something squidly.  something cephalopodelicious. something Kraken. Now Miéville is my boi, and I love almost everything he writes, but I didn’t really expect to embrace the squid, to tell you the truth — however, so far I’m loving  it. I’m on page 85 and I’m finding it unexpectedly outré-whimsical and Gaimanesque, which is fine by me. This book is so not taking itself seriously, and I’m kind of liking “Chuckles Miéville.” I just wonder if he wrote it because most people probably think his last name is Melville? Nothing like a giant sea monster to muddy the waters, is what I always say.

Eleanor Perenyi in the New York Review of Books seems to share my puzzlement over why STW has been so criminally neglected in modern publishing. Except, um … this was written over 25 years ago, and nothing has changed.

“Lolly Willowes” is among my top 10 favorite books… possibly among the top five, and the contemporary novelist Townsend-Warner most reminds me of is another of my literary passions, Hilary Mantel (who, at least lately, has been accorded due respect), especially when thinking of Mantel’s “Fludd,” and perhaps, “Beyond Black”. Le sigh, Sylvia.

Okay, here’s my super seekrit^* recipe for the fastest, easiest biscuits in the world, whenever you don’t have the ingredients or don’t feel like farting around with cutting in butter and shortening and ice water and all that:

• 1 cup of self-rising flour
• three tablespoons of mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup of milk.

Mix it up, and spoon into an oiled muffin tin (it makes about four or five in my muffin tin). Bake at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. I’m pretty sure these would work fine on a cookie tray as well. So easy! You can add cheese and herbs, or sugar and anything else you want for a sweet version.

If you don’t have self-rising flour, add 1/2 tsp. of salt, and 1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder.

* I found it on the internet

This giant blue bear peeks into the windows of the Denver Convention Center. (Not sure who took this photo, but I found it here.) According to this Flickr user, it’s called “I See What You Mean,” a steel sculpture, encased in a fiberglass and cement composite, by artist Lawrence Argent.

Shepard Fairey’s Palestinian woman from the Obey series. You can find some nice hi-res images from Fairey and other artists in neonmonster’s post about the Wynwood Walls street art project in Miami.

I’m a big fat sucker for these kinds of shots. This wonderful photo is by sibemolle/Donato Buccella.

If you are setting up your blog using the original Autofocus theme, you will have noticed that you don’t have an archive link. Now, you can just go get Autofocus+, instead, which includes archives and all other sidebar info at the bottom. But if you want to stick with 1.0.1 (I’m very fond of its stubbornly minimalist personality) and just want a separate archive page, you can do that. It’s quite simple, but there are some things to be aware of.

To create an archives page, just go to “Pages” > “Add New” and create a page and name it “Archives” or whatever you want to call it. Under “Page Attributes,” choose “Archives Page,” and click “Publish”. Now go to “Appearance” > “Widgets, ” and drag over the Archives widget (and whatever else you want to show up on your new page) into the sidebar column, then go back to “Pages” and in quick edit, click “Update,” and your sidebar info will show up on your new page (and the new page will show up on the front page).

The only thing is, you may want to keep track of how well the new page updates. In my experience so far, the archives do update automatically, but I also have categories and some other things on my page, and they don’t always seem to update. If you find that your page is not reflecting the newest additions for whatever you have chosen to appear there, just go to “Pages,” select your Archive/whatever-you-called-it page and click “Update.”

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The above image is by artist Lori Nix, from her great diorama series, “The City” series, about which she says:

In my newest body of work “The City” I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it’s human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man’s encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.

PHOTO CREDIT:  Lori Nix

The Autofocus WordPress theme was designed for photographers or artists to display their own images, so there is an automatic copyright notice for the top image on a post, which displays on hover. The same function disables the right-click “view image.” But since I’m not using the blog to post only my own images, I don’t want © 2010 Taz showing up on other people’s work; I’m also not crazy about losing the right click functionality, since I use it all the time — to search using the Tineye Firefox add-on, for example. However, I was unable to find any tips about how to change this feature, so here’s what I did:

In the Single Post (single.php) template, I removed this line:

<span>&copy; <?php the_time('Y'); ?> <?php the_author(); ?></span>

Just remember, if you are going to edit any of the templates, it’s wise to save a good copy before fiddling around. I just save a txt file that I can copy/paste back into the edit window if I need to.

PHOTO CREDIT: photo by Sivi Steys

Beautiful red on red images from Spanish artist Salustiano (yes, only the one name, apparently.)

Way cool money origami by Won Park highlighted in this Design Inspiration post. The details are awesome; I love how the swirl flourishes are used to represent the eyes on this one! His Deviant Art gallery is here. And, by the way, Won Park does not live in a Garbage Truck.