Dmitri Gheorgheni
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dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
Dmitri Gheorgheni
@dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
270 followers 260 following 1.1K posts
Editor of the h2g2 Post at h2g2.com. My fiction has been labeled 'poignant and humorous'. https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=Dmitri+Gheorgheni&page=1&pageSize=10&adult_audience_rating=
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dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #number
prove it to me he said prove it now that politician I don't like is the beast the number is 666 prove it now he said can you translate into greek I asked no why should I it only works in Greek I said I can't even read English that well he said I thought so I said how about you forget the cabala and next time vote for the person who isn't allergic to work and doesn't have a hand in the till? Background gemetria chart by Project Gutenberg.
November 13, 2025 at 3:42 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
I love y'all, but...
A frog decided to climb a tree. All the other frogs yelled, 'No! You can't do that!' He yelled back, 'What's wrong with you guys? Of course I can! I've got suction cups on my feet, same as you! Look up "van der Wallas forces".' They looked it up. 'Oh,' they said. And he climbed the tree. After all, he was a tree frog. The moral is: don't learn biology from a motivational speaker. Image: Frog by DG.
November 12, 2025 at 10:41 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #myth
myths are the way immortal spirits speak to us because frankly they're tired of shouting across the divide between eternity and our neverending self-involvement unfortunately we tend to make all the stories about ourselves and then try to mass-market them for fame and profit the universe is trying to point the way to peace while we like children at bedtime beg it to tell us that story about the princess and the frog one more time with sound effects please Image: Little girl crying and talking to a smiling frog against a backdrop of labelled constellations, all images from Gutenberg Project.
November 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
While searching for a photo for today's #prompt word, I stumbled across this appropriate poem from 1945. It appeared in Yank, the Army Weekly, on Sept 28.
The Foreigner They welcomed Hayden back from war, and fed Him horn-pout chowder, muffins, and berry pies. 'He hasn't changed a bit,' the village said - But there was the look of Asia in his eyes. They fussed, ans petted him; they wept again, Telling the neighbors horrors he had known: 'Two years he lived among those naked men Who worship hideous idols carved from stone!' He remembered the Chinese collie, Long Nee Lum, Who fought in the Burmese jungles by his side, The Kachin scouts, and the headsman at Nhpum, And other dark-sinned brothers who had died. How could he make these good folk understand That this, his Maine, was now the alien land? Sergeant Smith Dawless, 1945
November 11, 2025 at 4:35 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #measure
Every 11th of November, I think exactly the same thing: Here they go, praising the dead soldiers again. How they gave 'the last full measure of devotion,' and such. They place the little flags besides the 'crosses, row on row, That mark our graves,' and play whatever trumpet call Means 'go to sleep, hero' in their country's musical idiom. And as the sound of the bugle trails off, the exact same thought comes into my head: What bugles sound for the dead who wore no uniform? For the refugee caught in the crossfire? For the woman kneading bread when the stray bullet penetrated her door? For the child running screaming napalm-burned down the road? For the farmer sobbing over the corpse of his last cow? What trumpet calls for them? Just now the voice in my head Reminds me that someday The trumpet will sound For them, too Image: Woman kneeling in the rubble of Vienna, 1945. From Yank, the Army Weekly.
November 11, 2025 at 4:16 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
Greetings on Armistice Day. #Nov11
Junco in a bush, snow.
November 11, 2025 at 2:47 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #literature
it's a pixellated image of a late-fall afternoon as the sun gets stopped by window-blinds no shadows wash the room (we've got those special lightbulbs that give our blues a scrub ordered online by the score from the toilet-paper store) and our tweeted conversations echo the marginalized sighs of commodified lives and you read GRR Martin and I Kurt Vonnegut and we argue Oxford commas and crave reader input are our books hobbies or literature? are we poets without listeners prophets out of time in a world that doesn't rhyme? and our tweeted conversations echo the marginalized sighs of technologized lives yes we speak of things that matter with words that needs be read Should we write in neutral pronouns? Are you sure Elvis is dead? the internet's fragmented and the cheating algorithm acts like a shadow ban we reach the ones we can and our tweeted conversations echo the marginalized sighs of niche-marketed lives Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel and FWR, from whom I borrowed the image.
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
we're snailposting. post your snails - This one's from Tavaron in Austria. Another snail from the Vienna Woods.
Big brown snail climbing down some rocks like a moving tractor with horns.
