[EnviroEngr]

Both The Tempest and Prospero's Books are on their way. When I get 'em, I'll try to find the insect answer.

[EnviroEngr]

7. The Book of Colours

This is a large book bound in crimson watered silk. It is broader than it is high, and when opened the double-page spread makes a square. The three hundred pages cover the colour spectrum in finely differentiated shades moving from black back to black again. When opened at a double spread, the colour so strongly evokes a place, an object, a location or a situation that the associated sensory sensation is directly experienced. Thus a bright yellow-orange is an entry into a volcano and a dark blue-green is a reminder of deep sea where eels and fish swim and splash your face.

[nailud]

There once was a planet called earth,
With humans, who loved to give birth.
They bred, and they bred
Till they couldn't be fed.
How much was a birth on earth worth?

[k_semler]

From The Decline and Collapse of Pax Americana:

[i]Jonathan walked behind the Presidential desk in the Oval Office and looked out the window to a partially illuminated city. “Now we will bring some order to this mess.â€

[k_semler]

A SOLDIER'S PRAYER


I want you to close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands.

He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and the carnage of war.

He stands tough, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this...

I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it.

I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains.

I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business.

I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.

It's the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press.

It's the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.

It's the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.

It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag!!!

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen.
--Unknown Author

[EnviroEngr]

8 The Vesalius Anatomy of Birth

Vesalius produced the first authoritative anatomy book; it is astonishing in its detail, macabre in its single mindedness. This Anatomy of Birth, a second volume now lost, is even more disturbing and heretical. It concentrates on the mysteries of birth. It is full of descriptive drawings of the workings of the human body which, when the pages open, move and throb and bleed. It is a banned book that queries the unnecessary processes of ageing, bemoans the wastages associated with progeneration, condemns the pains and anxieties of childbirth and generally questions the efficiency of God.

[EnviroEngr]

Now that the tape's in, I can answer some Prospero questions soon.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnviroEngr', 'N')ow that the tape's in, I can answer some Prospero questions soon.

[EnviroEngr]

9 An Alphabetical Inventory of the Dead

This is a funereal volume, long and slim and bound in silver bark. It contains all the names of the dead who have lived on earth. The first name is Adam and the last is Susannah, Prospero's wife. The names are written in many inks and many calligraphies and are arranged in long columns that sometimes reflect the alphabet, sometimes a chronology of history, but often use taxonomies that are complicated to unravel, such that you may search many years to find a name, but be sure it will be there. The pages of the book are very old and are watermarked with a collection of designs for tombs and columbariums, elaborate headstones, graves, sarcophagi and other architectural follies for the dead, suggesting the book had other purposes, even before the death of Adam.

[EnviroEngr]

10 A Book of Travellers' Tales

This is a book that is much damaged, as though used a great deal by children who have treasured it. The scratched and rubbed crimson leather covers, once inlaid with a figurative gold design, are now so worn that the pattern is ambiguous and a fit subject for much speculation. It contains those marvels that travellers talk of and are not believed. 'Men whose heads stood in their breasts', 'bearded women, a rain of frogs, cities of purple ice, singing camels, Siamese twins', 'mountaineers dew-lapped like bulls'. It is full of illustrations and has little text.

[Petro]

Greenaway's movies are brilliant...Prospero's Books was a non-stop panarama of visual genius...you might want to check out 'The Pillow Book, and/or "Drownign By Numbers", and of course The Cook, The Theif, His wife, and her lover"...and and and heh check all his stuff out

[EnviroEngr]

11 The Book of the Earth

A thick book covered in khaki-coloured webbing, its pages are impregnated with the minerals, acids, alkalis, elements, gums, poisons, balms and aphrodisiacs of the earth. Strike a thick scarlet page with your thumbnail to summon fire. Lick a grey paste from another page to bring poisonous death. Soak a further page in water to cure anthrax. Dip another in milk to make soap. Rub two illustrated pages together to make acid. Lay youur head on another page to change the colour of your hair. With this book, Prospero savoured the geology of the island. With its help, he mined for salt and coal, water and mercury; and also for gold, not for his purse, but for his arthritis.

[katkinkate]

Ode to cask wine
by Katkinkate

The tap in the fridge is my best friend.
I visit it at my work day's end.
It makes me cheerie and I begin to frolic.
No wonder friends say I'm'n alcohol'hic!

[EnviroEngr]

Raspberries?

You're just being modest.


Australian wines are some of the best I've ever unwound with. You're in the right and a damn fine poet too. Celtic?

[EnviroEngr]

12 A Book of Architecture and Other Music

When the pages are opened in this book, plans and diagrams spring up fully-formed. There are definitive models of buildings constantly shaded by moving cloud-shadow. Noontime piazzas fill and empty with noisy crowds, lights flicker in noctural urban landscapes and music is played in the halls and towers. With this book, Prospero rebuilt the island into a palace of libraries that recapitulate all the architectural ideas of the Renaissance.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnviroEngr', '1')2 A Book of Architecture and Other Music

When the pages are opened in this book, plans and diagrams spring up fully-formed. There are definitive models of buildings constantly shaded by moving cloud-shadow. Noontime piazzas fill and empty with noisy crowds, lights flicker in noctural urban landscapes and music is played in the halls and towers. With this book, Prospero rebuilt the island into a palace of libraries that recapitulate all the architectural ideas of the Renaissance.

[EnviroEngr]

Did I miss something?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnviroEngr', 'D')id I miss something?

[EnviroEngr]

Yes, I did.

The tape still sits in the cellophane wrapper and you need that insect question answered. Must.... view..... movie....


If I don't know who I am, how can I tell you who I am? Maybe you can somehow find out who I am, answer your own question and then educate me.