Sybil Bruncheon's "BUT MUMMIE! WHAT IS THAT?!".....

True story!!! It is still disputed as to whether rambutans made their first appearance at AREA 51 in Nevada or at Roswell, New Mexico! What IS known definitely is that they are NEITHER a fruit NOR a vegetable, but rather the unborn fetuses of highly sophisticated citizens from another galaxy! They should under no circumstances be eaten... or indeed brought anywhere near the face. They have been known to bite, scratch, and even re-do one's hair against one's wishes! Please use extreme caution when handling them... and please advise your fellow shoppers in the Fresh produce aisle.   

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “Latest news about Winter!!!”...

Dear Friends....You may or may not be happy to hear that the Elders on the "Winter Bureau" have conferred and declared that any reprieve we may have imagined we had from cold weather is OVER! They have had a bit of dissension among themselves on timetables, regional schedules, severity issues, meteorological strategies, and scarf-knitting. And even if there IS an occasional "warm-up" where the temperatures climb to 45° again, we are warned that we fall for it at our own peril! It will NOT last!

For more info, pamphlets, and a professional set of tools, equipment, maps with strange and indecipherable weather doodles, and a lifetime supply of yarn that can keep you cozy this season, call G-O-O-Z P-I-M-P-L-Y ... That's right, dial 466-074-6759. The nice man will tell you how to order! (The Elders include from left Filbert Sickles, DeeDee Shivarry, Bonk-Bonk, Countess Snowden, and Chill Willikers)

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Sybil Bruncheon’s MY MERRY MEMOIRS... (Chapter 23)...

...when I was very young, I went to the Lucas County Fair every August!... for entire days at a time. I loved all the sights and sounds, especially at night!... the long strings of colored lights and mismatched bulbs draped between the carnival rides and novelty tents.... the tawdry calliope music jumbling different melodies against each other, the arcade games with their bells ringing, the shooting gallery pings and bangs, the laughing and screeching on the tilt-o-whirl, and the wooden ratchety roar of the roller coasters. I was mesmerized by the mysterious gypsy fortune tellers, the handsome and sweating barkers, and the wranglers who ran the rides and did the heavy lifting around the grounds...

When I was about 12, I asked a nice man with a big smile and a thin mustache who was standing near one of the Belgian waffle stands how I could get some job there with all the traveling folks that moved across the country along the carny circuit together..... maybe I could just start out as a helper in the cotton candy trailer? He looked down at me with great humor and gentility, lifted his crisp boater to mop his glistening brow and the thinning hair that was trying to stay carefully combed, and murmured, "Darling girl! Look over at our Miss Gloss! Now THAT'S what a cotton-candy hostess looks like! You need to have the look!! The LOOK!!!....now run along and stay out of trouble!".... then he winked at me and smiled even more broadly with a warm and faintly sexy chuckle, and a twinkle in his eye...

Many years later, I ran into Miss Gloss... she had the same hair-do, had married a dentist in Toledo, and had gotten a job in a grade school cafeteria kitchen serving chipped beef, chicken tetrazzini, and creamed corn to children at Our Lady of The Vapors Academy.... (Miss Gloss was always so efficient, so rapid in the execution of her duties, so quick to dash about the cafeteria serving everyone that she eventually was given the nickname "Flying Butt-ress!".... it was scrawled on bathroom walls for years after her retirement...along with loving portraiture.... and anatomically correct sketches of the football team)

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “Celebrity Birthdays In History”... January 16th, 1681...

Madam Leenya Katarina Strasbourg. (Seen here in the portrait done of her: "The Beautiful Strasbourgian" by Nicolas de Largillière, 1703.)

Madam Leenya was a notable society doyenne and international traveler in the most discerning European courts. Her tastes in the arts, literature, crafts, cuisine, fashion, and entertainment were legendary. And, in addition to her great charm and wit, she was extremely talented at both music and "recitatives", or what we would call today, "community theatre". She used her extraordinary wealth (built during the nutmeg and tulip booms!) to patronize and support her followers, and she decided to turn her own skills to more realistic forms in the arts! One of her greatest innovations was to teach actors to "cry on cue", as she put it...

