Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

I decided to let you know I’m not worse. In fact, I’m markedly better. But I got up late and had a podcast interview with the Worldshapers podcast, which ran till now because I talk way too much.

I will link it here when it goes live (should be this weekend.)

Havelock cat, as usual had opinions and things he wanted to interject, as well as running back and forth across my lap for no reason anyone could figure out.

Health wise, I’d say I’m almost okay, though the way this thing keeps coming back, I make no bets.

I’m going to grab a snack and then work on Bowl of Red.

Tomorrow I have a guest post, which is a short story by Ken Lizzi, because I have amazing friends.

The other thing I should say is that I — finally — have a world bible for Witchfinder, so Witch’s Daughter and then Rogue Magic will resume episodically on Saturdays, but not this week, because I’m still trying to finish Bowl of Red. (Yes, I know. It was the stupid whateverthehell this was that interfered.)

After that it’s Deep Water (Magis) which opens with “I owed a debt to the Loch Ness Monster….” And apparently has cannibal mermaids. Eh.

Anyway, I’ll now go back to paying work, after I eat something. I just wanted you to know I’m okay.

The left hates plastic.

No, seriously. They hate plastic. And no, I don’t think it’s because of how difficult it is to throw away/get rid of/etc.

I think — and remember that I grew up in leftist circles, or at least went to school in them — it’s an aesthetic thing. It’s part of their rejection of modernity.

And right here, I’m going to come clean and say I prefer to store things in glass jars. I prefer wicker baskets to plastic ones. But I am aware it’s aesthetic and that it’s the result of my having grown up at a time and place where the “rich” kids had plastic toys, while we had long-inherited, old stuff.

But heck, I grew up playing with legos inherited from cousins and brother. And at various times, when the cheapest utensil was plastic, we used that.

Also I love plastic bags in the grocery store, that I don’t have to remember to bring in (ADD, remember?) And I love straws.

But the left has lost their frigging minds. “Garble, brabble, plastic in the ocean. Great man made islands of trash” has been the little drum they’re beating for years now.

The Denver zoo exhibit on plastics in the ocean made me frown, because those plastics, including the pseudo lego-pieces were in no way western. Turns out the garbage for those cool “Ocean mammal sculptures” was almost all collected from Chinese and Indian shores.

But even there, I understand, there is nothing much in the way of plastic out to sea.

In fact, if this article is correct the “plastic” in the sea that people are terrified of are a few particles that can’t be seen with the naked eye.

I kind of suspected that because I know people who sail intercontinentally and none of them has reported floating islands of garbage. In fact, our very own Foxfier has looked at the pictures of these islands and identified them as carefully cropped debris from various tsunamis.

But in the name of this, the left is hoping to ban plastic from our lives. Mostly because it hurts their aesthetic sensitivities and because of course they don’t want us to have nice things.

Also, maybe they’re just a little scared if we’re familiar with plastic, we’ll spot their astroturf.

Me? I will use plastic when convenience dictates. And if the left hates plastic so much, they should take a good look at their posturing. Because nothing is faker and more plastic than that.

PS – I have the most generous fans in the world. And I hate to bother you with this, but I have a friend in dire trouble: A New Life

Spielberg’s West Side Story Isn’t What You’ve Heard – by Anonymous

Steven Spielberg has recently released a new version of West Side Story, as many people have doubtless heard, and many have feared. I confess, I worried that this remake would be a travesty against the original, as so many are. The words “Music Man remake” are nigh unto profanity in my family for how terrible that remake was. So it was with trepidation that my family waited for the movie to be released.

The first of us to see it was one of my brothers, who was so enamored of the original as a child that he almost had every line memorized. (No one ever said we were normal). If any of us would hate this remake, he would be the one. He didn’t hate it. To our surprise, he declared it the definitive movie version. This was a surprise to all of us.

The readers of this blog will doubtless have also heard how “woke” this remake is. After all, it cast native Spanish speakers as Puerto Ricans (though many were not Puerto Ricans themselves, like Ziegler, who is half-white and half-Cuban and plays Maria), and because Spielberg made some rather odd remarks about choosing not to subtitle the Spanish segments of the movie. I honestly find the wording of his comments rather stupid, though I do not entirely disagree with the decision not to subtitle the Spanish. More on that later.

I have now read multiple articles, as well as the comments (if Oedipus Rex took place today, it wouldn’t be the guilt that made him gouge out his eyes, it would be reading the comments), and one thing is obvious: the people hating on the movie didn’t actually watch it. They heard that they actually cast Hispanics as Hispanics, and they heard that there were no subtitles, and bam! “IT’S WOKE AND STUPID!” Perhaps the articles should have had trigger warnings for the readers’ sensitive feelings?

