#The Gin Dictionary

[demonzoro]

baratie arc sanji is sooooo. he's such a snarling dog leashed to a post except that post is a lighthouse he swore his life to guarding. and then you find out he was the one who made his own leash. everything about him is so "give a wild thing food and it'll never leave". he was a wild thing zeff fed. gin was a wild thing sanji fed. some people love with their teeth bared. some people are just all teeth and therefore just all love. everything is a cage to him btw (he makes it so). the baratie is a cage. zeff's bond is a cage. his body is a cage. four walls and a ceiling over his head - like he learnt the dictionary definition of a home and misunderstood. he's always hungry. he'll make sure you never starve. the door to the cage is open and he's looking at it ravenously, pacing just behind the threshold, never eating and always starving

[toxintouch]

I'm not sure if what I wrote is what this post had in mind but… also I meant to do this as a rb but my toxic trait is writing things in drafts/private posts so I err uhhh look I can't keep fighting with Tumblr formatting ok

Mhin receiving an unusually specific compliment. ᵕ ω ᵕ

“You're so fascinating, Mhin. If you wrote a book, I would definitely read it.  Even if you wrote the book about something really boring.  Even if you wrote…a dictionary, full of words I already know the meanings to.  I'd still read it, just because you wrote it.  Just to feel like I got to walk beside you in the world for a little while."

Mhin looks over at you despite themself. Your voice is low, tone affectionate difficult to parse over the incessant noise permeating the Wet Wick. They find themselves staring at your lips, as if to read your words despite hearing you clearly.

“You're really the most interesting person I know...  Which is saying a lot, in this city!”  You laugh at yourself, bandaged fingers trailing around the rim of the glass placed in front of you at the bar.  Your face is flushed, pupils dilated.  The longer they look at you, brows furrowed as they try to make sense of your words, the less you seem able to look them in the eyes.

The liquid in your glass is clear.  

Tequila?  Vodka?  Gin?  A stomach wrenching combination of all three, possibly.  Who knows what Leander was willing to put in front of you, if it makes you so…

Mhin huffs, mouth wrenching into a frown. They clasp a hand around the glass in front of you. "I think you've had enough." They must have gone (miraculously) nose-blind from the boozy scent of the Wet Wick because even as they slide the heavy tankard closer to themself, the pungent tang of alcohol is no more invasive than it was prior. They expected to be able to taste the fumes coming off of whatever concoction they just took from you.

"I'm--" You start to protest, but you find yourself cut off when Leander says something that causes the crowded bar to go wild, cheers erupting. One of the Bloodhounds jostles Mhin in their mirth, causing your confiscated drink to upend, contents sloshing over the surface of the bar and soaking the sleeve of Mhin's shirt.

It's water.

You were saying those things while sober.

Mhin's eyes find yours, no attention spared for the slurring Bloodhound beside them. You're looking at them affectionately, lips quirked.

"Would you be mad at me if I told you that you're too cute?" You ask, something far too warm, too inviting in your words.

Mhin is halfway across the bar in a heartbeat, burning red ears gone deaf to the sound of Leander's voice, calling out to them that they haven't picked their pay up yet. They'll get it tomorrow, they think, racing towards the respite of the fresh night air. Away from the urge to--

Mhin doesn't let themself turn to look back at you as they leave. Though they can't stop themself from wondering: if they did, would they see you staring back at them?

Damn Mhin just take the compliment. I made Mhin's about their brains instead of their looks etc. bc while I think mentioning wanting to kiss their beauty mark would fluster them I think this is the type of thing that would absolutely infect their brain.  Have them thinking about those words over and over until it completely ruins their nightly Soulless hunting; they give up & just stargaze all night.

[little-desi-historian]

A listing of 18th Century slang compiled by Leon Bienkowski and posted to the Revlist in 11 installments–last posting in June, 2000

A listing of 18th Century slang compiled by Leon Bienkowski and posted to the Revlist in 11 installments–last posting in June, 2000:

“The terms listed below were mostly gleaned from Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. There is a bit of a nautical bent to this list because of my own peculiar specialty, but there should be plenty of amusing and useful terms for everyone.

Your underly industrious servant,

Lee Bienkowski”

A

Abbess - a woman who is a brothel keeper

Abraham-sham - a feigned illness

Academician - a whore

Cast up one's accounts - to vomit

Admiral of the Blue - a publican

Admiral of the Narrow Seas - a drunk who vomits into a neighbor's lap

Adrift - discharged

Adzooks! - an expletive

Air and exercise - a flogging at the cart's tail

Akerman's hotel - Newgate prison

All Nations - a mixture of drinks from unfinished bottles

Amen-curler - a parish clerk

Amidships - the belly

Anatomy - a very skinny person

Bring one's ass to an anchor - sit down

Anne's fan - thumbing one's nose

Talk like an apothecary - talk nonsense

Apple-dumpling shop - a woman's bosom

Hang an arse - to hold back

Arse upward - in good luck

Ask bogy - an evasive reply

Avast! - Stop!

B

Not to know B from a bull's foot - to be ignorant

Bacon-faced - full-faced

Bacon-fed - fat and greasy

Empty the bag - to tell everything

Heavy baggage - women and children

Bagpipe - a long-winded talker

Bailed man - a man who has bribed the press gang for immunity

Baked – exhausted

Banbury story – nonsense

Bark at the moon - to agitate uselessly

Barnacles – spectacles

Barrel fever - ill health caused by excessive drinking

To grin like a basket of chips - to grin broadly

Bear - a very gruff person

Beer-garden jaw - rough or vulgar language

Bring to one's bearings - cause to see reason

Drink like a beast - to drink only when thirsty

Beau-Nasty - finely dressed but dirty

To go up a ladder to bed - to be hanged

Beef-head – idiot

Beggar-maker - a publican

Belly-gut - greedy, lazy person

Bender - a sixpence

Bird-spit - a small sword

Bit of red - a soldier

Black arse - a kettle

Black cattle - a parson

Give a bottle a black eye - empty a bottle

Blashy - rainy weather

Blood and 'ounds! - an exclamation

Blue as a razor - extremely blue

Blue stocking - a learned woman

Blue tape – gin

Shift one's bob - to move or go away

Bog orange - a potato

To marry old boots - to marry another man's mistress

Bosom friend - a body louse

To have some guts in one's brains - to be knowledgeable

Brandy-face - a drunkard

Brattery - a nursery

In bad bread - in a disagreeable situation

Break-teeth words - words hard to pronounce

Gold bridge - an easy and attractive means of escape

To be stabbed with a Bridgeport dagger - to be hanged

Broganeer - one with a strong Irish accent

Brown cow - a barrel of beer

Brown George - ship's biscuit

Buck fitch - an old lecher

Like bull beef - big and grim

Bull calf - a big clumsy fellow

Bull's eye - a crown piece (5 shillings)

Bung one's eye - drink heartily

Bung upwards - on his face

Butter-bag - a Dutchman

Buttock-ball - a dance attended by prostitutes

C

Calfskin fiddle - a drum

Cant a slug into your breadroom! - have a drink!

