The Winnipeg Tribune, Manitoba, January 13, 1933
Fonts
Big chunky ones which will fight each other at any opportunity; fonts that lean on convenient pillars, looking at their kerning with a politely arched eyebrow; those that are slapping each other in the face all down the line; troll fonts; those that are not actually readable as letters; tiny letters with long tails; ink-saturated letterglobs; wafty fonts; very serious ones; hackers are breaking into the mainframe font; at our university we ride horses font; fonts that indicate that your work is sufficiently serious that you cannot be having with font choice; just because you can doesn’t mean you should fonts; those with the pointiest serifs; those that have quite fallen over.
That angel looks like it just wants a hug. Presumably Jacob’s not in the mood to give hugs, hence the fighting bit.
Eight octopus versions of things
1. An octopus train, which has eight wheels arranged roughly in a circle, and can rotate around a circular track at great speed, providing a convenient light rail system for small crustaceans to travel between adjacent rocks. Occasionally the train also eats a carriageful or two; this is its primary source of power. The crustaceans have lodged a complaint with the rail authority about switching to electric or diesel propulsion but nothing ever seems to get done.
2. A clocktopus, which respectively uses one leg to indicate minutes past the hour; one to hold on to the wall; one to wave hello; one to hang on to the diamond window cutter with which it entered the room; one to muffle the alarm; one to count down to zero; one to hold the knife; and one to indicate the hour, which is too late.
3. Octopus scissors, which have eight blades facing in various directions and live in the sea. Suitable for the kitchen enthusiast who has everything but not all of it is under the sea yet. Will slice aquatic pizza better than anything else. Not sure who let them get rusty but they’re mad now. Maybe keep your toes out of the water.
4. An eight-legged foot. Far superior to the standard version of a foot, which only has one leg attached. Depending on what is at the other end of the legs, may be part of a complicated lattice arrangement of humanity somewhat like an alternate universe body horror state of matter.
5. An octopus tree. Because moving a whole tree around is more difficult than moving a human around, so if you really want the whole fantasy walking tree arrangement you are going to need serious legs. Might look more like a wooden spider than a wizard’s best mate. Your best bet is to distract it for long enough that it forgets what it was doing and put down roots.
6. An octopus table. Eight convenient legs. If removed from the ocean will make a serious attempt to get back in. Has a sharp beak on the underside through which it needs to be fed at regular intervals. This may seem like too much maintenance for a table, but it can also squeeze through a gap a few centimetres wide, so it is the ideal solution for spaces with restricted access.
7. Octopus dogs. Totally a real thing and absolutely not a cover for enterprising dogs to enjoy non owner-approved sexual activity whilst one of them is dressed as a very shaggy tail. Any dog may turn into an octopus dog if the moon is right and the wind is blowing from the sea.
8. Octopus tentacles, which are tentacles that themselves have eight tentacles. If you look carefully, you may be able to see that those tentacles themselves also have eight tentacles, although if you look too closely you may also find that you are sliding down into a tentacle-lined perceptual vortex, otherwise known as ‘the full Lovecraft’.
Reblogging for the clocktopus & ‘the full Lovecraft’.
Ten sticks through the heart of the old year
1. For the event of the old year being nearly dead, and it being sometimes necessary to finish it off; except that in this case the year has dragged itself to the end across December’s broken glass, and if it makes it to midnight it will be a miracle in any case. That said, we may save the stakes that were for it instead for that year that is shortly to come through the door. The first one to lean on, because goodness knows we are weary.
2. It is certain that the new year will have teeth. Looking out there through the murk one may make out their sharp edges as it approaches. They are cartoon teeth, very sharp and very long, and as everyone knows cartoon teeth are amenable to that move where the mouse wedges the jaws open with a stick and makes its escape. Let us save one of these sticks for that move.
3. Another may be cut into pieces to make a ladder. If we use the longest of the sticks it will be long enough, surely. This is in case the year swallows us whole and there is a need to climb out of its throat.
4. In the place between the years there are small white worms which will eat the heart out of a piece of wood, carve it in spirals or fill it with flute-holes. Let them make an instrument of the fourth stick, something that can be played to make a procession to follow you out of the darkness, something that can be used not to weave a story but to slice through the heart of one with one clear cold note.
5. The fifth stick to be a drum-stick; the drum to be made of skin, though it is not yet known whose; the beat of the drum to be wild and irregular. It will not be something that can be marched to.
6. The placement of the sixth stick is a riddle. Using the riddle you may be able to hold the new year back a little while; time can never resist a conundrum. If it lifts its claws to turn the stick around you may be able to duck beneath and get into the doorway beyond and this is one way to get ahead of the year. Once you are ahead of it you can look back and see its weak spots.
7. You should save a stick for the weak spots, of course. They will manifest like the spiderweb cracks across the bank window before dawn, and poking them with a stick will probably do nothing. But if there are forms to fill in at the end of the year there may be a box to tick about it.
8. The eighth will be a stick for you to give to the elephant that you will meet along the way. Save the one that looks the most chewable.
9. If you burn the ninth stick I think that it might make a useable charcoal. Sometimes the year will use its teeth and sometimes it will merely flow over with words, and if they are slick and cruel and false words the charcoal will at least cross them out; and if they are delightful words, if there is a sudden and unexpected beauty to them, the charcoal may be useful to copy them down for later use.
10. It may be wise to save a stick for the year that follows on the new one’s tail. No part of that year is visible yet, not even the light above its jaw. May it be bright and benign; may there be sticks in abundance that year for the elephant to chew, there being no other need for them. But save one, just the same.
books?? amazing. paperbacks?? soft, cozy, may fit in your pocket, cheap so you don’t feel bad for taking notes in them. hardcovers??? beautiful, pristine, ground you into the world they hold by making you grip them tighter, the stars of every bookshelf. ebooks?? convenient, cheap, always with you, a vast library that you can hold in your palm. new books?? crisp, the smell of wood, ideas waiting to imprint themselves upon the world. old books?? objects transcending history, sweet smelling, enriched by the hands that stroked their pages. books.
The Japanese Bridge (The Water-Lily Pond), Claude Monet
https://www.wikiart.org/en/claude-monet/the-japanese-bridge-the-water-lily-pond
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