The Sign of the Broken Sword

"Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was what was the matter with him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible?" . . . "Of course, he read the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he found in the Old Testament anything that he wanted—lust, tyranny, treason. Oh, I dare say he was honest, as you call it. But what is the good of a man being honest in his worship of dishonesty?" 

"In each of the hot and secret countries to which the man went he kept a harem, he tortured witnesses, he amassed shameful gold; but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that he did it to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is sufficiently expressed by asking which Lord?"

- G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

The Triumph of Primal Terror

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution knows this too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

     - Alfonzo Smith

Modern Plutocracy

The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product--an "exclusive" commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough to be more fastidious than their customers. They positively create difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients may spend money and diplomacy in overcoming them.

. . .

The waiter stood staring a few seconds, while there deepened on every face at table a strange shame which is wholly the product of our time.  It is the combination of modern humanitarianism with the horrible modern abyss between the souls of the rich and poor. A genuine historic aristocrat would have thrown things at the waiter, beginning with empty bottles, and very probably ending with money. A genuine democrat would have asked him, with comrade-like clearness of speech, what the devil he was doing. But these modern plutocrats could not bear a poor man near to them, either as a slave or as a friend. That something had gone wrong with the servants was merely a dull, hot embarrassment. They did not want to be brutal, and they dreaded the need to be benevolent. They wanted the thing, whatever it was, to be over.

     -  The Queer Feet, G.K. Chesterton

Here Be Monsters

Pesterlog excerpt:
TG: dude monsters arent real
TG: thats stupid kids stuff for stupid babies
EB: maybe. yeah you're right.
TG: what are you an idiot
TG: of course there are monsters in your house
TG: youre in some weird evil monster dimension come on
TG: skepticism is the crutch of cinematic troglodytes
TG: like hey mom dad theres a dinosaur or a ghost or whatever in my room. "yeah right junior go back to bed"
TG: fuck you mom and dad how many times are we going to watch this trope unfold it wasnt goddamn funny the first time i saw it
TG: just once id like to see dad crap his pants when a kid says theres a vampire in his closet
TG: "OH SHIT EVERYONE IN THE MINIVAN"
TG: be fuckin dad of the year right there 

How you hate this season.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."

-American sports legend, Charles Barkley

...or not.

A Cantrap for the Door - p.116

    A black iron door eleven feet tall barred his way.  The central panel displayed an iron Tree of Life.  Iron lizards clinging to the trunk hissed and, darting iron tongues, scuttled to new vantages; iron birds hopped from branch to branch, first peering down at Shimrod, then avidly inspecting the iron fruit which none dared taste and occasionally producing small chiming sounds.

    Shimrod spoke a cantrap, to soothe the sandestin who controlled the door: "Door, open to me, and let me pass unscathed.  Heed only my true wishes, without reference to the mischieveous caprices of my dark under-minds."
The door whispered: "Shimrod, the way is clear, though you are over-fastidious in your stipulations."

    Shimrod forbore argument and advanced upon the door, which swing aside and allowed him access to a foyer illuminated by a glass dome of green, golden-yellow and carmine-red panes.

- Lyonesse: The Green Pearl
   Jack Vance

The House Beyond Your Sky

By Benjamin Rosenbaum

One of my favorite short stories.

Text here.

Podcast here.

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Celtic/Gaelic words

Three words of interest came up while perusing the Wikipedia entry on the Gaels (pursuant to naming my next bang Gaelic Lightning (a knockoff of Celtic Thunder)):

Nemeton - A sacred grove (or more generally other sacred site). Also the pagan organization which was refused funding during John Silber's tenure at Boston University.

Echtra - Celtic "voyage to the otherworld" stories focusing on the heroe's journey rather than the otherworldly destination itself.

Immram - Celtic "voyage to the otherworld" stories focusing on the details of the otherworldly destination.