This repost is one of my annual traditions. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone except those in countries that don’t celebrate it and the Canadians who are heathens who have Thanksgiving before Halloween , and this year we could really use it.
It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.
It was even worse than last year. I know every time my family gets together we fall into certain patterns, but that never makes it easier. This time it was even worse because just getting to my parents’ house was such a pain. I thought I’d carriagepool with my younger brother and his wife, but they went up early so that fell through. Then I thought I’d beat the traffic by setting out at dawn, which was such a great idea everybody else in Richmond had it at the same time and the horses were nose to tail, stop and trot, for miles. Finally I got there a little after ten in the morning and my older sister came out already holding a glass of blackberry wine and when she hugged me I could tell it wasn’t her first one. She asked me how things were going and then didn’t wait for an answer and ran back into the house to tell everyone I was there.
I should have known I’d be walking into an argument in the foyer, the way my family is. It’s just what it was about that threw me. My kid brother had this crazy idea for a new way to cook a turkey, leaving the feathers still on and roasting it in the coals of a fire. Well, it sounded pretty stupid to me, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that the neighbors tried the same thing last year and burned down their stable. But I didn’t want to side with my father either. So I said it had been a long trip and I needed to visit the outhouse and slipped out. Well, there was a line at the outhouse: two of my nieces, three cousins, all four of my brothers, and my sister was already in there getting rid of some of that blackberry wine. So I went back inside to see what was going on.
In the parlor my mother was putting together some kind of monstrosity with dead leaves and dried berries that she said she was going to put in the middle of the table.
“Where’s the food going to go?” I asked.
“Well, we’ll move it before we eat.”
I was going to ask why she’d bother to put it in the middle of the table if she was just going to move it again but decided against having that discussion, so instead I sat down and leafed through a broadsheet that was handy.
“The other men are organizing a game,” she said. “It’s some new sport called foot-ball. You should go and join them.”
Well, she knows I’ve never been athletic, but when I protested she got put out with me and said, “It’s your Uncle Wilkes’s idea. You know you’ve always been his favorite. You really should go and do it just to please him.”
FINE.
Well, when I came back in my sister just cackled and toasted me with another glass of blackberry wine. All my mother could say was “Don’t get any blood on the carpet,” and my older brother kept telling me to stop being a sissy and just put some salve on it. Then Aunt Gerda said pinch the back of my neck and tilt my head forward and Uncle Wilkes said no, put pressure between the eyes and lean back, and then my cousins got into it so there had to be a family brawl about that. A day later and I’m still bleeding. So much for the salve. I’ll have to make an appointment with Dr. Samuel Mudd when I get back.
Then Uncle Aloysius had to start in Daniel about supporting the Whigs and Elizabeth about Suffragettes, just trying to start an argument. Fortunately they didn’t rise to the bait.
Then I tried to head off another argument about who’d have to chaperone the kids’ table by volunteering, but my father cut that off.
“No, no, I want John seated here on my left. After I sent him to that fancy and very expensive school so he could waste his time studying the dramatic arts and oratory he should be well-equipped to deliver the traditional Booth family prayer of thanks.”
Traditional since last year, he means. Then my kid brother kicked me in the shins which I know was his way of saying “Don’t start anything”. I kicked him twice as hard in the shins which was my way of saying, “I wasn’t going to,” and then kicked him again to say, “Hurts, don’t it?”
All this might have been a little more bearable if my sister had let me have some of the blackberry wine.
I swear I’m going to get that Lincoln for making us do this.
Dog’s breakfast-Disorderly, messy. This British slang term originated in the late Sixteenth or early Seventeenth century with fox hunting and the hastily thrown together breakfast dogs were served before setting out.
Couch potato-A person who sits around watching TV. American in origin, apparently from the early 1970’s, the term may derive from the appearance of slothful individuals but also from the growing consumption of potato chips during the Watergate hearings.
Piece of cake-Extremely easy. The exact origins are unclear but use became more widespread with the development and distribution of commercially manufactured cakes in the 1920s that led most people to binge on whole cakes.
Tough nut to crack-A very difficult problem or undertaking, or a difficult person. Probably derived from nature and the difficulty of cracking certain types of nuts. The first known appearance in print is from A.F. Doni’s Morall Philosophy, published 1570, but came into wider use during World War II when German Enigma machines used Brazil nut code.
