GOOG, Bushmills, and Purple Prose

There is so much to catch you up on on life around The Manor.



This socialist no longer owns any GOOG, having managed to dump it a few minutes after trading resumed shortly after 3:20 PM on that fateful day when the firm's publisher "somehow" released earnings data during the day trading period, versus the usual after-market magic time of 4:30.  I made it out at $700, which stemmed the losses a bit, but did nothing to refresh my sour breath.  I found the whole process unfair -- beginning with GOOG's backstabbing report itself, then the cessation of trading (with nary a hint to yer average bear as to when the halt would be lifted), and even including mine own investment company requiring that I give 'em a call at that calm, carefree time to garner their "permission" to trade after hours, despite having done it a good half-dozen times before.  Believe it or not, I terminated that phone call at 3:17 and only by the happest of haphazards learned that I had a whole three minutes to figure stop losses and whether Bushmills or a box of Cabernet was more appropriate to the fleeting moment.

I plugged in $700 and went with Bushmills.

Since then, I decided to put my money where my mouth is -- oh, the terrible jokes aching to be told! -- and no, I won't yet divulge what lucky sector now bulges with my invested wealth.  All I know for sure is that Fred better appreciate the nasty sweat that went into leaving him some sort of inheritance.

What else?

Oh, we lost an entire booking of retreatants who turned left instead of right and ended up in Canada instead of Tête de Hergé.  It's not the first time we have lost 3-day weekend guests in search of elusive repose.  The Haddock parent company even held a troubleshooting skype session that included the top brothers and Abbot Truffatore, the crack-addicted organic pig farmer across the road, plus the hippies down the road (whose cows are giving sweet frothy warm milk once again, thanks to intervention by Local Antiquated and Beloved Authoritarian, Tante Louise, and also thanks to the spirit behind Robert Frost's Mending Wall, a spirit brought to tangible fruition by The Manor Domestic Staff and The Cistercian's 2012 Probies, thereby cutting off the multi-chemical piggy runoff that had been overstimulating the mellow moo cows).  Um... where was I?  Ah!  Yes!  The frustration of losing money and visitors due to a basic ignorance of world geography.

Fred and I joined with the majority to suggest that a link to Google Maps be included in the multimedia materials sent in advance to our over-the-sea or across-the-continent pilgrims.  (If that first link to Google Maps doesn't help you -- you poor map-challenged you, you -- then try THIS ONE, but remember that the results must be rotated NNE by 17 degrees °F to adjust for satellite mendacity.)

Ergo, we hope to no longer be confused with our brethren and sistren Canadians, Français, or Old Earth Saxons.  And we fervently pray for an improvement in the public and parochial school systems of The World, else our revenue is gonna continue to drop off, precipitously, with each graduating, mortarboard-tossing class.

We never let our painstaking preparations for guests go to waste, however.  The Abbott continues to flee to Marlinspike Hall on occasional weekends, especially those dedicated to the tuning of the monastery bells, organs, and guitars -- even on occasional weekdays, when there is the threat of a papal bull.  We also give Ease-Them-Into-Rehab Upgrades to the more haughty circus and freak show addicts before ceremoniously removing them to the barn catty-cornered to the Computer Turret, now home to the Haddock Family Enterprises Addiction Center -- an entity briefly explained in a previous post, "Passing the Duck Test."

If I were allowed to divulge top secret information, I'd be able to suggest that The Captain himself, plus whomever is traveling with him in the pink submarine fleet -- often the Miniature Badminton Team -- are parties whose unexpectedness no longer causes a commotion.  In these uncertain times, who doesn't want to go home now and then?

I am managing to manage things pretty well, despite seeing the world as a visual echo (my terminology for having not quite double vision) and clinging to my trundle bed in an effort to hide out beneath the "real" feather mattress (a humility-inducing thing, as sometimes it is the head that will not quite disappear, sometimes the derrière).  The medicos and I had harbored concern about my liver as I tried out three new medications, but surprise!  It turned out to be my kidneys that are registering their unhappiness.  Whatever -- I am coming off one of the drugs, anyway, the one that enabled not just the visual echo but the mental one, and my hope is that this will calm those spongy filters down.  I've dabbled in kidney failure before, due to lupus, and recovered nicely, and so fully expect to do the same now.  Why not, eh?

