Snippets

0. As a programming note, regular programming is back, as there's no imminent travel and won't be for a month or two.

1. Frances Cornford, "The Visit":

There is a bed-time sadness in this place
That seemed ahead so promising and sweet,
Almost like music calling us from home;

But now the staircase does not need our feet,
The drawer is ignorant of my brush and comb
The mirror quite indifferent to your face.

(I have always been vaguely fond of Cornford and of good Edwardian writing more generally -- Edward Thomas for example. Fleur Adcock brilliantly characterizes Cornford and her ilk as the "more ladylike" poets of the period; it is worth realizing that this description is not in itself an insult.)

2. from Yves Bonnefoy, "The Tomb of Paul Verlaine":

Humble, out of simple pride, he agreed
To be for others just a mirror
Whose tarnished silver would filter the sky.

Let them see that the sky was in him
At its reddest through the evening leaves
As the pigeons’ cooing darkens. 

Via the indispensable seventydys on twitter.

3. Yet another argument in favor of booze (MetaFilter, via D. Avid):

More commonly known as rat lungworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis is widespread in Southeast Asia and Africa. A growing problem is the spread of this parasite by the giant African land snail. Rat lungworm is known to cause disease in humans, but previously was confined mostly to those who had consumed a Thai dish called koi-hoi containing raw snail meat. Lovers of raw snails need not despair however, a study shows that ingesting alcohol along with your snails lowers the number of viable parasites.