dreadcrumbs

Friday Fives

Five Musicals I Might Forswear My Oath of Purity to See

1. The Horrificks
2. R'lyeh: A Musical Vaudeville
3. Carousel
4. Paint your Dagon
5. My Square Baby

Witch List

It seems to me that peoples of yore were notoriously bad at making lists. With such an auspicious beginning as the Code of Hammurabi (which, frankly, isn't a very good list, but for a first try it does pretty well), you would think that humanity would pick up the summarizing torch and run with it. I mean, what did people do in the middle ages for fun, really? You can only pick scabs for so long before you die of infection or bleed to death. While waiting for the stupor of lead poisioning to wear off, why not come up with a "You might be a Saxon if.." list?

I bring this up because, for years, I've been trying to find a good list of the traits that well-meaning zealots looked for when trying to find witches to burn. Not that I would ever burn a witch, mind you. I know a witch who seems very nice. They're very colorful people and add to our lovely world culture. It's just that, like many people, I prefer to judge those around me as quickly as possible, and if they don't have any immediately distinguishing characteristics, I actually have to think about them. That leads to all kinds of unwanted empathy that I would prefer to avoid.

So, like I said, I'm looking for a way to identify those people that might have been pestered unto death with fire and rocks a few hundred years ago, and found this in "DeVrie's Pamphlet Omnibus" that reprints all known pamphlets and flyers from 1500 to 1800. Sometimes interesting, often boring, regularly incomprehensible, this bit was of note:

A Page Booke of Reckoning the Wicked-

Seek ye and ware those who

    Speak with a loose tongue
    Walk and wash linen in manners unknown to the village
    Cackle often and in all places
    Love the hated thing
    Deny their hideousness
    Dance with unseen partners
    Keep the head uncovered
    Maintain all queerness e'en when so exposed
    Sigh and mutter heretical maxims about housewares and berries

I'm not sure these points still hold in this day and age, but it's the best list of it's kind that I've found.

UPDATE: Strangely, I found a similar list on this blog.

Microstory Monday

A Gift Confirmed

Mike walked into the street and turned toward oncoming traffic. It was the only way to know for sure. Raising his palm to the sedan quickly approaching him, he brought to bear his full force of will and spoke loudly. "YOU. WILL. STOP!"
There was a noise as if the trumpet of a god sounded, and the approaching car came to a screeching halt a mere two feet before him.
With a deep sigh, Mike shuffled back to the curb and sat on the yellowed grass of the parking strip. The driver of the sedan was yelling something. Mike looked up, blinking, and said, "You may go. I release you." Again, he heard the tune of the celestial horn, and the car drove away.
Sighing, Mike looked at his hands.
"No man should have this much power," he said. "The burden is too great."

Friday Fives

The last paragraphs of the five blog entries I might have made over the last two weeks had I been posessed of more forgiving taskmasters

1. "Certainly, I give Nickelodeon full right to fill their programming schedule with all manner of Thelemite wickedness, but they could at least cite their sources! Not everyone is going to recognize the dogma of Aleister Crowley, especially if it is sung by a besweatered hallucination."

2. "Let them have their 'Fryolators' and their 'grilles'! Heaven knows I shouldn't object to people using ridiculous, unwieldy, or culturally inappropriate words, but, Good Heavens,  leave the apostrophe out of it."

3. "Who knows? One day that bug, or the son of that bug, might come back for revenge. The death of his clan will be on our heads, and none of us will be able to stand against a united insect army with blood lust in their eyes."

4. "I still can't rid myself of the compulsion to cut into my leg, though. Slice through that thin layer of skin and finally squeeze out what unknown mass sits there, just under the skin, festering."

5. "I hear it yet, that screeching sound of metal on metal. Though dead and buried, the ghost of those tortured drums haunts me. I hear them in their death throes every time I brake at a stop light. My sanity is at sake! I cannot! Will not! Must not...drive that mini-van again."

Microstory Monday

The Birth of the Tiger King
Gary put his hands on his hips and turned, looking sidelong at himself in the full body mirror. The new cloak was magnificent. So what if it was faux fur? To him, he was clad in the skin of the Bengal Tiger. He faced the mirror, puffing up his chest and narrowing his eyes.
"It's finally happened, Florence!" he called downstairs to his wife, still looking in the mirror.
Crouching suddenly, he thrust his hands out, claw-style.
"Yes," he said, nodding. "I am truly beyond human law now."

Friday Fives

My Five Least Favorite Things People Have Said To Me

5. "My hands are full, could you reach into my pocket and get my keys?"
4. "You can ride with me."
3. "We're all out of ham."
2. "I'll call you."
1. "A few people are coming over."

Microstory Monday

The Third Date
Rolling up my left sleeve, I lay my arm on the table, palm up.
"This," I say, pointing at the patch of scarred flesh of my forearm, "is the skin of the Colubus monkey, grafted onto me when I was six years old."
She stares, still holding the stem of her wine glass.
I sigh. "The graft has given me great powers, Diane."
Reaching into the bag at my feet, I pull out the woven mask, crafted from the hair of seven gorillas. Her eyes move to it and widen.
"Yes," I say, pulling on the mask. "I am Ape-Ron, sworn protector of the urban primate."

Friday Fives

The five most unsettling things to find wedged under your fingernails upon waking up

5. Animal hair
4. Bamboo shoots
3. Bits of eye
2. The mangled top half of a very tiny screaming man
1. Coffin-lid splinters

Tuesday's True Life Dialogue

A young married couple are sitting on a couch, possibly watching television. SHARON has her legs tucked up onto the couch as much as is possible, as she is 5 months pregnant. GENE is idly doing something with a razor blade to his fingertips.

GENE: I guess I should probably put this razor away.
SHARON: What?
GENE: I said I guess I should put this razor away before I, you know...
SHARON: Before you what?
GENE: Do something, or uh, have something...
SHARON: Before you have an accident, you mean?
GENE: No...it's just that, you know, when I'm holding it, it's like they say.
SHARON: Who says? What?
GENE: "When you have a razor, the whole world looks like a..."
SHARON: Looks like a what?
GENE: ...
GENE: I wasn't going to say "throat."
SHARON: Right.
GENE: I wasn't.
SHARON: Just go put it away.