I've gone 24 hours without spasms, except for the two hours with.  Monday through Thursday were Hell on Earth, spent writhing and screaming.  I'm sure that I came close to death by overdose or mixing-oopsies as I was so frequently driven to take enough of anything to lose my consciousness.  You can call me "stupid," you can call me "unenlightened," you can also go straight to "The Dickens" -- directions available on Google Maps.

I'm gonna blame my blogging sloth on kidney failure -- maybe folks will fall for that, as they don't seem to have a heck of a lot of sympathy for the CRPS sanity-shattering pain I live with, or the pus-filled mush that are my bones.  Whaddaya think?  Oh, my kidneys are limping along, I'm sooooo tired, just cannot write.

Heh heh.  Purple prose!

"It takes a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that's rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of depravity. So long as originality and lexical precision prevail, the sentient writer has a right to immerse himself or herself in phenomena and come up with as personal a version as can be. A writer who can't do purple is missing a trick. A writer who does purple all the time ought to have more tricks."
(Paul West, "In Defense of Purple Prose." The New York Times, Dec. 15, 1985)

For those of you who have inquired about Fred, Bianca (and, therefore, Sven)?

Fred is a bit tired, as he is leading a tone deaf group of militant lesbian existential feminists in the formation of a ukulele band.  I could share many a humorous anecdote with you, but will limit myself to just one.  The woman whose illuminating idea this was cannot comprehend how to "strum." They spend an inordinate amount of time discussing what "strum" means, how "strumming" might be achieved, as well as using the questionable guidance of a piano with metronome. My contribution to the conundrum has been to shout, midst writhe and vulgar vocalization, "relax, relax, just tell her to relax her wrist." But no one listens to me.

Sven is somewhat stymied, and yes, that is a sight, a stymied Sven!  College basketball utterly transforms our
Castafiore, an unrepentant Duke fan, and Sven is just... lost.

I guess that pretty much sums up this post -- the theme of Lost.  And, sadly, I must sign off, as a large Maine Coon is amorously eyeing my lap, and making lovey-dovey eyes that are simply irresistible.  Yes, I'm off to nuggle with Buddy, the Freakishly Large Kitten.

Warren Zevon

This is a repost from 2010, republished in honor of @yoclutso, Twitter friend, par excellence, and to reestablish our Stupid People Campaign and DumbFuck Initiative.

The "Why the Warren Zevon Reference" Prize remains unclaimed.

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Earlier today, I was audacious enough to attempt both an explanation and demonstration of the manner in which my brain works when caught composing.  I confessed to keeping most everything I write, out of fear that the passage just created might prove to contain the pivotal point of a past or future doctoral thesis. 

[Did no one else snicker and search for the hidden camera when told the Tale of the Dissertation?  You know, that composition of a "substantial and original contribution to human knowledge"?]

Anyway, I spent a few minutes wandering among the blog drafts that have piled up on the new slate flooring in the newly refurbished Computer Turret. (You'd never guess there had been weeks of smoldering electical fire!) I had a moment of epiphany about the nature of piles and stacks... deciding that they are much easier to tolerate in rooms that have *corners* into which they can be tucked -- and by which they can be bordered. 

I also developed serious doubts about my non-linear compositional stratagems.  Take the draft that I am reproducing below.  '

It's kind a typical lighthearted essay on Manor Life -- typically circuitous, typically spun by its own peculiar internal logic.  François Premier, war, and woodworking, all neatly dovetailed with stories of my Twitter friend @yoclutso, and her Château Life -- plus the obligatory mention of Captain Haddock and his awesome Miniature Badminton Team.

That's "all good," as they say.

What I want to know is why the damned 10-month old draft is titled "Warren Zevon."  If, after giving this draft the attention it so deserves, you can explain the Warren Zevon reference, you win The Prize!

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We care passionately about many things here at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé (très décédé, d'ailleurs).

When we're not fightin' to maintain our right to freedom of expression against various retractors of liberty, we're tweetin a brand spankin' new utopia with sister collaborator, @yoclutso. We both have the dread CRPS, but more importantly, we've the will and the wherewithall to subvert our nasty realities. We've hit a rough patch these last few months. For instance, I broke my leg by running my power chair into the bedframe. Since she cannot abide comeuppance, @yoclutso decided to fall out of her attic.

That's right, she fell out of her attic.

