PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

part three: the outcast dead 2011-11-24 - 3:58 p.m. No small change hustle for me. I probably looked too much like somebody who had stayed at the ChungKing Mansions to be worth a hustle. Onward to lunch, at a place called Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I thought it might be owned by New Zealanders, since they had little kiwis scribbled all over the place, but later I saw that it was a chain -- a chain of two anyway, since I saw another later in Southwark. In any case, decent bean burger, quick service. At 3 P.M. all of us cheapskates who didn't want to pay the 15 pound small fee for early check-in piled into the Easy Hotel at Earl's Court. Actually, the line was quite short, even though the sign outside said that they were full. I got checked in pretty fast, and I dropped my bags in my tiny cell, which was clean and bright, with orange stripes here and there to substitute for the lack of windows. Hopped back on the tube. Emerged at a bit after 4 o'clock. It was already getting dark, but they love their flashy lights in Southwark, which is getting more and more touristy by the minute. Wonderful views strolling from the Tate Modern to the Millennial Bridge, with St. Paul's lit up on the other shore of the dark river. I cursed myself for not bringing my camera to Hong Kong, but now I'm back to thinking what I thought in Washington -- this camera simply can't figure it out when it comes to the night shots. I can set it to take a fast photo, but it can't figure out where it's supposed to focus. Try infinity, dummy, I suggest, but my poor beat-up camera refuses to listen. I took an atmospheric stroll along the Thames, past the usual atmospheric sites, like the re-built (fake) Shakespeare's Globe theatre and the re-built (I suspect fairly fake) Golden Hinde. There are various skyscrapers in various shapes with various blue lights. Soon, I find the site of the old Crossbones Graveyard, where the whores of centuries past were dumped on unconsecrated ground. I guess their children were dumped there too, since half the bones found belong to children. I was a bit early for the ceremony, so I decided to pop in for a drink at the establishment across the street. the crossbones gate, 15,000 thousand bodies were found buried here in the unconsecrated ground, half of them children This place -- quite windowless from the outside -- was called The Boot and Flogger. I don't think I would have gone in, if I hadn't seen two other middle-aged ladies go in ahead of me. I'm sure it has an interesting history, but at the moment, there are no boots and no floggings, just a mostly middle-aged and older gather of mostly white males drinking wine and pontificating about literature in drunken voices. Yes, it's a wine bar. I ordered an amusing little quaff and relaxed for a few minutes, letting the long day work its out way out of my muscles. So now I had my opportunity to meet with some genuine English eccentrics. I have to say, I think Peachfront can hold herself out as just as peculiar as these guys. They had a nice, friendly New Age vibe. Day of the Dead gingerbread cake and the gin to be sprinkled around the circle, rather than swilled. It was the 15th anniversary of the day when John Crow first channeled the Goose material, and he performed some of the poem in front of the gate. He says it's ceremony, not performance, but with the film student's cameras rolling and 15 years of working the material, it does come off a bit like performance. Some guitar singing, some other bits of words said in memory of some of the more recent outcast dead. One of the men had just lost his son, a pirate radio engineer, a week ago. I had no idea that pirate radio still existed, but I guess it's still out there if they still require engineers. Very sad. The Goose, by the way, was a whore in merry olde England. Goose was apparently the nickname for the whores who worked the Southwark red light district in those days. Although I don't supppose that they had any red lights.... I'd brought a hand-braided orange ribbon with a copper wire-wrapped cloud and yellow flecked agate on it. I was pleased to see that orange ribbons and accents were a prominent feature of the gate, so my ribbon blended right in. In fact, it blended so well that I'm not sure I could ever pick it out again. It has become part of the pattern. Back to my hotel room, where I slept almost 10 hours. A windowless hotel room is a little odd, but it isn't all bad when you're exhausted. Today I got up just in time to get properly checked out, and then I headed out to the Kensal Green Cemetary. I'm still feeling the tickle of all these ghosts, although I suppose the Kensal Green crew are all the opposite of the outcast dead. Here we had the respectable dead, the madly wealthy dead, the tacky dead, the outlandish dead, the quietly rotting away dead, and, in the case of J.G. Ballard, we have the passive-aggressive dead. Surrounded by mossy, snooty mauseleums festooned with angels, heiroglyphs, instructive poems, and Egyptian sphinxes, we have a blank white stone giving the spare details. James Graham Ballard, Shanghai, China 1930, London, England, 2009. You must, I suppose, imagine all the rest. kensal green, an area of the respectable, moss-covered dead, and the somewhat high-rolling, froo-froo dead (one of the nearby mauseleums actually sports several sphynxes), so you know how there's one in every crowd? that resolutely plain white slab is the final resting place of j. g. ballard The cemetary was quiet while I was there, but some mourners in black were entering just as I walked out. In front was a pub called The Mason's Arms, where I had chicken and a glass of red wine. Then back to pick up my bag, which I had left on hold at my Earl's Court EasyHotel. A short walk down the street, turn left, and now I'm checked into the South Kensington EasyHotel. It looks like much of a muchness, so I'm sure it will be all right. It's 4:30 now, getting close to full dark in old London, so I'll be heading off to find the Christmas lights. Click the photo of the Tower to find page one of my 2004 London and Gloucestershire adventure: Part two of the story can be found by clicking the Worcestershire Gate: Shopping in Paris is more your speed, you sniff? Well, by all means, click on the picture from the antique super-mall near the Louvre to find my first Paris trip: You'll get the whole story if you start by clicking the photo and then just keep clicking "next" until the tale is told. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford