It’s intimidating to write about this book for two reasons:

Firstly, after reading a book subtitled “Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase,” you might have a high expectation for my recap. If the book was so damned good, why isn’t Gordon’s writing any better?

Secondly, when I reached the end of this book, I was surprised at how many of my beloved Redi-Tags that I had used to mark passages that I want to revisit. As you can see in the photo, there was much about this book that intrigued me.

So, what follows are just a few of the tidbits. But briefly, If you are a person who loves words, and you want to have a better understanding of how the English language can be honed, polished, and wielded, I think you’ll enjoy this book too.

• The inescapable conclusion for me is that despite having spent much of my career was a writer, almost all the discussion about rhetoric, and some finer points about grammar, were new to me. Was this a part of my college English curriculum that I’ve forgotten, or is this nuts-and-bolts approach to language relegated to senior humanities courses?
• Perhaps the answer to the above is found in this quote: “Stern people dislike rhetoric, and unfortunately, it’s usually stern people who are in charge: solemn fools who believe that truth is more important than beauty.” I was trained by stern sociologists, so I suppose that might explain the gaps in this part of my knowledge.
• I’m an admirer of alliteration, but when it’s used too much it’s called paroemion. I wish I had known this word earlier so I could have used it in defending my work from some rather rhadamanthine reviewers.
• Similarly, I could have also used Hyperbaton, which is the practice of putting words in an odd order. It would have helped to know then when I was trying to explain why a phrase just didn’t sing for me, particularly.
• Am I making this book sound stuffy? The author, Mark Forsyth, uses humor and contemporary references to illustrate his points. I especially enjoyed his examples from songs by the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. (I also learned a lot about the works of Shakespeare, revealing another apparent gap in my education.)
• Speaking of Shakespeare, for the first time in my life, I understand the mechanics of verse and pentameter. Suffice to say that chapter twenty-one was a delightful and useful surprise.
• Not only did the Romans make willy-nilly changes to the Greek pantheon, they also freely renamed (and redefined) rhetoric, making it hard to study. The bastards!
• I really appreciated how the author, Mark Forsyth, delightfully crafted each chapter to support the technique he’s discussing. This book would be great to read twice, so you could better appreciate its subtle and studied self-application. (However, I won’t read it again, the allure of unread books is too great to resist, and I’m running out of time to read everything I’d like to.)
• Despite having grown up in Utah, I was unaware of the “Mormon Sex in Chains” case of 1977. (aka The Manacled Mormon) Also, thanks to trying to find info about this after a reference in the book, I discovered that Mormon p0rn is a thing.

I bought my copy of this book at the charming Unabridged Bookstore in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. But, of course, you can also find it in the Amazon.

This slim, pocket-sized volume by Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe is sixteenth in the Little Walks for Sightseers series, published by American Fantasy Press of Woodstock, Illinois. I have the third printing, which features a cover by the legendary Gahan Wilson.

I was drawn to this book because the title led me to ass/u/me it was about The Shambles in York, England. (A magical, haunted place that I hope to visit again someday.) Imagine my surprise, tho, to discover that this book is actually about a neighborhood here in Chicago — one that I’ve never heard of, despite it being just a stone’s throw away from my own walking tour. Amazing!

As I read, I learned that I had indeed visited Chicago’s Shambles many times. Decorum, and the Fifth Amendment, prevent me from saying too much, but I can confirm that this book is even more parafactual than my Bizarre Fact Files.

There’s a lot to admire about this book; the writing is clever, smart, punny, and in several ways it reminded me of the dearly departed Douglas Adams.

As noted in my last book review, we are born with the ability to enjoy and relish our imaginations. It’s time for you to recapture that ability as an adult, and this guidebook will certainly help. And, no, I won’t give you directions to Molly Graw’s restaurant, but the grapefruit with Ginger sounds lovely; provided Ginger is working that day. Get your copy of this book at the Amazon.

This book is subtitled “Connecting to the Fae in the Modern World.” And let’s get one thing out of the way now—to get any enjoyment from this charming book by Tara Sanchez you have to be inclined to agree with her statement:

“The skill of imagination is one we have in abundance as children. Yet as adults, our social conditioning relieves us of one of the most valuable magical skills we will ever possess: the ability to imagine.”

