Famous First Words: The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today... Harry S Truman, Speech introducing the Truman Doctrine.
Oh, my goth, It's World Goth Day! Goth: romanticizing my existential crisis. … My playlist is so goth it turns the lights off. … Roses are red, violets are blue, my heart is black, and so is my mood.
..........Don't punish me with brutality.........Marvin Gaye …..What's Going On ~~It's National Title Track Day and these are the top ten title track songs picked out by some person or people who are arrogant enough to think they know the ten best title tracks. Starting at #10.
**Bleak: Used to describe music, meaning good, because that's how we like it; ie “Hollow Hills is nice and bleak”. --The Goth Dictionary
The moral development of a civilization is measured by the breadth of its sense of community. --Anatol Rapoport
It is a gray Friday morning. The sky is a solid light gray without texture, without those thin clouds that often float beneath a solid bank of dense humidity. 59°F with very little wind makes the world comfortable for walks or sitting outside or spreading sunflower seeds across the patio for the birds and squirrels and the baby bunny rabbit that lives under the shed. It is quiet now; the crows have moved on and the sparrows are too busy eating breakfast to make much conversation. I stand at the window watching squirrels devour seeds, throw empty shells to the wind, and switch their tails to unheard music. A stick of jasmine incense sends spirals of smoke above my desk and fills the room with serenity and the hope for a pleasant day. So I raise my cup of doctored decaf to you, the reader, and say, Good morning to you and pleasant hours to fill your day.
Hope your weekend is filled with sunshine and color, hippies*. *Hippy is an “opposite” of goth.
First Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Taste your words before you spit them out. Blessed Be! https://www.facebook.com/coexistmystical
Wednesday nights at the local pub is Goth Night. You get 5 points if you can make a Goth smile and 2,500 points if you can make 'em laugh. … The goth chef's secret ingredient is the tears of the misunderstood. … This outfit is so dark it's practically a black hole.
..........We'll run 'til we drop, and we'll never go back.........Bruce Springsteen …..Born To Run
Trivia Questions: It's Sherlock Holmes Day!
Do you know what real person Sherlock Holmes was based on?
Do you remember Holmes' address?
Who gave Holmes his distinctive deerstalker hat?
How often, really, did Holmes say “Elementary, my dear Watson” in the books, not the movies?
What was Holmes' original name?
Big Hello: Ässalamu äläykum – Uyghur (China) https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hello.htm
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Interesting....my weather app now refers to rainwater as liquid accumulation. --Submitted by db of ks
Image AND Protest Sign of the Week: Lawrence, KS 5/17/26
Faux Rant of the Week: The realization that apparently millions of people have spent the last 161 years planning in great detail how they can bully a people back into being slaves. Whole lives and lifetimes spent hating people who won't even be born for another century. Life is so wonderful, bright and noisy and moving. What a waste to spend it steeped in hate. To miss a sunset or a rich conversation just to use your energy creating schemes to ruin the lives of people they will never meet. Yikes, buy a vibrator, Karen, or two or several.
Goth today, dramatic forever. … I invited my goth friend to my beach party. She wore SPF 1000. … It's not eyeliner; it's soul liner.
..........I'm a power pack.........AC DC …..Back In Black
Moonbeam: Joy is not in things; it is in us. --Richard Wagner
Blasphemy of the Week: The poor are the ambassadors of God. --Peter Maurin
Coffee Joke of the Week: Worst drink at the goth coffee shop? Crap-uccino
Next Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: The Christian notion of the possibility of redemption is incomprehensible to the computer. --Vance Packard
Happy goth: A myth … Gabriel Goth won the school essay contest with “Why Existence Is Overrated”. … My goth grandpa replaced the kings in his chess set with the Grim Reaper.
..........I only wanted one time to see you laughing.........Prince …..Purple Rain
1) Arthur Conan Doyle based Holmes on his teacher, Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, who was renowned for using keen observation to diagnose patients.
Almanac: It is Friday, May 22, 2026. The moon will enter its first quarter tomorrow (5/23) and is in Leo. The United Nations has declared this International Day for Biological Diversity. It is also Canadian Immigrants Day, Dandelion Day, Harvey Milk Day, International Being You Day, National Craft Distillery Day, National Maritime Day, Sherlock Holmes Day, US Colored Troops Day, US Maritime Day, Walk Safely to School Day, World Goth Day, and World Paloma Day. Because it's the fourth Friday it is also National Title Track Day. And the Friday before Memorial Day makes it Don't Fry Day, National Cooler Day, and National Wig Out Day. Finally Memorial Day Weekend includes National Polka Day and National Road Trip Day.
