Sybil Bruncheon’s “My Merry Memoirs”… keeping busy in the Summer of 1989...

Unexpectedly (and quite annoyingly!) my plans and employment for the Summer came to a crashing end in April of 1989!... literally just a week before I was to leave for Fire Island and the little cottage set aside for my living there while I managed an adorable gourmet wine and spirits store. When my head finally cleared and I had gotten up off the ground and brushed myself off, I resolved as I often do to turn the proverbial “lemons into lemonade”… or maybe into an entire World’s Fair Pavilion based on lemons, their culture, history, heritage, and influence on all aspects of civilization! Yes, that IS hyperbole, but you get the idea.

You find, as you get older, that people sometimes screw your hopes and dreams up accidentally, innocently, and clumsily… and sometimes they do it willfully, deliberately, and even gladly… having been raised in my family, I had experienced it early… and repeatedly, so I guess, although it stung in 1989, I was somewhat inoculated you could say. So, I sat down, bruised but not broken, and doodled around with some ideas I had for a show… and I imagined a radio broadcast musical set in "a revolving ballroom" in the tower of the iconic Chrysler Building in the middle of Manhattan in 1933; an Art Deco pastiche of Busby Berkley and Florenz Ziegfeld, Harpo Marx and Bela Lugosi, corny commercials, serial mysteries, advice for the lovelorn and housewives, and new special guests changing from one week to the next. We had scenery and costumes, (and scenery and costume changes during the performances), and programs that sat like menus on the tables.

The show in all its incarnations ran for three years, first at Eighty Eights down a 228 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village, then at The Duplex in Sheridan Square, and finally at Don’t Tell Mama in the theatre district. We even printed T-shirts and had beautifully embroiderd “show jackets” that folks clamored for… just like the Broadway shows!

We could never have done it without the talents of Bob Gutowski, Michael McQuary, Jay Rogers, Jeffrey Wallach, Tom Stoehr, Stephen Borsuk, John Sheehan, Virginia Farley, the backing of Michael Margulies and Carl Smith, and the support of Karen Miller, Maggie Cullen, Rochelle Seldin, Shawn Moninger, Matt Berman, James Takos, Marty Santoro, and the love and endless sacrifice of my partner Rick Cook. Some of these wonderful people are gone now as the AIDS crisis and life’s careless whimsies took their toll. But at that time, it was, for all intents and purposes, the first “cabaret show” done in an accredited cabaret house performed with all the amenities and accessories of an actual theatrical play… ah, good times… good times.

(Cast photo by Barbara Nitke)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Tales & Tails"... Millie

Millie had started out as most urban kitties do, abandoned very early in life by a neglectful mother either too drunk or too busy with gentlemen-callers (or both!) to raise her litter properly.……Although Jacob Riis photographed her at one of the most dire times of her young life, Millie’s natural beauty shone through, and brought her enormous notoriety in all the gazettes of the day. Society matrons flocked to her neighborhood near the dank and dangerous slum known as Five Points in an attempt to “rescue” her and be seen as the “great philanthropists” that wealthy citizens found to be the most fashionable hobby.

Millie did indeed go on to a very comfortable life, but she nevertheless became an inveterate thief of people's personal property… It started out with small unimportant objects; pieces of string, a paper clip, rubber balls, coins, things left on dressing tables....You know the type! But then she began to raise the stakes… and the consequences. The police couldn't trace her crimes for years because there was no rhyme or reason to them... a rubber band on Monday would be followed by a $2000 earring on Wednesday. What she couldn’t carry off to her hide-aways, she’d simply knock off the edge of tables in an off-hand sort of way, usually when no one was looking, but sometimes right in front of them!

Finally, the authorities tracked her down...she had holed up in a seemingly abandoned paper bag….but her rustling gave her away. As they closed in, she leapt out at them in one final burst of surprise scaring the crap out of all of them. Yowling triumphantly, she escaped and was never really caught again...although there were reports for years that she could be seen lying on other people's desks, pillows, sweaters, bathmats, open romance novels, fashion magazines, dress patterns, gentlemen’s “French Calendars”... you get the idea. She could, on occasion, allow the unwary to scratch behind her ears and compliment her on her lovely whiskers as she did her bathing. Reportedly she was very well loved in spite of, and perhaps because of, her life of narcissism and mischief. …..She had private accounts at Luchow’s, Tony Pastor’s, "21", The Stork Club, The Russian Tea Room, The Rainbow Room, oh, all over..... Of course, she never paid her bills, but they kept seating her anyway…. And at the best tables!

