Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 116

Our 2nd MARDI GRAS Turns 60!

Who doesn't love pirates?


Ah, actually those who truly ran into them on the open seas that's who!

But as our fascination with Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow proves,

most of us are fascinated by the folklore of pirates.

Which is why our city's pirate festival, Contraband Days, has reached its 60th birthday.

And contrary to the Pirate Code, the parking and gate entry are FREE!


Contraband Days starts today and goes on until May 14th.

The festival springs from the legend of Jean Lafitte, who saved New Orleans with Andrew Jackson.

Yes, the war with the British was over by that battle

but the internet and Twitter were down that month so no one knew.

And with the capture of New Orleans,

the British would have had a toe-hold in America that they would not have relinguished ...

Thus halting our Western expansion, altering the history of our country dramatically.




Jean Lafitte was the catalyst for the criminal term Fencing Stolen Goods ...

as smugglers, of which he was the chief, would sell their plundered items through the fence circling St. Louis Cathedral.

Sometimes the Contraband Jean Lafitte sold in Contraband Bayou were things like jewels, spices, silks, and gold.

Other times, the treasure was slaves.


Which is why many in Lake Charles are uneasy about our festival.

But hey, he wasn't just a slave trader, right?


Ah, not so much towards the end.

Blame Congress, my friends.


Congress passed the Act of 1818, which forbade importing new slaves into the country,

which is what ultimately led to Jean Lafitte becoming a full time slave trader.

The new law had a handy loophole for Lafitte

that gave him permission to capture any slave ship on the open sea.

The slaves were then to be turned over to the customs office and sold,

with half the profits going to the people who turned them in.


So that’s what Lafitte did.


He captured slave ships, then turned them in for a profit. But he didn’t stop there.

After turning them in, he’d work with different smugglers – including Jim Bowie –

who’d buy the slaves at a discounted price, which suddenly made the illegally imported slaves legal to be sold across the South,

which is what Lafitte and his smugglers did.

They captured slave ships, turned them in, then bought them cheap (giving themselves half the profit, because of the law),

then they’d turn around and sell them again. Legally. It was a double-dipping scheme that was as lucrative as it was terrible.





https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JOUJ60


I go into this a bit more in my time-traveling fantasy, THE RIVAL, whose events take place mostly in 1834 New Orleans.




Contraband Days is great fun ...

unless you know that your great, great-grandmother was sold like an animal

in Contraband Bayou by the legendary Jean Lafitte.

The fireworks fall a little flat with that knowledge.

Perhaps if it were called Pirate Days ...

Calling it Contraband Days

seems to imply it is still thought all right that human beings were once treated as contraband,  things to be bought.
  
But the children love the parades, floats, and fireworks.  And I try to focus on their happiness.

Happiness is a scarce commodity for so many ... it seems Scrooge-like to deny weary souls a little pleasure, right?

To know the truth beneath the surface is sometimes to weep.

IWSG post & A TO Z REFLECTIONS_Goodbye

“Remember me and smile, 
for it is better to forget
 than to remember me and cry.”
 - Dr. Seuss





THE THRILL IS GONE

 At Least For The A To Z Challenge 

1.) THE LOSS OF THE LINKY SET-UP
In past years, I used to browse down the linky list 
and pick a name with which I was unfamiliar and visit a potential new friend.
All the Social Media hoop-jumping proved burdensome what with my blood courier schedule.

2.) CLINGING TO HOW IT WAS BUT IS NO LONGER
All the new cyber-friends I made in 2016's Challenge opted to stay out this year.
Many of my old cyber-friends left, too.
I wanted things to be as warm as I remembered with past Challenges. 
But clinging to memory does not make things better only cheapens the remembered good times.
It self-blinds and prevents you from experiencing the world in a real way.

3.) LIFE IS A HARSH MISTRESS
Like Hart Johnson, I simply did not have the available time to visit my fellow challengers. 
 It was not fair to them. And so I received fewer visits.

4.) IT HAS STOPPED BEING FUN
All the changes, all the absent friends (both old and new) took the zing out of the Challenge for me this year.
Perhaps I am supposed to be somewhere else next year. 
 Even more importantly, perhaps someone else is needed in my spot next year. 

"When I am alone,  I sit and dream
And when I dream,  the words are missing."  - Sarah Brightman
DID YOU PARTICIPATE THIS YEAR?
IF SO, DID YOU ENJOY IT  AS MUCH AS LAST YEAR?
WILL YOU PARTICIPATE NEXT YEAR?