Actors, of course, immediately beat a trail to her salon doors to be taught the new skills of "crying on cue"....REAL TEARS!! Soon, her Académie de L'hystérie et de Rire was full of hundreds of actors from all over the continent. Producers, directors, and actors all judged each other's talents by whether they knew of her "methods". Not only did all plays in the best theatres have a fresh and modern realism to them, but her influence was seen in circuses, carnivals, mime shows, ballets, roadside caprices, and gypsy fortune teller tents. Eventually, people from all walks of life and professions wanted to be able to convey the same emotional range as the very best actors. Acrobats, jugglers, dancers, and finally even lacemakers, chefs, carpenters, gilders, and sanitation persons enrolled in her classes.

She died at 91 years of age having created a new world of art through her "Strasbourg Method" which was much imitated through the centuries, but never duplicated. (She is seen in this portrait during one of her movement classes called "An Actress Stands Straight And Tall". She balanced a gigantic hamantaschen on her head during Purim and went about the classroom doing barnyard sounds and somersaults to show her equilibrium... and then promptly burst into tears while reciting "Hey Diddle Diddle, The Cat And The Fiddle!".... (many thanks to George Sweet for the portrait!)

(ps...that is not a lap-dog... it's the little handbag/alarm clock she designed for Amsterdam's "Coo-Koo For Clutches" shop!)....

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Sybil's "Interesting People Around the World".... the Adler Academy...

....The Adler Academy of Psycho-Melodramatic Research has encouraged its students to participate in extra-curricular activities, including sledding, tobogganing, pairs ice-dance, and nude "snow-angel-making". The champion team is made up of (from left) Fritz Snitzelklinker (Norway), Karl-Juss Svenskeller (Sweden), Merne Petrisch (Denmark), and Aнанас Pпиріг (Ukraine)..... and their coaches, Father Petrov Hammeir and Pinky Thrinkleton, two nice men who live together in a charming cottage just off campus.... with their 11 cats.... and a mynah bird named Mr. Beatrice.....

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “Celebrity Birthdays In History”... January 7th, 1846...

... Prudence "Poo-Poo" Charmondeley. Although she seemed to live on the streets of London, no one was ever really able to figure out exactly WHERE! Her great sense of humor and her ability to play five different instruments and sing clever little ditties, romantic ballads, and popular songs kept her constantly busy with a frying pan in front of her filled with coins from her devoted following.

Prudence apparently had perfect pitch and a savant's ability to remember perhaps over 15,000 songs according to musicologists who came under her spell. She was offered contracts at prominent theatres and music halls, but she remained out on the sidewalks with assorted "buskers" and "pearlies" whom she often paired with in impromptu "Musical-Ettes" as she called them.

In addition to all her other talents, she had an uncanny knack for composing both poems and songs on the spot when audience members would provide her with a word or a name to build all her rhymes and meters on... Scientists from Oxford, Cambridge, and the Filbert Academy for Exceptional Ladies & Their Deportment measured her intelligence at a "genius level".....comparable to Dickens, Dante, and Sir Gyrus Quzzizzleton.

She died at a very great age, although it was impossible to determine exactly what at the time. She was buried in Potters' Field in a grave marked by a simple wooden cross. It wasn't until 3 months later when her butler and several of her 34 servants and employees finally discovered her fate and tracked her down. Prudence Charmondeley had in fact been a great lady of noble birth. Her estate lay just a few miles out of the city, and she was known by her staff to go on what she called "little jaunts to friends" for days at a time. They never suspected that she spent her "away time" on the street or in basements, sheds, and abandoned shops... She also had been building her already considerable fortune with weekly bank deposits of hundreds of pounds!!....all made in small change!! Her butler told the press that it had always puzzled him when he would help her carry little paper bags filled with coins....

After all the legal rigamarole, she left vast amounts of money to her loving servants, to various friends of hers on the street, and finally to the building of a luxurious sanctuary for wayward cats and stray dogs who had been her trusted confidantes and dinner companions through the years! The townhouse in Belgravia still stands and has a bronze plaque on it inscribed "The Charmondeley Foundation For Four-Legged Friends Of Humans"....

