#The Great Flood of 1968

[illleavemymessageinmysong]

Keynsham - “Why don't we drive in the rain?Straight to the eye of the hurricane?”

On a recent episode of the 2Legs podcast, guest Dino Viscera pointed out something odd about the album artwork for Paul’s ‘Driving Rain’ album. It shows a postcard addressed to ‘Paul McCartney, ‘Driving Rain’, Keynsham, Essex, UK’.

It’s odd because Keynsham isn’t in Essex, it’s near Bristol.

This could just be a bit of Beatlesesque randomness. Macca weirdness. Or could there be anything else to it?

First of all, what’s the deal with Keynsham? Well, the town secured its’ place in the popular culture in UK in the early 60s courtesy of Horace Batchelor, who advertised his services on pop radio as a football pools predictor. When giving his contact address, he would spell out the letters of Keynsham.

This in turn inspired the title track of The Bonzo Dog Band’s 1969 album ‘Keynsham’. Paul, of course, had produced their 1968 single ‘The Urban Spaceman’. There’s that connection, then. But why associate it with ‘Driving Rain’?

Well…Channel 5 in UK recently showed a programme called ‘The Great Flood of 1968’, about flooding that occurred on the night of 10 July 1968 in the Bristol area and heavily featured Keynsham. The flooding was so bad that Keynsham was officially declared a disaster area. Ok, Keynsham…driving rain…

The Bristol area was well known to Paul back in the mid 60s. Jane was resident there for long spells with the Bristol Old Vic Repertory Company. Paul often visited her there, famously getting the Rigby name from the Rigby & Evens wine and spirits shippers shop/office in King Street.

Back to 10 July 1968. What else was going on that evening? Well, back in London, the Jane Asher starring play ‘Summer’ opened at The Fortune Theatre. Gyles Brandreth, a British broadcaster and writer, wrote in his memoir and in his published diaries that he was there that night as a friend of Jane’s. He said that Paul was also there and was unaware that it was already over with Jane. Jane, he says, was with the play’s director, Robert Kidd. So, a significant event in P&J’s break-up.

As mentioned, the Keynsham address on the ‘Driving Rain’ postcard could be completely random. Or it could be a conscious or unconscious memory prompted by the heavy rain lyrical concept of the title track. ‘Essex’ could be there as part of the randomness or could be there as a distraction, avoiding the specific geographical detail of Keynsham, Somerset.

Maybe, as the Bonzos say in ‘Keynsham’, “there are no coincidences but, sometimes, the pattern is more obvious”.

Driving Rain

“If something’s missing it’s when we’re apart. If something’s good it’s when we’re back together again…why don’t we drive in the rain, straight to the heart of the hurricane? Go for a ride in the driving rain”

[andrew-buchan-fansite]

Another new project!

Andrew narrates The Great Flood of 1968

for Channel5

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.��

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

[mydaddywiki]

David McCullough

Physique: Average Build Height: 5' 11"

David Gaub McCullough (July 7, 1933 – August 7, 2022; aged 89) was an American popular historian. He was a two-time winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In 2006, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award. McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize–winning books—Truman and John Adams—were adapted by HBO into a TV film and a miniseries, respectively.

Beyond his books, the handsome, white-haired McCullough may have had the most recognizable presence of any historian, his fatherly baritone known to fans of PBS’s The American Experience and Ken Burns’ epic Civil War documentary. Making me wanting to blow him all night long… although you probably didn't need to know that last bit. Just pretend you didn't read that. Anyway

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, McCullough earned a degree in English literature from Yale University in 1955. After working for twelve years in editing and writing, including a position at American Heritage, McCullough wrote in his spare time for three years. The Johnstown Flood was published in 1968 to high praise by critics. Despite rough financial times, he decided to become a full-time writer, encouraged by his wife Rosalee. He wrote nine more on such topics as Harry S. Truman, John Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, and the Wright brothers.

McCullough also narrated numerous documentaries as well as the 2003 film Seabiscuit, and he hosted the PBS television documentary series American Experience for twelve years.

Personally, all I know about him is that he was married to his childhood sweet heart, Rosalee Barnes (aww). They had five children, which goes to my "loves to fuck" theory. While at Yale, he became a member of Skull and Bones. And his interests included sports, history, and visual art, including watercolor and portrait painting. And he had a face that would've looked great on my cock. Again… pretend you didn't read that.

After a period of failing health, McCullough died at his home in Hingham on August 7, 2022, at age 89. Less than two months after his beloved wife, Rosalee. He was survived by his five children; 19 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Works The Johnstown Flood: The Incredible Story Behind One of the Most Devastating Disasters America Has Ever Known (1968) The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (1972) The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (1977) Mornings on Horseback (1981) Brave Companions: Portraits in History (1991) Truman (1992) John Adams. (2001) 1776 (2005) In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story (2010) The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (2011) The Wright Brothers (2015) The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For (2017) The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West ( 2019)

[flowerbloom-arts]

Hey, sorry if I'm repetitive but what do you think happened to the humans in the Moomin universe.

Absolutely do not worry about asking too many questions, I love answering them!!!

Humans in Moominland is a very interesting subject... In that they're a LOT less of a presence than even I thought they were.

Alot of people (including me) thought that when, in Moomins and the Great Flood, Moominmamma was talking about Moomins living behind huge stoves before the invention of central heating she was talking about humans' stoves.

But no.

She never uses the word human, she says people.

(...) In those days they lived together with the house-trolls in people’s houses, mostly behind their tall stoves. “Some of us still live there now, I’m sure,” said Moominmamma. “But only where people still have stoves, I mean. We’re not happy with central heating.”

“Did the people know we were there?” asked Moomintroll.

(...)

“[A Hattifattener is] a kind of little troll-creature,” explained Moominmamma. “They’re mostly invisible. Sometimes they can be found under people’s floors, and you can hear them pattering about in there when it’s quiet in the evenings. (...)

And it's not like "people" was used as a specific term in Moomins and the Great Flood, either, because we have instances like these;

“Thank you so awfully much,” said Moominmamma. “You must have invited quite a lot of people up here for sea-pudding, I should think.”

“Oh yes,” said the boy. “People from every corner of the world. Snufkins, Sea-ghosts, Little Creeps and Big Folk, Snorks and Hemulens. And the odd angler fish, too.”

(...)

The armchair bobbed slowly along towards a hill where a lot of people were running about, pulling their belongings out of the water.

(...)

“Well, well,” said the marabou stork, who was beginning to feel touched. “I think I had better put you down on dry land and try to rescue a few more before the sun goes down. It’s very pleasant, rescuing people.” And then he took them back to the shore while they all talked at the same time about all the dreadful things they had been through. All along the shore people had lit fires at which they were warming themselves and cooking food, for most had lost their homes.

So it could be that Moominmamma was just talking about living behind regular creatures' oversized stoves, like how the Moomin ancestor did in Moominland Midwinter, which is honestly a very silly image. And it's not like it'd be impossible - the Hemulen and the Marabou stork in Great Flood are absolutely massive compared to our main characters.

Marabou storks tend to be about 5 feet tall so relatively speaking, if we assume this stork is still the same size as he would be irl, then our main characters would be relatively mouse-sized.

However. Tove didn't seem to have committed to this concept, and more or less just retconned it out of canon. Since the cats in Moomins and the Great Flood are seemingly regular-sized relative to the Hemulen's chair;

But in the 1968 revision of Comet in Moominland including future adaptations of the story, Sniff's cat is regular-sized, and so are the cats that appear in the Moomin comic strip, like the one in Moominmamma's Maid.

(sorry for using a screenshot from the 90s movie adaptation, I couldn't find a book illustration since I don't have a PDF of the revised book, much less an illustration of Sniff and his cat next to eachother, if that exists. If anyone has a way to read the revision in English pleeease give it to me)

But that's just Moomins and the Great Flood, which practically functions as a "pilot episode" for the whole franchise; it set up the concepts but is not representative of the rest of the franchise and has alot of things that get retconned but not entirely removed for the rest of the series, it wasn't even translated into/published in English until 2012. What about the rest of the franchise?

