Toad

Brother Dub presented to me on this day this toad. Lo, I was mightily humbled. Yet another fine specimen of animal carcass to add to my collection! It's runoveredness makes it eminently scannable, and so I have.

Dub was particularly agog over the green fly in the crook of its right foreleg. He contends the insect was a last undigested meal. I contend it is the toad that was the last meal of the fly and that both were run over by separate cars. Any experts care to weigh in?

Mick Bowie

Weaned on American blues records, Mick's fledgling undertaking was lead singer for Brit bluesers, The Undertakers. On a bender he met Friar Tut, doomed acid-scarred waif and father-snorting corpse, Rich Keifer. Together with those other two weird guys, they formed the Burning Candles. The bad boy antithesis of goodboyism, the Candles burned at both ends and went out altogther with the mass arrest of the entire group for satanism in 1968.

Mick Bowie emerged from his incarceration a ch-changed man. Hiring new friends, he took the rock world by storm, first as Astro Turf, then as the Hydrogenous Kid, and if that wasn't enough, as Zippy Pinhead and the Piano Wires From Hell. He is known today as the father of Gland Rock and the multiple minions he spawned are collectively known as the Underlings.

From The Undertakers to the Underlings, Mick Bowie remains to this day a commodity to be reckoned with.

Small Price

"Oppression and harrassment are a small price to pay to live in the Land of the Free."

- C. Montgomery Burns

Hecate

Thracian Queen of Ghosts

Blue vs. Green

Those Byzantines. Soccer hadn't caught on yet, but chariot racing was big. Really big in Constantinople in the year 532 when the Blues yet again played the Greens. A year earlier a select group of Blue and Green fans were sentenced to be hanged for rioting or killing or whatever, only come the date, one of each side broke the ropes and took refuge in a church. A standoff ensued. Justinian, the emperor, a Blue Man himself, did what great leaders always do when faced with a crisis; he called for a sporting event.

The chariot racing crowd became a mob, Blues and Greens together demanding mercy for the condemned men. Never build your Hippodrome next door to your palace. The race turned into a siege and a pretty decent torching of the city that went on for the better part of a week. Senators arranged for a new emperor, what color I do not know. Justinian called in his big guns - or swords - under the command of Belisarius.


Take heed, soccer fans. Belisarius herded the rabble into the Hippodrome and mowed down as many as he could. About 30,000 died, or nearly half a Super Bowl. History forgets what became of the condemned Blue and Green. The emperor, however, remained in power and subsequent chariot races were tamer affairs.

Visage

A mile into the cave, steadily decending, the oxygen got thin and our torches dimmed. When we stood still, the silence was so complete it made our ears ring. The cave walls seemed to be drawing in towards us. From a darkened corner of what had to be the final turn-around room, I heard the sound of rock scraping against rock. Our lights fell upon a boulder and we saw it was moving, slowly turning. I was the first to focus and gasped accordingly. There on the rock, in the rock, of the rock, was a mummy. A brooding rock mummy whose slumber had been disturbed.

Hannibal Lecter

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone."

Mad Tapestry

What, Me Worry?

Pyranoa

Pyranoa has a habit of creeping up behind you and grasping your neck in his huge hands. You feel his fingertips find your jugular and start to squeeze. You reflexively draw a breath and then can no longer breathe. You struggle. He grips harder. You turn blue. He let's go, laughs heartily, slaps you on the back. walks away. You mutter a curse.

Vonnequote

Blogger's all bugged up, won't load images. So no face today. Instead, here's a quote from Kurt you probably haven't heard during the quotefest of this past week.

"Reading it is actually quite difficult--I mean it is as hard as learning to read music, and it’s a remarkable skill. And if you take ink on paper and make people respond to it, they themselves are going to have to be performers. It’s like arriving at a concert hall and being handed a violin, and you’re expected to play. That’s what we expect readers to do, perform themselves, because they’re half of the performance."
- Kurt Vonnegut

Tethys

Sister-wife of Oceanus
(Hey, why not? These are Gods we're talking about here; they don't inbreed),
she was quite prolific, bearing and rearing three thousand little Oceaniades. Tyche, Styx and Elektra were among her progeny twice removed. Possibly Poseidon. She also mothered all the great river gods, such as the Nile, and the lesser river gods, such as the Meander.
Tethys beat all when it came to inky depth proliferation.

