SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #18....

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 #18: In this next year, food will become scarcer, and by next year, it will be considered very valuable!...and rare! Consequently, the scientific community will use all of its remaining resources and brain power to create small table-top time-machines at farmers markets, fresh produce stands, and urban cafes! For a fee, familiar food items from the past will be transported through the space/time continuum to the lucky buyer. Sadly, because the cost will be so prohibitive, any food brought into our dimension will immediately be varnished and framed for public viewing....NOT EATING! And only the rich will be able to avail themselves of this luxury!! Fresh Direct will become a branch of NASA, and every Whole Foods will be renamed BLACK-HOLE FOODS….

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SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #7....

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 #7: In this next year, with growing interest in mass transit and the gradual disappearance of private vehicles, city bus design will become more and more streamlined. Indeed, with greater rider-ship, the buses will be made longer and longer, almost resembling futuristic rocket ships or ocean liners. By 2023, most city buses will be over 800' long, and commuters will simply board at one end, greet the driver, pay their fare, and then walk to the other end of the bus and "exit out the back please". Needless to say, this will save considerably on ANY fuel being used at all; and, with all the long-distance walking, the 21st century obesity and heart-disease issues will become a thing of the past!; a total Win-Win situation!!

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SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #66....

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 #66: In this next year, with the oncoming famine, animals both domestic and in the wild will disappear. Tragically, trusting household pets will be the first to go. Formerly loving owners will first turn on their aquarium fish, reptiles, snakes, iguanas, then small and very cute rodents, then parakeets and the larger bird species, and finally dogs and cats! The heartbreak will rend society's very fabric. Families will be torn asunder. And the morals and basic laws of civilization will begin to vanish. For the few who can maintain their sanity in the face of all this loss, the creation of "Fashion-Accessories-As-Pets" will open new vistas for comfort and companionship. ..... By 2023, all Petland Discount Stores will be converted to Pradas.

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SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #45....

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 #45: In this next year, people will still want some of the amenities of life, the basics, the simple joys! How many of us today want to go out into the world to find romance, or to spend a lovely weekend with a new and sexy friend?..or to even feel that WE'RE the cute young thing that's being stared at in the pick-up bar?...well, my friends, those very same urges will still be alive and well in the coming year! Sadly, with dwindling petroleum supplies and the diminishing manufacture of cosmetics, most people will turn to plastic surgery for more permanent changes in their appearance. But with the disappearance of a Middle Class, and increasingly desperate financial circumstances..... well, "Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention"....

Here we have four of Hollywood's most famous celebrities after their do-it-at-home facelifts... (clockwise from top right) Julianne Moore, Tom Hanks, Justin Timberlake, and Oprah Winfrey. ....Smart investors however will make fortunes with the 3M Corporation...

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SYBIL PREDICTS!!!... #24...

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 #24: In this next year in Asia, as all dogs and indeed every other kind of animal in both wild and domesticated species are eaten, humans will once again have to turn to cannibalism since they will be the only remaining thing to eat. More sophisticated diners will come up with a delightful new culinary treat!... Eating THEMSELVES! Festive evenings out at a fancy restaurant will entail picking which part of your anatomy you'd like the chef to prepare, and then enjoying a nice aperitif with friends before "dinner". And what a wonderful way to stick to your diet! The weight comes off every time you dine!....LITERALLY!!!...

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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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