So, I will start with the point of the lack of subtitles. I watched the movie with my family and a friend. Only two of us understand any Spanish. I won’t call either of us fluent, but I have taken Spanish proficiency tests, and my listening comprehension was rated “Limited Professional”. So I understood most of the Spanish sections. The other one who knows some Spanish understood about the same amount as me. The non-Spanish speakers left the movie considering it better than the original. In fact, we all said that it was better. The lack of complete comprehension did not detract from the movie. In fact, it placed the viewer in the position of observer. The viewer found that he did not have all the information, and perhaps didn’t understand everything. Rather like real-life, that. In real-life we often find ourselves unable to understand others due to lack of knowledge, so this is hardly the worst thing in a movie. And even without understanding every word, the actors conveyed the information with their actions quite well. Chino calling Bernardo an idiot for getting involved in gang warfare while the other Sharks mourn him was still completely understandable to the non-Spanish speakers, despite their not knowing the exact words, though “Bernardo” and “estupido” were enough to get that point across.

Now, the strange complaint (seriously, casting Hispanics as Hispanics is not woke [I think it was more Spielberg’s insistence on only casting LatinX. That final x was the issue-SAH]) about woke casting. At least one no-name internet pundit says there is no way that Ziegler has the grace of Natalie Wood. Frankly, I disagree. Ziegler plays the role flawlessly, and convincingly. And, she plays the character of a Puerto Rican girl freshly arrived in America more convincingly. And, while I do not intend to slight Natalie Wood, Ziegler is more capable in her role, performing her own singing rather than being dubbed over in post-production. The same goes for Tony, by the way. Tony’s actor does his own singing in this movie, and does it extremely well. And this Tony can dance. As a tangent, Tony and Maria’s first dance in this version was remarkable to me, as the movement and footwork was strongly reminiscent of a knife fight, which was appropriate foreshadowing for what that dance led to. 

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’d like to talk about the movie itself rather than rail against snowflakes who scream at the thought of Hispanic actors and no subtitles. This might be the blog post that kills the readership of the blog, but I stand by it, and if you don’t like it, well,  I don’t have plans to make any more posts about it. [I don’t think it will kill the readership of the blog. They know they can throw rotten fruit at any given guest post. – SAH]

The original West Side Story movie really was more of a stage production on screen. It was quite well done, and I still enjoy it, but the way it was shot and acted is closer to the stage than the screen. The new West Side Story was adapted to fit the screen better, and also took some great pains to create a more complete story. The old West Side Story was shot in the emptied slums that were about to be demolished to make way for  Lincoln Center. The new one is set in those same slums, but all around is destruction and demolition. The Jets are no longer cast as the good guys or protagonists as they were in the original. The new Jets are cast as what they were always supposed to be: juvenile delinquents, hoodlums, thugs, gangbangers, and victims of their parents’ abusive behavior. Gone is the attractive gymnast Riff of the original, replaced with a psychopathic thug. The Tony of the original, who we are told “has a rap sheet bigger than the whole West SIde” yet doesn’t seem to have ever seen the rougher side of life, is replaced with a young boy who is barely out of prison, on parole for nearly beating one of the Egyptian Kings to death in a street brawl. He no longer seems like a pretty boy who’s never broken a rule yet supposedly has an endless list of crimes to his name. He now seems like a young boy who discovered what he really was, and is terrified of the terrible things he has done, and is afraid he will lose control again. This Tony has demons, and they haunt him through every scene. This Tony spends every scene yearning for the light, while grappling with his own darkness. I liked this Tony.

Maria is mostly the same character, though she is definitely the young girl she is supposed to be. Her behavior is much more like the 18 year old she is supposed to be in both original and remake. Ziegler plays her role quite well, and she has a voice. I enjoyed every note of her singing.

Chino was the surprise role of this movie. The Chino of the old movie is, frankly, forgettable. He doesn’t even make an appearance until the 2nd Act in which he famously tells Maria “HE KILLED YOUR BROTHER!” This Chino surprised me. He makes an appearance in the opening scene in which he shouts at the Jets after they stole the sign from the store where he works as a bagboy. That scene alone sets the stage well for the movie. The stolen sign declared in Spanish that the store sold groceries, while the sign underneath was faded and bore a four-leaf clover, representing the changing human geography of the slums of the West Side. All at once, you see that this is a story of the old-timers versus the newcomers, with the Jets, as Lieutenant Schrank puts it as “the last of the Can’t Make It Caucasians”. He details the other groups that had come through those slums, and how those groups worked hard and rose out of the slums, and now live in nice apartments and have nice daughters the Jets would love to date, but the Jets don’t want to do the hard work to get out of the slums. My apologies for digressing. Chino, in this movie, is present from the beginning, and he is not a Shark. He is a long time friend of Bernardo’s, and wants to join the Sharks, but Bernardo has other plans for him. Chino is going to night school to learn accounting (and adding-machine repair) and he has a future. He is no tough, he is a hardworking man that Bernardo sees bringing his sister out of poverty and giving her a stable household with a steady income. But Chino looks at Bernardo, this young tough boxer who protects their community against the depredations of hoodlums, and wants to be tough like him and join the Sharks. The Chino of the original was little more than a set piece. This Chino is a man. He has goals, dreams, ambitions, and he changes through the story, until he makes the fateful decision to shoot a man in the back to avenge his dead friend, and realizes his mistake when he sees the woman he hoped to marry sobbing over the corpse of her love.

