Der Spiegel der Sackgassen

Expedited by the forward flux of technological ego curation contrivances, existential exigencies arrive early, and the funk of unpleasant verities forces a gaze into a looking glass decision: Continue a solipsistic Main Character attainment, or face the harsh comedowns of Ego Avulsion.

Globuli della Gloria

Blonag: Chōrō Sōshoku-kei

On Weddings and War

Valeria strides with quiet grace
constantia at her side
Ulyssia seethes a sour silence
a jurgatrix with smile wide

And when Juno Domiduca summons for the rite
each to their altar and flame
Valeria stands to give her best and
Nemesis betrays Ulyssia’s game

Marcellus incarnates pietas yet
immures that silent power
Miles Gloriosus swaggers still
with wasted flex and glower

And when Mars Gradivus stands and
trumpets the call to fight
Marcellus brings virtus to the fray while
Gloriosus blindly vaunts Ira’s spite

Summa hominis indolis probatio in bello est.
Maximum experimentum indolis probatio mulieris caerimonia nuptiali est.

The Quest to Quench

Thirst brings the little fellow back to the basin...

CCF25: Checkpoint Chingada

CCF25: PANNVS ET CIRCENSES

Classic City Arcade 0625

Gray Ponytail Bingo at the Anti-Nevidimyy Monarkhy Faktion gathering on Town Square...
Richard K. visiting from the Eureka Redwoods...
Mr Daystrom dreaming of flight...
Mr Zack judging ’cue down at Hot Corner...
8TG crushing the chinches...

A Climber Descends

From the old worn eaves
she passes through the window
and down the photinia tree
to leave a quiet ‘hello’

Chemical Broth: Un Nutriment Édifiant

Five Leaves Echo from Stratum K

Pentafolious reiterations hint from the past...

Prizonye Prezan

Le Crâne Écrasé au Jus

A tavola non s’invecchia

The red sauce joint was gloomy and rather empty this early in the afternoon. Scant light cast from the faux Tiffany lamps overhead. Some dust drifted in a lone sunbeam intruding from a curtained window.
  At a table in the center of the room Miss Nadoghy slow drew spoonfuls of minestra maritata to her mouth. Malinconico poked pensively at his baked ziti. Time stood still, but for only a moment.
  “It’s a very special day,” she said contentedly.
  And it was.

The Uncreative Creative

Mecha-Taikoots 3

Dōpī: Munōna Kokumin

Soy Scribe Throwback: Daizu no Hikki-Sha

Mecha-Taikoots 2

Menko 25: Osae Kirenai Akubi

Soijakku ’25 B

Senorda Lavujo

Kolera Danco

Soijakku ’25 A

Menko 25: Naibu no Konran

Menko 25: Bunno, Ttodasi

L’ape felice

Beef Akshamata: Marketing Practicum Fail

Beef Akshamata

Slobby ’25: Model Internationale

Átlas Adésmeftos

Fidatevi del sorriso losco

Mecha-Taikoots 1

Mrs. Bilcoe Questions Local ‘Role Models’

Mrs. Bilcoe’s “I Have Thoughts” column originally ran in the weekly Heritageville Observer from Stratum XXIII-XXIV and was much beloved in the community. Selected columns are reprinted here for your edification.

I think it’s quite worrying that today’s youth are so quick to emulate our local foolhardy fraternals and their dangerous dares.
  Just last year some neighbourhood boys were grievously injured imitating those ΦΟΚ fellows with their sinister metal-teeth contraptions.
  I have thoughts.
  Where are today’s role models?
  We need more people like that nice Booth fellow who sells medicine to the needy down on Holeman Avenue. Or that lovely Qarinah lady down on Springrock Street who keeps lonely older men company out of the kindnesss of her heart. We all get the ‘lonesomes’ as we get older, let me tell you!
  These are the true ‘influencers’ who take steps to better our community in the eyes of our youth! Not those furley college ruffians cavorting with goats and drinking beer and drugs!
  C’mon, people — be better role models!

Fraternals Continue to Let the Unfit Cull Themselves

The ΦΟΚ Brethren, who evolved out of the Furley Frosh of Reid III, certainly took social niceties to a new level in their joie de vivre after Stratum XIII.
  Skippy, Scotty G, and of course the eponymous Keef himself often held soirées that explored such cultural frontiers as plaid goat rodeos, prawn precipitation parties, and most famously, the Bear Trap Socials at their stately residence on the Classic City Community College campus.
  These young men and their future prospects continue to seek out new challenges. Indeed, they better mankind by allowing Darwin Award contestants the opportunity to cull themselves from a mindful and productive society — all without shattering any Overton windows.
  Let’s hear it for ΦΟΚ!

