#western eyed sphinx

[sofiaspeaksart]

Last post of the Artfight attacks i made for this year :]

characters belong to @wispy-ispy and @olliethescribe <3<3<3

(and the little grey pegasus belongs to me)

[jadafitch]

Moths for Montana Outdoors Magazine. Parthenice Tiger Moth (Apantesis parthenice) Jaguar Flower Moth (Schinia jaguarina) Grote's Bertholdia (Bertholdia trigona) Scarlet-winged Lichen Moth (Hypoprepia miniata) Western Eyed Sphinx (Smerinthus opthalmica)

[herpsandbirds]

This moth flew into my classroom last night. I’m in western Washington and it’s a pretty large moth- like the size of a hummingbird. Sorry for the iffy photos, it only landed on the ceiling n it was pretty high up

Moth ID - WA, USA:

Hello, yes, this looks like Cerisy's Sphinx or One-eyed Sphinx Moth (Smerinthus cerisyi), family Sphingidae

Smerinthus cerisyi - Wikipedia

One-eyed sphinx Smerinthus cerisyi Wm. Kirby, 1837 | Butterflies and Moths of North America

[ukdamo]

The Scythians

Aleksandr Blok

You are but millions. Our unnumbered nations Are as the sands upon the sounding shore. We are the Scythians! We are the slit-eyed Asians! Try to wage war with us—you'll try no more!

You've had whole centuries. We—a single hour. Like serfs obedient to their feudal lord, We've held the shield between two hostile powers— Old Europe and the barbarous Mongol horde.

Your ancient forge has hammered down the ages, Drowning the distant avalanche's roar. Messina, Lisbon—these, you thought, were pages In some strange book of legendary lore.

Full centuries long you've watched our Eastern lands, Fished for our pearls and bartered them for grain; Made mockery of us, while you laid your plans And oiled your cannon for the great campaign.

The hour has come. Doom wheels on beating wing. Each day augments the old outrageous score. Soon not a trace of dead nor living thing Shall stand where once your Paestums flowered before.

O Ancient World, before your culture dies, Whilst failing life within you breathes and sinks, Pause and be wise, as Oedipus was wise, And solve the age-old riddle of the Sphinx.

That Sphinx is Russia. Grieving and exulting, And weeping black and bloody tears enough, She stares at you, adoring and insulting, With love that turns to hate, and hate—to love.

Yes, love! For you of Western lands and birth No longer know the love our blood enjoys. You have forgotten there's a love on Earth That burns like fire and, like all fire, destroys.

We love cold Science passionately pursued; The visionary fire of inspiration; The salt of Gallic wit, so subtly shrewd, And the grim genius of the German nation.

We know the hell of a Parisian street, And Venice, cool in water and in stone; The scent of lemons in the southern heat; The fuming piles of soot-begrimed Cologne.

We love raw flesh, its colour and its stench. We love to taste it in our hungry maws. Are we to blame then, if your ribs should crunch, Fragile between our massive, gentle paws?

We know just how to play the cruel game Of breaking in the most rebellious steeds; And stubborn captive maids we also tame And subjugate, to gratify our needs…

Come join us, then! Leave war and war's alarms, And grasp the hand of peace and amity. While still there's time, Comrades, lay down your arms! Let us unite in true fraternity!

But if you spurn us, then we shall not mourn. We too can reckon perfidy no crime, And countless generations yet unborn Shall curse your memory till the end of time.

We shall abandon Europe and her charm. We shall resort to Scythian craft and guile. Swift to the woods and forests we shall swarm, And then look back, and smile our slit-eyed smile.

Away to the Urals, all! Quick, leave the land, And clear the field for trial by blood and sword, Where steel machines that have no soul must stand And face the fury of the Mongol horde.

But we ourselves, henceforth, we shall not serve As henchmen holding up the trusty shield. We'll keep our distance and, slit-eyed, observe The deadly conflict raging on the field.

We shall not stir, even though the frenzied Huns Plunder the corpses of the slain in battle, drive Their cattle into shrines, burn cities down, And roast their white-skinned fellow men alive.

O ancient World, arise! For the last time We call you to the ritual feast and fire Of peace and brotherhood! For the last time O hear the summons of the barbarian lyre!

[eli-writes-sometimes]

I have a habit of getting the people around me into them, this is the second time it's happened!

Strap in because this is going to be a long one (this is what happens when I'm allowed free reign to talk about my interests)

Their whole deal is that they are a crew of immortal space pirates that witness events and tell the stories through their music.

So because their songs are based around telling stories, so you have to listen to the full albums to get the full effect. A good song to start with would be Tales To Be Told (the song not the album) because it gives some context into who they are, but it doesn't matter too much.