Elaborating on my previous comment about old-timers versus newcomers, this version of West Side Story is not so much a story about the evils of racism, but the evils of tribalism, factionalism, and identitarianism. I submit that this movie is not only not woke, it is anti-woke. The movie featured multiple decision points where if anyone could have seen past their tribe, they would have realized they were not enemies, and they could have avoided the tragedy of three homicides in a single day.

One small but significant change is this version is less anti-police than the original. The original we hear Lieutenant Schrank complain that the Puerto Ricans have made a bad neighborhood worse, and he even attempts to recruit the Jets as his personal enforcer squad and offers their help if they get in a rough spot. The new version of Lieutenant Schrank is against the violence and disorder the gangs bring to the street. And this Sergeant Krupke is tired of the Jets and past his prime, rather than the old version who is little more than a tough with a badge.

One more character surprised me in this version. In this version, Doc’s Druggist is no longer run by Doc, but by his widow, a Puerto Rican woman named Valentina, played by Rita Moreno, who was Anita in the original. Say what you want, but that casting choice was perfect, and her rendition of Somewhere was heartbreaking, especially as she gazes at a picture of herself and Doc together in front of their store. Photoshop does have some good uses. She plays the only responsible adult in the life of the Jets and other hoodlums, trying to redeem those she can, and even giving Riff a chance, despite him having stolen from her store since he was six years old.

Now, a few other interesting notes. Several songs change places in this version of the movie. Where the stage production has Officer Krupke in the second act, and Cool in the first, the original reversed that order, and the remake places both of them in the first act. Officer Krupke takes place as the hoodlums are being questioned about the Rumble prior to the fight, and ends with them trashing the station when the cops foolishly leave them alone to chase after another kid who assaulted one of their number. And Cool in this version changed drastically, and for the better. This version of Cool consists of Tony attempting to take away Riff’s gun, which he purchased from a bartender who was an acquaintance of his criminal father, as Tony attempts to tell the Jets that they shouldn’t be warring over turf anymore, and that a gun (a S&W Model 10 in .38 Special the dealer tells them) will only get them into trouble. He fails in his attempt at disarming the Jets, and the final “pow” of the song is delivered by Riff, not singing, but telling Tony that he is no longer a Jet, and nothing will keep Riff from the Rumble.

There is one and only one concession to wokeness in the movie. The character of Anybodys is no longer an extreme tomboy, and is now played as Trans. It’s not loudly shouted, nor played up. The character is just androgynous, and says they’re a boy, while the Jets says they’re a girl.

Perhaps I have done a poor job convincing you, but I will leave my final suggestion: watch the movie, and actually watch it with your eyes and not with the commentary from glib pundits who are as hair-trigger and sensitive as any wokie I’ve ever met. Just watch the movie. You will enjoy it.

Since the Covid panic porn has managed, if nothing else, to scare my mother, she recently accused me of thinking I “am smarter than everyone else.”

(Because in her mind everyone else is panicked and terrified of the new variant from France, and– and she won’t listen when I tell her that if it were needed to be as locked down/careful as they are over there, everyone in the US would be dead with the possible exceptions of CA and NYC, but that’s not what the numbers show.)

Of course I don’t. My super-power, if you can call it that — most of the time it’s a pain and a headache — has nothing to do with being smarter — though frankly reading everything from everywhere and retaining a weird hodge podge of facts does help, for values of help — but with never looking in the expected direction.

Back in the nineties, when people were talking about thinking outside the box, I realized I couldn’t even find the box, and often what I was doing was tacking towards the box from outer space. This means I very often have absolutely no clue why people are worried about something, because I’m worried about something completely different.

But it also means — as was obvious through my schooling career and in business meetings when I had an office job — that I often home in on the one thing that no one else saw, because they were so busy looking in the other direction and debating other things.

And this often means I find problems with things that people on the right are “trooping all together” convinced this is the answer

Such was the case recently with “Mass Formation Psychosis”. There’s a brief history here, and the video is linked.

Okay, yeah, I know, Twitter has banned people for talking about it, and youtube banned Joe Rogan over it and and and….

Look, I’m not saying that this process isn’t what the left thinks it’s doing. I’m just saying that it’s not for the reasons given, and that none of it makes much sense, besides bringing up “you kids get off my lawn” memories starting when I was really young.

Let’s start with the video I linked, which annoyed the living daylights out of me by appearing be trying to hypnotize. (I don’t look at the images and had it on 2x the speed, but when I checked on the progression, that’s the feel I got.)

And then let’s move to the theory: the theory is that when people feel disconnected from each other, and people feel things are going wrong, a determined media campaign can create a reality in people’s minds completely divorced from reality.

The examples given are pre-Nazi Germany and…. 2019?

Now, I don’t know about you, but 2019 didn’t impress me as a particularly fractured year. Yeah, the woke were gamboling through the media, as they’ve done…. oh, the last 20 years. And yeah, people were getting cancelled for political reasons, as they have my entire adult life (at least now it’s in the open.)

So, I had no clue what the heck the guy proposing the theory thought was so bad about 2019. You can tell he doesn’t either, because he tries to bluster his way past it, by talking about kids always on their cellphones…. yeah. No. If anything the kids are hyper-connected.

Also, as far as I know there as no disconnection in pre-Nazi Germany, until the Nazi propaganda created it, so that too is insanity. I guess it was those kids, always on their radios or something, uh?

