SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #53....

SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... yes, folks, it's that time again when I make my predictions for the New Year and those mysterious days lying ahead of us...

Prediction #53: As the country's Middle and Working Classes gradually become a massive impoverished throng milling about in the suburbs, all creature comforts and entertainment will vanish. Flat screen televisions will be used as cheese boards for non-existent hors d'oervres and crackers made from leaves, twigs, and top soil. People will be forced to return to conversation, humming songs, and drawing pictures on cave walls. Of course, some intrepid souls may attempt to start up new companies that specialize in diversions like party games! Here, a woman living near Park Avenue tries to recreate all the fun of Jenga for a New Year's Eve get-together...

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SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #32....

SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... yes, folks, it's that time again when I make my predictions for the New Year and those mysterious days lying ahead of us...

Prediction #32: In this next year, the Republican Party will continue to deceive and prey upon the working class and what little is left of a Middle Class... Because of climate change and the ensuing famine, the 1% will finally be literally dining on the bottom 99% of the populace....which means that if you make less than $500,000 a year, the 1% will think of you as "filet mignon", and serve you with a bottle of Petrus or a nice Chianti!.... Good “help” will still be hard to find...because the 1% will eat them as well too….as “flank steak”….

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SYBIL PREDICTS... #11....

SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... yes, folks, it's that time again when I make my predictions for the New Year and those mysterious days lying ahead of us...

Prediction #11: In this next year, the Pentagon will go completely bankrupt, but will continue to wage 30 or 40 wars around the globe. The severe shortage of steel armor and sheet metal will force the generals to turn to the Campbell's Soup Company for all their weaponry!...but they will still save money by feeding the troops from the jumbo sized economy-cans! The most popular new flavor this year will be "Cream Of Mushroom Cloud".

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BREAKING NEWS from the CNN news desk: WEATHER BULLETIN!!!

... horrible! HORRIBLE!!... Panic has set in all over the North East as the blizzard closes in on millions of terrified citizens from Washington DC to Boston. Grocery shelves are completely empty, and so... people, normally loving and civilized people are considering the unthinkable! They have begun to look at their own beloved four-legged friends...their pets!... Their "fur-babies"...as food! FOOD, DAMMIT!.... The ASPCA and Bide-A Wee have issued alerts to household animals, residents of zoos, and passing wildlife to be on guard! Take nothing for granted! A smiling human, even someone you consider a friend, should now be considered armed and extremely dangerous until the storm has passed! Be especially cautious around veterinarians, short-order cooks, and Facebook food-group administrators! Please! Save yourself and your litter from becoming an entrée, a tray of hors d'oeuvres, or a bedtime snack! You have been warned! An outstretched hand familiar by sight and smell, and even holding a so-called “treat” may be the hand of a stranger....AND A STRANGLER!! Run! RUN....and FETCH YOUR OWN SAFETY!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "I Remember!" series.... My first Winter in NYC....

A little known fact to lots of folks here in the online age of the 21st century; there was an equivalent to the rural outhouse here in NYC up until fairly recently. Many tenement apartments (four or more to a floor in the late 19th/early 20th century buildings and always walk-ups) had their ...um...water-closets (“WCs”) in the public halls on each floor. “WC” was the discreet way of saying “toilet”, and thousands of people actually shared their toilets with other apartments. Little doors in the halls with NO apartment letter or number on them, they concealed a toilet ONLY, with just enough room for you to sit or stand and pull the door closed against you (YES! AGAINST YOU!) and latch it with a slide bolt usually.

"Noisy use" was frowned on, as were any unpleasant smells....and it took work and discernment to avoid both. Timing and a pack of matches were a person's best friends. Hangovers, vomiting, extreme and/or explosive bouts of diarrhea, etc. were the end of the world... Taking turns was done as discreetly as possible, much like the early cooperation on the telephone with so-called party lines.....but that's another story entirely.

My first apartment in NYC had a water-closet in the hall....but I considered myself lucky, very lucky, to have my own bathtub under the counter in my enormous kitchen. Many folks had to share a bathtub in the hall as well as a toilet, and you scampered in your chenille bathrobe from your front door to both the WC, and the bathtub closet next to it and then back home again, before someone knocked on one door or the other to “hurry up!”.

Some of my most romantic early memories in the city are of candlelight baths in my own kitchen during a blizzard with my first great love, Greg, in that old cast iron bathtub with the claw feet, the counter-cover flipped up, a cherry pie in the oven, a hearty beef stew bubbling away on the huge gas stove. Clanking steam coming up in the radiator and beginning to hiss merrily…. The candles, maybe a dozen or so, flickering in the unthreatening drafts through the 100 year old window sashes, rattling from the wind gusting off the East River. And I remember the scratchy reception on the little radio playing old holiday music the whole week after Christmas just to keep things cheerful and glad. Being poor and struggling was so much lovelier somehow back then. I worried and went without, but I never felt hopeless or lost. And every morning, even in those first freezing days of January, was a bright and bracing adventure, and a sparkling, new world always held its sunny arms open to me as I ran down the steps of that old tenement…

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Sybil Bruncheon's "HOLIDAY HILARITY!".... December 29th, 1892...

