Licensed Dealer in Tea (for Cooper)
Squintina Tabby — Licensed dealer in Tea [detail]. (Pen and grisaille drawing heightened with gouache.) One of the three variations on this drawing known to exist.
[Beatrix] Potter’s aunt and uncle owned a cat called Squintina (Squinty). Dated to about 1895, as a publishing firm adapted the picture that year for a cover of their ‘Comical Customers’.
Jandek’s reference to a BibliOdyssey post featuring ornamental typography prompted me to succumb to temptation and revisit BibliOdyssey (always a danger), where I found lovely Beatrix Potter rarities.
Including many bunnies.
An open letter to Cooper’s young relations
I reiterate your uncle’s threat and enjoin you: Don’t y’all be bothering that bunny. If you do, you will feel my wrath. And I may even call Cindy and put her onto y’all. Then you’ll be entering a world of pain. Because Cindy may hate begonias, but she’s Hell-and-Jesus on boys who bother bunnies.
Fish Pedicures
Non-anecdote (within a non-series)
Today was to have been the day I hit the ground running, embarking with confidence on renewed schemes to amass Wealth and to promote and create Art.
trouser snake
A woman in Maine found “8 feet of reticulated python” in her laundry.
Human Speech Traced to Talking Fish
During midsipman mating season, houseboat owners in San Francisco Bay have complained that their homes vibrate from the humming, which sound like a high-speed motor running underwater.
Hear all about it here. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that fish fucking and human speech have a common origin. “I couldn’t see in that cave so who needs eyes? I’m over here, baby.” Sounds like a damn Italo Calvino story.
elderly woman saved from kangaroo by pet dog
Rosemary Neal, an elderly Australian woman, was saved from a kangaroo attack by her son’s pet dog.
The 6-foot-5-inch kangaroo lunged without warning at 65-year-old Rosemary Neal as she went to check on some horses in a paddock on the property near Mudgee, 160 miles northwest of Sydney on Friday, son Darren Neal said.
The kangaroo “just jumped up and launched straight at her,” Darren Neal said. “He hit her once and she just dropped and rolled. My dog heard her screaming and bolted down and chased him off.
“It wasn’t for the dog she’d probably be dead.”
zoophilia (what, no donkeys?)
(via buzzfeed)
Dear Jesus
Possums in the Mail
I just received a nice email:
My friends and I do a photo caption contest every Friday we call “Photo Caption Friday” (brilliant, right?). It usually turns into battle of wits via PhotoShop. The rules state that folks can only spend 5 minutes re-touching the photo. Anywho, I wanted to let you know that I used the possum photo today and got a huge response. I’ve attached a few of my favorites.
medical trauma exercise
PETA is moving to stop the Army’s use of live pigs in a field medical training simulation in which soldiers shoot the animals then treat their wounds.
Why the ’Possum?
The opossum is a noble beast, though much maligned in common thought. Sad to say, most residents of North America see the opossum as of little more use other than to decorate the shoulders of our nation’s highways and to serve as examples of why one shouldn’t cross the road at night. Others see him as a “giant rat,” though he isn’t a rodent at all. And nearly everyone seems to think he is a filthy critter because of his habit of rooting through neighborhood trash cans.
These are all malicious myths that sully the reputation of a princely creature. Please traipse through these pages and see if your estimation of the opossum is what it ought to be. Vive l’opossum!
Dear Clusterflock
What’s keeping you going today? For me, it’s this delicious photo.
leash your fish
30 catfish walk through a South Florida neighborhood.
“I was, like, ‘No way, there’s fish in the street.’ And I kept going further and further, seeing fish everywhere. In driveways. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Close shave as stolen goat found
The thieves had shaved his beard off to try to avoid detection but the owner has confirmed that it is definitely Billy and he is now back at home and comfortable.
malaprop
This is what it sounds like when ducks cry.
Helmsley to the Dogs
Leona Helmsley left $12 million for the care of her dog and $5 to $8 billion for the care of dogs in general. Here are Tyler Cowen’s thoughts on the bequest.
Boo
snake venom accents
The chemical makeup of snake venom can change based on geography and age for the same species of snake, thus rendering some antivenoms inconsistent.
The new study compares the protein chemistry of the deadly lancehead pitviper from two geographically isolated populations from the Caribbean and Pacific regions of Costa Rica. The researchers also analyzed venom from adult and newborn snakes.
The researchers “found major differences in the venoms collected from the two regions,” they report in the August issue of the Journal of Proteome Research.
They also found distinct differences in proteins of venom collected from newborns and adult snakes, “indicating that the requirement for the venom to immobilize prey and initiate digestion may change with the size (age) of the snake.”
Rick Neece, there should be a poem in there somewhere
I once used a laundry basket
and a flip-chart pad
to catch a wayward Starling.
The bats we catch with bath towels.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”
Via the Flickr group pool Tell a story in 5 frames (or fewer), this sequence from Kazzie.
pictures of the San Fermin running of the bulls
Mouse in the Copier Room
One of the mice who works here thinks it’s funny to make photocopies of his butt.
Odd USDA Nutritional Facts
It’s real, don’t believe me? Check for yourself. Or, here is a spreadsheet with the screen-captured oddities for less inquiring minds.
I also remember seeing Emu, Buffalo, and Pigeon (under “Squab”).
Inquisitive
(via Arbrorath)