Well, the only instance of the word "human" being used in the books is in Moominpappa at Sea, while Moominpappa talked about how stone-faced the Fisherman/Lighthouse Keeper has been for the whole book;

‘There’s something wrong with you that I can’t make out,’ Moominpappa said to himself. ‘You’re not a human being at all. You’re more like a plant or a shadow, just as if you’d never been born.’

Which implies either of two things; the LHK is human or human-adjacent, or human is a normal adjective in the world of Moomin aswell.

And the only instance of the word "human" in the comic strip (there could be another instance I'm forgetting, however I'm not talking about Lars' comics because I am kind of prioritizing Tove's intentions here) is in a conversation between Snorkmaiden and Mymble Jr in Moomin Winter Follies;

Which... Kind of implies Mr. Brisk is human, I think? It's hard to imagine but there it is, the one instance of the word human in the comics.

And that's like... The only thing we really have within the original medium of Moomin.

But Tove had also worked on other things first-hand, and one of them had actual human characters.

That being Mumintrollet (1969, nice), a live-action show primarily known for the body horror of the Moomins removing their heads to reveal human heads inside. But with that obviously inapplicable facet of the show aside, we have this guy, the main antagonist, the King;

This guy is an explicitly canon human (can't be 100% sure since the show hasn't been transcribed or translated from its original swedish but I'm close to sure), and he's about the same size as the Moomins (probably because of the nature of the show, kinda like the whole head thing and Little My's normal human size in the show, but ehhh)

And that's, like, it for the canonicity of humans in Moomin, everything else is questionable or vague or a bit bewildering.

Like, is King Jones from Moominpappa's Memoirs a human? Why is he so big? What's going on here???

But that's all up to speculation, even the examples of the instances of the word human I've shown doesn't totally prove the existence of humans as we know them in this world. Alot of the characters look human but aren't, and others aren't stated to be not human, there are some oversized things like Muddler's tin that don't get explained, but who knows, really.

In short, I don't think anything has exactly happened to humans. They're either living among Moominland's society like fellow creatures (heck, maybe even some of the characters we know are human) or they're like... Rare or extinct or didn't even truly exist in the first place.

It's one big "who knows?".

[aliypop]

Return To Sender

Word Count: 2,155

Writers Note: Meet Cece's new soon-to-be friend Natalya Dyer who's totally not based off of my great friend @sissylittlefeather the Jerry in my life ....

Warning: Sexual content and Language

Pairing: POC OC x Elvis

Plot: It's 1968 and Natalya Dyer a divorcee and single mother is tasked to interview Elvis and Cecelia Presley at their humble mansion Graceland about their spicy relationship only to learn more about them as people.

Chapter 2

Taglist

@darkmoviesquotespizza

@sissylittlefeather

@richardslady121

@thegettingbyp2

@presleyenterprise

@dkayfixates

@rjmartin11

@thetaoofzoe

@your-nanas-house

@zayurir

@60svintage

@sillybookmarks

@leapresley

@everythingelvispresley

@dreamondina94

@elvismylove04

@pocketfulofpresley

@elvispresley1956

Memphis August 1968

" I think that's all of it, ma’am." One of the movers said, placing the last box in her home, the biting smell of her cigarette flooding the room as she took a deep breath. Her long dark brown hair was unraveling from its beehive. She sat down. Her son Jericho would be home any minute to tell her about his first day at school. Of course, she knew that if it was one thing a mother needed was mai tai, some music, and a nice relaxing day,

BRRRING!

BRRRRING!

BRRRRRRING! 

"Damnit. Who's calling me now..." She groaned, walking towards her teal rotary phone, "Natalya Dyer speaking,

" Who's this?" Holding her cigarette in the other hand as she waited for the voice to speak, 

"Nat, how's everything in Memphis." It was her boss, Mrs. Moon, of the juicy gossip magazine Moon and Sun. "It's not California." Natalya smiled, her radio playing softly in the background as she took a deep drag of her cigarette. It wasn't that she didn't like her job. She knew she was destined for great things, like being an author or owning a company. But Natalya might have started considering a new job based on her thoughts about being destined for her boss's words to her, 

"Well, that's great hun. Listen, we want the juicy gossip between Hollywood's greatest couple."

"Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski?" 

"No, Elvis and Cecelia Presley." Natalya knew that the magazine was known as a crummy rumor and sex magazine amongst the stars, but she couldn't help but feel a twinge of curiosity. Was there anything to report? "Alright, Mrs. Moon, any leads?"

"Nope, I'm just your messenger today. You've got to do the rest of the work." Although she had been considering a new job, the twinge of curiosity seemed to have won her over, and it looked like she'd be doing the rest of the work to get the scoop on the couple. 

"Mama!! Mama!!!" 

"Well, Tata dear." Mrs. Moon hung up, and as she did, Natalya put all her attention on her blonde-haired blue-eyed son. "Hey, Jer-Bear, how was school!" Natalya asked as he hugged his mother,

 "It was good. I made lots of friends, and I think two of them are related to the Presleys." 

"That's good," Natalya smiled as she then zoned back into what he just said, 

"Why's that honey?"

"Well... One's got blue eyes and dark hair." 

"Every white boy who's got dark hair and blue eyes isn't a-"

"And his last name is Presley, and his sister asked if we could come over tonight for dinner!" Would it be this simple for her to get this job done? She wondered to herself, 

"Did they give you a number?" She asked. Natalya had hoped these kids weren't playing a cruel joke on her son, but then again one could never know for sure. 

"They did!" Jericho smiled, handing her a piece of a cupcake wrapper with writing on it. Although, it was weird, as a journalist. She's handled much worse. Natalya dialed the number as she waited. This couldn't be real, she was calling the house of the world's favorite stars, it had to be a- 

"Hello, Elvis Presley speaking?"

"Prank..." She mumbled. "I-I mean, uh, Hi!, I'm Natalya Dyer, and my son, I believe, befriended your children?" She said, trying to remain calm. She was talking to Elvis! A man whose movies she's watched religiously! A man, who she's had posters of!

"Mhmm, One moment." Elvis looked at his son Jesse as he looked up at his dad, "Did you invite a friend over?" He asked as Jesse nodded,

 "Was I not supposed to..."

"Buddy, you gotta ask me and your mama first." He ruffled up his dark hair, 

"Oh..." 

"Can he still come over?" Elaine began to bat her eyes as Elvis smiled, bending to his daughter's will, "Oh alright," He winked, "Uh, Mrs. Dyer, ya still there?" 

"Mhmm..." She nodded trying not to scream,

"Could you come by say 4:30? My wife should be home then," Sometimes it did indeed pay to have a kid, Natalya thought, "Of course, we'll leave now." Natalya hung up as Jericho came back down, 

"Can we go!"

"Mhmm!" Bringing her notepad and a pen, she got her keys and her son and took off. Driving down from her house on Audubon to Graceland was beautiful. There were trees and long stretches of land, a beautiful rustic feel that was different from California and different from her messy life. As she was driving down towards the house, she saw a 68 pink Mustang cruise beside her, as she looked over to see who it was. Her eyes caught a glimpse of who she thought was. "Cecelia Presley?" She mumbled but then shrugged. Maybe it wasn't her, and she was getting herself a little too excited. 

"Mama, look!" Jericho pointed towards the gates as he grinned, 

"Holy shit..." Natalya gasped driving toward the driveway, "Excuse me Ms. may I help you." There was a man at the gate with brown shaggy hair and a warm smile,

 "Natalya Dyer," She smiled as Jericho waved at the man, "Come in, E and C are expecting you." Driving up the driveway. She saw a woman with jeans on and her shirt tied standing next to her pink Mustang,

 "El!" Cecelia smiled, "Oh! Hi!" She turned to face,

"Uh... Natalya Dyer." She stuck her hand out as Cecelia stole a glance at her. She was beautiful and built like Sophia Loren, 

"Nice to meet you, and who's this little cutie!"

