HEAD(hed), (n.) 1. the top part of the human body or the front part of an animal where the eyes, nose, east and mouth are. "Your brain is in your head." DIBS(dibz), (n.) 2. a thick, sweet syrup made in countries of the East, especially the Middle East, from grape juice or dates. [Arabic "debs"]--World Book Dictionary, 1976.
I’ve been spending the last few months on something I’ve always wanted to do: write a book. I’m using every possible moment on this project and it’s really coming along. I am currently 7 chapters completed out of a potential 20. However, given the source material, each chapter is just a little bit longer than the previous. So who knows when I’ll be finished. I’m learning so much tho!
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
On: Heat
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
-
“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sunlight on them, nor any heat.” (Revelation 7:16)
It had to go and get hot. This last week has been the hottest ever, and there’s not much to do when its hot and humid other than sit around in your bare bones trying to cool off. We’ve been well over 100 degrees the past few days, and that's not considering the heat index. It’s everything we can do to get the house temp down to at least 80 degrees BEFORE 6:00 a.m. in the next morning.
Here’s some hot trivia for ya:
The highest known temperature in the shade in Britain occurred on July 22, 1868, at Tonbridge in Kent when the heat reached 100.4°F. But the world record is held by Libya where a temperature of 136.4øF was recorded in 1922. According to U. S. Air Force experiments, the highest dry-air temperature that could be endured by naked men was found to be 400°F in 1960. For heavily-clothed men, the highest is 500øF. (Note that steaks require only 325øF).
The historian Herodotus tells of a people in Africa in the neighborhood of Mount Atlas whose daily custom was to curse the sun when it rises high in the heavens, because its excessive heat scorched and tormented them.
The Chicago Tribune told of the shortest sermon ever, preached by Rev. William Henry Wagner at St. Andrew’s Dune Church. He said, “If you think it’s hot here—just wait!”
Ok. One more:
An acquaintance was describing to Whistler a scene he had encountered in his travels. “There was a boatload of Egyptians,” he recounted, “floating down the Nile with the thermometer one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, and no shade.”
I'm nearly finished reading Joan Didion's collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The book was discovered through another book I was reading, Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams . If Jon felt this book was good enough to pack along on a mountain climbing expedition, then I'm interested. Took me three tries, but I finally found my copy on Amazon. One of the best book buys I've made. Joan selected the title of this book from William Butler Yeats' classic poem, Second Coming . The book title is shared with one of her larger essays, a record of encounters with people in the 1960's drug culture. Didion's book is divided into three distinct parts: "Life Styles In The Golden Land," a collection of articles capturing the California experience of the 1960's; "Personals," a few of essays of the first-hand nature; and "Seven Places Of The Mind", some thoughts about those parts of California that are now long gone. One essay...
“VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews—sons mine … ah God, I know not! Well— She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What’s done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world’s a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask “Do I live, am I dead?” Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed’s ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped...
