click Wurlitzer to enlarge
please mister please
don't play B-17
it was our song it was his song
now he's go-o-o-one
I heard from an old pal today. A wonderful old pal. The note made my spirit warm, like the sun warms your skin on the first hot day after months of nothing but shivering cold or worse.
I can't remember if I'd planned to have a bad or mediocre day, but since I've read his short note, I've had no choice, I've been condemned to a day of gentle smiling and happiness. Maybe a week, maybe more. I'll let you know when it wears off.
And of course the short note irradiated only Good & Positive & Pleasant radiation. It didn't say "Where's the goddam $90 you owe me?" Nor did it say "Enclosed find the $90 you graciously loaned me in 2008, plus accrued interest."
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare ...
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
This was Just pure Good & Positive & Pleasant radiation. Pure nice & happy. Essence of Smile.
sapphire bullets of pure love
Since I began, at first by purest accident, collecting clues about and glimpses of this human, it's not just his Certified (by Vleeptron Dude) Swell Vibes that warm my spirit.
Well, the Purest Accident was that I clicked on his Invention. And I was, from that instant, gobsmacked, I just plotzed and have been plotzing ever since at this Invention. And my old pal invented it.
So he's not just a guy I'd like to go bowling or canoeing with this weekend -- although that kind of thing is Not Chopped Liver, it is Inherently & Sufficiently Swell.
You don't need to sing like Bledsoe
You can tell the world I said so
No sirree just simply be
My mother's son-in law ...
-- Alberta Nichols, Mann Holiner
cover by Billie Holiday
But wow, what an Invention.
"Gee, Dad -- it's a Wurlitzer!"
Not like the Large Hadron Collider, said to be the world's largest machine. My pal's invention was relatively simple. And small, light and extremely portable.
And CHEAP!
Technically, theoretically -- creating and assembling it -- I could have done it, I've wallowed sufficiently in that Shop Class. I could have fixed my pal's Amazing Carburetor. I could have got his Amazing Heathkit TG-4 Solid-State Audio Tone Generator working to factory specs again. I got the tools and the know-how.
But I didn't. My pal did. My pal thunk up the Wish, the Human Need for the thing in the first place. Heretofore hardly anybody even asked for this thing out loud. There were whispers, hints, gossip. But they were vague, fuzzy. Nothing that could do anything anybody wanted or enjoyed.
But he solidified it into a Big Damn Clear Specific Meme, and then he made it. And started distributing it to the rest of the human race (who very quickly realized they wanted it, and told their pals, who told their pals, who told their pals). Or Aliens or Non-Humans or AI, for all I know. I know a lot of Robots use the Invention, Robots are just hog-wild over my pal's invention.
But I got one. And it's been nothing but ... well, okay, once in a Blue Moon it breaks down in some way and I'm frustrated and irate and pissed off for a day or three until I figure out how to get it running again.
But the rest of the time (okay, hundreds, eeek maybe thousands of hours -- and it's NOT some dumb computer game. I am NOT DukeSwaaazhg) what this invention does is ALL REAL GOOD.
I'm not going to tell you what it is. But you can guess if you want. I'll tell you if you're right.
Or maybe I'll lie. No Pizza.
Okay, 1 Hint: My old pal's name and invention have appeared on Vleeptron before.
{End Hint}
Included in my hints & glimpses are clear evidence that he is a Human Earth Dweller, and has to endure the same sorts of Crappy Slings & Arrows of Outrageous Fortune that Earth Life is wont to generously distribute, and try to duck them as best he can. But he has budgeted his Life Time (my teachers ceaselessly told me that Budgeting My Time would be the Magic Key to Limitless Success) so that he can manage to barely duck the world's worst crap, AND cobble together AND distribute his Amazing Invention.
Neat trick.
I'm not sure I possess those horoscopic planetary allignments and personality traits. I can do some Certified (by Vleeptron Dude) Neat Tricks, but pal's Thing was a Rocko-Socko Erupting Hot Volcano of a Meme.
A few posts ago Vleeptron Dude admitted to rare but occasional bouts of the Accidie -- during which all V-Dude can manage to do is drool and pee. And fart, if all I can manage to eat is canned/tinned beans.
Find goats farting in the following
(1 slice plain from a fast-food highway chain):
Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu
Awe bleteþ after lomb
lhouþ after calue cu
Bulluc sterteþ
bucke uerteþ
murie sing cuccu
Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccu
ne swik þu nauer nu
Sing cuccu nu • Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu • Sing cuccu nu
2 slices if you can sing the right tune of the farting goats rota.
That's it for now.
Oh, okay, here's more hints about My Pal's Amazing Invention:
it went zip when it moved
and bop when it stopped
and whirrr when it stood still
I never knew just what it was
and I guess I never will
the first time that I picked it up
i had a big surprise
cause right on the bottom were two big buttons
that looked like big green eyes
i first pushed one and then the other
then I twisted its lid
and when I set it down again
here is what it did
it went zip when it moved
and bop when it stopped
and whirrr when it stood still
I never knew just what it was
and I guess I never will
-- The Marvelous Toy
Irish traditional
1 comment:
Cuckoo - Cuculus canorus - Family: Cuculidae
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The cuckoo is a medium sized bird about the size of a pigeon. A summer visitor to England, cuckoos arrive in April and the adults leave as early as the end of July. The young leave later, finding their way back to an Africa they have never seen before. This is, famously, a parasitic bird - the female lays a single egg in the nest of smaller birds such as reed warblers, dunnocks and meadow pipits. When the young cuckoo hatches, it forces the other eggs out of the nest, and is then reared by the hosts. It has declined in abundance since the 1980s, possibly because of similar decreases in the numbers of nest host species such as dunnock and meadow pipit.
Cuckoos are generally a grey colour with the females being slightly browner. The primary feathers on the wings are black as is the tail but with white markings along its length. When the bird is perching the wings are held in a downward position, looking as if they do not fold properly, and the tail is held up, making it look slightly awkward. In flight, their appearance is superficially similar to the kestrel, with sharp, backswept wings and a powerful wing beat. It is only the male who makes the familiar call at the beginning of the breeding season in spring. Occasionally, three notes are heard rather than two. Cuckoos are found in a range of habitats including woodland, marshland, heath and open moorland.
They can often be heard from gardens and occasionally seen passing overhead but you need to be a little fortunate actually to see one in your garden.
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