Selling like hot cakes-Extremely popular, in high demand but with limited quantities. Of North American origin the earliest recorded use is from 1839, but why hot cakes specifically is unclear.
Fruit Basket turnover-Complete disruption of the established order. This term derives from the children’s game of the same name and is primarily used by spinster history teachers from Poughkeepsie.
Cream of the crop-The very best of a particular group. Presumably derived from the fact that cream rises to the top of unhomogenized milk it reached urban areas in the mid-19th century with the rising popularity of creamed corn, creamed spinach, the less successful creamed eggplant, and the disastrous creamed cotton.
Icing on the cake-An added bonus to something that it already good. The origins are obscure since cake without icing is just chocolate bread.
In a pickle-A dilemma or difficulty. Derived from the use of empty pickle barrels to hold local lotteries with unpicked tickets left “in the pickles”.
Gravy train-A means of making a great deal of money with very little effort. Derived from actual trains that carried gravy West to feed Mack Sennet’s insatiable appetite for pork drippings.
Spill the beans-To reveal a secret. This is derived from a 19th century practice of storing prophylactics in containers of dried beans but since it was the Victorian era no one admitted to ever having sex.
Going cold turkey-To quit a bad habit (usually smoking, drinking, or drugs) immediately rather than gradually stepping down. Possibly derived from a term in a satirical British magazine from 1877 it may also refer to a belief that tryptophan causes unconsciousness making it impossible to indulge, unless your bad habit is oversleeping.
Putting money in a Wurlitzer and getting a pita bread sandwich of rotisserie-cooked meat—self explanatory, derived from going to Greek restaurants on Thursday when the musicians took the night off.
The following is by Allen Walker, reprinted with the author’s permission from Catchall, October 2019.
Part 1-In Search Of…
It’s Bessie’s fault that I stole a boat.
A lot of circumstances also led to it, but circumstances are notoriously difficult to hold responsible, and while I did the stealing I feel the burden rests on Bessie’s shoulders. Or would if Bessie had shoulders.
Let me back up a bit.
I was at the Beaver Creek Lodge, a sprawling complex that combined a frontier theme with the luxury of a golf resort on the shores of Lake Erie. Comprised of seven buildings of hotel rooms, a clubhouse, an enormous main center containing the lobby, pool, gift shop, fitness room, three restaurants, and a twenty-foot indoor waterfall, the lodge could easily double for Stephen King’s Overlook, only east of the Mississippi and with an eighteen-hole golf course instead of murderous topiary or hedge maze.
I had come to write about a golf tournament before three days of torrential rain cancelled the event and the golfer I planned to caddy for decided to stay on the drier west coast. The lodge was also playing host to the National Vizsla Specialty. “They have us so well-trained,” a bedraggled handler told me before being dragged away by her pack of copper-colored hounds. Picking up lunch at the gift shop I learned from the manager that the lodge regularly hosts dog shows. I’d just missed Afghans and Borzois, and Dalmatians would be arriving next week. The Hungarian horde was an alphabetical outlier.
I stayed thinking I might find something in the dog shows, and to take advantage of the amenities, if you could call them that. The hotel restaurant offered three-star prices and one-star service. My first night my medium-rare steak took an hour to arrive and could have been revived by a competent vet. The second night, for a change, I walked up the street to Bessie’s, a white cinderblock building with a funny-looking sea serpent with gold earrings on its sign.
I passed on a second plate of all-you-can-eat-perch since three-fourths of one was all I could eat, but the peanut butter and chocolate Buckeye Pie was positively ambrosial. Over a second piece I started to talk to Eunice, who told me she was the granddaughter of the restaurant’s founder. I asked her about the sea serpent.
“That’s Bessie.”
I was confused and said, “I though Bessie might be your grandmother.”
“No sir.” Eunice eyed me me owl-like through her oversized glasses. “Bessie is the Lake Erie monster.”
“Like Scotland’s Nessie?”
“Mm-hmm. Some people say Lemmy, but most of us around here say Bessie. I think there must be more than one. Biology, you know.”
Parthenogenesis in lake monsters did seem unlikely, and yet I’d never thought about it even though I was familiar with Lake Champlain’s Champ, and even British Columbia’s Ogopogo. I’d never heard of Bessie or Lemmy, though. Presumably this was because even Midwestern monsters don’t like publicity, but I decided not to share this theory with Eunice.
“My grandfather saw it, you know,” she went on.
