Vicuna memories

Today's Tids Issue 4,483

It's all been done before:

Happy Autumn, E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y! The typical temperate climate of the North is back and very, very soothing indeed. All we need now is a couple super frost days to kill the EEE Mosquitos. Then the world would be just about Perfect.

There are readers who at times overread or misinterpret what I’m talking about. Yes, I can agree, that sometimes in an effort to write a little too cleverly, I may cloud clear thinking. So, I’ve decided to employ a new tact:

Dick: Well Jane, the President has certainly confused the issue by talking too much.

Jane: Yes Dick, He has an ability to do that from time to time.

Dick: Yes, it is confounding for Republicans who often side with many of his objectives which are better for America.

Jane, Yes, America, Dick. My mind is even more boggled when I think of what the Democrats are planning to do to our wonderful country.

Dick: Oh Jane, maybe you sounded a little to hyperbolic about our country.

Jane. Oh, Dick, you are right. I could be deemed a Nationalist or worse.,

Spot: Why do Dick and Jane talk so much. I need food.

It didn’t take me long to tune out the Emmy awards program.

Do you think that good coffee companies that still sell their wares in cans and plastic can-like containers are up against the immovable force of bag buyers’ prejudice against coffee in solid packages? I suspect, yes.

The Jacobean era of English history is a little like today here, where most of us want people harmony, yet sometimes forget about the visceral hate of opposing activists. It was the norm in that era of King James VI reign where the intense hatred between Catholics and Protestants was always bubbling beneath the surface. When political chicanery confounded superficial attempts at peace. It may have come to a head around 1605 during the reign of peace-loving James, 1567 to about 1625, when English Catholics supported Guy Fawkes planned assassination of James and destruction of parliament. This at a time when James thought he was unifying the warring factions, not only in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but in Europe. It was an era of hopes and dreams, and mainly naivete. Sometimes it is interesting to get nudged into a history book.

The mime’s farewell was a silent occasion, but I guess that goes without saying.”

The Question:

Who are considered the best Horror book writers of all time? Bonus” Today’s songs may never be memorable because their shelf life is so short and their glitzy accoutrements are so over powering. But Irving Berlin wrote em’ and we still sing em” Name ten of his great tuneful, upbeat hits.

The Headlines:

--Euro Economy Sinks; US Markets Could Go Down With It Today; Trump Brings Large Australian Manufacturing Business To Ohio.

--GM Striking Workers Said To Have Approved Tentative Agreement.

--USA Passed Autumnal Equinox At 3:50 AM This Morning.

--Pelosi Threatens To Allow Whistle Blower Caper To Be Center For New House Investigation If Prez Resists Handing Over Report; Hedging House Dems May Now Go With Impeachment.

--New Iowa Poll Has Eliz Beating Joe.

--Boris Johnson Implies That UK Could Join US In Attack On Iran.

--World Travel GF Behemoth Thomas Cook Company Collapses Under Weight Of Debt; Thousands Left Stranded.

--Motown’s Berry Gordy Retires At 89.

--Downton Beats Pitt And Rambo To Claim Weekend Box-office Championship.

--Britain Dominates Emmy Awards; Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge Big Winner; Maisel, Thrones And Chernobyl Also Take Big Prizes; HBO 34, Netflix 27. Amazon 15.

While roaming the supermarket aisles, I noticed a sale introducing a new Folger’s coffee brand. The design of the plastic can, yes can, caught my eye. It was called Folger’s Noir – “Smoky Midnight”. I bought and brewed it. It was just plain delicious. I’ll be going back, unless they raise the prices to fancy bag levels.

At a drug store on Saturday I saw siting on a shelf: “Adult Ponchos”. X-Rated ponchos? What do they do?

Is the Whistle blower Report The Aha Moment Dems Have Been Seeking?

It is reported that people up this way love to catch striped bass best of all. But, I rarely, I mean really rarely, see it on a restaurant menu. Personally, I like to catch the feisty blue fish, that is when I ever go fishing. And, there is no better eating than fresh off the hook and on to the grill bluefish.

A line in a dog food commercial says, “Dogs don’t know what’s good for them, so I’m here to help with dog lovable…” Am I a dog? Do health food aficionados look at me as a hapless little puppy looking for a fire hydrant, too interested in tastiness over nutrition? I think I’ll just wag my tail and at Cheetos.t KFC gravy. Would somebody rub my back?

I thought college football patsy season was over? Wrong! Alabama won 49-10, Ohio State 76-5, Florida 34-3 and Wisconsin 35-14 over Michigan. Oh, that big match-up game was over in the firsts half with Wisconsin up 28-0 and Michigan barely moving the football. I did see a few goo games like Auburn over Texas A&M. The Notre Dame-Georgia affair kept ne up way to late, as it was in doubt till the end. ND needs a running game. And Michigan need an “O:-Line.

