The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
lubricity: (adj.) The more boring definition is a substance’s ability to reduce friction. Oil, for instance, has lubricity. Of course, if you’re a slippery person, lubricity also works for that. So somebody who is lustful or shifty or somebody you wouldn’t want to leave your child with possesses lubricity.
The Daily Lesson
According to NASA (and they should know) in order for a planet to be a planet it must be big enough to have a spherical shape and be big enough that its gravity has cleared out everything else of similar size in its orbit around the sun. Take the Earth, for example. It’s round, or at least, most people think so. And anything reasonably close, such as the moon, has been captured by the Earth’s gravity – the moon has been cleared of any intentions of its own. Now let’s move out to the suburbs, out to Pluto. Yeah, it’s round – for the most part, but... In 2005, the dwarf planet Eris, which is actually bigger than Pluto, was discovered in the same plane as Pluto. Because it’s not orbiting Pluto, it’s not captured by Pluto. But then again, Pluto’s not orbiting Eris, either. Therefore, according to the criteria, neither of them are full-fledged planets. It was on August 24, 2006, that Pluto was demoted from being a planet. Also mark your calendars for February 18. It was on that day, in 1930, that Pluto was first discovered by amateur astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. By the way, Clyde didn’t live to see Pluto demoted, dying in 1997. However, his granddaughter, Venita Burney, who named the former Planet when she was just eleven, died in 2009. Reportedly, her tombstone is engraved with: “It’s a Planet, Damnit!”
Cartoon of the Week
Bear With Me
Stuff
Dog Days
The screen door slams
and bounces and bounces and bounces,
the loose mesh flapping flies,
suspended in the mirage vapours
of awningless sunshine
rising off the cement slab excuse
for a back porch,
flapping them in to dreamily weave the room,
filling shadowed corners with the rise and fall
of meaningless flight.
Eventually to land,
just out of reach of thee swatter.
It is not guessing.
They know.
And there they wait,
rubbing their hands,
waxing their wings,
screwing and unscrewing their heads,
but never quite taking them all the way off.
Until you lunge,
with a magazine
or a newspaper
or even your hand.
And then they’re gone,
to circle once
or twice
and then return,
passing just close enough
to your head
so you’ll hear
the soft snicker of wings.
And all the while,
the never ceasing insult
of the window unit drone
carries beyond the lawnmower line.
It carries from where that damned dog –
our damned dog –
lies beneath the air conditioner
that sticks from the neighbor’s window
like the chubby tongue of some obnoxious child
that you aren’t allowed to swat.
And there, folded into the two feet of shade,
is that damned dog,
lying there like he has nothing else better to do
than just to watch those tiny drops of frustration
let go one at a time,
and drop and drop and drop,
falling into a small puddle of nothing
just beyond his nose.
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