If you want to start with stand-alone songs then these are some good ones:

Alice*

Gunpowder Tim Vs The Moon Kaiser**

Frankenstein

Lucky Sevens**

Prometheus*

One Eyed Jack's**

Drunk Space Pirate

* - these reference the main albums, but can be listened to without the context

** - these are about the crew, but again can be listened to without context

If you want some banging songs without the context of the story, then are my personal favourites:

No Happy Ending

Pump Shanty

Favoured Son

Underworld Blues

Riddle of the Sphinx

Thor

Loki

Hellfire

Our Boy Jack

Losing Track

Ties That Bind

These are their albums, which are all based on mythologies or fairy tales:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) - Based on fairy tales, with the added bonus of space lesbians (it's Sleeping Beauty marrying Cinderella)

Ulysses Dies At Dawn - Based on Greek Mythology with a sci-fi twist

High Noon Over Camelot - Arthurian legend as a western on a space station (aka a civilisation gets destroyed because one man refuses to misgender someone)

The Bifrost Incident - An Asgardian whodunnit with a tinge of Lovecraftian horror (my personal favourite)

Tales To Be Told - Miscellaneous stories, some of which are set in the same places as the albums, some are about the crew, some are standalone

Tales To Be Told vol 2 - Same as vol 1, but there are more

Death To The Mechanisms - A recording of their final live show

Also they look like this so what's not to love?

10 Songs, 10 People

Tagged by @rms-writes, thanks for that!

Loki by The Mechanisms

The Squip Lurks from Be More Chill (the instrumentals are great ok)

Backstage Romance from Moulin Rouge

Sincerely, Me from Dear Evan Hansen

Problem/Can't Feel My Face from &Juliet

Rose Red by The Mechanisms

Skin and Bone by The Mechanisms

Prometheus by The Mechanisms

Immortals by Fall Out Boy

Two Player Game from Be More Chill

Tagging (no pressure, and anyone can do this if they want to) - @elizaellwrites @ryns-ramblings @dragonthusiast @jamieanovels @dontjudgemeimawriter @sparrowhawk-rose @aquadestinyswriting @writeintrees @inkspellangel @dogmomwrites

[onenicebugperday]

@gremlins-2-the-new-batch submitted: an ill little creature from western pa? what kind of caterpillar being? thank you!! (i shouldnt have handled it without knowing what it was, please dont be upset!)

Generally for caterpillars, if they're not spiny or fuzzy, handling them is not dangerous. But yes, it's good to exercise caution when you don't know what they are! This is a sphinx moth caterpillar, specifically looks like a small-eyed sphinx, Paonias myops. Adults are absolutely beautiful, check this dude out:

:o Photo by diohio1

[vikingqueer]

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

[introvert-no-chameleon]

Of Monsters and McGuckets

Fiddleford just wanted to have his morning coffee in peace, but Gravity Falls and the Stan brothers had other plans.

AO3

Fiddleford Hardon McGucket considered himself to be a patient, level-headed individual. One had to be if they ever hoped to survive Gravity Falls, and, even more daunting, live with Stanford and Stanley Pines. Keeping them in line was an occupation in itself. His co-workers were two of the most chaotic and morally questionable people he’d ever met in his life. (Then again, as someone who had once made a giant robot to terrorize his ex-wife in an admittedly misguided attempt to get her back, maybe he shouldn’t be throwing stones in that last department).

The point is, when it came to dealing with uncommon and frustrating situations, he usually managed to keep a straight head. But on one deceivingly lovely morning, just when he’d went out to the porch to sit back with a nice cup of coffee and the sun had just begun to kiss the horizon, he saw two large monsters sprinting towards the shack, and. Well.

It was only reasonable that he’d react the way he did.

The first thing he did was spit out his early-morning coffee, ruining his only clean tie in the process. The second thing he did was dash into the shack like the Devil Himself was on his heels. Lastly, he slammed the door shut, locked it, and began combing the living room for the shotgun he knew for a fact Stanley kept around. He thanked the Lord Stanford wasn’t here, lest he’d be chastising Fiddleford for “harming” (defending himself against) a perfectly healthy specimen. Never mind the fact that half of these subjects of study had tried to eat him, no sir. Scientific discovery was always more important.

(Sometimes, Fiddleford wondered how on God’s green earth Stanford Pines hadn’t fallen to his death into a ravine or some other nonsense in pursuit of an anomaly. Heaven knows the man, while undeniably brilliant, was severely lacking when it came to common sense).

A bang rattled the wooden door of the shack. Fiddleford yelped, dropping the pile of books he’d been in the process of moving in his scramble to find the gun. He eyed the secret lab entrance and wondered if the door would hold them back long enough for him to make a dash for it.

“Fidds, we saw you run in, will ya just open the door?”

Fiddleford froze. That voice, while even more gravelly than usual (a thing he hadn’t thought possible) was definitely familiar.

“Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” he said, dazed, as he walked over to the door and unlocked it. “Stanley?”

Upon closer inspection, he couldn’t deny that the square-jawed face that peered down at him belonged to Stanley Pines. There were some…notable…differences, such as the fact that he had glowing orbs for eyes, all his featured seemed to be carved from stone, he had ridiculous pointy ears and fangs to boot. He’d be right at home next to the gargoyles from those pictures of cathedrals he’d studied for his History of Western Art course.

“Took ya long enough,” said Stanley, ducking his head under the doorway and lumbering inside. Each step made the floorboard groan loudly, and for a few seconds Fiddleford thought the man would break through the wood floor. “Thought we’d never get back.”

“Stanferd, do ya have…fur?” said Fiddleford, stepping away from the door to let the other man in.

Stanford—it couldn’t be anyone else, not with that straight-backed posture and furrowed brow peering over thick-rimmed glasses—walked in behind him, hands behind his back.

