Editor’s Note: There was controversy at the Fire Ring this morning. The blue skies that bathed us in the sun’s glories are departing. Rain is returning. Amanda was concerned about some research that had been sparked by a visit to the National Cemetery here in Virginia’s Piedmont. That prompted an examination of some historic events that were a product of conflict and some of which continue today. Rather than attempt to exhume old issues, she suggested we run something more in keeping with the tempo of our times in this world. We agreed. We had been working on an Alphabetical account of some of the world’s cities visited in times wild and placid. Amanda suggested we go to Marlow and let him take us through the basics. With his guidance, here goes!
– Vic

Marlow’s A B C’s

After an all too brief trip to our old isle seat early last month, these observations and thoughts slowly bubbled to the surface. They are listed in A B C order for ease of reading.

-Marlow

A

AlphaBête

After our Key West born cat Angel passed last year another feral feline assumed the AlphaBête position in our lives. We, her loyal staff, salute Barbie — a doll of a Savannah outdoor cat.

Artist

Not sure what to make of our infotainment types who prowl those ‘tainmemt spheres with barely cloaked manners of excitation centered on boosting their clicks and relevance to the general ever changing clatterings we are drowned in daily. They sure don’t seem to be the old-fashioned types when they claim as their title artist.

B

Plan B

Have a Plan B ready at all times to implement in all things important. When that time approaches, get it done. No kicking the can down the road.

Be

“To be or not to be.”
-Shakespeare

“To be is to do.”
-Socrates

“To do is to be.”
-Sartre

“Do be, do be, do.”
-Sinatra

Enough said.

Bitcoin and its brethren

Boom! ​Turn out the crypto-lights, the party’s over. This con was fun to watch while it lasted. The smell we’re smelling is that of a purge, a steep decline, and a mass tulip bulb rotting. Something’s happening here, but only to fools it ain’t exactly clear.

C

Cooking

The more we do it, the better we and our results get.

Old school Bolognese meat sauce

​
C’est si bon!

Like our old island, Paris and friends, life and love are oh-so-good.

Coffee Iced at a Bahama Village creperie in Key West:
​

D

Double (down)

Make mine a double.

Always make it a double at the Schooner Wharf Bar

Double down by always splitting your aces.

E

English

My native tongue. Supposedly,

​F

France

I admire its revolution, language, literature, food, people and along with the USA for being the wellspring of modernism.

G

George Washington

Still first. Lincoln’s just behind.

H

Victor Hugo

As I age and shipmates pass, Hugo’s words on sailors resonate ever more deeply.

O how many sailors, how many captains
Cheerfully departed for distant climes
Into gloomy horizons have vanished!
How many have gone, cruelly and too early in sad fortune!
Into fathomless seas under moonless night skies
Beneath the blind Ocean waters forever entombed

I

Iliad

“Uh, boss, some sailors have arrived just offshore . . . ”

J

Journal(ing)

Under construction. Always under construction.

I try not to write history, rather I write what I am seeing and experiencing for the purpose of following the various prejudices and passions of the times. Sorta like what a fashion writer does. So, I ask myself, why we seem so set, once again. upon wearing these digital-age leisure suits.

​

K

Kids

Along with the grands, kids remain the wisest and funniest creatures we are gifted with during our lives.

​
L

Living on the edge

(composed one sunny island afternoon while listening to Michael McCloud and drinking Sailor Jerry and Coke at the Schooner Wharf Bar in Key West)

Under Ukrainian flag-colored umbrellas
Michael McCloud sings on stage at the Schooner Wharf Bar

Seen from our old island’s vantage point, the mainland seems to be living on the edge. We can’t seem to help ourselves. There’s something wrong with the world today. We don’t know what it is. Maybe something’s wrong with our eyes that makes us see things in different ways. Maybe our inner light bulbs are getting dimmer? Or the sun’s melting down up in the sky?

Our situation filled with complication and aggravation is getting to us. Everybody knows it’s wrong, but we just let it go on and on. I guess we prefer the easy way out — just simply hanging on and out. Living on the edge.

​Lobster season

With Keys lobster trap floats freshly re-painted, the next lobster season’s opening day is right around the corner.

M

Madness

Live and love madly.

Mirror

My bathroom mirror provides me a daily unvarnished truth newsreel.

Montaigne & Montesquieu

I wish I could think and write like those two masters of the universal did.

N
​

Non-être

​
Jean Paul Satre said it all. I got nothing here.

O
​

Ooh la la!

Words and photo redacted per W.

​
P

Paris

There are no words to describe it. Perhaps it’s the sum of its buildings, people, foods, metro smells, street lamps and signs, affiches, neon night lights and sound? Mais non. Paris changes faster than the hearts of us mortals. Just the occasional photo captures its essence of that moment.

Vieux à côté du Louvre, Paris

L’homme aux pigeons à Piazza Beaubourg, Paris

Pascal

Oh, to have a first name like Blaise and writing Pensees.

Popeye the Sailor Man

I always loved and tried to live his theme song . . .

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man

I’m one tough Gazookus
Which hates all Palookas
Wot ain’t on the up and square
I biffs ’em and buffs ’em
And always out roughs ’em
But none of ’em gets nowhere

If anyone dares to risk my “Fisk”
It’s “Boff” an’ it’s “Wham” un’erstan’?
So keep “Good Be-hav-or”
That’s your one life saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man
I’m strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach
I’m Popeye the Sailor Man

​
​Q

Quoi?!

French for What?! Pronounced correctly it sounds like today’s social media cackling crows caw-cawing when the daily enragement period commences.

R

Rome

This city contains to this day the most thought-provoking empire ruins as were its WW II survivors that I’ve ever seen or talked to.

Trevi fountain in Rome

​
S

Sailors

Nature provides the wind, and we sailors raise the sheets to travel.

——-

Sailors travel to wonder
at the view from the heights of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
along the long riverbanks of great rivers,
at the vast expanses of the ocean,
at the earth’s spherical shape on the horizon and circular motion of the stars above,
That the ruins of once great kingdoms and the gleam of rising and risen ones,
and yet we only start to truly travel when we begin wondering about ourselves

Smoking

I miss it less and less each day.

T

Tomorrow

I’dll be happy and grateful to see it.

Travel

The natural world and our lives comprise a book. Those who do not travel read only one page.

U

Ulysses

Sailor and siren tale teller par excellence.

V

Virtue

It has need of limits. So, to me there’s only one — fidelity as in Semper Fi.

W

Whiskey

Gaelic word for holy water. The Irish were onto something since it’s truly divine.

Wolves

We all are sheep without, but some are wolves within.

X

X-rays

Many thanks for all of them and other high-tech scans that saved my life over and over and over.

Y

Yin and Yang

Everything in life is based on it.

You

I’m talking to you.

Are you talking to me?

Z

Zen

Thankful for its occasional visits

Zero

Bravo to who first came up with this concept. It’s the one true universal starting and ending point. First nothing, then everything and finally . . . BAM BANG BOOM . . . zero. What a wild ride.

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