Mumble Herder

"The immediate cause of the Exile may never be known. In those soggy April days immediately following the event, when mobs were the rule, accusations and counter-accusations flew with regularity. As Walter Wenstrup pointed out in his pamplet A Call For Civic Order (largely ignored at the time), there are several factors which make isolating the cause largely an intellectual exercise. As Wenstrup states, '[n]either the offender(s), nor their offense(s), nor the aggrieved and/or their agents, nor the precise magickal means of this punitive action are known. One piece of the picture might help bring the rest into focus, but our scope of investigation being limited by our very isolation, patience and diligence are our only recourse.' Wenstrup himself postulated that some collective crime had precipitated the city's removal from common geography. Of course, Wenstrup himself was on more than one occasion singled out as the probable target of the Exile. . . . One of the more popular targets of public suspicion was Micah Ogden AKA Tommy Todd, one half of the popular co-ed burlesque act 'Maggie and Todd' with Alyx Scarpetta AKA Maximum Maggie. Ogden's solo portion of their nightly performances was notorious for the feats of erotic magic he performed, including the apparent summons of a female sex demon with which he simulated intercourse (amidst a complex arrangement of scarves and loincloths in order to circumvent the local decency laws) and a routine in which he danced with his shadow which some observers found offensive for its homoerotic undertones. (Ironically, such performances would be considered tame by today's standards, as any evening spent in the Robinson Tunnel clubs will illustrate.) . . . Todd and Maggie's act (as well as their romantic relationship) had ended some months prior to the Exile, and Todd had dropped out of sight. It was rumored that infernal orgies took place behind the bright yellow door of his home on South Oak Street. A recently divorced fireman accused Todd of seducing him in his dreams. In truth, Todd was in seclusion recovering from recent sexual reassignment surgery; his isolation was so complete that he did not learn of the Exile until a full week after it had happened. By that time he (more correctly, she) was the favorite scapegoat of high-rise demagogues and radio call-in shows. Todd, using the first name Tammy, granted an interview to the Star-Chronicle in which she tried to defend herself from the mounting wave of attacks, to no avail. Maximum Maggie appeared on the Channel 9 news to refute some of the charges, claiming that congress with demons had never been a part of their act and that she herself had appeared, disguised as a succubus, in those portions of Todd's act. . . . The public would not be mollified, however, and on April 14, 1966 a mob marched on Todd's home and demanded that 'he' surrender himself. (In the face of the marvels of the previous ten days, the collective refusal to accept Todd's re-gendering is perhaps unsurprising.) When Todd did not emerge, the restless crowd surged forward, only to be repelled by what one citizen described as 'some force both electrical and concussive, which caused me to lose consciousness for some minutes . . . [w]e soon found that we dared not approach the door, let alone lay hands upon it; even projectiles could not damage it.' It seems that Todd had sealed herself inside, and as far as anyone has been able to determine, she is there to this day. . . . Not long after, Maximum Maggie went into hiding as well, although she is still known to do voiceover work." (p.17-18)

Last night an old guy yelled at me to zip up my jacket. He sounded angry. "Zip your jacket!" he said as he walked past. "What?" I asked him. "Zip up, it's cold!" he said. He was right. It's finally cold here, which sucks but we all knew it would happen eventually. Except for a couple of weeks right away in November this has been the wimpiest winter I can recall. My attitude is, you had your chance, now just get back in the corner until Spring gets here. Too bad the weather never listens to me.

This baby sloth video is mostly for Richard, but it's OK for the rest of you to watch it.

These Swedish librarians, on the other hand, are for me and me alone.

Steve Gerber--creator of Howard the Duck, Thundarr the Barbarian, and many weird/awesome comics stories of the '70s (including some in the Essential Defenders Volume 2, which I just finished), and writer of the upcoming Dr. Fate series for DC, has a blog.

In case you missed it, there's a new excerpt up at the Secret City set.

That's it. Stay warm.

*Title has nothing to do with anything other than work annoyance.

