Life is zee bubbles.

"...stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing; for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips; then goes on, well pleased, knowing more than ever he did."

Crazy Grandma quote of the day.

"Come, look," dragging me to an astronomy calendar of my uncle's.
"What are we looking at?"
"Is this the earth?"
"Nope. That's the moon, grandma."
"Well, I know what these are," flipping to a starry page.
"What are they?"
"These are the Gallant Seas!"
(laughing)
"Couldn't have put it better myself."

Everything nice.

Even creepier than the orginal, due to the skittish resolution. The scanner decided to take some liberties with the eyes. I was going to use her for "Girl With A Curl", but agonized over whether she was a "very, very good" or a "horrid". Though, to tell the truth, I find neither line reassuring.

Left alone with big fat fatty.

Not too much a case of art imitating life. Though (in very small circles) I was known to bedeck our collie's mane with shrubs and tiny pinecones and proclaim the coming of Dancer, The God-Dog of War.

Whole world in its coils.

Just assuring an end to the seemingly limitless ruminations on flayed satyrs. If I can find a decent translation, I'll be setting my sights on something more accessible.

Athena of the Puffed Cheeks.

More Marsyas. And finally a link to the actual story.

There was some howling and pitching once I realized it was the Olympians that made fun. But after a furious scramble and a last minute costume change, the coterie of nymphs I'd arranged for her was tranformed into godlings. Smallish and scrawny, but I liked the idea of their younger selves sporting in the predawn. As in dawn of times. After the war with the Titans. When there was an abundance of abandoned...lumber.

Hera's the one in pink. Standing over the others with the makeshift birds on her dress. Peacocks, damn it.

Demeter's in the gardening sack. Dirty hands and feet.

Aphrodite's in back. I hadn't the temerity to try her face. No one should.

Artemis is the little one. Dark eyes, slavering chops.

Bored now.

So, do you accept the cast-off baubles of the gods? There's sure to be a hitch involved--something that sets your feet on the road to that ill-advised tourney that poses a threat to life or limb. Wherever the route, whatever the dangling temptations, you can be sure that someone's skin is going to end up gracing a mantle somewhere.

But who's to say that leaving the thing where it falls will do you any better? It's unlikely that an Olympian would take kindly to anyone spurning their inventions--roadside trash or no. Especially one as notoriously touchy as Athena. Best to gather up your chances, good and bad, and resign yourself to being a mythological footnote.

Marsyas.

Raise those double-reeded pipes and salute the month of the winds.

Hysterical and useless.

Nelly Bligh caught a fly and tied it to some string,

Let it go a little way and pulled it back again.

They called him the Little Tyrant and the tiny, armored, winged things trembled in the reeds as he passed.

Lower your axe.

Of course, you leave a tree to its business. How many citizens had passed by with stoppered ears--knowing full well that any root has its reasons? And no dwarf has any right going armed into the wood without expecting retribution. So, you skirt that particular glen and eventually the yells subside and in time those bones are incorporated into the landscape--one of a million warnings the forest offers up.

But those girls. Living on the fringe, practically perched to cause trouble with their good looks and ludicrous opposing natures. Always pushing and pulling and making ripples in the sensitive frabric of the forest. The pale one would have known--would have stood like marble until her slow mind worked out the story behind the scene, would have left it to its end. But the other, never one to resist the flush of discovery, was bound to indiscretion. And fated to step into the narrative by broadcasting their hideout in the red maple brake--so alike in color to her dress and cheeks and traitorous mouth.

Frabjous day.

This may just be what it takes to convert me. And while I don't relish the idea of interacting with bogus creature cross-overs like this (LOTR needs no improving), I fear it won't be enough to put me off. Must. hold. firm.

In other news, dictionary.com's word of the day today is galumph. Score uncounted for Carroll's triumph over the English language.

By way of reasoning.

A: Read your post. You can't spell for shit. "Yield" has an "ie" and you mispelled "Ulysses".
J: No I didn't. Where?
A: It has only one "L".
J: That's bullshit. Of course it has two--"Odysseus" has two "D"s.
A: What are you talking about? And no it doesn't.