August 2011
7 posts
“Spare me the drudgery of systematic examinations and give me the lightning...”
– Geoff Dyer
“Houses have no loyalty…. We want houses to reciprocate our feelings of...”
– Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage
An Extremely Short History of Diarrhea & the Holy
The Guardian is reporting this morning that a group of Franciscan monks, incensed at repeated thefts of Bibles from their library, are wishing diarrhea on the culprits:
In a note, pinned up in full view of worshippers, the friars say they hope the thief sees the error of his ways. But in case he does not, they add: “We pray to God that the thief is struck by a strong bout of the ...
“Walter Benjamin noted, shortly before the rise of Nazism, that “Mankind,...”
– Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night
Nostradamus predicts...you'll have an excellently...
I’ve got an upcoming piece on Nostradamus in the “Future” issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, and while researching him I was happy to learn that, in addition to being a prophet and a doctor, Nostradamus was also apparently an amateur chef. As a traveling apothecary he collected recipes alongside various potions and medicines, and in 1555 (the same year he published his famous...
“Future readers, I warn you not to be thrown into confusion by the way this work...”
– Bernard of Angers, 11th century 