“Bessie.”
“Yes sir. He was out there fishing for walleye early one morning. He said he kept catching perch. Then it came up out of the water. At least twenty feet long, he said, right alongside the boat.”
“With earrings?”
Eunice smiled. “No, the guy who made our sign put those on. My grandfather said it was more like a snake with a cold eye that looked right at him. Then it formed a circle out there, and a whole bunch of perch came up, and it disappeared.”
“Did he ever see it again?”
Eunice shook her head. “Never went back to that spot, wherever it was, neither, and from then on he only fished for walleye when the sun was up.”
After a second piece of Buckeye pie I started back to my hotel room. I felt a little nausea and the wind off the lake was bracing so I took a detour down to the marina where small boats bob next to narrow docks. One, powder blue with the Beaver Creek Lodge logo on its side, caught my interest. As a guest, I thought, there couldn’t be any harm in taking a self-guided tour, so I stepped aboard. I went to the front to check out the throttle and steering mechanism. Then, just out of curiosity, I looked under the, well, I assume even on a boat it’s called a dashboard.
When I was ten I spent the summer on my uncle’s farm in Nebraska, and one hot lazy afternoon my cousin Sam taught me how to hotwire a tractor. Well, I thought, a boat’s mechanism must be very different, so I was surprised that, when two ignition wires touched, the boat’s motor chugged to life. There were a few bumps since a boat is subject to inertia in the way that land vehicles aren’t. Fortunately the marina’s walls and docks were padded with tires. I expected someone to raise some alarm, but the row of brown townhouses to my left—I supposed now I should say “port”—and a shack to the starboard were impassive, as though asleep in the fading light. After a few more bumps I was out of the marina, then past the rocky shore. I pushed the throttle forward, headed for deep water and, I thought, Bessie.
Part 2—Lost
My cousin Sarah, half-sister to Sam through circumstances that are still murky to me, can find true north even in a cornfield. With the stalks high enough to block the sun she could still find her way as though she had a compass in her head. A few times Sam tried to convince me to leave her but she didn’t like to be alone. He’d run ahead but she and I would always find our way out first.
I let the boat chug along for, I think, a half hour or so, eyes to the empty horizon, one hand, then the other, to the wheel. When I turn to look back the way I’d come there’s only more open water, and I realize there’s no easy way back. In the east the moon that had been on the surface of the water like a deflating balloon has now it had slipped below. Among the stars overhead one, I know, is Polaris, the North Star, but I don’t know which one. I grew up in Kansas and shared an alma mater with Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of former planet Pluto, but astronomy never interested me. A bright speck moves directly overhead. It’s probably a satellite, facilitating communications, pinpointing locations. My phone has a GPS device, and a compass app, but I’m out of signal range.
A sign at the marina said, “GPS devices are not allowed on private charters.” Captains jealously guarding their private fishing holes, I thought. A compass should still be standard equipment on the high seas, or lakes, but a search of the lockers along the gunwales only turns up a variety of lifejackets, a toolbox, an anchor shaped like a big white mushroom, and a dead spider, an unlucky stowaway. Also a flashlight. Turning it on only deepens the darkness.
After the summer we stole the tractor my uncle sold the farm, took a job in hardware, managed his diabetes as best he could. Sam and I only saw each other intermittently: when we drove through on our way somewhere else, or occasional holidays. I was home for Thanksgiving when he told me he’d bought a motorcycle.
“I think I might drive down to Marfa, maybe, or even Roswell,” he said. I could tell he was eyeing my chocolate cake that I suddenly didn’t want. “You want to come with? Maybe see some UFOs?”
It was tempting but I had school, exams coming up. Sam didn’t make the trip either.
It would be a decade before we’d talk again. Halfway across the country news still trickled through. Sam got a job as a messenger, working at the local library. He was putting on weight. He was in the hospital for a week, then ten days. After Sarah told me about the accident, how he’d lost his right leg below the knee, I called. He sounded tired, weighed down, but he brightened up strangely when he talked about the blackout before the crash.
“It was like swimming, you know? You go down and it’s just nothing and you never want to come up again.”
I didn’t know. I never was much of a swimmer, which just added to the irony that I was now on a boat. Surrounded by nothing, water and sky together to infinity, I thought, I never did ask why he wasn’t taking better care of himself. I never asked if he’d like to get together. Or how it was we took such different paths. Was it just circumstances?
