Of passions strong, of hasty nature,
Of graceless form and dwarfish stature;
By few approved, and few approving;
Extreme in hating and in loving;
Abhorring all whom I dislike,
Adoring who my fancy strike;
In forming judgments never long,
And for the most part judging wrong;
In friendship firm, but still believing
Others are treacherous and deceiving,
And thinking in the present æra
That friendship is a pure chimæra:
More passionate no creature living,
Proud, obstinate, and unforgiving,
But yet for those who kindness show,
Ready through fire and smoke to go.

Matthew Lewis, Preface to The Monk

A nun did eat a lettuce without grace or signing it with the sign of the cross, and was instantly possessed. Durand, lib. 6 Rational. cap. 86, num. 8, relates that he saw a wench possessed in Bononia with two devils, by eating an unhallowed pomegranate.

Anatomy of Melancholy

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The Cubists – “The Orchestra Breathes”
Mechanical Advantage

There’s something soft and effervescent about this song, like it’s reaching you through a layer of drugs and water.

Cornelius Gemma, lib. 2 de nat. mirac. cap. 4, related of a young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper’s daughter, anno 1571, that had such strange passions and convulsions, three men could not sometimes hold her; she purged a live eel, which he saw, a foot and a half long, and touched himself; but the eel afterwards vanished; she vomited some twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours, twice a day for fourteen days; and after that she voided great balls of hair, pieces of wood, pigeon’s dung, parchment, goose dung, coals; and after them two pound of pure blood, and then again colas and stones, of which some had inscriptions, bigger than a walnut, some of them pieces of glass, brass, etc., besides paroxysms of laughing, weeping and ecstasies, etc. Et hoc (inquit) cum horrore vidi, “this I saw with horror.” They could do no good on her by physic, but left her to the clergy.

Anatomy of Melancholy

The more fool you,“ Gerard replied, "If you continue this madness, you’ll never amount to anything, and do nothing but moon and fritter away your time. Your life will wither like green grass in a hot furnace, and you’ll be your own murderer, without ever having known any pleasure.

Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles

How blind to beliefs should employers be?

How blind to beliefs should employers be?

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The Dismemberment Plan – “Crush”
Split EP w/ Juno

This deconstruction of the original pop song by Jennifer Paige is, in a way, a precursor to the slowed-down Bieber of memedom. Changing the instrumentation and tempo to let the melody breathe makes for a completely different song.

Revolt of the Elites

Revolt of the Elites

Here were grounds for abundance of savage elation. But there was also the deep-seated hatred of half a life of mutual and persistent aggression and revilings; and Handsome Charlie was capable of nursing a grudge, and enjoying a revenge with his whole heart.

Sheridan Le Fanu, Squire Toby’s Will



Early maps of “Nova Zembla” and Brazil

Vocabulary: I Am Errour Edition

metonymy: figure of speech in which a concept is replaced by a related object (“the crown”)
synteresis: innate moral knowledge. In Christianity, the part of the soul connected with god
ecpyrosis: the periodic destruction and recreation of the universe (ancient Greek belief)
pother: a commotion, heated discussion, or suffocating cloud (as of dust or ash)
defalcation: misappropriation of property (or the property so misappropriated)
simoniacal: guilty of practicing simony (profiting from ecclesiastical matters)
ascesis: self-discipline, often for religious purposes (var. askesis)
chasuble: a Catholic, sleeveless liturgical garment
ydrad: the state of being dreaded (middle English)
furze: “any spiny shrub of the genus Ulex.” Gorse.
hebetude: lazy or lethargic in mind or affect
inanation: exhaustion; lack of vigor or spirit
jape: a joke or mockery (v./n.)
ambulant: itinerant or shifting
brume: mist or fog

I have trouted, when the brook was so low, and the sky so hot, that I might as well have thrown my fly upon the turnpike; and I have hunted hare at noon, and woodcock in snowtime—never despairing, scarce doubting; but for a poor hunter of his kind, without traps or snares, or any aid of police or constabulary, to traverse the world, where are swarming, on a moderate computation, some three hundred and odd millions of unmarried women, for a single capture—irremediable, unchangeable—and yet a capture which by strange metonymy, not laid down in the books, is very apt to turn captor into captive and make game of hunter—all this, surely, surely may make a man shrug with doubt!

Reveries Of A Bachelor

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DNTEL – “Why I’m So Unhappy”
Life Is Full Of Possibilities

A beautiful track from a very interesting album. Most know DNTEL now as one half of The Postal Service, and indeed, “The Dream of Evan and Chan” from this album was the first (and best) of that fruitful collaboration. But “Why I’m So Unhappy” is more delicate and understated, allowing time for both the tripping beats and noise-play that mark earlier DNTEL to show at their own pace. (insound)

She had a cousin in the Life Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else.

David Copperfield