pegkerr | Network

My father's birthday will be formally observed the next time my niece is in town, but for the day itself my mother and I baked him the chicken and leek pie which we had adapted from its recipe the two days prior that the filling can be stored in the refrigerator to deepen in flavor like a stew and a strawberry shortcake which I am currently proud of decorating with a painted marzipan man o' war after the mosaic in Leonardo Morales y Pedroso's 1930 Casa de Mark A. Pollack y Carmen Casuso. Even after I chilled the marzipan, the heat and humidity tangled the tentacles authentically.

I did not expect to receive an unbirthday present of Hen Ogledd's Discombobulated (2026), which I have been listening to since I got home and discovered the equally unexpected postcard awaiting me from

mrissa. The inner CD sleeve includes among its notes, "The painting on the front cover is called 'It's not darkness that falls, it's light', and now lies scattered in pieces across the globe. It was chopped into 34 segments and distributed as gifts to friends and family." I flashed inevitably on Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough (1931/1948).

Think how after Schubert's death his brother cut certain of Schubert's scores into small pieces and gave to his favorite pupils these pieces of a few bars each. As a sign of piety this action is just as comprehensible to us as the other one of keeping the scores undisturbed and accessible to no-one. And if Schubert's brother had burned the scores we could still understand this as a sign of piety.

Current Music: Hen Ogledd, "End of the rhythm"

ysabetwordsmith

The April 7, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl met its $300 goal, so there will be a half-price sale in Polychrome Heroics from Monday, April 20 through Sunday, April 26. Mark your calendars, and I hope to see you then!

Current Mood: busy

hannah

Not even two minutes after I get back to my apartment, I hear rain start coming down.

I always love it when that happens.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Burning Down The House (live) - Talking Heads

oliviacirce

It's my birthday! We went to NASA (Space Center Houston!) because I am 41 and still a space kid at heart. I was thinking about space poems to post (or moon poems, or poems about planets), and that got me to a not-super-surprising metaphysical place and then I thought, "I miss inflicting John Donne on people my birthday." So here is a deeply weird Donne poem that I have not posted before. (I posted "The Sun Rising" in 2008, otherwise you'd obviously be getting that one.) But what is this bonkers poem about, you may ask. The body? Sex? Death? Plato? Soul bonds? Being drift compatible with a possibly dead person while sharing a grave? All of the above, probably. It also has one of my favorite and most quintessentially "this is disgusting, bro, what are you doing" Donne couplets, which is the one about the eye-stalks.

( The Ecstasy )

chazzbanner

These steps lead down to Going to the Sun Road. If I were to turn around I'd see the trail sign leading to the pass I talked about yesterday.

Actually, I did turn around and take a picture of the sign, but I'm not going to post it here! 'Tis a bit of a private thing, despite it all.

-

kayla_allen

We were expecting the Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotive to come charging through Fernley this morning, but it was not to be. Due to the heavy snow over Donner Summit, Union Pacific sent the Big Boy east the way it had come: over the former Western Pacific Feather River Route via Portola and Beckwourth Pass (almost 2,000 feet lower than Donner), with all "whistle stops" cancelled.

Good thing that Lisa went over to Gerlach to see the train rolling into town there. It's a pity we won't get to see them as speed this time around, but it's understandable. I had sort of wondered if there were a bunch of disappointed photographers up around Donner who had been planning to record the Big Boy in the snow, which would certainly have been an impressive sight.

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Location: Fernley, Nevada

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
水 part 25
游, to swim; 渺, tiny/vast (...); 湖, lake ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=85

词汇
保护, to protect; 保证, to guarantee; 环保, environmental protection ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
找回来的希望渺茫, the chances of getting it back are remote
谢谢你把我当弟弟一样，照顾我，保护我, thank you for taking care of me and protecting me like a little brother

Me:
湖里禁止游泳
你能保证她不会受伤吗？

ysabetwordsmith

You Have More Land Than You Think

Clever design creates more housing on small sites.

You might assume that squeezing small units onto small lots might end up feeling claustrophobic, but a few simple design principles can actually lead to housing that is welcoming, comforting, and feels spacious. Best of all, a smaller house is more affordable, and land costs are spread amongst more units, creating greater affordability without subsidy.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

This has become a bit of a staple of our rotation for when the veg box is made of brassica, and also brassica, and finally some brassica (I do frequently actively opt in to this, to be clear, but also... brassica). However! As you might have noticed, I have just developed a special interest in picking things up and putting things down again, and this in turn means I am going hmm about eating more protein.

