The furnace’s boiler cracked while I was out of town and the house is so cold that putting my hands in the refrigerator warms them up, which is helpful since I have to warm the TV remote in my hands before it will work.

Walking the Berkshires is […] an eclectic weaving of human narrative, natural history, and conservation science with the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills as both its backdrop and point of departure. I am interested in how land and people, past and present manifest in the broader landscape and social fabric of our communities.

As fame-hungry wannabes around the country flock to auditions to spend next summer in the Big Brother house, the Manchester Museum is launching its own version by advertising for a hermit to live in the gothic tower overlooking the grounds.

@ 24 Hour Museum

I do not belong
in this far north town
where there are tales
of men and bear who marry.
I’d never live near
the allusive luscious
sea with you.

Stand on your
hind legs, Bear, and I
will stand on mine, let’s
face each other down.

~ Karen Chase, from “Bear Safety”

Thanks, Susan. Feel free to keep coming back and plugging your business. I have recently purchased eight insurance plans from the link provided. I am indestructible. I’m going to go 2 Fast 2 Furious on everyone’s ass. Look out, drivers of Monroe county and surrounding regions.

When life gives you comment spam, make lemonade a story out of it. Hilarious.

Misterstourworm is a collaboration between Savourna Stevenson, the harpist and composer, and Stuart Paterson, the Fife-based playwright who, for more than 20 years, has adapted children’s myths and legends for the stage.

The work is the result of what Stevenson called a “life-changing” grant of £25,000 made by Creative Scotland in 2001.

It enabled the couple to create a tale set in a mythical Scotland in which a young hero embarks on a magical quest to free his people from a fearsome, fire-breathing sea monster, Misterstourworm.

Severed Press seeks short stories for its new anthology, Dead Bait. Stories should have a Fishing or fish/sea life theme. Genetically altered Frankenfish, Zombie Whales sticking it to Japanese whalers, killer bass in secluded lakes, monsters from the deep, voodoo zombies from puffer fish toxins or maybe that tiny fish from the Amazon that swims up your wiener are just a few ideas. Stories can be based any where in the world and be salt or freshwater.

The prospect of an entire anthology only about “that tiny fish,” the candirú, is frightening enough on its own. Frankencandirú, zombie candirú, whale-sized candirú, and so on. Yikes.

Snowgrains swirling in every direction, the Etch-A-Sketch face of the world is refreshed.

He loved winter more than the other seasons, loved a tender snowfall, loved the savage north wind and the blinding light off a frozen lake, loved most a blizzard, which he faced head-on like a bison. He would not admit these things, however, because in his superstition he believed that by revealing desires about sacred subjects, such as weather and seasons, you would likely received the opposite of what you wanted. Therefore, at this time of year, Howard could be heard complaining about cold, moaning over oil bills, claiming that if he had the money, he would take his family to Florida and never come back.

Ever since he was a boy, Howard had taken secret pleasure in disasters. Blizzards, floods, and hurricanes thrilled him as if the excesses of nature were his own. Disasters were his allies, his brothers; he himself was a disaster waiting to happen, he thought with pride. All his life he had misunderstood the phrase ‘bull in a china shop’ to be a compliment

~ Ernest Hebert, The Dogs of March

Finally the search was over, and the scientists and astronauts all returned to Earth. “Sorry,” they told the large crowd that had begun to gather as their ship landed. “It turns out there’s no life anywhere else in the universe.”

“Are you sure?” someone called out from the crowd.

“Yes,” one of the scientists replied. “We checked.”

~ Kevin Fanning @ Monkeybicycle