Thursday, November 19, 2015

A Festschrift for Fenny Buzart

i

Fenny, a Festschrift is a kind of birthday book, and we your animals celebrate your fourteenth birthday.

I, Snoop, am writing this. Think of me as staring into your eyes as I speak. You must drink more water and be in bed each night by nine p.m. Only think about things until nine-thirty. You can do great things, Fenny, but you need sleep.

Owl says not to go with Vanessa on any more walks during school time. And if anyone asks you about breaking in to Alice's house when Alice's mum was home just say it didn't happen. Actually, Owl says you need to talk to Vanessa, even if she is keeping a vow of silence, and tell her that you both have to say that it didn't happen. Owl says that just because Vanessa has bleached her hair and thinks she's never going to speak again that doesn't mean she IS never going to speak again.

For the record, Duducat thinks that Owl is wrong. Duducat thinks that you should just tell Alice and everyone what did happen, that you opened the door to the screened porch thinking that you could leave Alice a note, and then you saw her whole house was open and you thought maybe there was a break-in and you were investigating, and you didn't know Alice's mum was home with a hangover and was going to come out naked and yelling.

Owl and everyone else says to remember what Alice is like. It's better just to say that it never happened at all. Alice won't believe you but Owl says eventually people will stop asking. Tell Vanessa what to say but also tell her that her vow of silence is really spiritually powerful and you can see her inner strength.


Sunday, November 15, 2015


divots favourites shallows equals strings hydras opens nassers pans wets metals arcades unearths airwars bloodies cigarettes credibles buildings spans strikes shahs cares paces dwarfs rains barrel-bombs stomachs picks filthies bastions backs doubles poundings spillovers roots draws drains latents parts sows proxies zones cloaks homes

Friday, November 13, 2015

he seemed empty in some fundamental way. talk on films, books, meals, coffee left him mute. He'd smile and gesticulate in a friendly, encouraging manner, but as his interlocutor went on he'd be reduced to tired nods, wearied by the dead weight of his own end of the conversation. 

Monday, November 2, 2015

https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=lMERAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA286&lpg=PA286&dq=saxons+nursery+rhymes&source=bl&ots=oPzhBwOr-A&sig=Hb5Gf8shwyEQrMPupCoFG2tw98E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBWoVChMInO2u7sbxyAIVCtRjCh0mOgWJ#v=onepage&q=saxons%20nursery%20rhymes&f=false
A Miller's Thumb;

the well known tiny fish with a disproportionately large mouth; seems, er muijl ley'r's t'om; q.e. in this case the mouth is a passage all round, here the mouth goes quite round; and thus, a mouth as wide as the head or body, which is the characteristick of this sort of minnow-fish. Minnow, as a prickly fish, seems, er m'in houwe; by this a puncture is made; if you touch it, it will prick you. M', mee, mede, herewith; houwe, puncture, wound, prick. Johnson derives it from the french menue, small!
"And I shall here only repeat, that however wide the difference of letter between the original and their travesties may appear to the eye, the true pronunciation being given to each, they will be found to correspond in sound, and the originals of all to be a series of rude and angry pasquinades, from the mouths of the then heathen Saxon, against the intruding, greedy, grasping Missionaries of the Church of Rome."
Archaeology v 2 p289

https://archive.org/stream/essayonarchaeolon02kerj#page/288/mode/2up