Twitterings of the Day

[nullalux]

• 10:48 Sipping tea and cuddling with the Philosopher. #
• 12:24 The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing To Say On Every Dubious Occasion tinyurl.com/96lvgt #
• 12:28 @bookwoman84: I reserve the right to go as a Dissolute Aeronaut Rake next Halloween. #
• 13:14 @tenacious_snail: There's a door in our basement that opens onto a wall. Also a butler's pantry from family room to foyer for no reason. :) #
• 13:54 What's in the box? #
• 14:06 All of my skills are fairly impractical. I wonder what twisted scenario could possibly require folding an origami panda to save one's life. #
• 15:03 Karaoke in Japantown with friends tonight; considering hitting Clockwork SF afterwards: www.flickr.com/photos/nullalux/3176702001/ #
• 16:39 Watching the moon rise. #
• 16:54 The Bearded Clamporium, a treasury of vajayjay art: tinyurl.com/8lw4wf :P(|) #
• 17:11 DO WANT. The Crucible's 10th Anniversary Fire Ballet Fundraiser is Dracul: Prince of Fire www.thecrucible.org/ballet/dracul.html #

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Comments

[slyviolet.livejournal.com]

"...and we found ourselves cornered. We had been herded without our knowledge into a dense thicket, the thorned branches surrounding us on three sides and far too thick and tangled to even begin climbing through. We could hear the drums and the hungry ululations drawing closer. Professor Fortescue, quite out of character, had begun to look vaguely concerned. He was hastily scribing down as many notes about the beat patterns and pitch variations of the cries into his anthropological journal as he could. Meanwhile, the rest of us had crowded as far back as we could, and were looking for some means of escape.

"Then suddenly, it occurred to me. I ran up to the Professor and snatched the journal from his well-manicured hands. He gave out a small and well-governed gasp -- a miniscule but rapid inhalation of air that nigh rocked me back on my heels, as he was not one normally prone to such outrageous outbursts of emotion. My plan, however, required his notes, and so I regrettably was forced to this action.

"I began tearing pages from the journal, starting in the back with the blanks so as to prevent destroying any of the anthropological report we had been creating. But as I began sealing the pages together along the edges, utilizing the unusually viscous sap that these thorn bushes secreted, I found myself requiring pages of our research. Sketches of the tribal elders, details of their local customs and superstitions, transcriptions of their odd, yet hypnotic, language -- a mesmerizing agglutination of deep, gutteral clicks like a beetle's pincers along with rich, beautiful nasal harmonizations with one another, and most painfully of all, the detailing of their richly-developed religious beliefs which centered around their great Godhead avatar, [ulu'Xoa?ami-Xue] 'Great Cloud-White One Daubed In Darkness At Eye, Ear, And Foot'...

"The pages had created for me a large square approximately three feet in diameter on each side. I began feverishly to crease the paper, following a ritual I had idly performed so many times without ever considering it would be the one thing that would stand between myself and an untimely Styxian excursion...

"When the natives rounded the corner and entered the hedge thicket, we had all taken shelter behind my creation. I had utilized one of our extinguished torches to smudge soot upon the pages, and my statue stood upright, rotund and placid.

"The moment the tribesmen saw it, they all fell to their knees and prostrated themselves in adulation and reverent wonder. Those behind them, their view suddenly unobstructed, fell immediately as well, and so on back the ranks -- and it was to us as though the tide of cannibalistic furor that had been threatening to crash upon us had suddenly turned, and instead a wave of awe-struck religious ecstasy levelled our threat before us. Their voices raised in a chorus of song and exultation as they beheld my creation... Their God standing here on earth, a great white bear with dark spots upon his eyes, ears, and paws.

"We crept silently to the edge of the thicket, and as we did so our poor simpleton Septimus' torch caught the edge of the creature and it went up in a blazing conflagration.

"For a moment we all paused and stared, transfixed by the sudden heat and light, and just as terrified that this would break the spell over the tribesmen.

"But as quickly as they had gone to their knees, they leapt to their feet and began a frenzied, euphoric dance, the drums beating a frenetic and haunting tattoo behind them.

[slyviolet.livejournal.com]

"They swarmed forward, swirling about the burning paper, bits of which were now separating from the form and drifting upwards like gloried angels before extinguishing and drifting down again as a strange, sooty snow.

"They gathered this in their hands and marked themselves to mimic their God's appearance -- they smeared the soot over their eyes, ears, and they coated their hands and feet.

"In the commotion and chaos, we were able to quietly extricate ourselves with nary a notice, and we slunk quickly back to our canvas tents.

"Over cups of tea a few hours later, I apologized profusely to the Professor for what I'd had to do. The corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, and I found myself overcome at the lavish display of emotion. He murmured that it was all for the best, really, and that I'd shown wonderful resourcefulness. He was most likely, he said, going to mention it in his report when we returned to the Conservatory to display our findings to the Aetherial Expedition Committee.

"'Besides,' Septimus said just a little too loudly and jovially, 'when would you ever have thought that knowing how to fold a paper panda might save your life?' And in our mutual generosity of the afternoon, we chose not to chastise him for his brutish ill manners, because he did speak the truth."

[kest]

There's a door in our basement that opens onto a wall. Also a butler's pantry from family room to foyer for no reason. :)


Can I come visit your house sometime? I am fascinated by...I guess you'd call it architectural history?

[chalepa-ta-kala.livejournal.com]

Certainly!