There was poverty, confusion, rapidly changing circumstances — which frankly is more like now than 2019 — but not “disconnection.”

So it sounds to me like having identified that “When you drive people crazy by mass media, they go crazy” this person tacked on a prelude and came up with the solution of being more local and making friends locally and– (Not that I think there’s anything wrong with that. I just don’t think it has anything to do with the problem. It’s like “Oh, your hair is falling out. Eat more pumpkin, because it’s always good for you.” Not a lie, (maybe, not fond of pumpkin) but not a remedy.)

What both epochs have in common is massive shifts in communication. And if you look at it from that point of view, you see they’re not the same thing, but brackets on the end of the mass media age.

Mass media — radio, mostly, but documentary movies also– were used to create a reality more compelling than reality itself for the German people, which is why they let their “leaders” do horrible things. Because what “everybody knew” was being fed to them from media that they were convinced carried “reality.”

Arguably this is still happening in Europe, and to an extent even in Australia and other parts of the rest of the world. (DEFINITELY Canada.)

The big exception is the US, which, as the last elections showed, is out of the mass media era by a hair’s breadth. I.e. despite the most concerted mass media campaign against Trump, people still voted for him in numbers such that despite all the fraud laid in, they had to fraud in front of everyone at the last minute. And despite their attempts at keeping us terrified, most of the country has had enough of Covid theater. And despite their attempts to make the Junta the bestest thing ever, we’re not buying, and despite–

Why? Because we are in the realm of personalized media, with blogs and various peer-to-peer coms program that allows groups to talk and dissent, and realize they’re not alone.

Now, the rest of the world has dissension too, but it necessitates face to face interaction, which the covid nonsense was designed (still is) to prevent.

The left was losing the train, as shown by Brexit and Trump’s election, and they are making a final hail-mary play to get the total control they want.

Only in the US…. it’s not working quite as planned. Enough to make us super-uncomfortable, but not enough to make us obey.

Mass Formation Psychosis? A fancy term for “Concerted mass media propaganda campaigns work, if relentless, all over the world and shrill enough.”

They work…. for a time at least.

But they don’t work everywhere, even for a time. And it doesn’t seem to work for us, or not as advertised.

Is the whole thing what the technocrats think they’re doing? Possibly. For them 2019 MIGHT have seemed like the world coming apart, as things Trump did proved their conceits wrong. For us? Revelatory, but not like that.

This might explain, btw, why the panic bit the left harder. WAY harder.

So, is the way out going local and making local contacts, and–

Uh…. why?

I mean, sure it can be. Particularly for us, political junkies, just going to the park and seeing people walk around can help (If in a non-masked area.)
But is that the way out? Again, why?

To a great extent the Covid nonsense has isolated us enough locally that many people don’t have contacts anymore, and that you can rebuild.

But why should you eschew online contacts and forums, other than the fact someone doesn’t like “Those kids on their cell phones?”

I think what they perceive as division is that we no longer trust the narrative of the one (largely leftist) media megaphone.

That’s too bad, so sad.

It could be argued that any people who speaks or thinks of current events in one unified voice is by definition not a free people.

Approach information your own way. Find your own answers. Stop looking for “unity” with a bunch of complete strangers. If you need unity and love that much, get married. Or join a group with the same goals (A small one. Large groups don’t work on that.)

If we’re not all looking in the same direction, it’s impossible to become fixated on the same things.

We’ll get out of this the only way one can get out of it: by rejecting mass information and the one true narrative.

Let’s be individuals, and fail to organize. We’ll each take a different path in dismantling this ridiculous, overarching illusion they’re trying to impose on us.

That’s the one thing they never count on: free individuals.

They won’t know what hit them.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Technoserf

The Madrian Empire rules worlds as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach. When the Madrians conquered Roby’s homeworld, they brought him to this godforsaken lump of a world, to toil at their will.

Now the Gate has failed, leaving them without communications or transport to the rest of the Empire. When Roby identifies the problem, he’s offered a chance to fix it.

Roby now faces a quandry. Even if he can repair the damage, should he? Will he be better off reunited with the masters’ metropole? Or will he only complicate a difficult life?

FROM DWIGHT R. DECKER *translator*: Ini: A Novel from the 21st Century

First published in German in 1810 and never before translated into English, Julius von Voss’s INI: A Novel from the 21st Century is a long-lost classic utopian novel. The setting is the world of the 2090s as imagined by an author writing nearly 300 years before, when the Industrial Revolution was just barely getting started. Teams of trained eagles pulling balloons, whales harnessed to a floating island, a gigantic umbrella sheltering an entire city… the marvels keep on coming. INI is also a love story, as the hero spends the novel striving to make himself worthy of the title heroine in the most literal way. Much of the novel is a tour of the world of the future: after traveling through Europe and then North America, the hero meets with disaster in the Arctic and finds himself marooned at the North Pole. With its detailed vision of history and science for the next three centuries, INI is considered by some to be the first German science-fiction novel. While a product of its time for better or worse, it is sometimes whimsical, sometimes eccentric, and always imaginative. Long hidden behind the language barrier and known only by its title from a few scattered references, INI is now available in English to science-fiction historians and others interested in early fantastic fiction. Includes vintage illustrations as well as historical and translation notes that put the story in context.