I enjoyed this book, and I love the attempt at imagining how the fae might be part of the urban world. The books also covers how to spot signs of their likely presence, how to invite interaction with them, and how to tell when it’s safe (or not) to do so. It even includes chants, lures, and recipes for fairy treats to aid in your quest.

I also learned a lot about different types and alignments of fairies, and that genius loci (house spirit) is not a fae at all. I especially enjoyed the discussion of the Will-o’-the-wisp, given my visitations.

One of Sanchez’s observations that I found particularly interesting is how, in current times, spirituality (broadly speaking) is primarily driven by what it can do for the practitioner. An attitude of “what can you do for me” will not get you very far in the fairy world, she cautions.

Throughout the book are brief recaps of legend and lore that I hadn’t encountered before. (For example, hiding an old shoe in the wall of a building under construction to ward away goblins, demons, and elves.) There are also numerous contemporary references to locations that have ties to fairy occupation—such as the Fairy Bridge on the Isle of Man where, tradition holds, you must greet the fae while crossing.

And speaking of contemporary, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the entries in the bibliography are recent publications. Who knew that so many books about fairies have been published in the last couple of decades? (I was expecting them to all be of Brothers Grimm vintage.)

In a discussion of the intersection of fairy study and Eastern philosophy, there’s a tangent about the ages of mankind. We are currently living in the age of Iron, which, as Sanchez observes, is a rather alarming description of the worst part of our world:

… during this age, humans live an existing of toil and misery. Children dishonor their parents, family feuds cause deep rifts, and bad people use lies to be thought good.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit. Sanchez’s writing style is warm and easy, and if you’re willing to go along the journey, she’ll help you see your city in a new light. (Check out her website.) This book was published in 2021 by noted woo-woo publisher Llewellyn and I got my copy at Quimby’s Books in Chicago, but of course, it’s also found at the Amazon.

Dumbasté -- the moron in me recognizes the moron in you.

Alabama fails to reverse ban on school yoga as conservatives say they fear rise in Hinduism

I open my post office box and on top of the week’s mail is a peach-colored notification slip. For most people, “Oh! I have a package to pick up!” would be a joyful surprise. But those people don’t live in my neighborhood. Here, the thrill of a pick-up is also delivered with no small measure of trepidation. (My local post office was once rated by the Postmaster General as the worst in the country.)

The post office, located on a busy Chicago street, still smells like the shoe store that previously occupied the storefront. I notice when I arrive that there are only five people ahead of me in line, which is pretty much like winning the lottery. The plexiglass plague shields, along with the mandatory face masks, require people to speak loudly, which lets me eavesdrop while I wait for my turn.

A twenty-year-old brunette is at the counter. She asks the clerk “Do I need to put a return address on this package?”

The clerk replies, “Yes, all mail should have a return address.”

“Where does it go?”

“In the upper-left corner, but you wrote the destination address up there, which is going to confuse everyone.” “Here,” she says, handing over a pen, “write your return really small above it.”

“OK, thanks. I thought it might need one, but I didn’t know where it went.”

As this conversation is taking place, another young woman arrives. She’s carrying a shopping bag full of small pre-paid packages. I decide that she’s an Etsy seller, shipping out orders. (She seems crafty.) She begins piling the packages on the far counter, which is the designated spot for dropping off ready-to-go packages, but she has so many that she has to carefully balance them on top of each other. The clerk notices this and yells at her for not asking for a bin to hold the packages. The girl sheepishly takes the bin she’s given and empties the bag, leaving the bin on the counter.

As she’s departing, she passes another woman, who is entering. This new woman approaches the drop-off counter, gingerly peeks inside the bin, then rudely interrupts the clerk to ask if it’s OK to add her single package. She gets a surly “That’s what it’s for” in reply.

The next person to approach the counter is an older Asian lady. I think she’s with the half-dozen young Asian women who are huddling just inside the door. The ethnic similarity between the old woman and the young group triggers something in the clerk. She yells across the lobby that the group needs to get out of the way of the door. The group, startled, timidly shifts around, then after a few seconds, exits en masse. Their reaction and movements remind me of gazelles being stalked by a lion. (I sure do miss Marlin Perkins.)

