#adventures of algy's assistant

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy would like to draw your kind attention to the fact that his assistant, for better or for worse, has today created a new sideblog @photocyclelog… 🚲

Having decided to resume cycling after a gap of a great many more years than she is willing to admit – both for the sake of her health and in order to get out and about without a car – she realised that by taking a pocket camera with her, and posting photos here on tumblr, she would provide herself with an additional incentive to get on her new bike, as the weather in the wild west Highlands of Scotland does not always encourage local residents to rush outside and take exercise… 😀

@photcyclelog will feature only her original photos, mainly taken with a pocket camera, and with minimal text. As it's a sideblog, any comments or replies will therefore come from @adventuresofalgy, which may be confusing…

Algy is of course hoping to accompany his assistant on some of her outings, but his own adventures will always continue to appear here on his own blog.

Algy thanks you very much for your kind indulgence 🚲

[staff]

tumblr tuesday: the adventures of algy

Hello! Happy solstice. What's this, you ask? Well, it's a Tuesday. It's also the end of one of Algy's adventures in Patadragonia. Who's Algy? Algy is a friend-shaped accidental adventurer. In this particular part of his story, he helps a dragon with some mad dance moves join the circus. In Patadragonia. (Sound on for total immersion.)

On the morning of the solstice...

...in the faraway land of Patadragonia, dawn broke with a beautiful deep pink glow over the mountains, and ethereal mists shimmered up from the frosty plains. Algy was still dozing after his long, sleepless night under the full moon when suddenly he heard a most extraordinary sound, and at the same time, he felt the special cherry blossom which he had brought all the way from the magical Easter island begin to vibrate and sparkle on the cold, bare rock behind him...

There was no doubt about it: the moment had arrived…Algy knew that his little dragon friend was about to realize its lifelong dream at last, and although he was sure that he would miss the funny wee creature, he could not have been happier for his very special friend, especially as he felt certain that—so long as he kept the magical cherry blossom safe—they would be bound to meet again in adventures yet to come…

[The circus band is playing the "National Emblem March," composed in 1902 by Edwin Eugene Bagley, in a version created by Algy’s assistants.]

Need more context? Take this cherry blossom back to the beginning or the very beginning. And if you just want to listen to the sounds of Scottish seas, then this one's for you.

[blackkudos]

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany (born April 1, 1942), Chip Delany to his friends, is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.

His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002. From January 1975 until his retirement in May 2015, he was a professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Albany, and Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1997 he won the Kessler Award, and in 2010 he won the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master in 2013.

Early life

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany (1916–1995), was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906–1960), ran the Levy & Delany Funeral Home on 7th Avenue in Harlem, from 1938 until his death in 1960. The civil rights pioneers Sadie and Bessie Delany were his aunts. He used their adventures as the basis for Elsie and Corry in "Atlantis: Model 1924", the opening novella in his semi-autobiographical collection Atlantis: Three Tales. His grandfather, Henry Beard Delany, was the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The family lived in the top two floors of a three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany envied children with nicknames and took one for himself on the first day of a new summer camp, Camp Woodland, at about the age of 12, by answering "Everybody calls me Chip" when asked his name. Decades later, Frederik Pohl called him "a person who is never addressed by his friends as Sam, Samuel or any other variant of the name his parents gave him."

Delany attended the Dalton School and from 1951 through 1956, spent summers at Camp Woodland in Phoenicia, New York, followed by the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program.

Delany has identified as gay since adolescence, though his complicated marriage with Marilyn Hacker (who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce) has led some authors to classify him as bisexual.

Upon the death of Delany's father from lung cancer in October, 1960 and his marriage in August 1961, he and Hacker settled in New York's East Village neighborhood at 629 East 5th Street. Hacker's intervention (while employed as an assistant editor at Ace Books), helped Delany become a published science fiction author by the age of 20, though he actually finished writing that first novel (The Jewels of Aptor) while at 19, shortly after dropping out of the City College of New York after one semester.

