S.S. Daisy Belle

On the Mississippi and at sea,  1873 

A rather nervous man had met her at the station in St. Louis. She had hoped to be met by one of her girls. Her St. Louis Theater was still thriving, as such places do that provide mental escape during uncertain and frightening times. There is great money in diversions. Even when there is no money to grasp, it shows up for sport, laughter, and lust. So, Daisy had excused the oversight of any her girls to greet her. Once the realization had taken hold, she resigned to status quo and gave her attention to the nervous man. His name was Douglas Connelly, an Irishman.

In Kentucky, police recently arrested a 20-year-old man hiding in a ditch, wearing a clown costume. Police in Virginia arrested two teens for wearing clown outfits and chasing children. Meanwhile police in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, arrested a man for falsely claiming he had seen a clown trying to lure children and chased it into the woods. He had made it all up, he told police. But that is what is happening now.  During the war, silly shit like this happened every goddam day. Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. No… we invent all kinds of bullshit reasons for what we want to do anyway. And when we can’t do it, we give all kinds of crazy batshit sour grape plop cognitive dissonance puts and calls. Role a roll a row oh… pluckit .

Daisy watched the river as they rode alongside it, and it was obvious to her that winter was essentially upon them this far west and north of home. The leaves were gone, the air was chilly and the sun was sliding along mostly south in the sky. She seldom missed the northern cities in which she had been so successful. Most commercial enterprises couldn’t seem to succeed without the filth and dreary environment they rendered the cities. By Saturday, she would have her offer formulated based upon her personal experience, the reaction of the clientele and her accounting inspection.

Chaska, Thabo and Heinrich- an Indian, an African and a European- drew their doodles on the margins of the Atlantic monthly to test the currency of the golf scream.  It was invented in Scotland you know- along with those Pinkerton sluts who now dog us for our bones.  Kate Warne, eh.  A real person.  Ant we all say Henry.  All the buoys were 40 years old and still full of clang and foghorn and such.  Bobbin on the space-time rubber sheet down their event horizon, they could not avoid the war.  It was a reference point- nothing more.  Bloom and grow.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. —Plato