Jeff Howe's Bibliomancy Blog

Graham Greene, A Shocking Accident

2009-11-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

"What happened to the pig?"

If we could only answer this question, our lives would be very different.

Metrolink ticket

2009-11-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

VALID UNTIL 2 HOURS AFTER EVENT

OR UNTIL LAST TRAIN

Good to know if you can't get a train anyway, you don't have to worry about wasting a valid ticket.

Software manual from defunct company

2009-10-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Information in this document is subject to change without notice.

Can I put that in the forward to a novel?

Slip of paper in a bible my father owned

2009-10-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

I enclose a special Anniversary remembrance for you. It is a piece of cloth touched to the very chair in which Mary sat as she talked with Saint Catherine Laboure for over two hours.

You know, if either of my parents were Catholic, this might make some sense. As it is, I can't even make a clever remark about it. It would feel cruel.

The Hornbook Magazine, October 19, 1950

2009-10-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

Writing "END" at the bottom of a page is always a strange feeling. Am I really done? Well, no, I have a metric buttload of revision to do. But I have reached the end of something.

In the homes of the potters of Kyoto, where each family for generations had specialized in the manufacture of some special ware, one sat for restive hours while the brothers and the cousins and the fathers and the aunts discussed the decoration on a simple dish; whether the stroke of the flower stem should turn slightly more toward the right or slightly more toward the left.
--Thomas Schofield Handforth, "Personal Progress Toward the Orient"

Obviously these potters would fit right in to most writers' critique circles.

Mousepad text

2009-10-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Discover your own energy $aving super powers...

The picture has a guy shooting red beams out of his eyes, which seems to me a energy using super power. Although I suppose the beams could actually be sucking a few KwH out of a meter or something--it's not like I can see which way the photons are moving.

This space not quite for rent

2009-10-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Woo! Three months and change, and what do I have to show for it? A nearly-finished first draft in the second novel in the putative Tinks on Steroids series (not what I would ever call it, but it needs a name). Plus: a poem. I do those now and then when I feel obliged to. I may submit it and the other two or three floating around my disk drive soon. Somewhere.

The first novel is sitting in an agency slush pile or two, biding its time, waiting for the right moment. I like to envision it that way at least. It could be recycled pulp by now, and the email telling me to go back to haberdashery on its way.

There, a personal update. Now, back to the stated purpose of the blog.

Quizno's coupon

2009-06-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

$1 OFF
A REGULAR SUB
OR
$2 OFF
A LARGE SUB

Excludes Toasty Torpedoes

Getting published is much more like work than actual writing. That probably has more to do with my work than the processes in question, though.

An editorial aside

2009-06-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

I just realized I had a few comments sitting in limbo. My apologies. I've been focusing on a new novel for maybe six weeks now, so if your note has been sitting that long, you can blame my tunnel vision.

If it's been longer than that, you can just blame me.

And now back to our irregularly unscheduled programming.

H and R Block insert

2009-05-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Has your tax situation changed? Would you like the expertise of a tax professional this year?

I think I need the expertise of a desk cleaning professional this year.

Tis the season

2009-05-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Together we make smiles wider and futures brighter.

They sell holiday gift wrap for fundraisers, not dental hygiene supplies. Believe it or not.

The Matter with Ireland

2009-05-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

The crowd, which had taken our rush with the utmost goodhumour, did not gather witness our discomfiture as a city crowd would have done. It listened, but pretended not to, as a matter of good breeding.

Only George Bernard Shaw could discuss a crowd's breeding using words like "Discomfiture" and make it work.

Birthday Card

2009-04-20T19:43:00.001-07:00

It's your birthday! Rev it! Roar it! Get out on the road and Floor It!

OK for a five year old, not so much for a sixteen year old.

Proprietary and Confidential

2009-04-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

...

Can't really go into detail.

Immortal quotes from E magazine, July/Aug 2009

2009-04-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

"If the sand was swept away, where would we put up the volleyball courts?"

--Misty May-Treanor, world champion beach volleyball player

The first part of this reminds me of a Led Zepplin lyric. The second reminds me of Yogi Berra.

Been on vacation: here's the proof

2009-03-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Any fool can destroy trees.

--John Muir, letter to William Kent 1909, as quoted in the park map for the Muir Woods National Monument.

Actually, not just any fool can destroy a redwood. It takes a fool with a bigass saw (and if that show on Discovery is accurate, a deep desire to leave this world for a better one).

George Eliot, Middlemarch

2009-03-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea's ears, she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up in us if we had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature. She put her hand into her husband's, and they went along the broad corridor together.

Given the taste of modern editors, this passage would now be rendered as: Dorothea, relieved, left with her husband. Or perhaps just: "Whew!"

Elizabeth Taylor

2009-03-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

Always the bride, never the bridesmaid, Elizabeth Taylor is a massively important figure in the history of twentieth century rogering, being the single individual most insistent and consistent in keeping faith in and committing herself to the concept and practice of monogamous marriage.

