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Friday, November 27, 2015

Fabulous Creatures #4: The Prime Fabulist





Some time back, (four years ago, I think), Luis Augusto Garcia Rosado, minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche, said new evidence had emerged "...of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time."

Some time.

He also spoke of "landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years old." Being of somewhat sensitive nature, I became alert for fabulous beasts. I do not know if these codices acknowledge any. They might. Nor do I know what Sr. Rosado meant by "some time". His government must have secured these documents at some specific date, and I am told by mathematicians that one may subtract such a date from the current date and get a specific span. I have used this little-known trick to find out how old I am (you can too, amaze your friends!).

Either no one thought to date materials in these vaults, or no one has dreamed up a date yet. Of the two possibilities, the former is least certain. Underground vaults are dark and it's hard to see what one ought to be writing. The date could be illegible. If there was a lot of cataloguing, repetition may have run to carelessness, much as most people's signatures degenerate, by and by, into lines of L's or M's. My own has been described as an ampersand evolving into a squirrel. Second possibility puts us on firmer ground. It also directs us to our fabulous beast.

It really does live in a vault, the cranial vault --very dark in there. I have included an artist's rendering of this beast (see above) --not because of any shortage of photographs but because artists' renderings of fabulous beasts are customarily more believable than photographs. This creature sits motionless, all huddled up with its parts tucked in. My guess is it's some kind of frog.
One might ask what it does in its cramped, unlit cell. Oh, it sometimes casually mentions 3000-year-old landing pads to stimulate tourism, but it does much more. It dreams, performs grand magic, loves, learns, calculates, plans and remembers. It transforms itself into whole worlds, travels the stars, makes wishes come true. One might also conclude, and rightly, that it is the prime fabulist from which all fabulous beasts spring --and has been for some time.

Some time.

There are those who will dismiss the prime fabulist as nonsense, who say there is no such creature. These people are called skeptics, and I can only suggest they get their heads examined. I'm a skeptic myself and that's how I found the thing.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

On Evil

In my great sense of urgency to write up this spiritual insurrection, I accidentally started it on another blogsite --"Gardening With Geo.-- an unsettling error which caused me to hit "publish" instead of whatever I should have hit. Excuse me. Here is the full text which I type while my mouth recovers.

What is evil? Is it the extra-conceptual opposite of good? Sure why not? Or is it? I have spent decades searching for a concise definition of extra-conceptual to no avail. Reason for that is the universe is a collective of all things, conceptual and extra-conceptual. Nobody knows what extra-conceptual is, so I will dismiss the term and get to the point. Point is, Norma handed me a chocolate and...

I read this on the label! 

Someone had infused my chocolate with CHILI !!! This is not only extra-conceptual, but extra-canonical  and extra-confusing as well. It was editorially excised from scripture by the Septuagint regarding Seth's first child, grandson of Adam and Eve. He lived a long life, over 900 years, and kept his mouth shut, however there remains one scrap of apocryphal record: "Mixeth thou not chili with chocolate, lest thy tongue cleave to thy palate and allow only utterance of 'Gna, gna, gna!'"

Understandably, the Septuagint was clearing out any evils that might compete with the snake in Eden, but they could have retained the chocolate-chili line as a cautionary measure. I am a modern man, who would probably NEVER --unless dared to by other snickering boys-- accept treats from a talking serpent, but willingly ingests things handed to me by my wife. Hmmmm, I have just had a revelation that demands I stop my sermon here and leave this weekend's service to some other substitute pastor. Go thou and do likewise.


Tuesday, November 10, 2015

How To Solve Unsolved Enigmas

1. Let us begin with the disappearance of Manners The Butler. As a child, I was fascinated by him --his politeness, poise and, for a man of his stature, surprising ability to comfort with paper products those to whom life had been discourteous. Observe:

YouTube, Manners
My more imaginative siblings opined Manners may have tried to demonstrate paper products for the kitchen or bathroom and disappeared down a drain. I, however, kept to the simplest explanation and believed the dog dragged him off. I did not trust the dog and would look closely at the screen to see if he had any business in his eye, but resolution was poor in the 1950s. Readers' theories on what transpired are welcome.