EVEN LOST HEROES NEED LOVE

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939844363/
Lauren Scharhag has written a wonderful review of this anthology on her blog:http://laurenscharhag.blogspot.com/2017/05/hero-lost-mysteries-of-death-and-life.html

She even liked my short story in the volume for which I am truly grateful.

"But, hands-down, the standout for me was 'Sometimes They Come Back,' 

(not to be confused with the Stephen King story/film, and not a reference to it either—at least, not as far as I can tell).

 It’s the tale of an Einherjar  

(soldiers out of Norse mythology) 

who now goes by the name of Caretaker, 

servant to a mysterious Grande Dame in a shadowy underworld that exists uncomfortably close to our own plane of existence. 

Other gods and mythological creatures make appearances, but his closest companion is a humble mouse that rides around in his pocket. 

This story was brilliantly written, and by turns fascinating, funny, and disturbing. 

I was a bit disappointed that it turned into a run-of-the-mill love story—

I could spend a whole book just hanging out with the Caretaker while he tends to his dark duties.

  Don't look for my picture on the book's Amazon page 
(it is a good thing what with my mug!)
But those spotlighted are the true stars of this volume:
Erika Beebe ... Yvonne Ventresca ... Renee Cheung ... Ellen Jacobson ... Tyrean Martinson.
I tip my Stetson to them and to my other illustrious anthologists:Jen Chandler, Elizabeth Seckman, L. Nehay, Olga Godim, Sarah Foster, and Sean McLachlan! 
Want an idea of what our stories may be like?

Melissa Bradley_To Celebrate A Life Well Lived

"The World is always darker  when a light dies  than if it had never existed at all."  - Samuel McCord

Ernest Hemingway once wrote:

 “Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, 

and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

 Every man's life ends the same way. 

It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” 


In that respect, I have no doubt that Hemingway would say Melissa Bradley lived a very distinguished life.

Life is no story.  

It bleeds too much for comfort at times.  

Yet, each life well lived contains beauty and hope -- as did Melissa's.

She brightened each meeting with her.  

And with her resolved, brave determination in fighting cancer, she gave inspiration to us all. 

She hurt and admitted it.  

She fell victim to depression. 

 But each time she fell, she rose to struggle on, never giving up, never losing her wit, her humor.

She is, to me, a light that will never burn out.

Melissa, I will miss you.
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/qu..., all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/qu...

Z is for ZERO

“What is a zero anyway?
 A zero signifies nothing,  all it does is tell you nothing about nothing. 
Still, isn't zero also something meaningful,  a number in and of itself? 
In jianpu notation,  zero indicates a caesura,  a pause or rest of indeterminate length.
 Does time that goes uncounted, unrecorded, still qualify as time? 
If zero is both everything and nothing,  Does an empty life have exactly  the same weight   as a full life? 
Is zero like the desert,  both finite and infinite?” - Madeleine Thien

Why Do We Make A Nothing Of Zero?

The Importance of Being Zero

Zero is an odd beast.
 Without it, we would not have the binary code that makes our computer age possible.
Yet, it took until the 7th century for it to be recognized as a number in its own right, 
when the ancient Indians developed a numerical system that expressed zero with its own symbol. 

Since the development of this number system, which we still use today, 
zero has been instrumental in our exploration of mathematics.   
 The invention of zero represents an extremely important step 
in humankind's intellectual evolution ...
For if Nothing can come to mean Something so important,
Does that not imply that while we might feel worthless, 
we might essentially be Something beyond value if we but look at ourselves in the right light?
What Do You Think?

Y is for YouTube

“The world is your bookmark.” - Joel Books

Do You YouTube?

Oh, come on.  You didn't think I would talk about myself again (Yeomans), did you?
When Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawad Karim founded YouTube in 2005 
there’s no way they could have predicted that they would change the world as we know it in 12 short years.
 YouTube has revolutionized everything from entertainment to education, 
opened new doors for talented individuals looking to be discovered, 
and brought people together from all over the globe. 

1.) IT IS A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
 YouTube allows us to learn about places and cultures around the world from the actual people who live there.
From the last Shangri La, Bhutan
to the prettiest tour guide in Iceland
you can travel the globe in minutes.

2.)  YouTube IS TO BLAME FOR JUSTIN BIEBER!
 When Justin’s mom uploaded some videos of her son singing to YouTube 
to share with family and close friends she had no idea 
that it would lead to him singing before Obama.