When previously mentioning this recipe I have noted that As Usual my household thinks it wants about twice as much veg as written for the quantity of noodle. To this the protein variation essentially adds: some tofu that you've tossed with soy sauce and five-spice or other flavouring of your choice and then baked; and some edamame beans.

Base recipe can be found at Ocado or the Graun, and a fuller write-up will appear under a cut at Some Point in the Hopefully Near future (if only so the instructions are in the order that I want them to be in!).

notalwaysrelated_feed

Posted by Not Always Right

https://notalwaysright.com/when-you-cant-lose/409649/

https://notalwaysright.com/?p=409649

Read When You Can’t Lose

My mom was picking me up from middle school one terrible day. I was picked on all that day and was just looking forward to going home and licking my wounds for the next day. She saw that I was depressed and wanted to cheer me up.

Read When You Can’t Lose

https://notalwaysright.com/when-you-cant-lose/409649/

https://notalwaysright.com/?p=409649

petrea_mitchell posting in

agonyaunt

Actual headline: Why Tho: My birthday kid wants to invite everyone in class to his party - but not this 1 boy

Dear Lizzy,

My son is in third grade, and his birthday is coming up. He’s told me he wants to invite his whole class to his party (at a park) except for one kid.

This kid is a menace, if I am honest. He breaks things in class and yells and hits. He is actually quite mean to my son. I want to respect my son’s wishes here, but is it fair to invite everyone except him?

To Exclude or Not to Exclude

( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Mammal ancestors laid eggs, and this 250-million-year-old fossil finally proves it

A 250-million-year-old fossil egg just revealed how an ancient survivor beat Earth’s deadliest extinction.

In the aftermath of Earth’s most catastrophic extinction event, one unlikely survivor rose to dominate a shattered world: Lystrosaurus. Now, a stunning fossil discovery—an ancient egg containing a curled-up embryo—has finally answered a decades-old mystery about whether mammal ancestors laid eggs. Using advanced imaging technology, scientists confirmed that these resilient creatures did reproduce this way, likely producing large, soft-shelled eggs packed with nutrients.

In terms of world domination, Lystrosaurus was arguably the most successful lifeform on Earth.

Current Mood: busy

sovay

Because I had a doctor's appointment downtown, from Storrow Drive I saw the cherry trees on the Esplanade blooming like soft fireworks in white and sugar-pink. The weather has catapulted itself into summer: asphalt-simmered air, huge tufts of cloud stacked over a haze-blue sky, lines around the literal block for Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. Sails all over the Charles. Afterward

spatch and I ate Greek takeout on a picnic bench by Spy Pond, watching a solitary Canada goose glide across the water as our summer in accelerated miniature looked like building toward thunderstorm. It is my father's seventy-fourth birthday.

Current Music: Momma, "Cross My Heart"

oursin

Have just out of the blue had an email from a meedja person about what a cause of death on early C20th certificate MEANS, a colleague of theirs contacted me - what must have been in days of yore - and I was really helpful. I think that may have been a case in which Sid was involved, this was not, but we do our best in posing as a Nexpert.

I was able to flash a bit more relevant knowledge in the question portion of online seminar this pm (even though I dozed off, did not sleep well last night, during part of the actual seminar).

Have got off my desk and conscience something that has been hanging over me, to wit, second review of article I did a previous review of some weeks ago. Was somewhat prejudiced about it (it is actually not at all bad doing what it does) because it rather glances over the amount of work that went into getting the archive used into usable condition (personal interest there noted) and role of archivists in between the creators of the records and the end-users.

Think I mentioned some while ago possibility that longtime academic friend and self may be editing for publication Important Work on Significant and Highly Relevant Subject of friend of ours who died very unexpectedly last year. We have now received the draft manuscript and it seems more of a manuscript (rather than notes and materials) than we had feared.

Still have review that has been hanging over me and keeping getting put off to do.

Have podcast to record later this week.