“You know anybody who wants to buy a bike?” he went on. “It’s hardly been used aside from being busted up.”
I knew it would be the last time we’d talk. Some might call it a premonition. The truth is it was more of an educated extrapolation. When Sarah called the circumstances surprised me but not the news. Sam had been found in the back of a public library in Bridgeport. Paramedics carried him out. He’d had an insulin pen with him, but it was unused.
Lake Erie’s size, something I’m all too conscious of drifting in the middle of it, makes it difficult to search, and yet many of its two thousand or so shipwrecks have been rediscovered and explored. None of the expeditions has ever seen a monster, though, or even any evidence. It seems strange that an animal that, according to some stories, is twenty feet long and sheds scales the size of silver dollars, hasn’t left anything tangible. Actual silver dollars are easier to find.
I realize the boat is drifting and send the anchor overboard. The attached rope buzzes against the side until it goes taut. A tag where it hooks to the floor tells me the line is fifty feet, less than a quarter of Lake Erie’s deepest point. The waters, once famously polluted, are cold and must be very clear. I can see the anchor hanging greenly more than eight fathoms down. I wonder if it attracts any attention.
In the distance there’s a splash.
Part 3-It’s Alive!
When I asked Sam why we were hotwiring a tractor he said, “Something to do. Got nowhere else to be. You need a reason?”
There are at least as many ideas about lake monsters as there are lake monsters. Some believe they’re dinosaurs left over from the Cretaceous era. The long snake-like necks of Nessie, Ogopogo, and Champy make some think they’re plesiosauruses. Lake Erie’s only about four thousand years old, so it’s an unlikely spot to find a marine animal from three hundred million years ago. Based on the description Bessie could be a giant snake, like the Lagarfljót Worm and the Flathead Lake Monster. That seems unlikely too. Cold-blooded animals don’t fare well in cold water.
Some other ideas seem a lot more plausible. Lake sturgeon, a bona fide living fossil, can grow more than seven feet long and have a reptilian look. Schools of fish, even groups of otters swimming can look like a single large animal. Rotting logs that sink to the bottom build up carbon dioxide and can pop to the surface like a monster surfacing. When my uncle took us to Lake Minatare Sam tried to convince Sarah a floating log was a crocodile. She wouldn’t fall for it, but he was so earnest he nearly had me convinced. After supper we took a walk through the woods along the lake, just me and Sam. We heard something in the water.
“What was that?” he said. We both got quiet.
“Maybe there really are crocodiles here,” Sam whispered. “What do you think?” I walked with him down to the water. Sam knelt down.
“I think I see something. It’s—AAAGH!” He grabbed my leg and I screamed. Then we both laughed. Well, I pretended to laugh, and now, alone out here with no other sound but the gentle slap of waves, I really laugh.
That night as we lay next to each other in our tent Sam said, “What do you think it was splashing out there? We should see if we can find a boat and go out there and check.”
I didn’t want to. I know it disappointed Sam but I’d been scared enough of my uncle’s wrath over the tractor. I didn’t want to get grounded for sneaking out to the water. I suggested we go check out the lighthouse instead.
“That’s not a lighthouse,” Sam snapped. “That’s just an old tower they built for observation.”
“Observing what?”
“Maybe something lives out there in the lake.” That started Sam on the Lambton Worm, a giant snake that poisoned a well in England until it was killed, and we talked about it until we fell asleep.
The sky is getting lighter. Summer nights on Lake Erie are short but still chilly. I shiver. I still can’t see land but I think I see mist on the water. It moves like a living thing. Tulpas, an idea from Tibetan mythology, are creatures willed into being. They’re meant to be servants but can turn malicious. Why do we imagine monsters? As soon as the question comes to my mind an answer follows: to make sense out of chaos. Confronted with the strange, with things we’ve never seen before, we look for an answer. But they also fill a need for chaos. Order gives us comfort, but we need disorder to go with it. Maybe it’s also submission, admitting there are things bigger than ourselves. Another, more practical answer comes to mind: maybe navigators wrote “Here be dragons” on maps to protect their own routes, to keep away the wary. Maybe there are many reasons. Maybe we don’t need a reason.
The sun will be up soon. A thousand miles, more than three hundred leagues, and two time zones away the same sun rise over Sam’s memorial service. I would have been there but I had a golf tournament to write about, or maybe a dog show, or a lake monster to find.