Caper - to be hanged

Captain Copperthorn's crew - all officers

Captain Grand - a haughty blustering man

Captain Tom - leader of a mob

Cat-sticks - thin legs

Caterpillar - a soldier

Caulker - a dram

Chalk - to strike someone's face

Chatter-broth – tea

Christened by a baker – freckled

Cinder-garbler - a female servant

Cite stage - the gallows

A house of civil reception - a brothel

Clapper-claw - to thrash someone soundly

Clicker - one who shares out the booty

Closh - Dutch sailors

Coach wheel - a crown piece

Cock and pie! - a mild oath

Coffee-house - a water-closet

Cold cook - an undertaker

Comb-brush - a lady's maid

Comb one's head - to scold

House of commons - a privy

Condiddle - to steal

Conveyancer - a thief

Cool crape - a shroud

Corinth - a brothel

Make a great harvest of a little corn - much ado about nothing

Corporation - a large belly

Cotswold lion - a sheep

Country-put - a silly rube

Covent Garden ague – VD

Crab lanthorn - a peevish fellow

Crinkums – VD

Crown-office - the head

Cucumber - a tailor

Cut throat - a dark lantern

Swear like a cutter - swear violently

D

The dam of that was a whisker - a great lie

Dangle in the sheriff's picture-frame - to be hanged

Dasher - showy harlot

Drunk as Davy's sow - very drunk

Deadly nevergreen - the gallows

The devil among the tailors - a row or disturbance

Devil-drawer - a bad artist

The Devil may dance in his pocket - he is penniless

Diddle – gin

Gone to the Diet of Worms - be dead and buried

Dilly - a coach

Dog Booby - an awkward lout

Enough to make a dog laugh - very funny

Dog-vane - a cockade

Dog's portion - a lick and a smell

Dog's soup – water

Go dot and carry - a person with a wooden leg

Double Cape Horn - be cuckolded

Roby Douglas with one eye and a stinking breath - the breech

Draggle-tail - a nasty, dirty slut

Draws straws - to feel sleepy

Drury Lane vestal - a whore

Duke of limbs - a tall awkward fellow

Dull-swift - a stupid fellow

Die dunghill - die cowardly

Drunk as an emperor - regally drunk

Dustman - a dead man

Dutch concert - everyone plays or sings a different tune

Dutch feast - the host gets drunk before the guests

E

Earwig - a malicious flatterer

Ensign-bearer - a drunkard

Eternity box - a coffin

Expended – killed

To have fallen down and trodden upon one's eye - to have a black eye

F

Hove no-one's face but one's own - to be penniless

Facer - a glass full to the brim

Make faces - to beget children

Faggot - a man hired to appear on a muster-roll

Fallen away from a horse load to a cart load - to become fat

Fantastically dressed - very shabby

Fegary - a prank

Fiddler's money - all small change

Fiddlestick's end – nothing

Finger-post - a clergyman

Fire a gun - introduce a subject unskillfully

To have been fed with a fire shovel - to have a big mouth

Fish-broth - salt water

Flag of defiance - a drunken roisterer

Flag of distress - the cockade of a half-pay officer

Flap with a fox tail - a rude dismissal

Flapdragon – VD

Flash the gentleman - pretend to be a gentleman

Flash it away - show off

Flats and sharps – weapons

Flawed – drunk

Flay the fox – vomit

Flump - an abrupt or heavy fall

Fly in a tar box - nervously excited

Foreman of the jury - one who monopolizes a conversation

Foul a plate - dine with someone

Frenchified - infected with VD

Frig-pig - a fussy trifler

Froglander - a Dutchman

Full as a goat - very drunk

Fustilugs - a dirty slattern

G

Gallied - hurried, vexed or over-fatigued

Gallows – enormous

Game pullet - a young whore

Gammon – nonsense

Gardy-loo - Look out! (Garde l’eau)

Gaskins - wide breaches

Gentleman in red - a soldier

Gentleman's companion - a louse

Melancholy as a gib cat – dispirited

Give one's head for washing - to submit to be imposed upon

Glass-eyes - person wearing spectacles

Glorious - ecstatically drunk

Glue-pot - a parson

God permit - a stage coach

Golden grease - a bribe

To find fault with a fat goose - grumble without cause

Play old gooseberry - play the devil

Gospel-shop - a church

Gotch-gutted - pot-bellied

Grapple-the-rails – whiskey

Green-bag - a lawyer

Greenwich goose - a Greenwich Hospital pensioner

The cat's uncle gringog - a grinning idiot

Groggified – tipsy

Ride grub - ill-tempered

Guinea-gold – dependable

In the gun – tipsy

Gundiguts - a fat pursy fellow

Gut-foundered - extremely hungry

H

Half an ounce - a half crown

Half seas over - half drunk

Hand like a foot - clumsy handwriting

Hang-gallows look - a villainous appearance

Hanktelo - a fool

Swallow a hare - to get exceedingly drunk

Under hatches – dead

Young hemp - a graceless boy

Hempen bridle - a ship's rigging

Hen-frigate - a ship bossed by the captain's wife

Herring-gutted - tall and very thin

To be on the high ropes - be very angry

Study the history of the four kings - to play cards

Old hock - stale beer

Hog in armor - a finely dressed lout

To drive one's hogs to market - to snore

Holiday - a spot left unpainted

It's all honey or all turd with them - they're either friends or bitter enemies

Off the hooks – peevish

Hopper-arsed - large bottomed

Send for a horse ladder - send on a fool's errand

Horse's meal - food without drink

I

Irish apricot - a potato

Irrigate - take a drink

Itchland – Scotland

J

Jack Adams - a fool

Jack in an office - an imperious petty official

Jack of legs - an unusually tall person

Jack Weight - a fat man

Jakes - a privy

Jaw-me-down - a very talkative fellow

Die like Jenkin's hen - die unmarried (Scottish)

Have been to Jericho - be tipsy

Jerrymumble - to shake

Going to Jerusalem - to be drunk

Jimmy Round - a Frenchman (from Je me rends)

Be laid up in Job's dock - be treated in hospital for VD

You are Josephus Rex - you're joking

K

Kerry security - breath the oath and keep the money

Kicksees – breeches

Kill-devil – rum

One of King John's men - a small man

Clip the King's English - to be drunk

Knob - an officer

Knock-down - strong liquor

L

Laced mutton - a whore

Ship the white lapel - be promoted from the ranks

Lazy as the tinker who laid down his budget to fart - very lazy

Cut one's leg - become drunk

Lay one's legs upon one's neck - run away

Lie with a latchet - tell a great lie

Light-timbered – weak

A line of the old author - a dram of brandy

Little house - a privy

Live lumber - passengers in a ship

Live stock - body vermin

Looking glass - a chamber pot

Lotman - a pirate

Louse-land – Scotland

Lumping pennyworth - a great bargain

M

Mab - to dress carelessly

Mag – chatter

Maltoot - a sailor

Man-a-hanging - a person in difficulties

Married to Brown Bess - enlisted in the army

Mauled - exceedingly drunk

Make mice-feet of - destroy utterly (Scottish)

Milk the pigeon - attempt the impossible

Load of mischief - a wife

Who put that monkey on horseback without tying his tail? - a very bad horseman

Monkey's allowance - more rough treatment than money

Mopus - a dull, stupid person

Morris - to decamp

Mourning shirt - a dirty shirt

Look like God's revenge against murder - look very angry

N

Eat one's nails - do something foolish

Navel-tied - to be inseparable

Born on Newgate steps - of criminal extraction

Nip-cheese - a purser

Dead as a nit - quite dead

Make a bridge of someone's nose - pass the bottle past someone

He numbers the waves - he's wasting time

O

Oaken towel - a cudgel

Give one his oatmeal - to punish

Off the hooks – crazy

Old Robin - an experienced person

Open lower-deckers - to use foul language

Overshoes, over boots – completely

Take the owl - become angry

P

Paddy-whack - an Irishman

Cut's one's painter - send a person away

Palette - a hand

Paper-skull - a fool

Parleyvoo - the French language

Parson Palmer - one who slows passing the bottle by talking

Make a pease-kill - to squander lavishly (Scottish)

Penny lattice-house - a low ale-house

To drop off the perch - to die

Peter-gunner - a bad shot

Peter Lug - one who drinks slowly

Pintle-merchant - a whore

Piper's wife - a whore

Tune one's pipes - begin to cry

Piss more than one drinks - said of a braggart

Pitt's picture - a bricked up window

When the plate-fleet comes in - when I get my fortune

Plump currant - in good health

Pontius Pilate - a pawn broker

Popper - a pistol

Prattle-broth – tea

Princod - a plump, round person (Scottish)

Alter the property - disguise oneself

Prow - a bumpkin

Public ledger - a whore

Pudding-bellied - very fat

Pump ship – urinate

Punch-house - a brothel

R

Rabbit hunting with a dead ferret - a pointless undertaking

Rag-water - bad booze

Rammaged - tipsy (Scottish)