November 9, 2025 at 5:33 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #law
For an in-depth discussion of this landmark legal decision, see How Many Cats Should You Have in Your Car? at h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/bru...
the laws of man and nature are manifold, we learn: we've evolved a nomenclature to describe each one in turn what's up perforce comes down so says the law of gravity and by the law of averages if you try, you'll win, maybe the law is never reticent: obey it, you'll go far there's even a legal precedent for number of cats in a car. (See State of South Dakota v Fifteen Impounded Cats, Decided June 23, 2010) Image: Kitties in a car by FWR.
November 9, 2025 at 1:15 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
This week, the h2g2 Post takes you to the burial place of Patrick, the legendary castle of King Arthur, and. . . Main Street, Hooverville. A parade, ancient ruins, and the Mull of Kintyre. From artefacts to seasonal beauty, we've got lots to see. Find it all at h2g2.com/entry/A8807456
This week's title is Colours of the World. Clockwise from upper left: A black cat standing on a stump next to a fence, a bright red rose on a trellis, the Mull of Kintyre, a skyblue corner shop advertising ice cream, a yellow leaf and white mushroom, a cross, a gate, and mountains in the distance at Downpatrick, balloons in the sunset over the Colossi of Memnon in Egypt, a ferocious Green Goblin mask in somebody's living room, a grey-striped cat looking to one side, an assortment of mushrooms, a line of surf on a beach touching a suspicious-looking piece of metal sticking out of the sand, a stained-glass window of Saint Patrick holding a shamrock, and a very tall mascot in a yellow eagle costume with a blue jacket.
November 9, 2025 at 12:29 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #language
I'm of two minds about that Garfield miniseries. On the one hand, the acting was superb. Ditto the costumes. The makeup artists were at the top of their game: the actors looked exactly like their 1881 counterparts. Budapest mostly worked, though it was too fancy for the White House, which had wooden plumbing back then. And a rat problem. But the language in that series was horrendous. Oh, dry up. You're just old and didn't like the cussing. Not a bit of it. Those politicians could and should curse voluminously. But they shouldn't cuss in twenty-first century. James G Blaine never told anybody to stfu. He had much more imagination than that - and probably said it in French. I wanted them to say things they would have said, like 'sockdologizing old man-trap'. Those people weren't speaking ancient Greek. The audience could have understood their natural idiom. (Sarcastically) It's called 'artistic license', dumbo. (Snorts) It is not. It's called 'cultural appropriation' and 'erasure'. May the ghost of Lucretia Garfield haunt that scriptwriters for the words they put in her mouth. Image: Garfield on his deathbed with his wife Lucretia. Project Gutenberg.
November 8, 2025 at 4:37 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #history
if you had a time machine - just suppose - & you could pick anywhere in all of history to be in - where(when) would you go? me, I'd pick the bank of the Hudson the day before some idiot tried out his new steamboat a beach on the Aegean on an afternoon when the horizon was free from galleys the rolling countryside outside Gettysburg anytime before eighteen-sixty-three maybe go and ask old Mr Burns if he wanted to go fishing movers and shakers and headline makers, please be aware: if you think you've got the best of it you're wrong: real life is lived in the spaces between historical events. Image: A pigeon perching atop a statue of an eagle. Courtesy of FWR.
