#is this our collective white whale?

[mrsvalbaker]

Eddie Munson x Horror!Bimbo Reader 🦇 💕 Part One

Headcanons about Horror!Bimbo

Horror!Bimbo isn't Harrington rich but she isn't Munson poor, she's lower middle class. Her dad is very distant, he manages the grocery store in town. Her mother is a part time librarian, and is there for reader as much as she can be.

She has an older sister who is studying pre med at The University of Chicago, they were once close but her sister became snobby once she started living in Chicago and only visits on holidays now. She thinks reader is stupid and hopeless with no future.

Horror!Bimbo!Reader is 18, a senior while Eddie is 20.

Horror!Bimbo!Reader has a white German Shepherd called Pyewacket.

Pyewacket hates everybody except for reader, she rescued him from a mean neighbor who would chain him up as a puppy. They've been thick as thieves ever since.

Pyewacket doesn't even let her parents into her room without some growling and snarling.

Horror!Bimbo!Reader also has a white rat called Socrates who often rests on her chest while she watches movies.

Pyewacket was the name of a famous witch cat in the Salem Witch Trials and a familiar in the 50s film Bell, Book, and Candles. AND Socrates was the name of Willard's white rat in Willard(1971).

Horror!Bimbo!Reader has a big oral fixation, she's constantly chewing her Extra! Refreshing bubble gum, or sucking on heart shaped lollipops that she hoards a bunch of from Valentine's Day that last her throughout the year.

It drives poor Eddie insane watching her mouth like that.

And she has such a distracting mouth, especially with all her lip gloss and lip liner defined lipstick painted lips.

And she's a big lip biter too.

He has spent many a time jacking off to the thought of those lips wrapped around him. With her shirt bunched up above her perky tits that never seemed to wear a bra for some reason.

And her plush ass that was alwayss adorn with a thong that he could see under very short skirts when she would bend over, her pussy lips puffier than the average girl and would be straining against the lace or satin of her thong, a lot of the time not completely covered.

Eddie has shamefully bust in his jeans at the sight at least twice.

And when she wears her obscenely tight jeans, her whale tail of her thong would peak out from the top of the high waist cut somehow, and you could easily see the outline of her thick vagina through the crotch of the jeans.

And almost always you could see the nipples of her bouncing tits through her shirts.

She tortured poor Eddie, especially when she would always smile so sweetly at him through the hall with a breathy Daryl Hannah "Hi Eddie" that she always managed to sound suggestive.

And in class (they have English and Pre-Calc together) , she always managed to sit in front of him, leaning forward so he could see her whale tail, or her juicy pouty lips when she'd ask to borrow a pencil that she would chew on and suck on before giving it back to him. (He is a little ashamed to admit he saves a whole collection of those at home). He'd also get high off her succulent smells. Like her strawberry shampoo, rosewater body lotion, her apricot hand cream, either baby powder and vanilla body mists or spicy and fruity Poison by Dior that he knew she would shoplift from the department store at Starcourt.

Our little bimbo has sticky fingers. Her family isn't the richest and she is such a seagull. Sees something shiny, might be a little too costly, like expensive lingerie or luxurious perfumes and she HAS to have it. Flirting with sales men and women and stealthily swiping the goods.

Eddie remembers the day he first met reader.

First day of her senior year, she walks into English in an outfit he knew she would get dress coded for, faded blue daisy dukes that squeezed the life of her dump truck ass and accentuated the lewd shape of her cunt. A red cropped tank top that was a little loose with a strap falling off her summer-loved shoulder, but tight around her bouncing unbound breasts. She had on white socks bunched from black doc like combat boots, and her hair up in a messy but very pretty high half pony half bun she had pinned up on top of her head, tendrils and loks framing her face and sticking to the back of her neck for it was an Indiana September. Her bangs framing her face and silver gold hoop earrings adorned her ears, red lipstick daringly painted her lips and black self manicured nails adorned her hands. She looked like a centerfold and he couldn't take his eyes off of her, neither could the other guys.

He knew it wasn't just lust however when she complimented his Black Sabbath t-shirt and then commented how she loves Ozzy solo work and rambled about an alter she once had to honor Randy Rhoads.

No, it was safe to say Eddie fell in love with her after that.

She was never ashamed to be seen talking to him. Sure she wasn't miss popular, the boys only talked to her because of her bimbo appearance but they all saw her as a witchy slut. They found her creepy but hot because she loves horror films so very much.

She's a little bit of an airhead, things tend to fly over her head, but she does love reading surprisingly. She has been scolded by teachers countless of times for reading in class ironically, and sometimes ditched to read in the library because the librarians adore her.

She likes to get lost in books and be in another world because she felt lonely in the real one.

Reader doesn't have friends, she comes off odd.

She giggles too much and blinks rapidly and shakes her head when she doest get things which is often.

Her mom says she doesn't process things like everyone else but that doesn't mean she's dumb.

She stares a lot and kind of looks like she has no thought in her head as she floats on through but she is actually lost in her own fantasies constantly through the day.

Eddie finds it adorable, and when people make fun of her for her oddities and aloofness he will do something outrageous to take the attention off of her, to protect her.

He saw she had nowhere to sit at lunch and invited her to his table, he realized despite being so beautiful she's the loneliest person in school.

She was so honored to be invited having a crush on him since freshman year. How could she not? He looks like the boys on her wall. Like Hawkins own personal rock star.

She became of Hellfire and with DnD she had him explain it like twenty times. Some of his friends may have groaned when she said 'wait' for the twelfth time, but we're silenced by theor DM's lethal glare.

She loved creating characters so much and had fun creating hers The Enchantress.

Reader always made food for the club which made them take to her easily.

She loves to cook and bake, she could be in her own world like when she would read or watch movies all day.

Her favorite book is Flowers in the Attic, and her favorite movies are The Company of Wolves, Slumber Party Massacre, and The Wicker Man. She will watch any horror film.

Her favorite colors to wear a red, pink, occasionally black.

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this day, November 20, 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale rammed and sank the Essex whaling ship in the South Pacific inspiring Herman Melville (1819-1891) to write his legendary novel Moby Dick.

The Essex set sail from Nantucket in August of 1819 with a 21-man crew in search of dwindling sperm whales. Over a year into their voyage, their captain decided to head further off the coast of the Galapagos than usual, finding themselves more than 1,500 nautical miles from the nearest shore. The bet paid off when the Essex came upon a pod of whales and set out in three whaleboats to harpoon them.

While they were away, their luck quickly changed when a monstrously sized sperm whale began ramming and ultimately capsized the Essex. Initially, all members of the crew survived the wreck and equipped their whaleboats with sails to head for land, however perilous weather and sparse rations soon took their toll. Within months, crew members were dying and left their companions to turn to cannibalism to survive. Ultimately, five men of the Essex were rescued by passing ships and lived to tell their tale. 

To mark the fate of the Essex we are looking at The Limited Editions Club (LEC) 1943 publication of Moby Dick; or The Whale presented in two volumes with illustrations by Boardman Robinson (1876-1952). Melville’s story of Captain Ahab and the great white whale is accentuated by Robinson’s muddy paintings that emulate the churning ocean adding foreboding layers throughout the book. Of the thirty-two paintings Robinson created for Moby Dick; or The Whale, eight are reproduced in full color with the other twenty-four reproduced “through an ingenious combination of the silk-screen process, offset lithography and varnish.” The volumes were printed by E.L. Hildreth and Co., bound in full sheepskin leather dyed to stimulate whale hides, and stamped in gold. 

