Various links links: beards, floral rage, mayonnaise

Bob the Angry Flower has had more misses than hits for quite a while now, contenting itself with arbitrary randomness devoid of humour. But every so often, it still hits the mark.

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Twentieth century history, summed up: The twentieth century was a time of men with beards or moustaches. I don’t think I even need to mention any names...

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Elberry has released a collection of short stories and essays, including a long and highly interesting discussion of good and evil in Tolkein's works. He has also posted some worthwhile notebook excerpts:

1.

all that is is the totality of all that is. any other account of the matter is paraphrase, and all paraphrase is traduction. to understand is to blinker oneself in order to stay sane while yet not shutting down like a dolt. to understand wholly is to utterly eschew all we think of as understanding – it is to simply contemplate the entirety, which will not brook paraphrase, and is so only available to the mystic, or the dog. i think i see now why st john of the cross laughed a great deal, and could make others laugh too: he knew that outside of the vision, nothing was whole, and so laughter was a goodly curb, a subtle bit.

3.

‘you’re a nihilist.’

‘no. i’m just someone who eats mayonnaise for breakfast. there’s no reason for it, not even being a nihilist. i don’t think: oh, there’s no reason to live and God is dead, so i’ll just eat some mayonnaise for breakfast. i just eat the mayonnaise for breakfast.’

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Blogging has resumed at the Daily Kraken, to general rejoicing.