Archive for the ‘edgar allan poe’ Tag
👮🏻♂️🚓👮🏻♀️
My life has been relatively interesting even though I spent a large part of that life in courthouses, courtrooms, and dealing with an ungodly number of attorneys, both good, bad, and some really bad. The general rule of mine was to ignore almost everything attorneys said to me and that served me well for three decades. They made me a believer of an old saying quoted by Edgar Allen Poe, “BELIEVE ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE AND NOTHING YOU HEAR”. I have a few friends that are actually very good attorneys and that just tells me there are exceptions to every rule. Today’s post is one of my favorite stories about attorneys. If and when you’re ever required to hire an attorney make sure you don’t get one like the one I’m about to tell you about.
Clement Vallandigham was an attorney and former US Congressman. In 1871, while defending a murder suspect in court, he argued that the alleged victim had not been murdered and could’ve accidently shot himself. Vallandigham took out a gun, held it as if at the scene of the crime and thinking it was unloaded, he pulled the trigger. Good news: He proved his point and his client was acquitted. Bad news: Vallandigham died from an accidental gunshot wound to the head.
JUST PLED TEMPORARY INSANITY FOR EVERYTHING
I’ve had a relationship for more than fifty years with the criminal justice system in this country. Starting as a cop, then a private investigator, a corporate Loss Prevention specialist, and eventually working for the State of Maine in the Judicial Branch. I’m fascinated with all aspects of the profession which includes collecting odd bits of trivia which I’ll share with you today.
- The world’s first police detective was Eugene Françoise Vidocq. The Frenchman founded the plainclothes civil police unit, the Brigade de la se Surete, in 1812.
- C. Auguste Dupin was the world’s first fictional police detective. Edgar Allen Poe used Eugene François Vidocq as a model for his character C. Auguste Dupin in the 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which is considered to be the world’s first detective story.
- The act of hanging, drawing, and quartering was not abolished in England until 1870.
- Sheraton Hope and Ormond Sacker were the original names of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous crime-fighting duo, Sherlock Homes and Dr. John Watson. They first appeared in a novel called “A Tangled Skein.” Doyle ultimately changed the novel’s title to “A Study in Scarlet” when it was officially published in 1887.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sold more books than J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien combined.
- One in four convicts ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence confessed or pled guilty to crimes they did not commit.
- Until 1998 it was a valid defense against rape or sexual battery in Mississippi to claim that the female victim was not chaste in character.
- From the 11th to the 18th centuries criminals were executed in southeast Asia by being crushed by an elephant.
- A real-life member of Scotland Yard, Inspector Charles Frederick Field, was friends with author Charles Dickens and introduced Dickens to many of London’s criminal haunts. Dickens later featured the inspector in his 1851 short story “On Duty with Inspector Field.”
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE
I’m feeling a little weird today as you’ll see when you read the following post. I always like to have a reasonable amount of weirdness in my life but today I have more than my share. Therefore, I’ll pass the following items on to you to help me shed some of my current level of weirdness. Oh yeah, “You’re welcome.”
- An agoraphobic man who had vowed never to leave his house again after he was assaulted at age 18 decided, after 30 years of self-induced imprisonment, to take a walk outside. But the strain of being outside was too much for him and he suffered a heart attack while strolling along.
- A man was speeding down the highway at 110 mph when he struck the rear of a car, immediately killing the two people inside. The victims? The man’s mother and her elderly neighbor, who she was taking on a leisurely drive to see the town’s Christmas lights.
- Author Morgan Robertson wrote his story of a gigantic luxury ship, the Titan, in 1898. In his fictional tale, the ship, advertised as unsinkable, hits an iceberg and tragic tragically goes down, killing many passengers and crew. In 1912, the real-life ship the Titanic met a shockingly similar fate.
- A man attempting to rob a convenience store in Cherry Hill, North Carolina, thwarted his own plans when he dropped his gun. The gun hit the ground, went off, and the bullet lodged in the robber’s foot.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
Edgar Allen Poe
- A wealthy Connecticut woman named Helen Dow Peck believed messages she received from Ouija boards. One day in 1919, the board spelled out that she should leave her entire estate to a man named John Gale Forbes. She did but the only problem was she didn’t know anybody by that name. In fact, after she died in 1956, her lawyer did a search throughout the world and discovered that, despite what all the all-knowing spirits had said, there was nobody with that name.
- Four men dressed like Elvis Presley jumped out of a plane to promote a Boston nightclub opening in 1996. Three of them lived, but one unlucky Elvis died when he caught a gust of wind and was blown out to sea.
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many
things that escape those who dream only at night.”
Edgar Allan Poe
HUMAN RIGHTS SHOULD INCLUDE WEIRDNESS
‘The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps . . . so that something
that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.”