I called "Foul!" immediately upon hearing this unlikely tale. I mean, knowing how her body feels -- as much as anyone can know such a thing -- then this aerial event begs the question: How the hell did she get into the attic to begin with?

I mean, I've not been able to visit many of the sight-worthy attractions of The Manor, much less haul my ass up the circular marble staircases and through the many spooky hidden doors and sliding, shiny polished-wood panels, covered in the most outrageous marqueterie -- most of which were created and installed by that long-nosed dilettante, François the First. Not many people know that he was a closet woodworker, escaping the demands of constant wit and sex with connected courtisanes by hours spent reconstructing near trompe-l'oeil perfect pictures of peacocks and pheasants, using tortoise shell, copper, and nacre, or mother-of-pearl.

In fact Marlinspike Hall and the surrounding region was home to the world's fifth largest Tortoise Troup until François decimated the poor things. Heartless, heartless. He even brought entire lines of ancient bivalves to an artificial end, that inveterate Marauder of Mollusks! One of the reasons The Captain maintains such pristine conditions in The Moat is because in its murky depths lie many of the archaelogical truths about François and his Marqueterie-driven Holocausts.

It's time that the world learned the truth. It wasn't just his lack of military prowess that caused François to fall captive to Charles V during one of his patented "Let's Take Over Italy" campaigns -- no, the denizens of The Manor turned him in.

That's right. Sold his ass to the Emperor in hopes of regaining the peace and quiet for which we are best known, and to which we believe we are entitled.

François called a siege down onto Marlinspike Hall, and so isolated the region of Tête de Hergé that the mind boggles thinking of how things might have developed had Francis not messed with the installed default settings.

No, I have NOT been tinkering nonstop with a new laptop. Whatever makes you think such a thought?

I will say this, though: Don't push buttons or pick options without having some understanding, at least, of how to unpush and unpick your pissant choices.

In particular, don't fall for the Ease of Access Centre's pesky offerings, in the hope of easing your access 'n all. Losing sight in one eye, and all clarity of vision in the other, is no excuse for mucking up Display Settings. It was as if the sun had exploded and against its incomparable white light, Microsoft was taunting me with wraiths of orange shadow.

Yeah, so.
Ummm.
François Premier, that guy!

With no thought to the Little People (the ancestors of our present day Miniature Badminton Team) caged with him during the passive onslaught, he depleted their stores, knocked up their women, devastated the local economy, and paved the way for Seven Years of Not Much -- a period so difficult that the Locals feel a certain superiority to the mambypamby Troubles of Northern Ireland. Bunch of sissy belly-achers.

It's a little known fact that Captain Haddock hides some stout Irishness in his genes. If you think about it -- indeed, if you just lend an ear -- you can hear the gaelic kiss the rocky soil of his rants. The parentage of the Miniature Badminton Team is suspect, too. Just yesterday, the taller of the two diminutive team captains -- twins! -- texted me from @yoclutso's castle:

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

And Fred swears he heard this twin's shorter brother mutter a famous Irish curse in the general direction of The Referee Dwarf after a controversial call during a midnight intramural bout. Something about an itch and no nails.

Who knows if Tête de Hergé would have been in any way remarkable without the stodgy effect of isolation brought down upon it by that dilletante of a monarch -- maybe François did us all a favor by allowing the region to develop, separate, marinating in its own juices, building a complex flavor, un statut en soi, un passé et une histoire à part entière.

François 1er was constantly dicking around with Charles V and the Italians in the early years of his reign. In fact, he was on his way to recapture Italy (not his brightest idea) when he decided to pull guard and force this little region out of time into the lengthy blockade that either cemented or disrupted the development of its character. It was a war of attrition [mostly because The Manor's bricole -- a man-powered, medieval stone-throwing machine -- was down for repairs].

Taken prisoner at long last, Francis enjoyed his stay in the booted peninsula, from which he stole the best of the Renaissance -- the babes, the art, all the fine stuff. Even the artists themselves. Even the historiography of the artists themselves (the claims that Leonardo da vinci died here are as numerous throughout Europe as Washington slept here is throughout the American New England).

It is said that François' mother, Louise of Savoie, nursed him on the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. [I assume I was going to flesh out this startling claim... but from the distance of many months, I've no idea what I am trying to establish...]