I lean over the side and look down. It’s light enough that I can see my half reflection, but dark and indistinct. Is something down there looking back?
I realize my boat has no name. At least I didn’t check to see if it had one, probably printed on the stern, when I embarked. Why do sailors name their boats? As soon as the question comes to my mind an answer follows: because on the open seas they depended on their boats. On the water, away from land, a boat is a sailor’s whole world.
The sun will be up soon and I’ll know which way is east. I’ll have an even chance of knowing which way is south and finding my way to the right shore, or at least a signal, before the fuel runs out. I put a hand on the steering wheel.
Transporters have been around since the 22nd century. Early transporters took up to eight minutes to beam a person from one location to another, but now the process is almost instantaneous. Because they don’t require as much landing space or travel time as a shuttlecraft, as well as being less expensive, transporters are the ideal way to get from one place to another. While some medical professionals are still wary of these devices numerous improvements have been made and today’s transporters are so safe they wouldn’t even hurt a fly.
When installing a transporter on a starship engineers first set aside an area on the lowest deck. This allows for minimal matter interference when transporting someone to the surface of a planet below or even an adjacent ship. Transporter rooms also usually have closed doors for security reasons, although they can be accessed by any member of the crew and sometimes by random passengers.
Once the location is selected engineers first install the emitter array. Traditionally circular most arrays have a series of subsections for individual transport.
Each subsection will have its own imaging scanner, primary energizing coil, phase inducer, transition coil, gravitational compensator, and materializer. Together they’ll power the annular confinement beam.
The subsections are designed to transport most humanoid individuals while the central transport disc is for large items or Captain Pike if he ever comes back from Talos IV, or if you ever need to turn a pig lizard inside out.
Here we see an engineer examining an energizing coil for microfractures and Talarian hook spiders. Everything looks good so she uses a micro-resonator to degauss it before giving it a quick spray with Windex and installing it. All these components will power the annular confinement beam.
Now the engineer installs the multiplex pattern buffers in the walls of the transport module. These will prevent the breakdown of neurochemicals that can lead to transporter psychosis. Next she and another engineer install the biofilter and Heisenberg compensators. The compensators will make sure none of your data, or Lieutenant Commander Data, are lost.
Next engineers install the transporter console. This must be properly synced with the main transporter unit in order to prevent beaming anyone into a wall.
A transporter operator energizes the transporter to send a duranium test cylinder using a downward motion across the three touch-sensitive bars on the transporter console. Any problems with the transport test will appear on the central view screen. The test cylinder came back with a beard which it didn’t have before. A quick adjustment will prevent future intrusions from the mirror universe.
Source: imgflip
The transporter is now installed and ready for use, and perfectly safe unless you’re wearing a red shirt.
Up next on How It’s Made: Tricoders. And later: The Borg.
This place is, like, really really off the beaten track. We wouldn’t have even found it if we hadn’t shut off the GPS. We started out on I-10 but it was late afternoon and truckers were going by us in the fast lane like they’d lost their minds. We got off at an exit, I don’t remember which one, and just started driving until it got dark. We were driving slow along this back road and could smell some kind of plant, or maybe it was churros or something. And we heard an old church bell off in the distance.
This place was really brightly lit and it looked nice so we thought it would be a good place to stop. Even after we saw the big gold Mercedes Benz up on blocks out front. We just thought that was funny. It didn’t seem like your usual B&B but that’s what we liked about it. There was a woman standing right out in front and we both thought, places like this can be really great or they can be terrible. Or kind of meh.
The front room was pretty nice too. They had, like, a ton of Tiffany lamps all around. All done up in what I guess would be 1920s style. The woman who met us at the door lit a candle and showed us to a room, which I especially thought was nice, very atmospheric, and there must have been some kind of party going on because we could hear voices down the hall saying “welcome, welcome.”
Here’s where things got kind of freaky. The room was nice, with Shaker style furniture, but there were mirrors on the ceiling. I swear, mirrors! On the ceiling! What was that about? And you know how hotels always used to have a Bible in the table next to the bed? Some still do but this place had The Magus by John Fowles. Maybe an English major or somebody stayed there last?
Our room had a nice window that looked out over the courtyard and there were a bunch of shirtless young guys out there dancing. Some guy in robes and a pointy hat like Gandalf I guess was playing a guitar out there and that’s what they were dancing to. Not that I’m complaining but they were kind of sweaty. It wasn’t loud but I wondered if they would keep going all night.