Our copy of Moby Dick; or The Whale is number 289 from the collection of long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin and is signed by the illustrator.

View other Milestone Monday posts here.

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[4rainynite]

EAH Dorm Rooms Headcanons pt 23

Class of Classics

That's right it's time to do the class of classics; the parents of our favorite characters.

Like their children the class of classic had some very interesting roommates and friendships that lasted beyond their stories.

First things first I', starting with the confirmed roommates in the series:

Evil Queen (Eagle) and Red Riding Hood (Ruby).

Ruby and Eagle were definitely one of those odd pairings when assigned roommates.

One would expect the future evil queen with the poison apple and the future damsel who was tricked and later eaten by a wolf would clash, but surprisingly the two got along.

Both girls were mysterious and kept to themselves so they rarely bothered the other and Ruby did speak kindly of the Evil Queen in the books.

I can see the two being friends until they graduated and went their separate ways to fulfill their destinies.

I still find it interesting that Briar and Ashlynn are in the room that The Evil Queen and Red! The cards said that the students would live in the rooms their parents did, but let's be real they were in a different room each year and kudos to the Evil Queen for hiding the Real Storybook of Legends for all these years!

The Evil Queen's side of the dorm would be similiar to how Apple redecorated Raven's side of the dorm except she has a canopy bed, and the room is darker with more spikes and mirrors.

In the books the Evil Queen's side of the castle was described as:

Colors dimmed—dark wood walls, scarlet and black carpets. Portrait paintings looked down. Her mother smiling. Her mother not smiling. Her mother’s profile. A close-up of her mother’s nose. In one, her mother was winking. In all of them, she was beautiful.

For Ruby it's all cottagecore and similar to Cerise except for sports and exercise equipment she would have more floral motifs and baking supplies due to her love of baking.

She would have a simple bed with wooden furniture with hidden wolf motifs foreshadowing her future husband.

Maid Marian and Queen Charming (Marie)

Marian and Marie got along very well despite Marian's adventurous streak. Over time Marie joins Marian on her adventures (in secret) until graduation when they went their separate ways because of destiny. Marie still goes on secret adventures and even gave Darling Maid Marian's book even if it wasn't Charming Literature Committee (whatever it was called) approved.

Marie's side of the room was French rococo style and was similar to Darling's dorm. With all the fainting she does she has a fainting chaise.

Marian's side of the dorm was a mixture of forest and traditional princess bedroom with a forest green and light blue color scheme. She has a huge weapons collection with bows and arrows being her favorite. Both would have canopy beds due to being royals and Marian would hide Marie's weaponry.

Snow White (Snapdragon)

During her time at Ever After High, Snapdragon's room was similar to Apple's dorm except the color red was minimized in favor for white and snowflakes were her motifs.

Snapdragon's room was on the traditional side with a few modern touches (the equivalent to 1980's) so she could fit in with her classmates and be up to date with things.

I believe Apple's furniture were hand -me-downs from her mom (and her mother before her) due to her love of tradition and wanting to be like her mother and had the white fabric dyed red.

Goldie Loches

Goldie's dorm would be similar to Blondie's minus the bear motifs. I think it would be interesting if see were afraid of bears even before her story began which would be ironic considering Blondie loves them.

Seeing how she was the editor of the school's newspaper so she may have had a typewriter and cameras in her room.

Pinocchio (Pine Oak)

Pinocchio's dorm room would have equipment to keep him in shape such as paints, strings, saws, hammer, etc .

His room would have motifs from his story like crickets and whales.

I see him as a prankster type (not as bad as Kitty or her mother) so he probably built things as jokes, but never cause any harm to anyone.

Sleeping Beauty (Sweet Briar Rose)

Sleeping Beauty's dorm would be cozy central with lots of pillows due to her sleeping curse and for safety due to falling asleep anywhere.

Her room would be covered in briar thorns and have a spinning wheel.

Beauty (Peace Rose) & the Beast (Wilbur)

Peace Rose room was most likely the traditional princess room with a lot of stuff animals mostly lions, bears, boars, etc. hinting her future relationship with the beast in her story.

Wilbur had the traditional prince bedroom with no motifs due to him being a generic prince. It wasn't until after Legacy Day did he decided to have monster and rose motifs to his room.

Huntsman (Hunt)

Hunt's room most likely resembled a hunting cabin with with dead deer heads and traps on the walls.

He would also have a collection of axes and knives both which would be used in his stories.

Rapunzel (Violet)

Just like her daughters before her she was sent to live in a tower during her school years.

Her dorm had more floral motifs than hair/comb ones and the only way she could leave her rooms was if she had a roommate with a similar destiny or letting her hair down.

Jack Beanstalk

Jack's dorm was overrun with tree limbs which he used as practice for when he would climb the beanstalk in his tale.

His motifs would be plants (beanstalks) and geese.

I can see him having a loft bed due to all the climbing he does in his story.

Snow King and Snow Queen (Warrin and Lucia)

Warrin's dorm was definitely ice themed with hockey equipment. His dorm room would be similar to his ice palace.

Lucia was a generic princess until Legacy Day and her motifs became snow, but I do think her motifs were crystals and she combined the two.

King Charming (Dashing)

Dashing's dorm lived up to the name with royal, regal, and fancy decor and sword motifs. He would also have a collection of trophies and swords. Also, the Charming family crest would be everywhere.

Wonderlanders: Due to the Wonderlanders going to school once a year there was no need for them to attend Ever After High School. In fact, they only came during Legacy Year to sign the Storybook of Legends.

Cheshire Cat / Queen of Hearts/ Red Queen/

Cheshire's dorm had cat motifs that was a loft bed situation. I feel her dorm would resemble where we first saw her in 'Spring Unfairest'.

Heart's dorm had heart and croquet motifs and was similiar to the card castle. Honestly, it would look like Lizzie's dorm minus the sewing items.

Red's dorm would have horses and chess piece motifs. Her room would be the standard princess room.

March Hare/ Mad Hatter/ White Rabbit

The March Hare would have hare and tea team motifs.

For the Mad Hatter he would have hat and tea motifs. His room would be littered with tea pots everywhere and his hat signatures he used to cover the walls in detention in 'Way Too Wonderland'. I can see him sharing a bunkbed with the March Hare during Legacy Year at Ever After High.

The White Rabbit had rabbit and clock motifs in his dorm room. I also see his room littered with calendars, to-do list, and notes to make sure he's never late or forgets anything.

[longlistshort]

Sarah Meyohas, “Interference #19”, 2023, Holograms, mirrored black glass, aluminum

Georgia O’Keeffe, “Poppy”, 1927, Oil on canvas

Francis Picabia “The Church of Montigny, Effect of Sunlight” 1908, Oil on canvas (left); Christian Sampson “Projection Painting”, 2023, Acrylic and films with LED light; and Claude Monet “The Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog, London” 1904, Oil on canvas (right)

The Nature of Art exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg merges art from the museum’s collection with loaned works to explore- “art’s crucial role in our evolving quest to understand our relationship with nature and our place in the cosmos”.

One of the benefits of an encyclopedic museum is that visitors have the opportunity to experience art throughout history, and to revisit works that resonate with them. For the section titled Artist as Curator, Sarah Meyohas and Christian Sampson chose pieces from the museum’s collection to pair with their own work.

