I came across Plotto a few years back – references to it in other works, rather than the actual book. it sounded strange, complex and wildly over-reaching. I couldn’t find one – it was long out of print. It wasn’t until I got my own copy that I realized how
Continue readingTag: writing
mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Writers’ stimulants
I still think most of these would be whiskey, not coffee. (h/t to Mark Victor Young.) Alltop is a stiff drink of humor.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: I’m struggling with this…
My recent passion for bread and baking has caused a bit of an internal upset. Not the baking thereof, but rather the writing about it. I’m doing a lot of that, recently. Writing (and, yes, baking too). And of course it comes with the attendant research into bread’s history, the
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: What is Anarchism: An Introduction
WHAT IS ANARCHISM: AN INTRODUCTION By Donald Rooum, Freedom Press, London 1993 ISBN 0 900384 66 2 It has been many years since I have read a non-historical introduction to anarchism. There are a great num…
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: What is Anarchism: An Introduction
WHAT IS ANARCHISM: AN INTRODUCTION By Donald Rooum, Freedom Press, London 1993 ISBN 0 900384 66 2 It has been many years since I have read a non-historical introduction to anarchism. There are a great number of them, and to my mind they should live up to certain criteria.
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: What is Anarchism: An Introduction
WHAT IS ANARCHISM: AN INTRODUCTION By Donald Rooum, Freedom Press, London 1993 ISBN 0 900384 66 2 It has been many years since I have read a non-historical introduction to anarchism. There are a great number of them, and to my mind they should live up to certain criteria.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Fretful Porpentine
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. That phrase just makes the modern reader stop and wonder. What, you ask yourself, is a porpentine? And why is it fretful? We never learn, although later interpreters would knowingly tell us a porpentine is a porcupine in today’s argot. Porcupine itself dervices from
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Writing is fun!
Stabbing them in the neck with a fountain pen works too … Alltop is writing up the funny!
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Circuitous Path from Bulge to Budget
If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin budget, Then my account I well may, give, And in the stocks avouch it. Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Sc. III, Shakespeare These lines got me thinking about the town’s finances. Sow-skin budget? What does that mean? And
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Words, words, words
Writing before the arrival of the internet*, Bob Blackburn commented on the nature of exchange on then-prevalent BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), words that could as easily be written today about the internet: “…the BBS medium reveals not only a widespread inability to use English as a means of communication but
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Kurt Vonnegut’s one rule
Love this quote. (via MonkeyJoys) Alltop is a humor baby.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Digital Attachments
It’s tough to lose a solider. Especially one like Dimitri. A fine sniper, with a good kill record. I had trained him for so long, raised him from a lowly private to sergeant, then to lieutenant. He was equipped with the best gear. His accuracy had improved to a deadly
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: I Didn’t Know That…
One of the great delights of learning is to be able to read or hear something new, something unknown, something that challenges the mind or your previously formed ideas and opinions. Something that fascinates and delights you. That “ah ha!” moment. Last week I stumbled across a website called History
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The (sometimes violent) urge to write
As of this writing, I will have published 253 posts since I began this blog at the ending week of December, 2011. Two hundred and fifty three posts in 21 months. Just over one post every two-and-a-half days, on average. Plus 30 or so still in draft mode. Another half-dozen
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Why Spelling Matters
Sometimes I despair when I surf through the social media. Technology has empowered everyone to be able to comment, to post their stories, to share their opinion. Yet it has not enabled their ability to compose a sentence, or to spell the words correctly. It has not made us better
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Three kick-ass e-reader uses: a writer’s list
There’s tons of advice out for how to use your e-reader more effectively, but I thought I’d throw out this short list because these things have changed my life. They’ve certainly altered the way I engage with text and they’ve … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Of Type and Typography
Humans have remarkable ability that is shared by – as far as we know – no other animal. We can turn abstract images and symbols into meaning. Words are, of course, the prime example, as old as our history. We can turn a word like dog, tree, table or vacation
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The nit-pickers always can find something
In high school we parodied For Whom the Bell Tolls relentlessly: “Que va, what a cafeteria lunch that is.” “Truly, it is a cafeteria lunch.” “That is a cafeteria lunch to test a man.” “Que va.” Alltop is a humor … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Three Archy poems by Don Marquis
pete the parrot and shakespeare i got acquainted with a parrot named pete recently who is an interesting bird pete says he used to belong to the fellow that ran the mermaid tavern in london then i said you must have known shakespeare know him said pete poor mutt i
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The long course of civilization
“With the collapse of totalitarian empires, we believed that living together, peace, pluralism, and human rights would gain the ascendancy and the world would leave behind holocausts, genocides, invasions, and wars of extermination. None of that has occurred. New forms … Continue reading →
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