Friday, September 12, 2025
Sunday, September 07, 2025
Saturday, September 06, 2025
“Third Flight”
DATELINE: Aboard Eastern WhisperJet, Stratum IV
Malinconico and Scarlatti, in suit and tie, exited the Mesosphere Club for the airport gate. It had only been a few years since the Vertol Waiting Room incident nearby but the Hog Island terminal here had grown considerably since.
The pair crossed the jet bridge into the L-1011 and found their seating.
Malinconico studied the details of the immediate environment.
The nylon coach seat covers in mercury blue psychotropic patterns... The cool freon-fresh air blowing silently from the jet nozzles overhead... The pneumatic headset piping in Mancini muzak as the turbofan engines went through their run-up... Scarlatti blowing his compote crepe brekkie into a sick sack...
After touchdown and full-stop, Courier One took Malinconico and a recovering Scarlatti for a tour of the flight deck. The mass array of lights, levers, indicators, and gauges was mesmerising. A true delizia per gliocchi, but perhaps the seeds of crisis scenarios were planted then for consideration anon.
Impressed, Malinconico deboarded the plane.
A gate agent noticed the young man’s elevated mood.
“You look like you’re glad knowing where you’re going.”
“In realtà no,” Malinconico quipped. “Bene volare praestat quam nimium cito pervenire.”
Friday, September 05, 2025
“Second Flight”
The Paolinelli compleanno brought Malinconico to the streets of Cambridge with high anticipation. He and Master Shute were greeted by young Giacomino, the festeggiato of the day.
Cut to: The local airfield, where the senior Paolinelli follows the trio excitedly climbing into the Cessna 152.
Giacomino’s father had Malinconico ride shotgun, puzzling the young man as he stared at the dual flight controls and the horizon beyond.
As they cruised through the open skies Malinconico thought, “I am not the honoree, yet I am in the prime seat. Paolinelli senior and junior must see this view all the time. How generous for them to share the sights with their amici intimi...”
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Animguase mfata adesamma ba
“Ahem!”
The sharp throat-clearing at the front of the classroom alerted Masters Capone and Stoddard to return to their desks.
Preceptor Schrack began:
“Children, you are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of pedagogical work — the inculcation of self-loathing via condescending wonder by romanticising the Other in their noble savagery.”
Capone and Stoddard blinked at each other.
Schrack continued:
“I hereby enumerate a litany of lofty tropes to edify malleable pupils in the innate primacy of utopian poverty, Kente Cringe, and other acts of performative empathy...”
And of course, she did, and probably felt good about it.
But such lectures that are one-sided and unopen to critical thinking aren’t known to work on adults, let alone schoolchildren.
After a time, the students were back with their noses in their schoolbooks.
“Psst, Stoddard — c’mere!” Master Capone stood attentively by the classroom’s large globe.
Stoddard came over to see him furtively pointing somewhere at the northern part of Africa.
“They named a country after a sweary!”
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Ricordi persi tra i sobborghi
• The Putt-Putt sala giochi, a clinic for honing future hand-eye coordination challenges...
• The quaint faux village of Passeggiata dei Mercanti, featuring the Ochiltree, Libreria di Hale, the Cashin Polo Bar and clock tower...
• The brief but close encounters with Robuster’s...
• The continual rotation of local dives between pizza joint mode and watering hole mode...
Friday, August 22, 2025
Saturday, August 16, 2025
The RhypoVac 2100: Another Tool in the Eternal Clean-Up
Orville acknowledges the great paradox of mankind’s technological prowess soaring whilst its cultural output descends into Kuru levels of inbred non-creative rot.
Hence, they recognise the importance of that eternal metaphor of the Great Clean-Up with an updated classic: The RhypoVac 2100 — another machine that sucks up garbage.
No need to reinvent the wheel, folks.
Saturday, August 09, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Der Spiegel der Sackgassen
Friday, July 18, 2025
Sunday, July 06, 2025
Sunday, June 29, 2025
On Weddings and War
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.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Classic City Arcade 0625
Richard K. visiting from the Eureka Redwoods...
Mr Daystrom dreaming of flight...
Mr Zack judging ’cue down at Hot Corner...
8TG crushing the chinches...
Thursday, June 12, 2025
A Climber Descends
she passes through the window
and down the photinia tree
to leave a quiet ‘hello’
Thursday, June 05, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Friday, May 23, 2025
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
A tavola non s’invecchia
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.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Friday, April 25, 2025
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Friday, April 18, 2025
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Friday, April 11, 2025
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Friday, March 14, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Thursday, March 06, 2025
Saturday, March 01, 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Mrs. Bilcoe Questions Local ‘Role Models’
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!
Sunday, February 09, 2025
Fraternals Continue to Let the Unfit Cull Themselves
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!
Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Friday, January 31, 2025
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Hayseed 3.0
Friday, January 24, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Saudade de cativante deusa de Montego
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 manStoddard stepped back outside but even there every draw of air tasted of hot, syrupy thickness. He again marveled at the mountains of sugar cane.
as the billows did crash upon the strand
“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...