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SYBIL'S "Aren't People Interesting?"....

SYBIL'S "Aren't People Interesting?"...... today, we visit the Chapel of Our Lady Of Perpetual Vapors..... Did you know that the Little Sisters of the chapel there hold their vows of chastity so dearly, that they shut themselves off from ALL contact with the temptations of the outside world. They are not allowed to shake hands or even to BREATHE the same air as workmen who come to make repairs on the grounds.... The Mother Superior, Magda Immaculata Lysol-ette was quoted as saying, "Men! MEN! Rough, hairy beasts with grabby-hands and only one thing on their minds!.... or is it, Hairy-handed things with one beast roughly on their grabby minds..... or maybe, mind that one grabby thing he's holding in his rough beasty hands!....whatever....".... The sisters adhere to a stringent vow of poverty, supported by a diet of beans, cauliflower, and broccoli....

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...and today in the news!... the Harrow family...

...and today in the news, there was both triumph and tragedy in Carrington Corners, Iowa. Mr. Donald Harrow and his lovely wife Madeline were celebrated at the National Scouting Jamboree last night in Des Moines when they and their four sons were honored as the most accomplished family in the history of the organization. Their badges, patches, and special merits have never been matched in the Scouts 108 years. Seen here at the banquet are Donald and Madeline flanked by their sons (clockwise from lower left) Jebediah, Enoch, Simon, and Murray. Sadly, after the banquet, the family was plunged into disaster.... Murray, apparently was disgruntled about a Muffin Sciences patch that he lost to his brother Enoch. Murray, on the other hand, had a record-breaking number of awards in fire-starting and making locks.... There were no survivors. 

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Sybil Bruncheon's "HOLLYWOOD HISTORY ON THIS DATE!".... February 9th, 1931...

... Like so many other children of the Depression, little Spiffy Markle had been brought by hopeful-but-desperate parents to California in the hope that he might become a star. Blessed with good looks, a naturally cheerful disposition, a lovely singing voice, and a keen understanding of Shakespeare (his prekindergarten production as KING LEAR had the New York critics swooning!), he seemed born for the silver screen. His screen tests with Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and the Barrymores were stellar. And so he made the rounds with his parents from one studio to another for interviews.... Warners, Columbia, RKO, Universal.....Unfortunately, here he is at the lesser ranked "Really Swell Pictures Studio" being photographed by Pete the Panda.

The session went smoothly, unlike the photo shoot the previous day at MGM when the studio's lion tried to EAT little Spiffy while he photographed him. Louis B. Mayer was mortified...  Sadly, Spiffy's career floundered in the Really Swell Pictures Studio attempt at the children's market. They never matched the success of the OUR GANG films, with their "POOPY-PANTY PLAYHOUSE", although some of the musical numbers were well imagined....and of course, Spiffy's voice was actually heard in the "talkies". His transition into adult pictures never really worked either. 

Tragically, Pete the Panda became a "booze hound".....he began bootlegging cheap liquor he made from fermented bamboo that he got imported especially for "religious and dietary traditions" and the US State Department "looked the other way". He was so lovable, and very popular in the "Un-BEAR-able Comedies" he starred in the 1920s and 1930s. He ended up in a sanitarium in 1945. Spiffy left the studios and went on to sell real estate in San Bernardino.... but he never forgot his old studio-mate and first friend at Really Swell. He rescued Pete, and they made a killing in the bamboo patio furniture craze of the 1940s!..... You see? There actually ARE a few happy endings in Hollywood... 

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Cold enough for ya'????

...ah, yes... The forlorn Bureau of Winter Despondency. Citizens report to the Chamber of Dates to witness the days crawl by, one after the other, on and on and on... The snack bar, which is open at indifferent hours at the whim of a disgruntled staff, serves week-old donuts and lukewarm coffee with some powdered creamer and maybe a stubbed out cigarette butt... or some old gum... The place smells of mildewed galoshes and moth balls...but... well... that's Winter for you! ...oh, and that sound you can just barely make out?... that's the sad tick, tick, tick, of the clock... Nope!… it's not even February yet.....

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