Welcome to The Week in Review, our Sunday wrap-up for those too busy to follow Stupefying Stories on a daily basis. Our focus this week was on the results of another Pete Wood Challenge, so this week we published four flash fiction stories all keying off the seed idea, “The Butler Did It.” We also clarified our publishing plans for the remainder of 2024, and then we embarked on a quixotic quest to find the perfect low-sodium, gluten-free, red beans and rice recipe.
The evidence from the crime scene left no doubt: the butler did. The mystery baffling the investigators was, how?
Published: August 19, 2024 (Honorable Mention)
Remember the good old days? Polishing silver, pouring wine, murdering guests? (Sigh.)
Published: August 20, 2024 (Bronze)
Nailing down our publishing plans for the remaining four months of 2024, for both SHOWCASE and Stupefying Stories issues #27 through #30. READ THIS.
It’s so hard to find a good domestic, these days.
Published: August 22, 2024 (Silver)
We thought he was bluffing, but the butler did it. He really did.
Published: August 23, 2024 (Gold)
In which we set out to find a recipe and end up in Wonderland. Have you had your disodium guanylate today?
Published: August 24, 2024
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Today's featured insect is a "transverse banded drone fly," Eristalis transversa, also known as a flower fly or hover fly. I noticed it because I at first thought it was a yellow-jacket wasp, but then realized it was behaving like a pollinator, not like a murderous little a-hole with wings. (I pay attention to yellow-jackets because, while not clinically allergic to their venom, I react very badly to being stung by them.)
ReplyDeleteInteresting adaptation that fly has. It's like it's swaggering around in gang colors, saying "Don't mess with me!", while all it's really trying to do is to be left alone to feed on nectar and pollen.
And thanks to my noticing this tiny critter, I now know about "Batesian mimicry" as opposed to "Müllerian mimicry," which are two ideas I'd not given much thought before. You learn something every day, if you're not careful.
Or, you get stung.