Raymond the Librettist

Holy double-crossing dames! Writer Kim Cooper recently discovered that famed noir novelist Raymond Chandler wrote a libretto for a proposed operetta "The Princess and the Pedlar."

Read The Guardian's article about the discovery here. And if you want to see this work staged, there's a website detailing the efforts to try to make that happen.

Song and dance man?

shh

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... from Langley, VA to a mobile device near you.

Look Out, Kids! (Ohio Edition)

This sounds like the start of a solid neighborhood legend. Allegedly, a van full of people dressed as zombies are terrorizing teens Gahanna and Worthington, two communities in Ohio.

None of these "zombie attacks" have been corroborated by authorities, but we're guessing the retelling of any possible encounters are already attaining folklore status on playgrounds and in living rooms all over central Ohio.

Thing is, we can't decide if the zombie gag is mean or really fun(ny).

Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers

Ciudad Juarez in Mexico City may have a costumed vigilante, and she means business. The story, if it's true -- and this news report give it a squinty eye -- concerns direct and violent retribution against bus drivers in the city.

What did transit workers do to bring down the hammer of old-world justice on themselves? For years, it's believed that some drivers have been raping and killing female passengers, leaving their bodies in the desert.

But someone calling herself Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers, alleges she's responsible for the recent shooting deaths of two drivers in the area. Each driver got two shots to the head, and police are investigating.

Read the story and cross your fingers that Diana has her targets straight. Her press release is chilling and righteous. And as has been pointed out elsewhere, if the police there put as much effort into stopping the rapes and murders of women as they are in attempting to find Diana, there'd be no need for Diana.

[Hat tip to The Stranger for the lead.]

Witchcraft in Wales

According to Rev Felix Aubel, practitioners of the dark arts -- and let's be clear that he indicates these are witches of the wicked variety -- are abundant in the countryside of Wales.

Read the Telegraph article and make of it what you will, but Aubel's details about the number of witches and occultists (read: Satanists) and what they've done seems suspect. Even more so given his autobiography, A Rebel's Story, came out in October 2012.

Bad deeds and bad intentions ... let's allow that people are capable of witchiness, but Aubel makes rural Wales sound like a Hammer horror film. We smell an attempt to boost lagging book sales.

Oh well. Here's a cool illustration by John R. Neill of the Wicked Witch of the East from L. Frank Baum's The Tin Woodman of Oz:

[A twirl of our gnarled crone finger to Fortean Times for the Telegraph link.]

"Who will do that now?"

The BBC News Magazine recently published a sad, strange story about women in Ghana who are accused of witchcraft. The accused are usually old and the assignment of guilt, just as it was across 16th century Europe and the American colonies in the 17th century, springs from coincidental events that have nothing to do with the women.

In a kinder, gentler twist, the Ghanan women have taken to living in witch camps. Read the whole thing here.

No. 1 Rule of a Hoax: Don't Die

A 44-year-old man from Kalispell, Montana died on August 27 when he was struck by two cars, allegedly while attempting to perpetrate a hoax. The man was wearing a ghillie suit, possibly to incite reports of Bigfoot sightings. Instead, he walked onto Highway 93, was hit by one car, and run over by another.

We like cryptozoology stories, hoax stories, and Fortean tales of the unexplained as much as the next little-read vanity blog, but you're not supposed to die while executing a hoax. The story reads as unfortunate, to say the least. And two teen drivers now have to live with this man's death hanging over them.

And anyone who buys one of these signs now is going to feel like a big, fat jerk:

Goblin Attack: A Snake With Shoes

"[S]ome neighbours confirmed that strange things were taking place at the Sithole homestead. Others went on to claim that snake-like creatures wearing sunglasses, a suit and a pair of shoes had been seen at the homestead."

A family from a village in Chipinge South, a costituency in southeastern Zimbabwe, belives they're being targeted by goblins. This was reported in the Zimbabwean news site Zimdiaspora on May 22, and brought to our attention by The Fortean Times.

Whatever is happening to this family, at least some of them believe it is supernatural in origin. In North America, would we blame the same series of events on ghosts or extra terrestrials? Demons?