2. Our second example of unsolved enigma coincides with our first. I invite you to examine an illustration of a scene well over 200 years old. Why? Let me say simply that often, in investigation of an enigma, we find ourselves back where we started. Sometimes, however, we find ourselves back before we started and this is such a case. Observe:

Here we have a scene depicting the arrest of a franctireur, a sharpshooter, accused of being rather good with a musket during the Franco-Prussian War. Nonsense intrudes! As a young man I target-practiced with an antique flintlock from Napoleon's time and what with black powder igniting in the flashpan by my right eye and no rifling in the barrel, I was at a loss to hit anything I aimed at except by accident. Then between 10-15 minute muzzle-loads, I had to guesstimate charge, ramrod wadding, insert the ball, ram down more wadding to keep the ball from just rolling out and then adjust the flint-clamp until I got a spark out of it --followed by a report like two washtubs falling downstairs. This was no firearm for a sharpshooter. Ergo,  Johann Lasch's excellent tableau is somewhat romanticized. However, the dog is not.

I believe, after careful examination in good light, that the dog in Lasch's illustration is the same one found centuries later and suspected of carrying off Manners The Butler and throttling him --which gives onto our 3rd enigma.

3. Could this dog be an agent of household, domestic and international reform? Had Carl Johann Lasch or Kleenex followed the activities of this animal farther --perhaps to the savaging of obnoxious miniature butlers and arresting officers, might we not have a more accurate historical account? I welcome all help here.


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Minute Mystery With Lieutenant Fordney


As he questioned old Peacock, the butler, Lieutenant Fordney closely examined the foyer floor.

"These are the shoes your employer last wore?"

"Yes sir, he always removes them and places them side by side as he enters the house."

"And these gloves, lying two feet in front of them, they are also his?"

"Indeed, master generally crawls in and doffs them with a single masterly shrug."

"I see, and what caused you to fear something untoward had occurred?"

"Well sir," said Peacock,"as I opened the west windows that morning, I heard something in the garden next door."

"Something?"

"Thuds, sir."

"Thuds?"

"Indeed, a great many of them!"

There came a thudding knock at the door. Lieutenant Fordney opened it to find a portly politician panting upon the porch. "Good morning!" Bellowed the man,"I'm your candidate soliciting support on the Incendiary Anarchist Ticket. Please accept one of these very unsafe blazing oil-lanterns and remember me at the polls!"

"Thank you," said Lieutenant Fordney, "but just a moment. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Thud, head of the large family of Thuds next door?"

"You do indeed, though how the devil you deduced it, I confess myself baffled!"

"My methods are my own, but I shan't detain you further. I perceive a plethora of porches you've yet to pant upon."

"Hah! Easy for you to say!" Thud shouted over his shoulder whilst thudding off down the street.

"And now, Peacock, tell me. In a house this large there must be many dangerously deep uncovered pits in dark hallways."

"Oh yes sir, ever so many!"

"In which of them does your master keep his luggage?"

"Why, in the deepest, darkest, least covered and most dangerous one. But how...?

"Quickly Peacock! Not a moment to be lost, and bring the lantern!"

They came upon the missing man precisely where Fordney reckoned him to be.


 "Aha," exclaimed Fordney. "The unfortunate fellow was trying to stuff his suit into a suitcase while he was still wearing it."

"Poor Master!" cried Peacock.

"Your concern is admirable, Peacock, but somewhat belated. You have been remiss in your duties!"

"Sir?"

[Dear readers, this is traditionally where Minute Mysteries asks: why did Lieutenant Fordney suspect the butler of inefficiency? For the answer, read on.]

"Peacock, the illustration of our discovery is from a back number of  the Strand, dated May, 1893. Will you kindly read me the date over this blog post?"

"November, 2015, sir."

"Precisely, you were so preoccupied with local politics, eavesdropping on the Thud family next door, that you let 122 years slip by before consulting a criminologist, did you not?"

"Admittedly, I lost track of the time, sir, and concede it borders upon the inexcusable."

"There, there Peacock. Who's to say we could have helped had we only got here sooner? Incidentally, have you a ladder? I believe I hear your master asking for one."

"Oh, as do I! Thank you Lieutenant Fordney!"

" I'll see myself out. And Peacock, don't let it happen again!"