"JERICHO!!!" Jesse ran out of the house, Jericho hugged his friend as Natalya laughed,

 "My son,"

"Well come on in, can I get you anything to drink?" Cecelia asked as Natalya nodded,

 "Got anything to make a Mai Tai?"

"Rough day?"

"Just moved in today..." Natalya shook her head, She watched as Cecelia made her drink and smiled, 

"Where from?"

"California, though I'm from Tulsa Oklahoma." She mentioned as Cecelia snickered, Natalya didn't find it funny until she remembered whose house she was in. 

"Is there a Mr. Dyer?"

"No...No... I'm going through a messy divorce. It's just my son and I living in Audubon." Natalya shrugged, 

"Say, uh, I don't wanna make things weird, but," 

"You wanna interview Elvis and me?"

"How'd you know?"

"The pen and pad in your pocket." 

"Touche..." She laughed as Cecelia smirked,

 "Mama, can I have a fancy drink too!" Natalya heard a small voice say as she looked down and saw a little girl who looked like Cecelia. "Of course, sweetheart." She made her a mocktail and sent her on her way,

 "That's our daughter Elaine."

"She's beautiful,"

"She's a minute younger than her brother,"

"Cece is that you?"

"In the kitchen!" She shouted back, 

"Is that..."

"Mhmm, in the TV room, " The two walked down as Cecelia led her down the stairs, Elvis had been watching Football, the news, and a game show. He hadn't been wearing anything too spectacular except for his wedding band, but for once he looked like a normal guy,

 "Whatcha watching..." Cecelia asked, her arms around his shoulder as he kissed her hand, "My damn teams losin again." He huffed as she shook her head, 

"What about you how was your day?"

"Stressful, but enough about that..." He kissed her nose as she blushed, "We have a guest, Ms. Dyer,"

"We spoke on the phone," He got up and introduced himself to her, "Lovely home!" She squeaked, 

"She just moved to Audubon Drive today?"

"I used to live there, it's a nice suburb if you don't hang your laundry on a clothesline," He grumbled, 

"Explain's the price for it." she mumbled, "Well don't be a stranger Nat come sit, turn the TV onto whatever you watch!" Elvis smiled and she felt warm inside, like he was a familiar friend, 

"May I interview you two for Moon and Sun Magazine?" Natalya asked as Elvis shrugged,

 "Don't see why not," He responded as Cecelia sat next to him.

"Alright, I warn you... These questions are a bit uh... raunchy cause Moon and Sun, like that kind of thing," 

"Shoot." Elvis winked,

"Alright, uh... What's your favorite time of day t-to," Natalya couldn't believe she was going to ask her two favorite artists this question, but here she was, 

"To what?" Elvis asked, his eyebrow quirking up, he couldn't lie and say he didn't read Moon and Sun magazine, it was one of the many things that kept the spice in his life going. 

"To have sex...", She got quiet as Elvis and Cecelia paused, the couple thinking for a while as Natalya gulped, 

"I-I don't know, Cil and I are like rabbits sometimes ya know." Elvis laughed as Cecelia blushed, "I'd say early mornin, it's something about hearing the birds chirp that makes it romantic." She grinned as Natalya wrote their answers down, 

"I agree." Elvis winked,

 "And why's that?"

"Well, it's when it's just us and the early morning glow on her skin. It makes her look like a goddess." Elvis mentioned as he shrugged, Natalya nodded, she could remember when her husband was romantic like that, "Get as dirty as you want hun," Cecelia poured a glass of Fanta Orange, 

"You sure?"

"You want people to buy this don't'cha," Elvis smirked as Natalya nodded,

"So what was it like the first time you two fucked," Natalya asked as Elvis lit up a cigarillo, "Mind lighting my cig?" She asked as Elvis leaned to light it. 

 "It was bad," Cecelia giggled,

"You said it was good." He playfully glared at her as Natalya watched them, "Well, it was good then, I mean we were 20 and it was on a tour bus, which is hot, but."

"Not romantic," Natalya added as they both nodded, "We were so awkward, Couldn't look him in the eye." Cecelia laughed, 

"I see, I see, so speaking of that how big is it..." Natalya asked as Cecelia smirked, "Now we're talkin," Elvis went red as he coughed, "I'll be outside by the door..." He smiled,

"So... Is the king packing a scepter..." 

"Mhmm... Think a Cola bottle and a quarter," Cecelia smirked, Natayla gasped, 

"And you take all of it..." 

"Mhmm."

"So... did you like suck it the first time or,"

"Second time, and..."

"It was the best damn head I ever had." He walked back in,

 "Glad to see you're back. Cause, I got a question for you." 

"Alright."

"Did you go muff diving?" She smirked, "I mean it is all the rage now," 

"Course I did," He smirked, "Always do, she got me used to it, "

"I did?" Cecelia blushed, as he winked, Natayla liked the conversation she was stirring, but she wanted to know more, something that wasn't so sexual,

 "Say, tell me about that Christmas Special coming up?" 

"Well, I should let Cece tell you that, I'm just the singer, for singer, but Cece directed it." He gave her praise as he kissed her, "Correction second unit director, Binder directed it, and if I must add, without my help, it would have been shit..." 

"Tell me more," Natalya realized she was interviewing the wrong person really, "I mean as a woman, and of color that had to be tough," She sighed, 

"Well Binders team and my team had a vision, and that vision was Elvis, nothing less nothing more." Cecelia looked at her husband as he kissed her cheek, "Not to mention while taking care of the kids." Elvis chuckled, "But this woman here, is amazin, she won't talk about herself, but I will, My wife put that damn show so ahead on its train tracks all I had to worry about was what location and what outfit, she's a genius she's an icon and she's my hero." He looked into her eyes as Natalya's heart yearned for what they had, "I did nothing except organize and yell action," Cecelia joked, " I mean am I force not to fuck with yeah, but I'm a wife and a mother and-"

"And an amazin artist and songwriter and writer, and guitar player," He turned to Natalya, 

"Man, I wish I had my magazine... I'd cover stories like this you know." 

"Then come up with a business proposal and we'll make it happen." 

"I..." 

"She means it," Elvis winked, 

"You'd do that for me?" Natayla asked, "I mean you two barely know me and-"

"Nat, you're good people, I've never seen our sun that excited unless his grandpa's grillin'"Elvis chuckled, 

"Hey C where's the band-aid's" 

"I'll show you." Natalya looked up and she saw him, the guy from the gate, her brown eyes meeting soft gentle blue ones, 

"Actually, Elvis you wanna come with me..." 

"Hmm?" Cecelia nudged him, he then looked between the two, "Oh... Oh! " He took his wife by the hands as they left, 

"Jerry Schilling..."

"Natalya Dyer." 

Do you think I should make a part 2? LET ME KNOW?

[maya-chirps]

Can you tell us more about Filipino mythology and moneters, cause there's no 1 official website and I almost always barely passed filipino? Can you also list like great sources for me to read? Thanks

I had a pretty busy week last week so it took a while to get to this ask but I'd love to give more info on the topic!

More on Filipino Mythology:

Si Apolaki at Mayari - Bakit may araw at gabi

EN: Apolaki and Mayari - Why there's day and night

An illustration of Apolaki and Mayari created by the illustrator PM Graphix

I am currently still doing a write-up on the Tagalog pantheon so I could start by maybe talking about that and what I've found. For the mythology section of this, let me start with something that's actually not from the Tagalog pantheon but is often attributed to the Tagalog pantheon: the Kapampangan story of Apolaki and Mayari or why the day and night exist. This story has been sourced from Maximo D. Ramos's book Philippine Myths, Legends, and Folktales (which you can buy on Amazon here, sadly I cannot find a free version of the book without going through suspicious links) and posted by Jordan Clark of The Aswang Project on his website.