Like I said in the beginning, @yoclutso and I have some limitations due to disability, which is why I was amazed that she was in a position to fall out of her attic in the first place.  Not being able to go where I would like to go, and where I am actually sometimes even needed, I have developed an intense attention to the details of where I am forced to be.

Why, until The Captain's Nephew gifted me with a Cruelly Yellow Hummer Power Chair, Limited Expedition Force Edition, I had never seen the Bodacious Back Forty where we do most of our experimental animal husbandry!

Oops, I probably shouldn't mention that.

Anyway {whistling::dixie} -- @yoclutso and I have launched two interstellar (also neighborhood, regional, and national) movements: The StupidPeople Campaign and The DumbFuck Initiative.

Yes, there is considerable overlap.

Mayor Bloomberg's Endorsement

Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change    
By Michael R. Bloomberg - Nov 1, 2012

The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast -- in lost lives, lost homes and lost business -- brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.

The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods -- something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan -- PlaNYC -- has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group -- a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities -- local governments are taking action where national governments are not.

Leadership Needed

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to a regional cap- and-trade plan designed to reduce carbon emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels. “The benefits (of that plan) will be long- lasting and enormous -- benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have ‘no regrets’ when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation,” he wrote at the time.

He couldn’t have been more right. But since then, he has reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported. This issue is too important. We need determined leadership at the national level to move the nation and the world forward.

I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.

If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing.

In 2008, Obama ran as a pragmatic problem-solver and consensus-builder. But as president, he devoted little time and effort to developing and sustaining a coalition of centrists, which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction. And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it.

Important Victories

Nevertheless, the president has achieved some important victories on issues that will help define our future. His Race to the Top education program -- much of which was opposed by the teachers’ unions, a traditional Democratic Party constituency -- has helped drive badly needed reform across the country, giving local districts leverage to strengthen accountability in the classroom and expand charter schools. His health-care law -- for all its flaws -- will provide insurance coverage to people who need it most and save lives.

When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America.

One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision.

One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history.

One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.

Of course, neither candidate has specified what hard decisions he will make to get our economy back on track while also balancing the budget. But in the end, what matters most isn’t the shape of any particular proposal; it’s the work that must be done to bring members of Congress together to achieve bipartisan solutions.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that’s why I will be voting for him.

(Michael R. Bloomberg is mayor of New York and founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.)

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

Can't we at least shuffle the shills?

Caught in the gooey interstices between "Breaking Amish" and "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" of USAmerican politics, I miss Tim Russert.  No offense to his talented son, Luke, but he doesn't have that rabid fervor and love of the noble sport, the process, and the people, that terrifying electorate.  The image of Tim and his white board is burned into my brain.  Please note that I almost refrained from saying anything about David Gregory.

Can't we at least shuffle the shills?  Less one-note angry shills, who tend to be old, ugly, and white, and more one-note, young, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, weird-haired, dogma-grunt, techWow shills.  Rah!

If you live in the States, I know you are going to vote, if you have not already, out of pure frustration.  Yes, it IS true -- if you vote early, the election nonsense will end that much earlier!  If you vote early *and* often, the Nobel committee will put you on the short list of your choice.  Also, as Joe Biden pointed out on Letterman last night, "If you vote early, you don't have to pay taxes."  Some of the other "Top Ten Reasons to Vote Early":

• "I'm not saying each early voter gets a free cheeseburger, but I'm not saying they don't, either."
• "Single and looking to mingle? Find that special someone on the early voting line."
• "Early voters will receive a $5 million donation from Donald Trump."

Does it not SUCK that it took this freak storm for "climate change" and "global warming" to be mentioned, and then mostly by the mayor of New York City, and not the candidates?  Does it not scare the freaking SHIT out of you to discover the distinct anti-science bias among the far right, the baggers?  How many women are now on an aspirin regimen for contraception?  According to the rotting planks of the Republican platform, in-vitro fertilization is a no-no that produces unacceptable bay-bees, but legitimate rape makes for fine, fat, God-adored little young ones, with mothers primed for a lifetime of selfless, penniless love.

It's not that I'm in lust with the only other viable party -- the Democrats.  The politicians I have long respected for having the courage of their convictions, for making being a pol real service to the populace... all seem to be dying.  Literally.