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: A Capital Whip: A Pride and Prejudice Sequel

An invalid for much of her life, Miss Anne de Bourgh has precisely one accomplishment: carriage driving. She is proud of her skill with reins and whip, and justifiably so.

But when another young lady moves into the neighborhood, and challenges Anne’s place as the most accomplished driver in Hunsford, Anne must prove to herself, to her beloved horses, and to her family that she is worthy of the name de Bourgh, and she does not shrink away from a challenge.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: Autumn’s Smile: A short fantasy (Seasons Book 3)https://amzn.to/3FewE8G

“Maybe it won’t be so difficult to believe someone who used to be a pagan Norse Valkyrja, and still acts in the capacity of a Norse semi-demi-hemi god at the orders of Odin All-Father, is going to tell what’s more or less a Christmas story…”

The former Valkyrja Sigrdrifa, now the very American pioneer wife Sarah Randall — who just happens to be the Queen of Autumn — tells a story of the historical Deep Snow of 1830-31 in the American Midwest, as she and two other former Asgardians attempt to control the runaway heavy weather that began in the fall of 1830, while out of the woods come four children from a neighboring homestead with a tale of woe.

Will a visit by the Ancient Wanderer cheer things up as the Solstice approaches?

FROM ELLEN KEENAN: Delta.

“Her piercing eyes cut into Beth’s facade, exposing her fear. The tension in the air was fierce, but the weather of the new location remained unchanged and mild. It was like an eternal springtime. Surrounding them, the roughly painted delta radiated with power that seemed almost electric.”

The life of 16-year-old Beth is relatively normal. Until one day, her reality is shattered, and she awakens in a strange new world. At first, it seems perfect, almost too perfect. But as Beth adapts to her surroundings, she finds nothing is as it seems. In a society where secrets are buried in the soil, Beth must learn to fight, lie, and possibly even love.

FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: The Facts of Roses

Side A: Current events, the world is falling apart
Side B: Pop culture
Side C: A discussion about Cerebus

As always, little tidbits are included in-between each essay. With current events, they’re news headlines. With pop culture, they’re random jokes I threw in. The essays on each side are in chronological order, the headlines/jokes are in chronological order but the two do not mix.

FROM D. JASON FLEMING: Jules Verne’s The Vanished Diamond

In 1880s South Africa, French chemical engineer Victor Cyprien has discovered the process to create a synthetic diamond, creating a very large diamond that gets christened “The Star of the South”. When it is stolen, he and his compatriots pursue the thieves across the African veldt.

This lesser-known classic by Jules Verne is remarkable not for its science fictional speculation, but for its singular portrait of its main character.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Wolf of the World: The Elect: Story the First

One searches for oil. The other searches for revenge.

Gregor watches Americans searching for oil in Carpathian Poland. As the Americans grow frustrated by their lack of success, Gregor grows fascinated by Linda, the petrogeologist. His master, Lord Ivan Bethlán, shares that fascination, and demands that Gregor bring Linda to him.

Linda just wants to find oil and get home to Houston. She does not care for being watched – or stalked – and confronts the large black dog haunting the woods near the survey team’s camp. Taken by his politeness and excellent German, Linda starts to wonder. Why is he so well-spoken? And who is the master who Gregor will not name?

A geologist and a Calvinist werewolf must join forces to stop a monster.

A dark fantasy with romance elements.

FROM BECKY R. JONES: Night Mage

After fighting a demon in the middle of Philadelphia, Zoe O’Brien wants nothing more than to return to her normal, if stress-filled, life as an assistant professor of history at Summerfield College. But she’s an Elemental mage and that means when there’s potential magical trouble on campus, the squirrels come to her.

Who or what is the dark presence moving around campus? Why is it here and what does it want? Zoe struggles to come to terms with her mage powers and the leadership role her colleagues have given her. Complicating everything are all the papers that have to be graded, classes that need to be prepped, and most importantly, cats that require attention. Oh, yeah. She might actually have a boyfriend as well.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: CORAGEOUS

Yesterday, on younger son’s advice I decided to try something new: sleep when tired.

This started out as being up for half an hour and sleeping for two hours, until nighttime when I managed to be up for almost three hours…. then slept for 12.

I woke up feeling WAY better. Cough is gone while standing — though I know I’ll need cough syrup when I lie down — and I’m only sluggish, not permanently tired.

So, I thought I should tell you guys, so you don’t worry.

Younger son and only husband are also doing better, and now drinking lemon tea.

This thing of sleeping when tired is revolutionary, and frankly I’m not sure I trust it, but who knows? It might continue working.

Should be okay for promo post tomorrow, and working too.

Don’t set fire to the blog while I’m sleeping.

One or my favorite scenes in any movie is in Lady Hawk when the thief, having done something that’s morally bad and it works, starts yelling at the sky, “Lord? What am I supposed to learn from this?”

I’d be yelling that, if my throat didn’t feel like it was on fire, and if I had even a little bit of energy.