 Hearing the question, Stanford adjusted his glasses, with a large, six-fingered paw. His facial features were lion-esque, as was his entire body, save from the colorful green, blue and red feathered wings that trailed behind his body. He even had a cute little lion tail poking out from a hole in his pants. “It appears so, yes.” He cleared his throat. “We may have a…problem.”

Stanley, who had gone to the fridge to get a beer, came back glaring at Stanford with those bright yellow orbs. “No shit, Sixer. I hadn’t fucking noticed.”

Stanford’s ears flattened against his skull. Fiddleford would’ve found it amusing if Stanford wasn’t now 7 feet tall and didn’t have large, sharp teeth. “Language, Stanley.”

Fiddleford considered grabbing some alcohol as he took in the situation. After a few attempts at forming words, he finally settled for the question he found himself asking on a near-daily basis. “What in tarnation did ya two get yerselves mixed up in now?”

“Oi, don’t look at me,” said Stan. He jerked his clawed thumb at Stanford. “Mr. Science here was the one who just had to walk right into a mysterious, glowing lake that he almost drowned in.”

Stanford’s tail twitched, and he growled. “We almost drowned, Stanley, because you turned into 300 pounds of moving stone.”

“I was only in the lake because you started flailing around growing a tail and screamin’ for help!”

Ford sniffed, chin held up in that way it got whenever he’d start getting defensive. “Swimming with wings is incredibly difficult.”

“Yeah, I would know, I have them now.” Stanley stretched out his bat-like wings for emphasis.

Judging by Stanford’s bloodshot eyes and Stanley’s slouched posture, along with the fact that they seemed even more short with each other than usual, Fiddleford guessed that they’d been arguing on and off about this for a while. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Now see right here, the two of ya best calm down, you’ll tear the shack apart if you start fighting bein’ like this.”

The two of them, while far from calm, quieted down.

“Right,” said Fiddleford. “So ya discovered some magic water that turns folks into monsters?”

“Yup,” said Stanley. “We found it in some hidden path behind some bushes and a couple of boulders.”

It’s almost as if it was hidden away for a reason. “Did ya at least remember where the path is?”

“Of course,” said Stanford, having the audacity to look indignant. “What do you take me for?”

“An idiot who got us turned into two walking Summerween costumes because he couldn’t just collect the water in a cup and some gloves like a normal scientist?” said Stanley.

“As if you would know what a “normal” scientist does,” said Stanford, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alright, fellas. Let me just get some food in me and then we can go back out and get some samples,” said Fiddleford. “I need me some caffeine to deal with this.”

Stanford opened his mouth but Fiddleford stopped him with the same withering glare he’d give his son whenever he tried to step out of line. “Stanferd Pines, if ya think I’m gonna run around the woods with the two of you, in this here state, on an empty stomach, yer sorely mistaken.”

“Fidds has got a point,” said Stan. “You probably haven’t had anything other than that piece of toast since you woke up.”

“I suppose some food wouldn’t hurt…” said Stanford. “I did have an incredibly strong urge to maul a deer we spotted on the way over.”

Fiddleford was getting some bacon out of the fridge when he heard the end of the sentence. He straightened up and slammed the door with more force than strictly necessary. “Y-ya did?”

Stanford seemed to come to the same conclusion Fiddleford had, because he raised his paws up. “Oh, n-no, rest assured. I don’t have any inclination to eat you.”

“Thank the Lord…”

“After all,” said Stanford, rubbing his chin. “According to mythology, sphinxes only consume humans if they are unfortunate enough not to know the answers to their riddles.”

“Don’t I feel better,” said Fiddleford, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Do ya reckon ya can still have some bacon and eggs?”

“Yes, that’ll do,” he said. “Oh! I must write down our findings in my journal. Now, where did I put it…” Stanford went up the stairs, muttering to himself the entire way.

“Ya know, he actually started running on all fours at least twice on the way over.” Stan grinned through another sip of beer. “was the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.”

Fiddleford sighed. That would explain the fighting. He rolled his eyes as he saw Stanley reach in the fridge for another can and shut it before he could. “Stanley Pines, it is 8 o’clock in the morning.”

“Ooh,” Stanley raised his eyebrows. “Two last names in less than five minutes, it’s a new record.”

“Stanley.”

Stanley pouted, and even with his new…physical features, Fiddleford still found it endearing. “Aw, come onnnn, Fids, I’m emotionally distressed!”

“Yer no such thing.” He smiled a soon as back turned to the other man. He took out their skillet and placed it on the stove.

“Y’know, I gotta hand it to ya. You’ve gotten a lot more assertive since we’ve met, it’s kinda hot.”

“Yer flattery will not sway me into lettin’ ya get another drink.”

Stanley laughed behind him. “Yeah, yeah. I’m still bein’ serious. Ford didn’t even try to fight you about getting breakfast. If it was me, he’d be yelling at me by now about how we were wastin’ time and crap.”

“It doesn’t take much for the two of ya to get at each other’s necks.” Fiddleford cracked an egg on the edge of the skillet. Anyhow, that’s because he’s hiding away scribblin’ field notes. The moment he’s done, he’ll be tryin’ to drag us on out of here.”

“Eh, true.”

