Mysterious6030
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Mysterious6030
@mysterious6030.bsky.social
280 followers 120 following 240 posts
Haven’t figured out just who I’ll be here, so this will just have to do for now. (Knowing me, I hope I change this before 2030)
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mysterious6030.bsky.social
Reading the 8th Brother Cadfael mystery by Ellis Peters, The Devil’s Novice
Cover of the Futura paperback edition of Ellis Peters’s mystery novel, The Devil’s Novice, which has a pale blue background, with a sort of Celtic woven know design across the top and then the title—with an initial ‘D’ meant to suggest an illuminated manuscript (though it’s so ornate that it almost looks like an ‘O’)—with the text “A Medieval Whodunnit” below, and the name of the author, Ellis Peters (a pseudonym of Edith Pargeter), in another font vaguely suggestive of Medieval something-or-other, and the text “The eighth chronicle of Brother Cadfael” at the bottom.
November 10, 2025 at 10:56 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Continuing with my re-reads of PKD novels in publication order, I am about halfway through The Penultimate Truth, by Philip K. Dick
"A Bluejay Special Edition" is written across a top banner on this trade paper edition of The Penultimate Truth, by Philip K. Dick. (His name is just below that banner.) Between the author's name and the title is the tagline "The Lies Began When The First Bomb Fell..." ... which isn't strictly accurate, but let that pass. Below the title is the text "A Paranoid Masterpiece from the Author of / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Filmed as Bladerunner)", tho' I'm pretty sure the movie was called Blade Runner, two words. Anyway, the picture itself is of a destroyed landscape on the left side, buildings torn in the distance and leafless shreds of tree trunks with nothing living ... and on the right side is green grass with a white picket fence and behind that fields and his and trees, and ... joining the two is a cutaway portrait of ... well, I assume it's Philip K. Dick himself, but maybe it's just some bearded guy, and anyway, it's just the left half of his face—to the viewer's right—and a building type structure fills in the other half of the portrait, with a pretty obvious eyeball in the middle of this factory (?), and the hair of the guy's picture on the right side is completed in the background on the left by a mushroom cloud.
November 3, 2025 at 4:48 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Continuing my re-read of PKD, just started once more to read one of Philip K. Dick's 4 best novels, The Man In The High Castle
#booksky
A wordy cover with most of the imagery behind the text (which reads "Philip K. Dick / His Greatest Masterpiece / The Man In / The High / Castle / The World-Famous Classic / Of A Conquered America!") and then with barbed wire at the foreground below that text—but the thing is, y'see, the barbs on the barbed wire are formed from pointed … swastikas! Get it?!? Well, anyway. The image behind the barbed wire at the bottom third of the cover is of a small suburban house with a porch and a chimney and it's a single-level dwelling painted in either beige or cream (I'm no judge of color; ask my wife) with brown trim and roof, but it's not really suburban 'cause we see no other houses around it, only a green lawn and shrubbery and a little cute lake to the left of the cover, and a big deciduous tree towering behind it, as well as some other trees, more like … what are those tall pointy trees that they always have at memorial parks and like that? … well, like those. And then behind the house and behind the trees a hilly or mountainous landscape fades back into a haze or fog and then in the far far background, in a dreamlike grey or so mist rises a towering pile of rock, a mountain, all this behind the wordy text given above, and atop the rock peak, which is almost a cylinder, is a very distant castle just peeking out above the "Philip K. Dick" line of the cover text. Oh, and there's some bookkeeping stuff along the left edge, sort of ruining the imagery, but you've got in small type the Ace books logo, and turned 90º so as to lie just along the spine edge, the ISBN number and the price in Canadian and 'Merican. And that's the cover image. This is the Ace Books reprint from 1988, by the way.
October 27, 2025 at 4:23 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Wilkie Collin's 3rd novel, Hide And Seek
#booksky
On a blue cover the words "Wilkie Collins" above and the title "HIDE and SEEK" below a roughly (very) circular window showing an old etching (used to illustrate an original edition of this work) depicting a woman wearing a long white (night?)dress holding a candlestick with lit candle above her head with her right arm, as she looks down at the ground below her, her long hair falling to either side of her head. A stool with some objects is in the background to the area which she is searching, and behind her is a shadowy figure of a stout man reaching with his right had to her shoulder (in fact, according to the text accompanying the image (printed within the book), he is reaching to snuff out her candle, which is on the opposite side of her body from his hand, but what are ya gonna do?). The man has a beard but no mustache, and wears a tight black skullcap.
