Cranky Large Medium reading, 31 January

Go away.

Aren't you gone, yet? Why the heck not? Don't you have any respect for a working medium's privacy? Or is it that you don't understand plain English? Oh, you're waiting for something... a reading. Well, why didn't you say so earlier? I could have had you done and gone before any of this conflict arose. So. Allow me. Here you are:

You dream big, but lack the ability to follow through. As your mother told you years ago, you could be somebody, a contender, if you ever got off your lard-bottom and quit being a nobody, which is what you are. Fancy yourself an artist, because you have the temperament. It doesn't work that way. Art, like anything, requires effort for you to find success in it, so you'll probably kiss that goodbye. You are fond of children. Don't let the authorities catch you at it, though.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Too bad you have to be "artistic". At least you have things better than these people, all of whom on this date in history, gave this life its final brush-off: Emperor Sukō, Xuande, Charles Edward Stuart, Joost Bürgi, John Cheyne, Edwin Howard Armstrong, Claudio Aquaviva, Johannes Clauberg, John Bosco, Charles Spurgeon, John Mott, Jean Mairet, John Galsworthy, A. A. Milne, Gordon R. Dickson, Molly Ivins, Gil Kane, William Randolph "Cozy" Cole, Samuel Goldwyn, George Abbott, Lee Bergere, Moira Shearer, Eddie Tolan, Norm Zauchin, Eleanor Holm, Guy Fawkes, Ambrose Rokewood, Thomas Wintour, Eddie Slovik, Ernesto Miranda,

and James Moore aka Slim Harpo.

My itch I don't want you to scratch.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 30 January

Go away.

Are you gone, yet? Why not? Did you miss the last shoe out of here? Shank's mare you can ride bare. Now, skedaddle. And, yet you stand here. What is it you want? Oh, right, you want that reading everybody always asks for. Well, so much for originality. You get what you ask for. Here you are:

You are capable of exerting a great deal of influence over those with whom you come in contact, you big bully. Cut that stuff out or I'll tell your mother. Spend a little time working on an underused muscle: your mind. You might also learn to express your passionate love, not that it will do you any good, but it makes for a good show for the rest of us.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But never mind. Look on the bright side. Even though your life is depressing, at least it's more than these people have, all of whom, on this date in history, rode out accompanied by a man on a pale green horse: Emperor Takakura, King Charles I, Tsar Peter II, Emperor Kōmei, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger, Orville Wright, Ferdinand Porsche, Ernst Heinkel, John Bardeen, Frank Nelson Doubleday, Sidney Sheldon, Jean Crotti, Henry Roeland Byrd aka Professor Longhair, John McIntire, Huntz Hall, Barbara La Marr, Everard Digby, Betsy Ross, Georges Pire, Ed Herlihy, Coretta Scott King,

Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins

and Francis Poulenc.

You look like someone scared the sonata out of you.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Bye bye Blago

It's unanimous. Rod Blagojevvich is out of a job and barred from ever again holding public office. I would cheer, but the man was a symptom, rather than the problem. Now, to clean up the rest of the state's politics.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 29 January

Go away.

When will you be leaving? It really can not be too soon. Yesterday would be good for me. So, why are you still here, again? Oh, right. You want your reading. Sheesh. No respect for solitude and privacy. Well, here you are, then:

You are naturally ambitious and should be ashamed of yourself for what you do to further those ambitions. Choose one direction and follow it for a career or calling, instead of your usual tendency to grasp at everything in sight. Like every other mortal, you are capable of deep love... just inconsiderate enough to keep passing on the opportunity to make it happen. Too bad. If you'd just been a little less pushy, we could have been an item. Yah, sure, ya betcha.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Inconsiderate nerk. At least you have something to hang on to, to be happy for, unlike these people, who, on this date in history, surrendered everything to the fates: Tsar Alexis I, King George III, Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin, Fritz Haber, Pope Gelasius II, Jeronimo Lobo, Charles Sackville, Louis Racine, Sara Teasdale, Henry Louis Mencken, Robert Frost, Basil Liddell Hart, Yasushi Inoue, M. M. Kaye, Alfred Sisley, Elias Ammerbach, Fritz Kreisler, Alan Ladd, Freddie Prinze, Jimmy Durante, Leif Erickson, Harold Russell, Ron Kostelnik, Ulrike Maier, Dick "Night Train" Lane, Barbaro, Allen Dulles,

and Eric Griffiths.