I'm happy this is a run-on sentence, as it thus echoes Liz's love life.

Who's Had Who, Simon Bell, Richard Curtis, Helen Fielding, Warner Books 1990

CD/DVD Labels

2009-02-27T08:47:00.001-08:00

Run labels through printer.
Detach Label Guide along perforations by first pushing out the corners (1) then pushing out the middle (2).
Gently peel Label Guide and label from the backing paper.
With the CD/DVD in the jewel case, align Label Guide and lable with hinged edge of a STANDARD jewel case or the non-hinged edge of a SLIMLINE jewel case.
Apply label onto CD/DVD.
Remove Label Guide and Firmly press label onto CD/DVD.

They left out the part where you flick the label around frantically after it sticks to a random finger. Then you start over.

Sprint Statement for January

2009-02-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

Sprint is making changes to its policies.

Oh God, just shoot me now.

Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, Act III

2009-02-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Voinitsky: I won't stop talking! [Barring SEREBRYAKOV'S way] Wait, I haven't finished!

If he had stopped there, what a great epitaph it would have made, apart from the stage direction.

The Devil's Dictionary

2009-02-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions of opinion and taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

Ambrose, always a kidder.

Mini Pedestal Gas Fire Pit

2009-02-05T07:31:00.000-08:00

Enjoy a real fire almost anywhere with our compact, pedestal-style Gas Fire Pit, without the wood mess. Add the include glass ice for a spectacular fire and ice effect. Adjustable flame height. Antique bronze-finished resin. Uses standard 16 oz. propane canisters (not included).

If the glass "ice" never melts, or pops, or hisses amidst the flames...what does it do that's spectacular? Sing and dance?

Rail Ventures

2009-02-02T05:29:00.000-08:00

Pass from Mountain to Pacific Time as train crosses Arizona state line into California. Since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, set watch back (forward if eastbound) one hour, only if rest of country is not on daylight saving time.

Heavens help you if it's leap year.

Rail Ventures, ed. Jack Swanson. Fourth edition. Wayfinder Press, 1990.

Why We Should Not Read WH Auden

2009-01-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

I sat there stunned,
It made no sense.
If it were true,
how could those thousands have lived?
And what good was the water?

I thought love was like oxygen, but water works too.

Why We Should Not Read WH Auden, 2008 by John Newmark.

2009--New Opportunities

2009-01-28T09:25:00.001-08:00

5: Consider your estate

How your money is invested today will directly impact your legacy. Create or review your existing will and/or trust documents. Make sure you beneficiaries are listed the way you wish.

I listed mine in order of shoe size. How about you?

BURN-E the Fix-it Bot

2009-01-27T05:45:00.000-08:00

A bot named WALL-A closes the door. Will BURN-E make it inside?

The tension is killing me (when it isn't holding me together like a suspension bridge).

BURN-E the Fix-It Bot, written by Katie Hammond, illustrated by RH Disney,Random House, 2009

ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock

2009-01-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

Note:
For detailed information about the features and used of this product see the "ThinkPad Essential Port Replicator and ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock" section of your on-board help system. To find this section, press the ThinkVantage button on your ThinkPad keyboard to open the ThinkVantage Productivity Center. From any menu, open Access Help and select the topic in the Index, or enter "port replicator" in the Search keyword field and start the search.

I imagine a wrestling match taking place between the tech writer and the marketing person here, as one struggles to keep the other from saving the changes and sending this to press. I'm not sure who was doing which, though.

Milton, plate 20

2009-01-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

Two yet but one, each in the other sweet reflected! these
Are out Three Heavens beneath the shades of Beulah, land of rest!

It's way too early in the morning here for Blake.

Delila Ann Bullar

2009-01-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

Delila was a great horsewoman. She smoked a pipe and rode on hound hunts. She wore a large apron with vest pockets and once when she jumped over the hurdles she bit off the stem of her pipe, reached in her pocket and replaced it while in full flight! What a woman.
She was very shy and bashful as a young lady and when John G. would come by the house she would hide under laundry in the laundry room.

Am I the only one having trouble reconciling these?

Cup and Saucer

2009-01-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

Woodmore China's classic cup and saucer, decorated with 2009 Inaugural Seal. Preorder now.

Augury for inaugury? And after the fact now.

They tell me writers need to have blogs

2009-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

They being other writers. Or perhaps other people they know.

There's a catch, though. If I'm writing here, it means I'm not writing something else. That includes stuff I would like to sell to someone before the heat death of the universe.

And yet the blogs must flow.

So I compromise: I will comment here, as needed, on the writings of others in my house, selected at random (so far as you know). Every day? Doubtful. Every week? Certainly.

I may write other things here as well, but I make no promises I cannot keep. Not any more.