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Jun. 29th, 2004 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyToday for lunch I went to Whole Foods and picked up some Spicy Duck and Mango Dumplings with Mango Sauce. By 'spicy' I'm guessing they meant that the ducks, while alive, were frenetic and hot-tempered...I'm sad to report that none of these characteristics lingered after death. And as for the sauce, well, the sauce was so bad that all I had to do was threaten to dunk the dumplings in it and they fell right into line.
I've been reading 'Life on the Mississippi', because a) Twain writes a very good travelogue, and b) it was only $2.50 (Dover Thrift Edition). It's been worth it just for the education about the noted bandit John Murrell, who I hadn't heard of before despite his running around the lower Mississippi during the mid-1800s making Jesse James look like a lethargic nun.
God, what a movie you could make. It would probably start with an isolated little hill town, almost the entire population packed into their little church buzzing with curiosity and excitement about the new travelling preacher who'd just turned up. The preacher would come out, tanned and dusty from the road, light into a sermon with eloquence and majesty that sets people trembling and weeping in the pews, getting so overwhelmed himself that he has to go out back to recuperate...and it takes a minute or two after that for one of the townsfolk to look outside and realize that while they were so distracted, EVERY HORSE IN TOWN had been stolen.
True story. That was one of his less ambitious ways of getting loot, something to keep him occupied when he wasn't hijacking steamboats, bushwacking, counterfeiting, and co-ordinating his 2000-member gang (no, that's not a typo) and their activities across six states. When he was finally arrested he was making plans to start a slave revolt and use that armed force plus his own band to take over New Orleans and loot it! It's not even fair to call him a bandit...he had much more in common with Attila the Hun.
I've been reading 'Life on the Mississippi', because a) Twain writes a very good travelogue, and b) it was only $2.50 (Dover Thrift Edition). It's been worth it just for the education about the noted bandit John Murrell, who I hadn't heard of before despite his running around the lower Mississippi during the mid-1800s making Jesse James look like a lethargic nun.
God, what a movie you could make. It would probably start with an isolated little hill town, almost the entire population packed into their little church buzzing with curiosity and excitement about the new travelling preacher who'd just turned up. The preacher would come out, tanned and dusty from the road, light into a sermon with eloquence and majesty that sets people trembling and weeping in the pews, getting so overwhelmed himself that he has to go out back to recuperate...and it takes a minute or two after that for one of the townsfolk to look outside and realize that while they were so distracted, EVERY HORSE IN TOWN had been stolen.
True story. That was one of his less ambitious ways of getting loot, something to keep him occupied when he wasn't hijacking steamboats, bushwacking, counterfeiting, and co-ordinating his 2000-member gang (no, that's not a typo) and their activities across six states. When he was finally arrested he was making plans to start a slave revolt and use that armed force plus his own band to take over New Orleans and loot it! It's not even fair to call him a bandit...he had much more in common with Attila the Hun.
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*strokes chin*
Date: 2004-06-29 11:20 am (UTC)Hmmmmm, maybe a performance troupe isn't the way to go....
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Date: 2004-06-30 12:06 am (UTC)spicy ducks made me LOL :)
(shhh, the boy is sleeping)