November 7, 2025 at 4:15 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #geography
I am an American. Our ignorance of geography is legendary, but I can find Europe on a map. I used to live there. Me, I have no sense of direction. I can get lost in Philadelphia. I used to live there, too. It is laid out on a North-South grid. I still don't know where I am when I emerge from the subway. Point me in the direction of Arch Street Meetinghouse, please. I survive by looking stuff up. When I moved to Bonn, my dad said, 'You land in Luxemburg and take the train south. . . ' 'No, Dad, north.' 'South.' 'North.' (Repeat a few times.) Dad, exasperated: 'I was there in the war!' Me, showing him the map: 'North.' My mother: 'They moved it, dear.' This is a map of the world for some people in 43 CE. The moral: Don't get cocky. Knowledge is relative. Image: Library of Congress
November 6, 2025 at 3:18 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #famous
Angel Behind Desk: Welcome to the Afterlife, Mr, er...ah, Vanderfeller. Welcome. Shuffles papers. Vanderfeller: You should know me. I'm very famous. Angel, interested: Famous? For what, exactly? Vanderfeller: I was a Captain of Industry! And my investments made millions! I was the richest man on Earth in my time. I'm assuming you have a VIP lounge here? Angel, drily: We do. But it's full of hairy prophets at the moment. Not your sort, I imagine. Actually, though, we have a job for you. Vanderfeller, smugly: I thought so. Place needs a bit of managing, does it? Angel: Not exactly. You see, your lot managed the last reality run-through so badly that three-quarters of the people on your planet didn't get a chance to live at all. Vanderfeller: That's not my fault. Angel, shortly: Actually, it is. So you're going to help us fix it. Vanderfeller: I refuse. I earned my privileges fair and square. Angel, dismissively: It's not up to you. You are going to go back there and live your life as a placeholder while we let all the others have their turn. You just go through the motions. It's easy, once you get the hang of it. Chuckles. Just be yourself. Of course, they'll see through you and laugh at you. But why should you care about that? About the 5th time through, you'll have all the dialogue memorized. Vanderfeller: But I had plans! I wanted a jacuzzi! On a cloud! I want to speak to the manager! Angel, pressing button: Mildred, call the Recycling Squad for this one. I'm going to lunch. Angel, to self: What part of 'the meek shall inherit the Earth' don't they get? Image: Heaven as a shabby club in a run-down strip mall. By Carol M Highsmith.
November 5, 2025 at 4:09 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #education
where do you list your education he asked flipping through the resume last page I said he stared at the list which to me was an itinerary of past moments of enlightenment: the weirdly convoluted inwardness of the Asamkirche the odd beauty of Romanesque the frivolous awe of petting a cat while it rubbed against an ancient Greek pillar as if to say take that Pericles a spooky night in the Carpathians who knew dorms could be haunted well they knew in Pittsburgh too and in St Louis half the world away I got half an associate-of-arts degree while teaching languages on the radio in North Carolina what do you want from me I follow my nose and learn what I can we'll let you know he said Image: Rossi the cat, who travelled wide with his friend and photographer Angel LiaDan and who has now gone over the Rainbow Bridge. May he find new adventures over there.
November 4, 2025 at 4:21 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #domestic
the main problem with religions is not that they force humans to confront uncomfortable truths: 'you need to love your neighbour' 'but I don't wanna' end of story it's that no matter how startling the sidereal and moral insights of their founders every religion soon devolves into an endless soap opera about the domestic arrangements of the denizens of heaven Image: Two dudes in a chariot pulled by a lion and a wild boar, who don't look happy about it. You don't want to know what this is about. Gutenberg Project.
November 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#birds #cursing
Твою мать (You didn't say it had to be in English. This is a multilingual bluejay.)
Angry bluejay on a branch.
November 2, 2025 at 3:14 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #creature
be praised o lord through all your creatures brother sun and sister moon and all the stars that shine earth wind and sister water and all that live within in her man no longer praises you o lord he's built a creature of his own and is busy worshipping that Francis saw god through blind eyes lasers and lenses won't help us see when the soul turns away from the family of earth it will take in absolutely anything to fill the hole left in the heart Image: Late Autumn Afternoon by Tavaron da Quirm. Photo of a forest path leading to what looks like a doorway among the trees.
November 2, 2025 at 1:29 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
People have been places and seen things. They share them with us. Historical cars. Gretna Green. Street art in Belfast. a village with a story. All things Titanic. Birds on the move. Fall leaves. The inevitable inescapable jokes. Join us and partake. Find it all at h2g2.com/entry/A88074...
This week's title is Faraway Places with Strange-Sounding Names. Clockwise from upper left: Austrian mountains with trees in autumn colours, surf splashing against the Giant's Causeway, a threatening sky over Main Street, Hooverville, a colourful road through the Austrian forest, the Titanic Museum rearing its prow high in Belfast, A vintage 1930s pickup truck parked on a street, a mural showing a girl sniffing a rose, an Egyptian cat looking up at the camera, and an odd crenellated tower occupying a corner at the bottom of a steep street in a town in Northern Ireland. There's an incongruous Stop sign on its garden wall, which is not on the corner.
November 1, 2025 at 10:59 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #business
As Chaucer said, I shal quyte you your bisinesse, if you would but stop to think about how 'busyness' became 'business'. 'Mankind was my business!' wails the spirit of Jacob Marley, and truer words were never spoken in or out of the spirit realm. When did mere bustling activity go from distraction to a compulsion to rob our neighbours? 'Wist yee not that I must bee about my fathers businesse?' said the 12-year-old carpenter's boy, or would have if he'd lived in England in 1611. Isn't that business all our business? To care for one another is not extra - something we do in our spare time after first making sure we've gathered up every stray kopek for ourselves. Step One in the campaign to get the Earth back: reclaim the word 'business'. Image: Bee Banquet by SashaQ.
