Notes on a Rainy Day

Get to work sci-fi/speculative fiction writers. Headline from nypost.com: “1,000 birds dead after flying into Chicago building on same night: ‘A shocking outlier’.” And this one: “Creepy spiders are falling from the sky in California in nightmare scenario.” And this from newsmax.com: “Mysterious Drone Swarms Above Nuke Sites Could Be Foreign Rival.”

Shades of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, from NYP: “Major airlines scramble after being duped into using plane parts with phony inspection certificates in $3M scam.” Potentially mass murder. Geez.

Excerpt from a NYP editorial on rising gangland immigrant violence from Middle East and North Africa arrivals: “Now Sweden has ‘so many grenade attacks’ that it’s ‘the only country outside of Mexico’ that tracks them.”

RIP actor Keith Jefferson, 53, who succumbed to cancer. Born in Houston, son of a minister, he was a three-sport star — football, basketball, track — in high school. He received an MFA in acting from the University of Arizona. He performed in regional theater as well as film and TV. There are 20 titles under his name at IMDb, one to be released posthumously. He appeared in major films such as Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). Gone much too soon. Well done, Sir. Photo from Google Images:

Tucked inside the pages of a novel someone donated to the floating book shop, on a piece of paper two by three inches, both sides, faded ink, was this note dated 2–23–81: “I am so happy spending my time with you. You’re company and existence mean a great deal to me. Believe me when I say…without you I would not be as happy and as gay as I am. Have a good day. I’ll talk to you later. Love x x x x x x SM” I wonder if the relationship endured, if either is still alive. Remember when one did not have to feel self-conscious about using the word “gay” to indicate joy? I feel blessed to have come across the message.

I came across the word “antediluvian” today, which I encountered back ib the day the first time I heard Donovan’s Atlantis. I realized I had no idea what it refers to, so I looked it up: “before the flood,” as in Noah. Sing it: “…Way down below the ocean/Where I wanna be, she may be…”

Rain put the kibosh on curbside sales today.

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