We'll be right back after these messages

We've all been quite busy working on our annual reviews and preparing PowerPoint decks to present to the board of trustees in hopes of securing a budget to keep this thing going for another fiscal year.

As is often the case, while we're locked in a conference room arguing for our very existence, news is breaking. Farewell Duck Dunn. Au revoir Chuck Brown. Good bye  Donna Summer. We'll miss you, Robin Gibb. There are likely others we're forgetting.

Instead of barraging you with links and YouTube clips of the dearly departed -- we trust you've been inundated with such things already -- The Typing Monkey will post this vintage clip of singer/songwriter Roger Whittaker performing his tune "New World in the Morning."

If you don't know Mr. Whittaker's work, it's not hard to find him. He's an under-appreciated gem from the era of Judy Collins and Cat Stevens.


[courtesy of geralddonais]

Many Kinds of Close Encounters, Apparently

The sordid tale of former U.S. Senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards' affair with a videographer named Rielle Hunter has provided miles of column inches for newspapers, magazines, tabloids and Websites since the story broke.

Old and often repeated, the story of infidelity and apparent cracks in the moral character of a public official (gasp, faint, etc.) is far less interesting than a detail of the scandal brought to light via the court testimony.

That detail being that Rielle Hunter, the videographer with whom Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock, wanted to claim she had been abducted by aliens. This was part of an effort to deny that Hunter and Edwards had been romantically involved.

The Typing Monkey wants to make it clear to any politicians, celebrities, spin doctors, historical revisionists and public relations flacks that we think this is a marvelous idea.

Have a starlet who needs to lay low in rehab for a few weeks? Tell us she is taking time off to document sightings of the chupacabra.

Grassy knoll and second shooter theories are no more provable or easy to deny than, say, a coven of Satanists eager to assassinate the first Catholic president. See? You really can't handle the truth. [You're mixing up your Oliver Stone films. -- ed.]

We'd like to posit that William H. Seward got such a deal on Alaska when he purchased it from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million because Russia agreed to evacuate all of the Yetis residing there, hoping to bring them all back to Siberia so they could create an army of abominable snowmen. The U.S. got a gold rush untroubled by Yetis, Russia gained an army of cryptids.

The Loch Ness Monster attacked and sank Nazi U-Boats during the war? Why not?

Take any historical controversy or even minor event and make it more exciting by adding paranormal explanations and interference. Our tabloid political climate could use some actual tabloid fodder instead of this banal baby-mama drama.

Many believe the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage, taken in 1967, is definitive proof of the existence of Sasquatch. What they fail to realize is that Bigfoot is, in fact, a courier on his way to pick up The Pentagon Papers from then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Can We Stay at Grandma's?

Perhaps you've heard of Darlene Mayes, the so-called "Ganja Granny." According to news reports, the 73-year-old ran a four-state marijuana distribution operation from her rural Oklahoma home. And in case it's unclear, what she did is monumentally illegal.

Thing is, stories like Mayes' are becoming about as common as dime bags at a Foghat show.

A simple Web search on "ganja granny" turns up three other senior women who've earned the title. And the past five-plus years have seen news stories about elderly citizens in the United States turning to dealing controlled substances, frequently to simply pay the bills, but sometimes because they use the product -- most often marijuana -- themselves.

While the reports of Mayes' case don't specify if she was a smoker, there was paraphernalia in her home. However that's not really why we post this story.

The take-away for all of us at The Typing Monkey has been the big bag of questions and considerations the Ganja Granny case provokes.

There are multiple reports that as Baby Boomers age, they're turning toward controlled substances they may've enjoyed during their youth. Pain pills are common, yes, but marijuana use among their demographic is on the rise.

And having enough money to live a reasonable life after retirement age is a growing concern as well. There are only so many senior citizens willing and able to serve up smiles and fast food. Clearly the pot trade doesn't discriminate based on age.

Will Boomers final er, contribution to our culture be a push for the legalization of marijuana? Their numbers are legion and if past generations are any indication, soon they'll have nothing but time and the feisty anger of the old.