... yes, it was that particular Holiday season, after the disastrous Presidential election which scandalized the country, that people decided to drown their sorrows in wild parties before the dreaded inauguration day! Roderick Fenbrathy of the Fenbrathy-Central Railroad fortune, threw a major three-day festival which would culmintate in the New Year of 1893. Interestingly, his guests were so desperate to find cheer in everything, they didn’t notice anything amiss… 

From left in the front row; Mr. Christopher Wagston (known as Miss Big-Tina to his Gaiety Theatre & Novelty Arts audiences. They adored him!); his agent, Charlie “Goodtimes” Epstein, who later died under the wheels of a bicycle-built-for-twenty ridden by his clients, the Rolling Rambollis during a matinee; Madame Freela Giabetti, mezzo-soprano at the Metroplitan Opera whose most famous role was in Wagner’s “Die Gasgefüllte Nonne Und Ihre Verzauberten Dudelsäcke”. (Her career ended suddenly in a fiery zeppelin explosion…onstage! Sadly, the entire orchestra and half of the front three rows were also killed, but the folks in the mezzanine said they had a wonderful time!); Mrs. Pamela Bumblebunny, Madame Giabetti’s “lady-companion”(…for thirty-two years!); Mr. Hector Reiflander of the Reiflander Fine-Furs Salons and who specialized in exotic pelts for “full-figured ladies”; Gladys Reiflander, his lovely wife, who had been raised in the Arctic Circle and was completely impervious to sub-zero temperatures except for her hands (so she always wore gloves, but her real reason was that she had six fingers on each hand, two of which were thumbs!); Gladys’ mother, Phyllis (– same story! Never cold/six fingers, etc.); and lastly, Mr. Carlton Sourberry of the Sourberry Funeral Home fortune, immortalized in literature by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jack & Jill Magazine. 

Interestingly, just a few hours after this photo was taken, it was discovered that Hector Reiflander had actually been killed and torn to pieces by a polar bear at the office earlier in the day. As the picture was being set up with all the guests, Gladys DID notice that “Hector’s” stomach was growling loudly and that his breath smelled strongly of fish sticks, seal blubber, and tweed. She whispered to “him” about it. He merely snorted.

During the cocktail party after the shoot, the bear apparently took offense at Pamela Bumbleberry’s ermine stole and attacked her. Among the dead were Pamela (eaten), Gladys (eaten), Phyllis (half-eaten), and various guests and wait-staff (seen here in the back rows… variously eaten or just nibbled at). Mr. Sourberry made yet another fortune off all the funeral arrangements and catering for the wakes. The polar bear escaped and later founded the Klondike Ice Cream Bar Company. He was never prosecuted.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Christmases Past".... Hiram Chewsnowsky's Therapy.

...it had come to the attention of the faculty at Princeton University's "Carrington Institute of Advanced and Applicable Philosophy" that their dean, Hiram Chewsnowsky was having an existential crisis. Although widely respected and published many times over, nothing seemed to please or excite him anymore. His travels to every corner of the globe to study other societies and religions meant little or nothing to him. He returned from sabbaticals drunk, drugged, or with strange fashion choices, and sometimes with lipstick way outside his lip line, and on one occasion even a false eyelash glued on as a mustache while he sang "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!".... in his reedy tenor.

Rather than discharge him, or hospitalize him, his colleagues decided to help him in a way that might not alert him to his predicament. They conspired with the Macy's Department store people to claim that the Institute was required by state law "to volunteer for community service" for their continued funding. Although the Carrington Institute, and indeed all of Princeton University, was know to be richly endowed, Chewsnowsky (though morose!) fell for the ruse. It was suggested that he might make a nice Santa Clause during the 6 weeks before Christmas. He was surprised at the suggestion, and told his friends so... "How kenn I bee aun effek-teev Sahnta to ahll doze sveet ceeldren? I am feeled weeth sooch ahngst und selp-dout about dee meening ob life eetself! Weel I nott stain dere yung minds, und eben con-tahmeeniate dere sveet nahtures?"... his fellow professors assured him that No! He would make an interesting and perhaps even inspirational Santa!....

