When I read something amazing or fascinating or beautiful, it feels like I’m dipping into a pool of water and paddling around for a while. I become unaware of the world outside the pool, and then at some point I resurface. That’s how good reading feels to me.

One of the greatest things about my library card is that I can read magazines. Splendid! So, in the mornings sometimes I’ll open up the New Yorker or something and read a piece end to end (One lovely/tragic piece I read in there recently was a short fiction called “The Blight” by Emma Cline.) I might read fiction, or non-fiction, but it’s always a bit of a pool to paddle around in.

This is quite a way to set up your day. Like, my head hasn’t left the pillow for more than a few moments and yet here I am immersed in somebody’s world.

I recently read the graphic novel, “Land of Mirrors” by Maria Medem. It’s spare with its words, but the words weave in and out of a unique visual world and the effect is engrossing. I learned a lot about color, and form, and story, all at once. A great pool to paddle around in.

It is a very special thing to go along with someone through a story, or an idea, or a piece of research, or a bit of history. It opens up a door where there wasn’t one, or it provides you a little ladder into a pool of water, and then the world is embiggened while you paddle around, unaware of the pool’s edges for a time.

Neptune Road

A comic about people salvaging a life on a terra-formed Neptune

BunnyFrogCatSnake

Goin for a bit of a ride

Good with whatever music you might like to play, I recommend Seattle by Public Image Ltd

Things Of The Week

Wow this is a really great and thorough animation on how a World War II Enigma machine works.

Also there’s a whole museum dedicated to the Enigma, and apparently you can buy one?

Here from Jersey Devil Press is a funny little story about tiny army people

Featured Thing

License Brainwaves cartoons for all your weird stuff: CartoonStock are terrific and I’ve been with them forever.

Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.

May you paddle around in a pool, may you read some great stories, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy

“Wherever we go, we are friends” - Sloth and Manatee