CSI: Edwardian London

 
From The Case of Oscar Brodski (c.1912) by R. Austin Freeman:

"May I trouble you for your lens, Jervis?" he said; and, as I handed him my doublet ready opened, the inspector brought the lantern close to the dead face and leaned forward eagerly. In his usual systematic fashion, Thorndyke slowly passed the lens along the whole range of sharp, uneven teeth, and then, bringing it back to the centre, examined with more minuteness the upper incisors. At length, very delicately, he picked out with his forceps some minute object from between two of the upper front teeth and held it in the focus of the lens. Anticipating his next move, I took a labelled microscope-slide from the case and handed it to him together with a dissecting needle, and, as he transferred the object to the slide and spread it out with the needle, I set up the little microscope on the shelf.

"A drop of Farrant and a cover-glass, please, Jervis," said Thorndyke.

I handed him the bottle, and, when he had let a drop of the mounting fluid fall gently on the object and put on the cover-slip, he placed the slide on the stage of the microscope and examined it attentively.

Roundup of Today's Authentic Roadrunner Sightings

 

From Norwood (1966) by Charles Portis:

"…I like the Road Runner."

"Yeah, I do too."

"I could watch that scutter for an hour."

"I believe I could too."

The bread man began to rumble with quiet laughter. "That coyote or whatever he is, a wolf or something, every time he gets up on a cliff or somewhere with a new plan, why the Road Runner comes along on some skates or has him some new invention like a rocket or a big wrecker's ball and just busts that coyote a good one." He laughed some more, then fell into repose. In a minute or two his face clouded with dark memory. "Noveltoons are not any good at all," he said. "It's usually a shoemaker and a bunch of damn mice singing. When one of them comes on I get up and go get me a sack of corn or something."

On Wisconsin

 

 

This Year's Model

I ♥ U

"Atum" of the Patriarch, heh heh.

Atum (Ra manifested at sunset)
by way of Wikipedia. 

Hosni Mubarek, deprecated as ruler of Egypt, has transferred himself to Sharm el Sheik, which is a lot like not being in Egypt, for most values of Egypt, and probably as far as he might be expected to get away from Egypt for now given the understandable reluctance of other nations to take him in and the countervailing bulk of Egypt's people insisting that he must nevertheless go.

He didn't take his form of government with him, but rather left it in the hands of the military. The state of emergency persists as the sun sets in Sharm el Sheik.

Atum goes off. What will replace him but Ra again in the morning?

Civilization 6000

Currently Cairo deserves attention. Egypt has been expressing civilization in an unbroken sequence of daily events for more than six thousand years. People who've inherited what's resulted from that prodigious expenditure of time and effort are not presently satisfied with their lot. People of Cairo have dragged with them to Midan al-Tahrir [Liberation Square] for the past couple of weeks all the burden of influences those six thousand years of events have bestowed on them thus far, and have demanded, as immediate recompense for the condition in which they now find themselves, that the one in charge of Egypt, Hosni Mubarek, be removed.

There are other demands that may or may not have unconditional support from everyone in Tahrir Square. Oh, sure, cancelling the State of Emergency declared by Mubarek shortly after Sadat's assassination and under which he's ruled as he sees fit for the past thirty years. That. Probably only the revanchist few in the crowd who think that a permanent state of emergency is as likely an organizing principle of civilization as any other, would argue that, yes, Mubarek must go, but the state of emergency should continue with somebody else in charge of it. It's really not that kind of crowd. Not that such calculation is absent outside Tahrir [COUGH USA COUGH].

Mubarak, at any rate, is scheduled to ease himself out in less than half an hour. Yet another in that yet unbroken line of momentous Egyptian events to add to the thus-far continuous lot of them.

UPDATE: Mubarak draws the line at relinquishing power, admits that the state of emergency just might be eased eventually at some unspecified future date given suitable conditions down the road. Ahem.

Happy Birthday Jimmy

Every year on this date James Joyce's birthday pops up to remind us that there will be at least six more weeks of Logos.

Drawing by Augustus John