From the Fortean News Desk

Maybe not so much Fortean as much as the "Possible Con Artist, Tax Dodger or Guy Who Owes the Mob a Bunch of Money Desk" but no matter. The point is, there's a man in jail in Utah who doesn't really exist. Which is to say, he has no traditional identification, won't identify himself, and no one else has come forward to claim him.

Read all about it.

From the Fortean News Desk: In the Dead of Night

Sometime before midnight on Dec 31, 2010, thousands of dead blackbirds fell from the sky above Beebe, Arkansas. As of Jan 3, 2011 workers were still collecting bodies to send for testing. Though preliminary tests show no signs of poisoning, and it appears the birds suffered some sort of physical trauma, it's easy to let the mind wander into conspiracy territory.

Especially because early in the week, some 125 miles north of the site of the blackbird deaths, thousands of dead drum fish washed ashore for a 20-mile stretch along the banks of the Arkansas River. Surely Charles Fort would have loved these news stories.

These people probably have a theory too.

Death and the Mouse -- Finale & Epilogue

Yes, we're late in sharing the nearly cliched conclusion of the ongoing saga of the first murder and first suicide in Celebration, FL.

On Dec 6, police arrested a homeless man and charged him with first-degree murder. The suspect knew the victim. In the realm of criminology, the mechanics of this crime are mundane.

More compelling about the sudden pall cast over this Disney-built town designed to emulate an Eisenhower-era idyll is the likely cause: money.

The Great Ghost Dots Crisis of 2010

Fact: Ghost Dots are delicious.

In 2007 the Tootsie Roll company debuted this Halloween-themed version of their gumdrop candy, Dots, to much acclaim. Well, the staff at The Typing Monkey offices really enjoys them. The packaging [see below] promises G-rated candy fun.

The individual Ghost Dots do not have smiley faces or arms, nor do they glow in the dark. But they do retain an air of mystery by being all the same color despite boasting different flavors, all in the original Dots taste array of green, yellow, orange, light red, dark red.

Each year since the debut of Ghost Dots, we've sent our intern out to buy a couple bags. This year's sucker, Maire, came back empty handed. After scouring the greater metropolitain area, the sad truth is that this year, you can buy only the movie-theater style boxes of Ghost Dots. This also applies to the recently introduced Bat Dots (blood orange flavored) and Candy Corn Dots (the handsome scarecrow mascot makes up for the fact that they're candy corn flavored).

That's right. Try as you might dear reader, you won't find a bag of "fun-size" Ghost Dots this year to gorge on hand out to trick-or-treaters. We realize the crass nature of our plight, but our grief persists.

Please contact your local candy representatives and lodge a stern but well-worded complaint, and tell 'em The Typing Monkey sent you.

Heart of (Chocolate) Darkness

In the not-too-distant future, chocolate will be currency. Don't believe us? Then why is this man buying -- and storing -- 15% of the world's cocoa?

Stock up on the good stuff.

Whoa! No-Show for Poe

For the past 60 years, a mysterious visitor has left flowers and cognac at the Baltimore grave of Edgar Allen Poe to acknowledge the writer's birthday.

Not this year.

Blue Moon on Dec 31, 2009

While humanity toasts to another year gone and a new year about to arrive, the Earth's moon will be full for the second time in December. Per popular parlance, that's a blue moon. And it can mean any number of things either good or bad depending on which folklore you believe.

Please make a note of it.

Frazetta Family Squabbles Over Papa Frank's Artwork

Legendary illustrator Frank Frazetta -- best known for his fantasy/sci-fi/action paintings and comic book art of Conan the Barbarian and similar fare -- may or may not have given his eldest son, Frank Jr., permission to secure dozens of original paintings from the Frazetta Museum adjacent to Frazetta's home in rural Massachusetts.

And by "secure" we mean steal with a backhoe.

The Beat, a comics blog from Publisher's Weekly, has all the details and bizarre updates.

As a more immediately digestible but no less sad footnote: This all comes less than six months after the death of Frank's wife Ellie, by all accounts a kind woman who inspired and urged her husband on to greater success. Perhaps it's best she's not around to see her family behaving so poorly.

A Friendly Reminder

Just in case you missed the announcement, October is National Donut Month. Please do your part. Do not ignore your civic duty.