'That very peak of molluscan evolution, the Octopus'

One of the most delightful medieval treatises on the art of gardening was written at the end of the fourteenth century. The author, the Ménagier de Paris (Householder, or Goodman, of Paris), was an elderly … burgher who had taken a very young wife. Because he felt that his inexperienced bride needed training in household management, he wrote a book of instruction to guide her in overseeing his servants, marketing, cooking, cleaning, entertaining, and gardening. The book gives a fascinating picture of domestic arrangements in the Middle Ages. Since plants entered into many of the daily operations of this bourgeois household – from cooking to ridding the house of vermin – the Goodman of Paris devoted a chapter of his book to gardening. His knowledge of the subject was sound. He admonished his wife not to water in the heat of the sun; to water only the stems and the earth, not the leaves; to thin young lettuce plants; to throw sawdust on anthills to get rid of the ants; to place cinders underneath cabbages to kill caterpillars; and not to let greens go to seed. He knew that when plants have wintered over in the cellar they should not be brought too quickly into the dry summer air; that dead branches of sage should be cut off in winter; that marjoram should not be grown in the shade; and that plenty of earth should be left around the roots of vegetables when they are transplanted.

[SWEET HERBS AND SUNDRY FLOWERS]

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A book about edible seashore life would be remiss if it didn’t say more about that very peak of molluscan evolution, the Octopus. I realize that most Americans are filled with horror at the very thought of eating Octopus, but this is no more than a sectional prejudice, for the French, the Italians, the Polynesians, and the Japanese all consider Octopus very fine fare indeed. Even those Americans who have given this food a fair trial invariably find it delicious. Few laymen realize that the mobile and active Octopus really belongs to the phylum Mollusca, thus making it a relation of the sedentary clams and oysters. Its flesh is just as edible as are those delicacies. …

The ~ is conceded to be the most highly developed and most intelligent of all invertebrates. Although it is a mollusk, the shell is absent or vestigial, and with no limiting skeleton it can squeeze through openings that appear far too small to allow it to pass. It has eyes that are as highly developed as our own, and it has the largest and best-functioning brain of any invertebrate … The eight prehensile arms give it an agility and dexterity rivaled by no other creatures except perhaps men and monkeys. The Octopus has been observed picking up small stones and slipping them into the open valves of unalert oysters and clams, wedging the shells apart so they could not be closed, so the Octopus can feast on fresh mollusk meat at its leisure. This use of tools shows not only great dexterity but a high order of intelligence.

[Euell Gibbons]

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PASSION FLOWER: the TENDRILS of the plant represent the whips used on Mr. J. Christ; the RADIAL FILAMENTS are the crown of thorns; the CENTRAL FLORAL COLUMN is the pillar of scourging; the 3 STIGMAS are the 3 nails; the 5 LOWER ANTHERS are the 5 wounds; and the 10 SEPALS and PETALS are the 10 FAITHFUL apostles … ‘Wow! I wonder what other religions might see in this flower’.

[BIZARRE BOTANICALS]

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PURPLE FINCH | Carpodacus purpureus purpureus

This favorite bird is one of the most melodious of American finches. He pours out his gushing, ecstatic warble from the top of some tree, and when performing before his mate his musical efforts transcend his ordinary notes and he launches into the air, fluttering about with quivering wings in lowly emulation of the Skylark, pouring forth a continuous melody until, exhausted with this most remarkable vocal effort, he floats down with uplifted pinions toward the object of his affections.

By nature the ~ is a forest bird, and although it adapts itself readily to civilization it prefers the neighborhood of coniferous trees, and shuns open plains. Before the advent of the English Sparrow in the United States, ~ nested in abundance in the region about Boston, building their nest chiefly in Norway spruces and Virginia junipers. The sparrows in time apparently drove a large part of these finches out of the region and kept them out, as they never have returned in their former numbers. Those who wish to keep these birds about both summer and winter should plant coniferous trees and should feed sunflower seeds, of which these finches are very fond.

[Edward Howe Forbush]

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San Francisco Bay, which everyone had missed for more than two hundred years, was discovered at last – quite by accident. A party of soldiers, chasing a deer, reached the crest over which the animal had disappeared and came suddenly upon a great inland sea at their feet, blue waters stretching away into hills which sheltered distant bays, the extent of which they could only guess at. …

More thorough exploration a few years later tells what they saw. Much of the country around the Golden Gate was forested with laurel, ash, oaks, live oaks, and redwoods – full of bears, deer and elk – with some stretches of sand, marsh or green flats near the shore. Whales were spouting. Sea otter, with priceless pelts, and sea lions played among the rocks. Far down San Francisco Bay stood the tall redwood from which modern Palo Alto takes its name. As redwoods go, it was not a very tall tree – a mere 140 or 150 feet; but it stood out so clearly, ‘rising like a great tower’, that two Spanish parties paused to measure it. The tree still stands, having in the intervening 175 years added at most a few feet.

[EYES OF DISCOVERY]

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Poverty obliged the Poe household once more to move, but in the right direction. They decamped … to a three-storey brick house close to the Schuylkill River. It was a cheaper rent. But Poe felt freer by rivers; he could still swim, and he enjoyed boating expeditions. He often floated on the river, in a small craft, lost within a waking dream.

[Peter Ackroyd]

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The rest is beginning to be history. ‘In the spring of 1965, forty-one rich businessmen formed “The Friends of Ronald Reagan”’. For fifty thousand dollars a year, they hired a public-relations firm that specialized in political campaigns to groom Ronnie. California politics were carefully explained to him and he was given a crash course in the state’s geography, which he may have flunked. He often had no idea where he was, or, as a supporter remarked to [Laurence] Leamer, ‘once, he didn’t know a goddamn canal and where it went. Another time, he was standing in the Eagle River and didn’t know where the hell he was’, etc. but he had his dream of the city on the hill and he had The Speech and he had such insights as: the graduated income tax was ‘spawned by Marx as the prime essential of the socialistic state’.