October 20, 2025 at 8:30 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Finally took down from my ‘on deck’ shelf and am reading The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, the first in a lauded series by Becky Chambers
Book cover of The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which shows, besides that title and that author in big 3-D letters (well, the title’s in 3-D, at least) dominating the cover, a small planet in the distance (i.e., behind the “The”) of a murky reddish or maybe cola color, and in the foreground (we know this because part of the image is superimposed over the title, specifically the bottom of the letters “W” & “A” in “Way”) a patched-together somewhat rusty maybe space-going (one assumes) ship with little bits and pieces here and there like some of those old Space 1999 landers but with more dyssymetry and a little bubble part at top (explained in the text of the book so I won’t here) and a big search light thingie (which obviously makes almost no sense in space but …) illuminating the space just before it (which is pretty much impossible unless we’re inside a dust cloud I guess) as well as the bottom “V” of the “W”. There’s also a little circle at the upper right with the following text within: “Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series”. And at the bottom, below the author’s name, is the blurb quote “Great fun!” with the source given just below as “—Ann Leckie, author of Ancillary Justice”. The black background shows itself to now be pure black, but dotted throughout with little dots that may be stars … or nebulae … or galaxies … or something else that might look like a hazy dot at interstellar distances.
October 14, 2025 at 2:59 AM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
I'm trying to learn or better understand French by reading the first in Maurice Leblanc's series, Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Cambrioleur
(and yes, I came to this point by watching the TV series on Netflix)
#booksky
A shadowy figure is seen in profile from the left side, his face obscured, the whole image in half-sepia but more just black and shades of grey, the figure with a white (?) top hat worn far back on the head, the ear of the head above a white (?) shirt collar and the left shouider only of this figure, with the title Arsène Lupin, (and then in slightly smaller font) Gentleman Cambrioleur superimposed over the center of the image, with the author's name below in all caps sans-serif font (the title being in serif italic): Maurice Leblanc
October 6, 2025 at 8:21 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
I’m reading the misnamed Little Novels (actually a collection of short stories) by Wilkie Collins
#booksky
The cover of the Dover reprint edition of Wilkie Collins’s short story collection confusingly named Little Novels. The title and author’s name are shown in a sprightly serif font atop a beige or maybe brown treatment of some etching of Victorian folk at some gathering place, with a woman seated beneath some window front with an chair next to her untenanted by a human but with some stuff—packages?—on the seat and a leash attached leading to a small dog before her, a man in a bowler leaning over the chair back (the one with the ‘stuff’ on it) appearing to talk to her, and another woman in hat and bustle next to the man, and another half dozen people (well, six men and one woman, the woman paired with a man and two gentlemen in the foreground at left bottom of the picture, the other three men leaning or standing before the windowed wall. Anyway, no more is known (by me) about the picture, as only an art director is credited for the cover. The book was first published (in the UK only) in 1887.
September 29, 2025 at 11:31 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Trying to finish this fabulous collection of the Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector, which I’ve been nibbling at for months and months
#booksky
Picture of the book Clarice Lispector Complete Stories, translated by Katrina Dodson
September 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Only when I quote writers who literally penned their words do I sigh at character limits on whatever-it-is-we-call-these-post-tweet-anything-but-skeets ... (Oh, yes, and of course, Pynchon too)
Picture of a notebook atop an old mouse pad with a picture of a robot toy on it, with a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville at the top of the shown page: "When I come to study what has been, at different times and epochs of history among different peoples, the effective reason why ruling classes have been ruined, I note the various events and men and accidental or superficial causes, but believe me, the real cause, the effective one, that makes men lose power is that they have become unworthy to exercise it." Below that quote is the beginning of another one which you don't care about (the photographer cut off the whole quote, so obviously didn't care either), but, for completeness sake, let's say it starts off: "The immense sombre fabric that is daily spun bears in its centre the petrifying eyes of an illustrious victory. It is incomprehensible that man ceaselessly returns to this school without learning anything. The day will come, nevertheless, when he can no longer submit, judging by—" (FWIW, it continues ... "its own determiniability, to the arbitrary will of the social organism that today assures, to the disadvantage of almost all, the pleasure of a few. I believe it is not unreasonable to predict a near hour for the attainment of this greater liberty." and is from André Breton
September 21, 2025 at 11:40 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Breathes there the man with soul so dead …?
