history

Herds of free-roaming local swine

Today wasn’t exactly like yesterday, but close enough that it raises questions about loops in the space-time continuum. Or maybe that’s just the Star Trek I watched this evening talking.

I spent a lot of the day thinking about Kaleidotrope, about maybe doing another three issues (instead of two) again next year, about maybe changing up how I split those issues across the twelve months to more evenly distribute them (something like January, May, and September), and about how doing four issues a year would probably kill (or at least bankrupt) me, even if right now it seems like maybe I have enough accepted material to fill all four. The sensible thing might just be to re-institute a reading period, a set time for when I’m open and closed to new submissions. The slush pile, while constant, is manageable, but I’m hesitant to accept new stories that I won’t be able to print for a year and a half or longer. (The next two issues, regardless of when they appear, are definitely full, with a third near-approaching.) Cutting off submissions for a little while — I’m thinking maybe July to October — could give me the breathing room I need.

Anyway, that’s what constitutes excitement this Thursday — unless you count the couple of taxis that came marginally close to hitting me this afternoon, and the drivers who gave me dirty looks for getting in the way of their illegal turns or running red lights. Heck, yesterday, a van rode up on the sidewalk just a few feet from me, when the driver got tired of waiting for the cars in front of him to make a left turn. Of course, things could be worse. According to my Forgotten English desk calendar, in the 1800s, New York City was rife with “herds of free-roaming local swine.” To wit:

“I had hoped to find on my return from Canada that this public nuisance, by means of papers and strictures of different authors, had been abated, but was disappointed on finding that it was as great as ever. The lawyers and judges dare not prosecute negligent herdsmen with existing laws and many people have conspired to transgress them. They, like gentlemen of other professions, are the creatures of the mob and have not the hardihood to offend it by rigorous adherence to their duty.”

So, no cholera-spreading pigs, which is always good. But also not much else. I’m glad, at least, that tomorrow’s Friday.

Be in Clean Life and turn thy face towards the east

A cold, rainy day here in New York, and not a whole lot to report. I started reading Fifth Business by Robertson Davies this morning, but I’m really not far enough along in it to have formed an opinion. I like it so far, though, and it comes well recommended, so we’ll see. It seemed sufficiently different from the last book I read.

But beyond that? Just cold and rainy.

Today’s Forgotten English calendar page is fun, though, offering “an excellent way to get a fairy” (at least according to a late 1600s manuscript in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum). It suggests that one

…get a broad, square crystal, in length and breadth three inches, and lay it in the blood of a hen three Wednesdays or three Fridays. Then take it out and wash it in Holy Water and fumigate it. Then take three hazel rods of a year’s growth, peel them fair and white, and write the fairy’s name (which you call three times) on every stick being made flat one side. Then bury them under some hill whereas you suppose fairies haunt the Wednesday before you call her; and the Friday following, call her three times at eight, or three, or ten of the clock. But when you call, be in Clean Life and turn thy face towards the east; and when you have her, bind her in that crystal.

Is that all? Well, tomorrow’s Wednesday, so I better get cracking!

April 20

Today was much like yesterday — all but indistinguishable, really.

Apropos of nothing, today’s Forgotten English calendar page commemorates the death of Peter Abélard, of Abélard and Héloïse fame:

He wrote of her in his autobiography, “I considered all the usual attractions for a lover and decided she was the one to bring to my bed, confident I should have an easy success for at that time I had youth and exceptional good looks as well as my great reputation to recommend me, and feared no rebuff from any woman I should choose to honor with my love.”

I’ll bet it was his humility she really fell in love with!

Wednesday various

  • Studios are increasingly stripping rental DVDs of special features. I ran into this over the weekend with The Informant. I’d be very interested in an audio commentary or any other behind-the-scenes material — it’s an unusual movie, based on a very unusual case — but I won’t buy it for that.

  • Incidentally, speaking of The Informant, I was amused by this user comment at IMDB: “…the main character in this film was just bad with the way his thoughts were and thinking the way he did.”

  • Meanwhile, I am not at all surprised that Ridley Scott’s new Robin Hood movie isn’t remotely historically accurate, despite his repeated claims to the contrary. Still, it’s interesting to go in search of the “real-life” Robin Hood. [via]

  • I’m not a big fan of cilantro, but I don’t hate it. Apparently, though, there may be a good reason why many people (like my father) do. [via]

  • And finally, the headline reads Black Hole Strikes Deepest Musical Note Ever Heard. [via]

Offgassing?

Today was about as typical a Monday as they come. And there isn’t a whole lot to write about it because of that.

Even my “Forgotten English” desk calendar isn’t much help. Today’s entry is all about euphemisms for intestinal gas, starting with “wamble” — “pronounced wammle and meaning “to move with wind, as the intestines” — and ending with a short history of the vapours:

At that time, fretful women of the upper classes treated and avoided those psychosomatic conditions by donning heavy petticoats and underwear to help disguise and absorb their bodies’ offgassing.

You know it’s desperate times when the blog turns to the farting women of the 18th century for content.

I’m a little nervous about my trip to San Jose on Wednesday and a little unsure how I’m going to spend my off-time, including my birthday, while I’m there. Plans to meet up with some friends local to California ultimately fell through, so I’ll be on own most of the time. My father reminded me this evening that I have in fact been to San Jose once before; when I was younger, we visited the Winchester Mystery House, which I remember, if not in great detail. I’m a little disappointed the house closes at five every day that I’m there, meaning I won’t get a chance to take a cab over and visit.

Anyway, that was Monday.