Dig it! Pre-Beatles rock!
Happy birthday, anyway.

23 years come and gone

My mother and I were working together, training for the new job we'd both been hired to do, for Colonial Williamsburg. At the end of lunch, one of our new colleagues entered the room with the news that the Challenger had blown up. We figured he was joking (he had already developed a reputation for pranks and rather dark humor).

It wasn't a joke. It also wasn't a day easily to forget.




Still and all, were I fitter and, perhaps, younger today, I'd gladly clamber aboard the next ship going out there. They lived the dream, and died pursuing it.

May their souls have peace.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 28 January

Go away.

Why are you still hanging about? Nobody but me to cut you down? Heck, let me get a pair of scissors. Oh, you don't want anything like that? Well, then what do you want? A reading? I thought you said you didn't want cutting down. Well, toots, here you are:

Make the most of what little talent you have, and aim for the highest point in your limited imagination. Never let your extensive, justifiable envy come between you and your happiness. That's a lost cause, anyway. Put your trust in those worthy of it, which pretty much means trust no one.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. It wouldn't suit you to be. Still, It couldn't hurt you to consider how much better off you are than these people, all of whom, on this date in history, ceased to hang around this plane of existence: Charlemagne, Henry VIII, Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, Gustave de Molinari, Nikolay Umov, Johannes Hevelius, Émile Clapeyron, Klaus Fuchs, Pope Paul V, John McCrae, William Butler Yeats, Zora Neale Hurston, Joseph Brodsky, Astrid Lindgren, Anastasios Metaxas, Jerry Siegel, Burne Hogarth, Reynaldo Hahn, Nicola James "Jim" Capaldi, John Banner, Hal Smith, Joe Viterelli, Walter Beall, Curt Blefary, Elroy Hirsch, Don Stansauk aka Hard Boiled Haggerty, Thomas Bodley, Therese Brandl, Hans Aumeier, Arthur Liebehenschel, Lloyd M. Bucher, Henry McGee, Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith

and Billy Fury.

Ask the stars all you want, but they never answer. They're like that.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 27 January

Go away.

Why haven't you gone yet? Is there something wrong with your legs? Oh, my, look at those bandy things! But they seem to be functional, albeit not exactly esthetically pleasing. So why haven't you applied them to the task of leaving? Ah, right, you want your reading. So be it, here you are:

You have great ambitions and they would take you far, except that you keep trampling others underfoot as you go along, and that mires you down. You ought to accept love as it comes to you, but you will reject it because you think it will retard your progress. It won't be your progress, though.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. So much for progress. At least you have your life, though, which is more than you can say for these people, all of whom, on this date in history, finished the last leg and went to the great race beyond: Nerva, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Henryk Jabłoński, Suharto, János Bolyai, Thomas Crapper, Richard Courant, Ali, Saint Angela Merici, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Alexandr Pushkin, Nellie Bly, John James Audubon, Edward Middleton Barry, Hieronymus Praetorius, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Giuseppe Verdi, Gerald Marks, Bill Walsh, Jack Paar, Claude Akins, Tige Andrews, Lilli Palmer, André "the Giant" Roussimoff, Sir Francis Drake, Maurice Vincent Buckley, Roger Chaffee, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White, William Nolde, Thomas Sopwith,

and Mahalia Jackson.

Remember whom?
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 26 January

Go away.

Haven't you gone yet? What is it with you? Do you hate me so terribly that you keep hanging around just to torture me? Oh, right, it's just that reading, you want. If I give you one, you will leave, right? Groovy. Here you are:

