Collection

I'm torn between a "who needs garden *gnomes*" joke and a take on the "How does your garden grow? With cockle shells and silver bells, and MEDIEVAL BEASTIES! ROWRRR!!" here. Either way, Jeff Sypeck's garden may (astoundingly) have a cooler guardian than Mojourner Truth's.

But then, Mojourner's got directional hopping. And I've seen at least one living guardian doing a bit of a satan's caper around a fire in *his* garden, so that's pretty monstrous.

Elizabeth Chadwick hosts a guest post from Katrin Kania, on hip huggers, mass production, and medieval clothes making the man. When "one of a kind" was likelier than not! (I would pick only one thread here; historical and quasi-historical clothing is very MUCH mass-produced these days. It may not be accurate, but it's definitely a "thing". Otherwise, American Duchess's beautiful - and, to be sure, customizable - shoes would never sell.)

Carolynn with 2 Ns (one of those reef-ers or Reiders I go on about from time to time, though I've been horribly neglectful of the community and its blogs of late) has some thoughts on ages that are called "certain" (heh - love that phrase!), publishing's slow pace, and prioritization. Those of us beyond the prodigy years can wear ourselves ragged worrying about being too old ...

Finally, Jeff Sypeck again - on how very much more engaging it is to actually read and recite poetry, as opposed to analyzing it. I will refrain from ANY profundities about Michelle Pfeiffer and Black students.

But I have to admit, I never could resist Coolio (and MP's would-be badassery pooch problem in this clip is as hilarious as ever).