Photo of the page in The Oxford Book Of English Verse (the new 1939 edition, the 1968 reprinting) showing poem #560, a section of Sir Walter Scott’s Lay Of The Last Minstrel, shown here under the rubric “Patriotism”, as “1. Innominatus” (‘unnamed’ in Latin (fancy, eh?)), with the immortal lines: Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
September 16, 2025 at 4:03 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Still working through Lombardo’s translation of the Iliad, and am also enjoying O. G. Suttons book Mathematics In Action, a surprisingly cogent explanation of math as it is actually used in the sciences. I would recommend this for anyone whose child’s math in school has gotten beyond them.
#booksky
Cover of Dover trade paperback edition of Mathematics In Action, by O. G. Sutton. The cover features a sinusoidal wave form (with axis) across the book dividing the cover roughly into 1/3 and 2/3 of its surface. (The shown function represents a ‘wave group’, that is, a snapshot of amplitude etc. of actual ocean waves as seen offshore.) The top third is in purple, with “Mathematics In Action” boldly in large white text. The bottom two thirds, below the wave function (and note that these two colors ascend above or below the axis as the wave crosses and recrosses it), is a dark somewhat purply blue. The author’s name is at bottom of this large color field, “O. G. Sutton”, and just below the wave function in smaller type is the subtitle of the book: “Applications in Aerodynamics, Statistics, Weather Prediction, and Other Sciences” [note: I’ve added some commas for clarity]. Along the left side, the spine of the book, the colors have faded due to sun (one assumes), showing a pale lavender and light blue.
September 15, 2025 at 4:53 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Am re-reading the Iliad in Stanley Lombardo's translation. I'd read the Odyssey in many different translations, but Lombardo's was the first time I was able to be drawn into the compelling sweep of Homer's tale of war and anger and violence and loss.
The cover of Stanley Lombardo's translation of Homer's Iliad consists solely of a black & white photo from the June 6th, 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, this particular one taken from the perspective of a now emptied landing craft (I think they were called LSTs) with the troops with full packs and their guns in hands wading waist-deep in the ocean water at the shore as they walk and wade and struggle towards the distant beach where dim grey shadows are perhaps other men or rafts. Many of the men on the distant beach seem prone, perhaps dead or dying. And beyond that actual line of the shore are a few most distant standing figures and a craft of some sort, a tank perhaps, and further inland from that along the long deep shore of sand are more figures, dug in maybe, and in the far distant are the dark banks of clouds or hills or who knows to what unknown future these men who've just jumped into the frigid waters are not slogging? The obvious connection of this photo from the U.S. Coast Guard on that terrible and fateful day to the subject of the book is the seaborne assault upon the fair city of Troy in what was to become known as Asia Minor, of which the Iliad is but a small part, of course. The text upon the stark b&w photo is, at top and in red "ILIAD" with just below in a bit smaller font in white "HOMER". At the bottom of the cover, in a grey out of focus part of the LST in the foreground are the lines "Translated by Stanley Lombardo" with "Introduction by Sheila Murnaghan" just below that. You can also make out a dent to the book at the top and a fold in the upper right corner doubtless from a previous reading of mine.
September 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
I’ve been slogging through Milton’s Paradise Lost for well over a year now (not for nothing did Samuel Johnson say “Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure”), and finally finished his “Areopagitica”, so on to the criticism!