Career

He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as two prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and later in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). In 1966, with Hacker remaining in New York, Delany took a five-month trip to Europe, writing The Einstein Intersection while in France, England, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. These locales found their way into several pieces of his work at that time, including the novel Nova and the short stories "Aye, and Gomorrah" and "Dog in a Fisherman's Net".

Weeks after returning, Delany and Hacker began to live separately; Delany played and lived communally for five months on the Lower East Side with the Heavenly Breakfast, a folk-rock band, one of whose members, Bert Lee, was later a founding member of the Central Park Sheiks (the other two members of the quartet were Susan Schweers and Steven Greenbaum [aka Wiseman]); a memoir of his experiences with the band and communal life was eventually published as Heavenly Breakfast (1979). After a very brief time together again, Hacker moved to San Francisco and then England. Delany published his first eight novels with Ace Books from 1962 to 1967, culminating in Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, and Nova, which were consecutively recognized as the year's best novel by the Science Fiction Writers of America (Nebula Awards). Calling him a genius and poet, Algis Budrys listed Delany with J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, and Roger Zelazny as "an earthshaking new kind" of writer,and Judith Merril labelling him "TNT (The New Thing)."

Delany's first short story was published by Pohl in the February 1967 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, and he placed three more in other magazines that year. After four short stories (including the critically lauded "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones") and Nova were published to wide acclaim (the latter by Doubleday, marking Delany's departure from Ace) in 1968 alone, an extended interregnum in publication commenced until the release of Dhalgren (1975), abated only by two short stories, two comic book scripts, and an erotic novel, The Tides of Lust (1973), reissued in 1994 under Delany's preferred title, Equinox.

On New Year's Eve in 1968, Delany moved to San Francisco to join Hacker, who was already there, and again to London in the interim, before Delany returned to New York in the summer of 1971 as a resident of the Albert Hotel in Greenwich Village. In 1972, Delany directed a short film entitled The Orchid (originally titled The Science Fiction Film in the Latter Twentieth Century, produced by Barbara Wise. Shot in 16mm with color and sound, the production also employed David Wise, Adolfas Mekas, and was scored by John Herbert McDowell. In November 1972, Delany was a visiting writer at Wesleyan University's Center for the Humanities. From December 1972 to December 1974, Delany and Hacker lived in Marylebone, London. During this period, he began working with sexual themes in earnest and wrote two pornographic works, one of which (Hogg) was unpublishable due to its transgressive content. Twenty years later, it found print.

Delany wrote two issues of the comic book Wonder Woman in 1972, during a controversial period in the publication's history when the lead character abandoned her superpowers and became a secret agent. Delany scripted issues #202 and #203 of the series. He was initially supposed to write a six-issue story arc that would culminate in a battle over an abortion clinic, but the story arc was canceled after Gloria Steinem complained that Wonder Woman was no longer wearing her traditional costume, a change predating Delany's involvement. Scholar Ann Matsuuchi concluded that Steinem's feedback was "conveniently used as an excuse" by DC management.

Delany's eleventh and most popular novel, the million-plus-selling Dhalgren, was published in 1975 to both literary acclaim (from both inside and outside the science fiction community) and derision (mostly from within the community). Upon its publication, Delany returned to the United States at the behest of Leslie Fiedler to teach at the University at Buffalo as Butler Professor of English in the spring of 1975, preceding his return to New York City that summer. Though he wrote two more major science fiction novels (Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand) in the decade following Dhalgren, Delany began to work in fantasy and science fiction criticism for several years. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was Return to Nevèrÿon, the overall title of the four-volume series and also the title of the fourth and final book. Following the publication of Return to Nevèrÿon, Delany published one more fantasy novel. Released in 1993, They Fly at Çiron is a re-written and expanded version of an unpublished short story Delany wrote in 1962. This would be Delany's last novel in either the science fiction or fantasy genres for many years. Among the works that appeared during this time was his novel The Mad Man and a number of his essay collections.

