Codex Sereaphinius (and new blog begins)
Howdy. I'm returning to the blogosphere, and finally starting to post on the blog over at www.rudidornemann.com, where things are cool and green. I'll probably cross-post everything here, though, so you can catch me at either locale.
*Links fixed now*
Came across a reference to an interesting-sounding book, the Codex Seraphinus, an encyclopedia from an imagined world, in a cryptic alphabet and unknown language, but copiously illustrated.
Wikipedia explains, and here's a site by an enthusiast.
I tried to summon one up via interlibrary loan, but (alas) the only copy in Maine is apparently non-circulating.
However, a Google image search turns up lots of scans of random pages. (Including some by someone much luckier at the interlibrary loan game.) It seems like the kind of book that fits well with seeing only a random assortment of pages, and I think I'll be doing some random paging over the next few days.
I came across the Codex via a comment on Boing Boing to a John Hodgman post on gnomes. Which I mention because of the inherent humor value of Hodgman+gnomes and because the post contained the following great quote: "Like the best books, it is unclear exactly who it was meant to reach."
Hodgman, of course, is known for being a PC, a resident expert, and the author of The Areas of My Expertise, which won the Sidewise Award in all the more enlightened alternate universes* (as I'm sure his new one will as well.)
(*Not, however, in ours.)