Cover of the Norton Critical Edition of Paradise Lost, which has a grey-blue rectangular frame around a light olive rectangle (with a thin white border) with the words “Paradise Lost” beneath which is “John Milton”. Below that text is a squarish picture, and excerpt from a painting we are told (on the back of the book) is “The Shepherd’s Dream” from Fuseli’s _Paradise Lost_, in the Tate Gallery. This dark image shows … well, what, exactly? A figure in dark clothing his leg stretched out before him and hunching over those legs, perhaps the titular shepherd, in a dark hat, maybe he’s sleeping, a dog is lying at his feet, is that a sheep to his right? A woman stares at us from behind and to the left of the central dreaming figure, her hair blond or auburn and done up in some almost triangular do, while above cavort dancing maidens … maybe, a swirl of four figures, three as if women in dresses or gowns were seen from above while they danced around another figure—does her foot grow from the dark sleeper’s head? Hard to say. I guess we’ll all have to go to the Tate. Below that image the words “Edited by Gordon Teskey”, and below that—in the bottom of the blue border rectangle—“A Norton Critical Edition”
September 2, 2025 at 4:06 AM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
From Chapter Six of Philip K. Dick’s novel Time Out Of Joint:
Picture of text from PKD’s book Time Out Of Joint, reading: Over the door of the clubhouse was a sign his dad had got down for him at the store. The man who did the lettering for the store had made it. NO FASCISTS, NAZIS, COMMUNISTS, FALANGISTS, PERONISTS, FOLLOWERS OF HLINKA AND/OR BELA KUN ALLOWED. Both his father and his uncle had insisted that it was the best sign to have, so he had nailed it up.
August 28, 2025 at 6:54 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Dr. Adder, by K. W. Jeter

... hoping it's as good as I remember (especially after being disappointed with his _Noir_) ... 50 pages in and so far so good
Blocky somewhat Sci-Fi somewhat metal (like I-beams formed into letters) font has the title DR. ADDER across the top, overlapping the tip-top of the head of the sole figure dominating the cover, a 3/4 portrait of a thin rock-n-roll type man of indeterminate age (40? 30? surely no younger than 25? that face has seen things …) who stands looking directly into the reader's eyes, his right arm outstretched before him, but that's no hand, or rather, it's a metallic prosthetic forearm with chrome and lights and seams and the 'hand' is open as if grasping a ball or about to form a grip for a curve ball and the pinky and ring fingers have lights on their tips, as do the other three, but from the index and middle fingers and thumb radiate light beams which go off towards the right edge of the book cover, joining in a triangular pyramid to make a single beam which is just visible at the edge of the cover going out of view to the right, but yeah, that guy just stares out at us, or is he looking off to the right at whatever target those light beams (lasers?) might have, and his mouth is slightly open beneath that pensive stare, his shoulder-length hair in grey or maybe strawberry blonde lanks, but we can see the hoop earring in his right ear, and he stands there cool AF in his torn sleeveless tight fitting dark shirt with a couple of thin diagonal stripes, with tears … and it that a bullet hole?!? No, it's some metal thingie dangling from the metal arm, his other arm normal flesh and hanging down at the ready, his tight jeans (blue? black?) with no belt but with a chain on his right hip going back to his back pocket to … a wallet? Who knows? Behind him is a massive building or two, metal or concrete frames shooting out, shapes really, and some curved streetlights, and below the title is the text "A Science Fiction novel by K. W. Jeter" and above the title is "A stunning novel … destroys once and for all your conception of the limitations of science fiction." —Philip K. Dick
August 25, 2025 at 8:21 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
The Space-Born, by E. C. Tubb, one half of an old Ace double (D-193, from 1956)
Old science fiction book cover of E. C. Tubb’s novel, The Space-Born. The painted cover depicts two men in the foreground, both wearing only colored shorts, one in blue and t’other in red. Blue Shorts is going down a hole in a metal floor, so we can’t tell if he’s wearing the ankle-high boots that Red Shorts wears, but let’s assume so. In spite of the scanty clothing, we can tell tell this is sci-fi because the boots worn by Red Shorts have sort of V-shaped wings alongside his calf (truth be told, we only see one of his legs, the right, as the other is hidden behind the torso of Blue Shorts descending into the hole in the floor; so possibly he wears only one boot (or shoe)—after all, it’s SF and anything’s possible—but we’ll assume he’s got two boots on, Occam’s Razor and all that), with maybe a metal fringe which also is in the shape of a V, but with an opening so it’s two conjoined Vs, like a Cheshire cat’s smile. Both men also have a bracelet with a small rectangular strip pushing out from it, this upon their right wrist. (I’ll cheat and tell you this is an “Iden” tab.) Red Shorts is holding in his left hand the rough metal handle of a huge stepped metal hatch which is hinged to close down on the hole Blue Shorts is going down. Red looks over his left shoulder through an archway where he (and we) can see six distant figures floating or flying down towards he and Blue Shorts, just black human horizontal figures with a yellowish blob above them as they float or fly down towards a light blue area. (And oh yeah I forgot that Blue Shorts (maybe it’s more a teal) is blond and the other’s a brunette.) Anyway, one of the floaty figures seems to have a knife in his hand. And there’s girders and lines on the floor. Text lines: On blue band colophon of “Ace Double Novel Books”, “Two Complete Novels 35¢”; just below colophon “D-193”; title “The Space-Born”, tagline just below colophon”Death Was Their Pilot, Fear Their Fuel”; then below that “E. C. Tubb” & “Complete Novels”
August 12, 2025 at 12:48 AM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
So I finished Solar Lottery, and … yep, it's different. But definitely the same book.

