The Last Fairy in Ireland

On March 18, 1895, in County Tipperary, Ireland, two miserable figures sat on a limestone wall.

Michael’s twisted face told the tale. He was living in a fog, on the verge of collapsing. He’d not eaten well nor had proper sleep in 14 days. Since his wife had fallen ill. Or rather, since she’d been exchanged for that… thing… that had occupied her bed. He’d made daily four mile treks through the snow and rain and cold only to find the doctor not at home. And when the doctor did at last call upon his door, he was drunk and dismissive. When he walked four miles in the other direction to find Father Ryan, he at least did come to administer the Anointing but he refused to return again. No matter. By that time, he was sure that the Seanchaidhe was right. It was not pneumonia and that was not Bridget. The sudden unexpected flippancy of the beast was what finally led to his decisive actions.

But the question still nagged him: why hadn’t it flown up the chimney?

In his peripheral vision, he could see his friend nodding off.

“Look alive, Jack,” Michael said. “This be the third night, you still think the procession will pass by the ringfort?”

Jack sat up straight. “In the name of God, Michael, I do! Look for the white horse. You cut the reins as it passes by and your wife will be freed. The white horse, Michael…”

Four days later, the burnt mangled body of Bridget Cleary was found in a shallow grave a half mile away. Even as he was being arrested, Michael swore that it wasn’t his wife. It was a fairy. He’d only tortured and burned the changeling in order to get his beloved back. Why couldn’t they understand?

Three New Welcomes

...makes it an even 100! Thanks for the "follows" from Salima, Amira, and Bella. I'm hoping to have a worthy story up tonight, or if not, then tomorrow!

Back with More in May

 

...just one more nap though :)

A Very Happy Christmas to You All

Praefigurare

On December 5, 1916, two children – a ten year old boy and a girl of seven – crouched in the gutter in front of 37 boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, an icy wind whipping their scarves and mussing their straggly hair. The boy held out a cap while the girl moaned to passing strangers, “Please! Give us anything! Or take us home and feed us!”

One passer-by stopped and shared a bag of peppermints.

“Oh, thank you! You’ve saved our lives,” the children cried, “Our parents give us nothing but paper to eat!”

“You poor creatures! And with no socks on!”

At that moment, the door opened behind the two children and a nicely dressed woman stepped outside in a warm winter coat. She looked down at the two children in the gutter and shook her head.

“What are you two doing out here?”

The children, teeth chattering, looked meekly up and then back to the kindly woman who’d given them the peppermints. Suddenly, they leaped to their feet and bolted behind the woman and in through the door, giggling their way up the stairs.

“Those are my children, I apologize if they were bo-,” but her words were cut off by a slap to the face.

“You wretch! How could you? Not dressing them for the cold! Making them eat paper!”

Shocked, and yet not surprised, the mother turned and made her way back inside to find her mischievous children.

The “poor children” pranks were always planned by Andre but he soon found other ways to occupy his time and grew to become one of the mathematical geniuses of the 20^th century.

Simone Weil’s part in the pranks, however, was a foreshadowing of the voluntary suffering she would partake in as philosopher and mystic for the remainder of her short life.

Consider the Worms

Settled in the valley between the Adriatic and the Alps, not much happened in Montereale, Italy. The main source of excitement for most of the town was the local miller, whom everybody knew as “Menocchio,” and the excitement was in never knowing what he was going to say next.  On February 4, 1584, he sat down beneath a tree near the church to share a lunch with his friend Giovanni.

“Consider the worms,” Menocchio said, unwrapping the cloth from a wheel of pulsating cheese.

“Ah! Formaggio marcio,” Giovanni said, “it’s finally ready!”

A few maggots popped up into the air and landed on the grass. As Giovanni leaned to pick them up and plop them back onto the weeping cheese, he noticed the priest poking his head out of a window in the church, a fierce scowl on his face.

“Menocchio, you know I always enjoy your philosophizing but I think maybe you read too much.  You might be going too far, especially the silly things you say to the priest…”

The miller shrugged him off and pointed at the cheese, “…as I was saying: earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together, and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels, and there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass…”

Menocchio’s explanation of creation was cut short when the priest appeared behind him.

“Domenico Scandella, you are to appear before the Inquisition for propagating heresy!”

Menocchio avoided judgment in that first trial but his inability to keep his self-educated views private led to him being burned at the stake fifteen years later amid the growing fears and reactions of a church facing a burgeoning and painful “protest.”

What Goes Up

The Key West Conchs were the patsies of the Single-A Florida State League at 32-79 and Johnny Crider of the St. Petersburg Cardinals wasn’t too concerned about being ready for the game. He’d been in the minors for three years and though he was batting a career high .248, he knew he would soon be on his way out.  Usually the team would arrive in town, warm up, play a game, and be back on the road before midnight without ever having seen anything but the ballpark.  But since the only bus available had them arriving in Key West some eight hours before game time on this August 6^th, 1974, there was time to kill so Johnny decided to see the sights, not knowing if he’d ever pass that way again.

