culture war

if not art school

Larabie and Miz Kitti ran into each other outside the local art school.

“Three prominent twentieth-century characters were failed art students,” he reminded his friend.

“Explain away, Larabie,” the Miz wanted to know.

“I’ve always been interested in the Catholic intellectual world,” he went on, “So I know that G.K. Chesterton dropped out of art school.”

“Because I’m a John Lennon fan,” he told her, “I know that he did too,”

Then he reminded her, “Hitler never even got accepted when he applied.”

“Behind every failed artist,” she mused, “there’s a revolution waiting to happen?”

Dale Rogerson supplied this week’s photo prompt. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads, as always, Friday Fictioneers.

utopia dystopia

Dora and Periwinkle always read the Chick Tracts they find on their train.

“This moron was a true product of our ugly age,” she exclaimed.

He wanted an explanation.

“He was like the secular fanatics who cry racism, anti-Semitism, yada yada when they don’t get their way,” she groaned.

“His cartoons portray an ugly, vengeful God who sends everyone except Fundamentalist Christians to Hell.”

“Secularism is equally ugly and vengeful, sentencing all us intolerant Deplorables and Hypocrites to some neo-Nuremburg Trials.

“Fanaticism of any kind is always quite evil,” Periwinkle sighed.

Both then stared vacantly and sadly into the distance.

Thanks to C.E. Ayr for our photo prompt this week and to Rochelle Wisoff~Fields, as always, for guiding us in Friday Fictioneers.

st. cecilia as a metaphor and warning

“Henry and Peter made their daily trip to Erika’s House of Music at the South Bay Shopping Center.

The owner and her husband, as always, greeted them in their Austrian and German accents.

“The twenty second’s coming up,” Henry intoned.

“It’s interesting that J.F.K.was killed on the feast day of the patroness of music.”

“Yeah,” Peter reminded him. “So much of the nauseating Sexual and Cultural Revolutions of that era was set to such perfect music. A little charisma can be poisonous.”

“There’s good and bad in every era,” Henry noted as they looked around for Jimmy Page’s sheet music.

This week’s photo prompt was supplied by Bjorn Rudberg. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields guides us weekly in Friday Fictioneers, as each of us writes a hundred~word story based upon a photo prompt.

unity, happiness, and peace

“Well, you know,” chortled the King of Marigold “it’s not so bad being the king of an insignificant country.”

“Couldn’t agree more, darling,” boasted his wife the Queen.

“We have no war, a stable economy,” she continued.

“We don’t have to be bothered with things like Brexit or unethical election tactics, and everyone respects our flag and national anthem. What’s our secret,honey? Do you know?”

“It’s that way because we all have pretty much the same ideas, my dear,” he reminded her.

“Can’t be done otherwise.”

“You see, this ‘vive la difference’ crap isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Each week Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us in Friday Fictioneers. Sandra Crook supplied this week’s photo prompt.

the great society

“You see, Throckmorton,” bellowed Wilburforce, “since the 1960’s we’ve supplanted Christianity in man’s religious worldview.”

“Our Unholy Materialist Trinity is the intellectuals, the State, and the cultural elite.”

“We make blacks and whites, Christians and Jews bitterly resent each other. It’s always someone else’s fault, you know.”

“We’ve invented a phony virtue, tolerance, and developed a deceitful language to fool people.”

“Anyone we deem intolerant, or a hypocrite, is given a lobotomy here.”

“Divisiveness and sexual degeneracy, all in the name of freedom and equality, will make people happy in our great society. Count on it sir. You have to.

Rochelle Wisoff~Fields leads us in our weekly Friday Fictioneers, a hundred~word story based upon a picture. This week’s photo prompt was provided by Amy Reese.

false nostalgia

“All was not perfect before World War I, you know,” Charles told Harold.

Professor Blanc, at Farmingdale, just started a chapter on The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire yesterday.”

“It was March 25, 1911. One hundred forty six people, mostly young Italian and Jewish immigrant women, were killed.”

“Yes, I get your point”, his friend sighed.

Everybody remembers Princip’s assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophia, that set off World War I. We all know about World War II, the Sixties’ sexual revolution, and all the other recent poison. Sometimes man needs a bit of a nudge nudge about the before picture though.

Friday Fictioneers is our weekly attempt to write a hundred word story based upon a photograph. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is in charge. This week’s photograph has been supplied by Sandra Crook.

four dead in Ohio

It was slightly more than a week after Allison Beth Krause’s nineteenth birthday. Early on the morning of May 4, 1970 she awoke, noticed in her homework assignment that it was the eighty fourth anniversary of the Chicago Hay Market Massacre, and prepared for the anti-war protest on Kent State’s campus.

“‘Bye,Mom, ‘Bye, Dad,” and she left for school.

She and her boyfriend Barry Levine were aggressively protesting the war. Barry went into shock as Allison was one of four who were killed by Ohio’s National Guard’s sixty five rounds of ammunition.

“That’s Governor Rhodes’ way of dealing with things?!” he stammered.

This week’s photo prompt comes courtesy of Roger Bultot. Rochelle Wisoff~Fields is our weekly fairy blogmother.