Thursday, February 2, 2012

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.

14 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Don't get the Triumph. You'll get a lot more performance from a BMW.
~

Molly Cules said...

Hey!

You give those back right now!

Hamish Mack said...

Smut is a whizz for atomms.

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Not just that. Some of them are turning into scythes. It's pretty troubling.

Hey! Put up the picture of my bicycle owl and say something funny about that! *tugs sleeve* DOIT.

w/v would like me to take care of my bills the olde fashionede way by paying the "rente."

Substance McGravitas said...

It appears clear from the middle wheel that bicycles need fish.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

comprehensibly 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.

The Great Bicycle Race?

Smut Clyde said...

The Great Bicycle Race?

Mandatory.

Molly Cules said...

I'm not going to tell you again, young man.

Those are NOT yours, they belong to the bicycle. Do not make me demonstrate on your small intestine...

El Manquécito said...

Teutonic thoroughness: a Goode Thinge.

Discuss.

In my short life of anecdata I'd have to come down on the side of Teutonic thoroughness.

Vonnie said...

I just like the word cattywumpus. I'm going to try to use that word. A lot.

wiley said...

Remember back in the olden days when the rabble got reproductions of art work that were mostly canary yellow and olive drab? I had to see an actual Van Gogh painting to get it.

The revolution in dyes in the eighties was totes awesome.

still refusing to read whatever it is that Google thinks I should read right now

Smut Clyde said...

were mostly canary yellow and olive drab

Wiley is TRIGGERING ME. [checks shelves]. Here's the Time-Life volume for "Van Gogh and his World" from 1980, and the colour pages are completely grodey throughout. Printers could not do decent 4-colour separations to save themselves. Cadmium-Yellow should NOT LOOK like ochre.

still refusing to read whatever it is that Google thinks I should read right now

Google's customised searches are driving me to distraction, with its assumption that what I want to read is more of the sort of things I've read in the past. I have a MEMORY for that. What I want to see is STUFF FROM OUTSIDE MY BUBBLE.

mikey said...

A few years ago I bought a collection of short stories by Walter Mosley from Amazon. Six months or so later, they kept spamming me trying to buy it again - the difference? - the new release had LARGE TYPE.

No amount of my attempts at explaining to them that not only did I already HAVE the book, but they KNEW I already had the book, so selling me another copy of the exact same book seemed like a somewhat futile exercise...

Substance McGravitas said...

You were six months older. Your eyeballs could have clouded over or shriveled or something.