She lived to the ripe old age of 22, although she lied about her age till the very end, claiming she was only 3 or 4. She might have lived longer, but she was killed in a motor car accident of her own making. Her friends had warned her not to drive herself, but she insisted, even though it was very difficult for her to see over the steering wheel of a Duesenberg, and a stolen one at that! She was laid to rest in a very expensive cigar thermidor of carved mahogany with her favorite lobster fork and a brass door knocker in the shape of a pineapple. Her many kitty friends delivered hours of eulogies in the alleyway behind Bergdorf’s …at the top of their lungs…. And the nice people at the Plaza Garden Court Café catered the luncheon… (Other diners were heard to complain about the yowling.)

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*Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs!"... a stroll down Memory Lane to March 4th, 2020.

LOLOLOLOL! Is it possible?!?... only 4 years ago today, George and I were stranded in the little airport in Springfield, Illinois!... so little that the desk-staff was responsible for checking you in, putting your luggage on the rolling cart to the plane, and loading it in too! And this the state capital!... of Illinois! Interestingly, the most startling thing about this business trip was that George's travel agent had mixed up Springfield, Illinois with Springfield, MISSOURI!!... which is where we were due at 9am the following morning! Thank God we had been lucky enough to go out a day early... and that it wasn't Springfield, Idaho or Maine or Arizona!

Of course, with all the packing, planning, and running every week to different events in various states from one corner of the country to the other, we only realized we were in wrong state as we taxied into town and saw all sorts of "Abraham Lincoln" stuff on signs along the way. George was chatting merrily away with the driver, but I was thinking, "I don't remember Lincoln having that much history with Missouri!... Kentucky maybe, but Missouri??"... I finally interrupted and asked George where were we supposed to be... and... well... back to the airport we went! Unfortunately, the airport basically closed at about 4 in the afternoon! Can you believe it?!.. And again, in a state capital!!

Well, after some intensive research, many, many phone calls, and a ton of feverish negotiations, we found a limo company that would drive us all the way from Springfield, Illinois to Springfield, Missouri... some 300 miles!... by limo! We hit the gorgeous St. Louis arch at dusk with the stars just beginning to come out above it!

I feel like I've lived a century since that evening and the subsequent week in cute little Springfield, Missouri. And it's astounding to me that not only was it ONLY four years ago, but also that the Covid catastrophe was only just beginning to take hold!... what with orange idiots denying it... or suggesting drinking bleach or horse dewormers... whatever.

Four years!... and who would have guessed that on our return to NYC we would suddenly be faced with decisions about leaving along with the stampeding masses and moving to the suburbs of Philadelphia? Ah well... I've always been amazed at how big and surprisingly unexpected life is! I'm so grateful that my life is not "just rushing by"!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"... Dagmar and her perfume bottle...

I know I've told you about my identical twin sister Dagmar and of her constant mischief and reckless life as we grew up, right?... well, around 1920, she was going through a particularly envious streak. World War I had just ended, and both America and Europe were in the process of liberating their morals and mores! Women on both sides of the Atlantic were experiencing newfound freedoms, and it showed in their fashions, their homes, and in their adventures!

Dagmar in particular, never having been very constrained to begin with, now exhibited the most scandalous behavior, much to the shock of much of our family (although our deranged mother only egged her on to greater and greater antics!). Suffice it to say that Dagmar began working her way through some of the remaining royal houses of Europe and the crossover businesses in style and fashion. Various Princes, Dukes, and Counts in assorted mini-countries and kingdoms scattered throughout Central and Eastern Europe found themselves having to lend their names to the manufacture of luxury goods to stay afloat; fine automobiles, gourmet wines and champagnes, exclusive tins of imported caviar, and exotic fragrances at the most expensive department stores. A case in point was "Mes Courgettes Violettes"... a perfume bottled by the French couturier, Fernande "Fifi" La Flouncet. She commissioned the great designer, Josef Hoffman, to create a flask that would be both unforgettable and perceived as possibly obscene by the public... and here it is, with Dagmar as the model for the dauber. She had been skinny-dipping one night in the enormous swimming pool at Madame's estate, and a photograph by Georgia O'Keefe of her jumping from the balcony of her bedroom became the inspiration for womankind's headlong plunge into modernity!