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Well, welcome back to 2024. I hope you enjoyed the last post concerning Mr. Poe because I certainly did. I thought today I would begin talking about haikus. The current requirements for haikus are a first line with five syllables, a second line with seven syllables, and a third line of five syllables. When I first discovered the haiku I thought the rigidity of this design didn’t make a lot of sense. The more I learned about haikus the wiser I thought I became. Here are two examples of haiku’s written by a gentleman from Japan who is considered the father of haikus, Matsuo Kinsaku (1644-1694). He began writing haikus under the name of Basho in 1672. In Basho’s humble opinion a haiku should be created using a minimum of words to paint a mental picture for the reader. Basho included descriptions of nature in most of his haikus but wasn’t limited to a fixed syllable count. I’m all for free-verse haiku’s but I still find the nature requirement of Basho a bit restrictive. Here are couple of samples of Basho’s haikus published in the 1680’s. See what you think.
Spring rain –
under trees
a crystal stream.
***
On the dead limb
squats a crow –
autumn night.
The structure of haikus as mentioned above were created by two poets, Sokan (1458-1546) and Moritake (1472-1549). In Basho’s opinion their works were terse but failed to adequately evoke nature. Three hundred years later a haiku school, the Soun, was opened celebrating Basho’s free-verse approach. The haiku should be based on content not on the number of syllables in each line. With this I whole heartedly agree.
Here is a little something I discovered recently. It’s shows the form of a free-verse haiku but was simply published as a standard poem. References to nature are gone offering a more interesting take on life, love, and people.
we are the dreamers
we are the dancers
life is the music
love is the song.
For all of you Star Trek fans out there, this was written some years ago by Leonard Nimoy and was included in his book of poetry “A Lifetime of Love” published in 2002.
“The true poet dreams being awake.”
Charles Lamb
I thought I’d start this year with a most interesting writer and poet, Edgar Allen Poe. I was introduced to him in high school way back in the days of covered wagons and wild Indians (that was sarcasm). His poetry was spooky, dark, and mysterious which drew me to it immediately. What 15-year-old kid wouldn’t love that? As with most school systems of the time they offered only a few of his writings for classroom work and discussion. The Raven stands as one of his greatest works and we were required to read and memorize certain passages to get a passing grade and then we moved on to other things. My second Poe favorite was Anabel Lee. A love story for the ages except Anabel doesn’t long survive the experience. The flow of his words in that poem grabbed me immediately and I was able to quote some of its passages for years and occasionally still do.
As I aged and was able to read more about Poe and his strange approach to life, the more attention I began to pay to poetry in general. I still think that actual world class poets are few and far between, but Poe was the real deal. Along with Emily Dickenson they are my two favorites. I especially liked Poe because he wrote what he felt and really did nothing to pander to the masses. In my opinion that’s what gives his works real meaning and weight.
Another of Poe’s works has slowly over the years made its way to the top of my favorites list, even more so than the Raven and Anabel Lee. I stumbled on to it quite by accident years ago and it has become one of those rare things that periodically calls to me to be read again. As with all of Poe’s poetry it’s best read while wrapped in a warm blanket on a dark and stormy night by candlelight.
ALONE
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone –
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the mountain –
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by –
From the thunder, and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
1829
***
WELCOME TO 2024
As I’ve stated on many occasions, I am not a religious person. But as I do my homework for this blog, I discover many things that I didn’t know before about religion. While I disagree with most organized religions that currently exist, I found that there are a few that I had no knowledge of at all and that being said, I thought I’d pass along their information to all of you.
- The first group is the Universe People. They live in and around the Czech Republic and believe that ancient non-earthly beings operate a fleet of spaceships orbiting the earth. The Universe People followers are waiting to be transported into another dimension. I hope they have a really nice trip!
- The second group is named after Bhagwan Shee Rajneesh. This gentleman was an India-born mystic who settled in Oregon in the 1980s. The group’s claim to religious fame is that Rolls-Royce’s are a sign of holiness. He owned dozens of them. He also tried to poison nonbelievers by introducing salmonella into the salad bars of several Oregon fast-food restaurants. Take no communion wafers from these folks.
- The third group is called the World Church of the Creator. It’s a white separatist movement advocating a white-only religion called Creativity. Ironically, despite their name, group members do not believe in God. They are atheists! They are also idiots, pure and simple.
- Number four is called Nuwaubianism. It’s a loose term referring to the religion founded by Dwight York, a black supremacist leader and convicted child molester (currently serving a 135-year prison sentence). These people believe all humans have seven clones living on different parts of the planet. Humans were bred on Mars as part of a Homo erectus breeding program gone awry, and famed scientist, Nikola Tesla, was born on the planet Venus. Let’s have a big AMEN here!
- Number five is one I’ll only mention briefly because they’re all dead. And that was Heaven’s Gate. A cult founded by Marshall Applewhite, whose followers believed that once they were free of their earthly bodies, a spaceship would take them away to a celestial paradise. In 1997 with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet they were assured their spaceship had arrived. In March of that year all 36 members of the cult were found dead in a mass suicide. Problem solved!
What more can I say about organized religions. My only
comment is that “You just can’t make this shit up.”
everyuselessthing.com 