Van Buren? (Foto, Coz)

Foto: Leggero e Lieto--Tarquinia, Tomba del Triclinio, Danzatore (Micky Friedmann?)

Dear Coz,
° You know exactly how free of superstition I am.
° And you know exactly how many U. S. Presidents there have been. No, I don‘t either, but enough to stretch from then till now, with plenty of spares.
° And you know that every village in America that has a townsquare has a Washington, a Jefferson, and a Madison Street. In the North they might could have Lincoln Streets, dunno.
° And you well know that some Presidents are so obscure, a town had to be growing mighty fast, mighty early to need their names.
° So imagine my surprise when I discovered that during the exact same week our beloved Piers and our belovable Leggero both moved onto the exact same obscurePresident street. One in Hephaistionton (the one in Parthenia), the other in Overton.
° It was a sign.

§§§§§

° Only, I already had come to the exact same conclusion, the sign was a month late.

° Ever on my divining toes, your Cousin Giac.

Food for Sex (Foto, Lad)

Foto: Sacrum Convivium--Le Catacombe di Santa Priscilla, Fractio Panis

Dear Lad,
° Little Whip has developed into a true gentlecat. This morning a yelloweyed jetblack with tiny white medallion on the inner throat joined him for a meal on the porch. Not a hiss, not a fiss.
° Afterwards Whip raped her (for she was neither crooning nor presenting, that is, was not in heat) repeatedly, intermittently, persistently all the blessed day long. From the East, from the West, from the South, and finally from the North, he never relaxed his jaws’ grip on the back of her throat.
° All in vain, little Whip’s kama sutrics. For his girlfriend is so immature and tiny that bend as he would, he couldn’t achieve vital contact and still keep her in his bite.
° Intelligent Design.

§§§§§

° If Thomas Aquinas had ever once looked up from his dusty books, he’d’ve imposed less John Roberts style Natural Law sexual silliness on Judaeochristianislamism than he did.

° Ever versatile, Giac.

King of Hearts (Foto, Coz)

Foto: Body Language--Basilica San Sebastiano, dettaglio
Caro Cugino Gitano,
° Leggero and I have flirted with the appearance of disagreement.
° He has entirely abandoned human language, that is, as a device that could possibly convey the truth. Instead he focuses on body language: eye contact, armcrossing, hairstroking, angle of body presentation, and the like.
° While I, as you know, have abandoned both words and actions in favour of coffee grounds. (I speak generically. Recently I felt adrift, too much gardening in 99° prehurricane weather I shouldn’t wonder; so I consulted the tarocchi: L’innamorato nel presente, La Temperanza nell’avvenire, La Ruota della Fortuna come consiglio. Res ipsa loquitur.)

§

° Have you seen the early Hitchcock silent The Ring? God bless Megalomane's dvddrive, I have.
° A gitana, in a reallife vardo, peeps out the window--just as I would--and sees Mabel accepting an armbangle and the longest deepest precode kiss you ever did see from a man who is not the man she is fixing to marry.
° Later Mabel, joined by the man she is fixing to marry, asks the Gipsy to tell her fortune: a few petty cards topped by the King of Diamonds and the King of Hearts.
° “O, that must mean you’ll win the boxing match and we’ll be married,” she gurgles to her fiancé.
° The gitana gazes at the cards, she gazes at Mabel’s hand hiding the bangle on her right upper arm from the sight of her affidanzato, she recollects the kiss--
° --and she shuts her mouth behind a sardonic smile.
° God bless the old gipsywoman.

° Walking like a bangled Egyptian, Giac.

It's Not the Size, It's How-- (Foto, Lad)

Foto: Devil Down Below--Basilica San Sebastiano, dettaglio

Dear Lad,
° Yes, big old pusslegutted Katrina snapped two trees that had been half demolished in a windstorm the Summer before. She littered the gardens with so much deadwood, there weren’t enough marshmallows and weenies at BiLo to roast thereon. And she squawled like a banshee.
° But that skiiiiitcchh! and thudddd! a few minutes ago?
° It was delicate little Rita, dislodging a 30pound chimney pot, which sledded down the roof, skipped the gutter, and landed a full 14feet from the house.
° Which was a good thing, ‘cause the kitchen roof mightn’t’ve held.

§§§§§

° How many more weeks does hurricane season last?

° Noted for my gentle touch, Giac.

Pin a Medal on the Privates (Foto, Lad)

Foto: Avenging Angel--Basilica San Sebastiano, dettaglio

Dear Lad,

° (So sluggish is our country's legal system, that this post is once again current.)
° I heard on public radio this weekend that Torturegate has pushed even rising gas and ice cream prices out of the minds of the American public.

° For “Torture” makes an arresting headline.
° Yet I thought of the first evidentiary foto I saw, of Private Madonna Sikkem teaching a blackfurred male Iraqi to heel, leash firmly around his neck. (For didn’t we all grow up on that video, of a nude Madonna lapping milk from a saucer?) And my first thought on seeing that foto was, naturally, “That’s what’s come of Clinton’s Don’tAskDon’tTell weaselling, our poor boys and girls in khaki aren’t allowed to watch Queer Eye.” For surely Private Sikkem would’ve known then to wax every last inch of that male’s furry back, tweeze his eyebrows, and peroxide peroxide peroxide. The tan was okay as was.
° But since it was the weekend, religious thoughts entered my head. And I had to say, as I did say to a couple of very large females at Corner Coffee, “Court martial!? They oughta pin the Medal of Honour on that dame. After all, for three thousand years JudaeoChristianIslamists have been stripping women of every last natural right and kennelling them as faithful, serviceable shedogs. So Private Madonna Sikkem’s just engaged the Golden Rule, email the Pope, proclaim her Beata!”
° The two very large females chortled.
° And I got back up off my all fours.

° Seldom the underdog, Giac.

P.S. Situational ethics, Liberation theology--such quaint concepts. And yet it's glorious to slaughter civilians, for the greater good, and inglorious to give an institutionally Established abuser a dose of his own medicine. Such times as we do live in . . . .