Cartographic octopodes

The "land octopus" is historically used on maps to emphasize evil imperialism ... or is it communism? See for yourself. (HT: MetaFilter.)
This post's theme word is solferino, "purplish red color." An imperialist octopus spreads the thick, solferino gore of its rivals across the globe.

Gruesome suppurations of foul-smelling hideousness

This delightful tale comes from Frank Key's Hooting Yard.

I was sitting on a bench in a bower on a bright summer’s day. It was a Wednesday, or possibly a Thursday, in August, in the year after the Kennedy assassination, far far away in Dallas, and the air was heady with verbena, and hollyhock. I was eating my snack. All of a sudden, gruesome suppurations of foul-smelling extraterrestrial hideousness began oozing from my marmalade and fish-head sandwich, and I swooned. When I came to, I had a tiny radio transmitter implanted in my forehead, but I remained unaware of it for the rest of my sordid and sorry life.

My new band names abound! The titular hideousness. "Tiny radio transmitter in my forehead." "Sorry and Sordid Life." "The Titular Hideousness." Frank Key has a way with words -- and with enunciating them on his podcast -- that makes them all land as if immensely important and simultaneously drivel. It delights.


This post's theme word is contumely, "contemptuous or insulting treatment arising from arrogance." The alien anthropologists exhibited remarkable contumely.