Endowed with great personal magnetism, you should probably not carry credit cards or other items which can become de-rezzed. Still, you'll be the center of a crowd, so be prepared to pry people off yourself. Your affections are not very deep, and you will never have a great or enduring love, although you will probably have a partner with whom you will spend a lifetime of dullness.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You look as though you just had bamboo stuffed under your fingernails. Hey, I just tell them as I see them. And, after all, living your life is still probably much better than the alternative, which said alternative option was taken (mostly unwillingly) on this date in history, by these people : Eadgyth, David Rice Atchison, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, Jan Gies, Henry Briggs, Georg Mohr, Edward Jenner, Edward Davy, Nikolaus August Otto (hence the Ottomobile? heh), Felix Hausdorff, Adriaan van Maanen, Lewis Mumford, Harold Brodkey, Alfred Elton van Vogt, Théodore Géricault, Hans J. Wegner, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Shinichi Suzuki, Edward G. Robinson, José Ferrer, Len Carlson, Christian Brando, Abner Doubleday, William Wrigley Jr., Paul "Bear" Bryant, Dave Schultz, Don Budge, Al McGuire, Fred Haas, Duncan Gordon Boyes, Harry H. Laughlin, Salvatore Lucania aka Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Merrill C. Meigs, Nelson Rockefeller, Jeane Dixon,

and Grace Moore.

Hidey hidey but no hodey hodey oh. Poor Min.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 25 January

Go away.

What are you still standing there for? Do you really think I want you for company? PLEASE go. Oh, right. You want your reading first. Well, then, here you are:

Pushy as heck, you should strive to keep your bossy tendencies from getting you killed. You could surround yourself with congenial friends... as if you thought that and a quiet home life might help. Your anger and jealousy are really annoying. You have nothing to be jealous of... there's not a chance that you could reasonably compare yourself to us.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Not as long as you harbor that anger. What do you have to be angry about, anyway? You certainly have it better, today, than these people, all of whom on this date in history pushed off to the next plane of existence: Geiseric, Emperor Yingzong, Hirate Hirohide, Makino Nobuaki, Ichizo Kobayashi, Ivan Vucetic, Kiyoshi Shiga, Stephen Cole Kleene, Gregory Nazianzus, Pope Gregory IV, Maria Louise Ramé aka Ouida, Sarah "Sadie" Delany, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Guillaume Delisle, Philip Johnson, Irene Castle, Adele Astaire, Jane Bathori, Chris Kenner, Jonathan Larson, Robert Shaw, Evelyn Barbirolli, Eiji Tsuburaya, Christopher Allport, Ava Gardner, Mikhail Chigorin, Al Capone

and Ray Peterson.

You aint gettin' no lovin', neither.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 24 January

Go away.

What keeps you here? Why won't you go? Did you lose your way to the exit? It's right over there. So, now will you carry your a...natomy away? Ah. After you get your reading. Fair enough, here you are:

You might be likable enough, except that you're a selfish barstidge. Accumulate a spouse early in life, preferably somebody who believes in the happy hereafter. That's all they'll really have, thanks to you.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Selfish barstidge. Make me work and then, no thanks. Meh. At least you have a better arrangement than these people, all of whom, on this date in history, made the grand exit: Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus aka Caligula, Otto III, Richard FitzAlan, Levi Boone, Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill, Bill W., Thurgood Marshall, Johann Christian Poggendorff, Werner Fenchel, Pope Stephen III, Caresse Crosby, Walter D. Edmonds, Amedeo Modigliani, Fayard Nicholas, Conrad Paumann, Friedrich von Flotow, Edwin Fischer, George Cukor, J. Carrol Naish, Louis Feinberg aka Larry Fine, Chris Penn, Lil Dagover, Madge Bellamy, Alfred Carlton Gilbert, George Knudson, Bobby Duncum, Jr., Samuel Argall, Alfred Yarrow, Maria Mandel, Arthur Liebehenschel, Ira Hayes, Stanley Lord, L. Ron Hubbard, Ted Bundy, Randy Salerno,

and Gordon MacRae.

If I cared at all...
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 23 October

Go away.

