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At the Expense of the Listener: The Librarians

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Source: At the Expense of the Listener: The Librarians

Tom Dooley

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Short fiction based on the story of Tom Dooley:

Thomas C. Dula

The shadows around her moved like cats, fluid and sometimes fast.  They made a crackling hissing sound like fat frying on the stove.  They said murderer.  Anne raked her slim fingers over her face and moaned in grief.  She could still see him holding out his hand, still hear him professing that he didn’t harm a hair on Laura’s head.  He didn’t look at her then, but Anne knew he had hoped she would’ve come forward.

She reached over to the drawer in the night table and pulled out a worn picture of Tom in his uniform.  It used to lie at the bottom of a box in the wardrobe, but recently she’d taken it out to keep it close.

When he had professed her innocence, he hadn’t thought it would be his death, and now he haunted her.  He’d haunted her for four years.  She could feel him pulling her soul down with him.  She would not get out of her bed today.

Anne’s cousin Laura stared at her from the shadows in the corner, her dress stained with soil and blood, her knees folded up in front of her like a defensive child.  She didn’t make a sound when James strode into the room and sat in the chair between her and Anne.  Anne stared at him aghast.

“Laura,” she croaked.

“Shhh, now.  That’s all over with,” James rumbled lowly.  The look on his face was one of resignation.  It was a look he often directed at Anne, ever since the trials, ever since all her wash had been laid out to public view.  He wouldn’t have to suffer the stares and the whispers much longer, though.  Anne was dying.

“I should’ve stood up, Jim; I shouldn’t have let Tom go alone,” Anne’s voice was raspy and weak.

“This isn’t the time,” James raised his hand as if it would stop her from continuing.

Ann shook her head back and forth with what little energy she had left.  “There’s no other time, Jim.  I’m guilty and I let Tom die alone.  I love him and I betrayed him like that.  I can’t die with that on my conscience.  I can’t die with Laura on my conscience.”  Anne’s convulsive hands crumpled the picture and let it roll over her side before she reached out for her husband’s hand and grasped it, wild eyed, “They haunt me so!  They follow me around like lost dogs!  I can’t turn a corner but I see one of ’em there.”

“Shhh,” James soothed again.  He tried, but couldn’t find any other words to give her.  Her hands squeezed his harder as she seemed to look through him for a painful, wild, minute.  Then she relaxed, slowly falling back on her pillow, her hands dropping onto the bed.  She was still then, eyes aimed at the ceiling.  James watched her not moving and not breathing until the evening shadows reminded him that he had calls to make.

note:  I went in search of the story behind the song “Tom Dooley.”  It’s a good’un, and well covered online starting with:  Tom Dula – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and “A bit of justice for Anne” Wilkes Journal Patriot, among others.

One step closer to pineapple

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pineapple

 

We brought the pineapple in this weekend based on recommendations I had read to harvest it when it was 1/3 yellow and then allow it to ripen the rest of the way inside.  I think this is primarily to make sure that we get to eat it, not the raccoons in the area.  It’s more baby plant than fruit, but hopefully it will be good.

You remind me of a man

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Have you ever seen The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer?  I wish Shirley Temple had done more movies as a teen.

at the circus

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Scarlet Pimpernel

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Thescarletpimpernel1908I read The Scarlet Pimpernel (Wikipedia) by Baroness Orczy (Wikipedia) right after reading the Count of Monte Cristo. I was desperate for some kind of sequel or anything else of Alexandre Dumas’ that could live up to it that wasn’t about the three musketeers.  The Scarlet Pimpernel came to my rescue then, and thanks to project Gutenberg, I am now buried in sequels.  You could say, I am making it a new obsession.

Books in order of publication:

  1. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903)
  2. I will Repay (1906)
  3. The Elusive Pimpernel (1908)
  4. Eldorado (1913)
  5. The Laughing Cavalier (1914)
  6. Lord Tony’s Wife (1917)
  7. The First Sir Percy (1921)
  8. The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1922)
  9. Pimpernel and Rosemary (1924)
  10. Sir Percy Hits Back (1927)
  11. A Child of the Revolution (1932)
  12. The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1933)
  13. The Scarlet Pimpernel Looks at the World (1933)
  14. Sir Percy Leads the Band (1936)
  15. Mam’zelle Guillotine (1940)

The novels and other collections of short stories were not typical sequels.  They jumped about in time, each a piece of the French revolutionary world that the Baroness had created.  Their huge popularity at the time drove her production as much as it inspired movie versions:

Movies:

  1. 1943 movie with Leslie Howard
  2. 1938 sequel with Barry Barnes
  3. Another sequel in 1950 starring David Niven
  4. 1940 Pimpernel Smith starring Leslie Howard
  5. The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1955 (starring Marius Goring)
  6. 1966 Carry on Pimpernel
  7. 1982 movie with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour
  8. 1999 miniseries with Richard Grant
  9. 2010 rumblings of Michael Armstrong directing a new version with Neil Jackson.

But there is no comic.  Oh, there were advertisements of The Pimpernel: An Adaptation Of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Doug Kissock, but it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, much like the 2010 movie plans of Michael Armstrong.

Beauty and Mr. Hyde

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Have  you ever thought how the beast in Beauty and the Beast and Mr. Hyde from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are both representations of the animal and undesirable side, or heart, of man?

Beauty&MrHyde

What do you mean, you don’t know about Brisco County Jr.?

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Okay, okay, so you did used to watch it religiously on Fox in 1994 like I did, but what have you done for the Adventures of Brisco County Jr. lately?   While you think about it, have some auditory nostalgia:

Calamityware dinner plate 7 by Don Moyer — Kickstarter

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Calamityware has a kickstarter for Don Moyer’s newest design!  I am not sure if I have already talked about being a proud owner of a series one calamityware plate.  I couldn’t resist!  They are based on the old willow pattern china that has been sold for decades in all sorts of places.  I have a full set of the red willow and the only way that calamityware could be better than it is, is if it came out in red.  Seriously.

mermaid doodles

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Clement Skitt’s word of the day

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ClementSkitt010aSeeing it was mizzling, the lallycooler inkslinger decided to stay in and have resurrection pie for his nooning.

Let’s dissect:

Mizzling – drizzling rain (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Lallycooler – one who is pre-eminently successful in his line (daisy, dandy, darling, lullu) (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Inkslinger – a writer or editor (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Resurrection pie – a pie made of scraps or leavings (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

Nooning – an interval for rest and refreshment at midday, as in the harvest field (1891 American Slang Dictionary by James Maitland)

So, in other words:  Since it was lightly raining, the preeminent writer decided to stay in and have remixed left-overs for his afternoon refreshment.

Justine Lai and the presidents

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I was just wondering what happened to artist Justine Lai’s series on her paintings of the presidents.  She has moved on, as evidenced by her online gallery, but the i09 post on her work is a great sampling of of  her previous concentration.

How would our world today be different if one adventurous woman had traveled back in time and had glorious sex with every single US president? Time-traveling artist Justine Lai is about to find out.

Source: An Alternate Sexual History of the United States [NSFW]

No Evil: the Zombie

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Hello Everyone!  I have another comic announcement:  Richard of doomedmoviethon.com, has written the second chapter of No Evil:  The Zombie.  It will be posting on Tuesdays from now on until it’s done.  Check it out!

A love song

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If you are a connoisseur of the LeEMS Bean RSS feed, then you already know that Kayt Ahnberg and myself have penned a song with the full intention of playing and recording it ourselves.  In the mean time the Buffalo Chucks sing it you in an eight page color comic on the Drawing Board!

Posting Fridays.

 

Annie

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Annie009 Annie008

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