WORK
“Angels”
They have little use. They are best as objects of torment.
No government cares what you do with them.
Like birds, and yet so human…
They mate by briefly looking at the other.
Their eggs are like white jellybeans.
Sometimes they have been said to inspire a man to
do more with his life than he might have.
But what is there for a man to do with his life?
…They burn beautifully with a blue flame.
When they cry out it is like the screech of a tiny hinge; the cry of a bat.
No one hears it…
—Russell Edson
—from The Tormented Mirror
WORD(S)
humdudgeon (humdurgeon). noun. A complaint about trifles, imaginary problems or trivia. An imaginary illness.
“I know not why I was out of spirits–quite Laird of Humdudgeon, and did all I could to shake it off, and could not.” (Sir Walter Scott)
“His ravings and humdurgeon will unman all our youngsters.” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
We shall not rest until every Independent reader is saying to him or herself, “I wonder what ‘humdudgeon’ means. I must just go and look it up…” (John Walsh)
WEB
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If Snopes.com and Twitter had a baby it would be: Emergent.
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Mattias Adolfsson’s crazily detailed sketches/drawings/doodles.
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Medieval Super Models: “This post is devoted to a particularly attractive and rare kind of medieval manuscript: the model book. A feast to the eye, the object is filled with drawings and paintings that were meant to show scribes and illuminators how to decorate letters, paint initials, or add large segments of decoration to the page.”
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The American Scholar: Ten Worst Opening Lines [of novels]. Or is that 7–8 best?
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Today is the Catholic Church’s Feast of the Guardian Angels, celebrating those elusive spirits which aren’t just for children but aren’t necessarily for everyone. Spiritual Guide BDevine teaches how to feel the presence of your guardian angel. If you’re passing through, there’s a Guardian Angel Museum in Bretten, Germany. However, you don’t have to travel to discover the meaning of your own angel numbers…which you will naturally see everywhere if you look. And did you know: Sam Kinison played Al Bundy’s guardian angel on the “It’s a Bundyful Life” episode of Married with Children. Hard to know what to think, really. Mother Theresa said, “Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly,” but Augustine of Hippo said, “We cannot pass our guardian angel’s bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.”
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
- Reader M. writes: “T(aylor) S(wift) Eliot is so wrong. Yet so right. I was terrified to click, and then glad I didn’t give in to my fear.”
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