Rapping – perjury

Red-letter man - a Catholic

Remedy-critch - chamber pot

Repository – a jail

Rib-roast - to thrash

Ride as if fetching the midwife - to go in haste

Ride the forehorse - to be early

Cry roast meat - boast of one's good fortune

Roast-meat clothes - holiday clothes

Rocked in a stone kitchen - a little weak-minded

Rogue in spirit - a distiller

Royal image - a coin

Rum gagger - one who tells false sea stories of hardship

Loose in one's rump – wanton

Rusty guts - a blunt, surly fellow

Buy the sack - become tipsy

S

Saddle the wrong horse - lay blame on the wrong person

Saddle one's nose - wear spectacles

Salamugundy - a cook

Salt eel - a thrashing with a rope's end

Sandy - a Scotsman

Sauce – VD

Sawney - a Scotsman

Sawny - to whine

Scald - infect with VD

Scandal-broth – tea

Scarlet horse - a hired horse

School of Venus - a brothel

Scotch casement - a pillory

Sea-crab - a sailor

Sea-lawyer - a shark

Settler - a parting drink

Shab-rag - very worn

Shake a cloth in the wind - be hanged

To have been dipped in the Shannon - to be very forward

Shapes - a name given an ill-made man

Keep sheep by moonlight - hang in chains

Sheep's head - a very talkative person

Shifting ballast - soldiers aboard ship

Shiners – money

Make children's shoes - to be occupied with trivia

Shreds - a tailor

Shut-up house - land headquarters of a press gang

Sick of the idles - a very lazy person

Silver-cooped - deserting for the merchant service

Sky-blue – gin

Snabbled - killed in battle

Smart as a carrot - very smartly dressed

Go a snail's gallop - move very slowly

Soldier's bottle - a large bottle

Solo player - a very bad musician

Sot-weed – tobacco

The Sovereign's parade - the quarterdeck of a man-of-war

Spanish trumpeter -a braying donkey

Spoil pudding - a long-winded preacher

Squire of the placket - a pimp

Stiff-rump - a haughty person

Take a stink for a nosegay - be very gullible

Stoupe - to give up

Strip-me-naked – gin

Sunburnt - having many children

Surly boots - a grumpy person

Surveyor of the highway - a reeling drunk

In deadly suspense – hanged

Keep a swannery - to boast

Purser's swipes - small beer

Swizzle – liquor

T

Tallow-breeched - having a large bottom

Tears of tankard - liquor stains on a waistcoat

Tea-voider - a chamberpot

Thornback - an old maid

Three skips of a louse - worth little or nothing

Tickle-pitcher - a drinking buddy

Tiff - thin or inferior liquor

Tilly-tally – nonsense

Tilter - a small sword

Swill like a tinker - drink immoderately

Make dead men chew tobacco - keep a false muster

Tol-lol - pretty good

Tongue enough for two sets of teeth - a very talkative person

Blast your toplights! - Blast your eyes!

Topping man - a rich man

Pay one's debts with the topsail - run off to sea leaving unpaid debts

Tripes and trillabubs - nickname for a fat man

Trunkmaker-like - more noise than work

U

Untwisted – ruined

The Urinal of the Planets – Ireland

V

Vaulting school - a brothel

W, X, Y, Z

As wise as Waltham's calf - very foolish

Wamble - an uneasiness in the stomach

War-caperer - a privateer

Water bewitched - weak beer

Water in one's shoes - a source of annoyance

You have been to an Irish wedding - you have a black eye

Whigland – Scotland

Whisk - an impertinent fellow

Whister-clister - a cuff on the ear

Whither-go-ye - a wife

Wife in water colors - a mistress

Windy – conceited

Wrapt in warm flannel – drunk

Yea-and-Nay man - a Quaker

Znees - frost

Source. Further reading. regency. hardcover edition.

[burningvelvet]

Every Instance of Lord Byron Hating On John Keats, Listed in Chronological Order.

“No more Keats I entreat — flay him alive. If some of you don’t I must skin him myself.”

To his publisher John Murray, 12 October 1820:

“‘I’m thankful for your books dear Murray / But why not send Scott’s Monastery?’ the only book in four living volumes I would give a baioccho to see, abating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh & Quarterly – as brief Chroniclers of the times. — Instead of this – here are John Keats’s piss a bed poetry – and three novels by God knows whom [..] Pray send me no more poetry but what is rare and decidedly good. — There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables – that I am ashamed to look at them. [..] – I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott’s Monastery. – You are too liberal in quantity and somewhat careless of the quality of your missives. – [..] No more Keats I entreat – – – flay him alive – if some of you don’t I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin. – – – – – [editor’s note: ‘dashes degenerate into scrawl’]”

To his publisher John Murray, 4 November 1820:

“They Support Pope I see in the Quarterly. [Let them] Continue to do so – it is a Sin & a Shame and a damnation – to think that Pope!! should require it – but he does. – – – Those miserable mountebanks of the day – the poets – disgrace themselves – and deny God – in running down Pope – the most faultless of Poets, and almost of men – – the Edinburgh praises Jack Keats or Ketch or whatever his names are; – why his is the Onanism of Poetry — something like the Pleasure an Italian fiddler extracted out of being suspended daily by a Street Walker in Drury Lane – this went on for some weeks – at last the Girl – went to get a pint of Gin – met another, chatted too long – and Cornelli was hanged outright before she returned. Such like is the trash they praise – and such will be the end of the outstretched poesy of this miserable Self-polluter of the human Mind [editor’s note: ‘untranscribable scrawl’]. W. Scott’s Monastery just arrived — many thanks for that Grand Desideratun of the last Six Months.”

Note: “onanism” refers to masturbation.

To his publisher John Murray, 9 November 1820:

“Mr. Keats whose poetry you enquire after — appears to me what I have already said; such writing is a sort of mental masturbation — he is always frigging his Imagination. I don’t mean that he is indecent, but viciously soliciting his own ideas into a state which is neither poetry nor any thing else but a Bedlam vision produced by raw pork and opium.”

Note: “frigging” was slang for masturbation.

To his publisher John Murray, 18 November 1820:

“P.S. — Of the praises of that little dirty blackguard Keates in the Edinburgh — I shall observe as Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a pension. ‘What has he got a pension? then it is time that I should give up mine!’ — Nobody could be prouder of the praises of the Edinburgh than I was — or more alive to their censure — as I showed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers — at present all the men they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. — Why don't they review & praise ‘Solomon's Guide to Health’ it is better sense — and as much poetry as Johnny Keates.”

To his publisher John Murray 26 April 1821:

“Is it true – what Shelley writes me that poor John Keats died at Rome of the Quarterly Review? I am very sorry for it – though I think he took the wrong line as a poet – and was spoilt by Cockneyfying and Surburbing – and versifying Tooke’s Pantheon and Lempriere’s Dictionary. I know by experience that a savage review is Hemlock to a sucking author – and the one on me – (which produced the English Bards &c.) knocked me down – but I got up again. Instead of bursting a blood-vessel – I drank three bottles of Claret – and began an answer – finding that there was nothing in the Article for which I could lawfully knock Jeffrey on the head in an honourable way. However I would not be the person who wrote the homicidal article – for all the honour & glory in the World, – though I by no means approve of that School of Scribbling – which it treats upon.”

To Percy Shelley, 26 April 1821:

“I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats — is it actually true? I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy. I read the review of ‘Endymion’ in the Quarterly. It was severe, — but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.

I recollect the effect on me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress — but not despondency nor despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena. ‘Expect not life from pain nor danger free, Nor deem the doom of man reversed for thee.’

You know my opinion of that second-hand school of poetry. You also know my high opinion of your own poetry, — because it is of no school. [..] I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead — or that he was alive and so sensitive — I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his attack upon Pope, and my disapprobation of his own style of writing.”

To Percy Shelley, 30 July 1821:

[First page missing] “The impression of Hyperion upon my mind was – that it was the best of his works. Who is to be his editor? It is strange that Southey who attacks the reviewers so sharply in his Kirk White – calling theirs ‘the ungentle craft’ – should be perhaps the killer of Keats. Kirke White was nearly extinguished in the same way – by a paragraph or two in ‘the Monthly’ – Such inordinate sense of censure is surely incompatible with great exertion – have not all known writers been the subject thereof?”

To his publisher John Murray 30 July 1821:

“Are you aware that Shelley has written an Elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him?

‘Who killed John Keats? / ‘I,’ says the Quarterly, / So savage and Tartarly; / ‘Twas one of my feats.’ / Who shot the arrow? / ‘The poet-priest Milman / (So ready to kill man), / Or Southey or Barrow.’’

You know very well that I did not approve of Keats’s poetry, or principles of poetry, or of his abuse of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit all that is said about him in any M.S.S. of mine, or publication. His Hyperion is a fine monument, and will keep his name. I do not envy the man who wrote the article; — you Review people have no more right to kill than any other footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a Review would probably have died of something else equally trivial. The same thing nearly happened to Kirke White, who died afterwards of a consumption.”

4 August 1821, to his publisher John Murray:

“You must however omit the whole of the observations against the Suburban School – they are meant against Keats and I cannot war with the dead – particularly those already killed by Criticism. Recollect to omit all that portion in any case.”