We were still looking at the room when the woman who checked us in said, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device,” and, wow, I got chills, but we just laughed it off. We figured it was, like the theme of the room or the place. Creepy but you go with it, you know?
They were still serving dinner so we went down. This guy in a navy double-breasted suit and a cap came over and asked if he could get us anything to drink. I asked for some wine and he said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.” Well, I don’t know what that meant because I asked for the 2014 Merlot they had on the list. I guess they were out of it because they brought a couple of glasses of some rosé chardonnay, but they poured it over ice. I was like, what is this, 1976?
Then I guess there was some kind of special event because we were invited into another room in the back. This part…I don’t really want to talk about it. It was dark and I think they let a live pig or something loose in the room. They had given us these knives and there was a lot of screaming. We ran for the door and got out of there fast.
We went back to the front room and there was this, like, statue in there. We thought it was just a statue but it turns out it was a robot. It came on and said, “Good night, we are programmed to receive.” Then it sighed and said something about the diodes down its left side hurting and how it had a brain the size of a planet. It told us we could check out any time but we couldn’t leave which could make anybody paranoid if you think about it.
Well, we got out of there and I didn’t think anything about it until I just got the credit card statement and we’re still being charged! I’m writing this while I’m on hold trying to get it taken off our bill.
All this because we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
I have come to stay with my brother Victor in his quarters at the University of Ingolstadt. While he is pursuing the study of natural philosophy and chemistry, still greatly consumed by grief over the death of our mother from fever, I have turned my attention in an equal degree to the study of the culinary arts.
I was inspired to take up this pursuit during my stay in Paris where I became acquainted with M. Carême, whom I heard to deliver a panegyric upon diet. Upon consideration of the wisdom of the ancients he did say, “That which we consume so becomes us.”
I was so enervated by this I was barely able to rest that evening, though it pleased me to see my brother Victor was similarly excited by a lecture on chemistry. By degrees, after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to study the art of food.
That day I paid a visit to M. Carême and was treated to a most excellent luncheon. My appetite was so great I left not a jot of what was placed in front of me, causing M. Carême to immediately recommend me for membership in his Sodality Of The Unblemished Dish. We then fell into a lengthy discussion of interesting experiments with bread conducted by an English Earl named Montagu.
From this day culinary studies, and particularly spices and seasonings, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.
August 27th, 17—
My studies in cuisine have continued apace. I soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my kitchen, causing many neighbors to inquire as to what is being concocted; though whether this is due to my experiments or those of Victor, who is as ardent a worker in his laboratory in the lower section of our house as I am with the stove, is not clear.
September 5th, 17—
Having acquired several spices, not merely parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme but also chervil, and chives, I have begun experiments with sauces. One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human tongue. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of taste proceed?
September 15th, 17—
I am barely able to contain myself. A shipment arrived today of many exotic spices, among them nutmeg and cloves brought from the East by Portuguese traders, a quantity of bark from cassia or “cinnamon”, cardamom, anise, and fenugreek.
September 29th, 17—
Victor has been spending much time in charnel houses and tonight came home with a rather fine human leg. My devotion to my craft is such that I immediately considered ways it might be prepared for table. Victor seemed concerned, and pushed me away, saying it was for his own experiments. He is now accompanied by a wild-eyed hunchback who assists him. Perhaps I should also have an assistant.
October 5th, 17—
A corpulent gourd has been sent to me with tarragon procured from the American colonies, together with mallow and vanilla, and Jamaica pepper from the Antilles.
October 12th, 17—
Victor speaks much of flesh. I cannot allow myself to be distracted. M. Carême sends word he is concerned by my absence.
October 18th, 17—
Eureka! Inspired by disjointed ramblings that have reached me from Victor’s laboratory I have found a combination of spices that, when combined with the flesh of the American gourd, are positively ambrosial. I rush to share this discovery with M. Carême.
October 19th, 17—
Carême has shared my spice mix with a patisserie, and it has spread thence to a coffee house. This is not what I intended.
October 21th, 17—
A familiar odor reached my nostrils as I passed a tavern. I was sick, dismayed beyond belief, to find my creation imbibed in beer.
October 25nd, 17—
I regret that I have committed the offence of injuring a street hawker, but to see my creation sold not as comestible but soap—-!