Was Biden’s Ukraine Attack On Trump More An Attempt To Protect His Son?

I had a chance to be present at a nice ceremony at a liberal arts college where I heard that as a core to their educational principles and mission statement was Racism, Women’s Issues, Immigration, Non-violence and the Environment. Sounds like a democrat convention.

They say that Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto is hard on pianists. But for the average listener like me, you would hope that more would take on the challenge. Knowing this, any audience enjoying that masterpiece should just stand and applaud longer.

One of the sadder occurrences in modern culture is the tearing down of great old churches. Some are reused for lay activities or living.  In reuses you still get to admire the building but you lose the message. We need more messages.

Joe Gibbs racing has won 15 of the 28 NASCAR events.

Mercy: Stepping into the chaos of others, and filling the holes in hearts, minds and bodies.

You like me are probably seeing more and more use of the word, “Woke”. Merriam Webster says that it is a word that grew out of “Black Lives Matter”, and is more than being a word for injustice awareness. It is a word of injustice action.

I am sleepy.

An alternative activist website urges its population to stop attacking police: “Violently attacking the government creates victims out of the ones we are trying to expose as criminals”. This is out of the Jacobean playbook.

An RCP investigation reports progress is being made the attempt to make “Ethnic Studies” a prerequisite for graduation. It is being offered to children in earlier and earlier classes. States Oregon, Ca land Bernie’s Vermont are early adopters. A critic sasy that the trend recalls re-education camps in Viet Nam or China. “It I san indoctrination rather than an education”. Some other comments: “It’s not Ethnic studies if it doesn’t change whiteness.” Ethnic studies scholar: “We actually prepare our teachers to know that on the first day of class, or in the first week, you may have students who are sobbing?” “The shift to ethnic studies looks inevitable.”

Shame me for eating meat, and I’ll eat more.

The Answer:

Local Providence RI hero H.P. Lovecraft is #1.. #2 is another who wrote and fell in love in Providence – Edgar Allan Poe. # 3 is one who many may have put up as Number 1, Stephen King.34 is Bram Stoker followed by Clive Barker, Mary Shelley, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Algernon Blackwood, and #10 Shirley Jackson. One of my favorites was #17 – Dean Koontz. He was after #11 Robert Bloch (Psycho), M.R. James, Peter Straub (Another of my go-to guys), Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and Ramsey Campbell, but before Neil Gaiman, Robert Louis Stevenson and #20 Robert McCammon. Oh well, let’s go to 25. # 21 was Anne Rice, William Peter Blatty, H.G. Wells, Thomas Harris (Silence of Lambs et.al.) and Clark Ashton Smith. Slasher Movie writer Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street et.al) was number 47. Ira Levin of Rosemary’s Baby and Stepford Wives fame was #52 Bonus: They disagree about how many tunes Irving wrote, but some are satisfied with 1,250. Irving’s first international hit was Alexander’s Ragtime Band. You know his White Christmas and Easter Parade. And we sing God Bless America regularly. He wrote of the military often with songs like “You’re in the army now Mr. Jones” and “Oh how I hate to get up in the morning”. I like “A couple of Swells”. Some popular songs were “Always”, “All Alone”, “Anything you can do I can do better” (Way before woman began wearing funny little pink hats in public marches), “Blue Skies”, “Cheek to Cheek”, “How Deep is the Ocean”, “I got the Sun in the Mornin’ “, “It’s a lovely day today”, “Play a Simple Melody”, I’ve got my love to keep me warm”, “The Girl that I marry”, “There’s no Business Like Show Business” He also wrote, “What are we going to do with all the Jeeps?” Sell them to Fiat? I like living in a romantic Berlin world.Y

Dick: So Jane, the rumblings are getting louder in Washingtoon.

Jane: Yes Dick, they Are.

Dick: We don’t seem to be coloring within the lines anymore.

Jane: No we don’t, and the noise is annoying Spot…Spot, Spot, let go of my arm.

In simpler times for Dick and Jane, when word of mouth was between two people talking to each other; when TV was Black and White, and comedians were funny; when Ike was in charge and all was open and honest and moral. When grim, no-nonsense Yankee Sherman Adams ran an austere White House, eating cheese sandwiches at his desk, and all was well with many happily ever after endings. No body, not Dick, not Jane worried about anything evil except perhaps “Duck and Cover”. Until that day when good man Sherman’s old New Hampshire friend Bernie Goldfine gave him a Vicuna coat. And the fairy tale ended. And I turned 21. I was an adult.