Categories
Book Club Food Meaning of Life Scholarship/Erudition

Lent Prep

We’re preparing our 2024 Lenten menu, and the question of corned beef came up. [Michael] O’Leary will enjoy his corned beef on Friday with a clear conscience — thanks to a special dispensation from another Irish-American, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee. Dolan is among dozens of bishops — from Green Bay, Wis., to Arlington, Va., […]

Categories
America Book Club Current Events Scholarship/Erudition WWRNTLTRN

Heather Cox Richardson

Today’s addition of The Guardian interviews Heather Cox Richardson. HCR is held in the highest regard by WLBOTT, and has been given the honorary title WYNHO. [ed. note: nobody here remembers what WYNHO stands for, but we all agree it is a very good thing. UC#1 is researching.][ed. note: Ace researcher and archivist UC#1 replied […]

Categories
Adventures of the Elders Book Club Canada Will there be a buffet?

A Day in the Life of an Elder – UC#1’s Adventure

Well, I think I mentioned earlier that, after spending most of my retirement fund on a new natural gas furnace / heat pump we noticed our 2013 Honda CRV exhibiting a death rattle when starting cold. Actually, we noticed the sound a few years ago and the local Honda dealer replaced a belt or something […]

Categories
Book Club Fine Arts Heros Meaning of Life

Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout is a fictional character in Kurt Vonnegut’s books: He seems to be Vonnegut’s alter ego, and often represents the pure artist. Lots of interesting background and trivia in the Wikipedia article: And for our friends working in the Rare Book section of the Vatican Library: The arts are not a way to make […]

Categories
Book Club Fine Arts Meaning of Life Scholarship/Erudition

The Fragrance of our Complacency

I thought I was going to successfully complete my voyage on Spaceship Earth without having to deal with John Milton, but no. However, it turned out to be a pretty interesting experience. I was recently introduced a section of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Satan seduced Eve. Art derived from Paradise Lost Gustave Doré We’re […]

Categories
Animal Kingdom Book Club Curated Absurdity Scholarship/Erudition

Smelt Petal: a Serious Semi-Sequitur

It is no secret that WLBOTT is interested in jumping into the highly lucrative book review game – a direct challenge to the Reviewer Cartel (we’re looking at you, New York Times). Our complex book review criteria (the subject of a future BLOTT) led naturally to the discussion of continuous versus non-continuous functions. To get […]

Categories
Book Club Canada Food Meaning of Life

Crab Apples!

[Thanks to UC#1 for today’s post] After the fascinating expose on bovine transportation, and my natural curiosity on whether bovines twine, I decided to ‘think outside the box’ and look for other twine related areas.  The most obvious immediately popped into my head: crab apples! Here are a few photos of my latest crab apple […]

Categories
Book Club Scholarship/Erudition The land, the people, the culture

Cat’s Cradle

I’m re-re-re-reading Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut. The first thing to surprise me was that it was published in 1963. It seems like the kind of book that was published the day before you read it, or re-read it, or re-re-read it. What is a Cat’s Cradle? According to Meriam-Webster…. Semi-sequitur: one cannot think of […]

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Book Club Will there be a buffet?

One Book on a Desert Island

You are Tom Hanks. You are stuck on a desert island. You are trying to remember survival tips from Gilligan’s Island (those poor people!). You are bored out of your mind. One final FedEx package washes up on shore. It contains one book. What would that book be? Will the gods smile upon you? Good […]

Categories
Book Club Scholarship/Erudition

2-Letter Words

At WLBOTT, we have a special place in our hearts for four-letter words. But in an effort to expand our horizons, today we investigate English 2-letter words. Searchable list:  Ew joins another 106 two-letter words, which are aa, ab, ad, ae, ag, ah, ai, al, am, an, ar, as, at, aw, ax, ay, ba, be, bi, […]