October 31st, 17—
It is with the utmost terror and loathing that I see how my concoction has spread not only to coffee houses but to all manner of applications. O! God in Heaven! What have I done? I have unleashed pumpkin spice upon the world and I shall be forever damned for it!
I only hope my brother Victor will redeem the name of Frankenstein.
An Irish pub in Spain is banning the classic singalong song “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond to keep its patrons safer…A photo posted by the pub’s owner Linda Carroll showed the sign explaining the decision: “Due to COVID-19 ‘Sweet Caroline’ is banned. There will be no: touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you.”
Hi everyone. Thanks for accepting the invitation to the planning meeting for this year’s Renaissance Fair. So. I know it’s strange that we’re going ahead with this, but I have some ideas about how we can make it work. We won’t be using the site, of course, but I think the virtual experience we’re offering will be just as rewarding for our guests as the real thing.
First, some of you may remember my assistant from previous years, whom we all know as Lord Sudsbury.
No, I’m not going to call you that, Kevin. We agreed on Lord Sudsbury, remember? We did not agree on “Sir Osis Of Liver”.
All right, first of all we’ll have performances by our favorite pike-wielding minstrels. Yes, I’m talking about the Britannia Spears. They’ll help us kick things off at ten in the morning and they’ll perform until eleven. They’ve been staying at least a furlong from each other but they’ve been practicing over Zoom and I think they sound great.
I’m really excited that Leanna will be returning. Although she won’t be able to have her usual crafts booth she will be doing a pottery demonstration from ten to eleven in the morning, and another one from two to three in the afternoon. We’ll also have links to her Etsy page on the site and in the video demonstration.
We’ll have another performance by the Spears from eleven to twelve and a separate room where we’ve got a local university professor to give a talk on castle building and a demonstration on how you can build your own from cardboard boxes. So that’ll be fun for the kids. And also…Lord Sudsbury, please don’t interrupt. Seriously, Kevin, we don’t need to know how many toilet paper tubes you’ve saved.
We’ll be taking the usual break for lunch from twelve to one and have an arrangement with Green Door to deliver hot turkey legs for people who’ve ordered them, and we also have a vegan and Tofurky option for the vegetarians and vegans out there, as well as curly fries and a selection of cakes from our regular bakery partner Where Is Fancy Bread.
From one to two in the afternoon Toby and Andrew will show off their storytelling skills. They’ve got an all new fairy tale for us and instead of their usual tip jar they’ll have their Venmo number in their PowerPoint slide show.
Yes, Lord Sudsbury, thank you for reminding me about that. We’re still working on technical issues but we hope to have a virtual version of the traditional Soak-A-Bloke with Lord Sudsbury in the dunking tank.
Kevin, this year could you please not come out in the Klingon outfit?
Yeah, today is a good day for someone to die.
No, Lord Sudsbury, we will not be having a mead drinking competition, even if you are already way ahead.
Anyway we’ll have more performances by the Britannia Spears and I’m especially excited that Anna and Mark have found space on a local farm and have gotten the video equipment to give us their usual jousting demonstration.
Kevin, I’m not going to ask you again. Either pull up your stockings or pull down your tunic. No one wants to see your lance.
Yeah, don’t kid yourself. That’s not a codpiece. It’s barely a minnow.
Where was I? Oh yes, since we can’t have our candlelight dance in the evening we’re going to have a special streaming of The Adventures Of Robin Hood, the 1938 film with Douglas Fairbanks.
What’s that, Lord Sudsbury? You made alternate arrangements? Kevin, that is not what we agreed on.
Excuse me, everyone, I have to make a correction. We’ll have a special streaming of the 1993 Mel Brooks film Robin Hood: Men In Tights.
And finally I have a special addendum: a demonstration featuring Lord Sudsbury of what it means to have someone drawn and quartered.
Hello. You may have heard quite a bit about me in the news but I’d like to take this opportunity to speak to you directly. It’s been a difficult time, I know. Some mistakes have been made. That’s why I’m asking for your support and the support of all those you know to help make things better going forward. Together I know we can do it. I know we can get back to normal, to the way things used to be.
I know a lot of people are tired of social distancing. They’re tired of not being able to see family and friends. They’re tired of not being able to gather in large groups or go to restaurants or bars. They’re tired of going to restaurants or bars and having the spaces where they can sit be extremely limited, with many areas off-limits. They’re tired of being told which way to walk down the aisles of stores, even though it’s, at worst, a minor inconvenience.