Among those born on this day were Ram Mohan Roy (1772), Richard Wagner (1813), Mary Cassatt (1844), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859), Robert Gordon Sproul (1891), Laurence Olivier (1907), Anatol Rapoport (1911), Vance Packard (1914), T Boone Pickens (1928), Richard Benjamin (1938), Bernie Taupin (1950), and Naomi Campbell (1970).
On May twenty-second the Peace of Goulet began (1200), the first atlas was published (1570), the first life insurance policy was issued (1761), the first public library opened (CT, 1803), the Associated Press organized (1900), the Truman Doctrine went into effect (1947), Bob Dylan was Bar Mitzvahed (Robert Zimmerman, 1954), the last "Bob Hope Show" aired on tv (1956), Willie Stargel hit 3 home runs, a double and a single (1968), Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka (1972), Windows 3.0 was released (1990), and Johnny Carson did his last Tonight Show (1992).
Night Sky, 5/22: The waxing moon is 38% illuminated and is moving through the constellation Leo after sunset. In the early morning hours the moon will be halfway between Saturn and Venus.
Fraternal Picture of the Week: Heck's Angels
This Week: Saturday, May 23 – World Turtle Day & National Learn to Swim Day & World Fish Migration Day
Sunday, May 24 – Brother's Day & Morse Code Day & Neighbor Day & Yucatan Shrimp Day
Night Sky, 5/24: Venus sets at 11:06 pm in the west northwest. Jupiter follows at 12:12 am
Monday, May 25 – Cookie Monster's Birthday & Memorial Day & Towel Day & National Tap Dance Day
Tuesday, May 26 – National Paper Airplane Day & Women's Golf Day & World Lindy Hop Day
Wednesday, May 27 – Joe Cool Day & World Otter Day & National Senior Health and Fitness Day
Night Sky, 5/27: Sunrise: 5:59 am Sunset: 8:37 (14 Hours and 37 minutes of daylight.) Moonrise: 9:43 pm Moonset: 10:30 am
Thursday, May 28 – Amnesty International Founders Day & Sierra Club Day & US Border Patrol Day
My glow up is entirely matte black. … My goth alarm clock doesn't ring; it whispers discouraging words. … I'm so goth my aura is 99% midnight.
..........The ice age is comin', the sun's zoomin' in.........The Clash …..London Calling
2) 221 Baker Street: There is no 221B Baker St in London. There was no 221B Baker St. in late 1880 when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Holmes, and technically speaking, there is still no such address. Today, you can find The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street. However, physically, the museum sits between 237 and 241 Baker Street.
Preantepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: T-shirt with Mike Johnson's picture and caption: Because Trump can't lick his own balls.
Moonbeam: The outstanding feature of behavior is that it is often quite easy to recognize but extremely difficult or impossible to describe with precision. --Anatol Rapoport
Fun Facts of the Week: It's National Unicycle Week (17-23). There are about one million people in the US who can ride a unicycle. Frederick Myers patented the “velocipede” in 1869 and Battista Scuri patented his unicycle in 1881 using the same name. But once people began calling two-wheelers bicycles the unicycle got its true name.
Video of the Week: Billy Bragg singing Woody's All You Fascists Bound To Lose https://youtu.be/SFPL97m2dsw
Women should be someone and not something. --Mary Cassatt
I'm so goth, I shit bats. … Goth diet: black coffee, black licorice, black despair. … My personality is 50% sarcasm, 50% cemetery chic.
..........Something evil's lurking from the dark.........Michael Jackson ….Thriller
3) The hat that we immediately picture Sherlock Holmes in was never once mentioned by Doyle in the novels. So then where did this distinguished image of the detective in a deerstalker come from? Sidney Paget. Works by illustrator Sidney Paget were published alongside a few of Doyle’s short stories in Strand magazine in the late 1800s. She created the look that we all know best.
Antepenultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: I just uttered the phrase “struggling to exercise good discernment regarding sharing his opinions”, so if you're ever wondering what “that jack*** needs to shut the f***up” sounds like in Quaker, now you know. --@LeeFlower --Submitted by UUHS
Weird Word of the Week: Flâneur: A person who walks the city streets with no particular purpose, often just observing and experiencing the city life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur
Dragon of the Week:
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Strip paint off metal patio furniture. Cover the spot you wish to strip for one week with a bath towel saturated with Coca-Cola. Add more Coke every day to keep the towel wet. The paint strips right off. https://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/cocacola2.html ~~And we drink this stuff.
I'm so goth, I wear sunglasses at night to avoid the moonlight. … My playlist is so goth, even Spotify needed a therapy session. … I wear black because it matches my thoughts.
...........all the people livin' life in peace.........John Lennon …..Imagine
4) Unfortunately, that famous line that Holmes supposedly says all the time, “Elementary, my dear Watson,” was also fiction, just like his cap. The character did in fact say “Elementary” and “my dear Watson” both separately, at separate times. However they were never spoken all at once by Holmes in the pages of Doyle’s books.
Penultimate Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. --Dorothy Parker
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: Midwest Conquest 2026 (22-24, Raytown, MO) Hosted by The Heroic Morale 40K Club https://www.midwestconquest.com/
Updated Title of the Week: Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Dodgy Crypto --Christopher Ramsay
Spark of Joy of the Week: The horrors persist but so do libraries, books, iced coffee, sunsets, trees, the word “fuck”, the moon, and the sea. --Nadine Antoinette --Submitted by MMS
Goth: Sad but aesthetically pleasing. … Too goth to function, too cute to care. … My wardrobe is so dark, it absorbs light bulbs.
..........This could be heaven or this could be hell.........The Eagles …..Hotel California
5) Doyle originally named his beloved detective “Sherrinford.” Thankfully, Doyle’s love for cricket is what led him to “Sherlock.” The author renamed the character after one of his favorite cricket players.
Irony of the Week: Congress is making a strong case that minimum wage should start at $174,000/year –Fight for a Union --Submitted by Catsonacouch ~~Protest Sign OTW was cruelly yanked from its customary spot and fused with image of the week.
Quote of the Week: Give us a peace that dares us to be wise. Give us a peace that dares us to be strong... Give Us Our Peace by Langston Hughes who died May 22, 1967 This is my favorite Peace Poem.
Final Funniest Thing I Read of the Week: Dinosaurs died out and their bodies turned into oil over millions of years. Humans pumped up that oil and refined it into plastic, and then used that plastic to manufacture toy dinosaurs. --Submitted by Club42
Today's Peace of History: May 22, 1968: Federal marshals entered Boston’s Arlington Street Unitarian-Universalist Church to arrest Robert Talmanson, who had been convicted of refusing induction into the U.S. Armed Forces. He had been offered sanctuary there by the leaders of the church who shared his opposition to the Vietnam War. When the marshals tried to remove him, access to their car was blocked by 200-300 nonviolent sanctuary supporters.
I'm so goth that I don't buy black clothes; I just put them on and they turn black. ... Everyone wants a goth girl friend until they realize we basically only look like Queens of the Night 10% of the time; the rest is spent lurking around in Nightmare Before Christmas pajamas and hissing until we get snacks.
..........And keep your eyes wide the chance won't come again..........Bob Dylan …..The Times They Are A'changin'
Masthead of the Week: Friday ePistle, May 22, 2026: Bleak** ePistle. Online at: http://fridayepistle.blogspot.com/ Exclusive editor: Christine Smith. Lawrence, KS.
Moonbeam: The actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand. --Laurence Olivier
Cost of War:
Pentagon Spending as of 5/21/26: $649,136,901,742 This week: 19 billion 214 million 81 thousand 994 dollars for war.
Pentagon Spending as of 5/14/26: $629,922,819,748
Pentagon Spending as of 5/07/26: $610,538,452,895
Pentagon Spending as of 5/01/26: $592,500,326,688
Pentagon Spending in April 2026: $ 81,264,897,194
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/category/military/
To abuse and insult, is inconsistent with reason and justice. --Ram Mohan Roy
Famous Last Words: Good night everybody! ...Final words of the the final The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 5/21/26
..........Sit back and let the evening go.........The Beatles …..Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color. ... All my jokes are cries for help. … I don't smile often but when I do, it's sarcastic.
May Peace brighten your days
And Joy light up your nights
prairie mama
christine
Last Laugh:
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