowed Boston Athenaeum:
To one jigger of London dry gin add one half ounce each of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, Cherry Heering and fresh lemon juice, and two goodly dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. Shake vigorously with ice and turn into a champagne saucer.
For further details on the soiree and its drinks, see Drinkboston.com: "The Most Fun I Ever Had At A Library". (Comments include a list of 1920s terms for "drunk".)
Image from the State Library of Victoria, Australia.
Point/counterpoint concerning Central Square's newest cafe, which we have taken to calling Soytopia.
Point: Remission of sins for $4.29
From my inbox:
Gang, I just saw the Clear Conscience Cafe in full swing for the first time, and damn! It looked like just the sort of place where I hung out in college, which is to say, it's comically pretentious: Simon & Garfunkel (playing on a sound system so perfect I actually thought it must be a live cover band), concerned-looking latter-day Joan Baez-types with visions of women's microcredit co-ops in coastal Guyana dancing through their heads, and some older cats who should know better wearing dashiki-like costumes that leave no doubt that they listen to a lot of "world music."
If you want to expurgate your white guilt for the price of a chai latte made by a stoner taking his own sweet time, it is the place for you. I strongly urge us to hang there one evening and scandalize people by talking in loud voices about how Sinopec can invest in Darfur if they damn well please as long as they keep oil flowing to fuel industrial progress.
Counterpoint: Clear Conscience Cafe? Hardly!