Was it MY fault that the public always assumed it was ME that had been the model for the iconic bottle? Dagmar and I were, after all, identical twins... so I'd just blush and and cast my eyes downward all-a-flutter when asked by admiring dinner companions and party-goers. Why should I spoil their fun???...

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "A Few Of My Favorite Things!"...

Did I ever show you my child's camping set?... when I was little, my extraordinary Grandmother insisted that if I was to be sent away for the Summer (Camp Goomy-ma-Goochie... in the Catskills! Do you know it?) that I was to maintain "the sophisticated and civilized niceties that we had been raised in"... her words exactly. She had this special camping set made for me in sterling silver; yes, that's the traditional Army tray, sterling fork and spoon in Georg Jensen "Pyramid", and a sterling salt and pepper set in cobalt glass with a little "Pyramid" salt spoon. And no! There's no knife... apparently I had threatened some child who claimed that the whole thing was only silver-plate! SILVER-PLATE! Me! Can you imagine??... with MY grandmother! I kicked HIS ass...

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From Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs"...

...lovely... as a child I found a box of Golden Guides once: they included "Recipes From The Donner Party", "Driving Nails Safely With Only Grandma's Fine China", and "Oblong Vegetables and First Aid for Internal Injuries"... I found out later that the box belonged to my Uncle Filbert... who lived in a sod-house outside of town...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Breaking News From The World of Medical Mysteries!!!".... the Giggle-Weevil, and its deadly consequences...

Yes, folks, it's true! A long suspected killer has finally been discovered in our midst; the insidious Giggle-Weevil (Stingus hystericocus) Always dismissed as a myth by the AMA and the conservative Western medical establishment, (like acupuncture!), it has now been affirmed that a small seemingly harmless insect has been the culprit for years... perhaps centuries! Starting with what appears to be nothing more than a mosquito bite, the itching begins to be accompanied by a happy mood... gradually descending into a merry buoyancy, and finally into inappropriate and raucous laughter, wild dancing about, capering, violent gymnastics and often naked calisthenics... and death. There is no known cure... the victim should be made as comfortable as possible, and restrained if he poses a physical threat to those around him, valuable artwork, or innocent farm animals... Seen here are a variety of victims from all walks of life of this dread insect: (Clockwise from top left...)

1) Brijittah Oбрізки - A Ukrainian housewife and interpretive dancer who, during a recital at a local hospice/petting zoo, was bitten by the Giggle Weevil (or the Хихікач-Довгоносик) while she re-enacted all the animals in the "Farmer In The Dell". The audience was rapturous and applauded lustily until she suddenly began a verse about an orangutan marrying a bushel of okras... the children in the audience were delighted, but their parents began to worry, especially as Brijittah disrobed and showed what a fully ripe okra could be used for... With a delighted yowl, she fell to the ground as local police persons descended on her... she died 3 hours later... though with a huge and satisfied smile on her dear old face.

2) Huu Kwan Ping - A cigar and cigarette maker, Ping had always been known as the most grim and sour member of his large and prosperous family. Having absolutely no sense of humor, he was all business and finance, investing his money in tobacco futures and noodle commodities. He was reported to have become a millionaire by the time he was 19 although he only had seven remaining teeth. One night at the age of 31, he was out on a veranda counting his day's profits when he was bitten by the dread Giggle Weevil (or the Gēgē xiàng bí chóng). Within a few minutes he began tell jokes in Mandarin, apparently of his own design, accompanied by obscene gestures and barnyard sounds. Predictably, no one else laughed. He had never been know to be the least bit entertaining or even particularly friendly. And when he died a few hours later face down in a family-sized portion of General Tso's Chicken, the staff at the McDonald's performed a makeshift funeral... and cremated him in the French-fryer. 

3) Alex Trebek – prime-time game-show host. Yes, it’s true. Even celebrities in the whirlwind maelstrom of obscure trivia questions, flipping cards, guessing letters, buying vowels, and interviewing lunk-head contestants from Butt-Smoke, Wyoming can be victims of an unfortunate run-in with a bizarre insect.  Mr. Trebek apparently was bitten by the Giggle-Weevil on an outing to Yosemite National Park and returned from his Summer hiatus to the first Fall taping session. In front of the studio audience, he began to chuckle merrily at some of the unfortunate contestants’ incorrect answers. Always a bit on the condescending side of his comments, Trebek managed during Double-Jeopardy to burst out laughing on one mistake and then roll around on the floor howling behind his podium at the Final-Jeopardy showdown. He was carried away, tears streaming down his face in front of a horrified audience that was forced at the exits to sign a disclaimer; they were deny that any such thing had happened in exchange for $47.00 and a lifetime supply of Tang and Calgon Bouquet Bath Salts. (This was before the FDA scandal that revealed that Tang and Calgon Bouquet Bath Salts were in fact the same product!) Trebek managed to survive his bout with the Giggle-Weevil long enough to tragically pass away from other causes later in the year. 

4) Greta-Mae Linn Eisenhower – a distant cousin of the great Dwight Eisenhower. Greta-Mae was an active member of the Ladies’ Rotary and had the distinction of being an Elk, a Wombat, an Oddfellow, a Daughter of Pythias,  a Daughter of Columbus, a Daughter of Italy, and a Shriner-ette. She participated in every charity bake-sale, church sociable, fire department pancake breakfast, and county fair clown dunk…as the CLOWN! That’s one reason why, due to her naturally merry nature, that no one noticed her decent into the tragic madness of a Giggle-Weevil bite. It was on a charming Sunday morning in April that Greta-Mae casually mentioned that she “thought the lampshade in the foyer might look nice as a church hat”… and that’s just what she did in front of startled onlookers after she cut it loose from its hanging wire. She plopped it cheerfully on her head and strode out onto the front lawn to show it to any passersby. When asked by a child what the thing sticking out of the top was, Greta-Mae looked, thought for a moment, and then declared that it was fuse she might light at any moment to blow up the Bingo Hall since she never got to win… and then off she staggered into town yowling the whole way. Later, after the church services were finished, during which she interrupted Reverend Felter with catcalls and an endless stream of lewd puns, knock-knock jokes, and cookie recipe suggestions during the parable of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When seized with a sudden attack of flatulence, she excitedly tore the pink bow curtain-tie from her living room window and claimed that it would prevent any unpleasant smells from disturbing her gerbil, Fritzie. Her daughter later reported that Greta-Mae never had a gerbil, that there was no one in their circle of family and friends named Fritzie, and that she was going to really miss that pink floral bedspread! Greta-Mae passed away a week later and was buried in that very same bedspread dress… 

5) Salvador Dali – famous Dadaist and Surrealist painter. Dali is the only know person to have actually swallowed a Giggle-Weevil. Enough said… 

6) Unidentified widows in the Sweet Sepulchre of Restful Souls Cemetery, Itch-hollow, Indiana. According to a front page story in the Itch-hollow Clarion, an assortment of women attending funerals for their husbands apparently were attacked by a swarm of stinging Giggle-Weevils when someone disturbed their nest, possibly in a bush, a tree, or a discarded picnic basket. Within seconds two things happened; one was that all the mourning and weeping turned into laughter and merriment, and two, all the ladies suddenly became fast-friends… All the grieving parties became… well… PARTIES! A grill was set up directly over Mr. Hiram Eggleson’s fresh grave, the Morrison family brought groceries from their car including packs of hot-dogs and all the fixings for s’mores, and someone ran to the local market down the block for beer, pretzels, and soft drinks for the children. Singing, dancing, and off-color rounds of charades and Twister continued well into the night until the local police were called for possible desecration of burial places… no charges were filed, but only because all the participants were dead within 72 hours.

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Sybil Bruncheon's HOLLYWOOD HULLA-BALLOO!... Coming soon!... a BETTY BOOP movie!!

Yes, folks and fans of the irrepressible Boop-Boop-Be-Doop Girl, a film devoted totally to Betty is in the works at the studios!... the problem is which studio will release theirs first!... and WHAT will it be about? Some of the proposals are listed below;

1) MGM is proposing a lavish blockbusting musical where Betty, a sweet, young, misunderstood girl from Poka-Ma-Hola, Iowa, is under attack by Shawnee Indians in her shabby but immaculate farmhouse when a tornado carries her off to a land of midgets, witches, and yodeling giraffes. Dancing vegetables and an overly friendly banana add mischief and merriment... followed by an uplifting message of redemption and family values as the music swells at the final fadeout. (Possible casting choices include Burt Lahr as Koko the Clown, and Linda Hunt as a "little person".)

2) Warner is finished with a script where Betty, caught behind enemy lines, smuggles Jewish, Bulgarian, and carny-show orphans out of a vaudeville academy to safety somewhere in the USA, possibly Poka-Ma-Hola, Nebraska. Disguising them all as merry midgets in her own touring musical review, she happens to run into her former great-love-that-got-away who is now the resentful-but-successful impresario of a dinner theatre in Bundt-kaka, Hungary. Their romance is swiftly rekindled, and he moves Heaven and Earth to get Betty and 316 orphans out of the country disguised as a giant millipede during a county fair 4H Club jamboree. Mischief, merriment, and machine gun fire ensue... followed by an uplifting message of redemption and family values as the music swells at the final fadeout. (Possible casting choices include the Mormon Tabernacle choir as the orphans.)

3) Universal Pictures is about to start filming a terrifying horror film where Betty Boop is transformed through exposure to atomic radiation, sound-waves from a distant planet, and defective Valentine's chocolates into a snarling, drooling, Medusa-creature!!... right in front of the Girl Scout troop she den-mothers for in a place called Poka-Ma-Hola, Indiana! Needless to say, the young girls are terrified, especially when she eats three or four of them, sashes and all. Crowds of torch-bearing villagers, mobs of pitchfork-waving farmers, and a smallish gang of circus-jugglers hurling spoiled vegetables manage to chase Betty to the haunted castle on the hill where a formerly insane mad-scientist has, through prayer and bathing in llama-milk, become a kindly old yoga-instructor. He cures Betty of her monstrousness, and the crowds of enraged citizens are won over to mercy and forgiveness... fortunately, the girls that Betty killed and ate were orphans and therefore not missed by any family members... the end is an uplifting message of redemption and family values as the music swells at the final fadeout. (Possible casting choices include John Carradine and all his sons as dancing skeletons.)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "I Know I'm Older Than Dirt, But..."

As you get older, do various things just stick in your craw?? They do for me! Here are a couple of mine, and I invite you to post some of your own too...

1) People who insist on clapping during a conversation at the next table to emphasize their agreement or amusement at the idiot-story they're sharing! This is also often accompanied by foot-stomping and table-top banging!!! Also, laughing or rather "BLAT-laughing" as a conversational statement... no one has said anything funny, but they insist on laughing as if to say, "Oh, I so agree!". HA-HAA-HAAAAA!!!!!... as a comma. And then the ultimate, usually perpetrated by a bevy of "Karens" or pubescent girls; deafening shrieking as a greeting in a very public place; the café, the mall, the lobby of a building, a subway car, a funeral!.... AAAAAAEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIAAAAAHHHHHH! So everyone around can experience, "HEYYYYY! LOOK AT ME AND MY GANG OF MORONS! WE'RE SO HAPPY TO BE THE CENTER OF YOUR UNIVERSE!"....

I know I'm older than dirt, but... ok, post your own...

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My friend, Leigh Gannon, shared this poem with me: "Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About" by May Oliver...

The cricket doesn’t wonder if there’s a heaven

or, if there is, if there’s room for him.

It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.

If he can, he enters a house

through the tiniest crack under the door.

Then the house grows colder.

He sings slower and slower.

Then, nothing.

This must mean something, I don’t know what.

But certainly it doesn’t mean he hasn’t been an excellent cricket all his life.

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