From the museum-

At first glance, perhaps, these may seem like unusual combinations, but upon deeper contemplation, their selections reveal complementary artistic intents. For instance, Meyohas and Georgia O’Keeffe share an interest in close looking, particularly in finding new ways to examine underappreciated aspects of the natural world. Sampson, influenced by the California Light and Space Movement, is interested in current scholarship that suggests the hazy fog found in Claude Monet’s work is an early depiction of air pollution, offering an entirely new perspective on the artist’s representations of light.

Sampson also created the four-part installation, Tempus volat, hora fugit, on view until 2025 at the museum.

Below are some of the works from additional sections of the exhibition.

Postcommodity, “kinaypikowiyâs”, 2021, Four 30.5-metre industrial debris booms

Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary art collective comprised of Cristóbal Martínez (Genizaro, Manito, Xicano), and Kade L. Twist (Cherokee).

About Postcommodity’s work, kinaypikowiyâs, (seen above) from the museum-

This work is composed of debris booms, used to catch and hold environmental contaminants such as garbage, oil, and chemicals. The colors of the booms correspond to different types of threats— red (flammable), yellow (radioactive), blue (dangerous), and white (poisonous)-in the labeling system for hazardous materials. To indigenous peoples, these are shared medicine colors that carry knowledge, purpose and meaning throughout the Western Hemisphere. Suspended like hung meat, the booms represent a snake that has been chopped into four parts. Each part represents an area of the colonial map of the Western Hemisphere: South America, Central America, North America, and all of the surrounding islands. The title, kinaypikowiyâs, is a Plains Cree word, meaning snake meat. Divided by borders, Postcommodity asserts that all people living in the Americas are riding on the back of this snake.

James Casebere, “Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY), 2009, Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond

James Casebere creates architecturally based models for the large scale photographs seen above.

Duke Riley's Reclaimed ocean plastic sculptures and “Tidal Fool” wallpaper

Duke Riley’s work, which was previously shown at Brooklyn Museum, addresses issues of environmental pollution by using discarded plastics found in the ocean and other waterways to create new work inspired by the past. You can hear him discuss his work in this video.

From the museum-

Inspired by the maritime museum displays he saw while a child growing up in New England, Riley’s scrimshaw series is a cutting observation of capitalist economies-historic and today-that endanger sea life. The sculptures were created for the fictional Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum, and are contemporary versions of sailors’ scrimshaw, or delicately ink-etched whale teeth and bone. Riley first thought about using plastic as an ode to scrimshaw when he saw what he thought was a whale bone washed up on the beach in Rhode Island; it turned out to be the white handle of a deck brush. Riley regularly removes trash from beaches and waterways, and often uses this refuse in his work.

Riley collaborated with Brooklyn-based Flavor Paper to create these two custom wallpapers for his solo exhibition DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash at the Brooklyn Museum. Tidal Fool exhibits Riley’s trademark humor in the face of devastating water pollution; notice the Colt 45-guzzling mermaid. Wall Bait vibrantly references Riley’s meticulous fishing lures, which he crafts from refuse found in the waters around New York City.

Daniel Lind-Ramos,"Centinelas de la luna nueva (Sentinels of the New Moon)", 2022-2023, Mixed media

From the museum about this work-

In Centinelas de la luna nueva, he evokes the elders of the mangroves, spiritual beings who watch over and ensure the health of this essential coastal tree. Mangroves are the basis for a complex ecosystem that shelters sea life and serves as the first line of defense in the tropical storms that batter the sub-tropics -including Florida.

Lind-Ramos's practice reflects the vibrant culture of his native Loíza, Puerto Rico, by honoring local agriculture, fishing, cooking, and masquerade. His sculptures also evoke Hurricane Maria (2017), the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing environmental degradation. Lind-Ramos is committed to the survival and sustenance of Afro-Taíno traditions and people of the Puerto Rican archipelago. However, his art engages the global community through shared emotions, parallel histories, and the commonality of human experience.

The next post will discuss two other artists in the exhibition, Brookhart Jonquil and Janaina Tschäpe.

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

shadow ranch mobile game, our collective white whale...

or maybe just mine. I want to experience it! via anything other than an arglefumph video guy gives me hives

it looks like someone had uploaded the app file to the internet archive! which is exciting! but actually playing it? i'm stumped.

touchHLE seems to be a dead end so far- p sure shadow ranch is too recent to run on it. i can add the files but when i try opening the app the program crashes. best I've been able to get is a split second of the opening screen

that's on windows 8.1, couldn't figure out how to run touchHLE at all on windows 11 fucking windows 11 i swear - not that I think it matters, I'm p sure touchHLE just isn't compatible

but ahhh I want to play the thing! let me have the thing!!

[leehallfae]

“cold and final, the imagination / shuts down its fabled summer house; / blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation / dwindles in the hour-glass.

thoughts that found a maze of mermaid hair / tangling in the tide’s green fall / now fold their wings like bats and disappear / into the attic of the skull.

we are not what we might be; what we are / outlaws all extrapolation / beyond the interval of now and here: / white whales are gone with the white ocean.”

— sylvia plath, “two lovers & a beachcomber by the real sea,” the collected poems (ed. ted hughes)

[jasminewalkerauthor]

Deep dives into folklore: Sea monsters

The vast and mysterious expanses of the world's oceans have long captured the human imagination. Throughout history, sailors and storytellers have shared tales of monstrous creatures lurking beneath the waves. These sea monsters, both mythical and literary, have evolved over time, reflecting the changing beliefs, fears, and knowledge of the societies that created them. This week we explore the fascinating evolution of sea monsters in literature and mythology, from their ancient origins to their modern interpretations.

The concept of sea monsters dates back to some of the earliest civilizations, such as the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians. In their mythologies, these cultures often depicted sea serpents and other monstrous beings as guardians of the underworld or as symbols of chaos and destruction. One of the earliest recorded sea monsters is the Babylonian dragon-god Tiamat, a primeval chaos monster who embodied the sea.

In Greek mythology, the sea monster Scylla, with her multiple heads and writhing tentacles, was feared by sailors who navigated the Strait of Messina. Scylla represented the dangers of the sea, as well as the unpredictable and uncontrollable forces of nature that ancient seafarers had to contend with.

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, sea monsters took on a more symbolic and allegorical role in literature and art. The medieval bestiaries, encyclopedic collections of animal descriptions, often included fantastical sea creatures with moral lessons attached to them. These creatures were seen as manifestations of sin, temptation, and the unknown.

One of the most famous sea monsters of this period was the Kraken, a colossal cephalopod said to terrorize sailors off the coast of Norway. The Kraken embodied the fear of the deep sea and the dangers that awaited those who ventured too far from shore. It was also a metaphor for the vast, uncharted territories of the ocean.

The Age of Exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries brought about a new wave of sea monster lore. As European sailors ventured into uncharted waters, their accounts of strange and terrifying creatures fueled the imaginations of writers and readers alike. These tales often blended fact with fiction, as sailors encountered real but unfamiliar marine life, such as giant squids, which contributed to the mythos of sea monsters.

One of the most famous literary sea monsters is Captain Ahab's nemesis, Moby Dick, from Herman Melville's novel of the same name. Although Moby Dick is a sperm whale rather than a mythical creature, the obsessive pursuit of this massive white whale symbolized humanity's struggle against nature and the perils of obsession.

In the modern era, our understanding of the ocean and its inhabitants has deepened through scientific discovery. As a result, sea monsters have evolved from mythical creatures to fascinating, real-life creatures with unique adaptations. For instance, the colossal squid, with its enormous eyes and powerful tentacles, has captured the imagination of both scientists and the public.