Why are you still standing here? Can't you hear your mommy calling you? Get along home, now. Well? What's keeping you here? Oh, right. You want your reading. Well, if it will get rid of you more quickly, here it is:

You have an impressively hard, thick skull through which little will penetrate, especially good ideas. Only those who know your weakness can rule you... which pretty much means everybody. For that reason, people act as though they like and respect you. You might even have a happy marriage, so long as you remain clueless.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Happiness couldn't really penetrate that spheroid of stone, especially today. You could at least consider how much better off you are than all these people, who, on this date in history, were called up yonder: Otto III, Emperor Jiajing, Edward Rutledge, William Pitt the Younger, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, Matthew Stewart, Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Orso Mario Corbino, Fritz Feigl, Charles Glen King, Robert Nozick, John Cleland, Thomas Love Peacock, Charles Kingsley, Gustave Doré, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dalí, Anna Pavlova, Bernardo Pisano, John Field, Edward "Kid" Ory, Paul Robeson, Terence Alan "Terry" Kath, Vic Ames, Samuel Barber, Allen Collins, Thomas Andrew Dorsey, Richard Berry, Prince Lincoln Thompson, Alexander Korda, Alexander Woollcott, Lewis Delaney Offield aka Jack Oakie, Freddie Bartholomew, Bob Keeshan, Johnny Carson, Paul Aars, William Baffin, Arthur Guinness, Alexander Onassis, Toots Shor, E. Howard Hunt,

and Nell Carter.

I can't help but be mean. It's my nature.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 22 January

Go away.

Weren't you just leaving? Well, set those boots to walking. Why are you still here? Oh, right. The reading. If you must, then here you have it:

You are egotistical, a fop, and overly concerned with others' opinions of yourself. Secretive, you can still put on a show of being loving and affectionate, so you will probably not be alone in your final hours -- but your choice of company and habits will hasten those hours.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. I didn't meet your standards for sycophancy, effusion suck-uppedness. Well, tough stuff. At least you have a better arrangement than these people, all of whom, on this date in history, sucked up their last breaths: Shah Jahan, Queen Victoria, Lyndon B. Johnson, ... Johann Gottlob Lehmann, Jeremiah Dixon, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Camille Jordan, ... Bernhard Knipperdolling, Pope Benedict XV, ... William Thomas Walsh, Abe Kobo, Craig Claiborne, ... Bill Mauldin, ... Cristofano Malvezzi, David E. Hughes, Tommy Tucker, Rhett Forrester, Billy May, ... Alan Hale, Sr., Herbert Marshall, Parker Fennelly, Telly Savalas, Roy Brown, Roberto Gari, Heath Ledger, ... Alma Rubens, Ann Miller, ... Mike Hawthorn, Duke Kahanamoku, Jerry Blackwell, Tommie Agee, César Gutiérrez, ... Joseph Philo Bradley, Captain George Streeter, Karl Nessler, Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, Budd Dwyer, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, Rose Mary Woods, Miles Lerman,

and Billy Mackenzie.

Gloomy every day, aren't we?
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 21 January

Go away.

What did I do to deserve you staying to pester me? Was I somehow accidentally polite, or something? Why won't you leave? Oh, right, you want something, such as your reading. If I give it to you, will you scram? Great. Here you are:

You are a virtual invertebrate, you spend so much energy adapting. You are a wastrel, taking too much for granted. You enjoy traveling and will do a great deal of it, mostly trying to keep a step ahead of the law and your creditors. Your selfishness will bring you much-deserved unhappiness.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Your life stinks, like everybody else's. At least you have a life, such as it is. Just think how much less you would have if you were like these people, all of whom, on this date, traveled into the Great Beyond: Azai Sukemasa, Mustafa III, Louis XVI, Josiah Hornblower, Elisha Gray, Camillo Golgi, Saint Agnes, Pope Paschal II, Thomas Woolston, George Orwell, Obadiah Walker, Ignazio Donati, Albert Lortzing, Calixa Lavallée, Felix Blumenfeld, Dorothy Lucille "Billy" Tipton, Charles Brown, Cecil B. DeMille, James Quin, Carl Switzer, Jack Lord, Marie Prevost, Ann Sheridan, Susan Strasberg, Archie Hahn, Sam Langford, Eddie Graham, Carl Furillo, Charlie Gehringer, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Juan de Grijalva, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Samuel Wallis, Vladimir Lenin, James Beard, Colonel Tom Parker, Byron De La Beckwith, Marie Smith Jones,

Peggy Lee,

and Jackie Wilson.

The only workout this body gets is tippy-typing, and that suits me fine.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 20 January

Go away.

