The God of Small Things: Similes

For bookclub we're reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Her writing is peppered with similes, some pleasantly surprising. In the first 50 pages:

....like a high-stepping camel with an appointment to keep

lodged there.... like a mango hair between molars

Rahel's new teeth were waiting inside her gums, like words in a pen.

Futile. Like polishing firewood.

black eyebrows angled like a soaring seagull's wings

....history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside.


Word to look up:
laterite -
lat·er·ite   [lat-uh-rahyt]
– noun Geology.
1. a reddish ferruginous soil formed in tropical regions by the decomposition of the underlying rocks.
2. a similar soil formed of materials deposited by water.
3. any soil produced by the decomposition of the rocks beneath it.

Where Are You, #733?

The other week I watched the 1000 Journals movie (now available on Netflix). I remember when I heard the book had come out and the film existed, but then I totally forgot about it.

I got involved with 1000journals, back in the old days when I was joining all sorts of random and to-be-stalled projects on nervousness.org. Those were the days when I was first getting an inkling how the internet could lead you in all these directions, and possibly even result in inspiration to do and make things in "real life."

I like seeing how one idea, site, fad... ends up morphing into so many other things. Now there's the 1001 Journals Project, which is apparently an offshoot made of personal journals of a possibly infinite number, going out in much the same way the 1000 Journals did.

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So, part of a big question of the film was: what has happened to all of the 1000 journals besides the ones that someguy has received back or tracked down?

And I, in particular, wonder Where are You, #733?

Here's #733



For some reason I was on a mermaid kick at the time.

Journal #733 was one that I received in 2002, after it first traveled to Texas and I think France. I'm feeling some nostalgia and weirdness thinking back to those days. I had the book and some friends added some great one-of-a-kind stuff to it and then I think I got antsy and pestery for a bit, and then I sent it on.

Last seen in Hollywood, and the last tracking entry states "it was stolen in the spirit of..."

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And... NEW, in Patches-approved linkage:
Babushka Jewellery Design recently posted a cute Kitsy kitsy post on cat related items, and included us.

not quite volubly fervous

Patches kneads her friend.
(video above)


So, for bookclub we're reading The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. It's apparently somehow connected to Lost, and was part of Desmond's hatch library.

I haven't checked up on any of the interpretation, because I was too busy looking up words. Either words I'd never heard of, or words that I could guess the gist of but have never seen in print. Somewhere I have a little notebook where I would write down words to look up, but I never kept up with it. Maybe it's time to restart.

acatalectic - complete, not catalectic (metrically incomplete).

banjaxed - Broken or unusable, usually by result of violent damage.

bulbul - Persian songbird

by the hokey (a petty oath, or asservation) an exclamation of surprise or marvel.

cerebration - activity of the mental processes; thinking.

desideratum - something necessary, highly desirable.

embrasure - 1. (in fortification) an opening, as a loophole or crenel, through which missiles may be discharged. 2. Architecture. a splayed enlargement of a door or window toward the inner face of a wall. 3. Dentistry. the space between adjacent teeth.

extirpate - 1. to remove or destroy totally; do away with; exterminate. 2. to pull up by or as if by the roots; root up: to extirpate an unwanted hair.

gawm - someone who is a simpleton. (slang)

helical - pertaining to or having the form of a helix; spiral.

inimical - 1. adverse in tendency or effect; unfavorable; harmful: a climate inimical to health 2. unfriendly; hostile: a cold, inimical gaze.

invidious - calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense; hateful: invidious remarks.

noli-me-tangere - don't touch me.

sempiternal - everlasting, eternal

sub rosa - confidentally

takes me to the fair - (I didn't find an actual definition of this) but I think it's "fairly" obvious what it means.

(most definitions courtesy of dictionary.com)


Maybe I need join wordie, though I don't know yet how it works.

Patches Shows Her Skills

Slightly bigger version here.

Patches shared her flip book expertise with the readers of the etsy storque in this article.

flip books & clean fingernails

I attempted to make another movie with my camera but I ended up having to reshoot a few times due to lighting, technical bloopers and my previously dirty fingernails.  It's certainly a step up from my last (needle felting) episode, but there's much improvement to be had.  I need a voice disguiser thingy so I can do dialogue in upcoming movies.  Or not.  The whole audio portion of anything is a challenge to be sure.

So, now I have 6 flip books in my shop, to sell individually and also in sets, and I'd like to make more and more.

flippety doo da

Well, my newest obsession is making flip books.  I've made them in the past, but was not as methodical about the process.  Now I've made myself a template and it's really only a matter of finding subject matter.... and time of course.


So, all of the ones I've made so far are available in my 
shop



And I want to make a flip book every day now.  I won't.  But I will make more.



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In other news, azure grackle's  periodic table print project that I participated in is done.  She might make a book or poster or something out of it and that would be awesome.