From the free-roaming chickens in Mallory Square to the polydactyl cats lounging around the Hemingway House to the whispers heard along the docks of yet another overdue sailboat missing in the Bermuda Triangle, Johnny was finding Key West a fascinating place.

“Weird,” he kept whispering to himself as he sipped tequila at Sloppy Joe’s, “weird…”

When the first pitch was delivered in the bottom of the first inning at Wickers Field that evening, Johnny was in right field. A thick fog hung in the darkening sky despite a 20 knot wind and it amplified every sound; the lights in the outfield cast an eerie blue glow.

CRACK!

The pitcher turned and pointed straight up and Johnny raced in to field what he thought was a routine pop-up. The second baseman and the center fielder converged beneath the arcing ball also.  And then, the ball…

It didn’t go foul. It didn’t leave the park. It didn’t land.

It simply… disappeared.

“Weird,” Johnny whispered as the runner circled the bases. “Weird.”

And Another Welcome!

...to Saudi Girl, and thanks for the "follow!" I've taken another break but should be back with more next week!

Welcome!

...to Ch'kara SilverWolf, and thanks for the "follow!"

Caveat Emptor

Art Bell’s deep voice called out a familiar late-night invitation, “East of the Rockies, you’re on the air…”

“Hello, this is Chuck calling from Houston.  Well, I was out in my back yard looking at the comet through my telescope and I was wondering, does anyone know what that thing is next to it?”

“I’m assuming you mean the Hale-Bopp comet, Chuck?  What is it that you see?”

“I’m not sure, Art.  Astronomy is a hobby of mine and I’m always out looking whenever there are events like this… There’s a very bright light next to Hale-Bopp that, as far as I know, shouldn’t be there… it has sort of a ring around it, like Saturn… but it’s not Saturn and it’s not a star… it’s very large.”

“Chuck, this is the first I’ve heard of this, perhaps if I had a picture to look at, I might be able…”

“Oh, I’ve got a picture, Art.  I can send it to you.”

“By all means, please do and I’ll put it up on my website, Chuck.  Interesting… an object traveling along with a comet…”

Finger-pointing and argument continues today as to just who bears what blame for the tragedy that ensued several months later.  A radio host had given forum to an amateur astronomer with a question; who was responsible for vetting the hoaxers that turned it into something much bigger?  Charlatans have been pushing conspiracy theories on the gullible for fun and profit for many years prior to this, was this instance any different?

After all, Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult which committed group suicide on March 26, 1997 in hopes of being reincarnated onto the UFO hiding in Hale-Bopp’s wake, had already purchased Alien Abduction Insurance a full month before the photo was even published.

An Allegory Takes Flight

Ten days previously, there’d been seven ships, forty-nine days out of Batavia, en route to the Netherlands via the Cape of Good Hope.  But by the end of that day, three of them had simply disappeared, never to be heard from again.  The remaining four tried to stay within sight but the cyclone was beyond anything the Dutch East Indiamen had ever weathered.  The next day, without sails or rudder, the Arnhem found her hull being torn open upon the shoals of the Cargados Carajos.  The longboat went over the side and 108 desperate men piled in.

For nine days, they rowed and sailed as best they could to the southwest, following the white line of the reefs.  When they finally reached the shorelines of the island of Mauritius, only 80 of them remained.  Many died of injuries, some from starvation, others from drinking salt water.  A few had simply gone mad and were thrown overboard.

The castaways worked to make a life on the island, not knowing how long they’d be marooned.  Fortunately, Mauritius was lush, with plenty of fresh water, shelter, and food.  They broke up into groups and spread out, but maintaining regular contact in case of a passing ship.  On May 22, 1662, at the end of their third month on the island, an English ship was flagged down and they were rescued.

This account of shipwreck and survival would never have stood out from the dozens of others that occurred that year were it not for the journal kept by a sailor from the Arnhem in which he described how he and his companions would catch and eat a group of squat flightless birds they encountered on a small islet on the west side of Mauritius: the last reliable account of a live Dodo bird.

Man Bites Dog

On Friday afternoon, May 19, 1995, Patrick stopped by his bank on the way to the post office.  He laughed to himself as he inserted a deposit envelope into the ATM.  “I’d love to see the teller’s face when she gets this…”

 

Over the weekend, he thought about the deposit he made, endorsed with a smiley-face instead of a signature.  “I’m sure I’ll be getting a call from them on Monday… I’ll feign surprise when they tell me the news…”

Monday came and went without a call and Patrick simply shrugged it off.  “There’s no way… I’m sure they just round-filed it…”

 

Two days later, Patrick needed to withdraw some cash and stopped again at the ATM, no thought of the deposit he’d made the previous week.  After collecting his $20, the receipt buzzed out and he didn’t take two steps before stopping.  Double-checking the available balance in his account, his knees practically buckled beneath him.