Why won't you leave? What do you have against me? Have I died and gone to hell? That's pretty rough on an agnostic. Or, maybe it's just a cruel joke by the universe, on me. Oh. So it's just that you want your reading. Oy, my heart! Well, if that's all you're here for, I'll be eager to oblige, just to get you gone. Here you are:

If you had a lick of self-confidence, you could be a success. Too bad about that. Work honestly and diligently and you will end up tired and broke anyway. March and November are months when your work will be hardest and may offer slim reward. You have no favorable days, but you can pretend Tuesdays and Saturdays have some benefit to you.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. You should have known better than to ask for good news from me, anyway. At least you're better off than these people, all of whom, on this date in history, ended life's business: King John II of Aragon, David Kalakaua, King George V, Omar Bundy, Zénobe Gramme, St. Sebastian, Bishop Henry, Myles Coverdale, The Venerable Father Basil Anthony Marie Moreau, John Ruskin, Robinson Jeffers, Francesco Galli-Bibiena, Jean-François Millet, Al Hirschfeld, Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, Barbara Stanwyck, Audrey Hepburn, Carrie Hamilton, Josh Gibson, Johnny Weissmuller, Curt Flood, Houston Harris aka Bobo Brazil, Alan Freed,

and Gerry Mulligan.

Moonlight, shmoonlight. This is saxy.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 19 January

Go away.

Are you ever going to leave? What will it take for me to see the back of you? Money? Sex (ecch)? Oh, thank all that is great in this universe, all you want is a reading. That I can arrange. In fact, here you are:

Diplomats, writers, teachers and lovers of fine arts are born on this day. Too bad you're not one of them. You have an earnest desire to help others, but lack the requisite common sense. Poetical, artistic, affectionate ; you have the potential to enter any field, as long as there is an obedience trainer accompanying you, or at least somebody holding your leash.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. But you could be, if only you remembered how much better off you are than these people, who, on this date in history, crossed into the Elysian Fields: Dagobert I, Isabella of Burgundy, Empress Carlotta, William O. Douglas, Carl Reichenbach, Henri Victor Regnault, Theodor Kaluza, Hidetsugu Yagi, Henry Howard, William Congreve, James Dickey, Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni, Tony Garnier, Thomas Hart Benton, Louis-Joseph-Ferdinand Hérold, Harry Shields, Michael Rabin, Gene MacLellan, Wilson Pickett, Denny Doherty, John Stewart, Don Simpson, John Russell, Anthony Franciosa, Adriana Caselotti, Hedy Lamarr, Suzanne Pleshette, Cliff Heathcote, Max Bentley, Scott "Bam Bam" Bigelow, Charles Bent, József Dudás, Ham the Chimp, Harry E. Claiborne,

and Carl Perkins.

Lay off them shoes.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Andrew Wyeth, R.I.P.

I know he's not trendy, and his work is always described as "bleak", "lonely", "melancholy" and other such terms one might choose to dig out a thesaurus to learn mean "damned depressing". But Andrew Wyeth was unique, a painter of scenes both solid and ephemeral. And, seldom did I see the distance and bleakness that others did. His egg tempera works were finely detailed and intimate, even in wide landscape scenes. Solitude, starkness were not threatening to him, but were the bones of experience and perception, a sign of hope.

They say he was not always a nice man. They say he carried on an affair while married. They say a lot of things about him. But he, like his father and his children, left something other than simple memories of a life. Andrew Wyeth changed modern perceptions, if ever so slightly. He may be gone, but part of his soul remains on canvas.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 18 January

Go away.

Will you ever go? Its not as though this is Grand Central and I have the only open ticket booth. There's the gate, use it. Oh, fine, just stand there as though you expect something from me. Because... oh. You do expect something. Your reading awaits you, now, doesn't it? Here you are:

Don't hold back; your strength can do seriously fun damage, if you learn to control it a little better. As. If. You are suspicious by nature, so you are unlikely to open yourself to true love, let alone the paid variety. Get used to paranoid solitude.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. At least you're better off, though, than these people, all of whom took the last train to Purgatory on this date in history: Publius Clodius Pulcher, Leo I, Emperor Go-Hanazono, Margaret of Austria, Jan van Riebeeck, John Tyler, Adolf Butenandt, Moses Amyraut, Anton Anderledy, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Rudyard Kipling, Bruce Chatwin, Baldassare Verazzi, Virgil Finlay, Wallace Reid, Jerome Lester Horwitz aka Curly Howard, Sydney Greenstreet, Wilfrid Brambell, Rusty Hamer, Al Waxman, Carl Betz, Lamont Bentley, Gertrude Olmstead, Reece "Goose" Tatum, Ron Luciano, Georgia Frontiere, Walter H. Thompson, Cecil Beaton, Paul Tsongas, John Stroger

and Brent Liles.

Can't get much steadier than that, today.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 17 January

Go away.

Why do you yet stand there? Have you nothing better to do than to torment a pitiable medium? Why must you pester me so? Is it simply because I am beautiful, or is there something more? Ah. Yes. I see. You want a reading from me. More is the pity, I have one. For you and you alone (well, along with anybody else born on this date):

Keep throwing yourself at that brick wall, you may eventually crash through it into success. You don't take sides (probably because you can't see either side clearly enough to make a decision) and you go all soft and gushy over every little thing. Your true happiness will be found in a deep and trusting love, which will never come your way if your mother has anything to say about it.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Your mother says you won't be, so there you are. Still, at least you're a step up from these people, all of whom, on this date in history, returned to Mother Earth: Theodosius I, Fyodor I, Captain Benjamin Church, Rutherford B. Hayes, Albert Jacka, Pyotr Krasnov, Barbara Jordan, John Ray, Giovanni Aldini, Hermann Schlegel, Clyde Tombaugh, Albert Schatz, Bishop Karas, George Bancroft, T.H. White, Betty Smith, Albert Hourani, Gregory Corso, Art Buchwald, Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, Horace Vernet, Ignaz Wechselmann, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Jean-François Dandrieu, Tomaso Albinoni, Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, David "Junior" Kimbrough, Ray Stark, Winstead "Doodles" Weaver, Richard Crenna, Noble Willingham, Allan Melvin, Evelyn Nesbit, Queenie Leonard, Virginia Mayo, Walter Briggs, Sr., Frank Pullen, Helen Stephens, Harry Brecheen, Bobby Fischer, Lola Montez, Chang and Eng Bunker, Sir Francis Galton, Juliette Gordon Low, Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia, Gary Gilmore, Charlie Bell,

and Billy Stewart.

Somethin's 'bout to get you.
Happy birthday, anyway.

Cranky Large Medium reading, 16 January

Go away.

What? Aren't you gone yet? What is this, a conspiracy of one, to make me go insane? Well, you're far too late for that, bucko. But as long as you're here, what is it you really want? Oh, right. A reading. Here you are, then, and may it make you as balanced as am I:

You have a lot of nerve, ambition, and narrowness of view. You are full of gee-whiz and should marry before you are disillusioned. But don't try to figure out why your partner married you, or you'll be disappointed. Just live in oblivious marital splendor, or rue the day you were born.

Are you happy, now? Of course not. Nobody ever finds joy in the ravings of a visionary. You all come here for something, receive exactly what you asked for, and leave dissatisfied. So much for "the customer is always right." At least you have things a whole lot better than these people, all of whom, on this date in history, left everything, absolutely: Polyeuctus, Emperor Higashiyama, John Moore, Alexander J. Dallas, Hiram Revels, George Dewey, Johannes Schöner, Francis Blomefield, Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, Thaddeus William Harris, Robert J. Van de Graaff (hair stylist extraordinaire), Robert Hanbury Brown, George Spalatin, Christiern Pedersen, Barthold Heinrich Brockes, Edward Gibbon, Anton Schindler, Robert Fitzgerald, Arnold Böcklin, Frank Hurley, Amilcare Ponchielli, Léo Delibes, Jules Barbier, Arturo Toscanini, Ike Quebec, Vladimir Dukelsky aka Vernon Duke, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., Ted Cassidy, Bernard Lee, Ballard Berkeley, Ron Carey, Carole Lombard, Bobo Olson, Marshall Field, Kate "Ma" Barker, Albert Fish, Ennis Cosby, Michael Bilandic,

and Will "Dub" Jones.

Along came the guy in the black robe with the scythe.
Happy birthday, anyway.