Delany became a professor in 1988. Following visiting fellowships at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (1977), the University at Albany (1978) and Cornell University (1987), he spent 11 years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo, then, after an invited stay at Yaddo, moved to the English Department of Temple University in January 2001, where he taught until his retirement in April 2015. He served as Critical Inquiry Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago during the winter quarter of 2014.

Beginning with The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977), a collection of critical essays that applied then-nascent literary theory to science fiction studies, he published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In the memoir Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), Delany drew on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men in New York City.

He received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 1993.

In 2007, his novel Dark Reflections was a winner of the Stonewall Book Award. That same year Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, directed by Fred Barney Taylor. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The following year, 2008, it tied for Jury Award for Best Documentary at the International Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Also in 2007, Delany was the April "calendar boy" in the "Legends of the Village" calendar put out by Village Care of New York.

In 2010, Delany was one of the five judges (along with Andrei Codrescu, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott and Carolyn See) for the National Book Awards fiction category. In 2015, the Caribbean Philosophical Association named Delany the recipient of its Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 he received the Brudner Award from Yale University, for his contributions to gay literature. Since 2018, his archive has been housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale where it is currently being organized. Till then, his papers were housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

In 1991, Delany entered a committed, nonexclusive relationship with Dennis Rickett, previously a homeless book vendor; their courtship is chronicled in the graphic memoir Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), a collaboration with the writer and artist Mia Wolff. After fourteen years, he retired from teaching at Temple University.

Delany is an atheist.

Themes

Recurring themes in Delany's work include mythology, memory, language, sexuality, and perception. Class, position in society, and the ability to move from one social stratum to another are motifs that were touched on in his earlier work and became more significant in his later fiction and non-fiction, both. Many of Delany's later (mid-1980s and beyond) works have bodies of water (mostly oceans and rivers) as a common theme, as mentioned by Delany in The Polymath. Though not a theme, coffee, more than any other beverage, is mentioned significantly and often in many of Delany's fictions.

Writing itself (both prose and poetry) is also a repeated theme: several of his characters — Geo in The Jewels of Aptor, Vol Nonik in The Fall of the Towers, Rydra Wong in Babel-17, Ni Ty Lee in Empire Star, Katin Crawford in Nova, the Kid, Ernest Newboy, and William in Dhalgren, Arnold Hawley in Dark Reflections, John Marr and Timothy Hasler in The Mad Man, and Osudh in Phallos – are writers or poets of some sort.

Delany also makes use of repeated imagery: several characters (Hogg, the Kid, and the sensory-syrynx player, the Mouse, in Nova; Roger in "We .. move on a rigorous line") are known for wearing only one shoe; and nail biting along with rough, calloused (and sometimes veiny) hands are characteristics given to individuals in a number of his fictions. Names are sometimes reused: "Bellona" is the name of a city in both Dhalgren and Triton, "Denny" is a character in both Dhalgren and Hogg (which were written almost concurrently despite being published two decades apart; and there is a Danny in "We ... move on a rigorous line"), and the name "Hawk" is used for five different characters in four separate stories – Hogg, the story "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and the novella "The Einstein Intersection", and the short story "Cage of Brass", where a character called Pig also appears.

Jewels, reflection, and refraction – not just the imagery but reflection and refraction of text and concepts – are also strong themes and metaphors in Delany's work. Titles such as The Jewels of Aptor, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", Driftglass, and Dark Reflections, along with the optic chain of prisms, mirrors, and lenses worn by several characters in Dhalgren, are a few examples of this; as in "We (...) move on a rigorous line" a ring is nearly obsessively described at every twist and turn of the plot. Reflection and refraction in narrative are explored in Dhalgren and take center stage in his Return to Nevèrÿon series.

Following the 1968 publication of Nova, there was not only a large gap in Delany's published work (after releasing eight novels and a novella between 1962 and 1968, his published output virtually stopped until 1973), there was also a notable addition to the themes found in the stories published after that time. It was at this point that Delany began dealing with sexual themes to an extent rarely equaled in serious writing. Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand include several sexually explicit passages, and several of his books such as Equinox (originally published as The Tides of Lust, a title that Delany does not endorse), The Mad Man, Hogg and, Phallos can be considered pornography, a label Delany himself endorses.

