...Found Fiction: Dr. Seuss' "What Pet Should I Get?"...

So outside of the discovery of the found Sherlock Holmes story, we have Harper Lee writing a new novel, and the publishing run of a new Dr. Seuss book, What Pet Should I Get?"

The Times describes that this was found in manuscript container along with other previously incomplete works.  With the title and the inclusion (as we know so far) of the brother and sister from "One Fish Two Fish", it'll be more of Seuss' characteristic beat poems, less than story, more about meter.  (I withheld saying 'fun', as they are fun no matter what.)

I was a tad disappointed, and I have yet to read it, but I will buy it once it releases, but I wondered to myself as to 'why'.  I would have loved to have seen a newer book that was less the meter and wordplay and another one based on story.  I then thought quickly over my favorites and the favored ones of my children, having read to all four of them each one of these stories.

The quick "high Seuss" seven:

7) "If I Ran the Circus"
6) "McElligot's Pool"
5) "Green Eggs and Ham"
4) "In A People House"
3) "Happy Birthday to You"
2) "The Cat in the Hat"
1) "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"

I enjoy reading Grinch so much.  And, after having read it aloud 50 times in the last 12 years, you get intimate with the tempo and his efficacious way of telling story.  Grinch sets apart from almost all the others I listed as it has its bit of darkness, it has an arc.  Where Seuss shines, obviously, is his ability to rhyme a few dozen words and have kids in stitches in how he arranges them.  But, as a storyteller, you read Green Eggs, Cat and Grinch, where there is a journey...and the latter the most, the best, of these.

Maybe the other two unpublished stories will be even more special...

Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs...

So a few days ago a few headlines read that an unearthed and "unseen" (provided that we have someone 110 years old that happened to have lived in Selkirk that read it so many moons ago) story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was discovered in an attic.  Intriguing stuff, yeah.  It was definitely not available in any current compilation of extant stories of Sherlock Holmes, coming from a 1904 book of short stories, The Book O' the Brig.  The purpose of the book was a fund raiser for the new bridge in Selkirk, it having been destroyed in 1902 by a great flood.

There's a great many of us that are excited to get any new Sherlock story, fans having read the stories multiple times in multiple sittings (thus their popularity).  A new story would be a tremendous boon, an assured satiation.

The Daily Mail has the details, but it is a relatively fascinating story of a man, now 80, who was given the 48-page pamphlet 50 years ago.  It went into Walter Elliot's attic, and there it would remain.  Found recently, the gentleman was very kind to simply donate the story to the local museum and several sites have posted the story.

Simple text of "Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs, and, By Deduction, the Brig Bazaar"

It is a short story, and shouldn't take too long to read...

And, after reading it, I was struck like many, the look on my face a quizzical one of "da fuh?".  Perhaps there is something subtle at work which did not have me believe this was written by Doyle.  Perhaps it was a first draft.  Perhaps it was a bit of intrigue at the very Bazaar it is written about and the story was hastened out from someone's hands.  I am not the only one.  When I searched online, I have found others that believe the same.  [Or here.]

It does not have the tenor or gravitas you would typically find in a Holmes novel.  It is clunky, overly reflective.  Almost as if it was ghosted by a young fan that really believe he 'knew' the style of Doyle, but woefully falls short and makes potato chips when croquettes were asked for.

S'odd.  And the Daily Mail does little to really dig into the matter.  Oh, journalism, you've been boring for decades.

"Red" Sonnet ~ In response to Frida Kahlo and on the occasion of being a fool ~

A Draft inspired by the art of Frida Kahlo.

The Matador

The flag extends, in arm outstretched, for sake of bold
His eye drops along its frame.  The cloth, a sign,
Draped on, in spite of sense, unfurled, it's lack of fold
An offense to the braying monster beyond.

The Barfly

They shadowed about the pate of varnished wood says
Little, thoughtful quiet, in the reflective glow
Are words enough.  For in the undulating buzz
Contemplation is found in the gloss of spilled drink.

The Revolutionary

On her lips the warning color, the warring one,
Revolt declared by the fierce eyes: ready, wet,
The masses now struggle, civil thoughts undone,
Smoke rose, the fire lit and she moves to the fore.

Couplet

Whatever the tone, its force is the same,
Colours of wanting make measures of claim.

Deviant Art "Red in Black" February 2015, Jon Edwards

...Haunted Horror...Yoe Comics...

Yoe Comics "Haunted Horror" - Books #13 and #14

Cover by Shelly Moldoff - Haunted Horror #14

We had just returned from a day trip to San Juan Capistrano a few Saturdays ago on the Metrolink back to the Fullerton Train Station.  I was quickly happy to discover Comic Hero University attached to it after we arrived.  I got a fountain Dr. Pepper at the small convenience shop next door.  Then, as I walked in, I fully made the clerk aware of my open transgression: the lidless cup of soda.  [I have a disdain for straws.]  And, in my defense, I am an adult, and haven't spilled a drink since trying to hover a tray of shots over a table a year ago.

University not only has comics atop their platform shop, but they have tables for card players and an arcade(!).  To the latter point, I only lacked the time and the energy to play some Walking Dead pinball.  I wanted comics.  I picked up Star Wars #1 and Robocop #9.  But I was looking for something twisted.  It had been a while to scratch an itch that I didn't know I had.  Haunted Horror!  by http://www.yoebooks.com/
was that.

Art by Abe Simon "Headless Horror"

My first foray into horror comics was a fun memory when I was not even seven years old.  My mom and I were on the return flight from the Philippines and the stewardess, completely unaware of the theme of these particular comics, handed me a stack.  (There were a few people on the flight that were empathetic of a boy on a 14 hour flight.  Little did they know that I could sit for hours and never be bored.)  I took the stack happily, arranged them in the pocket in front of me and slowly went page by page.

Now, the comics I was used to up to that point were not like this.  They were American comics.  I read a lot of Marvel, mostly due to my uncle in East LA having a ton of them.  I stayed at his house often, reading every single one.  They were a quick, fun read, but never heady.  These Filipino comics books had a deranged story line in them that actually scared me.  I had to put them away.  Then, after some time and curiosity set in, I turned back to them to see the horror in their pages.

I barely understood the language, but luckily Filipino popular culture had a mix of English along with Tagalog.  This was a tale of ruthless people, whoring and dirty, getting their just desserts when they ingest small green humanoid creatures.  They eat away at anyone unlucky enough to drink the tea that they come in.  Ghastly images of these little green men chewing away at the human - the latter in agonizing pain for more than anyone should dare.  There was lurid nudity.  There was blood.  It was brilliant!

Art Attributed by Joe D'Agostino "Horror of the Cannibal's Dinner"

Then some thirty years later, here's a group of banned comics from the 50s in the form of Yoe's comics that are compilation of different comics from that time.  Yoe then compiled them into a truly beautiful comic book with a plastic-like cover and heavy weight paper inside.  The comics look better than they did 60 years ago, surely.

And the stories - they are shocking, schlocky, and wonderful.  As I do when I read things in time, you have to image the twisted, souless mind of the artists and writers of these stories.  They were the harmless underbelly of society, with stories that reflected their naive passion for blood.

Horror comes out every couple of weeks, and I picked up a few back issues at Phat Collectibles in Anaheim.  You won't be unhappy spending that 3.99!

Stevie Smith "Not Waving but Drowning" 1957

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

                            - Stevie Smith

...A Filipino Cookbook...Excerpt...Leon After the Night of Evil...

Continuing the second draft where Leon continues to put distance between himself and the military of the South (Manila).

"He knew that God was with him: not even one vehicle passed him upon this road.  If they were to pass, it spelled trouble.  It would only mean one of two things: the military or bandits.  He could see why neither would be here, this was worthless country [to them].  Neither side would find little to steal.  If there were poor in the cities of the South, here they would only find peoples claiming the shirt upon their backs and little else.

At one point along the way, where a small stream met the road and broke its trail, he came across a family of wild tamaraw [dwarf buffalo] grazing along the embankments of the stream.  This was their home.  Home is where one is undisturbed.  A place to graze for most of the year.  Endless fresh water.  The herd walked along with him, as if their own predilection was for the only man they had seen in many years.  Occasionally they would purposefully walk into him, their warm hinds brushing softly into his.  He stared at their large dark eyes and wondered what they thought of him.  They certainly were not frightened.