The main differences are:
UK: An entire subplot about the Prestonites on the rocket
US: More of the trademarked PKD 'relationship' scenes between protagonist and whichever female happens to be around
(more in Alt)
Picture of Solar Lottery in the Ace Books edition G-718. A mostly reddish cover, depicting a male figure floating before a towering wall of cabalistic markings—Are they letters? Ideographs? Numbers? The figure has short blond hair and is wearing what might be a tight-fitting one-piece covering all save his hands and head, though hard to tell about the feet because the lower 3/4 of the costume (as well as most of the left arm) has turned to washed-out white, as if the blue of the outfit (it's blue, btw) had been negated by some strange force. The background is red with what might be lines of force, or clouds, or a solar storm (but likely not that last), and the man just floats there, his strangely elongated body at the mercy of ... well, something. Besides the Ace logo and number and price (50¢), and the author's name (Philip K. Dick), and the title (Solar Lottery, remember), there is the tagline: "First prize was the Earth itself". And at the bottom left in small print is the phrase "Complete & Unabridged" As mentioned in the post itself, this version is different from the UK version published under the title World Of Chance. To expand on the post, the love scenes are longer in the US version, with more of that usual internal PKD musing and a little bit more skin. Truth be told, the 2 books almost read more like a different 'director's cuts' than one being a considered rewrite of the other. Possibly the original submission had all the parts that don't appear in one or the other books, and Dick just cut where he was asked to. But it's possible that stuff was added to this one or that one, too; I don't know and it seems merely academic. One final note on the US version, at least the one I read. It had a few typos, including one in a crucial scene where an entire line of dialogue was missing, making the scene not only difficult to follow but also undercutting a major plot point. Looking at this scene in both versions I saw lots of differences between them besides.
August 6, 2025 at 3:25 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
World Of Chance, by Philip K. Dick
Picture of a fairly ratty copy of World Of Chance, a 1956 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. This paperback from Panther Books was released in 1959, and has what appears to be sort of a big weird spaceship thing with a sphere at its rear (or is it the front) with a projecting axis before (or behind) with a ring, a torus as big in circumference as the sphere and a tapering sort of cone thing going forward (or back) off to the edge of the page, which has a big yellow circular area behind this ship thingy. And it looks like this big spaceship thing is being attacked by what I suppose are other spaceships, though they look more to me like modified communication-type satellites. Still, these other ships, which look like ... hmm, they sort of have a main axis with a little like satellite dish thing on top, and panels (that's what made me think of the communications satellites) on either side of the cylindrical main axis, but they're shooting beams at the first ship. And there's three of them, though they all look different, or maybe there's two or three more, but the cover is badly damaged, a whole section at the top has been torn off by whatever whimsies of time have beset this poor little book. But anyway, besides the yellow background sort of circle, the edges of which fade to pink and maybe purple, beyond that (behind most of those ship things that are attacking the other ship thing) is dark, the dark of space I suppose. And there's the title of the book, World Of Chance, and then the author's name, Philip K. Dick, just below that, and it has at bottom the text "He sought to deliver Society from the collapse and chaos of the world of 2203" (so we have a little time, yet), and there's the price, which is 2'6 (that's 2 shillings & sixpence, which is 1/8th of a pound, I believe). Anyway, this book was the UK version of Solar Lottery, but the US and UK versions are supposedly different, which I'm trying to check out. Item 38.g in the PKD bibiiography. Oh, and I for-
August 4, 2025 at 9:33 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Indian maiden (she is in fact Sanjna, daughter of Vishwakarma) with sultry half-lidded eyes stares out of the panel saying "I was wondering how long I would be able to revel in Surya's warmth."