Novels such as Triton and the thousand-plus pages making up his four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series explored in detail how sexuality and sexual attitudes relate to the socioeconomic underpinnings of a primitive – or, in Triton's case, futuristic – society.Even in works with no science fiction or fantasy content to speak of, such as Atlantis: Three Tales, The Mad Man, and Hogg, Delany pursued these questions by creating vivid pictures of New York and other American cities, now in the Jazz Age, now in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, New York private schools in the 1950s, as well as Greece and Europe in the 1960s, and – in Hogg – generalized small-town America. Phallos details the quest for happiness and security by a gay man from the island of Syracuse in the second-century reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Dark Reflections is a contemporary novel, dealing with themes of repression, old age, and the writer's unrewarded life.

Writer and academic C. Riley Snorton has addressed Triton's thematic engagement with gender, sexual, and racial difference and how their accommodations are instrumentalized in the state and institutional maintenance of social relations. Despite the novel's infinite number subject positions and identities available through technological intervention, Snorton argues that Delany's proliferation of identities "take place within the context of increasing technologically determined biocentrism, where bodies are shaped into categories-cum-cartographies of (human) life, as determined by socially agreed-upon and scientifically mapped genetic routes." Triton questions social and political imperatives towards anti-normativity insofar that these projects do not challenge but actually reify the constrictive categories of the human. In his book Afro-Fabulations, Tavia Nyong'o makes a similar argument in his analysis of "The Einstein Intersection." Citing Delany as a queer theorist, Nyong'o highlights the novella's "extended study of the enduring power of norms, written during the precise moment—'the 1960s'—when antinormative, anti-systemic movements in the United States and worldwide were at their peak." Like Triton, "The Einstein Intersection" features characters that exist across a range of differences across gender, sexuality, and ability. This proliferation of identities "takes place within a concerted effort to sustain a gendered social order and to deliver a stable reproductive futurity through language" in the Lo society's caging of the non-functional "kages" who are denied language and care. Both Nyong'o and Snorton connect Delany's work with Sylvia Wynter's "genres of being human," underscoring Delany's sustained thematic engagement with difference, normativity, and their potential subversions or reifications, and placing him as an important interlocutor in the fields of queer theory and black studies.

The Mad Man, Phallos, and Dark Reflections are linked in minor ways. The beast mentioned at the beginning of The Mad Man graces the cover of Phallos.

Delany has also published seven books of literary criticism, with an emphasis on issues in science fiction and other paraliterary genres, comparative literature, and queer studies. He has commented that he believes that to omit the sexual practices that he portrays in his writing would limit the dialogue children and adults can have about it themselves, and that this lack of knowledge can kill people.

Works

FictionNovelsReturn to Nevèrÿon seriesShort storiesComics

Wonder Woman, 1972

Anthologies

Quark/1 (1970, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/2 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/3 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/4 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Nebula Winners 13 (1980, science fiction)

NonfictionCritical works

The Jewel-hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1977; Wesleyan University Press revised edition 2009, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1978; Wesleyan University Press 2014, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1984; Wesleyan University Press, 2012, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (Ansatz Press, 1988) 0-945195-01-X

The Straits of Messina (1989), 0-934933-04-9

Silent Interviews (1995), 0-8195-6280-7

Longer Views (1996) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-8195-6293-9

Shorter Views (1999), 0-8195-6369-2

About Writing (2005), 0-8195-6716-7

Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009), edited by Carl Freedman, University of Mississippi Press.

"Racism and Science Fiction" (1998), New York Review of Science Fiction, Issue 120.

