Late yesterday morning I finished reading the 700th book since beginning to track such things way back in the middle of 2015, back in the Before Time before the latest Before Time. The book in question was the delighting collection of surrealist poetry and prose, The Milk Bowl of Feathers: Essential Surrealist Writings. Edited by …
Author Archives: mysterious6030
Briefly Noted
Yesterday At 11:50 AM While doing taxes I finished reading my 700th book And the closing Tzara poem Could not make me forget Soupault’s Georgia (written today)
Friday Vocabulary
1. murrey — purple-red Somehow the murrey lining made the black hood even darker. 2. dobbin — ordinary farm horse The county fair has everything you might want, from fancy pickles to thrilling fancies, and if you want to take a flier on the dobbins, well, we’ve got that too. 3. matriculate — …
Friday Vocabulary
1. artemon — square sail on a sharply steeved spar at the bow of ancient Roman or Greek merchant vessels and ships Runners were sent forward to furl the artemon so that the master would have clear sight lines as the enemy ships rushed towards our prow. 2. vaward — [archaic] forefront; vanguard The …
Friday Vocabulary
1. maunder — to mumble, to talk idly, foolishly, or to no real purpose; to move about aimlessly The poorly shaven hobo took another pull from the bottle and maundered more words about the family he once had, the son who had once been so proud of his father. 2. termagant — violent ill-tempered …
Friday Vocabulary
1. longanimity — patient suffering, forbearance Still, his mother showed such great longanimity during his endless travails that all the neighbors wondered that such a saint had borne such a son. 2. recondite — abstruse, uncommonly profound; little known, obscure Though I spent several years waiting upon the professor, hearkening to his every word, …
Friday Vocabulary
1. corvine — of or related to a crow or crows The so-called detective pranced around the debris remaining in the street with ungainly, corvine hops, examining each little pile of trash as if it would give up the very secrets of the universe if he simply stared at it strongly enough. 2. palter …
Friday Vocabulary
1. marplot — one who defeats or spoils a plot or design by meddling or officious intrusion Strangely enough, Pierre Boulle’s The Bridge Over The River Kwai, in which Colonel Nicholson plays the marplot to the commandos’ efforts to strike against Japanese supply lines, is based to some extent on the experiences of the author …
Friday Vocabulary
1. paraphyletic — of or related to taxonomic group containing most but not all of the descendants of a common ancestor The Italic branch of Indo-European is paraphyletic as usually delineated, as it leaves out the modern Romance languages. 2. aorist — simple past tense in Ancient Greek, with no further limitations or restrictions; …
Monday Book Report: Fear to Tread
Fear to Tread, by Michael Gilbert Michael Gilbert has proven to be one of the most consistent, most versatile, and most surprising writers of thrillers and suchlike dark fiction. Not that his books are dark—far from it. At their core is an almost quaint sensibility of the power of human goodness, even as recognition that …