Only that nothing's exactly as it appears

Right, that international book week meme. The fifth sentence on page 52 of the closest book to me, sans context:

It's the voice of an invalid, of a monster in pain.

(I'm not sure what the lack of context adds to the experience, but it's the topmost book on the window-seat stack closest to my desk. I got it from rushthatspeaks.)

They also say that I bring back the past

My poems "Settling Accounts" and "Trying for It," otherwise known as the poem I wrote for asakiyume on the spring full moon of Nisan and the poem I wrote for Thomas Andrews on the centenary of the Titanic, have been accepted by The Revelator, where my Lovecraft poem "Being Providence" has already found a home. I hadn't intended for them to be published as a sort of gerund triptych, but I'm really not going to complain now that it's happening. The editors suggest a new poetic form: the tri-Taaffe. I should let them collage all my work.

Discovered last night: John Coulthart's "S. Latitude 47° 9', W. Longitude 126° 43'." I really want a print. I wonder if I can get it without buying the calendar. Apparently I should read more William Hope Hodgson.

I photograph and catalogue and pack and send them home

The University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum are crowdsourcing the transcription of documents from the 1922–1934 excavation of Ur in Iraq, otherwise known as the dig where Max Mallowan met Agathie Christie. derspatchel sent me the link. I had a wonderful moment of timesink admiration before I realized I knew exactly which dig it was. Nineteen volumes of notes from Leonard Woolley alone, no wonder they want help from the internet. Research assistants have aged and died on lesser timelines. Yes, of course I am thinking about whether this is something I can do.

It must be something about the day. I started my afternoon with a Twitter invitation from Akhenaten.