July 29, 2025 at 6:21 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Frank Frazetta art highlights "Prayer Works Wonders", a single page comic from the '50s serving as a PSA from The Advertising Council
Frank Frazetta illustrated comic page from the '50s: "Prayer Works Wonders", showing a young blond boy-man looking out the window, saying "She's the one for me! Glad I have a dinner date with her tonight!", next panel labeled "Later..." shows same boy-man before dresser getting ... well, dressed, putting on his tie whilst looking at himself in the mirror, saying "Hope this new tie registers with her... I sure want to make a good impression!", and then the 3rd panel headed "Next morning..." shows boy in suit with no tie being talked to by grey-haired woman in green dress, her saying "How did it go last night, son? Did you have a nice time?" and him replying "Oh so, so, mother!" Then an interpanel headshot of the grey-haired lady with wordy speech bubble over her head saying "Your best friend, Ben, shows his girl how he feels about her, by taking her to synagogue every week! Why don't you try the same and take your girl to church? There isn't a girl in the world who wouldn't appreciate and respect such an invitation!" Then 4th panel shows blond boy-man in suit holding hand of fashionably dressed brunette (light brown checked peplum jacket over dark brown skirt with handbag in (other) hand, and stocking lines lined up perfectly along calves, natch) heading to stairs leading to stone archway entrance, presumably of a church. Lines at bottom read "Attend the church or synagogue of your choice... / In cooperation with Religion in American Life" [N.B. It is possible that there DO exist girls in the world who might NOT appreciate and respect such an invitation.]
July 20, 2025 at 8:47 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑? 𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 1688,

Robert Ferguson concluded that once the Magdalen ejectments had taken place “we could no longer be said to have properties or inheritances, but what we possessed was precarious, and held by no other tenure but that of court pleasure and connivance.”
From 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑? 𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝐵𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 1688, “Certainly when the conjunction of religion and property was apprehended more directly, as in the turning out of the president and fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, there was no doubt in most minds that those who had need dispossessed had been illegally deprived of their freeholds. Nor were the implications of the ouster lost on the nation at large. The radical Whig propagandist Robert Ferguson concluded that once the Magdalen ejectments had taken place “we could no longer be said to have properties or inheritances, but what we possessed was precarious, and held by no other tenure but that of court pleasure and connivance.””
April 20, 2025 at 5:29 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Chewed To Bits By Giant Turtles
Man holding unconscious Oman in wetland with giant turtle attacking other arm which holds a knife whole yet another dangerous turtle flies through air. Captioned: “Chewed To Bits By Giant Turtles”
March 23, 2025 at 3:35 AM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
From the Amar Chitra Katha comic, _Rana Pratap: The Heroic Struggle of a Rajput King Against the Might of an Empire_
3 panels from Rana Pratap: 1st shows 2 Rajput gentlemen (Man Singh, the Rajput commander of Akbar & Rana Pratap's minister) conversing - "He may be a king for you, but to us he is an invader, an enemy," says Pratap's minister. Man Singh responds, "It is treason to rise against the king." 2nd panel has close-up of Pratap's minister, saying "It is not treason but our sacred duty to fight for our freedom." 3rd panel shows both men in silhouette, Man Singh saying, "But why don't you realize that you can't defeat our huge forces." The minister responds, "We shall do our duty whether we win or not."
March 2, 2025 at 10:19 PM
mysterious6030.bsky.social
Old-timey medical stuff, with child’s leg brace at top, a not uncommon sight during the time of polio
January 17, 2025 at 4:28 PM