Rite

RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.

2008 Update: A mnemonic device that God is master, invoked in remembrance of the minister's ordination.

The Unionville Chronicles

First Canto

To hear Weirsdo read the first Canto, click on the photo of Star Peak.










Read the first Canto at daybreak, click on the second picture.

If you would like the full text of Shahrazade's Wedding, click on the tapestry. Photo used without permission, rustled from Ariel/Ice Grapefruit who, apparently stole the photo from someone else. There is honor among thieves.

Hemp

HEMP, n.  A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.

2008 Update: The fruit of the Righteous tree.

Harbor

HARBOR, n. A place where ships taking shelter from storms are exposed to the fury of the customs.

2008 Update: A shelter from the stormy sea among landed sailors, hopeful pickpockets, unreliable merchants, confused tourists, carnival barkers and the laws of men.

(Actonbell's request)

Lamentation

Once upon a time

In a strange land not far

A threat was foreseen

On TV o'er the bar.

There a man in bow tie,

With a voice like a chicken's

Made his oracle rise

Though the plot never thickened.

But there will come a day

Perhaps soon, perhaps not

When people will say

"He was right, whatsisname? I forgot."

LAMENTATION, n.  The despondent suspicion that you have been intemperate unluckily.

Handkerchief

HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of "Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own day — an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

2008 Update:  Civilization's own tiara, useful for incremental hygiene and strangulation, phonetically spelled and incorrectly pronounced according to custom.

Hippogriff

HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

2008 Update:  A myth of antiquity manufactured from horse, lion and eagle equivalent to the contemporary mulipoodle, the issue of a topiary and a half-horse half-ass that wanders mercurially braying news, opinion and analysis.

Shahrazade's Wedding, Part XXI

"The Beowulf of Wedding Planning" -Actonbell

You are invited to the wedding.

Next week begins The Unionville Chronicles.







Have some cake. Chill out.

Happy Easter and a fine weekend to all.

Cerberus

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance — against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven — a judgment that would be entirely conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs, and (b) something about arithmetic.

2008 Update:  A three-headed hell-hound dispatched by Death and harrassed by Heracles, demonstrating the principle purpose of theology: that what a god anoints, man seeks to silence.

A good Good Friday to the faithful and TGIF to atheists, Unitarians and sundry socialists.

Concert

CONCERT, n.  An entertainment for the humiliation of Baby by superior howling.

2008 Update:  A congress with Sousaphone.

OK, y'all.  I'm headed for Chicago.  See you all there, right?