To his publisher John Murray, 7 August 1821:

“All the part about the Suburb School must be omitted – as it referred to poor Keats now slain by the Quarterly Review — [..] I have just been turning over the homicide review of J. Keats. – It is harsh certainly and contemptuous but not more so than what I recollect of the Edinburgh R. of ‘the Hours of Idleness’ in 1808. The Reviewer allows him ‘a degree of talent which deserves to be put in the right way’ ‘rays of fancy’ ‘gleams of Genius’ and ‘powers of language’. – It is harder on L. Hunt than upon Keats & professes fairly to review only one book of his poem. – Altogether – though very provoking it was hardly so bitter as to kill unless there was a morbid feeling previously in his system.”

To Thomas Moore, August 27th 1822:

“It was not a Bible that was found in Shelley's pocket, but John Keats's poems.”

From his poem Don Juan Canto Eleventh written October 1822 and published August 1823. He was going off the popular gossip shared to him by Shelley (who believed it), which was that Keats health had sharply declined due to receiving bad reviews:

“John Keats, who was killed off by one critique, / Just as he really promised something great, / If not intelligible, without Greek / Contrived to talk about the Gods of late, / Much as they might have been supposed to speak. / Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; / ‘Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, / Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.”

To his publisher John Murray, 25 December 1822:

“As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by. I do not know what world he has lived in – but I have lived in three or four – and none of them like his Keats and Kangaroo terra incognita – Alas! poor Shelley! – how he would have laughed – had he lived, and how we used to laugh now & then – at various things – which are grave in the Suburbs. You are all mistaken about Shelley – – you do not know – how mild – how tolerant – how good he was in Society – and as perfect a Gentleman as ever crossed a drawing room; – when he liked – & where he liked. – – – – –“

The excerpts above are taken primarily from Peter Cochran’s transcriptions.

[coquettishbaguette]

Echinacea or cone flower

Gin and Artifice: A Reading Journey with Capote

“And since gin to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled.”

I recently started reading “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” I’m always amazed when I come across a book where the author manages to string together sentence after sentence of evocative language, seemingly designed to place you under a spell and drag you into the world of the story. I was enjoying the seemingly effortless way Capote juggled one chainsaw of a sentence with another flaming torch when I was brought up short. One sentence caught me off guard and caused me to stumble over it multiple times.

Not knowing what the issue was, I must have reread the sentence five or six times before halting. Usually, when I don’t understand a statement, it’s because I misinterpret the meaning of a word or a certain turn of phrase. In these cases, simply returning to the start of the sentence and rereading it resolves my confusion. I do this re-reading behavior unconsciously, similar to how I might unconsciously reread a single paragraph over and over because my mind is somewhere else.

But in this case, I just couldn’t grasp the meaning. I almost couldn’t understand the structure of the sentence.

I was definitely brought out of my focused reverie and began the tedious work of having to consciously pick apart the words. Some of the issue wasn’t just my clumsy reading but that the sentence was interrupted mid-flow with a page change. “Tears to” ended one page, and “mascara” started another. But it wasn’t a misunderstanding caused by the bisected sentence as I was just as confused with the sentence joined as it was parted. I noticed that my brain picked up on the possibility that “bears” and “tears” rhymed or that the former was a large, tricksy mammal. But altering the meaning of the words in my head just made things worse. Funnier, but worse.

I was flummoxed. I decided that I was incapable of rising to the challenge Capote presented and decided to call in the hired help. A dictionary would have likely gotten me close, and an internet search might have been helpful back in the olden days when internet searches provided answers and not advertisements. I skipped all that nonsense. I opened ChatGPT and asked it directly what the sentence meant.

It’s interesting that Capote cleverly disguised the structure of the analogy so that the existence of the analogy itself didn’t compromise the reader’s immersion into the story. Stating gin:deceit::crying:makeup would have yanked me out of the story and back to high school studying for standardized tests so rapidly, I might have right then put the book down.

Admittedly, I put the book down right then and wrote about how I felt about the whole thing.

[wordsinhaled]

have some of the WIP of my dreamling messy meetings AU, inspired by @valeriianz - who posited that dream & hob need more meet-uglies! valid!

in this AU, morpheus is hob's neighbor AND... surprise... also the guy who regularly steals hob's favorite table at the pub. they start up a game where they decide who gets the table each time they're both there by presenting each other with increasingly obscure words, and whoever can't define the word without the use of a dictionary has to give up the table for the night (i don't know, this just seems very on brand for them). etc, etc.

pining, vocabulary, gin & tonic, piano sonatas, frustrated romcom... that sort of thing. :)

-

Hob’s got this neighbor, you see. A neighbor he’s never actually seen, except silhouetted indistinctly behind window-curtains in the evenings, but who has a habit of always playing the piano at odd hours; and does he not realize other people actually live and have proper Circadian rhythms within a certain radius of him? Don’t misunderstand—Rachmaninoff is lovely, truly, it’s just Hob would really adore what is apparently the privilege of being able to sleep a full night, occasionally, like regular folk who aren’t blessed with virtuosic skill and perfect pitch. 

Incidentally, Hob and Morpheus like to frequent the New Inn on the same days and evenings. 

Or, it would be more accurate to say that Hob often patronizes the pub at the same hours as “the stranger at the pub, bit of a prat really,” which is how Hob is forced to think of him the first time he resolutely refuses to get up from Hob’s favorite seat in the house. Eventually, he becomes just “the stranger at the pub,” because he keeps turning up and haunting the place like a particularly picturesque wraith, and he’s also obstinate about not giving Hob a proper name to call him. 

One day, in Hob’s mind, he somehow transmutes into “the handsome stranger at the pub,” and that’s—well. Hob doesn’t know quite how that happens. 

Even more recently, he’s been occupying Hob’s thoughts as “his handsome stranger,” despite Hob not having any right or any grounds to make any sort of claim on him at all. 

It’s all because of their game, Hob supposes. 

Morpheus had been the one to come up with it, this odd little way of deciding who gets the prized table by the window. 

Well. Rather more precisely, as far as Hob is concerned, the person who masterminded their little arrangement was “this bloke at the pub, Gwennie, obnoxious like you wouldn’t believe, sitting in my spot, where, mind you, I’ve sat and done my marking for five bloody years straight and everyone knows it—except him, no, not Mister ‘I’ll Sit Anywhere I Like,’ who’s got zero concept—none!—of the joy of coming to your favorite pub of an evening, and knowing your favorite table is free, and using your favorite pen to mark exams while having a pint of your favorite ale. I mean, the audacity of—” 

But much to Hob’s chagrin, at this juncture his head of department had walked into the staffroom, Gwen had looked at him a bit pityingly, and he had had to rein in the rest of his bluster.

She should pity him, he’d thought; the things he had to live with! Bach’s Goldberg Variations, expertly though his elusive neighbor might execute them at three in the morning, were rapidly becoming Hob’s sworn enemies. And now there was this stranger, who had draped himself over Hob’s banquette as if he owned it and, smirking up at him, had said blithely, “I see plenty of other tables empty at this pub tonight.” 

“Yes, but,” Hob had said, depositing his messenger bag on the chair opposite, undeterred, “this one is mine.” 

“Oh?” The man flicked his eyes away from Hob, down to the table’s surface, which was nicked and worn, scored with generations of drunken mementos: etched messages, crude symbols, lovers’ initials united with plus signs and corralled by hearts. “Will I find your name here, then?”  

[fatehbaz]

In the 19th century, British colonists faced several challenges in India, [...] [including] malaria. [...] The imperialists needed an answer to the problem and they found it in quinine. [...] [T]he British promptly embraced quinine, consuming tonnes of it every year by the mid-1800s. [...] Quinine was so bitter that soldiers and officials began mixing the powder with soda and sugar, unwittingly giving birth to “tonic water”. [...] [I]t prompted Winston Churchill to once proclaim, “The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” [...] If by some good fortune malaria did not claim them, plague, cholera, dysentery, enteric fever, hepatitis or the unforgiving sun could. Preserving and protecting the body was [...] crucial to the success of the colonial project. As historian EM Collingham aptly summarised in her study, “The British experience of India was intensely physical.”

One way the colonists tried to deal with this challenge was through food and drinks. “The association between food and the maintenance of health was a concern of Anglo-Indian doctors, dieticians and the British authorities throughout the duration of colonial rule [...],” writes Sam Goodman in Unpalatable Truths: Food and Drink as Medicine in Colonial British India. [...]

---

The Medical Gazette, for instance, recommended treating dysentery with a “low diet” comprising thin chicken soup [...]. Botanist-physician George Watt too extolled the virtues of sago. In A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1893), he wrote that sago is “easily digestible and wholly destitute of irritating properties” and in demand [...]. For fever, weakness and sundry ailments, beef tea [...] was considered an ideal remedy. And for cholera, The Seamen’s New Medical Guide (1842) prescribed brandy during the worst of the sickness and half a tumbler of mulled wine with toasted bread and castor oil [...]. Ship masters and pantrymen would stock their vessels with foods with known medicinal benefits such as sago, arrowroot, lime juice, desiccated milk and condensed milk (the iconic Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk tins, later known as Milkmaid, enjoyed a permanent spot on British ships).