Memoirs and letters

Heavenly Breakfast (1979), a memoir of a New York City commune during the so-called Summer of Love, 0-553-12796-9

The Motion of Light in Water (1988), a memoir of his experiences as a young gay science fiction writer; winner of the Hugo Award, 0-87795-947-1

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (NYU Press, 1999; 2019, 20th anniversary edition with foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr), a discussion of changes in social and sexual interaction in New York's Times Square, 0-8147-1919-8; 978-1-4798-2777-0

Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), an autobiographical comic drawn by Mia Wolff with an introduction by Alan Moore, 1-890451-02-9

1984: Selected Letters (2000) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-9665998-1-0

In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany. Volume 1, 1957-1969 (2017), edited and with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 978-0-8195-7089-5. 2018 Locus Award Finalist (non-fiction)

Letters from Amherst: Five Narrative Letters (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), with foreword by Nalo Hopkinson, 9780819578204

Introductions

The Adventures of Alyx, by Joanna Russ

We Who Are About To..., by Joanna Russ

Black Gay Man by Robert Reid-Pharr

Burning Sky, Selected Stories, by Rachel Pollack

Conjuring Black Funk: Notes on Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality, Volume 1 by Herukhuti

The Cosmic Rape, by Theodore Sturgeon

Glory Road, by Robert A. Heinlein

Microcosmic God, by Theodore Sturgeon

The Magic: (October 1961-October 1967) Ten Tales by Roger Zelazny, selected and introduced by Samuel R. Delany

Masters of the Pit, by Michael Moorcock

Nebula Winners 13, edited by Samuel R. Delany

A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, by Baird Searles, Martin Last, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin; foreword by Samuel R. Delany

The Sandman: A Game of You, by Neil Gaiman

Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent, edited by Charles Rowell and Bruce Morrow

Interviews

Sci-Fi Legend Samuel R. Delany Doesn't Play Favorites (2017)

[adventuresofalgy]

The wild west Highlands of Scotland were enjoying a period of fine, dry, sunny weather, typical of April in this part of the world, and although it was not particularly warm, and the wind was often strong and cold, the land was full of light and colour once more, at least for the time being.

The white-blossomed cherries in Algy's assistants' garden usually flowered at Easter, but this year the blossom was coming out a wee bit earlier than usual, like many of the flowers in the garden, and Easter happened to be particularly later, so they did not coincide.

Nevertheless, the white cherry blossom always reminded Algy of Housman's poem, and as Algy perched among the beautiful flowers on a bright though chilly spring day, and listened to the bumblebees buzzing about around him, he also recalled the last time he had been photographed in this particular tree at blossom time, and had recited that particular poem, because that was the day, three years ago, when he had last seen his special friend the little green dragon, after which Algy had paused his adventures for over two years…

Algy was hoping very much that as he had resumed his adventures and it was now spring again, the little green dragon might possibly return, but in the meantime he resolved to enjoy the beautiful blossom, for it only came once a year, at most!

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

[Algy is quoting the poem Loveliest of trees from the collection A Shropshire Lad by the late 19th century/early 20th century English poet and classical scholar A E Housman.]

[adventuresofalgy]

On the day known as St. George's Day, Algy always makes a point of being kind to dragons – if he can find any – as some of his more longstanding friends may recall.

And Algy had hoped that just possibly his special friend the little green dragon – with whom he had had such exciting adventures a few years ago – might appear again on this day, although he knew that in fact the little green dragon was far, far away, touring the southern hemisphere with the circus he had joined.

But it was a beautiful day at least so, resigning himself to spending St. George's Day alone this year, Algy flew up to the burn and settled down in a pleasant spot by a shallow pool where silvery fish suddenly darted about among the stones and then vanished again. And he was resting there quietly, listening to the trickling water and dreaming of his old friend, when suddenly he heard a squeaky sort of whimpering sound from around the bend.

Flying over to investigate, Algy found a small, purple, baby dragon with its foot caught among the boulders which lined the bed of the burn. Evidently it had decided to go paddling, as it was such a lovely day, and then got stuck, as young creatures so often will.