Also must begin to turn my thoughts to being instructive yet entertaining on the history of ye baudruche (and finding illos, fortunately I already have quite a few).

musesfool

Today's poem:

A Dictionary Names the Wind in the Trees
by Susan Cohen

Psithurism because
what else would we call sound embedded
with leaf mold and breath
zithering just below the daily drone
of power saws and chippers,
eons of air shifting
like an old Chevy through leaves,
riffling papery corn fields
and the eucalyptus,
stuttering through windbreaks,
jittering an aspen
in a beam of breath,
lisping nothing pins me down
in the language of the Huron,
in Olmec, in Sanskrit, chittering
all its unpronounceable names,
its tunes with the shiver of pine needles
and the moves of a river?
Psithurism comes as close
to the clash of wind and trees
as orgasm comes to the friction
of muscles, nerves, bodies,
which is to say when so many words
cannot catch it,
those of us always searching
for just the right one may
as well stop speaking
and lift our heads
like mule deer, ears twitched
for the smallest sound.

*

Current Mood: busy

watersword

+ gorgeous sunny warm day
+ MULTIPLE asparagus spears emerging!
+ finally managed to book 2/3 of my birthday trip flights
- something in how I configure my browser means I cannot interact with the airline website and must do everything on the library computers
- I bragged to my therapist yesterday about how productive and upbeat I am now that it's properly spring and today I think my everything is made of molasses

mtbc

I stopped to think about how I notice the price of mailing a letter in Britain. In my youth, it wasn't a cost I thought worth much consideration. So, I stopped to investigate.

The Bank of England turns out to have an excellent inflation calculator allowing users to, check how prices in the UK have changed since 1209, which warms my heart.

If I go back twenty years, apparently something costing £100 back then now costs around £175, handwaving whatever weighted averaging they do to determine that. At that time, a second-class stamp used to cost 23p so we might expect it to cost around 40p now. They actually cost 91p so it's no wonder that I'm noticing the cost in a way that I wasn't before.

I can see why this might be so. Fewer letters are mailed at all so scale may be much worse. No doubt we have the cumulative effects of various government austerity drives. Perhaps there's simply been incompetent management. After all, somebody ought to be paying large sums of money to the many innocent postmasters who were so culpably wronged by senior personnel over many years.

unicornduke

I finished it in March but didn't have the energy to take pictures but I got it out yesterday and got some nice photos. They could have been better but I was working with what I had, which was my phone on a box on the tailgate of my truck, held upright by the handle of a 300ft measuring tape. I really ought to get a phone mount for pictures, I had one but it disappeared in the move.

A picture of a man wearing a thick, knee length grey peacoat in front of blueberry bushes.

A picture of a man wearing a thick, knee length grey peacoat in front of blueberry bushes.

( process rambling below the cut )
It is such a warm coat and I was sweating by the time I got all these photos taken yesterday. But coat! It's done!

magid

Hampshire College has announced that they’re closing at the end of the fall 2026 semester (Why in the middle of the academic year? I have no idea, but it seems really odd.).

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/hampshire-college-closing-amherst-massachusetts/

I’ve never been there, but apparently it’s part of my emotional-geographical mental landscape anyway, given my need to post about it: so many years of listening to WFCR in the mornings, WBUR in the evenings growing up. (Apparently WFCR is just known now as the western MA NPR affiliate, not Five College Radio. And four starts with F, too.) This is yet another sadness in an already challenging time. I feel badly for the current students, and worse for the employees. Will the other four institutions in the five college area be hiring? What will happen to the campus? It won’t help the local businesses, either.

Closer to where I grew up, apparently Anna Maria College’s future is also shaky. I have a lot of the same questions, though presumably that not being definite gives people more time to plan?

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/anna-maria-college-massachusetts-risk-of-closing/?intcid=CNR-02-0623

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

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Peg Kerr's Reading Page

One boundary makes another

Half-Price Sale in Polychrome Heroics

Timing.

but yet the body is his book

had I but turned around ---

Scratch One Big Boy

第五年第九十四天

Affordable Housing

[food] Meera Sodha's udon noodles with red cabbage and cauliflower... and some protein

When You Can’t Lose

Why Tho: Can we leave out the horrible kid?

Fossils

I swear only this city knows

There's no knowledge but I knows it

chittering all its unpronounceable names

(no subject)

Mailing letters got expensive

The Coat

A sadness: two MA colleges

runs screaming

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April 2026

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