---

Businessmen too recognised the precarity of life abroad and realised that therein lay a perfect commercial opportunity. By the 19th century, numerous companies had cropped up across Europe, including in England, that would sell food in hermetically sealed tin containers.

One of these was Messrs Brand & Co. Recommended highly in Culinary Jottings for Madras by Colonel Robert Kenney-Herbert, Messrs Brand & Co had several offerings [...]: essence of beef, concentrated beef tea, beef tea jelly, meat lozenges, [...] potted meat, York and game pie, and A1 sauce [...]. Another company, John Moir & Sons, focused mostly on canned soups [...], selling oxtail, turtle, giblet and hare.

---

By the late 19th century such was the popularity of canned foods that rare would be the pantry in a colonial home that didn’t store them along with medical provisions like opium, quinine, chlorodyne and Fowler’s solution (an arsenic compound). [...] As Flora Steele and Grace Gardiner wrote in The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, “A good mistress will remember the breadwinner requires blood-forming nourishment, and the children whose constitutions are being built up day by day, sickly or healthy, according to the food given them; and bear in mind the fact that in India, especially, half the comfort of life depends on clean, wholesome, digestible food.”

To assist the British woman in this ostensible duty, there were a number of cookbooks and housekeeping manuals [...]. The Englishwoman in India, for instance, published in 1864 under the pseudonym A Lady Resident, had a whole section with recipes for “infants and invalids”. These included carrot pap cooked into a congee with arrowroot [...] and toast water (well-toasted bread soaked in water). Steele and Gardiner too had a few recipe recommendations [...], including champagne jelly (“most useful in excessive vomiting”) and the dangerous-sounding Cannibal Broth (beef essence), which they said should be consumed with cream [...] to treat extreme debility and typhoid. [...]

---

One dish born of this encounter was the pish pash. The pish pash is considered an invention of the colonial cook, who adapted the kedgeree – the colonial cousin of khichdi – into a light nursery food. The famous Hobson-Jobson defined it as “a slop of rice soup with small pieces of meat” [...]. None other than Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of Bengal, gave confirmation of its efficacy when in 1784 he wrote to his wife from the sick bed [...]. There are enough records to show that the imperialists counted marh (starch water from cooked rice) and bael (wood apple) sherbet among their go-to remedies and benefited from the medicinal qualities of chiretta water and ajwain-infused water.

---

Text by: Priyadarshini Chatterjee. “How food came to the rescue of the British in India.” Scroll.in (Magazine format). 26 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[tenth-of-july]

is it over now?

How am I supposed to come up with new words out of over 600,000 entries in the Oxford dictionary just so I could avoid reusing all of what you left me? How do you explain the same type of pain that has lashed through your body over and over under a million times already? Would I be able to showcase the limit of my abilities through this piece? Can I recycle the words I used such as how devastating it was when your silhouette is still ingrained in the back of my mind to the point where I could spot you first in a room full of people under an already unusual day? Or how I remain breathless and unmoving in the coffin that you helped me build? All of these jumbled up letters that form into words meant to describe and relate to what I feel or have felt, will lie meaningless by the end of my point as its taste will subside but uncomfortably linger like the improperly flamed gin I mixed with grape juice to memorialize the morning I first saw you after a year of wanting to erase the traces of us from the capabilities of my episodic memory that right now, am unfortunate to have—from your face, to your voice, and down to the specific way your head would turn when you get to hear me call your name. What else is there to write other than the repetition of my woes and my alliterated miseries written between the lines of my poetry? 

How do I tell someone the fortuities hidden beneath this one encounter, perfectly timed at the 375th day (precisely a year and ten days; the tenth day, being the date of our parting) since that damned birthday party with the same drink I concocted and the similar restaurant where we had our first date? How do I tell someone that even after I chose to ignore your Christmas greeting last year, even after my third “last entry” about you in my journal, I still feel you cutting through me—and not in a way that someone would expect. Usually, it could mean that I yearn for you again, that I would like to talk it through and maybe change your mind if I were to gamble with my luck—But no one could ever be more wrong if they were to assume that to me. The closest word I can provide is torturous. My heartstrings, already tangled and unkempt outside the shells of every body system that any human being should encompass, beaten and tugged away yet again. When I walked through the door in that fast-food restaurant to escape from the pre-afternoon heat outside, I knew it was all over when the glint of your glasses led me to a spiral all those months ago. I looked away just when you noticed me walking in, your brows lifting in surprise and I think we had that same thought of, “Why now? On the last day of the semester? Just a year after?” I wanted to let you know that I knew we were in the same room that day, but then what? What would I do if I were to ever acknowledge you and the months that have passed without even a word from each other? That I forced myself to ignore your greetings in holidays because I was afraid of bursting? I sat behind your table, your back completely within my gaze, and I felt like I consumed a whole bottle of vodka at the sight of you trying to find my face through the front of your camera. I wanted to throw up and purge every drop of blood that was inside of me because you have already taken everything and what else was there left for me to keep but my organs and its vessels? This sudden pull occurred in the most agonizing way possible, happening in the blink of an eye—or more accurately (and quite literally)—in the blink of your eye. And now, I am forced to accommodate the fact that you remain constant on the soil where I stand as well. 

[seireiteihellbutterfly]

I saw you were taking requests!! If you do ships, could you write some hcs for Byakuya x Gin ?

Oooh, this is a good ask. Yes I do ships! So it took me some time to write this because I always try to keep my HC’s accurate with things we know about the characters from the manga/anime.

I think initially Byakuya would be irritated by the fact that Gin exists. Gin is said to be a prodigy and around Byakuya’s age and I think this would bother him quite a bit. Especially since Byakuya was brought up in a noble household and quite literally had all the tools to succeed while Gin came from the Rukongai, making Gin’s achievements far more impressive. I can totally see this following a haters to lovers trope XD

I feel like their conversations involve a lot of trying to one-up the other. Especially since Gin is a little shit-stirrer and will probably try to get a rise out of Byakuya each time because it’s just so damn easy. It could literally be something as simple as Byakuya saying “hey the world is round” and Gin will probably say something like “nah its clearly a cube” and he’ll defiantly defend his words while Byakuya has a vein popping in his forehead at the audacity Gin has to get on every single last damn nerve he has.

Coupled with all this, Gin is simply far more easy going than Byakuya, so even when Byakuya is throwing all the logic he possibly has at Gin that the world cannot be a cube, Gin is probably smirking in that foxy way of his, enjoying Byakuya’s face get redder with annoyance.

Gin will probably kiss Byakuya mid-argument to fluster him even more and shut him up. Two birds, one stone, right? And while the eloquent and graceful Byakuya stumbles over his words, Gin will probably walk away, amusedly saying, “Come find me when you’re done detouring through the dictionary.”

And Byakuya will go and find Gin, because he simply must have the last word. Only for Gin to act like the kiss never happened. Byakuya is the verge of releasing Senbonzakura when Gin, snickering heartily, saunters over to him going, “All ya had to do was ask, Byakuya.” And before Byakuya could berate him for not using the proper titles, Gin pulls him closer and kisses him senseless.

[scotianostra]

Robert Garioch Sutherland was born in Edinburgh on 9th May 1909.

His father was a painter and semi-professional fiddler and his mother a music teacher. Young Robert was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA (with honours) in English Language and Literature in 1931. He won the Sloan Prize for verse in Scots in 1930.

During the Second World War Garioch served in the Royal Signals, but was a prisoner of war between 1942 and 1945 - the subject of his moving memoir, ‘Two Men and a Blanket’. Both before and after the war he worked as a school teacher in the London area, a profession he later took up when he returned to Edinburgh until the mid-1960s.

Robert Gairloch then became a lexicographer on the 'Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue’, and was also a transcriber at the School of Scottish Studies. He was appointed Writing Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in 1971.