And yet, the oozing, stinky refuse of toxic algae lives on, doing the Horizontal Slinky Slime.  Happy belated birthday to Grover Glenn Norquist.  May the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose.  I mean -- and I know you've either read this already or heard it read to you, but what's one more reminder of the unsettling mindset? -- just look at this crap:

All we have to do is replace Obama. ...  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. 

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

Little Jimmy Dickens - May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose
Uploaded by Memories64 on Aug 28, 2010

Smoking Tweets From The Loon

i've referenced the loon over at phil mcgraw's web site several times.  the loon i am referring to is the one who is so disturbed as to think herself a member of dr. philly-poo's family -- his actual family and his extended one on television.  for all i know, she's cast herself as oprah's long lost older sister.

i've been posting some over there in support of a friend and also have been getting some general pleasure out of it, meeting some new people, renewing old friendships.

someone put the old bug in my ear... and i discover that now the loon is blaming my temporary use of an avatar depicting a "jaundiced eye" as a purposeful planting of an "evil eye" -- that subsequently caused her stress, enough stress to bring on a case of psychogenic bell's palsy.

i know that giving her the attention she is craving doesn't help matters. but it keeps my brains from splattering all over the ceiling.  i threw her a bone a while back, admitting to being her personal bully, but you know what?  i lied.  i bully what she represents -- narcissism, racism, classism, an elitism not natural but cultivated, like a perfect pearl.  she's not any more mentally ill than most of us -- she is the embodiment of the munchausen syndrome, but the good baron's malady aimed at society at large.  well, and at me.

if i had the power to inflict anything upon her via my choice of twitter or fake-ass mcgraw's website avatars, trust me, i'd not choose mamby-pamby bell's palsy.  maybe psyche-crippling humility, maybe droplets of hot wax on the pollyanna backdrop of her honeyed bullshit... but no, not bell's palsy.  that's like giving permission to a bilge machine to keep on churning out that goddamn bilge.

so thanks be to god that my avatars are not imbued with powers of any sort.  at present, for twitter purposes, i am using this mesmerizing placard as evil avatar:



anyway, may it please the court, here are the smoking tweets. to wit to woo:


30 Oct THE LOON
@DrPhil Do anti-bully pledge show for ALL who watch UR show & are members of UR website. Bullied online by Dr. Phil Website members twice...


30 Oct THE LOON
@DrPhil Too, request moderators to notice odd profile pictures chosen by bullies. Commonality of bullies is to choose "Evil Eye" profile pic


30 Oct THE LOON
@DrPhil One person bullying me online THREE YEARS chose "evil eye" profile pic on UR website. Due to stress got Bell's Palsy October 5, 2012


30 Oct THE LOON
@DrPhil After I blocked bully here immediately stalked me to UR website sporting "evil eye" pic. Bullies often use pics etc. to bully online


30 Oct THE LOON
@DrPhil Same bully who stalked me to URwebsite SUM2012 put mean note on my youtube Bday video did for U. UR staff asked for Bday videos 2010

ADDENDUM:  Thursday, 15 November 2012 -- I feel obliged, given my superpowers as expressed by my profile picture over at Twitter, to report that I have changed it once again.  Mwa mwa ha ha!  There is, however, once again, an "eye" connection, but one that you'd not discern without this freely given confession.  It's a photo taken by one of my brothers of my grandfather.  He, like me, went blind from glaucoma. (I exaggerate, I'm not blind yet.  Granddaddy, however, was blind as a bat.)  Still, he knew his land so well that he could check on every crop, every tree, every bird feeder, even sightless.  Of course, he also once fired a gun at his brother-in-law -- who was so obnoxious that not too many people got upset about it.  More importantly, he missed.  Then, too, there was the terrifying spectacle of him mowing his full acre front lawn... on a riding mower.  In this photo, he was checking, I suppose, whether the tree needed pruning -- which he'd likely accomplish with a freaking machete.  But the bottom line, here, is that despite the leitmotif of THE EYE reoccuring... this is just a picture of an old man I loved:

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oddly enough, my first use of the jaundiced eye image was in a post called "Internet Con Artists: A Cautionary Tale."

Happy Halloween!

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I [Round about the cauldron go]
by William Shakespeare


The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

        Double, double toil and trouble;
        Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Magic and Witchcraft Ritual Tools

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

         Double, double toil and trouble;
         Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

          Double, double toil and trouble;
          Fire burn and cauldron bubble.