For a moment, the eggs sizzling and snapping on the pan filled the warm silence. His stomach grumbled as the savory smell of cooking food reached him. “Stanley, can ya hand me the coffeepot?”

The floorboards creaked behind Fiddleford. A shadow loomed over him. “Stanley?”

“…You’re not, uh, scared of me or nothin’?” Stanley’s voice had gotten so quiet Fiddleford had hardly heard him.

Fiddleford glanced back at Stanley, who despite his size was hunched over, looking mighty small for someone who was now a literal boulder.

“Why on earth would I be?”

Stanley blinked meekly. He gestured towards his entire body. “Uh…’cause I look like this?”

Ah. He did try to threaten them with a shotgun. Some of the unease he’d gotten rid of returned, but he tried his best not to show it. He swallowed down his fear as best as he could. “Should I be?”

Stanley frowned. “Eh, I mean, I feel different, but not in a “eat somebody” kinda way. I do have a very strong urge to perch on the roof and attack pigeons.”

“Fascinating.” Even without his caffeine, his scientific curiosity was finally starting to get the best of him. “Well, gargoyles are known as guardians meant to ward against evil. Perhaps you’ve developed some sorta protective instinct…”

He stopped mid-ramble. Even without eyes to speak of, Fiddleford could tell Stanley was avoiding his gaze.  

Fiddleford brought his hand to Stanley’s cheek. It felt warm, to his surprise, like rock that had baked under the afternoon sun. Stanley peeked up at him. “Darlin’, the only thing I’m afraid of is the damage you’ll cause around the lab if we don’t turn ya back. Yer like a bull in a china closet as it is.”

Stanley chuckled, leaning into Fiddleford’s touch. “Somebody has ta make things interesting around here.”

Something crashed overhead, quickly followed by a string of curses. A series of heavy objects thumped against the wood overhead.

“I’m alright!” called Stanford’s voice. “I simply knocked a bookshelf over my person, but this new form is surprisingly durable!”

“Things are interestin’ enough as it is,” said Fiddleford, his brief moment of curiosity gone as soon as it came. “Where in tarnation is the coffeepot?”

“Relax, Fiddlenerd, I’ll make ya a fresh one.” He went over by his side, giving him a playful shove that sent Fiddleford to the ground. “…Oops. Sorry, uh, forgot about the whole…stone thing.”

Fiddleford glowered up at his boyfriend, taking his hand as he helped Fiddleford back up. “Yer lucky a got a soft spot fer ya, else I’d be mighty cross.”

Stanly gave him the gentlest peck on the top of Fiddleford’s head. “Once I have my human body back, I’ll make it up to ya.”

Stanley gave him a cup of his precious lifeblood, black with two sugars, just as he liked it. Smirking, Fiddleford took a sip, getting warmed by more than just the coffee. “I’ll hold ya to that.”

*

Somebody please give Fiddleford a raise. 

Comment on what monster you all think Fidds should be, and I may do a second part. I've read some people make him a scarecrow, and I considered making him a centaur.

[jeanjauthor]

What’s some other animals we describe eyes as? Like cat eye, and doe eye. Any others?

Good question! I can think of a few, but mostly in simile and metaphor.

Black as a crow's, eagle-eyed, the stare of a hungry wolf, the eyes of a tiger... In part, these descriptions will be based on what the author themselves has experience with, but a good author will also include what the characters have experience with. Someone who's never left their backwater village in western medieval Europe will never have seen a tiger, though it's possible that someone living on the eastern end of the Caspian Sea will have seen a Caucasus tiger, so they'd know of that much. (And it'd be a frightening experience, because, tiger vs medieval person with no hunting rifles for self-protection, yeek!)

If you also delve into the books with anthropomorphism (talking animals aka furry stories, shapeshifters, werecreatures, aliens based at least somewhat on terrestrial animals, etc), you can also find some interesting (and sometimes rather direct) descriptions.

For instance, in Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling universe, the changeling race literally will have their eyes (iris, pupil, sclera) shift and take on the appearance of whatever their shapeshifting animal is, such as someone with blue eyes having their gaze go literally the golden hues of their wolf, or as black as a (presumed) mako shark. This happens when they're experiencing strong emotion...though oddly enough, their animal form never seems to take on their human eyes in appearance, which makes it an interesting worldbuilding choice in my eyes (pun intented, lol).

In my science fiction universe, I'm not sure if I ever used the phrase of "eyes bulging like a Salik's," but I have seen "eyes bulging like a toad's" in other stories. My vaguely spider-like K'Katta race have ten eyes as well as ten legs (technically they're arthropods, not arachnids!), and the felinoid Solaricans do have slit-pupils instead of round ones.

If you're writing a story in which fabled or mythological beasts, you could use "the stare of a sphinx, ancient, wise, and inscrutable" or perhaps "the glare of a cockatrice, frightening into immobility anyone who dared glance her way," aka a cockatrice's stare was reputed to turn a human to stone, much in the same way as looking at Medusa's face could zap an ancient Grecian from flesh to rock.

If you're unsure what to use, try to think of not just the physical appearance of the eyes, but also the emotional quality or personality type you're trying to convey. Then check online for various animal or mythological creature images, descriptions, attitudes/characteristics/personalities, and so forth to try to pin down the feeling you wish to evoke.

And if nothing else...ask someone! Obviously you've asked me (lol), but don't be afraid to ask a friend what they think might convey the intentions or impressions that you're trying to create!

Especially if it's someone you've already discussed this particular character with, the character's personality, habits, area of expertise, and role in the story at that moment in time, as well as their past and/or future roles. Ask yourself questions, too. Are they hiding a secret? Are they giving a warning, or a hint? Are they helping, hindering, or whatever else you need a character to do in that moment?

And are they being honest in portraying who & what they are like? Are they lying and giving a false impression? Or is the impression they're giving more of a case of what the person looking at them is thinking, rather than a truth or a lie of the person being viewed?

Once you have those questions answered (and a few others pertinent to the situation), that should help you pin down more of the qualities that can help you in turn pick out whatever animal or creature whose eye-based impressions you could legitimately use.

Hope that helps!

[sonofhistory]

My Book Recommendations.

I get asks about this all the time, ALL the time, seriously about fifteen of the two-hundred asks in my box are about my favorite books (not including specific subjects recs). I decided to compile a list and post it of my favorite books of all time spanning from several different subjects/areas of history:

Jefferson and Hamilton: the Rivalry that Forged a Nation by John Ferling

Twelve Who Ruled by R. R. Palmer

Blue Eyed Child of Fortune by Robert Gould Shaw

Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It by John Ferling

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Life of Adrienne D'Ayen, Marquise de La Fayette by Guilhou Marguerite

The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance by Paul Kahan

Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson by Alan Pell Crawford

America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray

The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy by Thomas K. McCraw

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

John Adams by David McCullough

The Romanov Sisters : The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport and Xe Sands

The Greater Journey by David McCullough

The Autobiography of James Monroe by James Monroe

The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution by Alex Storozynski

One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914-1916 by Roger Casement

[itsopossum]

For Awesome ‘Possum 4, now on Kickstarter, Anita K. Boyle @egressstudio contributed “Taking a Peek at the One-Eyed Sphinx Moth.” She swirls the environment around in her art, whether as paper, an assemblage, or a poem. She is a cum laude graduate of art and English from Western Washington University.

How did you pick your topic for Awesome ‘Possum? 

I was walking to the studio last year when I spied a mating pair of large moths on the steps of our “Poetry Shed.” They were beautiful with intricately detailed scalloped wings. I captured them, and grew the resulting eggs through the caterpillar to the pupal stage. I’m waiting now for the final emergence of the moths this coming summer. I just hope their caterpillars won’t kill my willow. They each eat A LOT!!!

(Photo by Anita K. Boyle)

What is your favorite animal or plant? 

Animal: Snow Leopard, but I also like borzois for the same reason—the liquid flow of the body, the functional curves, the potential velocity, and that both large animals are ghostlike, with the capability of suddenly appearing in front of you without a noise, especially the leopard. 

(Photo by Snow Leopard Conservancy/Jammu & Kashmir Wildlife Protection Department [Public domain],from Wikimedia Commons)

Plant: Wisteria! I love the way the flowers hang in clusters like grapes, but make an even more elegant drapery. And that the vines are sturdy and can grow quite a ways, even up a telephone pole, across the street on the wires and down the other side. Where does it think it’s going? I’d love to travel along.

(Photo by Bearerofthecup [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons)

Why do you think talking about nature is important? 

The natural world is the most important thing in the world. When we take notice of any aspect of it, any at all, we can learn about ourselves, our place in the world, and even more relevant—the importance of all things, living and otherwise (by our definition). Nature contains a university with no end of knowledge.

What are your favorite drawing tools? 

I love ink pens of all sorts. I even began to love brush pens this year. They are so inky. The brush pens are efficient at making large areas very black in a short amount of time, and they do it with finesse.

(Photo by Anita K. Boyle)

Find Anita online: Tumblr | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook 

[oliviarthomasba2a]

Historical Bestiary

At the centre of Greek mythology is the pantheon of deities who were said to live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. From their perch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian gods and goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change themselves into animals and other things) and were–as many myths recounted–vulnerable to human foibles and passions. I’ve decided to have a look into the historical creation of bestiary/beasts and how and where it is said to have begun. Looking into this will give me a better understanding of how the process began and potentially why. 

It’s thought that bestiaries originated in the ancient world, and were particularly popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. 

A moral lesson normally accompanied the history and illustration of each beast, suggesting that the reason they were made in the first place was to teach lessons. These lessons may have served a purpose in genuinely teaching values - however, may have also been used as a way to inflict societies views and what was depicted as the social norms and expectations on the people of those times. 

This type of lesson can be seen in many classic fairytales, for example in the traditional telling of ‘Red Riding Hood’also known as: ‘The Grandmother’s Tales’, there’s no red hood (or cap). The wolf is a ‘bzou’ (werewolf) and the unnamed girl must choose between 2 paths: the path of pins (virtue) or needles - needles being a symbol of ‘penetration’. The wolf also being used as a symbol as a ‘sexual predator’, this particularly seen in ‘The Company of Wolves’ (1984, dir. Neil Jordan).

Most evidence suggests that early folktales were shared amongst adults, not children. They had serious meanings and contained important ritualistic elements.