While ancient sea monsters were often depicted as malevolent beings, modern interpretations are more nuanced. In literature and popular culture, sea monsters have become multifaceted characters, sometimes serving as protectors of the ocean's fragile ecosystems or representing the unknown wonders of the deep.

The evolution of sea monsters in literature and mythology reflects the ever-changing relationship between humans and the ocean. From ancient civilizations' fears of chaotic sea serpents to the allegorical monsters of the Middle Ages and the real-life marvels of the modern era, sea monsters have served as symbols of the human imagination and our evolving understanding of the natural world. As our knowledge of the ocean continues to expand, so too will our interpretations of the creatures that inhabit its depths, ensuring that sea monsters will continue to captivate our minds and inspire our stories for generations to come.

Taglist:

@axl-ul @crow-flower @thoughts-fromthevoid @alderwoodbooks @harleyacoincidence

Reply/reblog to be added

[kvetchlandia]

Harold Chapman     Allen Ginsberg in the Beat Hotel, Rue Git-Le Coeur Paris,    1956 

I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in the night-time red downtown heaven staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty of our lives, irritable baggage clerks, nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the buses waving goodbye, nor other millions of the poor rushing around from city to city to see their loved ones, nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop by the Coke machine, nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last trip of her life, nor the red-capped cynical porter collecting his quar- ters and smiling over the smashed baggage, nor me looking around at the horrible dream, nor mustached negro Operating Clerk named Spade, dealing out with his marvelous long hand the fate of thousands of express packages, nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden trunk to trunk, nor Joe at the counter with his nervous breakdown smiling cowardly at the customers, nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft where we keep the baggage in hideous racks, hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy rocking back and forth waiting to be opened, nor the baggage that's lost, nor damaged handles, nameplates vanished, busted wires & broken ropes, whole trunks exploding on the concrete floor, nor seabags emptied into the night in the final warehouse.

II

Yet Spade reminded me of Angel, unloading a bus, dressed in blue overalls black face official Angel's work- man cap, pushing with his belly a huge tin horse piled high with black baggage, looking up as he passed the yellow light bulb of the loft and holding high on his arm an iron shepherd's crook.

III

It was the racks, I realized, sitting myself on top of them now as is my wont at lunchtime to rest my tired foot, it was the racks, great wooden shelves and stanchions posts and beams assembled floor to roof jumbled with baggage, --the Japanese white metal postwar trunk gaudily flowered & headed for Fort Bragg, one Mexican green paper package in purple rope adorned with names for Nogales, hundreds of radiators all at once for Eureka, crates of Hawaiian underwear, rolls of posters scattered over the Peninsula, nuts to Sacramento, one human eye for Napa, an aluminum box of human blood for Stockton and a little red package of teeth for Calistoga- it was the racks and these on the racks I saw naked in electric light the night before I quit, the racks were created to hang our possessions, to keep us together, a temporary shift in space, God's only way of building the rickety structure of Time, to hold the bags to send on the roads, to carry our luggage from place to place looking for a bus to ride us back home to Eternity where the heart was left and farewell tears began.

IV

A swarm of baggage sitting by the counter as the trans- continental bus pulls in. The clock registering 12:15 A.M., May 9, 1956, the second hand moving forward, red. Getting ready to load my last bus.-Farewell, Walnut Creek Richmond Vallejo Portland Pacific Highway Fleet-footed Quicksilver, God of transience. One last package sits lone at midnight sticking up out of the Coast rack high as the dusty fluorescent light.

The wage they pay us is too low to live on. Tragedy reduced to numbers. This for the poor shepherds. I am a communist. Farewell ye Greyhound where I suffered so much, hurt my knee and scraped my hand and built my pectoral muscles big as a vagina.

-- Allen Ginsberg, “In The Baggage Room At Greyhound” 1956

[lavellenchanted]

Do you think they intentionally redesigned the Weapons in Rebirth to look vaguely similar to Sin from FFX or is it simply just... they wanted them to be whale-esque because they're swimming in the lifestream and it's an interesting coincidence (personally curious if the other ones will look different if/when they show up in game 3 or if they're all like whales now) Also, I did not personally see this NPC dialogue so cannot confirm if it is real/accurate but allegedly there's an npc in cosmo canyon that says "the multiverse is just the dreams of those living in the lifestream" if true I feel that has... some interesting implications (both to the story and as another connection to X)

Do you know I hadn't considered that the Weapons looked like Sin until just now? But you're right, they do! I think it could be both. That they decided to go for a whale-esque design for these since the main sequence with them is swimming in the Lifestream, and pulled on Sin's design as a fun callback for eagle-eyed fans. Possibly it was the same designer and they just have a particular style. I wouldn't necessarily read more into it than that, and I expect we will see the other Weapons in Part 3 looking different and more like the OG designs.

I think the Cosmo Canyon dialogue is in the seminar - if you hang back a bit before going in and triggering the cutscene one the NPCs talks about his parents and says:

"So... My parents are no longer with us—here, that is—but I believe they are still out there, on another plane. I've been reading a bunch of theories about this alternative world in the hope of going there someday. And over the course of my studies I came across a fascinating theory. It addressed the issue of what the lifestream is, arguing that spiritual energy is actually a manifestation of our knowledge and memories. Like I said, it's a fascinating theory... But it's incomplete. What about our hopes and dreams? We remember those, don't we? So, what if spiritual energy doesn't distinguish between our real, lived memories and the unrealized desires buried deep within our hearts? What if coming into contact with that energy allowed us to "peer through the looking glass" so to speak. It's just an idea, but... I hope to find the truth someday."

Which is an interesting idea, especially the concept of unrealised desires and the fact that the multiverses appear to be created when significant choices are made.

However, it is clear that the different worlds are tangible and do physically exist - we see that in the White Materia travelling across worlds - but they are still connected through the Lifestream. And Sephiroth's plan seems to involve manipulating events to cause the worlds to come together into a single timeline that he can control. So I don't think it's a case of one world being "real" and the others just "dreams".

But perhaps the point is that the Planet is using the collective merging of everyone's dreams and hopes within the Lifestream to create new worlds and possibilities and find a way of defeating Jenova once and for all, without humans being doomed? Which would explain why the Whispers seemed to be copying the world rather than destroying it at the end of Remake.

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

uh so i know it's not request time so feel free to ignore this, but I broke my arm a couple weeks ago and just got the cast off yesterday (i still have to have a brace, but, you know, still) and I was wondering if we could get some a prompt about bones (broken or otherwise)

it was NOT request time BUT i do hope you feel better AND its halloween the first tomorrow SO i collected all the ones ive already written! bones.

“If you dream about the meadow, dig for my bones,” he whispered, “and bring one back, if you can.”

A ship made of whalebones had crashed on the rocks and washed ashore. I just happened to be looking out my window when it happened.

I saw a deer climb out of the frozen river, antlers cracking the ice from below, moving as if its bones were barely attached to each other. 

You had to watch the ground for wishbones. Breaking one even by accident would unleash hell, for better or (usually) worse.

I had one of my bones stolen, as a child. Only for an hour or two, but the experience changed me forever.

My town is normal I think, except for the river. The entire riverbed is covered in bones, which we collect for playthings, crafts, and ceremonies.

The desert remembers. It coughs things up, like earth oceans are said to wash things ashore. Assorted bones. Wrecked sand ships. And of course, me.

When the sea thaws in spring the first rib bones wash ashore. My friends and I always break one, for luck.

 Bones grow up from the ground, piercing our town, the cold white ribcage of a curious, otherworldly god. Every day I grab my saw, and get to work.

Strange people, and I’m sure they are people, emerge from the corn on Sundays. They swear they have every sort of thing for sale in there, long lost paintings, and bottled sunshine, and nice sturdy bones.

We learn something new every day, in the desert. Bones are good for bartering, doesn’t matter whose they are. Dead trees are usually hands, just pretending. 

Bones talk. Figuring out how changed science forever. It changed everything, forever. 

“I need my bones read.”  “But you’re still alive,” says the young man, looking me up and down. “I was hoping you could work around that.”

A pure white squirrel brings small bones to my cell window. I collect them, putting them in order, one by one.

Once a year, my father and I summit the mountain at dawn to feed the whales. In the fading starlight, their song echoes like a premonition through my bones.

A customer comes in asking for bones. I tattoo them on her skin where they would go in reality, one every few months, in an order she refuses to explain.

When I need extra bodies, I turn the hens into girls. They stand as soon as their bones have cracked into place, clumsy, screeching, and ravenous.

The city was protected, built on the bones of an ancient hero prophesied to rise again.

My bones scraped and creaked as they rearranged themselves hastily.

The way she moved in the water was beautifully inhuman. I realized it was because she had no bones. 

The Skeleton Garden was just what it sounded like. Hoards of wildflowers had sprung up through the bones of those who had tried and failed to flee.

Our neighbor was a beautiful girl who lived alone and wouldn’t take a compliment. “My bones are rotten,” she would say, sadly.

A desperate man once asked me, ‘where do the bones go?’ I didn’t know. I was only the collector.

As a child wandering the woods, I found a set of bones. They bid me take one home, and fashion it into a knife. 

She only wanted a quiet life. But there was lightening, quite literally, in her bones.

[faultlies]

ishy. because this quote is too perfect not to.

"-wait! why am i being blamed for everything?"

@aeinsof | this is was for a prompt collection i rb'd on a diff blog but i forgor

"Because you are the only one not pulling your weight, Ishmael!"

The captain's bellow was a crackling boom, crashing down on the ship in echoing waves. It beckoned heads to turn; a veritable ocean of eyes drowning the deckhand. Dark clouds hung thick and heavy in the sky, encircling the sun and constricting its glow to a fine point. That ring of light haloed the back of Ahab's head, and the monolithic shadow she cast weighed heavy on Ishmael's shoulders.

The mighty Ahab paused only to pluck her pipe out from between her lips before continuing.

"Even young Pipp has been attentive to his duties!" barked the captain, white smoke pouring out from her mouth, "Most port-boys his age are truants, yet he volunteers for night-watch. Volunteers, Ishmael! The child's been sleeping the days away, aye, but not from growing lazy. He's been toiling like a true sailor, working hard to keep us alive! Unlike you!"

Ahab threw her arm out like a harpoon, addressing Ishmael off the tip of an accusatory finger. Murmurs rumbled amongst the onlookers.

"When any one of us grows lazy, you damn us all!" That pointed finger speared downward, judgement cast, "Look at what you've damned us to, Ishmael!!"

The clouds parted then, as if by the captain's will. Sunlight poured over her shoulders and across the deck, catching the twinkle of an iridescent sheen that painted the floorboards. It was dulled in most places, barely distinguishable from condensation on old wood, but there were a few puddles by the deckhand's feet where rainbow film swirled around glistening red flecks. Ahab sneered.

"Decks drenched in whale's oil!" she declared, "Filth! Filth and rot, Ishmael!! What should happen to us if we were to step in these puddles you've left? What if we were carrying barrel-fulls of product? A harpoon!? The blood would be on your hands, Ishmael!"

The girl couldn't so much as get her mouth open before her wrist was snatched by Ahab's hand. The captain's grip was tight enough to burn, yet not enough to bruise. Her teeth clacked as she shoved the pipe back in her mouth. Her freed hand promptly ripped the leather glove off of Ishmael, exposing the deckhand's soft palm to the salty air.

"Your hands have yet to experience an hour of real labor - let alone your mistakes!" The captain continued, shoving her own gloved thumb hard enough into Ishmael's palm that she could feel the woman's pulse, "How can you ever expect to be a sailor with feathered hands?! They might serve you well doing meaningless paperwork in those wretched doldrums that are the Nest, but not here! No, the Pallid Whale will tear through these slothful hands like butter! Then you'll be made a Mermaid, and damn us all in your stead! The doom of this voyage is the doom of the world! Is that what you want, when you shirk your duties?!"

Ishmael was once again denied the chance to respond as Ahab released her hand - only to seize the other.

"Ah," the captain hissed through her pipe, "of course not. Your heart rages with the same fire as I. You only lack the conviction for it to become an inferno! But I will teach you."

Ishmael's remaining glove was torn off with a similar ferocity to the first.

"Callouses, Ishmael! Callouses!" bellowed Ahab, dark eyes wide in revelation, "The mark of a true whaler! The armor we craft into our skin through years of toil! We will work those feathers out of your hands, and never again will you be shackled by a Nest! No Mermaid will pierce you, no Whale will get his teeth around you. A true salt dog you shall be. You'll help me see this voyage through. You only need scrub out that softness."

Ahab slipped the deckhand's gloves into her pocket. Only then did she let go of Ishmael's arm. As the other woman regained her bearings, Ahab leaned down to pick up the rusting pail and wire sponge that'd been at the pair's feet.

Frothy sea-water splashed onto Ishmael's clothes as the captain shoved them towards her chest.

"Now scrub, dog."

[fiercynn]

Hey do you have any poetry you can suggest because I saw your response to that OP, I’d love some stuff to read!

so i started responding to another similar ask by @unitedstates0fdakota but i accidentally posted it when it was incomplete so i decided to continue here! check out that post for the first two recs, george abraham's birthright and romeo oriogun's sacrament of bodies

more than organs, kay ulanday barrett

kay ulanday barrett is a poet, performer, and educator, navigating life as a disabled filipinx-amerikan transgnder queer in the u.s. with struggle, resistance, and laughter. pamela sneed, one of the reviewers quoted on the back of more than organs, describes the collection as about “hunger that is physical, spiritual, and queer”, and i think hunger is an excellent way to put it. i love how the pieces in this collection oscillate between visceral and playful – there’s a poem called “pain, an epistle” but also one called “actually, jenny schecter wasn’t the worst”.

you googled “authentic” / & now are seated next to me. / as I speed walk you to the cart / aunty gives me the last dish / gets the idea that I’ve waited too long / for something to just taste right. / I wish for a dumpling stuff / of bullet skins to be the shrapnel / in every white man’s throat. / go ahead / say the word oriental / at my table / one more time. —  “I just want dimsum undisturbed by wypipo”

a theory of birds, zaina alsous

zaina alsous is a prison abolitionist, a daughter of the palestinian diaspora, and a movement worker in south florida. the blurb for a theory of birds describes it as “putting ecological conservation in conversation with arab racial formation, state vernacular with the chatter of birds”, and as someone who wanted to be an ornithologist as a child and now works in climate policy, it feels like she wrote this to speak to my soul.

