Sideswipe: May 20: It's alive!

Frankenstein flowerpots (Seen on Etsy).

Words that can make a mark
What are the most remarkable passages you have ever read? Here are some, as shared on Reddit, that'll make you want to read again ...

1. "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was." (Joseph Heller, Catch 22)

2. "That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less." (Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things)

3. "They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for us when we could not breathe any more, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us." (White Oleander, Janet Fitch)

4. "I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful." (Life of Pi, Yann Martel)

5. "Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room." (The Golden Apples of the Sun, Ray Bradbury)

6. "Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place." (Kurt Vonnegut)

Nothing dull about the 1970s
In response to the blogger (Coronation Street Of Old) who describes a 1970s episode of Coronation Street she'd watched as ... "Every external shot is simultaneously grotty, brown, gritty and windy. I dimly remember the 1970s, and this seems completely appropriate. (That's the thing retro stuff like That 70s Show gets totally wrong: pockets of colourful grooviness were very small. Everything was brown)." William responds: "The 1970s were fantastically coloured! From the bright orange hand-me-down Mini of my brother to the sparkling blue waters of Wellington's Oriental Bay. From the warm yellow sand of Scorching Bay to the white snow-capped mountains viewed over the Eastbourne hills. From the rich blue of Hutt Valley High's uniform jumper to the rusty red of the old electric trains rattling past Naenae Station. From the ultra rich green of the fennel under the Pomare overbridge to the reflected sky-blue album cover of Tommy by The Who. From Carol Stroud's strawberry blonde hair to the proud blue of our flag flying on the Beehive. No colour? Rubbish ... Coronation Street and Britain may have been grotty, grey and gritty in the 1970s, but here in NZ it was (and still is) full of vibrant colour."

Picture this: An artist turned Kanye West's 'Bound 2' into a children's board book...

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Video: A twenty-something soon to be married couple, were aged 70 years by makeup artists and then revealed to each other. Their reactions are touching and insightful...

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz