Strait is the gate

Octopus squeezes itself through small hole. (Via.)

Rear admiral mittens

This is so demented I can hardly look at it! (Via Cleo.)

Life re-entry has proved rather stressful this week, but I think I'm finding my feet. Have just tidied up the apartment and spent an irksome half-hour dealing with some old expense receipts from last year that I need to submit before I can use my Columbia card to pay this year's MLA dues and register for the ASECS conference in April! It is increasingly clear to me that really I am only fit for life in a monastic cell. Plain walls, no possessions, highly structured schedule, lots of silence....

The alien kiss

"I had always longed to meet an octopus. . . ." (Via I.H.D.)

The Roomba/Scooba squadron

A fleet of Roombas.

I've switched to the new Blogger interface; one thing I really like is how it handles labels in a sidebar. Here are the a's, which I think vividly conjure up the Light Reading lifestyle:

"it", -iads, a sense of proportion, A. L. Kennedy, abbreviations, ABCs of the novel, abecedarianism, ablutions, abundant recompense, abuse, academia, accommodations, accomplishment, acronyms, acting, activity levels, Adam Phillips, adaptation, addiction, addled things, adolescence, adulteration, advance notice, advances, adverbs, advertising, aeronautics, Agatha Christie, air safety, airports, Alan Bennett, Alan Hollinghurst, Alan Warner, alarms, Alasdair Gray, alcohol, alcohol abuse, Alexander Pope, Alexander technique, Alfred Jarry, Alfred Nobel, aliases, Alice, Alice Boone, Alison Bechdel, alliteration, allusion, alphabets, altered states, alternate histories, alternate universes, Alzheimer's, Amazon, American punctuation, amphibians, anachronism, anagrams and acrostics, analogies, anatomy, anchovies, Andre Aciman, Andrew Gelman, Andrew O'Hagan, Andrew Solomon, Andy Warhol, anecdotes, animal welfare, animals, animatronics, Anne McCaffrey, annotation, announcements, Antarctica, antediluvianism, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Grafton, Anthony Powell, anthropomorphic cannibalism, anthropomorphism, ants, apartment life, aphorisms, apocalypso, appearances can be misleading, appendages, apps, archaeology, archeology, archery, architecture, archives, Arctic unicorns, armadillos, arms and armor, art, art of the transaction, artificial insemination, artificial kangaroo pouches, astringency, asylums, Athanasius Kircher, Athol Fugard, atomic toys, attention spans, auctions, austerity, authenticity, autism, autobiography, autographs, automata, autopsy, Ayn Rand

Licensed to chill

The HMS Flake 99. (Via Joel.)

The Cape

The last days of merchant sailing.

It seems very strange to think that just over a week ago I was sailing around Cape Horn! On board ship we watched Captain Irving Johnson's "Around Cape Horn," an extraordinary sequence of contemporary documentary footage with the captain's rather comical late-in-life voice-over narration - a fascinating and delightful watch, I highly recommend it...