Patrick knew that he had no moral right to the $95, 093.35 that First Interstate Bank mistakenly allowed him to deposit into his account via a “non-negotiable” personalized junk mail check, but he soon found out he did have a legal right.  And when the bank seized his account and began threatening him with hellfire, he’d already moved the money, via cashier’s check, to a safety deposit box ironically within the same bank.

 

In a time when governments have joined in open corporate partnership with banks “too big to fail,” with these same banks subsequently foreclosing on customers whose future tax dollars were pillaged to keep them in business, it’s almost with a morose delectation that we can secretly enjoy hearing of the little guy “sticking it to the man.”

Patrick Combs made them sweat it out for four months but returned every penny.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

On July 26, 1954, a Mongol warrior rode bareback through the canyon lands of the Escalante Desert in southern Utah.  Jamuga had just scouted out a caravan and was now trying to convince his friend Temujin to not go through with his plans for attack.  But his friend would hear no such counsel.

"There are moments fer wisdom, Juh-mooga, then I listen to you… and there are moments fer action, then I listen to my blood. I feel this Tartar wuh-man is fer me, and my blood says, 'TAKE HER!'"

But before Genghis Kahn could finish his scene, a hot wind began to blow and a massive dust storm rose up, choking out everyone on the set.  Director Dick Powell called a halt to filming and the actors scrambled for cover behind the tarps set up specifically for this regular occurrence.  After a short lunch of slightly metallic-tasting locally-grown produce and beef, they were ready to shoot again one of the most important scenes in the Howard Hughes-funded epic, “The Conqueror.”  When filming was finished the next month, Hughes spared no expense in shipping 60 tons of sand back to Hollywood to ensure that scenes which needed to be re-shot were authentic to the original.

Of the 220 cast and crew who worked on the colossal flop (not counting the hundreds of additional unnamed extras and contractors), 91 of them were destined to contract cancer, including John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Moorehead, and Susan Hayward.  Under normal circumstances, 30 would have been the statistical probability.

Years later, a spokesman from the Defense Nuclear Agency, which was responsible for the dozen nuclear tests done in the area the year before, was asked about the toxic conditions at that site:

"We're not in the health effects business; we're in the defense business."

Sharing the Burden and the Joy

Things were slow, as was the new usual, on Broadway on June 6, 1941.  With only a quarter of the number of new productions underway since the happier days of just 20 years prior, the district had turned to the more time-tested business of vice - burlesque houses and “adult entertainment” venues. 

But just two blocks off Broadway in the St. James Theater, Orson Welles’ production of Native Son had been playing for a month and a half and had garnered more than its share of expected attention.  And as the saying goes in the industry, any publicity is good publicity.  The Brooklyn Diocese had issued a boycott of the show almost immediately and the Legion of Decency had set up pickets on the sidewalk.  Yet the crowds still turned out and the theater filled up every night.  The presence of police, as well as some very conspicuous communist-hunting FBI agents prevented any incidents.

Because of the topic of the play, the audience was uncommonly mixed, meaning there were a few black people in the audience and during the intermission a young dark-skinned man made his way to a side exit and slipped outside.  His name was Harry.  He stood in the alley smoking a cigarette until he was met by a friend, Sidney, and after a few moments of animated discussion he handed his ticket stub to him.  Sidney then entered the theater to watch the rest of the show, briefed on what had already taken place.  Harry would be outside waiting when it ended, to be filled in on the second half.

It was in this way that Harry Belafonte, a janitor, and Sidney Poitier, a dishwasher, could afford to see the latest plays for the price of one ticket as they made their first inroads into acting.

The Theater of Provocation

A small ferry shoved off from the Charing Cross Pier and motored out into the Thames.  She was named the Queen Elizabeth and would be used in just two days to carry celebrants participating in the Silver Jubilee of her namesake, Queen Elizabeth II.

The boat continued downriver until it reached the Chelsea Bridge.  As it came about, a banner was unfurled: THE SEX PISTOLS “GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.”  Amplifiers were flicked on and the feedback from an electric guitar shattered the eerie quiet of the foggy evening.  Johnny Rotten screamed out above the squeals: “God save the queen! She ain't no human bein’!” making a mockery of the planned river procession.  Police boats appeared and followed the Queen Elizabeth back upriver - “No future for you!” - past Parliament and Westminster – “No future for me!” - all the way back to the pier where a constabulary force was waiting to end the stunt.  A dozen arrests were made but authorities filed no formal charges against the band.

Although their single sold well amid the hype, their anarchic message was not generally accepted; most people at the time still carried a respect for their nation’s institutions.  Violent attacks on the band occurred everywhere they performed.  Before they disbanded six months later, Johnny Rotten remarked bewilderedly, "I don't understand it.  All we're trying to do is destroy everything."

Today, the Sex Pistols are actually remembered fondly enough that they were invited to participate in the 2012 Olympic ceremonies in London (though they declined), and ironically in the same year as their Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

On February 21, 2012, another punk band made their own protest against their nation’s institutions.  It remains to be seen if they will be remembered as fondly in a future Russia after serving their lengthy prison sentences.