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

Katherine's bedtime song to her brother

Charles sometimes yells or laughs instead of relaxing and going to sleep at night.  Tonight his sister thoughtfully tried to help him drift off to sleep with this impromptu lullaby:

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark.

Aaaah...

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark.

(ad infinitum)

Though well intentioned, sadly these dulcet strains did not have the desired effect.

Oh, cry me a ninja!

This snarky phrase just randomly popped into my head, and I love it.

But in this age of internet, where a million people with the same idea can now become aware of each other, I figured I better make sure it wasn't spoken for before claiming it as my own invention.

And what do you know:

Someone's Mortal Kombat forum sig, and the name of a digital racing horse.
It's tough to be jealous though.  In both cases it seems perfectly appropriate.  If I was a betting man I'd lay down money on it.

Quote: Back to the Party

In the middle of the pouring rain she said,
"I'm gonna leave him and he'll never see me again."

I said,
"But you never really know.
"We didn't build this city, we didn't paint this town.
"Seems like we spent half our life standing around
"Wanting somewhere else to go."

- Pushstars, Back to the Party

Barddas Exerpts

The Circle of Abred, in which are all corporal and dead existences.

The Circle of Gwynvyd, in which are all animated and immortal beings.

The Circle of Ceugant, where there is only God. The wise men describe them thus, in three Circles.

The Second Examination

Q.  Whence didst thou proceed and what is thy beginning?
A.  I came from the Great World, 1 having my beginning in Annwn.

Q.  Where art thou now and how camest thou to where thou art?
A.  I am in the Little World, whither I came, having traversed the circle of Abred, and now I am a man at its termination and extreme limits.

Q.  What wert thou before thou didst become a man in the circle of Abred?
A.  I was in Annwn the least possible that was capable of life, and the nearest possible to absolute death, and I came in every form, and through every form capable of a body and life, to the state of man along the circle of Abred, where my condition was severe and grievous during the age of ages, ever since I was parted in Annwn from the dead, by the gift of God, and His great generosity, and His unlimited and endless love.

Q.  Through how many forms didst thou come and what happened unto thee?
A.  Through every form capable of life, in water, in earth, and in air. And there happened unto me every se-verity, every hardship, every evil, and every suffering, and but little was the goodness and gwynfyd before I became a man.

- Excerpt from Barddas, c/o  Internet Sacred Text Archive.

Jet-Powered Apes

"...these 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

- Superman in JLA Classified #3

 

Via Ratman_tf's signature

Ad Flinderum

Reductio ad flinderum 
Definition:  Reduction to flinders.

Something my kids do to the house on most days.