@userr2684291 I'm guessing that they are comparing vacant stores with missing teeth in an otherwise nice looking smile.

But it isn't well-written

because "gaps" aren't something that "proliferates in an otherwise welcoming smile"

A better use of proliferate: They proliferate like poisonous vines, slowly strangling companies by depriving them of a single, consistent set of information and metrics to evaluate corporate performance and develop tactical and strategic plans. (adtmag.com/articles/2002/09/01/taming-spreadsheet-jockeys.aspx)

Word of the day: leading question ("I object! You're leading the witness!")

psyneuen-journal.com/article/S0306-4530(16)30062-2/fulltext

Today's idiom: "the whole shebang" Whether you’d like a little help with the pie or side dishes or you want to order the whole shebang to go, these Valley restaurants are making Thanksgiving a snap with delicious pickup feasts. (Source)

Bonus slang - if something is "a snap" it's very easy. Searching with Google is a snap; what's difficult is figuring out which of the million results you get back is the one you want.

@ColleenV No, I got the comparison/metaphor, I don't understand how to parse the sentence. The sentence is basically this: "They spread like gaps, stores along the city's corridors." That's not a very common sentence structure, is it?

"They spread like rats, these little things." – is it comparable to this?

Because I'd accept that.

It's from this article, the very first sentence after the image text.

Word of the day: Anarchism without adjectives

> In the 1920s, synthesis anarchism emerged as a form of anarchist organizations based on anarchism-without-adjectives principles

Word of the day: squircle

> A squircular plate has a larger area (and can thus hold more food) than a circular one with the same radius, but still occupies the same amount of space in a rectangular or square cupboard.

@userr2684291 That structure seems "literary" to me. My impression is that author is trying way too hard to be a Serious Writer. I can sort of see what they're trying to get at, but the way that they actually express it is not good writing.

Hm... I don't know. I liked the rest of the article, and even though it was somewhat repetitive (okay, I get it, "For Sale" signs are everywhere), they made it interesting. They showcased a... cornucopia of metaphors and nice words, hehe. For example, I understood that metaphor in the first sentence, the proliferating gaps in an otherwise welcoming smile, as a way of describing aging: you lose teeth as you get older. But I don't find the structure as literary as much as the phrasing itself.

We went to a festival where artisans were selling handmade things and I bought these cool wooden mushrooms - the tallest one is about 9 cm high...

@userr2684291 Try reading The Fourth State of Matter By Jo Ann Beard to see how a talented author handles imagery. The NY Times article is fine, but it and the photographs are pretty mediocre.

@ColleenV I wanted to ask whether it was wood or mushrooms. Turns out it is both!

@JasperLoy I think the woodworker has a good eye for how to use the qualities of the wood. I like how he left the bark around the edge to look like the gills under the mushrooms

Do mushrooms really have gills? Like fish? Jaysus!

@snailboat That's what my informants told me as well. They said it was odd but still ... okay, and they're around my age.

Apparently informant means "A person from whom a linguist or anthropologist obtains information about language, dialect, or culture." according to the ODE. I'm not a linguist, but still.

> Hypotheses to explain such high levels of running in wheels include a need for activity, substitute for exploration, and stereotypic behaviour. However, free wild mice will run on wheels installed in the field, which speaks against the notion of stereotypic behaviour induced by captivity conditions.

@snailboat Wow, that hamster looks as cute as me, lol.