Giving it a helping wing, Algy managed to pull the young dragon free and then assist it to fly up into a bush to dry in the sunshine. As they perched there together, watching the water flow, he asked the wee dragon its name, and it told him that it was called Little You-I, then started to recite a strange poem in a soft, squeaky voice:

o by the by has anybody seen little you-i who stood on a green hill and threw his wish at blue with a swoop and a dart out flew his wish (it dived like a fish but it climbed like a dream) throbbing like a heart singing like a flame blue took it my far beyond far and high beyond high bluer took it your but bluest took it our away beyond where what wonderful thing is the end of a string (murmers little you-i as the hill becomes nil) and will somebody tell me why people let go

[The baby dragon is reciting the poem o by the by written by the 20th century American poet e e cummings.]

[adventuresofalgy]

The weather had remained grey, dreich and windy for several days, and although it was by no means freezing, it felt very much chillier than Algy found comfortable. It had been raining too, sometimes quite heavily, and although it was more or less dry again for the moment, the weather birds were predicting that plenty more rain would arrive later in the day. Algy felt that it was altogether unsuitable for adventuring out and about in the wild west Highlands, and he was reluctant to stray from the relative shelter of his assistants' garden until conditions improved…

So he decided to revisit the "Flight of the Butterflies" miniature cherry that he loved, for it was the only tree in blossom this early in the year. It grew in a sheltered part of his assistants' garden, and Algy guessed that it would be pleasant to take a wee ride upon it, while inspecting the delicate flowers more closely.

It was indeed relatively calm in that particular spot, as he had hoped, but as Algy rocked gently on the swaying branches he could hear the wind rushing much more vigorously through the taller trees nearby. Looking up, he noticed that some of the local birds were being blown about the sky unceremoniously by the stronger gusts, and he thought:

I saw you toss the kites on high And blow the birds about the sky; And all around I heard you pass, Like ladies' skirts across the grass-- O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song! I saw the different things you did, But always you yourself you hid. I felt you push, I heard you call, I could not see yourself at all-- O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song! O you that are so strong and cold, O blower, are you young or old? Are you a beast of field and tree, Or just a stronger child than me? O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song!

[Algy is thinking of the poem The Wind from the volume A Child's Garden of Verses by the 19th century Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.]

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy remembers the end-of-year Gray Card Top 5 extravaganza very well, and he was sad when it ended, so he is thrilled that @luxlit are continuing that tradition now.

Algy found it extremely difficult to select five posts from his 2024 adventures, even with the help of his assistant… However, as he had to make a choice, he did, as he would hate to miss out on the fun…

He sends his warmest thanks and fluffy hugs to @luxlit and his good friend Fern @allthingsfern for continuing this lovely tradition and for all the work and effort it involves 🤗

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy @adventuresofalgy thanks his good friend Ludwig (evidently enjoying the long grass!) and companion Bud @bwwhitney very much for their kind thoughts, and sends them both his fluffiest hugs It has indeed been even wilder than usual in the wild west HIghlands of Scotland today, during Storm Floris, with battering wind gusts over 70 mph…

Algy apologises for his absence… He has been having a nice rest with his fluffy friends, after working very hard from the autumn to the spring, while his assistants have continued to labour, but in their large (and hopefully productive) garden rather than on the internet, even though the latter was restored. It has been such a cold, dismal, and constantly wet summer so far in the wild west Highlands of Scotland that adventuring would have been a washout, and even gardening has been a constant and arduous battle with the elements.

Algy is truly delighted to see Ludwig again, and hopes that he will continue to roar for a long time to come 😀

Being a plywood dinosaur, Ludwig doesn't really understand much about the modern world and he certainly doesn't understand about electricity or this "The Internet* he"s heard so much about. He just knows that he hasn't heard from his friend @adventuresofalgy in a very long time. He hopes Algy and Algy's helper Jenny are ok over there in the wilds of northern Scotland.

[adventuresofalgy]

As he flew around his assistants' garden. Algy realised that he was exceedingly tired. His Hogmanay Hootenanny had been one of the most wonderful parties he had ever held, but it had certainly drained much of his energy, and he felt that he needed a good wee rest before embarking on any new adventures.