For a week now, I’ve been having this cold. It’s not the world’s worst cold, except it came in with really high fevers. How high? Well, I don’t have a thermometer (This is a lie. I do, but it’s in a box, somewhere) but it’s that level of fever where you feel like this:

You feel like you’re roasting to the level it’s near-painful, your eyeballs feel like they’re sweating, and if you self-combusted it wouldn’t even surprise you a bit.

And then I got a little cough, and I was okay. ….. maybe. I mean my throat hurt like hell, and the cough kept getting worse and worse.

Yesterday was like “Am I getting better or worse?”

Today answered it. The day has defeated me with one hour of being awake. The throat pain has diminished some, or at least is responding to pain killers. I’m just SO tired I can barely carry a thought.

It’s been almost a week. What the heck? I don’t take this long to kick colds.

And the worst part? This is the second time.

First time? 2020, last week, I made a plan for what to write/when. I was all set for my most productive year yet, and then I caught what was probably the Wuflu first week of the year. And it flattened me for a month. I got nothing done. Just as I was getting ready to work the world went insane.

Lord? I know I have a plan for what to write. Look, I’m only mortal. I need these things.

But that’s no reason to visit Son of 2020 This Time It’s Annoying on me.

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?

Extract from the diary of Abigail Keeva-Remy, aged 14:

December is just no fun at all, except at the end. In December, as observant USAians we fast and freeze in memory of Valley Forge, when the USAian cause seemed dead before birth.

I imagine it’s very difficult for my friends who are observant Christians to prepare for joy and fast and freeze. Though they tell me it’s also a penitential time, of preparing your soul to receive the redeemer. I wouldn’t know. Dad says that my grandparent’s religion is revolution. I’m not sure what he means by that, but he doesn’t seem pleased by it. And Christianity was forbidden so long they retain an habit of secrecy, so it’s hard to make them explain fully.

Oh, and I’m very glad my family is not that observant, so we’re not required to wear summer clothes for two weeks, even if it’s a blizzard out. But the temperature controls in the house never go above sixty, no matter what.

Till Christmas. On Christmas morning, while the newly legalized Christian faithful open gifts, and light up their trees, we light up our tree and houses too. Only our tree is an oak, the same we use for the high holy holidays in July, with red paper on the base to symbolize blood.

And then we eat gingerbread men shaped like hessian soldiers. You always bite their heads first. And you wish each other liberty and joy.

But in January, there’s another somber holiday, the last one in the string. My friends tell me for Christians it’s epiphany, and that it’s even harder to celebrate with the USAian holiday, because it’s the feast of G-d made manifest in the world.

I’d say ours is the feast of G-d working in the world through people, also. People who never give up, and keep fighting for what’s right.

Dad says it’s the anniversary of the Glorious Sixth. It wasn’t the end. It wasn’t even the beginning of the end. But it was people standing up for USAian ideals against one of the more serious attempts to destroy the Republic.

I don’t understand all the history yet. I probably will, someday. But dad says that we learn the history in the ritual, so it becomes part of us.

So on the sixth, we remember those who died or were unjustly imprisoned on sixth. Then we remember all those who died for Usaian ideals.

Of course, it’s impossible to remember them all. Some we never knew the name of, or it was lost in the turmoils. But we remember those we knew, and those in our own family.

We light a candle for each of those who purchased our ultimate freedom with their lives and share stories of our absent companions who fell in the dark years.

And eat apple pie salted with our tears by the light of those candles.

Apple Pie by Bill Reader

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Honorable 6th.

I don’t know how you are planning on commemorating today. But let me tell you how I am commemorating it.

First, I’ve bought an apple pie, and a candle.

Second, I’ve spent some time locating the direction of Washington DC.

Tomorrow I’m going to go about my usual routine. I shall eat dinner as usual, although I intend fully to listen to a selection of patriotic songs as I do so.

Once I am finished with dinner, I am going to clean up the table, bring out the apple pie, and flip the bird in the direction of Washington DC. Both fingers, with gusto.

Then I am going to place my candle on my apple pie, and light it to the memory of Ashley Babbitt and the poor souls imprisoned and tortured by the Biden regime. I’ll remember the people still being held in solitary confinement, without proper food or hygiene, at the government’s leisure, while the government—remind yourself, this is ostensibly the government of a free people— pretends to get around to holding fair trials. Of course, it will be all be over the moment they agree to be a public turncoat, as we’ve seen.

 So I will say a little prayer for them. But I will say one other prayer also—a prayer for other victims of socialists around the world. I will pray for them all together— because all of them are. If you’re struck with disbelief that the American government is doing such things, consider instead that it is the Democratic government doing them. This is the result of a government staffed mostly by one political party.

What kind of a party? The party that protested on the streets because Islamic terrorists who devoted their entire lives to plotting the deaths of random American civilians, terrorists who were trying actively to kill American soldiers overseas when they were captured, were not receiving “fair trials”. But naturally, they are now denying fair trials to actual Americans who entered the capitol in protest. In, it has been pointed out, the same manner Leftist protestors did during the Kavanaugh confirmation. But it’s not hypocrisy. Where you live by principles, the Left lives by goals.