[Gore Vidal]

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With regard to the sleeping and waking of animals, all creatures that

are red-blooded and provided with legs give sensible proof that they

go to sleep and that they waken up from sleep; for, as a matter of

fact, all animals that are furnished with eyelids shut them up when

they go to sleep. Furthermore, it would appear that not only do men

dream, but horses also, and dogs, and oxen; aye, and sheep, and goats,

and all viviparous quadrupeds; and dogs show their dreaming by barking

in their sleep. With regard to oviparous animals we cannot be sure

that they dream, but most undoubtedly they sleep. And the same may

be said of water animals, such as fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, to

wit crawfish and the like. These animals sleep without doubt, although

their sleep is of very short duration. The proof of their sleeping

cannot be got from the condition of their eyes-for none of these creatures

are furnished with eyelids-but can be obtained only from their motionless

repose.

[Aristotle, HISTORIA ANIMALIUM]

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Very well, Circumstance furnished the capital, and my temperament told

me what to do with it. Sometimes a temperament is an ass. When that is

the case of the owner of it is an ass, too, and is going to remain

one. Training, experience, association, can temporarily so polish him,

improve him, exalt him that people will think he is a mule, but they

will be mistaken. Artificially he IS a mule, for the time being, but at

bottom he is an ass yet, and will remain one.

By temperament I was the kind of person that DOES things. Does them, and

reflects afterward. … I have been punished many and many a time, and

bitterly, for doing things and reflecting afterward, but these tortures have

been of no value to me; I still do the thing commanded by Circumstance

and Temperament, and reflect afterward. Always violently. When I am

reflecting, on these occasions, even deaf persons can hear me think.

[Mark Twain, WHAT IS MAN?]

»Russian Mars Probe to Crash Sunday—Visible as "Surreal Comet"?

Doomed Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has been stuck in Earth's orbit.

After circling Earth for more than two months, the failed Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt will make a kamikaze dive into Earth's atmosphere sometime around Sunday, experts say.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, which has given up hope of recovering the spacecraft, is now concentrating on figuring out what will happen to the pieces that fall to Earth.

The agency expects about 20 to 30 fragments totaling about 440 pounds (200 kilograms) to reach the ground …

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Sean Connery's Website Looks Like The Internet, Circa '96

Very surprised there's no link to download desktop wallpaper for The Rock or The Hunt For The Red October.

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Famous Pooping Editor Announces New Concept: 'Good News'

Arianna Huffington, internet media mogul and legendary pooper, has "good news." She's launching a new Huffington Post vertical, called "HuffPost Good News" …

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Is North Korea Punishing People Who Didn't Mourn Hard Enough?

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Mortified Japanese Department Store Cleans Up 'Fuckin Sale'

An Osaka department store's Fuckin Sale was one of the classic Engrish gaffes of our time. But the funny signs were quickly taken down after the internet freaked out about them.

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Wolf Blitzer Defends Politicians’ Honor in Cute Children’s Essay

Have you been cracking wise about our cherished field of Republican presidential candidates? Perhaps calling them "assholes" when they do and say horrible things? Let's grow up already. Because stilted CNN misery bot Wolf Blitzer will surely put us in detention if this goes on much longer.

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Letterman close to deal to host through 2014

David Letterman is on the verge of signing a new deal with CBS that will make him the longest running late-night show host in the history of TV. The new deal will keep him on the air for 32 years, longer than his idol Johnny Carson, who left the air as host of “Tonight” in 1992 after 30 years on the job.

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Howard Stern goes pescetarian

Radio shock jock says he's sticking to a diet of vegetables and fish.

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Tina Fey abandons juice diet after allergic reaction

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Hummingbird a rare sight in Chicago winter

They call her 'Rufous,' named for the type of hummingbird she is. But why in the world did she come to the Chicago area in winter?

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Kansas House Speaker Prays for Obama’s Death

I missed this the other day somehow. Mike O’Neal, the Republican speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, sent out an email in which he urged people to pray for President Obama’s death, and another where he referred to Michelle Obama as “Mrs. Yomama.”

Earlier this week, the Lawrence Journal-World was sent an email that O’Neal had forwarded to House Republicans that referred to President Obama and a Bible verse that says “Let his days be few and brief.”

Rodee said that that email was referring to the president’s days in office.

The email, which has been posted in various places on the Internet, refers to a bumper sticker that reads “Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8.”

Psalm 109:8 says, “Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward to replace him.”

The email states: “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

The verse in question is a prayer for someone to die. The next verse is: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” He issued a notpology for the other email about the first lady, but not even that for this far more vile one.

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maybe I seez wy yumanz likes dis

But ai iz stillz yur li’l punkin, rite?

Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street

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NATALEE HOLLOWAY LEGALLY DECLARED DEAD

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Bill Janklow dies at 72; South Dakota governor, congressman

Bill Janklow served four terms as governor. He resigned as the state's lone member of the House of Representatives after he caused a fatal traffic accident in 2003.

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German Farmers Seek their Fortunes in Russia

Yevgeny Kondakov/ DER SPIEGEL

In the 18th century, Catherine the Great invited German farmers to come to Russia and cultivate the land. Over two centuries later, the country is recruiting Teutonic pioneers once again in a bid to put vast tracts of fallow land to use. The land holds great opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs -- provided they have strong nerves.