And the queen gave birth to a son named Asterion. — Apollodorus, Library, Ill:i I know that I am accused of arrogance and perhaps misanthropy, and perhaps even madness. These accusations (which I shall punish in due time) are ludicrous. It is true that I never leave my house, but it is also true that its doors (whose number is infinite * ) stand open night and day to men and also to animals. Anyone who wishes to enter may do so. Here, no womanly splendors, no palatial ostentation shall be found, but only calm and solitude. Here shall be found a house like none other on the face of the earth. (Those who say there is a similar house in Egypt speak lies.) Even my detractors admit that there is not a single piece of furniture in the house . Another absurd tale is that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Need I repeat that the door stands open? Need I add that there is no lock? Furthermore, one afternoon I did go out into the streets; if I returned before nightfall, I did so beca...

  31 December 192.  The Emporer Commodus is strangled in his bath by his 'wrestling partner' Narcissus, as seen in BunnyVision©. Take this, Sir, may it serve you well.   One of my first good rabbit drawings, and a favorite.  2013.

 Ludwik Stasiak, 1900.

  On this day I want to tell you about, which will be about a thousand years from now, there were a boy, a girl and a love story. Now although I haven't said much so far, none of it is true. The boy was not what you and I would normally think of as a boy, because he was a hundred and eighty-seven years old. Nor was the girl a girl, for other reasons; and the love story did not entail that sublimation of the urge to rape and concurrent postponement of the instinct to submit which we at present understand in such matters. You won't care much for this story if you don't grasp these facts at once. If, however, you will make the effort, you'll likely enough find it jam-packed, chockfull and tiptop-crammed with laughter, tears and poignant sentiment which may, or may not, be worth while. The reason the girl was not a girl was that she was a boy. How angrily you recoil from the page! You say, who the hell wants to read about a pair of queers? Calm yourself. Here ...

Book VIII, 104-106 [Translated by A.D. Godley, in Herodotus , vol. 4, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1969, pp. 103-107) 104. With these sons he [Xerxes] sent Hermotimus as guardian; most honoured by Xerxes of all his eunuchs. The people of Pedasa dwell above Halicarnassus. This happens among these people: when aught untoward is about to befall within a certain time all those that dwell about their city, the priestess of Athene then grows a great beard. This had already happened to them twice. 105. Hermotimus, who came from this place Pedasa, had achieved a fuller vengeance for wrong done to him than had any man within my knowledge. Being taken captive by enemies and exposed for sale, he was bought by one Panionius of Chios, a man that had set himself to earn a livelihood out of most wicked practices; he would procure beautiful boys and castrate and take them to Sardis and Ephesus, where he sold them for a great price; for the foreigners value eunuchs more than perfect [ enorchiôn , literally ...

  https://youtu.be/AEbBYOBnTzc?list=RDAEbBYOBnTzc        

  I do nothing but worry. I rush into things. I cannot stay focused. I have very bad memories. Dilemma: A situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. Logic is all nonsense to me. I have always felt trapped and redundant. I find socializing a strain. The days blend into months and become years. The world is a fearful place and I am alone. I am always being singled out. Having proved myself I lose interest in any project. My artwork is the same thing over and over again.. . ...as are my dreams. I think I'm perfect in every way... ...yet my sins are always here to stay. There is no escape in this life or the next. Between the motion and the act Falls the Shadow I recommend ...

He's always in by Eight A.M. and working on his Greek And all alone he sweats away week after busy week. The workload hasn't shrunk a bit, and he thinks he's a laggard. But if he's always slovenly, then why's he always haggard? A little turn upon the screw, there's always more that you could do. Success or failure turn on you, you're never ever nearly through. Day in and out you'll find him there with sore and burning eyes. He's getting much of it all wrong, no matter what he tries. And if he fails when failures count, all of it comes to nought, And absolutely nothing is what all that labor's bought. A little turn upon the screw, complaints are of no use to you, They waste your time to study, too, you're never ever nearly through. His back is sore from hunching as he puzzles out old print And spots swim past his vision, and it does no good to squint. His buttocks chafe from sitting in an unforgiving chair As he works on for hours when no...

THE VILLAGE at night made a curiously timeless picture. Fara walked contentedly beside his wife along the street. The air was like wine; and he was thinking dimly of the artist who had come up from Imperial City, and made what the telestats called—he remembered the phrase vividly—" a symbolic painting reminiscent of a scene in the electrical age of seven thousand years ago." Fara believed that utterly. The street before him with its weedless, automatically tended gardens, its shops set well back among the flowers, its perpetual hard, grassy sidewalks, and its street lamps that glowed from every pore of their structure—this was a restful paradise where time had stood still. And it was like being a part of life that the great artist’s picture of this quiet, peaceful scene before him was now in the collection of the empress herself. She had praised it, and naturally the thrice-blest artist had immediately and humbly begged her to accept it. What a joy it must be to be able to of...