Did you mean: serif

Or how about seraphim?
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 7:37 PM on May 8, 2008

Thanks, steerpike -- I haven't thought about Mervyn Peake for years. I agree with Phanx -- the novels never really did it for me, but I've always loved the poems. I've had snippets of them etched in since I was a teenager.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:42 PM on April 16, 2008

I remember a song about Sable Island on an Omar Blondahl record my parents had when I was a kid. I've had no luck digging up any reference to it, but I can still hum the tune. It was an eerie, shipwreck-oriented song, but I'm pretty sure there was a snippet about the ponies.

The chorus went: "There are mountains high 'neath the pale blue sky and the something somethings roar, and the moon at night casts a fading light on the Sable Island shore".... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:37 AM on April 7, 2008

Does anyone have more information that they could point me to?

exlotuseater, Ali ibn Abu Talib allegedly said that God created lust in ten parts, then gave nine parts to women and one to men. This has supplied titles for a book by Geraldine Brooks (Australian) and an unrelated play by Heather Raffo (American).... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:55 PM on February 27, 2008

evil twin the tangerine

*curtseys*
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:14 PM on February 26, 2008

he came back and broke down on his desk. Not hysterical mind you. Just a few sobs.

losing your shit on the job is the quickest route to making your coworkers not trust you

Think about the language in both of these quotes: "broke down on his desk", "losing your shit".

It's one thing to stop everything and launch into disconsolate sobs or wails or howls. For... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 9:35 PM on February 11, 2008

it would have been more precise to say "they are called" rather than "most people say", but it would also have been ruder

The preferred nomenclature is "the preferred nomenclature".
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 4:41 PM on January 18, 2008

You know who took up the banjolele at one point?
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 9:42 PM on January 17, 2008

Oh, duh, psmith -- winna's comment made me realize I'd missed your earlier one. And from you too, of all people. Sorry.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:44 PM on January 17, 2008

I just want to say that "Belgian men with souls of wax" has a deliciously dark and poetic ring to it, and somehow made me instantly think of the horrible history of the Belgian's bloody conquest of the Congo, now the country of Zaire

It made me think of Quebec's Rhinoceros Party, which at one point threatened to declare war on Belgium because Tintin allegedly offed a rhino once.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 9:55 PM on December 31, 2007

At first read, I thought you meant "seals", not "SEALs". The mental images were glorious.

Yeah, me too. That and the Japanese belugas in pinstripes and fedoras.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 1:51 PM on December 19, 2007

Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 10:09 PM on December 16, 2007

I think about those guys every single time I buy a pineapple. Glad to hear they're still around.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:34 AM on December 7, 2007

One dim day in Chicago, many years ago, my boyfriend came back from a trip to visit his family carrying four or five taped-from-TV episodes of some show a friend of his had begged him to watch. ("Even if you don't like it, you have to admit it's interesting! David Lynch did it!")

I was home sick and he had the day off for some other reason, so we popped them in the VCR for a marathon session. We spent the whole day watching them, rapt. After that we were hooked... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 2:27 PM on December 6, 2007

I once chased a middle-aged guy out of the girls' locker room at my high school.

Well, chased is putting it a little strongly, perhaps. I brandished a hockey stick at him and ordered him out of there. He zipped right up and scurried out the door, pronto.

At the time, it seemed more hilarious than scary.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:13 AM on November 15, 2007

Thanks to a week-long string of concidences involving a non-stick pan, Whitman, black-eyed peas, and the very first chapter cited above, I just missed hearing Lehrer talk last night.

I'm disappointed, but I had a fun evening anyway, so I guess it's all right.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 1:54 PM on November 9, 2007

I do know women who like Zappa, but they're almost always freaks or geeks, or serious musicians with an ear for the strange

I'm not sure I fit into any of those categories, but though I don't listen to him much, I guess on balance I really do like Zappa.

When I was younger I couldn't stand his constant lambasting of idiots, including most of his audiences. Likewise the misogyny -- and no, hiring Ruth Underwood... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 2:08 PM on August 12, 2007

Oh yes! We had a book of her portraits in the house when I was growing up. Wonderful to see them again. Many thanks, Jessamyn.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:32 AM on August 10, 2007

Let's hope that when Ed gets to the gate of Heaven, he sees a big sign saying COME IN YOU LUCKY PEOPLE!
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 9:40 PM on July 11, 2007

Oh man. Not only did I read (and greatly enjoy) some of his memoirs as a teenager, but he then played at a legendary May Ball I attended, after which my tulle dress (navy with embroidered tulips!) was literally in shreds.

Following that, I pretty much forgot about him till just now. I'm sorry, George.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:40 PM on July 6, 2007

My paternal grandmother and a whole raft of great-aunts went there, back when there were post-flappers or something instead of hippies and punks.

I don't know what any of them did about sex, though I'm confident they must have had some. I do know that Antioch is where they picked up the faintly irritating habit of challenging each other with Latin crossword puzzles.

They always spoke of the place with great fondness.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 5:53 PM on June 13, 2007

Newfoundland still had narrow-gauge tracks when I was a kid. They may still, for all I know -- not a lot of pressure to change if you're an island.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:47 AM on May 31, 2007

Thanks, Turtles.

I think I've "lent away" (nice phrase) about five copies of Little Follies over the years, and almost as many of Where Do You Stop?

I'm kicking myself for not having picked up the Voyager CD-ROM.

"Clams -- the tasty snack in the crunchy pack!"
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 5:14 PM on May 29, 2007

No, no, no. I'm not clicking there.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:48 AM on January 28, 2007

I don't suppose any of you ever watched Chez Hélène?

Astoundingly, Hélène Baillargeon turned out to be the citizenship court judge who later made me swear allegiance to HM Queen Elizabeth and all her hairs and successors. It was one of the nuttiest days of my entire life, and I've had a bunch of them since.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:05 AM on December 31, 2006

When I was a kid the tooth fairy traded me one of those cut-out quarter pendants for a molar. I wish I knew what happened to it.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 11:47 AM on September 29, 2006

I'd never heard of "foursquare" till just now. We called it "champ".
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:09 PM on February 20, 2006

In this novel the doctor did it himself.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 6:15 PM on January 12, 2006

Entering a
tin, enrage.
(Engine tar
ain't green.)

Intern age?
A teen grin.
Nine great;
regain ten!

re anteing:
neater gin.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:08 PM on November 18, 2005

Hmm. I got them all, ambiguities notwithstanding. A few were lucky guesses, but I also learned a surprising amount from the only Dummies book I've ever read: Mohammed for Dummies, surprisingly recommended a few years ago by a friend who was about to marry a Muslim guy.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 10:52 AM on October 25, 2005

See also Larry Sanger's Wikipedia article and user page, and something he's working on now.
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 1:03 PM on October 24, 2005

I've been itching to stay out of this but it isn't working.

Many reports of unexplained aerial phenomena either 1) come from crackpots or 2) come from credible people who've seen something that doesn't have a clear explanation.

Many of the phenomena reported by the 2) group are eventually resolved. Not all of them, though.

I know a great deal about the evidence that exists, and I assure you that there really are some... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tangerine at 12:25 AM on August 17, 2005