The clear polarity between good and evil acted as a warning of what might happen if you strayed from the righteous path.

The medieval period was intensely religious. In western Europe, the religion was Christianity; in North Africa and the Middle East, it was primarily Islam. The Jews and their religion were found almost everywhere, living among Christians and Muslims, sometimes tolerated, sometimes not.

Therefore these lessons had strong religious meaning and reflected the belief that the world itself was the word of god and every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. The bestiary, then, is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature. 

This article all about medieval bestiary describes this religious link even further. 

The earliest bestiary in the form in which it was later popularized was an anonymous 2nd century Greek volume called the Physiologus, which itself summarized ancient knowledge and wisdom about animals in the writings of classical authors such as Aristotle's Historia Animalium and various works by Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, Solinus, Aelian and other naturalists. 

When it came to fabulous animals like the unicorn, dragon or griffin, the illustrator had no choice but to follow the descriptions or earlier drawings. Whether medieval people believed that such creatures really existed is debatable; some undoubtedly did (as some still do today), while others recognized them as the product of human imagination.

http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastalphashort.htm - list of beasts.

Greek Mythology 

“Myth has two main functions,” the poet and scholar Robert Graves wrote in 1955. “The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as ‘Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?’…The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.” In ancient Greece, stories about gods and goddesses and heroes and monsters were an important part of everyday life. They explained everything from religious rituals to the weather, and they gave meaning to the world people saw around them.

There’s no single original text like the Christian Bible for Greek mythology that introduces all of the myths’ characters and stories. 

Rather in the Bronze Age, the earliest Greek myths were part of an oral tradition, and their plots and themes unfolded gradually in the written literature of the archaic and classical periods. 

Monsters:

Human heroes–such as Heracles, Pandora, Pygmalion, Arachne and more feature in many of the tales, however monsters and “hybrids” (human-animal forms) also feature prominently in the tales: the winged horse Pegasus, the horse-man Centaur, the lion-woman Sphinx and the bird-woman Harpies, the one-eyed giant Cyclops, automatons (metal creatures given life by Hephaistos), manticores and unicorns, Gorgons, pygmies, minotaurs, satyrs and dragons of all sorts. 

Many of these creatures have become almost as well known as the gods, goddesses and heroes who share their stories. In the tales: the winged horse Pegasus, the horse-man Centaur, the lion-woman Sphinx and the bird-woman Harpies, the one-eyed giant Cyclops, automatons (metal creatures given life by Hephaistos), manticores and unicorns, Gorgons, pygmies, minotaurs, satyrs and dragons of all sorts. Many of these creatures have become almost as well known as the gods, goddesses and heroes who share their stories.

Disney has adapted the tales and story of Hercules into their own film that features many of the mythological creatures in the tales. Below is an example of the Hydra - a serpentine water monster that possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads. 

[autolovecraft]

The violet gas S'ngac had told him how to get home by cockcrow.

Beauty and light were born anew as space once had been rightly timed, there squatted one endless sea of red tiled roofs and western windows aflame with sunset, of their own youth, and the anchor lilted, and they would not happen to come out.

They did not know; and soon passed from sight of shapely, wholesome cats was known to haunt most persistently the dreams of the phosphorescent clouds of that city were paved with onyx and some beneath him, but knew that in a semicircle around the mountain, for the nights are cold in Oriab; and soon passed from sight of the ghouls' black kingdom.

The whining of those three ghouls to drink, but these lawless spirits were soon restrained by their fellows would surge over it.

Around the feeble fires of the revolting procession that once filed through it; of that primeval floor. No ship of men, but when the ghouls found themselves prisoners on the hills to the north and the stars in the open space and Nyarlathotep and telling them how its boundless halls are lovely and unlighted, where he talked much with that High-Priest, Carter went downstairs and learned that they are protected by the priests and old peaked gables shine softly out with the strange seamen of the Other Gods were there in the land of dream. But there was a great slippery wings in malignant joy and headed for those inland parts wherein towers stony Ngranek. The ways to the city of Hlanith grew less as the gray headlands, and Carter was not made for mankind. The legends and warnings of lava. All his kingdom would he give for the English cliffs and the cats adieu, he was very exciting to see it, towering monstrous over all.

Soon, however, he found something very terrible in the old waking days, and pausing not at once departed through different burrows to spread the news to others and gather such troops as might be; and hours later he was an old High-Priest, Carter felt they were likelier to be the last copy of those night-gaunts had left. Horrible were the shortest and queerest ever seen a Dhole or even approximately men, so that the three rescued ghouls suggesting a raid on the deck to pray to all who beheld. Of rubies from its unknown shore, and the cabbages of Ulthar's detachment, a score of burrows. And there was a tiled court with a pot and basket of plates. Aa-shanta 'nygh!

Probably, Atal said, heed a man's walk. Carter was locked into a great gaping arch low in the old slate tombstone raised for a journey. Those manuscripts, he became very great doubts, since the slope above much easier than that lurks madness, so that none were now in port, and before three o'clock there stood out any longer against the sickly glow of those topless and impassable peaks across which hideous Leng keep alive many primal things. The horned and cyclopean bats.

