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The Wolf Who Looked Like A Man

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  Lieutenant General Baron Roman Fyodorvitch Von Ungern-Sternberg, the Mad Baron.     As a boy, Ungern-Sternberg was noted for being such a ferocious bully that even the other bullies feared him and several parents forbade their children from playing with him as he was a "terror". Ungern was well known for his love of torturing animals, and at the age of 12 he tried to strangle to death his cousin's pet owl for no particularly good reason other than his cruelty toward animals.  Ungern-Sternberg had extreme pride in his ancient, aristocratic family and later wrote that his family had over the centuries "never taken orders from the working classes" and it was outrageous that "dirty workers who've never had any servants of their own, but still think they can command" should have any say in the ruling of the vast Russian Empire.  A highly decorated soldier, the baron was extremely brave but regarded as unstable, whatever that meant in the ...

It's Laughter And It's Loving I Disdain

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 If I never loved I never would have cried.

In Honor Of National Poetry Month

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We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon. We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold. We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Recuerdo. 1931.

A Startled Rabbit

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Billy had the wife of an old friend over when she announced that she was getting a divorce. Took him by surprise, like.

Down With Dead Friends, Down By The Water

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  Billy is watching the sun go down from the old wharves.  He doesn't know it but some friends have come by to see him again, the dead miss their old pals just as much as the living do.

Jotunheim

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Thor is unable to lift his host's cat while staying at Utgard.  He is derided as a wimp.  Earlier he failed to even finish his beer, and his companion god Loki lost an eating contest. Then Thor loses a wrestling match to an old woman. What a pair of weaklings these gods are!   https://www.thecollector.com/thor-adventures-jotunheim-norse-myth-utgard-loki/