"Every year a hundred of the most beautiful maidens are sent to the Great Khan, who commits them to the charge of elderly ladies, (who) make the girls sleep with them to ascertain if they have sweet breath, and do not snore." The Travels of Marco Polo (Henry Yule, tr.) #BookWormSat

"The parrot looking in the mirror sees itself, but not its teacher hid behind, And learns the speech of Man, the while it thinks A bird of its own sort is talking to it." The Blind Follower Rumi (R. A. Nicholson, tr.) #BookWormSat (Persian lit.)

"They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with the burden at length, Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand, With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenians' old strength." The Wanderings of Oisin W. B. Yeats #BookWormSat

@pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.net @lillieg.bsky.social @emoneconomist.bsky.social Oh brother! Get a good night's sleep everyone. This was a headache. Connections Puzzle #1073 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

"For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning." The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke #BookWormSat

"Hard by the lilied Nile I saw A duskish river-dragon stretched along, The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl..." A Crocodile Thomas Lovell Beddoes #BookWormSat

"And from the flood of the wound a flower sprang, lilylike, more brilliant than the purples of Tyre. Then the god wept... Beauty dies; that is the source of creation." Hyacinth Louise Gluck #BookWormSat

Now that 1051 is gone, I can say I hated Reservoir Dogs and wouldn't call it a classic film. For today's: @martian-observer.net @pombalstoat.bsky.social @lillieg.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #1052 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦

"...what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, what does the spectre mean?...What is it warning against? What is the danger? Where is the danger? Some dreadful calamity will happen." The Signal-Man Charles Dickens #BookWormSat

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world." Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument April 19, 1836 Ralph Waldo Emerson #BookWormSat

This word...this wordle... 🤦 Wordle 1,759 3/6 ⬜🟦⬜🟦🟦 ⬜🟦⬜🟧🟦 🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧 @martian-observer.net @pombalstoat.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social It was a headscratcher.

"Conradin had been wont to chant his praises; tonight he asked a boon. 'Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.' The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god, he must be supposed to know." Sredni Vashtar Saki (H.H. Munro) #BookWormSat

"Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses" The Waste Land T.S. Eliot #BookWormSat

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; ...If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. ...And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks." Sonnet CXXX William Shakespeare #BookWormSat

@markhanson62.bsky.social This one's for you. Wordle 1,743 3/6 🟧⬜🟧⬜🟧 🟧⬜🟧🟦🟧 🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧

"On the quietest day there was a murmur in the forest, as though the trees were gently crying themselves to sleep, moaning a muted lullaby which turned the nights into a time of ceaseless whispering." Thérèse Desqueyroux François Mauriac (Gerard Hopkins, tr.) #BookWormSat

@martian-observer.art @pombalstoat.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #1011 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦😌

@pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #1010 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

@pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social Watch your step, guys! Connections Puzzle #1009 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦

"On the sunny lawn it had not touched her, but now, with the fall of night, she was aware of it, as shadow called to shadow and the kingdom of darkness gathered power. Like a great whispering gallery, the whole house listened." The Decoy Algernon Blackwood #BookWormSat

@callie99.bsky.social Have you taken #glucosamine and had vivid dreams? Like sitting in a bathtub full of blood vivid? I stopped taking it after a month because my knees were no better. My dreams are now back to normal.😌

"Master said God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves; but He had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way..." Black Beauty Anna Sewell #BookWormSat

@pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #998 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪🤦

Fear not, O players! @martian-observer.art @pombalstoat.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #997 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

"...if I wanted to study I would leap at my master's library with my eyes closed, then tug out the book to which I was clinging and peruse it, whatever its contents." The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr E. T. A. Hoffmann #BookWormSat (mischievous rogues)

Raspberry noises😮‍💨 @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social anybody else Connections Puzzle #991 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦

@callie99.bsky.social Are you in New England? How's the blizzard up there? So far 15 inches here. It's blowing around, so hard to be sure.

"In Brueghel's Icarus: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure..." Musée des Beaux Arts W. H. Auden #BookWormSat

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #983 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩

"Let bygones be bygones: Don't call me false, who owed not to be true; I'd rather answer 'No' to fifty Johns Than answer 'Yes' to you." "No, Thank You, John" Christina Rossetti #BookWormSat for Valentine's Day

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @lillieg.bsky.social @mrlepus.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #979 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦😲

@pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #974 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪

"If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces-- and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper-- love her, love her, love her!" Great Expectations Charles Dickens #BookWormSat

Haha! @pombalstoat.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @emoneconomist.bsky.social Phrazle 163: 2/6 🟪🟪⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟪 ⬜⬜⬜ 🟪🟨⬜🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @emoneconomist.bsky.social @martian-observer.art Phrazle 153: 2/6 🟪⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟪⬜⬜🟪 ⬜🟨🟨🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

I don't know if anyone does kakuro, but I have to whine. Where does one go after Black Belt Kakuro? Mensa K. is on par with Absolutely Nasty 2, but Absolutely Nasty 3 is 🤯. Is Black Belt Second degree more manageable? Thank you for your patience.

"You rogue, you trickster, you crafty-minded cheat, I can well believe you broke into a good many ...houses last night and left more than one man with only the floor to sit on..." (Apollo to the child Hermes) The Homeric Hymns (tr. by Jules Cashford) #BookWormSat

@callie99.bsky.social Have you been getting your mail delivered since the storm? None of my bills have shown up. No mail at all. (what am I complaining about?🙃)

Fools rush in. No one seems to have done this. @callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art @lillieg.bsky.social Connections Puzzle #961 🟪🟦🟨🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟩🟪 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩😫

Somebody did this one. Can't find it on notifications. @martian-observer.art @pombalstoat.bsky.social @emoneconomist.bsky.social @callie99.bsky.social Phrazle 140: 2/6 ⬜🟨🟪 🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art Did anyone do Sunday's Connections? (it wasn't fun) Connections Puzzle #959 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦(eeny, meenie, etc.🙄)

"It was Lilith the wife of Adam: (Sing Eden Bower!) Not a drop of her blood was human, But she was made like a soft sweet woman. Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden; (Alas the hour!) She was the first that thence was driven..." Eden Bower Dante Gabriel Rossetti #BookWormSat

@martian-observer.art @callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @emoneconomist.bsky.social Phrazle 127: 2/6 🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨 🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him... Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same." Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte #BookWormSat

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social Phrazle 111: 2/6 🟨🟪🟪🟨 ⬜🟩 🟩🟩 ⬜🟨🟪⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

"Only those who know longing Know what sorrows me! Alone and separated From all joy..." Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, a poem by Goethe in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, set to music by Tchaikowsky, (among others) Here sung by Frank Sinatra. #BookWormSat www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfCd...

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social Phrazle 99: 2/6 🟨⬜🟪🟨⬜ 🟩🟪 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle

Is the split screen format better or worse than the usual? I get easily distracted. #ColumboTV (this posting into the void is getting on my nerves)

"A raven swooped down from its perch in the rafters and dived at the wizard, talons open... It didn't make it...The luggage leapt from its bed of splinters, gaped briefly in midair, and snapped shut." The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett #BookWormSat (fantasy)

@callie99.bsky.social @pombalstoat.bsky.social @martian-observer.art Phrazle 93: 2/6 🟨🟨⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜🟨🟨🟨🟪🟪⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #phrazle solitaired.com/phrazle