Meanwhile, the older Asian woman at the counter tells the clerk she needs to send something via “certificate mail.” I wince, presuming that the clerk will harshly correct her, but instead she points her towards the forms on the other side of the room. Then, noticing the woman is holding a loose stack of papers, she also directs her towards a rack where she can pick out an envelope to buy. (By the time I leave, the old woman will still be filling out the form. Her young friends huddling outdoors clogging the sidewalk, oblivious to the dirty looks from people leaving the nearby L station.)

I hear an exaggerated sigh behind me, I turn my head slightly to glance at the woman in line behind me. She’s impatiently shifting her weight from foot to foot, as if her fidgeting is a magical dance that will hurry things along.

The next person to approach the clerk doesn’t have an envelope either, but she wants to send Priority Mail and the clerk has a flat-rate envelope at hand. As the transaction is continuing, the customer removes a crumpled letter from her purse and asks why it was delivered to her home. The clerk takes it, compares it to the Priority Mail envelope that the lady has just finished addressing, and says, quizzically, “Because it’s addressed to you…?”

“Oh no, I sent this. The address it was going to is here,” she says, turning the envelope over to reveal its back.

The clerk looks at her in silence for a couple of seconds and says, “Well, that’s why it came back to you.”

“Oh, I guess I accidentally sent it to myself then.” She reaches into her purse again and removes yet another letter. “Well, why did this one come back to me?”

The clerk pauses for a longer time. Her eyes darting between the customer and the envelope. I think she’s counting silently to herself. Finally, she says, “This is a business reply envelope. You can’t cross out the ComEd address and send to somewhere else instead.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Her questions answered, and her transaction completed, the woman leaves.

The lady behind me clucks her tongue loudly.

Next is a young lady who pre-paid for her package online and believes, falsely, that she can just hand it over and walk away. The clerk stops her from leaving because she has used a Priority Mail box, but paid for First Class. The clerk tells her to repack the item into a plain box, which she must purchase, as only Priority boxes are free.

The next person to approach the clerk is a woman who has been busily packing and addressing an Express Mail envelope while she’s in line. My mind is wandering, so I miss the start of their interaction, but I’m jolted back to attention when the customer loudly exclaims “Twenty-Six dollars? You gotta be kidding.” The clerk says that is what Express Mail costs.

“Express Mail? I didn’t ask for no Express Mail! Just regular mail is fine.”

“You put it in an Express Mail envelope.”

“I didn’t know that meant twenty-six dollars.”

“Go put it in a Priority Mail envelope instead, then come back up here,” the clerk suggests.

The lady walks away waving the envelope at all of us in line — “you all watch out for these twenty-six dollar envelopes! They don’t look like they are twenty-six dollars but they sure are!” She cackles, “that’s one expensive envelope!”

At last, it is my turn. I hand the clerk my peach-colored notification slip and show her my identification when she asks to see it. Meanwhile, a second clerk opens her window and the lady from behind me rushes towards it.

She plops the package down on the scale and, with a voice dripping with frustration, says, “Priority Mail.” The clerk glances at the package and slides if off the scale saying “This is the wrong kind of tape, I can’t accept this package.” “What? Are you kidding me‽” The tone of the lady’s voice catches the attention of the clerk who is helping me, and she chimes in ; “You can’t use masking tape, it won’t stay sealed.”

“It’s the only tape I have.”

“It’s an FAA regulation, you have to use packing tape.”

“This is ridiculous!” She picks up her package and stomps out the door.

My clerk retreats to the back room to locate my package. While I wait, a middle-aged hispanic man approaches the other clerk with a dirty and dented Priority Mail box. He says “I’ve mailed this twice and both times it has come back to me. Why?”

Just then, my clerk returns holding my package. It’s a book sent to me from a magician in Singapore, so it requires a signature release. The clerk asks to see my identification again, I scrawl a “signature” on the touch screen with my finger, and I depart.

I guess I’ll never know why that guy’s package keeps coming back.

(Photo by Tim Evans on Unsplash. Thanks!)