“Third Flight”

Racconti dei primi passi nei cieli

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.”

“Second Flight”

Racconti dei primi passi nei cieli

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...”

Animguase mfata adesamma ba

DATELINE: Academie Cloches, Stratum I

“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!”

Ricordi persi tra i sobborghi

• Piazza Mercato, home of Creamy’s rival Barone Biskin and Trulet’s Music Shoppe...
• 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...

Haruspex Hodiernus

The RhypoVac 2100: Another Tool in the Eternal Clean-Up

The Orville Corporation has a rich history of cleaning up other people’s messes, both figuratively and literally. From laboratory hygiene to social hygiene, Orville is proud of its legacy of tackling problems across any Spectrum.
  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.

Prekarität der Luftschlössern

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.