Inside the dodo bird is a forest, Inside the forest a peach analog, Inside the peach analog a woman, Inside the woman a lake of funerals, disappointed male lovers, scientists, Inside the lake a volcano of whale songs, Inside the volcano a language of naming, Inside the language an algorithm for de-extinction, Inside the algorithm blued dynamite to dissolve the colony’s Sun, twinkle twinkle, I didn’t mean to fall in love with failure, its molting rapture, I didn’t mean to name myself from a necklace of silent vowels, I didn’t go looking from for the bird, I entered through the empty cage, hips first —  “Bird Prelude”

boy with thorn, rickey laurentiis

rickey laurentiis is a poet who was raised in new orleans, louisiana, to study light. this is true for a lot of poetry imo, but every piece in boy with thorn requires reading at least twice in a row, because laurentiis’s use of language is so deft and stuffed with meaning that i needed to experience it from different angles. the description for the collection tells us “in a landscape at once the brutal american south as it is the brutal mind, boy with thorn interrogates the genesis of all poetic creation—the imagination itself, questioning what role it plays in both our fascinations with and repulsion from a national history of racial and sexual violence”.

Therefore, my head was kingless. I was a head alone, moaning in a wet black field. I was like any of those deserter slaves whose graves are just the pikes raised for their heads, reshackled, blue and plain as fear. All night I whistled at a sky that mocked me, that fluently changed its grammar as if to match desire in my eye. My freedom is possible, it said. —  “Conditions for a Southern Gothic”

eye level, jenny xie

this is kind of cheating because i first read eye level when it came out in 2017, but i recently reread it so i feel like it counts! jenny xie was born in anhui province, china, and now lives in the united states. eye level travels with xie from phnom penh to corfu to hanoi to new york city, and her descriptions piercing, sensual, and bottomless.

Sunday, awake with this headache. I pull apart the evening with a fork. White clot behind the eyes. Someone once told me, before and after is just another false binary. The warmed-over bones of January. I had no passport. Beneath the stove, two mice made a paradise out of a button of peanut butter. Suffering operates by its own logic. Its gropics and reversals. Ample, in ways that are exquisite. And how it leaves —not unlike how it arrives, without clear notice. —  “Zuihitsu”

i also post about english-language palestinian poetry (both written in english and in translation) in my #palestinian poets series, each of which features poems you can find online!

[fdrlibrary]

FDR the Naval Artifact Collector

Franklin Roosevelt purchased this scrimshaw whale's tooth in 1926 for $35 at the Bayles and Peters sale at the American Art Association, New York. Etched on one side in black ink is the image of the frigate, PRESIDENT. The tooth can be seen on the fireplace mantle of the White House Oval Study in this May 5, 1936, photograph. Learn more about this artifact on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/977

Photograph NPx 66-38(1): FDR working with his stamp collection, May 5, 1936. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962. National Archives Identifier: 195301. Unrestricted. Image courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Underwood and Underwood photograph, now in the public domain.

Join us throughout 2023 as we present #FDRtheCollector, featuring artifacts personally collected, purchased, or retained by Franklin Roosevelt, all from our Digital Artifact Collection.

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #19:

Tom Petty's You're Gonna Get It!

Imagine a new Tom Petty record.

I don't mean some new archive set like the expanded/alternative versions of Wildflowers or She's the One. I mean a record that is entirely unheard of; one that no one even knew to long for.

I'm disappointed it hasn't happened yet. I hoped Petty's and, for that matter, Prince's, estates would provide a much needed balm to us all after each of their tragic passings by gifting us a miracle, a great white whale we did not even know was lurking beneath us all these years, on the order of Neil Young's Homegrown or Dylan's Complete Basement Tapes.

Sure, we got to hear Prince alone at the microphone, but I feel like he probably made recordings like that, effortlessly, once a week in 80's. And yes, there's a single, previously unknown, piece of pop greatness to be found on the posthumous Petty box set, 1982's Keep a Little Soul.

But where's Petty's Black Eyed Dog? Where's his Hundred Highways? It's not enough for us to miss Tom; we want to hear his voice reach out and comfort us once again from his untimely grave.

I know exactly what I'm asking for here because I've already experienced it. That's right: at age 13 I was sure I'd discovered an entirely-lost-to-history Petty album.

Let's start at the beginning. My two buddies - both named Matt - and I reacted to Full Moon Fever by going Tom Petty crazy. Tom checked every box a few geeky, unpopular and yearning-for-the-ladies white kids needed checked: he wasn't already property of the cool kids, he was counter-cultural in obtuse, safely-white man ways, his songs were as often as funny as Weird Al's, he rocked, and his middle name was Earl.

So for Christmas / Hanukkah that year we embraced communism's concept of collective ownership in an effort to get our hands on the entire Petty catalog. As the beloved leader of our oligarchy over none, I directed Matt 1 to ask for Let Me Up and Damn the Torpedoes and Matt 2 to get the self-titled debut album and Hard Promises (which, based on its cover, looked like the lamest record), leaving me to squeeze my own stocking with confidence that Southern Accents and Long After Dark were in there on tape, waiting to change my life for the better.

What else, you ask, did we ask for that holiday? Blank tapes of course: it was our standing and too-obvious-to-speak-about agreement that by dinner time on the 25th everyone would have copied both their new albums twice and delivered the copies to one another by bike.

That's right folks: none of us asked for You're Gonna Get It! There was a simple reason: the record was utterly out of print, had never been released on CD and was nowhere to be found in any local Dollar Bin. To three 13 year olds in 1989 who were busy exploring music without knowledgeable parents or older siblings in an era long before the internet, it was as if Petty's sophomore album had never been made. We didn't ask for it because we didn't know it existed.

And so when we rolled up with my dad to the Fabulous Forum on March 1, 1990 for our first ever popular music concert the three of us believed we had the entire Petty catalog memorized.

Ah, what a glorious night....

After buying Petty shirts and promptly putting them on we took our seats and saw the cringy but sorta awesome opening act, Lenny Kravitz. Lenny tried to lead the entire indifferent audience in a sing along to a song no one had heard at that point, Let Love Rule. This was long, long before he got a marketing clue and traded in his second-fiddle-to-Liza-Bonnet role and became a peddler of planet destroying SUVs.

The night also marked our first brush with rock and roll royalty as both Dylan and Bruce Springsteen joined Petty and the boys for the encore. And, although the internet tells me it's not possible because of the concept known as death, I feel like Roy Orbison appeared as well. I guess it must have been his ghost that appeared behind those famous shades...

But to us 13 year olds none of that compared to the women directly in front of us getting into an all out, beer flinging and fake nails in the eyeballs, brawl in the middle of Freefallin'. My father, lord of the bon mot, instantaneously summed up the crazy scene by yelling "they're slamming boys!" All hail my father.

Is it any wonder that I wound up with a lifelong love of music after such a night? And I haven't even told you the best part: Benmont Tench hitting the opening riff of Love is a Long Road in the full dark as the show dramatically opened is one of the top 10 moments of my entire life.

There was just one unsettling moment all night. Mid-show Petty played a song we didn't know, all about listening to your heart. That wasn't too upsetting; there were plenty of songs he played that we didn't know. We figured they were covers, or coming out of the next record, because no one else in the audience knew them either. But when Petty told us about a ladyfriend resisting some dude's money and his cocaine everyone else all around us sang along.

We were a smart group of kids but we didn't put two and two together that night: take the fact that we were the youngest people there by a decade, add in the fact that everyone else there new the song and you wind up with an obvious conclusion: we were missing a Petty record. And so I went home with a nagging worry: what explained that one song?

The answer came from Saint Cross's Quaintance Shop a month or three later. Picture a fading church thrift store 35 years ago. Wigs and berets on white, styrofoam heads, mismatched golf clubs, iron-on izod patches for dressing up second hand kids shirts filled the front room; even less desirable items could be found in the back. A rotation of women born in the 20s manned the counter, clucking about whatever whenever my busy mother stopped by to pick up the shop's meager taking in her role as vestry treasurer.

