Petticoats and octopus, or A secret about Anna Tambour and Others

I'm going to share a secret with you. Practically the only people who drop in to my other site, Anna Tambour and Others, are tourists exploring the wilds away from Susan MacDonald's fascinating Petticoat Discipline Quarterly. I once wrote to Susan expressing my heels-over-head, had-to-unlace-my-stays appreciation of her essay, Petticoat Punishment in James Joyce's 'Ulysses'

Furthermore, I invited her to write an essay just for my Virtuous Medlar Circle in the AT&O site, and she complied with a promptitude I expected.

Her Dreamscapes of Edward D. Wood Jr. is the most popular feature I have ever run despite or because of it being a paeon to the man known as the worst film director in history. And I have so many tasteful features, too! This minds me of the two famous foreign correspondents whose memoirs I read back to back a few months ago. Each had written a single column about his dog. That column was the single most popular essay he had ever written—and garners, still the most mail for each — despite each correspondent covering, brouha after brouha, some of the most important brouhahas in modern times. I think that the world would be a better place if we had more to do with other species than often, our own, so I am not disparaging their readers' tastes. But I wonder if these dog-paeons would be trumped by other essays by these two respected commentators, had they possessed Miss MacDonald's extraordinary talent and bent of mind.

But back to Anna Tambour and Others. Susan (as I can call her, but don't you dare!) listed the site in PPQ's links list, and obediently, enthusiasts come expectantly 24/7/365-to-eternity-if-she-recommends, only to leave as fast as an Iowan tourist would, from a restaurant with golden arches that serves live octopus.

So I'm declaring here: I don't have any helpful discipline tips nor a catalogue of flannels.

But I do display many other Irresistibles, and I have disciplined myself to update the collection monthly for many (too many?) months.

This month's features in the Virtuous Medlar Circle:

Illegitimate Sovereignty by Wallace W. Storbakken, who is a member of the Chippewa tribe, state of Minnesota, USA

The side of the angels: A review of THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIO NOTHING and AMAZING GRACE
by A.C.E. Bauer, another in her monthly series of columns

"Garlic and Honey" a story from Tales of Nasr-ed-din Khoja translated from the Turkish text by Henry D. Barnham, 1923 (another in my series of classics to enjoy rather than think you should have read)

Every month there are new features, such as this recent, utter hoot by Spencer Pate:
The Multidimensional Topology of Department Stores

And every month, there are always fresh piles of Quotations and Irresistibles at www.annatambour.net, where you might possibly find something to your taste.