All Saints' Day

The dawn of All Saints' Day finds me on the tail end of one of my trademark yerba mate fueled all nighters. What better way to celebrate this solemn Catholic feast day than to post a video of some great pagan music by Scandinavian heathen supergroup Hedningarna? Here is Hedningarna performing "thunder raising spell" Ukkonen and, a personal favorite, the "seduction spell" Pornopolka (you read that right):





C'mon, everybody sing along: Raastan rauhan rinnastansa Jag skall riva frid ur bringan.

Sleepy Hollow Idyll

I decided I needed a small break from being really, really pissed off. This being the eve of the Feast of All Hallows (and the Headless Horseman being featured in a Yahoo homepage flash animation), I have decided to give a shout out to everyone's favorite headless Hessian. The Headless Horseman serves as a genius loci of Sleepy Hollow- there is a restaurant named after him, and the local athletic teams are named the Horsemen.

Sleepy Hollow, NY lies about thirteen (cue scary music) miles north of my home in the City of Y______. Formerly North Tarrytown, the town's population voted to change the name of the town in 1996 to honor Washington Washington Irving's beloved tale, which is set in the vicinity of the Pocantico River (and to try to start a tourism-based economy after the manufacturing base of the local economy* disappeared). In 1999, the Tim Burton movie loosely based on Irving's tale hit the theaters, giving the newly-named village a cult status that was unanticipated.

Sleepy Hollow is also the site of Philipsburg Manor, an 18th century provisioning plantation/milling complex (the Pocantico river has been dammed to run the manor's gristmill since the 1700s, the current mill is a reproduction) which is now a historic site worked by farmer-historians in period clothes who relate the history of slavery, commerce, and agriculture in the pre-revolutionary period. Class trips to the manor have been a rite of passage for schoolchildren in the NY metro area for decades. The Pillipse family had the Old Dutch Church built as a place of worship approximately 325 years ago.

In 2006, a statue of the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane was erected on Route 9, the same Broadway which stretches from Lower Manhattan to the Canadian border, south of the Pocantico River:





While not a Disney fan (I abhor the lobbying they have done to change intellectual property laws- especially in light of the fact that they made their bones employing characters in the public domain), I have to confess that I enjoy the Disney cartoon narrated by Bing Crosby. The cartoon, which miraculously can be found on Youtube, has more of a sassy "Tex Avery" style vibe to it:





I have never seen the 1999 movie, but I consider myself a purist. I look at Ichabod Crane as the template on which the character of Shaggy from Scooby Doo is based. Ichabod, like Shaggy, is ruled by his appetites, and loves Katrina Van Tassel for the richness of her father's dinner table as much as for her zaftig good looks:


The pedagogue’s mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.


Ichabod Crane is also credulous, like Shaggy, but lacks the support of a brainy girl, a clever jock, a fortuitously clumsy red-headed charmer, and a talking dog, and can't figure out that the spectre which leads to his downfall just might not be real. Alas, he also lacks a groovy, tricked-out van to carry him to the safe haven which lay south of the Pocantico.

Sorry about the paucity of links in the latter paragraphs of the post- it's getting late, and I've had a long day. That being said, curl up with Washington Irving's original, and have a happy Halloween.


*There was a General Motors plant in North Tarrytown. "The water turned greenish brown, except by the GM plant, where it turned red or yellow or whatever color that they were painting the cars that day."

First Amendment for Me, not Thee

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances unless, of course, the people are dirty, 'Murka hating liberals or swarthy, menacing Musselmen.

Tea Tea Macoutes

While certainly not the first to characterize Rand Paul as Baby Doc, I haven't found any characterizations of his thuggish supporters as Tea Tea Macoutes. Suggested slogan for the Tea Tea Macoutes:

Rand Paul Devolution
Stomping girls is our solution.

I wish I had some flying monkeys to give this some traction. I can haz meem?

Republican Guard

In two recent events, we have seen violent assaults by GOP candidates' personal goon squads. I can't recall any previous instances in which American political candidates have surrounded themselves with violent retainers. The reporter kidnaping, woman stomping thugs that these candidates surround themselves with are exactly like the late Saddamn Hussein's Republican Guard minus the fashion sense. Meanwhile, elements of the right wing chattering class (I refuse to link directly to their sites- no need to drive traffic their way) defend the indefensible actions of these thugs. Yes, Orwell's future has come to these United States.

As a karate expert someone who enjoys the physical act of fighting, there's only one thing I despise more than an attack by a strong individual on a weak one, and that's an attack on a helpless individual, such as the attack on Ms. Valle by woman-beater Tim Profitt while she was being held down by tackle and grope attacker Mike Pezzano. To compound matters, the despicable Profitt is demanding an apology from his victim.

Let's hope that the candidates who surround themselves will go down in a hail of ballots next week. Enthusiasm gap, my ass!

Should they win, let's hope that the Democrats in Congress introduce an "anti-stomping of helpless women" bill just to make the fuckers squirm.

Oh, and I'll just add that, while I would love to see Profitt and Pezzano convicted of felony assault charges, I abhor any suggestion that they fall victim to violence or sexual assault. The notion that anyone would wish that the penal system serve as "secular hell" turns my stomach. I would, however, see permanent disenfranchisement and lifetime separation from their precious guns as fitting punishments for these shitbags.

Update: The absolute glee on the part of these goddamn sociopaths is truly mind-boggling. How the hell could any sane human being think like they do? Really, what the fuck is wrong with them?

Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Living a Lie?

I've been making limoncello for years- for a change of pace, I decided to change my game a bit, and make an experimental batch of multi-citrus infused liqueur, a Fivealivello, if you will. Not willing to commit to a large batch if things didn't work out, I only used one bottle of grain alcohol to infuse a mixture of orange, lemon, and lime peels. Wow! The final product has a bit more of a bitter hint in it, and a lovely fragrance of limes... I may be onto something here. I certainly won't stop making limoncello (the old standby), but this new blend is something else entirely... my eyes have been opened to a new reality- a boozy, citrific reality.

Wanted to Post on the Night of the Full Moon

This time of year, I get my ass kicked by work (living at night isn't helping my complection). The ass-kicking is coming in two varieties- there are the yerba mate fueled all nighters and the eleven-hour (ten spent on my feet, running around) event logistics gigs... two different flavors of "bastard's getting his butt kicked", served up on a regular basis. I wanted to post something on Friday night/Saturday morning, but I was wiped out. When I finally had time to sit down, I spent my time lamenting the disappearance of record stores with one of my awesome co-workers (we also joked about how Nessun Dorma describes our schedules these days), and didn't have time to write.

Yesterday (the word hardly has a meaning for me anymore), I started work at 3PM, and am working straight through to 6AM- this has been a stretch combining the two different types of ass-kickery I am undergoing. Event bleeds into overnight, sore feet are traded in for tired eyes.

Anyway, I did experience an idyllic moment the night of the full moon- I had to kill a couple of floodlight arrays in a parking area, and found myself in a barren parking field, rendered an eldritch otherworld by the luminescent altar of the lupine lords, and I figured that I needed to post a Halloween/full moon themed music video, a charming ditty by the drouthy antipodes' Screaming Tribesmen:





I played the hell out of the Vampyre EP when I was a beardless boy- this is another one to crank up to full volume.