The List
The Red House
Mystery at the Museum
Add Some Romance and Adventure to Your 2024 Reading List
Leather Pants
A Hint of a Ghost
Easy Beezy
“When the honeybees go, they’re taking us with them,” someone said to me once. As always, humans try to outwit nature and sidestep the consequences of their actions. In this case, consequences only multiply… (*CONTENT WARNING: Suicide. This story takes a dark turn at the end.)
We were too busy looking for outside threats to notice disaster on our own doorstep. After World War II, we had the threat of nuclear war to worry about. When that didn’t materialize, the doomsayers warned us about Y2K, and then that Mayan calendar fiasco. We survived the COVID-19 pandemic, but something new always lurked around the corner; some potential disaster to keep us distracted from the core issue, which was the damage we were doing to our planet. Our oceans were dying, our forests decimated and our climate was changing. Yet even with all of those odds against us, we could have repaired…
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Pod People: Invasion of the Laundry Zombies
Ernest sat up in bed. “ You hear that?”
Louise looked up from her book. “What’s that, dear?”
“There it is again! It’s the basement door. It’s those damn zombies.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. Just the wind.”
“Wind my ass!” Ernest muttered, glancing at the shotgun that leaned against the wall in the corner of the bedroom. These days he kept both barrels loaded, just in case. “It’s zombies, I tell ya! I thought I told you to get rid of those fucking laundry pods.”
The door rattled again. Ernest had installed sturdy new locks, but the intruders would never give up as long as what they desired lay on the other side of the door.
“Dammit, Louise! This is your fault!”
Louise peered at him over the rims of her glasses. “Seriously, Ern? And what do you expect me to do with them? Just throw them away? I…
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Procrastination.
I would write today
But I don’t have any donuts
And my Keurig magic machine is out of magic.
I could go to the store.
I could buy a box of donuts.
I could buy some more magic for my Keurig.
But that would involve getting out of bed.
And my bed is so warm.
And the cat is purring nearby.
And all is cozy and lovely.
I will go to the store later.
I will buy my donuts then.
I will buy my Keurig’s magic then.
And then, I will write.
But not right now.
Sphere
This is a good one, and so unexpected.
Lola almost turned back when she saw the darkened street filled with abandoned buildings. Love for her sister and a desire for a better life for both of them spurred her toward the address given by the woman on the phone.
48 Egasuas Ave. There it was. The building didn’t look like much; it appeared deserted, except for the freshly painted white door and intercom. Lola paused before pressing the button. Last chance to turn back.
Footsteps scuffled in the alley. A thin, hunched figure was approaching.
Shit. A junkie. Just what I need.
Lola slid her hand into her purse and felt for the smooth round security of her pepper spray canister. She jabbed the intercom’s call button.
“Yes?” A woman’s voice crackled over the speaker.
“Lola Cooper. I called on the phone. Can you let me in please?”
“Of course, Ms Cooper. One moment please.”
Lola wanted to…
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The Daily Spur Presents….Death Is A Pretty Woman In Sneakers.
Ohhhhhhh love this story!
Death walked down the street. But this was no skeleton king in a shroud.
No.
This time Death wore a pretty woman’s face, a knee-length cape and gown, and high-top sneakers. Death’s scythe was tucked out of sight. She would pull it out when needed.
Death walked down the street, carrying a lit match between her thumb and index finger. She held it horizontally. The flame seemed to have consumed the whole top half of the match already. But Death knew that it was safe. The flame would never reach the opposite end, for it was an eternal match.
She walked down the street, unseen and unnoticed until it was too late. But that was the way that Death always operated. People believed that they were invulnerable. They were young. They ate and drank and did all of the healthy things. They were beautiful. They were famous. They were so…
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Artist of the moment…….California Impressionist Clarence Hinkle….
In the gallery the first painting is by Hinkle’s first teacher, WF Jackson. The second if by Karl Dempwolf. The rest are by Clarence Hinkle.
Clarence Hinkle was a spectacular painter of the outdoors and a leader of artists that painted directly from life in California. Hinkle was born in 1880 in the city of Auburn, California. His father was the owner of a business that painted carriages.
As a young man Hinkle was able to mentor under artist William Franklin Jackson. Jackson was the most sought after painter in Sacramento, California at his death and taught many students that went on to become well known in the California Impressionist scene.
Below is a signature work of Jackson’s and see the influence he had on Hinkle. Hinkle is also compared to Granville Redmond. Redmond was deaf since an early age as a result of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906…
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California’s old master
Wonderful article about one of my favorite painters.
Murals by William Keith hang in the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco.
Photograph by Jim Karageorge
ART HISTORY | CHARLES KEELER
A great personality was evident to all who came in contact with William Keith. A rather thick-set Scot of medium height, with a head of true nobility — a broad face, wide forehead, kindly gray eyes, ample, well-shaped nose, a moustache and small beard hiding his lips, and a mass of tousled grizzly gray hair surmounting his Jovian head — such was the impression one got of him at first meeting. He generally wore a suit of fine checked gray, more often with the careless abandon of an artist than with the neatly pressed creases of a business or professional man.
To his intimate friends he was always gracious, although they sometimes found him in an exuberant mood and again utterly dejected and despondent. It all depended on whether…
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West Coast Review 