One Missed Folksy 1920s Calendar

MAY 1920 “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” — Theodore Roosevelt ❧ JUNE 1920 “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” — Mark Twain ❧ JULY 1920 “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” — Henry Ford ❧ AUGUST 1920 “You are going to suffer a painful demise after being disfigured in a way that perverts some symbol of innocence and normality, such as having your face twisted inward like a badly made doll.” — Mysterious Harbinger of Gruesome Death

One Missed Parchment Letter Delivered by a Slave

[To Robert Skipwith]

Monticello, 3 Aug. 1771

I sat down with a design of executing your request to form a catalogue of books to the amount of about 50 pounds sterling. But could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I could make. Nor could I extort a smile from the face of gravity once a most troublesome tableau manifested to me a providential warning. What virtue, indeed what wisdom lies in this vision? The inquiry has plagued my sleep, such that I could not receive Sally but twice these last severall evenings.

I hold this truth, that everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue. When any original act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we imagine any atrocious deed, such as I saw the other night, we are disgusted by its deformity, and conceive an abhorrence of vice.

For in this vision, your face was twisted inward and foul, a sight nearly as deathly and detestable as Benj. Frankl.’s derrière. I saw it but for a moment; — but mortality’s intimation persuaded me of the urgency to communicate it. As Vitruvius noted, death follows its preconception like a good slave to the garden bell. Therefore dear Bob, take caution whereupon Redcoats or agents of the Netherworld are concerned, — and if you receive a threat by letter, do confirm by discourse and study that the message did not come from inside the house.

As regards a gentleman’s proper syllabus, we must begin with memory and imagination. Considering history as a moral exercise, her lessons would be too infrequent if confined to real life. We are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics and divinity that ever were written. — Of Politics and Trade I have given you a few only of the best books, as you would probably chuse to be not unacquainted with those commercial principles which bring wealth into our country, and the constitutional security we have for the enjoiment of that wealth.

Bear my affections to Wintipock clothed in the warmest expressions of sincerity; and to yourself be every human felicity. Adieu.

[Th. J.]

One Missed “Ant’ny”

[Twilight. The sound of an accordion drifts through tenement streets. A voice is heard from somewhere around the corner.]

MA. Ant’ny! Aaaaant’ny!

MR. DiSIPIO. Paulie — get ya bruddah. Your muddah’s callin’ ’im.

MA. Aaaaaaaaant’ny!

PAULIE. MAAAAAAAAAA. WHADDAYA WAAANT?

MA. Paulie! Tell your bruddah Ant’ny! His face is gonna dry up and it’s gonna look like a ginger root!

PAULIE. WHAAA? Ma, whadda you talkin’ about?

MA. Paulie shaddup and listen! Your bruddah! He’s bein’ pursued by the forces of darkness, who have inexplicably singled out Mulberry Street here in 1920 to enter the realm of the livin’! They got no motivation ’cept evil! Way they do it is, first you get the message sayin’ how you’re gonna get it, and then you get it! And this is how they said Ant’ny’s gonna get it!

PAULIE. Ma, that’s crazy!

MA. Paulie shaddup and don’t interrupt your muddah! Your bruddah Ant’ny! His face is gonna dry up and look like a ginger root! And then his skull is gonna implode and he’s gonna walk around like a headless zombie!

PAULIE. Ma, that’s disgusting!

MA. Paulie shaddup! Tell your bruddah he’s gotta banish the sleep demons back to da netherworld if he wants his face to stay on like normal! And we all know that ain’t no movie star face to begin with! I swear they switched ’im on me at the hospital! Madonn’!

MR. DiSIPIO. I can’t hear myself think out here!

PAULIE. Ma!

MA. Paulie! Tell Ant’ny I’m makin’ meatballs, just the way he likes ’em! I need green peppers and some more tomatoes! Make sure you smell the peppers before you buy ’em!

PAULIE. All right, all right! Jeez, ma. AAAAAAAAANT’NYYYY! AAAAAAANT’NYYY! C’MAAAAAAHN!

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The original “Ant’ny.”