And the January 6th protestors were a threat to those goals. Not because the protestors wanted to destroy the system of American government, as the Left lied then, and lies now, but because the franchise that lies at the heart of it was being discarded, and their protest threatened to make people aware that it was being discarded. And it had to be discarded, you see, because that selfsame government had decided said franchise was a threat to Democracy—defined as “rule by Democrats”— and only the destruction of that franchise could save Democracy as so defined. It was therefore necessary to change electoral rules illegally at the last minute in order to permit fraud, and then refuse absolutely to allow audits. And to allow Democrat shock troops to threaten any judges the issue of audits was put before.

We’ll never know in detail how badly the franchise was damaged because an accounting of the wound was never allowed by the men standing over Lady Liberty with a knife. They told us everything was fine and she was resting, and that remains the semi-official line even today, though the pool of blood is soaking our shoes. A partial audit of what was not even by a country mile the most suspicious state demonstrated that they still got caught. And that was after everything else. After a mysterious warehouse fire “coincidentally” destroyed a huge number of Arizona ballots preventing them from ever being examined, after the routers needed to fully complete even the limited audit that was allowed were hastily re-appropriated for no well-defined reason. After a promise was secured not to allow a true signature-match audit— because that would have shredded whatever vestige of the benefit of the doubt the thieves had left after that parade of damning revelations.

In fact if there is anything we’ve learned since January 6th it’s that the protestors were more correct than they probably even knew. Perhaps more than some of them know even today, stuck as they are in the belly of the government whale. As for mister 81-million-votes, however many of those were actually cast by voters, future generations shall need to guess. Current ones are already guessing.

Once you understand that the goal was being threatened, you’ll see there’s nothing inconsistent at all about their policy. They defended the basic rights of people who wish to immiserate Americans and destroy America. They are torturing and denying the basic rights of people who wished to draw attention to the crime of the century— the theft of a nation. And doing it while busying themselves with their primary tasks—immiserating Americans and destroying America.

The protestors on the Honorable 6th were my fellow Americans. I know not what country their torturers hail from, but from all that they say, I know they don’t wish America well. Wherever it is, they seem to have learned their manners and politics from the East Germans, the Soviets, and the National Socialists. Perhaps we shall see these creatures at our own Nuremburg someday, and find out whose orders they were following.

But tomorrow is not, alas, that day. Maybe if we can beat the fraud apparatus just once more, we will find within this nation the will and ability to rip the gears out of that fatal machine, and expose the architects pulling the levers inside it. With the help of the brave perhaps we can again be the home of the free. The… energetic effort by the White House handlers, working tirelessly behind the shambling embarrassment that is Joe Biden to dismantle this country to its studs, has done remarkable damage—but it is breeding nemesis. There may be coming an electoral backlash so profound that even fraud as blatant as what we have seen cannot touch it.

And I hope dearly that is the case, because I want nothing less than to see a real insurrection in the United States. If one happens then there will be no going back. We will no longer be a damaged country but a fallen one. The successor will be an open question. If you’re sitting around hoping for one, all I can say is that you can’t hope to keep the baby when the bathwater, bathtub, and bathroom are violently ejected into the middle distance. We’ll be better off fixing the corrupt mess that we have, and showing future generations that corrupt messes can be fixed, than leaving future generations nothing more to hope for than a descent into pre-civilizational chaos each time the parasites outgrow the host.

But if that message or the message that surrender to the parasites is all a man can hope for, if the only alternative is a legacy of oppression in silence, then I also know the lesser of two evils. I pray that the American government has enough vestigial sense not to do things that demand a true rebellion. The major players have all the resources they need to ensure for themselves comfortable retirements wherever they like, if they aren’t stupid enough to push it. But their overblown reaction to the protest on the 6th is concerning. If they want to stigmatize resistance to the government so early and so hard, how much more do they plan to do to justify and demand not just protest, but more? Do the coordinated walk-backs of the COVID restrictions, now that much of the American populace has gotten sick of them and started ignoring them, hint at some vestige of sense? I don’t know. I hope. I hope.

And then, having expressed my own disdain for our miserable aristocrats, and having said a prayer to the memory of those killed and those languishing at the hands of the same socialist scourge that has throttled other societies and is trying to destroy ours, I will have a slice of apple pie.

Because I, unlike the people holding the J6 protestors hostage, am an American. I hold in contempt any man who thinks he is better than me merely because he can threaten me with force. I support those who defend the integrity of the vote—that is, those who want all fair and legitimate votes counted, and only those votes counted, as opposed to the charlatans encouraging people to root for more votes, from any source, for any reason, from the same person twice or thrice, from people claiming to be people who didn’t show up, from people giving home addresses from nonexistent places, from illegals, from people who were taken advantage of by ballot harvesters, from nobody at all but a printer in a lonely office somewhere. I especially support people willing to stand up to people who want to see America destroyed, and on January 6th that choice is clear. Though a government composed of perhaps millions of people and trillions of dollars, with the aid of their omnipresent media apparatus, wants you to see them as the innocent victims of the same people who also continue to suffer at their hands—even so, the choice is clear.

Because that contempt for aristocracy, and the protest we commemorate tomorrow, are as American as apple pie.

