Thank you for waiting

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Thank You for Waiting

by Simon Armitage

Thank you for waiting.

At this moment in time, we’d like to invite First Class passengers only to board the aircraft.

Thank you for waiting.

We now extend our invitation to Exclusive, Superior, Privilege and Excelsior members, followed by Triple, Double and Single Platinum members, followed by Gold, Silver, Bronze card members, followed by Pearl and Coral Club members.

Military personnel in uniform may also board at this time.

Thank you for waiting.

We now invite Meteorite customers, and passengers enrolled in our Rare Earth, Metals points and rewards scheme and thank you for waiting.

Accredited beautiful people may now board, plus any gentlemen carrying a copy of this month’s Cigar Aficionado magazine, plus subscribers to our Red Diamond, Black Opal or Blue Garnet schemes.

We also welcome Sapphire, Ruby and Emerald members at this time, followed by Amethyst, Onyx, Obsidian, Jet, Topaz and Quartz members.

On production of a valid receipt, travellers of elegance and style wearing designer and/or hand-tailored clothing or flaunting individual pieces of jewellery including wristwatches with a minimum purchase price of 10,000 US dollars may now board.

Also welcome at this time are passengers talking loudly to cell phone headsets about recently completed property acquisitions, share deals and aggressive takeovers, plus hedge fund managers with proven track records in the undermining of small to medium-sized ambitions.

Passengers in Loam, Chalk, Marle and Clay may also board.

Thank you for waiting.

Mediocre passengers are now invited to board, followed by passengers lacking business acumen or general leadership potential, followed by people of little or no consequence, followed by people operating at a net fiscal loss as people.

Scroungers, malingers, spongers and freeloaders may now step forward.

Those holding tickets for zones Rust, Mulch, Cardboard, Puddle and Sand might want to begin gathering their crumbs and tissues ready for boarding.

Passengers either partially or wholly dependent on welfare or kindness, please have their travel coupons validated at the quarantine desk.

Sweat, Dust, Shoddy, Scurf, Turd, Chaff, Remnant, Ash, Pus, Sludge, Clinker, Splinter and Soot, all you people are now free to board.

 

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Devil’s Dictionary

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Yesterday’s post on the dictionary word of the year reminded me of a recent book listing for the enduringly popular satirical book The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.

Bierce was one of America’s most popular humorists, journalists, and short story writers from the 19th century. A veteran of the American Civil War, Bierce’s most anthologized titles include his war stories “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Chickamauga”. Some of his other stories are classics of genre fiction, with the notable horror story “The Damned Thing” and the science fiction story “Moxon’s Master” both regularly appearing in genre anthologies. But his most popular book-length work is The Devil’s Dictionary, a classic satire of cynical and humorous word definitions. First published in 1906 under the title The Cynic’s Word Book, it is considered one of America’s best satires of its era. With it and his other works, Bierce made a lasting impact on American fiction. Bierce mysteriously disappeared in Mexico in 1913, so the actual date and circumstances of his death are unknown. To this day, no one has ever discovered what happened to him.

This edition was published in 1972 by the Limited Editions Club and features woodcut illustrations and devilish ornaments by German artist Fritz Kredel (1900-1973). The marbled paper used for the endpapers and the slipcase are patterned using a fantasy design in red and black that is described as a “harmonizing flame pattern” in the prospectus.

 

 

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How Odd

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

The 2023 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year shortlist is out and it’s a doozy. As tradition demands, the winner is in your hands as the shortlist goes to a public vote on The Bookseller website here. The poll is open until 1st December with the winner revealed on the 8th.

Here’s the short list, so make your vote count. Personally, I’m partial to any Monty Python inspired title.

The shortlist in full

The 12 Days of Christmas: The Outlaw Carol that Wouldn’t Die by Harry Rand (McFarland & Co)

The author of Rumpelstiltskin’s Secret: What Women Didn’t Tell the Grimms looks at how a raucous drinking song became a festive favourite.

Backvalley Ferrets: A Rewilding of the Colorado Plateau by Lawrence Lenhart (University of Georgia Press)

The “beguiling weasel” at the centre of this book is “more than a charismatic minifauna; it is the covert ambassador of a critical ecosystem,” says the author.

Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn That Changed History by Matthew F Jordan (University of Virginia Press)

Charts the device’s lifespan from “metallic shriek that first shocked pedestrians” to its use in the trenches in the First World War.

Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating, Relating, and Hooking Up Without the Booze by Tawny Lara (Quirk Books)

The only non-academic contender is a “judgement-free” handbook from a podcaster and self-described “sober sexpert”.

I Fart in your General Direction: Flatulence in Popular Culture by Don H Corrigan (McFarland & Co)

“Covers every aspect of abdominal gas” in movies, music and TV, combined with “philosophical positions on colonic expression”.

The Queerness of Water: Troubled Ecologies in the Eighteenth Century by Jeremy Chow (University of Virginia Press)

An interdisciplinary look at classic canonical works and how “sea, rivers, pools, streams and glaciers all participate in a violent decolonialism”.

 

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What’s The Word

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

“Authentic” was chosen as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, coming in as the most-looked-up words in the dictionary’s 500,000 entries, the company said in a press release.

“Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate — two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary,” Merriam-Webster said in its release. Look-ups for the word saw a “substantial increase in 2023,” it added.

For a word that we might associate with a certain kind of reliability, “authentic” comes with more than one meaning. It’s a synonym for “real,” defined as “not false or imitation.” But it can also mean “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character” and, sneakily, “conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.”

The dictionary said an additional 13 words stood out in 2023’s look-up data. Not surprisingly, quite a few of them have a direct tie-in to the year’s biggest news stories: coronation, dystopian, EGOT, implode, doppelganger, covenant, kibbutz, elemental, X and indict.

Others on the list feel connotatively connected to “authentic,” or at least our perception of identity in a changing age — words like deepfake, deadname and rizz.

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New York to London in two hours, 52 minutes, and 59 seconds

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Before commercial flights of the famed Concorde were discontinued 20 years ago, a world record flight time of 2 hours, 52 minutes, and 59 seconds was set on a flight from New York City to London. Since then the Concorde plane that set the record has been languishing at Heathrow. In 2010 there was a plan to exhibit one of the Concorde planes next to the London Eye. The project aimed to build a two-story pier next to the London Eye, with an exhibition space on a lower deck, and sitting on top would be one of the Concorde planes.

Now a new scheme called Concorde on the Thames and backed by the Club Concorde members group has launched a new project with a double-deck pier structure with the plane on top and an exhibition space below. This revived plan is based on crowdfunding to raise the money for the project’s development. If they can get the £500,000 they need and get planning permission, they still need to raise millions more for construction and the relocation from Heathrow to the site, as well as restoration of the Concorde. I’d pay to see that.

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A Boat

Posted on November 28, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

A Boat

O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.

— Richard Brautigan

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Beautiful Iceland

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

This holiday weekend I binged watched a mystery series set in Iceland. Of course this led to a bout of nostalgia for one of my favorite places on Earth and a search for videos set in Iceland. The fabulous film below was made by the very talented filmmaker Cody LaPlant from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

NB: If the video fails to open in your browser, please click here.

 

Posted in Europe, Film, Photography, Tourism | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Short Stories for Flyers

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

I have run across some of the magical little short story dispensers over the years, but never one in an airport. For the last year, the Wichita, Kansas Public Library has installed one of their three machines in the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. Travelers can choose to print out short stories from three categories based on reading time: 1 minute, 3 minutes, or 5 minutes. If you don’t plan on passing through the Wichita airport any time soon, you can read the short stories online at their short story website.

 

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Information Is Beautiful

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

I am a sucker for infographics. Show me a cleverly designed graphic on any subject whatsoever and I’m in. So of course the Information is beautiful awards 2023 website sent me down an deep, deep rabbit hole. The Information Is Beautiful Awards 2023   offers the year’s best examples of infoviz work, as selected by David McCandless. There is an amazing selection of diverse examples of design and visualisation, from pure dataviz to design to interactive webwork, the range of styles and techniques here is exceptional. Don’t look unless you have time for a deepdive.

 

Posted in apps, Art, Maps, Museums, Public Transport, Tech | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bibliophile Furniture

Posted on November 25, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

 

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