Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Futility Closet » “Canopus”

Wednesday 3 April 18:46:26 UTC 2024

When quacks with pills political would dope us,
When politics absorbs the livelong day,
I like to think about that star Canopus,
So far, so far away. Greatest of visioned suns, they say who list ’em;
To weigh it science always must despair.
Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system,
Nor even know ’twas there. When temporary chairmen … [Link]

Weird Universe » The Language and Music of the Wolves

Wednesday 3 April 14:30:13 UTC 2024

Don't play this while your dog is listening!

The first video is Redford's speech; the second is the calls.

[Link]

Weird Universe » Journal of Universal Rejection

Wednesday 3 April 9:44:17 UTC 2024

Similar in spirit to the Society for the Prevention of Progress.

via Book of Joe
[Link]

Futility Closet » In a Word

Wednesday 3 April 6:43:57 UTC 2024

Image: Wikimedia Commons gliff
n. an unexpected view of something that startles one; a sudden fear irrision
n. the act of sneering or laughing derisively; mockery; derision mortiferous
adj. bringing or producing death proceleusmatic
adj. inciting, animating, or inspiring Photographer Philippe Halsman took three hours to pose seven women in the shape of a skull for his surrealistic portrait In Voluptas … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons