The Tree, c.1938-40 by Thomas Hennell (1903-1945)
Fish Stall (Detail), c. 1620 by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
…it all comes back, the old pleasant month-long Santy-Claus-store-window Christmas. It wasn’t so bad really, the commercial Christmas, a month of Christmas Eves, stores open every night, everyone feeling good and generous and spending money freely, handsome happy Americans making the cash registers jingle, the nice commercial carols, Holy Night, the soft-eyed pretty girls everywhere—
From Walker Percy’s 1971 dystopian speculative fiction novel Love in the Ruins. The narrator, Dr. Thomas More, a bit drunk, reflects back to the pre-revolutionary days of a commercial Christmas.
Do Electric Sheep Dream of Transgenic Flowers?, 2019 by Clive Smith (b. 1967)
Rauhnächte (Rough Nights), 2020 by Rosa Loy (b. 1958)
Fish Stall (Detail), c. 1620 by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
December, 1953 by Paul Jacoulet (1896-1960)
Theory of Catastrophe, 2004 by Malcolm Morley (1931-2018)
Interval, 1975 by Zsuzsi Roboz (1939–2012)
Fish Stall (Detail), c. 1620 by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
Jonah and the Whale, 1967 by Arpad Illes (1908–1980)
Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.
Fish Stall (Detail), c. 1620 by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
December, 1979 by Alex Colville (1920-2013)
SUNDAY
There are seven Sundays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 3 (four instances), Ch. 7, Ch. 85, and Ch. 112).
MONDAY
There are two Mondays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 2 and Ch. 13).
TUESDAY
There are no Tuesdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.
WEDNESDAY
There are no Wednesdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.
THURSDAY
There are no Thursdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.
FRIDAY
There are no Fridays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.
SATURDAY
There are five Saturdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 2, Ch. 3 (two), Ch. 65, and Ch. 67).
And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953 by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011)
Biblioklept 