The weather birds had been wrong again, and instead of staying dry for a change, it had rained all night. Not that Algy was surprised… It usually rained in the wild west Highlands of Scotland, after all, but it meant that everything was soggy, drenched and uninviting, especially as the temperatures was only a wee bit above freezing. It was hardly conducive to a restorative rest…

Algy hopped about here, there and everywhere, looking in vain for a cosy couch suited to a weary fluffy bird, until eventually he spotted a small clump of bright green cypress in a dark corner.

This seemed to offer a perfect bed, and when Algy lay back on the gentle, springy branches with their soft, fragrant needles, he felt a sense of deep contentment, for they were not even particularly wet. Here was a perfect place for repose!

Hail, sweet Contentment, calm Repose! The balm of comfort shed, Oh! let me not complain of woes, By thy kind guidance led! To thee Compassion is allied, Revengeful hope unknown; As thou a stranger art to Pride, From thee is Discord flown. Tho' plain and humble be my lot, Yet grant me strength of mind; So shall I find, tho' in a Cot, Pleasures the most refin'd. With pity shall behold the great, While no rude cares molest; Nor fond desire for useless state, Disturb my tranquil breast. In silent glen, in hollow cave, And Hermit's lonely cell, Where winding streams delight to lave, Reflection deigns to dwell. Far from the bustling scenes of Life, I wish in peace to rest; Remov'd from vanity and strife, In calm retirement blest. To me in gorgon terrors clad, Appear the rash and bold; The vain, the wealthy, and the bad, Who thirst for nought but gold. With horror such delights behold, As deck the festive scene; Tho' young, am prematurely old, Collected, grave, serene. To thee, Contentment, thus I bend, With meek and humble heart; In pity to my pray'r attend, And lend thy soothing art!

[Algy is thinking of the poem Ode to Contentment by the English 18th/early 19th century children's educational writer and poet Ann Murry.]

[adventuresofalgy]

As the year 2025 began in the wild west Highlands of Scotland – where it continued to rain and rain and rain as though the old year had failed to end – Algy and his guests at Algy's Hogmanay Hootenanny were showered with sparkling confetti in a safe, warm place under cover 🎉

Algy and his assistants wish a very Happy New Year to all their friends and followers on tumblr, and hope that the year ahead will bring us all many happy and exciting adventures 😍

[adventuresofalgy]

Today Algy is celebrating the reissue in paperback of his adventure story The Magical Midwinter Star – a tale for the season of midwinter and Christmas festivities – which is the third in Algy's series of colour-illustrated children's chapter books, first published in 2015 and 2016.

The books are suitable for children aged roughly 6 to 10, but have also been read – and loved – by many adults of all ages who are still young at heart 😀

Algy faces very real challenges and perils in his adventures, which are all based in the landscape around his home in the wild west Highlands of Scotland, and feature a cast of characters drawn from the wildlife of the local area – some friendly and charming, and some mean or menacing to a fluffy bird. But of course, being surprisingly fluffy, Algy always overcomes the difficulties and dangers in the end – usually with the help of other creatures who are less daft than he is – leading to a joyfully happy conclusion in each tale.

[This is not really a commercial post, as Algy's assistant and amanuensis gets only a tiny royalty from the sale of his books, and Algy, of course, gets nothing at all… except the very considerable reward of knowing that friends and strangers around the world are reading – and hopefully enjoying – the tales of his adventures in the wild west Highlands of Scotland 😀]

The books can all be purchased from Amazon, in most countries of the world.

Copies with special dedications, signed by Algy and/or his assistant, can be purchased direct from Algy's assistant (please use messaging or the contact form to enquire or arrange), but of course they will take much longer to reach most countries.

Algy apologises again to his friends who would prefer not to use Amazon, but it order to get books delivered quickly and easily to many different countries, there was really no other choice.

