Category Archives: Miscellany

Spring!

Spring is here, spring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don’t you? ‘Course you do.
But there’s one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev’ry Sunday a treat for me.

IMG_1445All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.
Ev’ry Sunday you’ll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

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When they see us coming, the birdies all try an’ hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun’s shining bright,
Ev’rything seems all right,
When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

IMG_1450We’ve gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it’s not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

IMG_1452So if Sunday you’re free,
Why don’t you come with me,
And we’ll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we’ll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

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We’ll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin’
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgen!
To poison a pigeon in the park.

 

Original lyrics are by Tom Lehrer. No actual pigeons were harmed making this blog post.

It snowed again since I took these photos, but I still maintain that it’s spring. Sort of.

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing

Elmore Leonard, one of the greats of the mystery writing community, passed away recently. I didn’t know about him until the obituary showed up, but it turns out he wrote ten tips for writers that I think are damn fine pieces of advice:

 

1.  Never open a book with weather.

2.  Avoid prologues.

3.  Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

4.  Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.

5.  Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6.  Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

7.  Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8.  Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9.  Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

10.  Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

 

I disagree with some of his uses of never, but I agree with the spirit of the list: Stop trying so hard to be writerly and tell the story!

Source of his ten tips: Writers on Writing

Thai Basil

Hey, check out this Thai basil!

Thai basil is the same species as the European basil you’re likely to find in an Italian restaurant, but a different cultivar. Its flavor is milder and sweeter, like mint. I’ve been growing these plants in a pot on my apartment building’s porch. I wasn’t expecting them to make such pretty purple flowers.

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