And, when he would sit to rest, they would stop.  The tamaraw were smaller than the massive caribou.  They pulled their long horns through the talahib [a tall grass], which towered above them.  Leon could make out their relationship to one another.  They were a little family.  Six all together.  The cows watched over the youngest two.  The bull did as he pleased, and the family followed him.  It was the bull that followed Leon for two days.

The road varied constantly as it wound on.  At night, he would seek the driest rise along the road to sleep, far from vegetation.  It was the third night that the tamaraw continued their walk.  Leon could sense from their motion that they whatever they sought with him had worn away.

That same night he spotted the pilandok (mouse-deer) running alongside the road.  He barely made them out in the blue-grey light of early night.  As they were rare, many thought them to be magical creatures, a cross between a rodent and a deer.  [These are not the deer of the Western world, these could be held in one hand.]  He had never eaten one, but rumors from the South have the meat as unparalleled.  But here, without the tools to hunt well, he dug for roots.  And, over days and weeks, he found, in the order of things, his body didn’t need as much as it used to.  He was about as thin as he could ever get, strong yet wiry.  He told himself that, if he had found a mirror, he would not recognize the wild man staring back at him.  This was good.  Leon Miap needed to be dead.  But what am I now then?"

...If not for the exhaled mist I would have little else to account for....

The smell of cran-apple in a red cup

It reminded me of the smell of those, those brunettes

The ones that seem to know more than the rest, 
all knowing restful eyes I guess they weep when no one's about (I guess but feel I know).
The ramshackle structure ahead
I breathe it in like polyester.  The black cragged crackle left behind - 
Why me then with self deprecated respect I seem to owe nothing
And owe everyone else. What the fudge was done with the brooding clouds above 
to hate me so (hate miso?).
Needing to connect the collection in the hazy trudge of connection An internet of things, the binge of ego: leave wanting hands empty. Who allows it?  Certainly not us or you or you. Snap me up.
Hanging on the railing a few weeks ago, 
The chill penetrated the cotton of my burning back 
You were with me no one else could And I hung there, trying not to crash into the cobblestone faux
A one stole my bag of scorpion lollipops
And I hope they've failings beyond the recognition reckoning surface
Like Pollyanna birds of Doom 
Shall descend upon them like the thunder number 9
"Church," he said in the distance.
"8" was all was replied.

...Stella Maris...The Star of the Sea...

In the rendition of Verdi's operatic Otello, Desdemona, the wife of Othello, sings a prayer to Mary, a departure from Shakespeare's play.  In Act 5, Scene II, Desdemona pleads for a stay from the death of the hands of her husband, and pleads further that she may say a prayer.  In Otello, it is realized in a resounding Ave Maria that is hauntingly punctuated on the 'amens' and the 'prega per noi' (pray for us).  Desdemona has her prayer by Verdi's composition before she is smothered by furied husband.



PLAY:
OTHELLO: "Ah balmy breath, that doest almost persuade Justice to break her sword!  One more, one more.  Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee.  And love thee after.  One more, and this the last: So sweet was ne'er so fatal.  I must weep, But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly: It strikes where it doth love.  She wakes." V, II

DESDEMONA: "...by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him.  Here I kneel: If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, Either in discourse of thought or actual deed....Comfort forswear me!...But never taint my love."  IV, II

As there are almost countless songs of the Ave, an early rendition of it has a foundation dating back to Saint Venantius Fortunatus, the Maris Stella:

Ave, Maris Stella, 
Dei Mater alma, 
Atque semper virgo, 
Felix coeli porta.

Sumens illud Ave 
Gabrielis ore, 
Funda nos in pace, 
Mutans Evae nomen.

Solve vincia reis 
Profer lumen caecis, 
Mala nostra pelle, 
Bona cuncta posce.

Monstra te esse Matrem, 
Sumat per te preces 
Qui pro nobis natus, 
Tulit esse tuus.

Virgo singularis, 
Inter omnes mitis, 
Nos culpis solutos 
Mites fac et castos.

Vitam praesta puram,
Iter para tutum; 
Ut videntes Jesum 
Semper collaetemur.

Sit laus Deo Patri, 
Summo Christo decus, 
Spiritui Sancto, 
Tribus honor unus.  Amen.