Garioch had met Sorley MacLean at Edinburgh University, and poems by both appear in 17 Poems for 6d, published by Garioch. Scots was spoken in the family home and Garioch wrote mostly in Scots all his writing life, but as somewhat of an outsider to the Scottish Renaissance – he was never part of MacDiarmid’s crowd. His Scots was not dictionary-bound in the way MacDiarmid’s was but while he based it on his spoken Edinburgh Scots dialect, he was happy to borrow whatever he thought appropriate. He cared deeply about the craft of writing and was adept at many different verse forms, especially the sonnet, which he used ‘with unsonnet-like tonalities’

Not only writing about Edinburgh, he also tackled larger themes. ‘The Wire’, for instance, is a long allegorical poem on death and imprisonment, based on his time as a prisoner of war; ‘The Muir’ explores science and religion. Both a wee bit too long for the poems I like to read.

His main impact was achieved through his well-crafted shorter poems. My type of verse, nothing too challenging, that keep my attention, which I admit often wavers, my school reports a testament to this, often had the words “Easily distracted” written on them.

Serving as wry observations of Scottish life, especially in Edinburgh, the poems retain a large fanbase to this day, and Garioch is remembered with an inscription in Makars’ Court outside the Writers’ Museum. The Aberdonian poet Roderick Watson said Garioch’s poems “(were) ‘the brilliant fusions of Humanist and modern observer which have established his reputation as one of the greatest of modern Scottish poets.’

He died 26th Apr 1981 in Edinburgh aged 71.

I've cosen this poem because I too have spent many times in Canongate Kirkyard at this Edinburgh Makar's grave.

At Robert Fergusson's Grave

Canongait Kirkyaird in the failing year is auld and grey, the wee rosiers are bare, five gulls leam white agin the dirty air: why are they here?  There's naething for them here.

Why are we here oursels?  We gaither near the grave.  Fergusons mainly, quite a fair turn-out, respectfu, ill at ease, we stare at daith - there's an address - I canna hear.

Aweill, we staund bareheidit in the haar, murnin a man that gaid back til the pool twa-hunner year afore our time.  The glaur

that haps his banes glowres back.  Strang, present dool ruggs at my hairt.  Lichtlie this gin ye daur: here Robert Burns knelt and kissed the mool.

[storyofmychoices]

You deserve a nice ask and all the good and beautiful things. I hope you have the best of days and the best of weekends. You are marvelous!! I wrote you a little gift <3

The amber liquid sparkles as I twirl the cut glass tumbler delicately between the fingers. The firelight glows golden when filtered through the bourbon. Somehow the flames make the drink burn hotter and taste smokier than they would normally be.

Or maybe that’s just the quality of the bottle, I think to myself as I glance at the worn label beside my dark green leather chair.

Whatever the case may be, liberating this bottle from the side table in some long forgotten corner of this godforsaken palace had been the best idea and one that still draws a smile to my lips.

I’m beginning to think it’s the tiny jabs and small victories that will be the only thing to see me through this investigation.

I watch, mesmerizing by the refracted light.

It would be easy to find myself disappeared or poisoned in this country.

I look at the liquor again. This is how I’d hide poison. No one would smell death over the pain. Who knew death smelled of almonds and entitlement?

How did I find myself here? I wonder.

How’s that film saying go?

Of all the gin joints…

I sigh. This line of thought ain’t entirely healthy. But fuck if it ain’t true.

Of all the cases to come across my desk, of all the penthouse I could’ve walked into, of all the rich royalty I could have crossed paths with, it had to be him.

Why the fuck did it have to be him?

I finish off the bourbon. It’s a bit of a not all together unpleasant burn. Reminds me I’m alive somehow and, even more so, reminds me just how easily this could be my last case.

Our last case.

I look up to find him still studying the lab report Ruby dropped off. Countless medical books and, I chuckle, a pharmaceutical dictionary laid open as well.

“I just don’t know about this?” he says still concentrating on the report.

“I imagine you don’t know a lot about anything,” I tease. “You probably had your bread buttered on both sides since the day you were born.”

He looks up surprised, but grins when he sees my smirk.

“Why, Lilah, are you messing with me?”

“Me? Never, doll,” I wink.

lksjdf I absolutely love love love this! (even if it's a bit angsty) AHHH

^^^ totally mean when I opened this and started reading, knowing fully well the wonderful person behind the words and the lovely vibe you brought me.

Me to you always ^^^^

I will reblog again in the morning with a proper reblog because I have lots that I need to share about this! (but for now, my puppy has decided that I don't need time for myself to reply to this appropriately!... at least he's cute! ) I didn't want to not reply today so here is my initial thank you post! With many more thoughts coming soon!

Thank you my wonderful friend for always being so lovely and generous!

[rabbitcruiser]

World Cocktail Day 

Host or attend a cocktail party and try out some new flavors, or perfect your hand at mixing any number of drinks, from a White Russian to a classic Cosmo.

“No party is complete without cocktails! My friends all have different tastes when it comes to their drink of choice, so I like to maintain a well-stocked bar with different kinds of alcohol to keep everyone happy.” ~Khloe Kardashian

One of the best ways people get together and bond over life is through drinking. For a fun night out, cocktails provide a wide arrangement of scents and flavors to keep everything exciting and have a long history of becoming a steady staple in people’s lives. So, let us dive right in and see what World Cocktail Day is all about.

History of World Cocktail Day

In 1806, The Balance and Columbian Repository coined the term “cocktail” as a stimulating liquor with a wide variety of sweets, waters, and bitters. Originally, the Oxford English Dictionary defined the term with a different set of connotations, describing it as a horse with a tail like a cock’s, with its tail cocked up instead of hung down.

Cocktails as a drink, however, started as a British invention in the 19th century and has since become an American innovation when a Connecticut-born bartender Jerry Thomas wrote the book “The Bartender’s Guide.” The Bartender’s Guide basically broadcasted an encyclopedia of how to mix drinks and recipes on some of the best combinations of drinks and flavors.

During the 1920s American prohibition, many cocktails were mixed into existence that remain firm favorites today. With not much high-quality alcohol available, cocktails were the perfect way to make that smuggled rum, gin or whiskey just a little bit more drinkable. Enter the cocktail; rum mojitos, the Sidecar, and the Tom Collins all flourished at a time when recreational alcohol wasn’t legal.

The ‘Bee’s Knees’ cocktail was actually created to mask and sweeten the taste of illegally brewed bathtub gin. The roaring twenties took the cocktail and shook it up into some of our most popular modern-day cocktails. Drinking didn’t stop during the prohibition, people simply went underground. Many illegal speakeasies popped up, serving cocktails in jazz-style locales.

Post-prohibition saw the invention of drinks that still grace the pages of your favorite cocktail bar menus. 1954 saw the mixing of the Pina Colada in Puerto Rico when Ramon Marrero created the delicious pineapple treat at the Caribe Hilton hotel. 1988 saw the much-loved Cosmopolitan enter our lives, thanks to Toby Cecchini and his desire to share a drink with his fellow bartenders in San Francisco.

A constant throughout the cocktail era in America was the Rainbow Room. Opened after the prohibition in 1934, the Rainbow Room was a high-end club where New York A-listers could celebrate in style with post-prohibition cocktails. The Rainbow Room was revived and renovated in different forms over the years, being closed during WWII and for various restorations.

The 1987 reopening saw emerging mixologist Dale DeGroff create a pre-prohibition list of cocktails that revived some firm favorites and spearheaded the modern cocktail mixing revolution that made the cocktail bar increasingly popular.

The holiday itself is held annually by Drinkaware, a United Kingdom-based charity that brings awareness to the effects of drinking and aims to reduce the harm that drinking can have on people and families. The website provides facts and information about drinking, alcohol poisoning, and alcohol abuse. The World Cocktail Day page that Drinkaware hosts have events all over the world that you can partake in, a blog you can follow about your favorite recipes, and how you can drink safely while also having fun.

How to Celebrate World Cocktail Day

If you’re up for a night of fun drinking, then host a party at your place and mix up some of your favorite drinks for your friends. If you want to spice things up, check out a new recipe on some of your favorite blogs or newsletters, and make your kitchen or bar into an experiment place for you and your friends.

If you’re feeling confident, you could create your own home bar and serve some of your favorite fizz-fuelled cocktails, or make your own cocktail creations with a fresh twist. Give your bar a theme and add your own unique names to your new mixers. Treat yourself to a cocktail bible and teach yourself how to make the perfect passionfruit martini or rope in your own bartender friend for some mixology advice.

If you are creating your own home bar and are jumping in as a novice bartender, you could start with a classy cosmopolitan or cheeky sex on the beach. Why not take a theme to a whole new level and take your new bar theme to a party level. Whether you’re making a sneaky speakeasy or a chic cocktail bar, making it your own is the perfect way to celebrate World Cocktail Day.