And so it was, that on Friday, November 30th of that year, Professor Hiram Chewsnowsky became Macy's Santa Claus sitting on his great throne in his "North Pole Workshop" on the 6th floor. What the staff and faculty of Princeton had NOT told Hiram was that his first child was Master Randolph Tovar, child prodigy, holder of several degrees in anthropology, ethics, a Ph.D. from Yale in Constructive Philosophy, and the author of the internationally lauded "Advanced Optimistic Thought And Practice In The Geopolitical Playground of The 20th Century"… illustrated with his own rather sophisticated crayon drawings. Princeton had secretly hired 6-year-old Randolph to "sit on Santa's lap", and over the space of two hours, to discuss with him the "meaning of life". It worked!!!!... 

The faraway look in Chewsnowsky's eyes faded, he began to chuckle, to even twinkle, to reveal stories from his troubled childhood, his worries about faculty politics, a fracas in the publishing world, his missing teddy bear, an allergy to lime jello and other foods beginning with the letter "L". By the end of the two hours, the two geniuses had become friends and made plans to lunch together every Friday at the faculty club.... either at Princeton or at the Acacius Page School for Mostly Exceptional Young Persons. ..... it was noted though that other children who had been waiting two hours to meet "Santa" were finally shooed away with some candy that had lint on it...

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Sybil Bruncheon's CHRISTMASES PAST!... the Christmas Card Catastrophe in Poka-Ma-Hola, Idaho...

...and it was at that point that the Poka-Ma-Hola Ladies League of Public Decency began gathering up all the Christmas cards that they felt were frivolous, flippant, and irreligious to be burned in a great bonfire in the town square. Furthermore, the clerks working in the "Holiday Notions & Santa's Workshop" section of Stynkelton's Department Store were threatened with charges of heresy and witchcraft and told that even in their elf costumes they would be thrown into the fire as well if they didn't repent...

...and so, on December 21st, 1955, all of the children in Poka-Ma-Hola, Idaho saw a "Christmas Miracle"..... scores of "elves", middle-aged sales ladies, and unmarried perfume counter clerks kneeling and praying in the snow drifts in front of Stynkelton's Department Store beside the papier-mâché Nativity installation..... modern Idaho folks (oh, and elves!) mixed in with various “Bethlehem” villagers, cows, ducks, geese, and chickens, an ox-and-lamb combo, a drummer boy, an impolite innkeeper and his surly wife, three wise men (or two wise men and a drunk!), bales of hay, a leaky roof, and a giant aluminum "Star" on some fishing-line swinging back in forth in the wind, as the ashes of burning Christmas cards blew across the landscapes of both Bethlehem...and Poka-Ma-Hola.... while the Poka-Ma-Hola ladies yowled "Holy! Holy!! HOLY!!!!" in their cracked voices to Reverend Tinker's portable Hammond organ...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "CHRISTMASES PAST"... Meyer Flotzam.

...it had all started out so happily... that Christmas of 1951, for Meyer Flotzam, a clever and quickly promoted product-developer at the Gillette Shaving Corporation. For the Christmas gift-giving season, he created his "All-Mechanized & Fully-Automatic Beard 'n' Mustache Trimmer!".... (the merchandising department was going to work on the name!). Meyer had done over 500 perfectly executed and finely tuned trials of the machine in front of technicians, coffee-break claques, boardroom executives, and large convention audiences with not one slip... But then, just as he was showing it to the Wauseon Ladies Republican Club for Harriet Gillette and her luncheon pals, he was called to the phone by her maid. Without thinking, he turned to pick up the receiver...and.... well... it had been such a fine nose too... and so aristocratic.....

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HOLIDAY LAW & ORDER! Episode 339: "Violent Night, Holy Night"...

....starring Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni, Narda Onyx, Beverly Garland, Wilbur Fumpt. Synopsis: Santa barges into a forlorn kitchen in Staten Island and mistakes the baby for an old army pal from the Gulf War. Mrs. Edna Ferguson seems unaware that her infant-son did NOT serve in the military at any point and fails to intercede...Santa quarrels over a bottle of vegan formula, and strikes the 3 month old in the face. Mrs. Ferguson offers him a small gift-wrapped box of peanut M&Ms. Santa is not dissuaded and hurls little Frank Jr. into his high chair where he proceeds to attack him further. Mrs. Ferguson looks on smiling, Fortunately, 2 year old Tina, Frank's older sister, picks up a gift wrapped slab of concrete and bludgeons the deranged Santa to death on the linoleum floor. Detectives Munch and Benson quarrel over arresting Tina, Captain Cragen calms them down, and A.D.A. Barba gets the charges dismissed.

During the epilogue, it turns out that little Tina has also gotten away with the murders of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Smokey the Bear. The "Tina" character is positioned as a recurring psychopath who will return in later episodes as both villain and occasional rescuer. As a toddler, she will be played by Linda Hunt. Fade out.

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