BATHALA, the creator of the world, had a son named Apolaki and a daughter named Mayari. The light that shone upon the world and enabled the people, the beasts, the birds, and the fish to see came from the bright eyes of Apolaki and Mayari, So all the creatures loved them dearly. Bathala himself was very fond of his children, and he watched over them as they wandered across the meadows of heaven. Since the eyes of Apolaki and Mayari shone continuously, it was always day on the earth. In time Bathala grew feeble with age and died. Then Apolaki and Mayari had a quarrel, for each wanted to rule the world alone. “I am the man and I will succeed my father to the throne,” said Apolaki. “I am going to rule the world, whether you like it or not.” Mayari’s eyes flashed with anger and she said, “I am no less my father’s child than you. I will succeed him to his throne, whether you like it or not!” The quarrel grew from bad to worse, and finally words could not express their furious rage. So they picked up wooden clubs and fell upon each other with fierce blows. Back and forth they fought until at last Apolaki struck Mayari in the face and she became blind in one eye. When he saw his sister stricken, Apolaki took pity on her and said, “Let us fight no more, my sister. Let us share our father’s kingdom equally between us. Let us reign by turns and be friends.” Mayari agreed, and from then on, Apolaki, whom we know today as the Sun, has ruled the world half the time. Mayari, whom we now know as the Moon, has taken turns with her brother in ruling the world. When Apolaki is on the throne, the world is flooded with warm light, because the light beams from his two bright eyes. On the other hand, when Mayari is reigning, the world is bathed with cool and gentle light; for she is blind in one eye.

Now from what I've researched, a lot of places tend to attribute the story to the Tagalog people or state that it is a shared story from both the Tagalogs and their neighboring Kapampangan up north from them but I cannot find any specific source prior to the late 1960s that even mention that Mayari was part of the Tagalog pantheon so it may be a more recent addition.

The source that first states Mayari's inclusion as a part of the Tagalog Bathala's court comes from a paper written by F. Landa Jocano called Notes on Philippine Divinities (1968) where he does not cite a specific source of where he has learned Mayari was of Tagalog origin nor even stated that he had learned it from a Tagalog local and considering Jocano himself isn't a Tagalog nor is he Kapampangan, it's unlikely he's learned it from his upbringing or otherwise.

I had also done a little digging on his sources and none of them bring up Mayari nor her sister Hanan, the goddess of dawn, so the paper leaves much room for doubt. Tala, the goddess of stars, who is also listed in Jocano's paper make a lot more sense despite the lack of sources as it is the actual word for star in Tagalog but I still have to do further research on her as well.

Either way, I had also never heard of Mayari as a Tagalog deity outside Jocano's work and online articles that heavily source Jocano (The Aswang Project, one of the most popular sources for Filipino mythology which I had used as a specific source for Kapampangang mythology, has cited him twice in regards to Tagalog mythology specifically but not Kapampangan mythology). This is also despite me being born and raised within a mostly Tagalog community.

All of that for me to say that this story of Apolaki and Mayari may be a later addition to the Tagalog mythos after interests on Filipino mythology got revitalized from the mid-20th century onward rather than something that has always been a part of the Tagalog mythology.

Note that I'm not saying that it is an impossibility that this had been part of the Tagalog culture prior to that time period, but a lot of sources that discuss this do not bring up this story until after Jocano's work. I will have to maybe do more reading on this to find out more information about this and Mayari's status on whether or not she did belong to the Tagalog pantheon prior to the 60s.

I also want to add a quick note that it's pretty common for people to misattribute this story to the Pangasinense people as well but it may be from both people constantly confusing Pampanga from Pangasinan (think of it as how people confuse Sweden and Switzerland), as well as a name overlap with Apolaki who is referred to as Apolaqui in Pangasinan. The two places are both north of the Tagalog Regions. I might look into this connection/association/coincidence later on.

Further Readings and Sources

It's actually pretty hard to suggest a specific source for Filipino mythology given that a lot of them pull from the same reference (Notes on Philippine Divinities) which I had said has some dubious information but Maximo D. Ramos's book that I had referenced is a good read as it collects various myths from different places throughout the country. I myself had been thinking of getting a copy of the book soon as well as his other books.

Some Filipino Monsters

As for Filipino monsters, I could say that its similar with Filipino mythology, in that with so many cultures, there's many different kinds on who you're asking. These ghouls seem to be more widely similar from culture to culture, however, probably owing to the fact that the Catholic Church didn't discourage the belief in them as much as they did the precolonial gods. Whether you go to the northernmost part of the country to the southernmost islands, there is a lot of similarities between the creatures that they could be classified easier than the gods with some creatures even sharing traits from cryptids from other Southeast Asian countries.

I'll give some of them here that you may hear pretty often when looking through catalogues of Filipino monsters. I have to be honest that I may not source as much for this section since I will be bringing up some personal stories and anecdotes that are passed around the community. I'm also open to discuss more about these creatures as well as other monsters later on.

The Aswang

An artwork of an aswang uploaded to Wikipedia by H.M.Bec

Aswangs are often considered as the most ubiquitous of the Filipino monsters. When you look up monsters from the Philippines, this may be the top result. Aswangs are often portrayed as people who transform into ghoulish creatures that feast on human flesh but especially children, babies, and fetuses. There's so many stories and variations of aswangs, however, that some of the monsters in this list are actually sometimes considered as part of the aswang category depending on the source or who you ask.

Aswangs are shapeshifters, often turning into dogs, pigs, and many other creatures, in order to stalk their prey in the middle of the night.

Aswangs are also considered as one of the main stock monsters in FIlipino media so you may see them as the villains of a lot of fantasy series and movies. They're one of the villains that Alexandra Trese faces of regularly on the folklore-inspired supernatural comic book series turned Netflix original animation Trese. They're also the main antagonist in my favorite FIlipino fantaserye series Juan De La Cruz (although I don't particularly like the lead actor anymore lol).

Here's some stuff I've heard about Aswangs from those around me.

Aswangs often won't attack their neighbors and would rather attack neighboring villages/barangays/towns. This is so they avoid detection or suspicion from their community. So, if you suspect your neighbor's an aswang, then you might just be lucky they won't target you.

Aswangs are often said to have come from the province of Capiz. It's an often common joke and stereotype that Capizeños may be aswangs themselves or know people who are aswangs. The people of Capiz are mixed on how they feel about the association with the provincial government seemingly trying to shake off the specific association to their province.

They can go to mass but cannot stay during the consecration of the holy host. Holy water and holy [coconut] oil also boil in their presence.

When you look directly into their eyes, your reflection would be upside-down. They also don't have the dent between the nose and the lips.

They could pass their curse through different ways and may depend on belief or tradition. One belief states that if a person marries an aswang, they also become an aswang.

One of the other beliefs that can turn a person into an aswang is if one makes contact with an aswang's saliva.

According to another belief, a person could also become an aswang if they ingest a black chick alive.

Similarly, an aswang cannot die until they pass their curse to another person (typically a relative). This is done by passing a black stone or chick hidden in their body to the chosen new curse holder.

They hate the typical ghoulish hated items like holy crosses, water, oils, and the classic garlic and salt, but they also hate calamansi (a small Filipino citrus fruit), and my mother had always told me that they hate suha or pomelo (a type of citrus fruit) and the smell of burning rubber.

A typical weapon used to fight against them or ward them off is the buntot pagi or stingray tail that is often sold in occultic shops around the country. You could also buy this from online stores as I've learned (x)(x)(x).

Now here's a story I've heard about them:

A story I had heard was that of the aswang bus. I had heard it repeatedly throughout the years but the basic premise is that there's a bus of a bunch of aswangs from a different province that's traveling to [province you are in] and are hunting down people at night. This is some of the more funny stories about aswangs because I keep imagining an aswang bus driver purposefully running over people and then a bunch of aswang tourists hops off of the bus to drag the body for a snack later.

I honestly might come back to the aswangs topic later since I had just learned some things from a Capizeña who works to help around our house.

The Manananggal

An artwork of an aswang uploaded to Wikipedia by Gian Bernal

The Manananggal is a ghoulish creature and is often times categorized as a kind of aswang. They are typically humanoid creatures that appear as regular people (often women) during the day, but at night their torso severs from their legs and fly away with bat wings. They often feast on fetuses using their long proboscis tongue.

These ghouls share a lot of similarities with the Southeast Asian ghoul called the Penanggal which is a similar creature but instead of their torsos separating, their heads separate from their body alongside their entrails.

Manananggals are also some of the typical stock monsters in Filipino fantasy stories. I can't think of any specific instances of the manananggal being the main character besides the softer depiction of a manananggal girl named Anna in Dayo: Sa Mundo ng Elementalia who acts as a deuteragonist to the human boy Niko. They are also featured in Trese where a tribe of manananggal is shown. They are also the main lead or love interest in some horror movies and even horror romances.

Here's some stuff I've heard about Manananggals

It's name comes from the Tagalog word "tanggal" which means "to remove" or "to separate" and specifically means "the remover" or "the separator". This of course is a reference to the fact that it removes its torso from its legs or separates its body in half.

Unlike the typical aswang which transform back during daylight, the manananggal needs to find their way back to their body or else die by sunlight.

The unattached legs of the manananggal is their weakness. If found by a person, they only need to sprinkle salt or smear crushed garlic on the legs in order to destroy them.

A lot of the typical things that ward off the aswang are also typically effective towards the manananggal.

Similarly to the aswang, manananggals are also said to had come from Capiz.

The list is shorter because honestly, just take what most you've heard about the aswang and apply it here. I don't know specifically if things like the upside-down reflection or the lack of the dent between the nose and lips could apply to manananggals, however, and I don't think I've heard people claiming that about the manananggal.

Now here's a story I've heard about them:

One story I heard that I find quite funny was something my sister heard from one of her high school friends. This friend was struggling to fall asleep at night and was tossing and turning in bed when she heard bat-like fluttering from outside. She went out to inspect the source by looking out the window and was shocked to see a manananggal climbing up a coconut tree and seemingly harvesting the fruit in the middle of the night. She wasn't flying up the tree, she was climbing it.

The next day, an old woman who was selling her goods door-to-door came by their house. She was selling coconuts.

The Tiyanak

A screenshot of a tiyanak from the movie Tiyanak (1988)

The tiyanak is considered as a demonic baby that would transform itself into a regular looking baby, crying in the middle of the night in order to attract their unfortunate target who may feel pity towards the child. The tiyanak may also be classified as an aswang but is typically considered as a separate thing more often than the manananggal from my experience. This creature has noticeably a lot in common with a lot of other Southeast Asian and East Asian myths about demonic babies and toddlers like the tuyol or the tuyul.

Like the previous two, the tiyanak is also part of the typical stock monster antagonists found in Filipino media, but not as much as either the typical aswang or the manananggal. They are often used to add a bit of a scare factor into a story and isn't typically the main antagonist of a story as of recent horror movies (with only a single short B-Movie I could think of called Flight 666 from the Shake, Rattle & Roll horror anthology series. It is not a good movie but it's stupid fun). They are featured, as usual, in Trese as the main supernatural antagonists of a specific story arc. Their depiction from the comic and the Nteflix show has been changed due to the controversial nature of the comic book depiction.

When they appear in a horror series, there's often a sort of reason or lesson as to why one has appeared and typically based on the typical origins of the tiyanak.

The most common belief is that the tiyanak is the ghost or ghoulish corpse that had come from an unbaptized child.

At times, they may be a ghoulish baby that had been created after a woman gets an abortion, other times it is simply just a baby that had died before baptism often as a stillbirth or even as a joint death with their mother.

I had also heard that it may be an abandoned baby that had died to the elements.

It is also believed, the reason that they are cursed to wander the earth after death is because they were not given a name through baptism.

Because of this, when they typically appear in stories, it is often either a story about the bad that could come from abortion or child abandonment depending on the values of the writer.

The tiyanak would also sometimes lead people astray with its cries.

Speaking of its cries, there are some places that believe if the cry sounds loud and near, the tiyanak is actually farther away from you than if you hear the cries to be quieter and farther.

Here's a story I had heard about them:

A common Filipino story of the tiyanak is the parking lot story. Story goes that in certain parking lots of buildings, typically malls, you may hear a baby cry in the middle of the night when you're alone. This is a tiyanak that's trying to lure you in by seemingly tricking you into thinking that it is just an innocent abandoned baby which is sadly common in the country. It is common enough that there are some people who would often want someone to accompany them when they're alone in a parking lot at night.

Further Readings and Sources

As much as I had stated that The Aswangs Project and their handling of discussions about Filipino mythology, specifically Tagalog mythology, is dubious at best, they have a lot of good articles about aswangs that do align with local beliefs so reading through their website for monsters specifically could be a good and free resource. They had also made a documentary that you can watch for free on YouTube that covers a lot of this and more about aswangs.

For written works, I would suggest any of Maximo D. Ramos's works as I've brought up before. There's his published paper The Aswang Syncrasy in Philippine Folklore which is considered as basically the holy grail of Aswang research, which, as I had stated, take up a bulk of the FIlipino monsters. It's hard to find easily accessible PDFs of the paper and I remember that I found a copy of this or a similar work by Ramos but the link has eluded me.

For a less academic and more fun fictionalized source for Filipino monsters I suggest The Lost Journal of Alejandro Pardo: Meet the Dark Creatures from Philippines Mythology by Budjette Tan and David Hontiveros which is available through Amazon here. It follows a fictional researcher and his discoveries of Filipino monsters and other creatures. It's a pretty easy read with a lot of good information about cryptids and monsters from the Philippines, owing to it's style of found media. If you've seen something like Gravity Falls's officially published Journal 3 from the show's universe, it has a similar vibe to that.

That's all I have for now, but I am looking more into this topic! My PC has issues right now so I might answer questions more slowly than my already slow answering speed. I hope this post helped you learn a little more about Filipino mythology and cryptids.

[reasoningdaily]

Ancient Hebrews of Lachish

Introduction: According to the standard Jewish Encyclopaedia 96% of all the Jews known to the world today are the descendants of the Khazar tribes of Russia, eastern Europe and western Mongolia; these are the Ashkenazi Jews, the other major sect of the Jews are the Sephardic jews, and they are a bastard people from the mixing of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Kenites, Edomites and some true Israelites. the Jews have never been Isrealites; they are not Israelites now; and they will never be Israelites.

Encyclopedia Americana (1985):

“Ashkenazim, the Ashkenazim are the Jews whose ancestors lived in German lands…it was among Ashkenazi Jews that the idea of political Zionism emerged, leading ultimately to the establishment of the state of Israel…In the late 1960s, Ashkenazi Jews numbered some 11 million, about 84 percent of the world Jewish population.”

The Jewish Encyclopedia:

“Khazars, a non-Semitic, Asiatic, Mongolian tribal nation who emigrated into Eastern Europe about the first century, who were converted as an entire nation to Judaism in the seventh century by the expanding Russian nation which absorbed the entire Khazar population, and who account for the presence in Eastern Europe of the great numbers of Yiddish speaking Jews in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Galatia, Besserabia and Rumania.”Khazar: Ashkenazi Modern Jew

The Encyclopedia Judaica (1972): The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia:

“Khazars, a national group of general Turkic type, independent and sovereign in Eastern Europe between the seventh and tenth centuries C.E. During part of this time the leading Khazars professed Judaism…In spite of the negligible information of an archaeological nature, the presence of Jewish groups and the impact of Jewish ideas in Eastern Europe are considerable during the Middle Ages. Groups have been mentioned as migrating to Central Europe from the East often have been referred to as Khazars, thus making it impossible to overlook the possibility that they originated from within the former Khazar Empire.”

The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia:

“The primary meaning of Ashkenaz and Ashkenazim in Hebrew is Germany and Germans. This may be due to the fact that the home of the ancient ancestors of the Germans is Media, which is the Biblical Ashkenaz…Krauss is of the opinion that in the early medieval ages the Khazars were sometimes referred to as Ashkenazim…About 92 percent of all Jews or approximately 14,500,000 are Ashkenazim.”

The Bible: Relates that the Khazar (Ashkenaz) Jews were/are the sons of Japheth not Shem:

“Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth;…the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz…” (Genesis 10:1-3)

New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, page 179,[GCP pg 68]

“ASHKENAZI, ASHKENAZIM…constituted before 1963 some nine?tenths of the Jewish people (about 15,000,000 out of 16,5000,000)[ As of 1968 it is believed by some Jewish authorities to be closer to 100%]”

The Outline of History: H. G. Wells,

“It is highly probable that the bulk of the Jew’s ancestors ‘never’ lived in Palestine ‘at all,’ which witnesses the power of historical assertion over fact.”Ancient Hebrews

Under the heading of “A brief History of the Terms for Jew” in the 1980 Jewish Almanac is the following: “Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an Ancient Israelite a ‘Jew’ or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew.” (1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3).

By

The Bishop

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[oldshowbiz]

The Woman's Club of Hollywood is located at 1749 La Brea directly south of Franklin Avenue. It is right in the dead center of Hollywood, California. The venue is sometimes rented out for weddings.

However, their website has completely scrubbed its sordid history.

The LA Conservancy doesn't mention it either.

This ancient building has always had a weird vibe. Well, no wonder.

For ten years, from 1958 through 1968, it was the home base of "Christian Identity" preacher Wesley A. Swift.

He was bankrolled by an anti-Semitic haberdasher from downtown Los Angeles named James Oviatt. The downtown Oviatt Building is also rented out for weddings and the LA Conservancy leads an architectural tour of the building in which they fail to mention its Klan history.

Oviatt gave money to Wesley Swift to help assemble militias in the Antelope Valley for the purpose of weapons training with the ultimate goal of doing violent battle with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. The organization became better known in the 1970s as the "Aryan Nations."

A sermon delivered by Wesley A. Swift in this venue in February 1965 was typical:

"I have here one of the most unique pieces of writing in a newspaper. This is Baldwin. Black Baldwin. The scum of Negroes today. Called a brilliant writer and a great author and a great intellectual. Well, his kind of intellect belongs in a pig pen. What he says in his writing, in a piece of literature, called literature, that goes into our schools as literature ... every time he sees a white girl - he wants to rape her! He wants to assault every white woman to bring her down to his level, which proves he knows he's not up on your level. And he can only think of depravity and immorality to bring the levels together, that means to bring you down ... He says we don't have any nation, we don't have any flag, but we're going to get one! We're going to get it by violence and bloodshed and revolution! The Negroes gonna rise and take over! And that was in the San Francisco Chronicle last week. You say: what caused all this? It's because we have not heeded divine law and we have permitted those that are not willing to follow the laws of God to gain ascendency in our nation."

During a sermon delivered here in July 1964 he railed against the Civil Rights Act:

"This tyrannical bill known as the Civil Rights legislation which passed the house this week … The house passed a bill ... which is so filled with state and federal tyranny that it denies you and any establishment, even a church, the right to criticize or to disagree with any law relative to desegregation and anti-discrimination! "Makes it all so mandatory that there be prosecution against anybody who violates this law by securing the facts. A church would not be permitted to advocate the gospel of Christ or preach the content of this bible without violating their law as it relates to discrimination against pagan religions and against other gods. "One could not tell the story of the advocacy of God selecting and electing your race to this responsibility of world leadership without a differentiation between races … and if you declare the thing that God is advocating you'd be subject to prosecution!

"Civil rights legislation, which is not civil rights, but wrongs to the great Christian majority intended on mongrelizing your race and destroying your faith and reducing your nation ... to ... an elite core of evil … I think it should be a basic Christian project of every Christian to do all that he can to see that the persons who would surrender the liberties of these United States into the hands of the dictatorial authorities [are not re-elected]."

From his La Brea Avenue pulpit, Swift ranted against the changing immigration laws of the mid-1960s:

"Why do they want to destroy our immigration laws? Because immigration laws are the result of the Church's recognition that if we permit a flood of immigration into America of pagans and Africans and Asiatics that can out vote and out maneuver Christians, that they'll take over America and our freedoms will go!

"If you don't think this is the strategy, then you turn very carefully and examine the texts … which these Swedish and Negro Communists wrote."

Swift frequently invoked terms like "freedom" and "liberty" in defense of his view point and characterized Civil Rights laws and anti-bigotry as "tyranny."

He delivered horrific, racist sermons right here in the heart of Hollywood every single Sunday for a decade - and I have yet to see anyone acknowledge it.

[connorthemaoist]

A call to students and youth: Come to Chicago this summer and shut down the DNC! 

If you’ve spoken out and protested against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, you may have been doxxed, fired from your job, slandered in the bourgeois media, or arrested. Your student organization may have been disbanded by your college administration. You should wear all those acts of repression as a badge of honor, as to be attacked by the enemy is a good thing. But have you thrown down against the Chicago police yet? Come to Chicago this summer to oppose the Death and Nakba Coronation, a.k.a. the Democratic National Convention!

Behind Enemy Lines Anti-Imperialist Resistance is currently waging a campaign to demand the City of Chicago cancel the Democratic National Convention (DNC) due to Biden and the Democratic Party’s material, moral, and political support for Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and genocidal war. But if our demand is not met, we’ve got a backup plan: mobilize the broadest possible opposition in Chicago to the DNC while calling on anti-imperialist students and youth to flood the city, organize its residents to protest, and be on the frontlines of those protests with the goal of preventing the coronation of Genocide Joe.

We welcome volunteers all summer long, but we especially call on students and youth to join us in Chicago for the two weeks from August 9 to August 23. Week 1 will be focused on mass outreach: going door-to-door talking to people and agitating car-to-car on the Chicago L train about US imperialism, the DNC, and our Palestine Vote Pledge; getting our “Genocide Joe is Not Welcome in Chicago!” posters up everywhere; holding neighborhood speak-outs that connect US crimes abroad to the slow genocide of Black and oppressed people taking place in Chicago; and organizing people to come to the DNC protests. Week 2 will be focused on protesting the DNC, and while there will be a breadth of protest activity, we’re calling on students and youth to be bold and audacious, take the frontlines, and yes, take police beatings and arrests to oppose Genocide Joe. 

The 2024 DNC protests should join the great tradition of anti-imperialist militancy in the belly of the beast, which includes the 1968 Chicago DNC protests and the 1999 protests that shut down the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle and subsequent militant protests against the meetings of the economic instruments of imperialism such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.  Make bruises from Chicago police batons the 2024 back to school Fall fashion!  We won’t be silent, we won’t be tame, the war on Gaza is not in our name!  Shut down the DNC!

Are you ready to come to Chicago? Do you want a presentation for your crew? Hit us up: antiimperialistresistance (AT) protonmail.com

[andrew-buchan-fansite]

Update from the Mod: Annual Report of the ABF (Oct2024)

It’s October, so it’s the time of year when we look back and note all that Andrew has been doing over the last twelve months.

It’s fair to say that since update23 Andrew has had a quiet, yet busy year. His personal exploits still feature in certain tabloid newspapers, but the stories appear to be just clickbait. 

He was spotted out and about with Amy in April!

At this time last year, we were looking forward to:

Passenger (for Andrew’s screenwriting debut)

Intrigo: Samaria [7 years on, still waiting] 

Black Doves (due to air in December 2024)

Passenger launched in March with plenty of publicity, including both Radio Times and BBCBreakfast interviews. Last week it featured at New York Comic Con, which provided us with the photo of the year!

In April we found out about horror movie Apartment 7A (which had actually wrapped in October 2022!). This premiered just last month, with Andrew as casting director, Leo Watts:

Also last month another series of In the Doghouse appeared on Channel 4, with Andrew narrating for the fifth time.

More voicework surfaced just a couple of weeks ago, when Andrew narrated The Great Flood of 1968 for Channel 5

We also found out about another new crime drama: Code of Silence which is currently filming in the Home Counties. Something to look forward to next year!

Meanwhile…..

….. ABF now has an archive of over 5,500 posts, 26 themed pages and 380 followers.

Thank you to all Andrew fans – especially to @madandi  @geminigmo  ​and the many other new fans this year.

Best wishes to Andrew and his family for the coming year. 

Cheers – demurely1

[formeroklahoman]

LEGENDS OF GUITAR: The Man . . The Myth . . The Guitar. Johnny Winter was the first white Texas bluesman to make it on a big scale. In 1968, he released his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment. Soon after Johnny met the Chicago Blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield, who invited Winter to join him and Al Kooper on stage at the Fillmore East during a December 1968 performance. Columbia Records officials at the show were very impressed and signed Johnny to a very large advance, $600,000. Johnny Winter’s first Columbia Records release was logically titled Johnny Winter and included the same personnel as The Progressive Blues Experiment; bassist Tommy Shannon, drummer Uncle John Turner, and Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone. It was a major success. Second Winter followed in 1969 plus great success in concerts – and an affair with Janis Joplin – that led to an historic Madison Square Garden concert. Winter went on to play in the Muddy Waters Band and paired with just about every top Blues artist of the 1970s and 80s. Three albums produced by Winter for Muddy Waters, Hard Again (1977), I'm Ready (1978), and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters – Live (1979) have won Grammy Awards. Several of Winter’s own albums were also nominated for Grammy Awards and in 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame.

Decades on from his death, Stevie Ray Vaughan is still being discovered by new generations. In the decades since his passing, SRV’s impact on the music scene has become more and more pronounced. His influence – his searing guitar style, eloquent songwriting and consummate musicianship – is undeniable on the new generation of blues rockers like Joe Bonamassa, Philip Sayce and John Mayer, while his classic albums such as Texas Flood and Couldn’t Stand The Weather are now justifiable stalwarts of the blues canon. His music seemed to unite everyone: tattooed Chicano bikers, besuited lawyers and crystal-carrying New Agers. The sound of Stevie Ray’s stinging Strat and gritty voice went directly to the hearts of the huddled masses. You see, that old blues adage is true: What goes around comes around . . May their memory endure.

www.ChicagoSlim.com

#ChicagoBlues #ChicagoBluesExperience #ChicagoBluesSociety #ChicagoBluesTV #ChicagoBluesNews #MaxwellStreetBlues #ChicagoBluesAllStars #bluesAllstars #ChicagoSlim #BluesToday #AzureMusic #LegendsOfGuitar #ClassicRock #RockBlues #BluesRock #JohnnyWinter #StevieRayVaughan #SRV

[theretirementstory]

Are you getting ready for Christmas? My town is and I have been excited about it for a while now. Now that is not normally me, it’s not my favourite time of year but I have written and posted cards and presents. Made Christmas cakes and mince pies. Have wrapped quite a lot of the presents I have bought. Yesterday I made a batch of apricot tarts to take for my friends manning the stall at the Christmas market today, in a village nearby, plus I made two jars of golden syrup to be used in cooking and on porridge when I can eat that again.

The Christmas display at the Hôtel de Ville includes an ice rink, it was opened by “Le Maire” on Friday evening along with the switch on of the lights. It wasn’t just children skating on there Mums and Dads we’re enjoying it too.

Great news, 10 radiotherapy sessions completed, only 7 more to go. I had a consultation with the doctor on oncology radiotherapy, he seemed happy with me and said that eating something before the treatment was doing what he had hoped. There will be another consultation next week.

I was at the hospital twice on Monday, once for treatment and once for a consultation with my oncologist. I asked about my diet after radiotherapy and to my relief he said that I can start to eat normally again. Was I relieved I can start to plan my Christmas meal.

Leaving home in the dark on a morning I quite often don’t take a lot of notice of the chauffeur. However, on Tuesday it was the man (Sebastien) who had driven me the previous Monday. He was full of cold a week ago but there was no sign of a cold this week. I was in a world of my own when he spoke up and said after my appointment with the doctor in radiography would I like to go to the cafe to drink coffee with him! Blimey me, was I being chatted up? Fortunately, due to the treatment I can’t eat or drink in a cafe or restaurant (just yet). I told him this and thanked him for asking me as normally a drink would have been appreciated. Relaying this to “The Daddy” he said it was like the time I was asked out for a coffee by a guy in the launderette in St Gilles Crois de Vie, I fobbed him off but days later (on a crowded beach) he found me again and invited me to the casino…… no thanks just wasn’t enough to stop his pestering but I didn’t go to the Casino either!

It’s been rather cold, no snow but a very heavy frost one day, consequently I haven’t seen any grues or cigognes, if they have any sense they will be somewhere warmer 😉.

Even more good news too, my hair is growing back 😁. I went to the hairdresser on Thursday to have the long hair, that hadn’t fallen out, cut and I am surprised at how much hair I actually have now (even though it’s short). This is the second time I have lost my hair due to treatment but at the end of the day it’s only hair, it will grow back.

This week it’s a slightly different meaning behind the music, two different songs with the same title. The first is back to 1968 it’s by Manfred Mann and the title is “Fox on the Run”. The second is by Sweet which was released in 1975. Memories of my holiday in Andernach Germany flood back, nights spent in the bar of what I feel sure was called “The Father Rhine” bar whose attraction for me was the large juke box with so many UK hits. I think we must have drummed up a lot of business for the bar as people heard the music and came inside to see what was going on. I do remember that our bill for drinks at the end of the evening was usually small as Monica (the barmaid) managed to add an extra drink to other people’s tabs, you had your beer mat marked when you got a drink. 😂 such fun times.

“The Daddy” my gorgeous grandchildren, “The Trainee Solicitor and “The Ex-Graduate” have been visiting their “London relatives” who arrived in sunny Scarborough only for it to snow like crazy and make travelling to and from a bit of a nightmare. Anyway duty has been done, for another year. I received photos of my grandchildren with their uncle, what wonderful photos they were too everyone looking so happy. I can’t wait to see everyone in the flesh, so to speak, and have big hugs.

Monique is still not well and thinks she has bronchitis again, her husband Jean Claude has Covid which I think she has carried to him. She had been helping an elderly neighbour who was ill and he was taken into hospital with Covid.

Maud sent a voice message, she is having problems with her family and feels sad that she hasn’t been to see me. I told her not to worry and that we would meet up in the New Year with a trip to “Le Belvedere” The restaurant at the lake, that she introduced me to.

Anie has less than two weeks now until she flies off to Indonesia for Christmas and New Year. Maybe I will see her before she goes.

Everyone has been or is going away, or so it seems to me. I messaged Pauline, she has been to Florence for a few days (boy does that girl get around!) of course she sent me some photos one included David, not her new boyfriend, but Michelangelo’s David.

So now it’s almost time for me to bring the car out of the garage and drive down to the Christmas Market. I will hopefully be making another two jars of golden syrup this afternoon (you can’t have too much of a good thing )😉.

The sun is shining but brrr it’s cold, currently -3c.

Until next time……..Bon dimanche!

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.20 (after 1940)

1942 – World War II: Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace. 1943 – World War II: American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies. 1943 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms. 1944 – World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers. 1944 – World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll. 1952 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League. 1956 – The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy. 1959 – The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate. 1962 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes. 1965 – Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts. 1968 – The China Academy of Space Technology, China's main arm for the research, development, and creation of space satellites, is established in Beijing. 1971 – The United States Emergency Broadcast System is accidentally activated in an erroneous national alert. 1979 – An earthquake cracks open the Sinila volcanic crater on the Dieng Plateau, releasing poisonous H2S gas and killing 149 villagers in the Indonesian province of Central Java. 1986 – The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years. 1988 – The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast votes to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. 1991 – In the Albanian capital Tirana, a gigantic statue of Albania's long-time leader, Enver Hoxha, is brought down by mobs of angry protesters. 1998 – American figure skater Tara Lipinski, at the age of 15, becomes the youngest Olympic figure skating gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. 2003 – During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others. 2005 – Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout. 2009 – Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack. 2010 – In Madeira Island, Portugal, heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, resulting in at least 43 deaths, in the worst disaster in the history of the archipelago. 2014 – Dozens of Euromaidan anti-government protesters died in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, many reportedly killed by snipers. 2015 – Two trains collide in the Swiss town of Rafz resulting in as many as 49 people injured and Swiss Federal Railways cancelling some services. 2016 – Six people are killed and two injured in multiple shooting incidents in Kalamazoo County, Michigan.

[kellycrawford93]

LONDON

1. London was the first city in the world to have an underground subway system, which began operations in 1863.

2. The smallest statue in London is the “Two Mice Eating Cheese” located on Philpot Lane near Monument Station.

3. The Great Smog of 1952 was a severe air pollution event that lasted five days, leading to an estimated 4,000 deaths and prompting the Clean Air Act of 1956.

4. London’s famous red phone boxes were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1920s, and a few are now repurposed as mini-libraries or even coffee shops.

5. The London Stone, a mysterious ancient stone of unknown origin, is embedded in the wall of a building on Cannon Street.

6. London’s postal system has its own unique postcode system, with codes ranging from EC (East Central) to TW (Twickenham).

7. The London Bridge that crosses the River Thames today is not the original; it was sold to an American entrepreneur in 1968 and now stands in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

8. London’s Soho district was once a hunting ground for wild boar during medieval times.

9. The London Eye, despite its modern appearance, is the largest cantilevered observation wheel in the world.

10. The Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, stands exactly 202 feet tall, representing the distance to the bakery where the fire began.

11. The “Whispering Gallery” in St Paul’s Cathedral allows visitors to whisper against one wall and be heard clearly on the opposite side, over 100 feet away.

12. The tradition of the “Pearly Kings and Queens” dates back to the 19th century when working-class Londoners adorned their clothing with mother-of-pearl buttons for charity.

13. The oldest swimming club in the world, the Serpentine Swimming Club, was established in 1864 and still swims in the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park every Christmas morning.

14. The London Underground is home to several “ghost stations,” abandoned and disused stations that are no longer in operation but can still be seen from passing trains.

15. The Seven Noses of Soho, an art installation by artist Rick Buckley, consists of seven plaster noses hidden around the Soho district, placed there in the 1990s as a form of protest against CCTV surveillance.

16. The K2 telephone box, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is the most iconic and recognizable design of the traditional red phone box, introduced in 1926.

17. The “London Stone” is a mysterious object, possibly of Roman origin, which has been associated with various legends and myths throughout history.

18. The Thames Barrier, completed in 1984, is one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world and helps protect London from flooding during high tides and storm surges.

19. London’s underground system has more escalators than any other city in the world, with over 400 escalators in total.

20. The Duke of Wellington’s nose has been rumored to be stolen several times from the statue in front of the Royal Exchange in London.

21. The oldest street in London is said to be Queenhithe, a historic dock area along the Thames dating back to Roman times.

[asp1990]

Day 13: Wednesday 2nd October, 2024 [Wellington]

Breakfast: A buffet breakfast! Poached eggs, bacon, hash brown, coffee, juice, muesli, pastries! Lunch: NA Dinner: Asian Street Food from Master Kong

Today was our last full day in Aotearoa NZ and we had a half day tour booked. We went down to breakfast at 8.30am in the hotel restaurant and enjoyed the buffet. Our guide, Brian, picked us up at 9.20am and our fellow passengers Tony & Tina, from Adelaide, were already in the van. We stopped one more time to pick up Joy and Dawn, from Christchurch, in the city but Brian side-swiped a taxi as he was parking, so it was a frazzled start to the day. 

Our first stop was the top of Mt Victoria, which was incredibly windy but very beautiful. Brian told us on the drive up that the cable car industry was actually quite lucrative in Wellington as lots of the properties on Mt Victoria had their own private cable cars from the road to their property. Wild! We could see Wellington airport from the peak and found out that pilots had to be specially trained to land into Wellington due to the extreme winds and shortened landing strip. This means that only domestic and Australian flights land in Wellington and all other flights land in Auckland. 

Next we wound our way back down the mountain to the other side of the city that we hadn’t visited yet. We drove past Lyall Bay surf beach and the back end of the airport before stopping briefly to see Breaker Bay where NZ’s biggest maritime disaster occurred in 1968 when a ferry hit the rocks and 52 people died. Brian told us about the tsunami ‘higher ground��� signs and that when earthquakes and flooding happen that all the beachfront properties get damaged and are no longer eligible for home insurance due to their location. Beautiful but risky properties. 

We made our way back inland to Miramar where NZ’s movie district and all the production companies are. We stopped briefly at the Weta workshop but could only visit the gift shop and bathrooms, which was a shame. Brian was a great guide, but everything felt a wee bit rushed. Despite this, I bought some more LOTR souvenirs that I’d passed up in Hobbiton but had been regretting not purchasing. We then visited the Wellington Cable Car (which Amara and I had been to a few days before) where Brian dropped us off at the base and drove to meet us at the top. We all stopped to get a coffee at the cafe before getting back in the van. Again, we were a bit rushed. Each drive to a new location was a great excuse to chat to our tour buddies who were really lovely. Tony was a school principal in Adelaide, Tina was a retired aged care nurse and Joy & Dawn were in their 70’s and were friends because their daughters made friends in dance school when they were five. 

Back in the city we visited the National War Memorial where the tomb of the unknown soldier was kept. We didn’t get out of the car, but it was also very windy and cold, so we just observed through the window. We then visited Parliament House, coloquially known as ‘The Beehive’ and the archive library. Brian told us that Parliament House was originally a wooden building and the library was stone so the documents didn’t burn down but then Parliament House burnt down so they rebuilt in stone and this was some kind of architectural breakthrough. Sounds like something that 3 Little Pigs had figured out though..

Our final stop was Old St Paul’s Church: a non-denominational church built in 1866. It was decommissioned when the new church was built, but it’s now owned by the government so anyone can marry there. Queer, any faith etc. The American Navy have a connection with this church as they used it during the war. They have their flags hanging inside and the American embassy hold their Memorial Day service there each year, which a lot of American tourists love to hear.  

After we left the church, Brian dropped us all back at our respective hotels and Amara and I spent the afternoon in our room: her napping, me reading. We went down to Chocolate Hour at 4pm then came back up to our room to get ready for our last outing in the city.

At 5.30pm, in our nice dresses and heels that we’d packed and not yet had a reason to wear, we got an Uber into town to have dinner at Master Kong with Jo, who was also attending the World of Wearable Art (WOW) performance. We enjoyed a delicious feast of edamame, king pao chicken, green salad, corn ribs & popcorn prawns. Everything was cooked and seasoned perfectly. At 6.45pm we walked over to the TSB Arena for the show. 

The World of Wearable Art was absolutely iconic. Our friend had described it as “a fashion show mixed with Cirque Du Soleil” and she couldn’t have been more accurate. The performance showcased extravagant fashion outfits made out of any material that were submitted by a range of fashion designers from around the world. The costumes, lighting, soundtrack, staging and production value were breathtaking. I am so glad that Amara booked us tickets at the last minute as it was the perfect way to end our trip. The overall winner was an American artist who had made everything out of roadwork materials - orange honeycomb fencing, traffic cones and hi-vis. It was gorgeous! My favourite piece though was what I named ‘the sexy prawn’. 

After the show we walked up the street, away from the crowds, and a group of older women started talking to us about the show and gave us there programme when they found out it was our first time seeing WoW, which was lovely. We then booked an Uber as we couldn’t face walking up the steep hill in heels and our Uber driver laughed at us when we said this. 

Back in the hotel Amara showered, I wrote my diary and then we packed a wee bit before hitting the hay. One more sleep until I get to see Morgan and MJ!