"In China they were considered the leading authors in their respective genres. So they had taken for granted their popularity in the States, but they found it far from so. The Americans had hardly heard of their works, except a few university professors specializing in modern Chinese literature." --Qiu Xiaolong, A Case of Two Cities (2006)


    "Tilma"

A dumb rumor of
Silverado drywall

a bad heart abide
in equitant grotto

pillbug cabana
through Arab Gegenschein

in thesterness go
coruscating return


"In 1890 inventor Thomas Edison invited the three most famous people in England to record their voices for posterity on his recent invention, the phonograph. The three people were Queen Victoria, Prime Minister Gladstone, and the poet Tennyson. The queen declined, the prime minister sent some one else to read his message, and Tennyson--who had always been fascinated with science--agreed --and proceeded to make a whole series of recordings on the primitive wax cylinders of Edison's 'talking machine.' Regrettably, Tennyson stored his records in a box near the heating pipes of his home, and so the waxen hills and dales made by the running needle long ago melted into inaudible plains. But on some tracks still, beyond the hiss of hardened wax, the poet's voice can still be heard, boldly declaiming his spirited verse." --Stephen Bertman, Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (2003)


Confessions of a Psycho Cat.


Geof on my "222".


"Space Water was born on the star 91 Aquarii..."


"It's not every day you meet someone who sings you an elegy for Attila the Hun..."


"Yardangs are common on Mars..."