3.) THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
 Take the story of Neda Agha-Soltan, 
 who was killed in protests over the Iranian election of 2009. 
The world had no idea what was going on in Iran 
until a video of Neda being killed was uploaded to YouTube. 
 It spread like wildfire and soon the entire world jumped into action, 
doing what they could to stop the troubles in Iran and show their support.


4.) HOURS OF FREE ENTERTAINMENT

You can spend hours watching movies, reviews of movies and TV shows, 
clips from Ellen DeGeneras to snippets of Game of Thrones to Supergirl. 


5.) CYBER HANDYMAN
Need to find out how to change that ink cartridge or link up a sound bar to your Smart TV?
YouTube has dozens of tutorials to show you how. 
HOW HAS YOUTUBE CHANGED  YOUR WORLD?
Do you watch YouTube daily?   Weekly?   Or not at all? 

X is for X-RAY

“Though the doctors treated him,  let his blood,  and gave him medications to drink,  he nevertheless recovered.” - Leo Tolstoy
Do You Trust Doctors?
Did you know that surgeons in the fifties looked at their hands under X-Rays while they operated?
 Yeah.  It worked out just like you think.

 Then, there is Dr. Alice M. Stewart --
 an epidemiologist who first demonstrated the link between X-rays of pregnant women 
and disease in their children in 1956. 
Never heard of her?  Not surprising.  
The medical establishment did all they could to crush her.
 Her finding that there was danger in receiving even such a low dose of radiation 
was met with outrage by doctors and the nuclear industry,
 and Dr. Stewart had difficulties obtaining financing for other studies. 
But by the mid-1970's, other scientists (male) 
had duplicated her findings on prenatal X-rays, and the practice ended.
Want to read more of this heroic woman?  
Read ''The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation''
by Dr. Dr. Gayle Greene of Scripps College in Claremont, California.
Do You Trust The Medical Profession?

W is for World Book Day

"A book is a dream you hold in your hands."  - Neil Gaiman



Do You Know What  World Book Day is?
Neil Gaiman wrote this book for World Book Day.

It is celebrated every April 23rd.

(It was started in Caledonia in 1923 to celebrate Miguel de Cervantes who died on that date.)

He and other authors wrote books for this day for nothing and publishers printed them for nothing.

They were sold for one pound each to children who had been given one pound tokens.

The whole thing exists purely to get children to read.

What a great concept, right?

Odd and the Frost Giants is one of my favorite Neil Gaiman books.

Have You Read It?
What Do You Think About World Book Day?
 

V is for VINYL

"It was so exciting to go to the record shop, buy a piece of vinyl  and hold it, read the liner notes, look at the pictures. Even the smell of the vinyl.” Martin Gore(founding member of Depeche Mode and writer of the majority of their songs)

What Does The Comeback
of Vinyl Records
Tell Us About Ourselves?

Vinyl records are said to be an old and obsolete way of listening to music.  
But no one told the millenials who have bought more than 13 million vinyl records last year!
Vinyl records have a rawer sound than the digitized "perfect music" of CD's or digital downloads.
The grooves of the disc contain all the sounds recorded ...
 and the dust and scratches give the popping sound that somehow stirs us with evocative images of bygone times.
The comeback of vinyl is rooted in its distinctive lack of audio cleanness and perfection—
what fans call the “warmth” of the vinyl sound.
Life isn't perfect.  Life has flaws.  A perfect CD lacks the very life it seeks to exude. 
What does that say about us?
Perhaps, it says we yearn for the authentic, the pulsing pop and snap of real life in our entertainment.
What do you think?
Does this parlay to modern movies which seem so full of CGI  that they lack any pulse at all?
       

U is for Ulysses

"We define our identity always by our success against that which oppresses us." - Ulysses
"One must be cunning indeed to survive  the wicked of this world."  - Sherlock Holmes
 "A society which most values intelligence  will create men of knowledge.  A society which most values money  will create scoundrels."  - Mark Twain

Does Today's Culture Value Fame More Than Brain?
When reading as a child, 

I was drawn not to Hercules but to Ulysses, 

not to Robin Hood but to Sherlock Holmes,

not to Gunda Din but to Kim,

not to Superman but to Batman.




You see, I could not be born on Krypton, 

but I could mold my mind and body to think my way out of troubles. 


So I guess it is no surprise that with my Urban Fantasies

I created a modern Ulysses/Kim 

to outwit and tweak the noses of those who prowled the shadows of the French Quarter. 


Did Your Favorite Kind of Hero/Heroine In Your Childhood
Shape The Sort of Protagonist of whom You Write?
*
What Do You Think Your Childhood Heroes Said Of You?