It was very exciting to see the stone floor sloping up or down, and giving not even sure that any person now living had beheld that carven face thereon; but so hard was the one soul who had scaled a great arch rising high above the scenes you have seen and loved in youth when he saw faint lines of gray and dignified being was sunning himself on the evening of the palace ahead, the incredible home of the Pnakotic Manuscripts made by accident among the fungi of the jewelers. Finally, after a few pairs of night-gaunts ahead, and shewing its singular craters and peaks uncomfortably. The legends and warnings, and blessed the prospect of flying over water did not wear any wigs or headpieces after all.

It was the central void. Atal's companion Banni the Wise tried to think of going again to the hidden side.

But presently his progress was halted by a low grassy rise and saw that the moonbeasts and their almost-humans screamed, and had taught him how to reach a mass of short pink tentacles; which seemed to wear a sort of toad-things, but of definite data they had no man had ever suspected in what was expected. He had climbed Ngranek and carved images from its unknown shore, with only occasional evil echoes to mark the lines of ghouls and counted them with the added marvel of recognition; for he soon saw that the Other Gods, that daemon-light. This time, and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, did not mourn because those inquisitive Zoogs would escort him no farther. As he turned to go, but a fringe for its loins. At last, in the lurid night clouds. Then suddenly he came to a great crew of the night. Of the length of that fearful city which lived and died before the captive. They had duties to perform, and pointed chin, all white beneath their golden spires of Thran, with green hedges and plowed fields and thatched roofs of the gods had danced upon its pointed peak, that daemon-sultan whose name no lips dare speak aloud. There is a great ship riding at anchor along a forbidding stone quay, and that whatever unseen powers lurked mockingly around him, where the priests shook their pshent-bearing ghouls poised their weapon for a moment something about the murky walls of the trees, and the onyx terraces and colonnaded walks, the marshaled Zoogs were about to creep back from that port. Far back into the gray headlands, and the perfume of rare blossoms spread like a flock of riderless night-gaunts would suddenly pounce upon him, and the creatures hastened to shift their captive to a lightless domed hall with its black broken pillars and crumbling sphinxes of that cloud by night Pickman and Carter could not guess; but he did by instinct, they craved the weird loveliness of that profound and inviolate sanctity which made their goddess great in the primal mists of the ghouls and the cold waste, all but the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his control, leaping past him and the great banks of oars, soon commencing to climb one of the ghoulish chiefs agreed that the Other Gods, that the lore of so many others. Who had mined those incredible blocks, and Carter was eager to talk of their hideous laps rose evil Shantaks of elephantine bulk, but Carter kept on north by the being that was Pickman, and in the turreted cloud-castle of Kadath, which indeed were approximate human beings with narrow eyes, long-lobed ears, and Newport climbing wraith-like mountains carven into leering chimeras, while the merchants of Thraa, Flarnek, and in whose center held a little apart from the huddled night-gaunts alike, save perhaps the dreamer Snireth-Ko, has ever beheld.

Winged and whirring, those unpleasantly featured merchants and their crawling chaos Nyarlathotep, close on his chest.

Then suddenly he came on a very terrible outline of something on the hill, Randolph Carter, have braved all things of your boyhood's small fancies a city. Atal's companion Banni the Wise had been. Atal babbled freely of forbidden things; in which an especially impudent young Zoog had regarded a small stubby old man became irresponsibly talkative.

These things you saw, Randolph Carter, but only stand and cling and shiver in that deep place that simple folk disliked it. Carter could not turn round, yet he felt the wings of the dancers became tinged with a certain old slant-eyed merchant leaped down from dreamland to the grocers and butchers, either physical or spiritual, for they are bound by solemn treaties with the hieroglyphs of far places.

On his right, and feeling the soft paws of those topless and impassable peaks beyond which was somewhat narrower than the half-waking dreamland which is always turned away from earth, and dawns burst into fountains of gold said to be comprehended. Tall and many-bridged Charles flows drowsily … this loveliness, molded, crystallized, and wholly through their help the splendid city of Celephaïs, and where gray church towers peep lovely through the unknown depths of bones would tell him where to look too long and unbending streets, or whether in dream, and to realize that he was suddenly alone, and tasting the atomless aether where the peak of Kadath towering lone with its walls and occasional cracked pillars and pedestals of pillars, colonnades, and in it. They had fears of fabled Sarkomand with its blood all sucked away through a faery place, or in dreamland, and had learned their fluttering language and made significant signs to the left chopped off just ahead to make plain.

And because he loved nothing on earth more than once thought that their shape suggested the huts of Esquimaux. It was a good ten feet up when something swayed the ladder from below. As the ship bound toward Oriab, head downward and without mind, and there. He screamed again and return through the one foe which Earth's cats fear; for only a fear which human priests do not pause near that expansive slab with its sixteen carven sides, its repulsive pair of monstrous things. The Shantak now flew lower the Peaks of Throk had faded out of sight. There were the rocks and lean back away from the higher hills, and the monstrous Shantak, shot screamingly into space toward the gaunt gray flanks of the Zoogs do not often give. Then Randolph Carter fell through those endless voids of sentient blackness. Then, just as he walked close to the soul of the horns and viols and voices peals out from bowers of ocean.

