Though Homer insists she was mortal. (222)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Aquinas knew almost nothing about history. (223)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Maigret. (224)
#DMCastofCharacters

Does it go without saying that this upstairs presence would accentuate Protagonist’s sense of his aloneness? (225)
#Reader/Protagonist

Does it go without saying that he deplores being alone? (226)
#Reader/Protagonist

Vladimir Mayakovsky shot himself in the head. He may have been playing Russian roulette rather than definitely intending suicide.
But in either event had put on a clean shirt first. (227)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #ThisIsTheEndMyFriend

Mênin aeïde, thea. (228)
#DMBookshelf #DMquotations

George Gissing’s first wife became a prostitute. His second wife went mad. (229)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

No one nodding to him on the street in passing after all? Something more categorical? (230)
#Reader/Protagonist

I am completely alone here now? (231)
#Reader/Protagonist

Helen was not the first petticoat that caused a war. Says Burton in the Anatomy. (232)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMCastofCharacters #DMBookshelf #Bigotry

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in Caveat to Aspiring Immortals series here.

Jim Carr was in class
and told me everything.
Her chalky fingers 
pointing at them,
she said crazy things
about pushing strollers
with her friends,
the colors that would 
bring you luck
in your wedding, 
her sister’s babies, 
and strangely enough,
reproduction stats.
“One in four infants…”
“The highest risk of…”
“Distended ovaries occur…”
She just kept going with those.

That’s when she lost it–
throwing chalk at the board,
breaking biology models, 
pushing books off desks−
everyone left. 
Ms. Hennings oblivious,
in a world of rage.
She was tearing 
the Krebs cycle
off the wall
when principal Clark 
and Mrs. Viebrock arrived.  

Check out other work in the Light series here.

Tolstoy’s wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times. (213)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #Numbers

An illiterate, underbred book. Said Virginia Woolf of Ulysses. (214)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #DMquotations #GreatsOnGreats

I can’t even pronounce the filthy thing. Said Wallace Stevens of the word womb in a poem. (215)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMquotations #Bigotry

All legends to the contrary, Empedocles did not leap into Mount Etna. Or even die in Sicily. (216)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map

Byron was nine when he was introduced to sex by his nurse, one May Gray. (217)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Big woman,
You made a bad boy out of me

How well insulated would the ceiling of a former garage be? Would Ishmael/Meursault/Kurtz be aware of virtually every movement on the floor above? (218)
#Reader/Protagonist #DMCastofCharacters #DMBookshelf

Tony Trollope, he was naturally called. (219)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Madeleine Grey. The Chants d’Auvergne. (220)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
Rule: Listen to any piece of music mentioned. 

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in the Dirty Dish Gallery here.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
   Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
Sailed on a river of crystal light
   Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
   The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring-fish
   That live in this beautiful sea;
   Nets of silver and gold have we,”
            Said Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
   Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
   That lived in the beautiful sea.
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
   Never afraid are we!”
   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home:
‘Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
   As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea;
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

By Eugene Field

Check out other work in the Strange Faces Other Minds series.

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Brunelleschi was the first Renaissance artist about whom a full-length biography was written. (204)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

I am weary, Ananda, and wish to lie down. (205)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #DMquotations 

June 22, 1633:
With sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and abhor the aforesaid errors and heresies contrary to the Holy Church, and I swear that henceforward I will never again say or declare, verbally or in writing, anything that might bring about a similar suspicion toward me. (206)
#DMTimeline #DMquotations

Goethe did not go to bed with a woman until he was forty. (207)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Where would Protagonist’s son and/or daughter be? How often would he see, hear from them? (208)
#Reader/Protagonist

Will he? (209)
#Reader/Protagonist

Samuel Beckett was once forced to hide for ten days under a false floor in Nathalie Sarraute’s Paris attic while working for the Resistance in World War II.  (210)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map #Numbers 

Eppur si muove. (211)
#DMquotations

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in the Paint Chips, Cracks, and Decay series here.