"Trains still pass through the city at night. No one can say with certainty where they come from, or what their destination is. Many of them appear to be empty. They follow no schedule, but appear suddenly, glowing with unnatural light, never stopping. . . . In the first years of the city's exile Mayor Faldbakken III ordered the tracks pulled up in residential neighborhoods, particularly where they crossed busy streets . . . However, this soon led to trains passing down the streets themselves, as well as alleys and paths in the city parks; these trains would shriek through in the middle of the night, waking terrified residents to the flicker of spectral faces outside their bedroom windows. The trains left hot tracks in their wake, rails of superheated steel which sent more than one curious resident to the emergency room. . . . Today most residents prefer to ignore the night transit. There are trainspotting societies, however, such as the Motive Locos, who track the time and place of manifestations, plot them meticulously onto charts and graphs and maps and timetables and then endlessly debate them over pierogis at Klekatsky's Deli. And there are others who take an interest in the trains. Loners, mostly, who see them as a means of escape back to the world outside, or elsewhere, or wherever the world is now. Every few weeks the body of another hopeful is found, crushed among the ties or suspended in the gel-sap at the city's border. . . . There are, of course, tales of ghost-hoppers who have succeeded, but in the absence of evidence there is no reason to believe that any have returned via this route. Particularly if, as many amateur (and expert: Walter Wenstrup was among them) motivancers believe, they are the trains of the dead, and the city their last stop before hell." (p.122-4)

"One of those displaced was the Swiss diva Celeste Simon, who was in the city for a four-week engagement of 'Il Seraglio.' Her handlers made several increasingly desperate attempts to find a way out of the city, but were no more successful than any of those innocents whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . . In the end one of the Lumina Opera board members installed her in a second-floor apartment at 2477 West Cagliari Street, near the Farmer's Market. For months she hardly stirred, wearing a housecoat over a silk nightgown given to her by her lover, who had left just two days before the Banishing to prepare her Alpine chalet. . . . As life within the city began to normalize, the opera board began to entreat Simon to become a permanent part of the company, but she declined. They persisted, and on May 15, 1968 the entire board assembled at the Cagliari Street location to confront her. Celeste's odor was profound, and her hair lay matted to the sides of her head in great bales. Her housecoat and gown were stained with sweat and grime. She said nothing as the board's spokesman pleaded with her, not failing to point out that her very lodgings were a result of their generosity. For answer, Celeste, still in her housecoat, stormed to the window and threw it open. She took up a lamp and knocked out the screen. . . . The board members were certain she was about to hurl herself out, but instead she leaned out above the market crowd and launched into Orpheus' aria from Orpheus and Eurydice, "Che farò senza Euridice?" Every face in the crowd looked up at her. Traffic stopped. When she finished, there was no one in earshot who was not in tears. . . . From that day Celeste sang every morning, regardless of weather or other circumstances. These free concerts endeared her to the public, most of whom had never seen an opera, but all of whom were willing captives to the magic of her voice. They would gather at dawn in order to find a place outside her window, and when she completed her daily concerts they lauded her with such genuine emotion that Celeste could not help but be moved in turn. Over time she began to take better care of herself, addressing her hygiene and dressing with her formerly accustomed elegance. . . . The opera board desisted in their threats of eviction. They still entreated her to appear in their productions, but she refused. . . . On May 5, 1981, Celeste failed to appear at her window as she had for nearly thirteen years. She had died in her sleep. Her funeral was attended by an estimated 800,000 citizens; her grave, at Buchanan Cemetery, is still visited daily. . . . Today her apartments are occupied by a well-regarded voice coach, although her window is rarely opened." (p.414)

"At 3:38 P.M. on Tuesday, October 5th, 1982, an estimated 110,000 children were tuned into the 'Scary the Clown Show,' an after-school ratings hit for station WTSC. Scary's sidekick, Cautious Coatimundi, threw to a cartoon titled 'Perfectly Proper Penelope Pigeon.' Unfortunately, no one at the station had reviewed the cartoon before airing it, and what the producers had believed to be a wacky cartoon about a debutante pigeon turned out to be a pornographic short about an orgy on top of a park statue. It was one minute and forty-seven seconds before Penelope was yanked off the air, but it was too late for an entire generation of city children on the cusp of puberty. It was apparently Penelope's voice (provided by adult film star Maximum Maggie) as she cooed which stimulated certain nerve endings in the ear, thus creating an erotic association . . . [w]ithin months the first reports of juvenile pigeon molestation were received. The first reports of avian-related venereal diseases soon followed . .. [b]y 1995 the indigenous pigeon population had largely fled the city, but migratory birds continue to enter the city, little suspecting what awaits them . . ." (p.145-6)