Help searching for old post

March 8, 2009 4:32 PM

Looking for an old post on book of made-up flora and fauna

A couple of years ago I saw a post that presented a book that someone wrote and illustrated that had a whole fantastical world's flora and fauna (I think) like a catalog... as I recall it was written in a completely made-up language, but absolutely amazingly detailed. I've searched everything I could think of (illustration, encyclopedia, animals, fantasy, etc.) but can't remember what it was called or who wrote it. Help please!

posted by bloomicy to MetaFilter-related at 4:32 PM (12 comments total)

Is your answer over here?
posted by pb at 4:36 PM on March 8

(sorry if this isn't the place for this... AskMeFi respondent suggested here would be a better forum)
posted by bloomicy at 4:36 PM on March 8

You are thinking of the Voynich Manuscript or Codex Seraphinianus, both linked in that thread.
posted by jessamyn at 4:48 PM on March 8

Tracking down an old post is kinda metatalk territory, yeah, though to be clear it sounds like you are indeed talking about the Codex Seraphinianus, as mentioned in the askme.

If you want to track down a post on something with a unique name like that, the site search (up in the top right corner of page) works really well.

This post from 2007 is probably the one you remember, though there's an older one from 2005 as well.
posted by cortex at 4:48 PM on March 8

Yeah, I was kind of surprised that it wasn't the Codex Seraphinianus... I sent MeMail suggesting that bloomicy bring the question here right after it was posted and I saw that it was about an old post...

bloomicy: do you know if it's any of these posts?
posted by koeselitz at 5:37 PM on March 8

Does anyone read the posts down here?
posted by carsonb at 5:46 PM on March 8 [1 favorite]

The author of the codex is still alive. I wonder if he will ever let the rest of us in on the alphabet?
posted by empath at 9:38 PM on March 8

Huh. I posted links in that thread to four old posts which mentioned the Codex Seraphinianus and the Voynich manuscript. Were none of those the post you were thinking of?
posted by hades at 11:37 PM on March 8

Talk to us, bloomicy.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:18 AM on March 9 [1 favorite]

"Made up flora and fauna" always reminds me of this:

'She didn't find her new profession [as a whorehouse madam] very different from her old, and she thought of both as a public service. She read horoscopes and continued, after hours at least, to transform the Bear Flag into a kind of finishing school for girls. She was named Flora, but one time in the Mission a gentleman bum finished his soup and said, "Flora, you seem more a fauna-type to me."

"Say, I like that," she said. "Mind if I keep it?" And she did. She was Fauna ever afterward.'

-- Sweet Thursday, John Steinbeck
posted by Devils Slide at 4:40 AM on March 9

*tap* *tap* Is this thing on?
posted by hades at 7:20 PM on March 9

uh, duh... I jumped on the link via AskMeFi and completely forgot you folks were here answering my question... sorry - not used to MetaTalk. Yes, it was the Codex Seraphinianus... I never would've come up with that name again. Thank you all (very belatedly, I must say) for the help.
*dope slap to self*
posted by bloomicy at 4:41 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]