Spring Preview: Slobby Live Model

Totems Actualised available for seasonal conditional lease...

Private Dick 2025

Hayseed 3.0

What an improvement: Tha 2043 proles a’ faicinn an mì-ùidh aca ann an leasachadh air a chuir a-steach do raon a’ mheacanaigeach...

Menko 25: Drongo de la mode

Saudade de cativante deusa de Montego

Stoddard sat quietly with his elbow resting in the open window of the passenger car as the train slowly made its way up into the hills. He watched the sun stream through the lush jungle canopy as the scant breeze did little to quell the island heat.
  Stepping off the train, he gazed incredulously up at the massive heaps of harvested sugar cane, each the size of a two-storey house.
  The distillery tour was unremarkable — a dry explanation of boilers and fermentation tanks in the guide’s thick patois soon lost Stoddard’s interest. Maybe it was the air, the sun, the heat — the cloying stickiness of the sugar cane that suffused every breath taken in the humid tropical clime.
  Even in his discomforting pique, his mind drifted back to the sands of Montego.

The goddesse layde, beckonende bihofþe the man
as the billows did crash upon the strand

  Stoddard stepped back outside but even there every draw of air tasted of hot, syrupy thickness. He again marveled at the mountains of sugar cane.
  “Young man! Take! Bless up!” The tour guide was suddenly beside him proffering a paper cup. “Di rum punch ours,” he pointed at the drink.
  Stoddard stared at the pink liquid. What furley young man would turn down free alcohol in a tropical setting, let alone anywhere?
  In his mishmash of queasiness and longing, Stoddard politely declined and headed back to the train.

Sche basketh in the sonne, and alle is wel
sche clepeth to me, and I desyre to answere...

Classic City Arcade 0125

Old School music night at Nirgend’s Tavern featuring music by Frank Highwatt and Mr Partridge’s Diavoli Vizioci.
On the scene: Mr Dutch, Mr Freeney, Ms Moneypenny, Fake Keanu, Mr Skööls, Ballast, Mr Aloysius, Dominique, Larry X, Ms Noonan, Mr Garge, and many more...

The Trail is Afire on the Path to Dust

Hiding one’s fouled-up deeds behind Good Intentions is nothing new in the CYA contingencies of the unaccountable. Shoring up one’s public Image-Construct to counter soul-rot goes back beyond Dorian Gray and his rotting carapace, but even that character had a sense of guilt.
  Today the harder one grasps at the Good Intentions excuse, the more obvious it is that the intent is not good at all, but just CYA by the Idiot’s Id.
  That the outer rind of the ‘pod’ is more important than the content within is a repugnant enough weltanschauung — and now that Empty Pride is a casual admission (as well as goal), it’s clear that the putrescence has fully spread from the corrupt inner soul to that very outer rind of form, where flippancy and contempt are bandied without shame.
  The seeds are now sprouting along the Path to Dust.

Les messagers ont tué leur propre crédibilité

Doctor Malcolm Eon, high dignitary of Gokhos Sakima, has long been a political gadfly to the Kon-Braga regime’s controversial policies. And now, he has taken aim at media malpractice and its detriment to providing for an informed public.
  “Gokhos Sakima Lumivision continues to dilute important issues down into false dichotomies and pabulous morsels for public consumption,” Dr Eon noted.
  “It’s expected that state-run planetary media would shill for the throne, but even United Planets Media is uncritically parroting GSLV’s unconvincing boilerplate. Don’t our media betters realise that force-feeding a low-value infotoxin diet to the public will eventually erode any remaining iota of credibility? I mean, who’s gonna swallow that shite?”
  Well, Dr Eon, it’s usually no surprise for despotic regimes to consider their own subjects as abject idiots. But a crumbling galactic media that insists on both inflaming and mollifying their audience without informing deems the public as semi-morons just as much as the High Epopt does. Une dure vérité, en effet.
  And so, Dr Eon, to answer your question about “who’s gonna swallow that,” we have a News Flash: No one is. And no one will.

This missive was republished from Eppulon Independent Samizdat and made available via subspace communiqué. Eppulon Independent Samizdat is neither licensed nor sanctioned by any governing bodies of the galaxy. No changes have been made nor original material added.

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