I know many people are tired of wearing masks too, and I understand. They can be irritating. Wearing masks can make it hard to eat. Some even claim masks make it hard for them to breathe.
Many people, I know, want to go back to work. Or they want to be able to go back to their offices because they’re pretty sure they left an apple in their desk, and it would be really nice to have a meeting with actual people and not have to face a screen of coworkers that looks like the opening credits of The Brady Bunch.
I know people are tired of being scared, too. This is perhaps most true for parents who are facing the new school year. They’re wondering what they’re going to do with their children. For some virtual learning simply isn’t an option. They don’t have access to the technology or the internet in their area is too spotty to be usable. And many people just want to get their damn kids out of the house.
I know parents are worried about what can happen to their children. Even if statistically the chances of children getting sick or becoming carriers of infection are low no parent wants their child to be a statistic. And we don’t really know what the numbers are for children. No parent wants their child to be a guinea pig either. And speaking of guinea pigs what about Mr. Crunkles, the class guinea pig, who’s actually a girl, which we learned when she unexpectedly gave birth two days after she was brought to school from the pet store? Young Benjamin still has nightmares from finding her still bloody with a mass of pink suckling babies underneath her, or maybe the nightmares are from the time a bunch of sixth graders caught him in the bathroom and gave him what’s known as a “swirly”.
I’m getting off the subject here.
Many people, I know, simply ignore the rules, or openly speak out against them, deliberately gathering in large groups. I know they’re tired of being called out for this behavior.
Well, I sympathize. I’m tired of it too. I say it’s time to stop the social distancing, stop wearing masks, and just stop worrying. All of us, I believe, need to come together and simply go back to doing things the way they were before. Trust me on this. It will be so much better, especially for me.
The unicorn heard the tent canvas rustle and raised its head from the filthy straw. A girl was sneaking under the edge. So many of them sneaked into the tent after the shows, and so many more wanted to but didn’t. The girl wore dark denim overalls and a polka dot shirt.
“Hello,” said the girl.
The unicorn nodded and moved its head forward so the girl could pet its nose. It knew she would like that. When she touched it the unicorn smelled the copper in her blood.
“I’ve never seen a real unicorn before,” said the girl, “only pictures.”
The unicorn lowered its head so the girl could touch its horn. She did, gently, feeling the grooves, then reached up to pet the unicorn’s forelock.
“My aunt has a horse,” said the girl. “I’ve ridden her. You’re smaller, and softer. I bring my aunt’s horse carrots. I’m sorry I didn’t bring you anything.”
The girl touched the unicorn’s nose again. Her sincerity smelled like dried thyme.
The unicorn considered her, and how much like all the others she was, and thought it could tell her all things. It thought it could tell her it came out of the sea and sky when they first parted. It had seen mountains grow and seen trees climb the mountains until they reached the peak and turned to birds. It had walked across the world when all the sea was frozen, and again when there was only one land. It had seen fish swim onto land and green tendrils that followed and stretched up to strangle dragons in their sleep, and it had seen angry seven-eyed things creep up in the darkness and dissolve in the light.
It remembered the first girl it found, a naked mewling thing, lost, and the unicorn stood watch, protecting the girl from wolves and hawks, until other people came and took the girl away. The unicorn slept a long time after that while the sun went gray and the moon reddened with ash. The unicorn walked through the woods and found a girl with a satchel and told her secrets it had heard from mushrooms that glowed underground. The girl took these secrets with her. More time passed. Another girl was drawn to the unicorn. This one burned hot as a furnace and was wild. She wanted to keep the unicorn and it had to run from her.
The unicorn ran for many years and found another girl smeared with blood that was not her own, and she smelled of the iron she wore, and that she carried as a sharp stick.
It was a long time between that girl and the one before it now. The unicorn had come to live among people, to walk between dancers and clowns. It would swallow fire and strike stars from its hooves and send them spinning to the roof of the tent.
The unicorn saw that this girl would have a daughter, and the daughter would have a daughter too. One day the girl and the daughter’s daughter would sit at a table and the girl would add sugar to the daughter’s daughter’s tea, and stir clouds of milk into a storm.
“I saw a unicorn once,” the girl would say, “at the circus,” and they would talk about a time when there were circuses in the world.
The unicorn turned away from the girl, to say to her it was time to go.
