No Room to Swing a Cat

Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me, sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, "You know, Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to ME!"

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Dickens has some of the most amusing characters and dialogue of anyone. Not an original observation, of course, but he continually cracks me up.

Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added To Curriculum

"Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits," West said. "Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond." ...

"Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum," fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. "I'm not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular."

"I must admit, he's very convincing," Kolker added.

This excerpt is from one of my favorite of The Onion's pieces. I enjoy rereading it every year. Do go read it all.

The Autumn People

For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles -- breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Proof that horror fantasy can also be poetic.

Halloween Lagniappe: H.P. Lovecraft

Through all this horror my cat stalked unperturbed. Once I saw him monstrously perched atop a mountain of bones, and wondered at the secrets that might lie behind his yellow eyes.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls

Another of my favorite horror authors chimes in for Halloween from one of my favorite of his stories. A lesser tale, but still a good 'un.

How a gentleman shouldn't go to the devil

Flambeau had known Quinton in wild student days in Paris, and they had renewed the acquaintance for a week-end; but apart from Flambeau’s more responsible developments of late, he did not get on well with the poet now; choking oneself with opium and writing little erotic verses on vellum was not his notion of how a gentleman should go to the devil.

G.K. Chesterton, The Wrong Shape

Chesterton is just so darned funny. And this is just a toss off line in a Father Brown mystery.

Mine is a simple system

Mine is a simple system. I read from morning till bedtime, with breaks for my job, my family, meetings with friends, exercise, household chores and periodic reviews of my life's greatest blunders.

Michael Dirda, 10 Rules for Reading from Someone Who Does It for a Living

I don't read for a living, but I am often asked how I read so many books. My system is identical to Dirda's.

"It's hard to get clos'r to a chicken goin' at him head on..."

A chicken lived every situation, every moment, like it was brand-new, and so lived in a constant state of wonder and surprise. "It's hard to get closr to a chicken goin' at him head-on," the old man said, because, though chickens had tiny brains, most of these brains seemed devoted to suspicion.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

We kept chickens for a while when I was young. My mother found them frustrating, but also relaxing with their clucking, scratching, and general gossip sessions amongst themselves.

It's her 90th birthday today. It's the excuse for a family reunion so it will be full of good food and laughter and talk. We will not, however, be eating chicken. We're having TexMex for this celebration.

This quote and today's chicken picture are a little blog gift for her. Happy birthday, Mom!

Lagniappe

It is the food of the high places, of the foothills, pine barrens, and slow brown rivers. It is not something done by the great chefs of Atlanta or Birmingham for people who spend more on a table for four than a working class family spends on groceries for a month. It was never intended for everyone, but for people who once set a trotline, or slung a wrench, or rose from a seat in the ciety auditorium to testify during an all-night gospel singing.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

As I've mentioned before, this is one of my favorite comfort books.

Stewed Cabbage and Perfect Validation

My uncle Jimbo is not a gourmet, or an unbiased and veracious critic; he once ate a bologna sandwich sitting on a dead mule, to win a bet, and can out-lie any man I have ever known. But he would tell her, hot tears rolling down his cheeks, that he has not eaten stewed cabbage that fine since his momma was alive. My mother never needed much validation beyond that, no grander praise.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

From one of my favorite books which is family memoir, light-hearted history of family cooking, and a loving memory of his mother.

Great First Line: Twelve Fair Kingdoms

I should have known something was very wrong when the Mules started flying erratically.

Twelve Fair Kingdoms by Suzette Haden Elgin

You've got to want to read this after that line, just to find out what it's talking about!

Great First Line: Equal Rites

This is a story about magic and where it goes and perhaps more importantly where it comes from and why, although it doesn't pretend to answer all or any of these questions.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

I don't love the book, but I do love that line.

Great First Line: Take My Camel

"Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond

This first line has made me try several times to read the book but, alas, I've just never been able to stick with it. That line though is so evocative. I can just see Aunt Dot and that camel! I believe she has a parasol.

Great First Line — Huckleberry Finn

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

He's right on both counts. But what a great, economical way to say "sequel" and also "this is completely different."

Great First Line — Blood Rites

The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.

Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

Do you think he makes those sorts of huge mistakes? Or gets blamed for them a lot?

Great First Line: Johnny and the Dead

Johnny never knew for certain why he started seeing the dead.

Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

A great first line from the Johnny Maxwell trilogy that almost no one has heard of or read. Except for me. Everyone go look for them and get reading!

Great First Line - Sky Coyote

You'll understand this story better if I tell you a lie.

Sky Coyote by Kage Baker

That tells you right there what the main character is like and the way the story is going to work. Of course, Coyote is a trickster character in Native American folklore so this works perfect.y

Great First Line - Chinaman's Chance

The pretender to the Emperor's throne was a fat thirty-seven-year-old Chinaman called Artie Wu who always jogged along Malibu Beach right after dawn even in summer, when dawn came round as early as 4:42.

Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas

The beginning of a great book full of scoundrels, villains, double-crossing, and a really twisty, fun plot ... just like all Ross Thomas books.

Great First Lines: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Great first lines from a mystery/horror novel that I haven't read in way too long a time.

Is Burglary a Sport, a Trade or an Art

It is a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a trade, or an art.

For trade, technique is scarcely rigid enough, and its claims to be considered an art are vitiated by the mercenary element that qualifies its triumphs. On the whole it seems to be most justly ranked as a sport, a sport for which no rules are at present formulated, and of which the prizes are distributed in an extremely informal manner.

H.G. Wells, The Hammerpond Park Burglary

I don't think of H.G. Wells as being funny so this was a delightful surprise.

Christmas with Charles Dickens

The best sitting room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-paneled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter range through the room.

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers