I don’t like TikTok much because it encourages the further curtailment of an already alarmingly short public attention span. I sometimes think that maybe we are being steadily prepped for a future in which chips will be planted in our brains at birth. In the year 3000 “slow” will describe someone who actually takes a second to think something over. No, not much for TikTok, but I do like YouTube, well, to a point, yet there is something happening on it that makes me howl with rage.
The crystal ball on my desk flashed red. This happens whenever the Witch HeXopatha (nee “Hezopatha”) wants to pee in my lager.
HeXopatha is an immortal Wiccan. She has been around for thousands of years and will continue to be around for however long it takes for her to get bored with the world and retire permanently to Hell–but I don’t count on that happening soon. Once upon a time the “peasants” might have been able to do something about HeXopatha, but her skill level has risen beyond river tossing and the pyre. In fact it is a bad idea to mention such previous activities in HeXopatha’s presence; nor is it advised to claim to be of “Puritan stock,” unless you enjoy long hours in pillory stocks.
There is a vast, unplumbed hole in my learning when it comes to vocabulary. For instance, I went many years believing “unplumbed” meant clogged, like a tavern toilet, not unfathomed, nor lacking indoor plumbing (though I was in the same outhouse with the second definition).
I also went a very very long time thinking that “desultory” was a synonym for dismal; and until recently I believed that “penultimate” placed extra emphasis on ultimate; “atypical” did the same for typical–and, worst of all–I had “hirsute” as a fancy word used to elevate a person’s status instead of an adjective that describes someone who likely grows hair on the bottom of his/her feet.
Using cardboard, duct tape and a lamp, Tess turned her closet into a camera obscura.
“This gag’s been around forever,” Tess explained to her “model”–a simple but sweet cocaine addict named Sabrina. “Remember, hold a straight face and don’t look at the light.”
2023 looks more like an address number than a year to me. Yet when I see 1985 as an address, I think of the year. I liked 1985 for the most part, yet I have already developed a distrust of 2023, though we are just a few days into it.
Racehorses have New Year’s birthdays. As I have since childhood, I still imagine them wearing leftover New Year’s Eve party hats in the stable, eating birthday apples. I identify with the Horses because my birthday happens very close to the start of the year. But unlike a three-year-old Mare, I didn’t don a party hat because I am suspicious of 2023’s intent.
Welcome to the Tom Sheehan Festival. Tom has reached the unprecedented plateau of 200 stories with us–fifty one this year alone. So, for those who do and do not feel a bit shorted by the tree this morning, Tom has brought six gifts. Today numbers 194-199 appear to bolster the holiday. And please return tomorrow for Tom’s historic 200th appearance, which should go down well with the leftovers.
If you come away as thankful as we are for somehow getting this immense post up and ready, you are indeed blessed.
I am writing my humble contribution to this post on 24 November, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. I chose this point because Thanksgiving had at one time been a beautiful holiday until Christmas got so fat and greedy that it had to take everything.
Like a giant star preparing for detonation, puffing up to a size that swallows the planets that orbit it, the green/red Christmas star has done the same thing to the calendar. Save for the area between late January and the end of summer (We now have “Christmas in July”), this putrid star has swallowed the months of the year and will continue to do so until ugsome Black Friday begins at midnight 26 December.
Hurry up with opening those gifts, kids, I want to get in line early.
Sometimes I get the idea that humankind is a suicidal race bent on attracting the wraths of gods it really doesn’t believe in yet continues to invent for profit, regardless of all the healing messages. Although I’m not religious, I root for the spat-on, and there are times when I wouldn’t mind seeing the looming shadow of Jesus Christ approach Jeff Besos from behind–a quick glance at the Son in a BOY AM I PISSED Tee-shirt making his mood clear.
So today I stand here on the burnt out cinder that had once been planet Thanksgiving and shake a turkey leg at the fools already forming lines at various retailers throughout this nation. Unless God dispatches a well aimed asteroid I will be standing here still as this Christmas Eve unfolds, the long since devoured turkey leg replaced by a Scotch and soda. Still, if you must, Merry Christmas to you—but please, for the love of decency, do not post any more goddam YouTube videos of gifting French Bulldog puppies under the tree. People who do so richly deserve the sudden uptick of puppy shit in their lives.
I am going to soon depart and turn this post over to fine persons who are perhaps better at expressing their contempt for French Bulldog gifting clips. But first I invite all to come by tomorrow morning to read six stories by Tom Sheehan, which will mark appearances 194-199 by the master, with the unheard of number 200 following on Boxing Day (Not Boxer Day, YouTubers).
And I leave you with a presentation of The Week That Is. The five stories this week weren’t all about plumping up the bottom line and were human endeavors created from the non-grasping, even wise place in the human heart.
This holiday week was brought to you by a group of five authors who have a combined total of six site appearances. It makes sense in a twisted sort of way that with Tom coming by the next two days this week should feature a second timer and four writers new to the site. Although we dearly love our repeat performers, new voices infuse the lifeblood.
Shawn Eichman’s second LS story appeared on Monday. Hunger. Merry Hellworld Christmas! Yes! This piece is harrowing, tense, speaks volumes of the pointlessness of war and yet has an ironic sense of humor that is difficult to extract, but it shines nonetheless, like silver flecks in paint. As it goes with me, I worried more about the Wolf than the people.
Andrew Yim debuted Tuesday with The Locust Seller. The luck of the draw is how this fine story came to be this week. It is obviously a fitting piece for the season, yet one I’m certain reflects life at the time much more accurately than a Bible story and would be just as appropriate if it had been published in August..
Mark Burrow performed what could be interpreted as a parody of what happened to Lot’s Wife on Wednesday, with Alabaster Conjugal. This is such a sinister thing mainly due to its being told in a perfectly sane voice. The normalcy of all other events heighten the inner weirdness. So well done.
Our third debut author, Domonique, made Thursday a fun place to visit with Karaoke Cowboy. This is an odd situation in which the title tells you what the piece is about but in no way prepares you for the inspired and wildly amusing tale that follows.
Orchids in the SunbyDorothy Rice closed out the run of stories. With just a few hundred perfectly chosen words Dorothy is able to accurately describe the points of view of “Sadie” and her narrow-minded children, and you can sympathize with both. Although most likely not Mom of the Year timber, you find yourself glad that Sadie went away dreaming of possibilities to come.
Leila
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Great stuff Leila. I hope that turkey leg was all that you could have hoped. I have to say that I look back fondly on Christmases past when my children were little and trifle was a thing.
It’s been another tricksy sort of a year for so many people that it seems somehow wrong to be forcing through this celebration of all things commercial. I did write a longer post bemoaning the greed and the misery and then I kicked myself in the behind (not easy at my stage of life – or ever actually) and deleted that and decided to simply say – wherever you are and whatever you are doing I hope that your day is peaceful, your people are well and the coming year will be kind to you.
Keep sending us your stories, keep on reading the wonderful prose we are able to publish and may you have all that you need and most of what you want.
Merry end of the year celebration with lights and stuff.
dd
Brilliant ladies!
I was also going to be all doom and gloom but decided against it. I will add one observation following on from Leila’s mentioning of Black Friday.
I noticed one stores dismal display for this so-called ‘Event’. Their wares included a few candles, toasters, shredders and kettles. I thought on this and came to a conclusion – Folks have realised that this is all a huge fucking con. BUT, the retailers have realised that the customers have realised that it is a huge fucking con!! Hopefully in a year or so all this nonsense will die off with whatever greedy bastard thought it up in the first place.
No matter what has happened in my life, I have always started Christmas off in the same way – Half a pint of Advocaat and a bacon sandwich. That makes the rest of the day more sufferable.
To all our readers, writers and those who comment or get involved in any way, have a wonderful time and I hope that you and your families are all happy and healthy. I will now steal a line from the legend that was Dave Allen…May your god go with you.
…And that includes the gods of scepticism, lethargy, pessimism, realism, cynicism and addiction!!!
To Diane, Leila and Nik – Thanks so much for this year, I wouldn’t have got through it without you all. I’ll be on The Absinthe on Christmas night and the first half bottle will be toasted to you all. The second half will have me toasting oblivion!!!!
Hugh
The art work is from Angela at Studio Anjou who has quite a number of pieces scattered about the place.
We conclude the weekly version of the Sunday Reruns with the only rerun of a rerun I’ve ever brought back. It’s a high class story by Hugh Cron called The Swans. (The Reruns will return in January as a monthly feature.)
literally stories 