Monadenium ritchiei

This post covers
1) Monadeniums (fleetingly: only a picture)
2) Toasters (with a plug for my new book)
3) Somnambulist (to keep readers from getting bored)

Two more micros stories. And what propitious timing on the first one–just when I was putting the finishing touches on my brand new book about household appliances and their ontological significance in a post agrarian society. The chapter on electric can-openers is one of the best. It’s a fascinating look at how motorized appliances have occulted hand operated models. The crassitude of wind-up, hand-cranked implements for recreational and kitchen use is given full expression.

Nora’s Toaster

Next, there’s a charming story, suggested to me by Dr. Libellule, about a somnambulist.

Yes

Lyrical?

Lyrical?

I have no idea what this story is about, hence the question mark. It doesn’t seem particularly lyrical. It’s rather prosaic (except for the bit about Betty’s eyes–and should that be lyric or lyrical?).

And so, my pseudolithos (pseudo-false, lithos-rock–so clever these botanists) is also rather prosaic. Certainly not as lyrical as, let’s say, a rose. Still, I love my ugly-duckling rock.

They say (and ‘they’ are probably nightclub types–to which one should pay little attention) that watering a pseudolithos is very tricky. One error and you have a mound of mush. My solution is not to water it for nine months of the year, and then, in July, August, and September, dab its bald head with a damp cloth.

sticks and stones

This short post is a segue to a recent cosmological discourse with Rob: from the ethereality of space to the sublimity nestled within our green pastures, I submit this earthy F major chord ( for Ted in particular–and it’s actually a I-V7sus4 change–but these are, I suppose, the exigencies of the sublime).

https://app.box.com/s/yhd0n4gkj1yxj18rpurqmqbj8sef7dmf

And Cynthia, this is, quite incidentally, where I learned my grammar and syntax.

Beware of any species named ‘infausta’ because it sounds dreadful and means, in other languages, to suffer misfortune.

Who would grow a tree known to possess evil powers? Only a sorcerer, whose research would confirm that one is specifically interdicted to make fire with the wood, and that the fanatical malediction is in reference to one’s cattle only bearing male offspring. I have surveyed Ariel’s garden and surrounding Eden and can safely say that there is no cattle around. There’s the odd skink and one particularly ugly toad, but no bison or yaks–I would have noticed.

In Africa Vangueria infausta is known as ‘wilde mispel’ (please don’t misspell it). The fruit is said to be similar to the apple (Eden again!). For those of you with a hankering for apple sauce (or male cattle), you may go to the garden section of your nearest Home Depot and purchase the seeds, which germinate freely when sprinkled with powder of algaroth and suspended over a cauldron of boiling ambergris.

Ardor

Ardor

Charlatan

Charlatan

Paramour

Paramour

Going to Vegas

Slinking across the curbless roads of Dante’s inferno, I found this flower and thought spontaneously that Beatrice would adore it (not that I have much opportunity to converse with her–or to know what she likes or doesn’t like–as I’ve haven’t seen her in years). Virgil called it a weed, but he’s a poet and must have some secret knowledge of its rank in this nethermost hell. Just the other day I said, “Vir, what’s this ferny looking thing?” and he said, after pausing to think, “a weed.” It was a passion-flower. And so I am faced with the heartbreaking realization that Virgil is a bit of a fraud when it comes to appreciating the tangible delights of this or that scaffold of green and its concomitant splashes of salmon or touches of tangerine or whatever. To summarize: my poet is such a disappointment–and a lousy guide to boot. Moreover, pontificating today about the damnation of souls is a hard sell. Better to stick with popular topics such as the effete tincture of corruption that is tainting international football.

And speaking of Dante’s inferno, there’s Vegas.

VEGAS

One

Another short piece. This one is one sentence long, begins and ends with the word ‘one, ‘ and is one hundred and one words long!

One

And something cute here:
http://www.microbookends.com/2015/07/02/micro-bookends-1-38-child-micro-star/#comment-5922