The Atomic Theory again

"Alas," they say in the County Council, "We have not the money in present funds to fill the absences in the macadam surface and iron out the charming irregularities!"

Behold the gross and natural consequence. Incomprehensibly alien life-forms of an unnatural, ultra-mundane physiology ride iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish and get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them.

This is one Elder Thing that will not be getting its deposit back from the bicycle hire company.

FOOTNOTE: It's hard to find a decent image of that painting because the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg has a no-photographs policy which they enforce with Teutonic thoroughness, while the image on their own website is just an inky blot. Here's a version what I stoled from Google Books which shows more detail, but the colour balance is all cattywumpus.

If you could change anything in your life, or lives, what would it be?

"More color in my dreams."

Dorothea Tanning 1910-2012.

Retail outlet

"The readers are clamouring for skwirls," I reported, checking the comments. "They are clamid."

"Is that a word?" wondered tigris.

"Candid, humid," said Another Kiwi. "Of course it's a word."

So we sent Little Tim down to the Riddled Library to take out a copy of The Tale of Skwirl Nutkin.

Unfortunately the Library Pixies were in a sportive mood for they were celebrating one of their traditional ethnic holidays, and Little Tim needed rescuing. It was not until after alarums and excursions when we were finally back in the tea-room calming our nerves with a packet of Chocolate Wheaties and a bottle of Juggernaut that we discovered that he'd borrowed not Skwirl Nutkin, but the sequel.

This is where a team of vets and engineers craft a state-of-the-art carbon-fibre prosthetic tail for the hapless skwirl, to replace the flesh-&-blood appendage lost in his owl-related industrial accident. The replacement's engineering elegance makes up for its lack of physical sensation, and reflects badly on the messiness and tawdry inefficiency of Nutkin's other limbs and sense organs. Increasingly dissatisfied, it is only a matter of time before he starts finding excuses to progressively lose other limbs in further owl-related accidents, so that each may be replaced with its own better-than-meat robotic equivalent.

Inevitably, corporate interests and military lobbyists become involved when they see the possible applications of a CybEichhörnchen to further their own ends.* This always happens.



It must be a tradition, or an old charter or something.
* Recall that the Tin Man ends up leading Queen Princess Ozma's army.
** Good review for Antibodies here.

Bonus EXCLUSIVE VIEW of Riddled Library Extension under construction.

UPDATE: Any history of the literary link between prosthetic post-humanism and hard-body militarism would be incomplete without a mention of Limbo, and especially Moderan ("Yes, we look like walking steel shells with flesh piping, in Moderan, and we think of wars and good pounding").

Poke in ham

Another Kiwi recently touched on the use of shrubbery as concealment. It is an old tradition, or a charter or something, dating back to the time of the Roman Empire.
Of course as pioneers it would be unreasonable to expect the Romans to have ascended straight to the acme of perfection. Still, the shields are a dead giveaway.The worst part of disguised-as-shrubbery reconnaissance work for a Legionary was being widdled on by elephants.

Not Sky-clad

As prescribed in the Calendar of Ceremonies, with Hunky-Dory the foul-mouthed misanthropic Master of Ritual providing a stream of profanity-spiced instructions, Uncle the 77^th Earl of Homeward was roused from his bed on the morn of his 12^th birthday. Ignoring his querulous eye-rubbing demands for explanations, unspeaking servitors ushered him through the north-facing Strait Gate of Homeward, past the mud hut dwellings of the Bright Carvers, and into the forest that cloaked the foothills. "The Heir of Homeward goes sky-clad," they told him when he asked for his comfortable purple dressing-gown. "The Heir of Homeward widdles on the armour in the shrubbery."
A trail of corroded trophies from past enactments of the ceremony stretched far into the distance like a road into the past.

This event, fanning a spark of resentment against the weight of changeless immemorial tradition, laid down the course of Uncle's youth. It inspired the career of rebellion that would one day lead him beyond the walls of Homeward, to Oxford University, where he would steal a bicycle.

I do not believe that there is anyone else writing Gormenghast / Uncle mash-ups, so I have the field to myself. And who is to say that Mervyn Peake did not meet up with Rev. J. P. Martin at a bar one day in the late 1940s and collaborate on a joint manuscript?

Here are some Trigan Roman legionaries spying on the enemy without even a minimal Ikebana-style shrubbery disguise.

CONCEALMENT FAIL. This will not end well.

Hemp nokia

The Cinnabar moth Tyria jacobaeae is an arctiid moth, from the planet Arctia. It was introduced into New Zealand in 1929-1932 in accordance with the belief at the time that NZ needed more fauna named after mercury ores. That is why we also have the Livingstonite Butterfly but the Moschellandsbergite Moth never really acclimatised to local conditions.

The woolly striped caterpillars can turn cannibalistic. For protection against members of their own species, they have evolved an astonishing ability to disguise themselves as other forms of life.

Finnanigans

It seems that Riddled enterprises has a palpable hit on it' hands! The new restaurant "Scrumdiddleyumptious" has opened to rave reviews with critics comparing it to "that Thai place downstairs from the video place" High praise indeed.!
But, of course, the centrality of the point at Riddled is the science. Note here, as head waiter Alosa, serves the first subjects customers (click picture to embiggen). The Riddled Gentenics staff, disguised as chefs, are carefully observing the reactions of the lady as she is served by a Transgenic Organism. Are those pink shoes about to be employed in running in terror, while screaming?!?!?

More importantly her idiot boyfriend at the other end of the table is being observed by Smut and I carefully disguised as trees. Heh Heh, I have the brown suit on, the plum role if you like.
The menu has been carefully chosen to reflect the special ambience eg. Fish heads in Yggdrasil custard.
Mrs Miggens has excelled herself with a Tree Fern and carrot terrine marinated in fermented fish gubblies. As the menu says "You don't want to know what fish gubblies are!"
Added bonus: The lyrics to the Andy Griffith Show theme "The Fishin' Hole"

Breakin' sweat for you!

Uncle Lou articulates the malaise of America after the assassination of Kennedy pretty well, I think. Also it's Friday in the proper half of the world.