I was still too young to have an excuse not to join her on these errands, and thank god for that because I wandered into the back room, thumbed through their quarter bin - that's right, in 1990 there was no such thing as the dollar bin; rather every record cost a quarter - and had my universe rocked when I saw Tom Petty standing in blue light with Stan (check out his handmade, drawstring hot pants!), Mike (pensive as always, deferring to the Tom as the boss), Ron (looking like he already has one foot out the door and is working up to his managerial role at an eighties bikini shop) and Benmont (forever a teenager) on the cover of a previously unknown record. Had the sun exploded in the sky at that moment I would have shrugged: the Holy Grail was in my hands and a moment before I had not known there was a God.

"Mom, please can I buy this? I just found it and I really need it."

"Sure you can, honey. Where's your money?"

"I mean, mom can you buy it for me? I don't have a quarter. But I'll pay you back, I promise." (This wasn't a case of not having my wallet; I literally did not own a cent at that moment. Every cent of my weekly $2 allowance would instantly go towards tapes. I did not yet own a turntable of my own and the recently discovered player in my parents cabinet still had a needle that had needed replacing in '74. I was forever broke and I remember borrowing money to buy Sergeant Pepper for a quarter from a different thrift store soon after.)

My glorious mother sighed and made a look that said "children these days..." Then she produced the precious quarter and I took home the arc of the covenant.

My glory was strong but short lived. Yes, the Matts were both blown away to discover a hithertofore unknown Petty record. But the only working turntables we knew belonged to Matt 1's formidable aerospace stepfather, and only Brahms was allowed on that one, and Matt 2's parents, and listening to a record in their living room necessitated dealing with Mickey, a truly insane golden retriever who weighed way more than me and was an incessant licker of his own formidable balls.

So it wasn't until high school that I really got into the greatness of You're Gonna Get It!

First, let's pause to consider the greatness that is an album that ends in an explanation point. We've already discussed Jonathan Sings! at length in these pages but there are plenty of other amazing albums made by brilliant artists who are goofy enough to add a ! to the end of their album title. Consider Get Happy!! And Henry the Human Fly! And what about Help!? These Are All Great Records! For that matter, wouldn't If I Could Only Remember My Name and Wild Tales be even better if Crosby and Nash had affixed explanation points to their titles? Man, I wish it was called Blood on the Tracks!

(Dear Stephen Stills, I know you're reading this so please pay attention: yes, we see that you tried to jump on the explanation point bandwagon in '05 by putting out a record entitled Man Alive! Good try Stevieboy, but to this day no one has ever listened to that record, and no one ever will. And don't try reissuing your 70's back catalog as Stills 1! Stills 2! Stills! and Illegal Stills! It will not change anything; those records will still forever suck.)

By ninth grade I had a turntable of my own and my first real appreciation of Your Gonna Get It! was getting way into Magnolia. I ask you, what better song is there for a horny heterosexual male ninth grader? I guarantee you I'm not the only boy who spent a whole lot of time visualizing themselves as Petty's first person protagonist:

From a table across the room

She was signalling me with her eyes

I walked over to be introduced,

I said hello, she just smiled

And said I know a place not too far from here,

We could get away for while.

Yeah that's when she kissed me and told me her name

I never did tell her mine...

Magnolia...

There's a lot to say about this track even after 24 years of blissful marriage. This song, and all of Your Gonna Get It!, features a complexly layered, full band vibe. Petty didn't just put everyone on the cover, he also gave them equal sonic billing; an approach he increasingly abandoned at the eighties increasingly set in and he got tempted by all the money and the cocaine. Hear the thick, bending bass stepping forward like a bold and reckless Romeo, driven by the tiptoeing lead piano riff. Petty's not the only one who gets lucky during this track. Everyone does.

Indeed, all of Side 1 is stone cold classic material, too rich and dense to have initially grabbed hold of me in eighth, then ninth, grade. The album opens with When the Time Comes. Tell me, please, why this elegant, powerful pop song is not more famous than everything on Wildflowers? When the Time Comes views every song on that overrated record with withering pity.

Tench's organ swells, the bridge spans mammoth depths, the drums and guitar carry us relentlessly forward up to a hollered fade. And then it's suddenly over and before we know it we're already kneeling down before Petty's declarative, white man soul in the title track.

Do you hear that guitar solo give way to the spaced out Dead vibes and then back into the chorus of chasing vocals? How the hell did this album ever get overlooked, forgotten and dropped out of print? Why are we ever listening to anything else in our lives?

On the back of my original 25 cent thrift shop copy of the LP there's the obligatory encouragement to reach out to the Official Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Fan Club at 890 Tennessee Street in 'Frisco. I say that if we all send them self addressed stamped envelopes right now and demand a reissue of this record complete with bonus tracks then they'll do it and they'll also release, after all these years, Petty and Co's previously recorded, utterly forgotten and never before issued 77 lost album.

Come on people, lick those stamps. We're Gonna Get It!

[emmybeearts]

Day 27: Patience

Today was a day of titans as we stumbled across another one of those giant sauropod titans. It was marginally smaller than the first, I assume a juvenile, and it was also noticeably more dead. Like a whale fall, thousands of hunters and scavengers alike swarmed the titan corpse. Just on the outskirts of the feast, was the recycled remains of an old transport ship; the rusted and dented metal, protruding from the white stone rock face. Seeing as close it is to the felled titan, I couldn’t imagine it to be anything else than a poacher camp. 

In that moment, I felt a newfound animalistic fury welled up within me unlike any rage I've ever felt before. Every bone in my body wanted to charge into that camp regardless of consequence as I felt I could've taken on anyone and anything. Even though I knew it would be a short lived confrontation, I couldn't just sit by and watch as my species damaged this planet on top of the damage we did to ours. However, I couldn't leave Lily and there was no way I was putting their life at risk; never will again. I needed a plan. 

If I still had any locator beacons, I could’ve marked their camp and reported them to the Cohab Institute. If Lily was fully functional, they could disrupt their entire computer system; cut communications or ground them until they can be dealt with properly. Every idea I had relied on some part or component I didn't have or had lost along the way. At the very least, coming up with plans helped quell my fury by a small proportion and allowed me to think things through more clearly. That's when I started noticing anomalies within the poacher camp. 

The first thing I noticed is how many animals were around the body. Poachers would have scared off anything that comes too close to their trophy at this point. Typically the chatter of a collection of humans is enough to deter any wildlife from coming close, no matter how tantalizing the reward would be. If the sound didn’t scare them off then the smell of smoke definitely would. And it was at that point I noticed there was no smoke either. No generators were running which meant this entire base would have been unpowered. 

There was no way a group of poachers would go dark after felling such a massive, prized animal. Something was definitely wrong with this scene. My rage turned to dread which promptly switched over to curiosity. What could’ve driven them away so quickly? Was it fear or necessity? Could they have found something more valuable than such a beautiful titan, or were there even any poachers here in the first place? I patiently watched a safe distance away from the titans body, waiting for any sign or clue of what could've happened here. 

A short while later, I felt the ground beneath me shake like a massive roar of thunder followed by the sharp, piercing sound of twisting metal. The animals scavenging the titans body all fled at once as the entirety of the poacher camp began to, literally, come to life. Heavy metal plates ground against one another as the white stones beneath them began to unfurl. Four massive crab-like claws extended outward and pulled the hulking mass of a new titan out of its slumber. 