[adventuresofalgy]

People I'd Like to Know: Tumblr Tag Game

Algy was tagged by his friend @edinburgh-by-the-sea in Scotland's beautiful capital city, whom he thanks very kindly for choosing him. Algy wasn't sure whether his friend really wanted to know about his own fluffy bird tastes or those of his assistant, so he has answered for both 😀

Algy's current obsession: finding his way home in time for Christmas 🎄 His assistant's current obsession: maintaining health and finding time and energy to produce exciting new work for Algy's assistants' new collaborative tumblr blog @novelties-and-notions in addition to assisting Algy with his adventures every single day…

Algy is looking forward to: Christmas, Hogmanay (a tumblr party?), and his 13th tumblr birthday on 13th March 2025 (definitely a tumblr party!) Double 13! 🎄🎉🎁 His assistant is looking forward to: all kinds of new adventures in creativity

Last book Algy read: The Oxford Book of English Verse. As many of Algy's followers will know, Algy loves good poetry and has his own Algy-sized collection of volumes of verse. Last books Algy's assistant read (re-read): The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, in translation, and Joy in the Morning by P G Wodehouse.

Algy's assistant is sometimes asked for reading recommendations. She spent much time on her own when young, and therefore started reading, and learned to love books, at a precociously early age… there was nothing else to do! Significant influences which persist to this day include, roughly IN THE ORDER ORIGINALLY READ from early childhood: Beatrix Potter and the Winnie the Pooh stories; many classic collections of fairytales (esp. collected by Andrew Lang and the Brothers Grimm) and the works of Hans Christian Anderson; The Wind in the Willows; fairytale/fantasy works by George MacDonald; Peter Pan; the Dr. Dolittle stories by Hugh Lofting; Lewis Carroll; The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs Molesworth; The Secret Garden and The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett; works by Rudyard Kipling; C S Lewis; J R R Tolkien (first read at the age of 9 but only occasionally since); P G Wodehouse (20th century master of the use of English and of humour – a lifelong indulgence in reading); Charles Dickens (his descriptive powers have rarely if ever been equalled); Arthurian Romances; and all works by Jane Austen, Henry James, Thomas Mann, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and – beyond fiction – Ludwig Wittgenstein. And of course Shakespeare, who inevitably has some influence on anyone who has ever studied English, plus many, many other more forgettable writers in various genres.

Although many of the titles above were written as fiction for children, she has continued to re-read those works over the years, as may be evident in Algy's adventures 😀

And for those who have asked for reading recommendations, especially those folk of an older generation who have not yet had the opportunity to read very much – and also for aspiring writers – she would say that if you have not yet read much literature, but wish to, then don't waste precious time on lesser authors but read the very best stuff first 😊

(And anyone who wishes to "be a writer", in no matter what kind of genre or style, is advised to first of all master the use of language – and the best way to do that is by reading past masters extensively. Like any other highly skilled activity, if you want to mess around with it and make it jump through hoops, you have to thoroughly master the basic skill set first.)

Last song Algy listened to: When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along 😀

Last movie Algy watched: Mary Poppins (the original 1964 movie) Algy is fascinated by the incredible animation with live action sequence, and by the remarkable Dick van Dyke, who has just celebrated his 99th birthday! Last movies Algy's assistant watched: W C Fields' International House and the Marx Brothers The Cocoanuts… Why a duck? 🤣

Last TV show: Algy and his assistant NEVER watch televsion, though they do watch movies. They have better things to do with their time than watch TV 😀 Algy's assistant's family didn't have a television until she was about 10 years old, and much of her adult life has been spent without television too.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Not really. 🌰🍏🍉🥦🍓🧀🥕🍚🍅🥛🥒🍞

Favourite colour: Green and yellow and orange 💚🧡💛😀

Last thing we googled: Google Translate – for help with communication with tumblr friends who don't speak English ☺️ And Google Maps to find out where is where, as Algy has followers all over the world. His grasp of geography is fluffy, and his assistant's is not much better!

Relationship status: Algy is of course in a fluffy relationship with his rather incompetent assistant, who is permanently united with her lifelong partner and spouse.

Tagging: Algy understands that he is supposed to tag friends to prompt them to play too, but he suspects that the folk he would most like to know about might feel too shy or unduly pressured to do this. So he invites ALL his friends to play this game, and leaves it up to them. He would love to know more about you 😍