root@eruditorum.œrg

The Year of the Gun
(a forgotten Frankenheimer pic)

1989, the number, another [Indian] summer
Sound of the funky drummer

🔀

I apologize for the profanity. ⬆️
Have some New Coke.

Use "heddle" in a sentence, motherfucka. I dare you!

a woman with long dark hair wearing headphones on her head ALT: a woman with long dark hair wearing headphones on her head

LANEY: They didn't follow you?
YAMAZAKI: I don't think so.
L: I could tell if they had
[Yamazaki forces a breath. He thinks of the 17 known strains of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis]
L: They aren't looking for me
Y: No, they are looking for Her.
L: They won't find her
#AllTomorrowsParties

Ash Wednesday

a black and white photo of the shanghai low store Alt: a black and white footage of the Shanghai Low restaurant, from an old movie.

NELL: I am, of course, aware that I have favorable prospects in the Atlantan phyle, but I do not think that it would be fitting for me to take the straight and narrow path. I am going to China now to seek my fortune.
CONSTABLE MOORE: Well, look out for the Fists. They are coming now.
#DiamondAge

a person riding a skateboard in a pool with the olympic rings in the back ALT: a person riding a skateboard in a pool with the olympic rings in the back

NELL: Farewell, Miss Matheson. I will never forget you.
MISS: Nor I you, though admittedly that is not saying much.

"Your destiny is marked in some way, Nell. I have known it since the day Lord Finkle-McGraw asked me to admit you—a ragged little thete girl"
This struck Nell like a sudden cold wind & stripped away the soporific cloud of sentimentality. Now she stood exposed & vulnerable. But not unpleasantly so.

Uyutov Alexuyutov GIF ALT: Uyutov Alexuyutov GIF

MISS MATHESON: It is the hardest thing in the world to make educated Westerners pull together. That is the job of people like Miss Stricken. She is like an avatar—do you children know about avatars? She is the physical embodiment of a principle.

Chain link fencing with a gate that surrounds a tennis court.

EQUITY LORD ALEXANDER CHUNG-SIK FINKLE-MCGRAW: Nell knows what a wall is. It is a knowledge that went into her early, knowledge she doesn't have to think about. Nell is more interested in gates than in walls. Secret, hidden gates are particularly interesting.
_The Diamond Age

MISS MATHESON: I know that you have a secret, Nell, though I cannot imagine what it is. It has made you different from any other girl I've ever taught. You can try to act the same & you can even take the Oath, but it's all a lie. You are different.
#DiamondAge

A dishwasher that washes dishes.

Well @merriam-webster.com 🇺🇸 holds that the "primer" that's a book is pronounced primmer. The Dictionary Men didn't explain why.
The word has 2 other definitions, in which case it's pronounced PRIME-ur:
undercoat paint
detonation ignition product

I dog paddled in unfamiliar waters, fiddling with the LOC number.

Nell didn't call it her magic book anymore, she called it by the name printed plain as day on the title page, which she'd only been able to read recently:
YOUNG LADY'S ILLUSTRATED PRIMER
a Propædeutic Enchiridion
in which is told the tale of
Princess Nell
& her various friends, kin, associates, &c..

from the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer:
DINOSAUR: But we are so busy with our drills and exercises. Do we have time to play games with the child, as you promised?
DOJO: What is a game but a drill that's dressed up in colorful clothing?

An Indonesian corrections officer holds a rattan cane.

Hackworth's caning went by quickly & efficiently. The pain sent him straight into shock. Chang pulled his flaccid body off the rack & bore him over to a hard cot, where he lay semiconscious for a few minutes. They brought him tea—a nice Keemun with distinct lavender notes.
#DiamondAge

CANTRELL: Everyone agrees the specific steps in this transform are a little bit peculiar & wonders who came up w/them & how, which isn't uncommon w/good cryptosystems. The verdict is root@eruditorum.org knows what he's doing―notwithstanding his strange fixation on the number 54. >

I'm waiting for this thread to bend its way back to Jesus getting off the cross on his own power.

Was he rolling up his sleeves?

No, i thought that was wax

how to print greetings on kraft singles

Neal Stephenson knows how to invent a new kind of nerd in each of his novels.

Fail Donald Trump GIF by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Find & Share on GIPHY Discover & share this The Daily Show GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

BIGEND: That’s often problematic. A watershed. Not everyone makes it. By the time you’re big enough to have lawyers willing to sufficiently make the case for legitimization, you’re quite big, & highly illegitimate.
MILGRIM: I knew a drug dealer who bought a Saab dealership.

A line-drawing from The Phantom Tollbooth: Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason speaking with Milo while Tock and The Humbug listen.

MILO: It's been a long trip, but we wouldve been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes.
👑REASON: You must never feel badly about making mistakes…For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than by being right for the wrong reasons.
#ThePhantomTollbooth
#ListentoReason

#ChangeMonsterToHamster

Hamstrosity

Maybe the aliens see us as Applebee's whereas they have reservations for Compère Lapin.

But if you put them on upside down, you can walk on ice