You could even avoid doing the work yourself and enroll in a cocktail class for you and your friends. Learn from the best shakers and master mixologists. Don’t want to leave the house? Why not use an online video or order a beginner’s pack right to your door. Or splash out on an inhouse mixing masterclass (calling all bartender friends again).

You might be more of a cocktail connoisseur than a master mixologist. Why not get some of the good stuff mixed for you, so you can sample some delightful cocktails without having to actually make them yourself. Put on a cocktail-themed film, sip your mojito and feel like you’re in the summer sun.

Source

[bleachbleachbleach]

Once more in Library Mode--I appreciate your patience and answering all my questions very much--I am imagining how the awful mishmash of library items in the Library Space Station you mentioned works and it's a delight. The card catalog alone would be amazing, if perhaps something of a stream of consciousness after Aizen and Ukitake upended the place looking for clues. "Mission reports (Madarame and Ayasegawa)--cultivation of rice, pre-Gotei-13--soil analysis of Hueco Mundo--seed catalog (some seeds still in)." I bet they still have a card catalog. Also who do you suppose actually works in the library? Were they victims of Aizen? Is it a joint effort between Squads Nine and Twelve, and then the SRDI? Did Tousen and Aizen and Gin pretend to be librarians and give everyone the wrong answers to their reference questions on purpose? What a villainous act.

I would LOVE to watch a local news special spotlighting the stalwart work of the Gotei librarians! Like, can you imagine that interview. Can you imagine interviewing the head librarian as she explains the process of deciding what the taxonomies of knowledge are and what the map of subfields, overlapping categories, etc. are? And that's even before the interview with the head librarian emeritus, who was there when the deep magic was written?

It's not about librarians, but one of the anime series of all time is The Great Passage, which is based on a Shion Miura novel about a group of officeworkers and the ten years they spend developing a dictionary--THE dictionary. It's about the profound thoughtfulness required to ensure no word goes missing, even amidst employment changeover, the shifting needs of the publishing house, etc.--and to write definitions of things, concepts, ideas that speak to the true heart of what that thing really is. Imagine doing that for the ghost military. Imagine the kinds of things getting catalogued.

And YES to a seed catalogue with seed samples!!! A library of things!! The three- (or four, or five) dimensionality of the archive!

(lmao what if technically Muken is not a classified as a prison; it is part of the library system. It's a technicality, mostly--municipal infighting about property rights, the fact that the library and working at the library actually requires more training and expertise than working in a Gotei prison, etc., But after the Winter War, Aizen is not a prisoner; he is an archival object. And he has his own call number. There is a librarian whose entire job is to record, classify, and preserve, every memory and figment of thought they can squeeze out of him.)

[wuxiaphoenix]

Colors of Another Sky: Mending a Nation Follow-up

Some neat comments on that last bit! There were so many good questions I thought I’d put together a lengthy reply here, because it’s all connected and things get complicated.

First, let me give you the framework I’m building all of these plans off of. And that’s Jason Finn, retired historian (ahem encouraged to quit), 58, of Irish, Scots-Irish, and general American mutt extraction, who is an expert in Tokugawa-era Japan and a hobbyist in the Little Ice Age. None of this makes him any kind of expert on Joseon-era Korea.

(Which is just as well, because they’ve had a few centuries of oddly divergent history anyway.)

Jason does have a lot of patchy info on this time in Korea as it intersected with Japan (a major trading partner) and as the whole area was affected by the Little Ice Age (floods, frosts, baking heatwaves, droughts, dragons, locusts, horrible crop failures all over the place).

Outside of that, before he took this little trip, he tried to get down a basic vocabulary of modern Korean, plus all the hangul characters. And because he is from Florida he made sure he learned the word for shark, hoping he’d never have to use it. Oops.

Sure, he brought plenty of books... on an e-reader. Physical books are heavy. The e-reader may or may not be recoverable. Until he knows that he’s got maybe two physical books on Korea besides the dictionary, and they will be of limited use. He also has an (ahem, almost) fourteen-year-old fan of k-dramas.

...I can hear you facepalming from here. Go ahead and laugh. Even Jason thinks it’s kind of funny.

So. A bunch of points, in no particular order.

First, cotton is at this point in time already a major crop and fabric through the entire peninsula. Almost everybody wears cotton; even some yangban, in the summer. Though they tend to wear more ramie and linen.

So my best guess is that anything that made growing and harvesting cotton easier (not just the gin, there’s getting better seed germination, killing pests, keeping the soil fertile - a host of things!) would result in not more effort thrown into cotton, but more into growing silk. Everyone wants silk.

Silk-raising takes a lot of skill and care, to the point it pretty much requires workers get decent food, clothing, and rest. Or your whole crop of silkworms is ruined. Add that to, a large part of the thing about yangban owning nobi was not how much work they could get out of them, but the status of owning that many nobi. They have no need to work people into the ground, if they can make more profit setting nobi to other tasks.

...Speaking of silk, once Jason has a grip on where and when he is (and gets over the panic), he’s going to come up with a plan to rescue a particular town of silk workers in China. Famines are on schedule to wipe them out, and the few that in our timeline survived to flee to other regions couldn’t take their large and heavy looms. An entire style was lost.

While we’re on the subject of weaving.... powered looms and spinning machines were some of the first serious impetus for industrialization, often starting with water power. A steam engine can be put in a wider variety of places to be useful, but it requires fuel. Fuel is in short supply! Most of that available on the Korean Peninsula is wood, or charcoal. I’ll need to do research into nearby regions, but I can assure you Jason would have absolutely no clue where to look for fossil fuels outside of “I know Japan mines them, and that’s a bit far to ship....”

The existence of magic and how it works does allow for the possibility of steam engines. But it’ll take some creativity. And maybe a few booms.

About mass armies taking over versus small elite armies... I hate to break it to whoever didn’t know this, but Northeast Asia has had mass armies going at it since well before 600 A.D. The Imjin War involved lots and lots of gunfire!

Low interest loans to farmers would help. Interest could go up to something like 50% in this time and place, and bankruptcy doesn’t exist. Hence people ending up having to sell themselves to cover debts.

...And this circles back around to part of why I made Jason Irish. He has a personal historical connection to bad agriculture, bad leadership, bad debts, the horrible consequences of the Little Ice Age on food production (the potato blight was one), and people having to flee a system that would not let them pick themselves up and try again. He’s planning to make things better.

And yes, that’s going to include translating various concepts. The ones in the Declaration of Independence are going to be shocking....

As far as a reading list goes, I started from Everyday life in Joseon-Era Korea (ed. Michael D. Shin), worked my way through the Wikipedia bits on nobi, and started searching outward across the internet by way of people blogging on sageuks (historical k-dramas) and open access articles on JSTOR about Joseon, the Imjin War, and nobi. (thetalkingcupboard.com has a lot of good stuff on Joseon history and cultural setting.)

[chateautangerine]

@goldfanged for: send “📔” to read an entry from my muse’s diary about your muse (accepting)

He came to me as wakefulness teething on the corners of a dream, and we met in the parking lot by old Santori’s where I found flowers on the ground — the remains of lost love.

Dark hair, Irish coffee;

Thick eyebrows, bushels of thistle;

Unusually tall, 6’4”-6’6”; 

Four gold teeth;

A scar along the side of his neck. I imagine the horn of a great bull cleaving into him and of hooves against earth. Matador.

Below the rainclouds, he looked to be the Undertaker with his dark mane but eyes rampant and savage with loveliness.

His name is Theo.

Stay strong, matador.

[ another passage ] 

I’ve boned up reading the dictionary and cleaned a glass of gin. Theo is odd. He disappears in the night like a werewolf.

Little red riding hood...

Here's a passage for you:

Under the wide, glowing eye of a merciless moon he bellowed as his bones crunched and his hair thickened and spread until he was clothed in it. The evening sun declined before him beyond an endless swale and the dark fell here like a thunderclap, his crouching body snapping among the crickets and the gnashing weeds. This was his becoming. A thing that can not come back. He hunted a nearby town with its mudshacks and domes until there was not a soul save he, and he was lost of himself and not again in all the world's turning would he return for upon the dawning of the east, he found he delighted in it, and he did not weep.

Although I doubt he'll tear into anyone. Why won't he call me?

[ another passage ]

Theo tells me he used to be in love. Or maybe I asked him - although I can't rightly say why.

He sounded torn up about it — I believe he's still in love with whoever left him by Santori's. Speaking of: why do I get the feeling he sees through me? Does he see through me? He's very perceptive — and never tells what's on his mind.

I'm fond of him. Very much so.

