Happy Michaelmas!

Today is Michaelmas, the autumn counterpart to St. George's Day in April and a celebration of the Archangel Michael and his power over Lucifer. In everyday terms, that means winter is coming, so everyone had best gird up and get ready for foul weather and all the highs and lows of the holiday season.

Today at Castle in the Air we're slaying dragons just like George did, even as we hang up devilish decorations in the store. The upstairs gallery space was painted yesterday, and in the coming days we'll be hanging our first gallery show -- an exhibit of photographs of children from some of the best photographers of the early decades of the art form.

Our show will feature prints from Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Curtis, Gertrude Kasebier, Carl Moon, Edweard Muybridge, and Alfred Stieglitz, just to name a few. We're also delighted to have a number of prints from Lewis Carroll. In the picture above (sadly, not one that will be in the show), Carroll photographed the Kitchin family children playing out the St. George story. My eye is of course drawn to the brave knight and the beautiful maiden, but Mr. Marsh wonders who got roped into playing the part of the fallen soldier. (And what a great use for the family leopard-skin rug!)

Wordplay for the Weekend

It's no secret that our Mr. Marsh is a fan of Lewis Carroll, the Victorian children's author and inventor of ingenious puzzles. One of Carroll's puzzles was the "doublet." In his own words:

"The rules of the Puzzle are simple enough. Two words are proposed, of the same length; and the Puzzle consists in linking these together by interposing other words, each of which shall differ from the next word in one letter only. That is to say, one letter may be changed in one of the given words, then one letter in the word so obtained, and so on, till we arrive at the other given word. The letters must not be interchanged among themselves, but each must keep to its own place.

"As an example, the word 'head' may be changed into 'tail' by interposing the words 'heal, teal, tell, tall.' I call the two given words 'a Doublet,' the interposed words 'Links,' and the entire series 'a Chain,' of which I here append an example:

H E A D
h e a l
t e a l
t e l l
t a l l
T A I L

"It is, perhaps, needless to state that it is de rigueur that the links should be English words, such as might be used in good society."

Here is a selection of Lewis Carroll's doublets that Mr. Marsh brought in for us to solve. If your local Sunday paper has gone the way of the Borogove, you can try these instead of the crossword!

Drive PIG into STY using 4 Links.

Raise FOUR to FIVE using 6 Links.

Make WHEAT into BREAD using 6 Links.

Dip PEN into INK using 5 Links.

Touch CHIN with NOSE using 5 Links.

Change TEARS into SMILE using 5 Links.