November 1, 2025 at 3:08 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #Halloween Apologies to Mr Poe.
Lo 'tis a Halloween night sometime in the Twenties: a glittering throng, sequin-bedight, art deco and dimpled knees, standing near the punchbowl bathtub gin a-cravin', while Rudy makes the dogs all howl with his 'Ain't Misbehavin''. What classic tale will now be told what horror from the master? Cask of Amontillado? Gold- bug? Or Red Death disaster? Or will our hostess - she knows things - teach us to read the future? Look how the maid more highballs brings while Rudy plays 'Minnie the Moocher'. Look there, upon the magic screen! Wait! Is that Lilian Gish? What can she show us we have not seen? The Twenty-Twenties, we wish. . . Oh, no! More die of plagues to come than the influenza took, with scandals worse than Teapot Dome, and the guy in charge is a kook! Turn up the lights! let us dance! and the flappers and jellybeans say, If the future won't give peace a chance, then we might as well Charleston today. We told you, we Jazz Babies did, and the future will only confirm that when corporate greed makes its bid, the hero's the Conqueror Worm. Image: Halloween party from Dennison's Bogie Book, 1920.
October 31, 2025 at 3:52 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #ray
watch the day split a ray red yellow blue come out to play parsing light and sound and sense yields meaning through experience as you stop to watch the day glow, pay homage to the gift of rainbow, allow the light to break you, too: take in the planet's gift to you. Image: Rainbow at the Farm by Mrs Hoggett.
October 30, 2025 at 3:06 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #argent
good morning sir have you got a minute to talk about the Good Book? I have it here in my satchel, 900 pages & 66 books, as the old song says, every family should have one of these it's what the world needs today &... sit down on the porch with me son you need to give your jaws a rest let me tell you, young Bible salesman about the antiquity of your trade Five-hundred-and-something it was the Middle Ages had barely begun the scribes at the court they copied it they didn't have printers or xerox machines or even typewriters they just wrote & wrote but this Bible was special it was for the king not just any king Theodoric rescuer of civilizations yeah him the Goth so this Bible was in Gothic on purple parchment with silver lettering they called it the Codex Argenteus and UNESCO calls it part of the Memory of the World I can quote you a gospel verse in Gothic if you like what's your favorite thing Jesus said? er well he said I haven't actually read it in any language Images: Codex argenteus and Theodoric's palace, Wikipedia.
October 29, 2025 at 2:57 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #experiment
high school chemistry was a nightmare of poorly-explained experiments and inexperienced experimenters turned loose on a roomful of potentially lethal devices by ungifted instructors who considered themselves intellectuals because they could use a slide rule chemistry is bad for people with curly hair: I burnt my forelock to a crisp in the bunsen burner herr bunsen ich hasse dich du kannst mich mal also Mr Whitney and his slide rule which I cannot read because I have an astigmatism phooey no wonder I prefer German class strong verbs do not threaten to blow up the school Image: Bunsen burner and person swearing Himmelherrgottsakrament! which was a powerful swear word back in the days of the Austrian Empire and Kaiser Wilhelm but which now makes people laugh. Bunsen burner from Project Gutenberg.
October 28, 2025 at 3:22 PM
dmitrigheorgheni.bsky.social
#vss365 #creep
'A foot a day. That's 30 cm if you're metric.' 'Is kudzu metric? That's some serious creepage. No wonder they call it the vine that ate the South.' 'Why don't they have trouble with it in Asia?' 'Because they have the good sense to eat it. Also use it for fiber and medicine.' 'Do you think they'd send us some recipes?' 'Here's one: DAI-KĀM (Orange Jelly Candy) One half pound of Kanton (seaweed jelly); three quarters pound of fine white sugar; three tablespoonfuls of kudzu starch; two oranges... from 'Chinese-Japanese Cookbook', 1914.' 'It's going to take making a LOT of kudzu starch to get rid of all that kudzu.' 'Look at it this way. ' 'Yes?' 'It's gluten-free!' Image: Kudzu covering a Kentucky forest, by Carol M Highsmith.
October 27, 2025 at 3:08 PM