'Listen to Slayer'

From the Sunday Folly Herald

Sunday, 3 May 19—

Slayer advice

A man claims that he was visited by his recently deceased relative. Stunt Double’s favourite aunt, Griselda Phlox, died peacefully in her sleep a couple of weeks ago. 

Mr. Double, a former acrobat who is now working as a flying doctor for ‘Flying Doctors Emergencies’ in the Random Plains area, District B, says that Mrs. Phlox visited him in his bedroom on the night of 28 April to reassure him that she was ‘just peachy’. She appeared out of the blue, just as Mr. Double was getting ready for bed, and looked especially euphoric. 

Mr. Double says that he was not particularly scared by this nocturnal visit, only surprised. However, he was rather puzzled by his aunt’s parting words: ‘Stunt, listen to Slayer’. Mr. Double is unable to account for this eccentric piece of advice.

A Christmas Folly

I am keeping this post short and sweet. First of all, Merry Christmas to all that visit this blog, regularly or irregularly, with many thanks for your patronage as well as sincerest wishes for the coming New Year from everyone in Folly Ground. Let’s hope that 2021 brings some relief and optimism back after what has been a pretty abominable year all round.

Secondly, I hope some of you have managed to get a glimpse of the once-in-a-lifetime astronomical treat that is the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the skies above. It has apparently been visible since last Saturday the 19th, and will be continue to be until Wednesday the 23rd, weather permitting. The planets are at their closest approach to each other tonight as I write these lines. If not, try to catch a live stream of the event online; there seem to be plenty of those on YouTube at the moment.

Finally, this post, just as the last one, comes with a bit of music: The Sundays’ terrific ‘Here’s where the story ends’. Perhaps not the most relevant or Christmasy track for this post, but some of the lyrics sure do resonate with our collective present circumstances.

So, Merry Christmas wherever you are and however you may be!

Delaying tactics

Procrastination: the invisible and soul-destroying force that prevents Paul on doing what he’s supposed to do, namely his school work. He knows he has left everything too late, spent too much time doing other, more pleasurable things*, and now it’s all catching up with him; the sudden realisation that he has much ground to cover, and the very real possibility that he may fail to do everything he needs to on time. Consequently, he now feels as if he’s the only person in the entire universe suffering from this shameful affliction.

I tried to find pertinent songs about procrastination to go with this post, but surprisingly it appears that this ubiquitous condition is not a subject much expounded on by musicians, at least not in my record collection. In the end, I chose the Dream Syndicate’s ‘Tell me when it’s over’ as the chorus of the song could plausibly describe the way Paul feels at this moment in time.

* See ‘Phantom flight’, ‘A gallery of phantoms’ and ‘Epistolary’ posts below.

Sleepless

Alas, Luci’s laborious and occasionally desperate efforts to get a good night’s sleep continue. A gently humorous take on a decidedly unhumorous subject, as anyone who has gone through something like Luci’s predicament will attest to.