[jlilycorbie]

Resurrectionists

Many years ago, I read Stiff by Mary Roach (highly recommended), and shortly after I discovered The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. And NaNoWriMo came up, so I dove in with an idea. And I quickly realized I couldn’t keep up the voice.

These days I don’t think I could recapture that voice no matter how hard I tried, and I don’t remember where I was planning to take the story, either. Honestly, I’d forgotten all about it until I was digging through some old files.

If anyone’s interested, here’s what I managed to write before I realized it would be wise to move on to a different idea. Content warnings for grave robbing, body horror, zombies, body fluids, desecration of bodies, and sexual assault.

---

It all started with the cull what had clawed up the inside of his coffin.

I'd done the first half of the job and more, digging through the fresh dirt to the goods waiting below. Brae took the tip-top, busting through the lid of the coffin. I didn't mind so much. I'd just as soon sit topside while he and Carey hauled out the goods. Soon as he'd broke through, Brae reeled back and scrambled at the dirt. He didn't make it topside by me, so he just doubled over and cast up his accounts right through the hole.

"Hey, there, you gotta shit through your teeth, don't you do it on the goods!" I shouted.

He dragged the back of his hand over his mouth and answered, "Shut it, you sparrow-mouthed bastard."

Carey grabbed my shoulder afore I could answer and asked, "You open up a ripe one, Brae?"

"Worse'n that," Brae said. He held up the glim shiner, opening it just enough for a beam of light through the hole. It weren't too bright, not enough to get the traps coming for us, but enough to see the hands up by its face, fingers curled up and raw. Its face was all bloodied up, and looked black even with the light. "Too fresh when it was put to bed."

I whipped my hat off, threw it on the ground, and said, "You'll have the traps breathing down our necks, you bottle-headed cake. Let us take it."

Brae didn't grumble or nothing on the way up. I slid over the edge of the ground and into the grave. The coffin echoed hollow when I hit, but stayed solid. "How's it looking, Blake?"

I picked up the glim shiner and held it over the goods. I didn't like it neither when they went and did something what made them look more like people than trade, but I didn't need to splatter the corpse. Not even with the gin-soaked reek of Brae's vomit over the shit and blood. "Torn up its nails something wicked," I said. "Broke up its fingers, the clump. The resurrectionist'll take it just the same."

"Truss it up." Carey dropped the rope down, and I bent over.

This cull was just like the rest. Maybe a little stiffer. I got the rope 'round its shoulders all the same. It would have been easier around its neck, but the resurrectionist had taken a strip out of my hide for the first broken neck I brought him.

This cull'd gone to eternity well equipt. On its way by, I pulled off one of the rings and slipped it down in my purse. It weren’t like the coves was looking.

Once the goods was dangling, I climbed back up topside and reclaimed my hat. Soon as they had it clear, I took up the shovel to fill her back in. It wouldn't do any good for the traps to walk by and see the hole. Brae knocked my shoulder and took the shovel.

"You load it up," he said.

"Keep up your leery," I said, and went to help Carey haul the goods onto our cart.

Carey mustn't have been feeling too solid, because he left me at the cart and went to help Brae. If neither of them could handle the goods just because it'd had a little fight in the ground, then I wasn't helping more than they asked. I got it swaddled up and hidden down in the cart, and kept my leery out for the constabulary.

The coves made quick work of it. I went to pet our wheezy little pony while they was working, and Brae must've been feeling right by the time they was done. While pretending he was steadying me while I climbed up to steer, he tried to get his hand up my shirt, and managed to get a good feel of my arse. I warmed his ear for it, even if he didn't mean too much by it. He'd been trying to get a good feel since he'd found out I was a girl. At least he'd stopped trying to make me a man and buy me a whore when he was feeling flush.

I drove and they both beat the hoof aside me, Carey holding the glim shiner out to give our pony enough light. The resurrectionist's house was just outside of the city, hidden back by a brace of trees.

At the door, Brae and Carey knocked each other about. No one wanted to go rap on the resurrectionist's door, but sure as we was breathing, we wanted our blunt. I rolled my eyes and made to drop the reins, but I'd already bested Brae once. He'd carry the goods over his shoulder before he'd let a mort have him again.

There was a bell pull, but Brae ignored it, and same for the swell brass knocker on the wood. He beat out a tattoo with his knuckles, and stood right back before the door could open.

It was a corpse answered the door. I knew her: we'd fetched her up not a week past, and I'd fenced her gold locket. Her eyes had dried out and weren't shiny no more. The resurrectionist never said why they always dried out instead of going ripe, but I didn't mind. The smell from his house was dry and dusty, like the closed crypts under the city. Old books and parchment flesh.

"Fetch out your master," Carey said. He stood well back, pressed up against the cart, and talked loud, like death made her deaf.

"There is no need." One of the doors in the hallway opened and the resurrectionist came rolling out. He weren't so old as I'd always expected, and with a thin beard combed out neat. He wore a right swell suit of a brown what suited him, and polished up shoes with buckles on. "Let me see what you've brought me."

I twisted round to pull up the swaddling on the goods. The resurrectionist lifted a lamp off of his table. I squinted up when he brought it too close. It made our little glim shiner look like a star. He wrinkled up his nose when the smell got to him, and lifted his eyebrows at the splintered fingers. "What did you do to him? A damaged body is worth less."

"We ain't done a thing," I said, "but reaped it for you. It's our first what put up a fight after it was laid a-bed."

That plucked up his interest right well. "Buried alive?"

"Too right," I said. "And worth a little extra blunt, on account of being special."

He lifted up the hand, took a careful look at the splinters. "I suppose this means the plague has come to the city."

"Red Maiden's come about, right enough, and the starlings with her," I admitted. "But this trade, it ain't come down with the cannikin afore it was laid a-bed."

He considered the fingers a moment longer, then laid the hand right gentle beside it again. "Wait here."

The resurrectionist left us blinking in the dark, and Brae got the fidgets almost as soon he was out of sight. His corpse stayed to watch us.

"I spied it, I swear I did," he said, leaning up close to me to whisper. "I know I have, I spied a cloven foot. We'd best scramble while we can. I hear there's a chirurgen what'll pay almost as much for a fresh corpse, and it ain't going to answer the door later, neither."

"That's the bastard what's got Molly Meg in a bottle, so's he can abuse hisself while he looks at her floating," I hissed back. "This ain't a bleeding cull, and it'll get you beverage and darby to spare. Now cheese it. The cove's got ears."

Brae had figured the cull didn't hardly ken a word when the cant got thick. He got to looking right touched when he spied the corpse again, waiting in the open door. Carey sent him a look what shut his bone box right enough, and it weren't long before the resurrectionist had come back.

"Now," he said, considering the purse he carried. "I value our little arrangement a great deal, and it would be a shame if it were cut short. I'm willing to offer you a chance for extra pay."

Brae backed up, but Carey nodded. "We'll hear," he said.

The resurrectionist shook open the purse and out came three baubles. "When you return, bring me news. I'm interested to know more of the war, and how the plague is progressing in the city."

Carey had his eyes hooded, and he leaned back against the cart. "And earnest?"

His eyes narrowed. "We've already an arrangement," he said.

"Asking for more, you need to make earnest," Carey said. Brae was going to botch the deal. The bottle-head would've given the crows a pudding years ago if it weren't for us.

He fingered his baubles and said, "I'll guarantee you'll be untouched by the plague. Drink of poisoned wells, eat of food contaminated by the ill, lie abed with the stricken, and you will remain whole and untouched."

"And at tables?"

"I will increase your pay by the worth of the news you bring to me," he said. "If you've something good enough, you may even come without…trade." He said the last like it coated his tongue on the way out.

Carey ignored Brae, but he cast his eye back at me. "Two more safe from the starlings," I said. Both his eyebrows went bolt up. "Or no deal." Carey stayed against the cart, and the pony coughed.

The corpse went arse around, walking like a marionette. The resurrectionist waited, keeping his eyes locked on us. Brae'd have botched it right there, but he wouldn't go crosswise to Carey. It came back carrying two more of the baubles, and he took them and held them out.

"Have we an accord?"

Carey took them and offered a hand. The resurrectionist shook his hand and gave him the purse. Two more dead came out from the house and gathered up the goods. One had seen so many days it rustled like parchment. The dead woman pulled the door shut, and we was alone under the stars again.

"Bowsing ken?" Brae asked.

"All aboard," I said.

"Only right, I reckon," Carey decided, hopping up into the cart. Brae climbed in aside him, "what with you casting up all your blue ruin."