From The Mouths Of Madness

6 Weeks

2010-05-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

It's about 6 weeks until summer. The weather is gorgeous already, although it is still springlike, with a refreshing cool quality to the air. The pressing heat of the summer sun has yet to arrive. Meteorologists are still adding "chance of showers" to forecasts, I'm sending my girls on outings with hoodies along just in case, our cars still have condensation on the windows in the morning.

Everywhere I go I'm seeing the delightful signs of the season: gals wearing summery fashions, people bicycling and riding motorcycles, animals out for walks and runs in the park, people eating on patios at home and at restaurants, convertibles on the car lots and on the roads, politicians going to court (wait, that's a year-round thing), and so on.

I don't know if there is a better time of year. Anticipation of summer and school holidays for my girls, the feeling that the year is still new, the sense of momentum gained while still lots of possibilities.

May has a real good feel.

On This Day - May 12

2010-05-12T13:42:00.001-07:00

On this day in 1941 Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. In a sense one could trace this post's genesis to that red-letter day.

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Subtly Bright

2010-05-10T10:33:00.001-07:00

Overcast and cooler today. However, Russ the Weatherman at News 1130 has all but removed any chance of showers from the forecast, so at least we're likely going to stay dry. It's not so cool as to be a problem, that's for sure. Short sleeves are fine unless you're standing around in the shade.

There is enough sunshine to make the trees gleam, but it is all being filtered by the clouds overhead. No glare, but quite bright.

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Sunshine, Blue Sky

2010-05-07T14:00:00.001-07:00

Sunshine, blue sky today. Everything seems spontaneously better on a day like this!

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50 Mission Cap

2010-05-06T13:36:00.001-07:00

"50 Mission Cap" by the Tragically Hip: unforgettable song. Unforgettable Canadiana.

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Led Zeppelin

2010-05-05T10:03:00.001-07:00

Apropos of nothing, Led Zeppelin's song "The Ocean" continues to rock the house. That is all.

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Happy May 5th Everyone!

2010-05-04T21:58:00.001-07:00

From wikipedia:

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a holiday that commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at theBattle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.^[1][2] While not an "obligatory federal holiday" in Mexico, it is celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla, and in the United States.^[3][4]

Cinco de Mayo is not "an obligatory federal holiday" in Mexico, but rather a holiday that can be observed voluntarily.^[5][6] While Cinco de Mayo has limited significance nationwide in Mexico, the date is observed in the United States (also voluntarily) and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.^[7] Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day,^[8] which actually is September 16,^[9] the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.^[10]

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The Tommy Gun Blues, 2

2010-05-04T21:38:00.001-07:00

In 1887 Terenzio Scalpanetti was born in a small gypsy enclave camped near Sant'Erasmo, a village outside the Sicilian city of Palermo. His mother was a young gypsy girl, wild and aloof, but her pride was humbled and a bottomless rage thrust into her soul when she was caught and raped by the ne'er-do-well youngest son of a local Sicilian merchant. Terenzio was raised by a girl-woman still tempestuously fighting her own battles to discover herself, to live with her fate, and she both loved and hated her son, as she loved and hated herself and her own life.

The young man grew up among gypsies and learned their bohemian ways, but in his 9th year under the eyes of heaven he fell in with a group of toughs from Palermo and began to disown his gypsy roots. He became a Sicilian and discovered that half of his heritage, but even his group of ruffians were discomfited by Terenzio's fits of rage and cruelty. They never saw his tearful remorse when he huddled alone on the seashore of Sant'Erasmo, looking down on the gypsy fires and recognizing in himself the selfishness that had so hurt his own mother.

As the years passed and he grew into a young man, his conscience was gradually drowned out by the drives of youth. His ruthless bravado, his fearlessness, his insistence upon being respected and his hunger for stature, recognition, and belonging eventually led him to the attention of the local Cosa Nostra, and he was accosted by Dante Calvino, a mafia scout of sorts who befriended him. Terenzio was dazzled by Calvino's seemingly limitless access to money, women, and the better things; until then he had considered a full belly and sated loins the occasional highlights of a hard-scrabble life on the streets rolling drunks, beating up private citizens, purse snatching, and the like. Calvino-- himself an ambitious but low-level foot soldier-- had access to trattorias which served hot food at all hours, houses of comfort in which women (some of them washed!) would lie with him, and wine which was clearly distinguishable from rancid vinegar. Terenzio at 14 was overwhelmed and resolved to dedicate himself to the lifestyle of the organized criminal.

It was about this time when the health of his maternal grandmother failed and through intermediaries Terenzio was called to her deathbed. Haughty and ill at ease among his family, dressed in the low-class clothing of a Sicilian dandy, so different from the free-flowing dramatic garments of the gypsies, used to the profane jostle of insults of young men rather than the stylized interactions of the gypsies: Terenzio alienated everyone he met that night. His mother saw the likeness of her assailant in her son's face and loathed him. Her embrace was perfunctory, stiff, and Terenzio felt the rejection. The men of the family envied his apparent prosperity which however pathetic in the grand scheme contrasted mightily with their homespun rags. They sneered at his walk, his newfound accent and jargon, and he in turn bore himself with all the more insufferable arrogance.

As he sat at his grandmother's side, she turned her rheumy eyes and looked at him without recognition. Something in her face touched him and the little boy who had been asserted himself. "Grandmother, it is I, Terenzio, your little grandson." She blinked slowly, then peered closer. Her breath came laboured, but she raised a hand and touched his cheek.

"You are grown," she whispered hoarsely, and the rattle of her lungs made pale the faces of those around her. "You are a man now." Terenzio flushed red as visions of his debauchery flashed through his mind: his beatings of those weaker, his lustful hours with harlots, his thievery, his drunken crimes of cruelty and evil.

The Tommy Gun Blues, 1

2010-05-04T21:37:00.001-07:00

What do you get when an elder Sicilian vampire has a small group of mobsters turned during the 1920's, and send them to Chicago to kill a rival, only to use them later as a scapegoat when the plan is discovered, so the mobsters are captured by the Prince of Chicago, but one escapes and witnesses all his friends buried alive in concrete as a vengeful punishment, so he leaves the city and goes into hiding, only to return nearly a century later when he is powerful enough, so he can dig out his friends and try to take over the city he was once exiled from?

Whatever Shall Be, Shall Be

2010-05-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

Let what is thought be written. Let what is written be read.

This blog is a scrapbook of fact & fantasy. What is written here is a mixture of reality and fiction created as entertainment and pastime. It may on occasion contain helpful information, but this occurs serendipitously, and is not the purpose of the work.