After a few hours' climbing to that unknown southern slope overlooking the lower gulfs, and the anchor lilted, and which is the mouth of the incoming galley the ghoulish leaders for his tethered zebra. And there are rumors of caves near the very little kitten was the plan of instant action which involved marching at once the yak whose great wide prints told of the jewelers are human, or at the inns of little quaint fishing towns, and snarled derisive on the skyline ahead, and as Carter stood in the shadows for his tethered zebra. At last he discerned a small black kittens, he had half hoped to defy even the gods.

[machiavelique]

howl - allen ginsberg: best stanzas

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls

Atlantic City Hall, suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,   who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,   who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain, who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa, who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets, who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts, who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love, who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword, who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom, who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death, and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

I’m with you in Rockland   where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha I’m with you in Rockland   where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb I’m with you in Rockland   where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale I’m with you in Rockland   where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep I’m with you in Rockland   where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself    imaginary walls collapse    O skinny legions run outside    O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here    O victory forget your underwear we’re free I’m with you in Rockland   in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

[zeelvyasblogs]

Book Review: Percy Jackson And The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan 

In this post, I will be reviewing one of my favourite books about the Greek Mythology which happens to be my area of interest. In Rick Riordan's universe, Greek mythology is fit as a fiddle — in Central Park, the back roads of Los Angeles, the pinnacle of Mount Tamalpais in California, the strawberry fields of Long Island.This book is set in the 21st Century. Legends are ordinarily dyslexic, have A.D.H.D. and know just a single parent where the divine beings still have illicit relationships with mortals. Predictions confound, provoke and delude. Creatures might be crushed, yet they don't kick the bucket; it is the errand of the legend to annihilation them for his time.

We initially met Percy in "The Lightning Thief" at age 12, when he discovered that he was a child of Poseidon. Presently he closes his undertakings in "The Last Olympian." As is frequently the case in centre review dream arrangement, the stakes couldn't be higher: here the destiny of Western human advancement remains in a precarious situation. The Titan Kronos, the ousted father of Zeus, is gradually recovering force, with the goal of pulverising the divine beings and everything based upon them, i.e., the West. While the unbelievably vast creature Typhon seethes cross-country from Mount St. Helens to New York City, beating back the Olympian divine beings and goddesses, Kronos and his flunkies fight the not exactly 16-year-old Percy and his circle of half-bloods, or demigods. The conflict of current and traditional universes is both energising and engaging (as when Percy meets his previous math educator: "A shadow seemed overhead — something dim, icy and stinking of death. It swooped down and arrived in the highest point of a poplar tree).

The activity, never restful in any of the five books in the arrangement, keeps running at a wild eyed pace here — beasts fly out with a velocity that turns out to be practically unsurprising, aside from that they are so agreeably hair-raising, and that Riordan has such astute methods for dispatching them. The beat occupies from a couple bumping plot focuses. (The war god's little girl quits one of the greatest fights since Troy since her lodge at Camp Half-Blood didn't win a specific prize — how's that once more?) all in all, in any case, Riordan — a honor winning creator of puzzles for grown-ups — has been deliberately establishing the framework for the result from the start. An inauspicious "Incredible Prophecy" indicated at from the earliest starting point of the arrangement works out as expected, and its satisfaction has a sphinx-like intricacy.

Like the stories in which they're established, Riordan's Percy Jackson books address more than one gathering of people, and in more than one key.  For every one of the jokes and the beast anarchy, there is likewise space for glory and unavoidable issues, similar to the importance of family, home and hearth; the place for Hope, which reemerges in a fixed container recovered from Pandora; the separation between information, or premonition, and cherish; and the customary lack of interest of the divine beings.

Hope you enjoyed the book review. 

[vibrantmattah]

Then I stand up on my hassock and say sing that. It is not the business of POETRY to be anything. When one day at last they come to storm your deluxe cubicle, Only your pumice stone will remain. The left trapezius for now Is a little out of joint. Little did they know you came with it. When nature has entirely disappeared, we will find ourselves in Stuttgart. Till then we're on the way. The only way not to leave is to go. The gods and scientists heap their shit on Buffalo and we're out there, Scavenging plastic trees. When nature has entirely disappeared, We'll find ourselves in the steam garden. Evening's metonym for another Beady-eyed engineer with sexual ideas, who grew up eating animals. Do you like the twelve tones of the western scale? I prefer ninety. I may work in a factory but I slide to the music of the spheres. My job is quality control in the language lab, explaining what went Wrong in Northampton after the Great Awakening. So much was history. My father is a sphinx and my mother's a nut. I reject the glass. But I've been shown the sheets of sentences and what he was Really like remains more of a riddle than in the case of most humans. So again I say rejoice, the man we're looking for Is gone. The past will continue, the surest way to advance, But you still have to run to keep fear in the other side. There is a little door at the back of the mouth fond of long names Called the juvjula. And pidgeon means business. It carries Messages. The faces on the character parts are excellent. In fact I'm having lunch with her next week. Felix nupsit. Why should it be so difficult to see the end if when it comes It should be irrefutable. Cabin life is incomplete. But the waterbugs' mittens SHADOW the bright rocks below. He has a resemblance in the upper face to the man who robbed you. I am pleased to be here. To my left is Philippa, who will be signing for me.