Home to Roost – by Professor Ornery Dragon

It appears as though the Democrats’ chickens are finally coming home to roost. In Philadelphia, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) was carjacked and all her belongings stolen in broad daylight in FDR Park by a group of young black men. FDR Park is a very large park and golf course in the south of Philly, just a couple blocks west of the sports complex. It is not some little pocket park in a bad area of the city. Scanlon is a huge supporter of the defund the police movement and Philly DA Larry Krasner (a Soros creature). Jim Kenney, the erstwhile mayor of Philly, and another Krasner supporter was “appalled” to learn of the carjacking. It is to laugh. Hey, Jimmy-boy! Perhaps you should give the police more money and support!

In a Chicago suburb, an Illinois state senator (Kimberly Lightford, Democrat) was carjacked as well. Again in broad daylight. And in San Francisco, a growing wave of drug deal killings and overdoses in the Tenderloin (a notoriously bad area of the city), has finally drawn the attention of the city’s progressive mayor, London Breed (Democrat), whose call for stronger and more frequent policing of the area has caused her DA, Chesa Boudin (D-Soros funded and so progressive he makes progressives look conservative) to get mad at her.

In Oakland, California an NBC news crew was robbed of their cameras at gun point. Now, while many of us familiar with the area might say, “well, yeah, Oakland” it must be pointed out that in the years I lived in San Francisco, and the twenty-five years my parents lived there, I didn’t hear any stories like that. An entire news crew, held at gunpoint and robbed…wait for it…in broad daylight.

Finally, we’re seeing the consequences of the defund the police movement being noticed by the national news services. Fortunately nobody was injured in the two carjackings. Sadly, many people will die before Boudin does something about the Tenderloin. But we are seeing some chickens come home to roost. Those who support the defund the police idea are now victims of the crime wave they created.

It did take some high-profile victims for that to happen, but that indeed was only a matter of time. You know that if the carjacking had happened to your average Philadelphian or Chicagoan, the response would have made the Slowsky family look positively swift-footed.

In many cities the mayors and city council members who agitated for defunding the police have resorted to hiring private security for themselves while the city residents are left to fend for themselves. Yeah, that goes over well with voters.

In the Philadelphia case, the cops found the car, with all five carjackers in it, in Newark, Delaware (about 25 miles south of Philly) a few hours later. Please note that it wasn’t social workers who found the car and convinced the carjackers to pretty-please give it back. I seriously doubt you could find a currently employed social worker who would be willing to confront a car full of five armed “youths”.

The entire defund the police movement was predicated on the idea that cops always abuse force. This image was further enhanced by the media’s highlighting of every single police-involved shooting or altercation and the continued implication that the only reason there was an altercation was because the police had started it. This is a completely b.s. view and explicitly designed to demonize all police officers – good, bad, indifferent, white, black, Hispanic, and Asian, Republican voters, and Democratic voters. All of them.

Progressive politicians and the media have only themselves to blame for becoming crime victims. The media is finding out that they’re fair game to criminals as well, and perhaps even a fun challenge. After all, if your “employment” is armed robbery, then robbing a news crew in broad daylight probably seems like an entertaining challenge. Just like all the smash-and-grab robberies going on in San Francisco in its high-end, trendy stores. In this case, blame the victim is perfectly allowable.

The schadenfreude of all these attacks is beautiful to behold. But what’s even more fun is that they are being reported on national news. The powers-that-be have no choice but to comment on them. Of course, many of the comments will be like those of Jim Kenney…expressing shock without the teensiest bit of acknowledgement that he bears even one iota of responsibility for them.

And that’s how the left operates. “Let’s do all these feel-good things! If you object, you’re an eeebil, raaaacist unperson!” Thing goes into operation. Lefty and Lefty’s friends smile and ignore the objections of the hoi polloi, after all, the hoi polloi is just a bunch of knuckle-dragging raaaaacists. Then suddenly one day, one of Lefty’s friends is just SOCMOB (standing on corner, minding own business) when BAM! Out of nowhere and for no reason, some maladjusted yute robs them at gunpoint. “Wait just a damn minute,” Lefty yells. “That’s supposed to happen to the other guys not me and my friends! How dare you! I’m calling the cops!”

This is what we call irony. Lefty now needs and wants a police presence. But…there’s a problem. The cops, having been vilified for the last several years by Lefty and friends, told that they are all just raaaacist killers, are less than enthusiastic when it comes to putting their lives on the line for Lefty et al. Shrug. “Sorry, sir. We simply don’t have the manpower to investigate a simple mugging.”

Yes, there are parts of the criminal justice system that need real reform, but defunding police, and raising the value limits on stolen goods for prosecution purposes among other ridiculous and stupid measures ain’t the reform needed.

And there will be even more schadenfreude to enjoy when Lefty et al recognize that the perpetrators of the crimes on their friends are black. Now what’s a good white liberal to do? Go count the chickens you’re missing. That’s how many have yet to come home.

For the rest of us, stay safe and stay alert. Pay attention to your surroundings. Trust your gut. Because if you become a crime victim the system will grind much more painfully and slowly for you than it does for the politicians. After all, you are a mere peasant to their nobility.

In the meantime, pass the popcorn and enjoy the show!