As the last of the wildlife fled, I watched as an enormous titan of a crab-bug grabbed hold of the sauropod titan with one set of claws and used its secondary claws to tear off bite-sized pieces and bring them into its mouth. Imagine my relief as I could then see the first titan was not hunted by humans, but rather it was hunted by one of this planet's native species. I had assumed all of the titans of this planet used the same strategy as whales did back on Earth: be too big to be hunted. As it turns out, no animal on Atria is invulnerable and everything is always on something else's menu. 

I observed this new titan interacting with its natural habitat with a new found calmness. Despite being nearly the size of a city block, this animal has plenty of similarities to animals back on Earth. Carcinization seemed to have hit this specific order of crab-bug pretty hard. Typically, the smaller crab-bugs look more akin to various beetles, while this colossal specimen looked almost identical to that of a crustacean. Like crabs on Earth, It also applied a similar means of disguise as the decorator crab; having covered itself in bits of debris found in its environment to blend into the backgrounds. This particular titan, however, managed to come across an old smuggler ship, which it turned into a convincing disguise, as well as a suit of substantially strong secondary armor. But, instead of using its armor to protect itself from predators, it uses it to hide from its prey. 

This animal, which I'm temporarily dubbing the Titan Trapper until I regain access to our record of Known Atrian Animals, is an ambush hunter. It patiently lies in wait until prey of an acceptable size wanders close enough. While I didn't have a chance to see it take down the titan it was feasting upon, it's probable that it brings them down by using its first set of massive claws to drag in downward at which point it goes for the neck. It's also possible that, like coconut crabs, it uses its powerful crushing claws to disable its prey's extremities so it cannot escape. An animal of this size would only go after large meals since moving its massive bulk while covered in heavy armor would take a more than significant amount of energy. It could take years for something the size of the sauropod titan to come by. The titan trappers metabolism must be as slow as its patience is long. 

What I witnessed today was rare and beautiful, but it's also a grim warning to anyone coming to this planet. That transport ship was clearly here illegally. I don't know, specifically, what the people who came here were after, but I know for a fact that they were here to take something to sell back on Earth. I also know that none of them survived their experience here. Atria is an incredibly dangerous planet with even more dangerous creatures. A Mercury Class transport ship has been gutted and turned into a shelter by one single animal on a planet filled with trillions, if not more, dangerous animals. No amount of money is worth coming here unwarranted. You will be unprepared and you will underestimate what you're up against. Please leave the ideals of the UEA and everything it stood for in the past or I promise more death will follow.  

[End Transcription]

[seabreeze2022]

2023 Bahama Cruise, Part 17. April 8. Wemyss, Long Island. (Sharie and James Knowles).

This was our night out on the island. A famous restaurant on the beach is Chez Pierre. A one man Chef restaurant from Montreal. He is notorious for being upset, if you don’t have a reservation and drop in. Even worse is being late for your reservation. It turns out this Island Soup Nazi (Seinfeld episode) has a great reason. He can only cook so fast and staggers the customers out. Nancy called and took the earliest time slot available. We have been anchored in a beautiful sandy beach cove, just in front of a round yellow house for two days. Nancy paddle boarded around the first day. Then we both got in the dinghy and went around the entire shore line, passing the yellow round house multiple times.

We were trying to get to an old plantation which we could see the only remaining chimney above the tree line. We stopped to asked directions from a guy working in front of his house. Turns out he moved here from Ramrod key in the florida Keys. We were unable to get to the ruins, but enjoyed walking the beach.

We pulled anchor and motored around to Millers Bay, just south of us. Anchoring in the bay directly in front of the French restaurant. We got dressed up and dinghied in to the shore in plenty of time for our reservation. Don’t want to be kicked out, for being late.

We were 20 minutes early and only the Chef and the beach dog were there. Chef was mad for us being early. Actually it is all an act. He was wearing a classic white T shirt and shorts, very island casual. He explained the rules. We were to mix our own drinks behind the bar, (see photo above). Beers were in a refrigerator around the corner. Which is what I homed in on. Keep track of our drinks. “Mind your P’s and Q’s” was a saying in the day. Meaning know how many pints and quarts you drank at the tavern, so you pay for the proper amount.

The next shift of customers came in. Two older couples, Nancy got to talking to them and the conversations continued off and on. Turns out we had been anchored directly off of their round yellow house for two days. They said, nobody ever anchors there! We received an invite to come visit.

We were able to finish our dinner and dinghy back to the boat prior to sunset. Which is why I wanted the early reservation. The sun set as we motored around Whale Head point back to our previous anchorage.

This is Sharie and James Knowles, who invited us into their house and shared many a story with us. They returned back twenty years ago, to the island of his ancestors. The Knowles here owned 2,000 acres. First living in a tent high in the middle of the island. Tried raising sheep. Actually flew 3 sheep in on Bahamas Air to improve the blood line.

Above they are holding a large wooden pestal. The large tree trunk mortar was out side under a tree. These were used by his relatives only decades ago. She was grinning ear to ear, when she casually handed the pestal to me. As soon as I hefted it up, I knew what it was made of. Lignum Vitae! It must have weighed twenty pounds. So you can see why it sinks in water.

Their passion is traipsing around the island at old plantations and caves looking for artifacts. They have an extensive collection of old bottles and Lucayan artifacts.

Sharie showed us her collection of whale ambergris. She researched ambergris and became a middle man buying and selling ambergris for fun from the locals. One of her many stories was flying to meet a buyer from France in Nassau. They went to the hotel room where a large piece was examined and bought. It earned the local islander $10,000 US. She just got involved out of curiosity. Treating the locals fairly. The islanders dog is the one who actually found it. Kind of like a truffle dog.

They told us of finding Right Whale skeletons. They have two whale vertebrae over their doors. She told the story of being in a bar when two Bahamians came in talking about the whale skeleton they found. She offered the use of her vehicle to transport the bones for the guy. She showed us a photo of bones stacked in her car floor to ceiling, with the pelvis strapped to the roof. The man sold the bones from in front of his house, eventually earning enough money to buy a car.

Walking through their house was like being in a Museum of Natural History. Above is the skull of a flamingo they found, plus whale baleen to the left.

There was an old cotton mill on their property, which is gone now. They took us on a tour where there is a Lucayan midden. We are sworn to secrecy on the exact location. It has been researched by the University of Florida. The photo on the right, is inside their garage. They lived in the garage for two years while they built the round house. Reminds me of my folks who lived in one small room, cooking over a camp stove while they built their first house in the Keys. I love the wood mallet on the wall which was used to beat sponges during the curing process.

Sharie also did her research on Conch pearls and became a middle man selling those. Locals would bring her conch pearls and she would pull out a light and jewelers loupe. After examining and rating it, she would pay them a descent price saying they could get more in Nassau. Most took the quick cash and headed to the bar. She mostly did it for fun and good story or two.

The tamarinds at their house are huge. All sorts of things in their yard that they found beach combing. Above are the old metal bouys for nets. Inside the house, were the more rare glass bouys. The photo on the left, is another grey racer snake we saw during the tour. That brings to a half dozen snakes we have seen in the few hours we have spent on shore. Sharie stopped the ATV when she saw a Mangrove Cuckoo in the bush. On a sadder note. They also found parts of the flotsam while beach combing. From the ship El Faro, lost during Cat 4 Hurricane Joaquin Oct. 1, 2015. Thirty three people lost their lives when the ship went down in 15,000 ft. just east of Long Island. Their house had 17 inch of water in the ground level garage from the hurricane.

What a great couple and a fantastic day spent with them.

S/V Sea Breeze, Wemyss bay, Long Island, Bahamas