Joan of Arc

What the hell, thought the Dauphine, all's lost anyway. This farm girl who claims God told her to raise an army to rid France of England may be our last hope. "Go." So to Orleans she went and conquered. More victories all along the road to Reims. Altogether a good spring and summer for the 17 year old and for France, returned from her long slumber.

But capture came the following year. Trial, imprisonment and you know the rest. Burned alive once, burned dead twice more and her ashes thrown into the Seine. Not as a heretic or a witch, which a more civilized people would have done, but as a formidible foe. And as a woman who would dare to wear men's clothing. But such myopia! Create a martyr, lose a hundred years war.

Diary Entry 8 - In This Pod

Precious little air is left in this pod. The glowstick is dead and I'm writing in total darkness. The silence is unbearable, so I hum the theme to Green Acres over and over, drumming on the side of the pod for emphasis: KEEPmanHATtan, GIVEmetheCOUNtryside.

Looking back, maybe it wasn't a good idea to depend on Dad to come up with the ransom. After all, fifty thousand's a lot of dough. His millions are all tied up in annuities and hedge funds. His new wife wouldn't allow him to sell off any of her jewelry, I'm sure of that. Maybe we should have asked for twenty g's instead of fifty.

I wonder who will dig me up. I can't see Dad doing it. Maybe one of his building crews. Maybe the police. If it's Mattie and Glenn then I'll know the deal fell through and we'll have to find another way to get to Brazil. That Glenn seems to be taking control of everything lately. Maybe Mattie and I will go to Rio on our own. I'm sure she won't stay mad at me for long. I know I complain too much, but I doubt she'd like being packed up like a sardine and lowered into the ground. She'd scream too, I'll bet. Anyway, she shouldn't have called me a baby boo hoo. Then they both laughed. That was mean.

theCHORES, theSTORES, freshAIR, timesSQUARE...

Maya Jester God

The gods laugh at our attempts to adapt to their laws. So we invent new gods. laughing gods. They could, like the old gods, be laughing at us; but they might also be laughing at the laws or the old gods themselves. Whatever it is they're amused by, we'd be wise to laugh along at the failing crop yield, the flood, the drought, the war and the pestilence. What entertains the gods should entertain the king and the people in turn. No one laughs in fear.

Elvira Schicklegruber

It's not like we wanted to - we just HAD to let Elvira Schicklegruber go from the choir. Her intonation was all off, she couldn't hold a note without wavering, and her A minor was a B flat. Still, we're going to miss her hashish brownies.

Goblin

Goblins are odd folk who live under rocks or sycamore bark. They want to trick you into doing silly things that may embarass or injure you. You must not allow them within earshot. Their dares are worth nothing and their double dares are worth twice that.

Nahum Gardner

Biblio-Arkhamists classify it as amber-umber lapis-azurli, but in his day Nahum Gardner had no word to describe the colour within the thunderstone. Before long, words would be of no use. One by one, Gardners were eaten from within by the foul golden ooze. Their ill madness couldn't be plowed under, either, as it was absorbed by the soil. The earth around provided no vegetation, no shelter.

Vote no on the reservoir.

Girl

I dreampt about that girl again last night. She didn't approve of my trombone and she said so. I gave it up for her and missed my gig. If I could just get her to love me, it'd be worth it.

Cronassian

Who
the
hell
are
the
Cronassians
anyway?

Harlequin

The harlequin can turn a flip from a crouch, round-off to a back extension, even stand on one hand and twirl. But ask him what he ate for breakfast and he'll go into a coma of perplexity.

Basking in G5 Glow

Morgue Arrival E

Signed for shipment of Morbid Miracle Marvel, also known as hydrofluoric acid. Went to work on cryogenically preserved specimen to produce Visible Man, a visual aid for med students. Stronger solution than usual.

Maximum Bob Robert

Maximum Bob Robert, before and after the Great Tornado Chase of Aught Seven.

Had to change names. Elmore Leonard threatened to sue.

Downstairs Closet Dweller

Faux Muppet Simpson

I honestly don't remember where this little guy came from. He looks too perfect to be a composite, but I can't find one mold that may have been his womb. The hair could belong to someone else, but the cape looks original. All I can be sure of is the colors are mine. In any case, he looks inspired by Jim Henson. I like him enough to spare telling you his story. It's probably on a Happy Meal sack somewhere.

Thanks for the tip, Steph.