“It’s good luck to find a horseshoe and bad luck to lose one. It is said that when a witch spies one nailed over a door, she must ride every road that the horseshoe has ever travelled; and by that time, it will be morning and her wicked powers will cease. Although this belief can be traced back to antiquity, it is credited in England to Saint Dunstan, the patron saint of goldsmiths.” - Michael Patrick Hearn from The Annotated Huck Finn 2001.

“Among the Romans there prevailed a custom of driving nails into cottage walls as an antidote against the plague. Both this practice and the later one of nailing up horse-shoes have been thought by some to originate from the rite of the Passover. The blood sprinkled upon the doorposts and lintel at the time of the great Jewish feast formed the chief points of an arch, and it may be that with this in mind people adopted the horse-shoe as an arch-shaped talisman, and it thus became generally emblematic of good luck.”

“If a horse be shod with shoes made from a sword wherewith a man has been slain, he will be most swift and fleet, and never, though never so hard rode, tire.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“In Henderson’s Folk-Lore of the Northern Countries of England, p. 187, mention is made of a remarkable method of treatment intended for the development of sickly, puny children who are thought to be under the influence of an evil spell which retards their growth, a notable instance of survival of the old belief in the blacksmith’s magical powers. Very early in the morning the little patient is brought to the shop of a smith of the seventh generation, if such can be found, and laid quite naked on the anvil. The blacksmith raises his hammer thrice as if to strike a glowing horse-shoe, each time letting it gently fall on the child’s body, –a simple ceremony, but vastly promotive of the child’s physical welfare, in the minds of its rustic parents.”

“The historian Diodorus Siculus said that the Chaldeans imagined the earth as having the shape of a round boat turned upside down. The boats still used on the rivers Tigris and Euphrates resemble in form a beehive with a considerable bulge in the middle. Gerald Massey (The Natural Genesis, vol. ii. p. 63) says that this conception of the earth’s figure corresponds to the Egyptian Put-sign with its hollow underneath. Various forms of this formation of the world are extant. The horse-shoe is one. Hence its value as a symbol of superstition. The head-dress of the Egyptian goddess Hathor has the shape of a horse-shoe. The letter omega is another form of the same sign.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“In some Roman Catholic countries the priests are wont to brand cows and pigs on the forehead with the mark of a horse-shoe, to insure them against disease. It was, moreover, an old Scotch superstition, or freet, to pass a horse-shoe thrice beneath the belly and over the back of a cow that was considered elf-shot.”

“We learn from Tacitus, moreover, that the Teutonic peoples used white horses, as the Romans used chickens, for purposes of augury, and divined future events from different intonations of neighings. Hence it probably is that the discovery of a horse-shoe is so universally thought lucky, some of the feelings that once attached to the aninial itself still surviving around the iron of its hoof. For horses, like dogs and birds, were universally accredited with a greater insight into futurity than man himself.”
“In the northernmost districts of Scotland exists a belief that if the first shoe put on the foot of a stallion be hung on the byre door, no harm will come near the cows; and in the same region, if a horse-shoe be placed between the houses of quarrelsome neighbors, neither incurs any risk of evil as a result of the other’s illwishes.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“The Germans have a saying in regard to a young girl who has been led astray, – “She has lost a horseshoe.” This saying has been associated with the shoe as a symbol of marriage, an idea found both in the northern and Indian mythologies. But the phrase has been also thought to refer to the horse-shoe shaped gloria which crowns the head of the Virgin, the horse-shoe thus becoming the symbol of maidenly chastity. Again, it has been suggested, in reference to the same phrase, that the horse-shoe is a symbol of the V (or first letter of the word Virgo), which is used in church records to designate the unmarried state, just as the word ‘spinster’ is used in legal documents.”

“The origin of the horse-shoe as a charm has been ascribed to its resemblance to the metallic aureole or meniscus formerly placed over the heads of images of patron saints in churches, and which is also represented in ancient pictures of the Virgin.” - Robert Means Lawrence, M.D. from The Magic of the Horse-Shoe 1899.

“The present belief in the lucky horseshoe is connected with the ancient emblems of the female genitals, the yoni. In olden times, the people were in the habit of making charcoal drawings of the female genitals over the doors of their houses to ward off ill luck. Now, the horseshoe has a great resemblance with the form of the vulva. From this symbol originates the horseshoes alleged power to ward off evil and to bring luck.” - Bernard S. Tamley Jr. from Love, A Treatise on the science of sex-attraction 1919.

“There is good reason to suppose that the crescent form of the horseshoe links the symbol to pagan Moon goddesses of ancient Europe such as Artemis and Diana, and that the protection invoked is that of the goddess herself, or, more particularly, of her sacred vulva. As such, the horseshoe is related to other magically protective doorway-goddesses, such as the Irish sheela-na-gig, and to lunar protectresses such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is often shown standing on a crescent moon and placed within a vulval mandorla or vesica pisces”  -Cat Yronwode, from Luckymojo.com

-

Everyone can identify a horseshoe as a “lucky charm” (purple marshmallow incarnations included or not) but, as with so many cultural artifacts we drag the symbol through the ages with us, generation to generation, becoming less and less familiar with its origins, until we are almost totally divorced from whatever specific properties endowed it with power in the human imagination to begin with. Our modern cultures are positively littered with just such transmogrified items. From prevailing ideas to matters of “common sense” to everyday objects to sprawling institutions to the words we use to describe it all. We’ve had a direct hand in so very little of it and are so far removed from their origins… it’s almost frightening really, if you take a moment to think on it.

It strikes me though that in the case of the horseshoe it’s particularly pronounced and unfortunate. We’ve put ourselves in a position by which our luck, or the portion at least governed by horseshoes, can literally run out. I mean how likely are any of us to happen upon an actual horseshoe, one worn and ridden, which we might pick up and nail above our door? It might be said at this stage in the game that the luck of a horseshoe could be attributed, like that of a four leaf clover, to sheer rarity.

It’s entirely possible that the day may come when the horseshoe no longer exists at all as a functional object; when it will be produced, in the form of jewelry and bauble and talisman, as a symbol only. And what a paltry and impotent charm that would be eh?

Do you want witches running willy-nilly through your apartment at night? Or faeries or goblins? Or hags and fiends? I don’t. I’ve got enough to worry about, so I think it’s time we safeguard our luck. Why not take some direct action instead of letting generations of dead smithies and poets and historians and cult leaders dictate the auspices of our fortune? We only have so much of it after all, and probably too little as it is.

I’ve thought on it a bit and in attempting to land upon something which is functionally equivalent to the horseshoe but modern, which retains some of the symbolic character and is readily available, one solution presented itself which seemed just about perfect, and which I think reflects we moderns nicely–

Hey, the times they are a changin’, the march of progress, and all that.

Hope you enjoyed.

-

For more on horseshoes, as luck-safe or otherwise, see the following-

Horseshoes at Wikipedia.

Horse Shoes at The Medieval Technology Pages

The History of Horseshoes at About.com

The Magic of the Horse-Shoe at Sacred Texts or the downloadable full book pdf at Google books

The Horseshoe at Lucky Mojo

The Historical Development of the Horseshoe Scientifiv American Suppliment 1891, at Gutengerg.

The Significance of the Horseshoe at The Wild West

Well, as it happens I have an old friend (wishing fervently to remain anonymous) who is working closely with the production team of Mr. Men: The Movie. At my behest he’s risked livelihood and limb (Thanks pal!) and smuggled me out some exclusive images which I thought you might be interested in checking out. The image at the beginning of this post was one.

Stylistically it seems they’ve decided to go after a mixed CGI / cell-animated look, with the characters remaining flat and graphic, exactly as they appeared in the books, and the environments being dimensional, with blurs and light effects, etc. Nice looking, and well done, but pretty standard fare for an animated feature.

Thematically though? ...let’s just say its a bit of a departure. The film seems to eschew the usual Mr. Men formula of having those characters in the oeuvre which embody negative traits (i.e. Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Grumble, Mr. Greedy, etc.) learn a moral lesson through their interactions with those characters which embody positive ones. In this film, at least judging by the images I’ve seen, the negative characters seem to… well… have their day in the sun so to speak.

See for yourself-

As you most likely surmised in less than 5 seconds it’s all lies. A put-on. I admit it. There is no movie, no anonymous friend, and the screen grabs were of course cobbled together by me, Monsieur Non, or Mr. Snide if you prefer– popper of hot-air balloons, crumpler of kites, and trampler of picnic blankets! Mwuah-ha-ha. 

Why perpetrate such a flimsy fraud you ask?

Well, looking at the Mr. Men page on wikipedia it dawned on me what sad creatures these negative trait characters were. I mean think of it– they were created specifically and purposefully to be grumpy, clumsy, greedy, dissatisfied, mischievous, or what have you, and then they are obliged to spend the rest of their existence being chided and “taught lessons.” What a cruel fucking trick!

“I am your creator and I dub thee Mr. Loud because you are loud and can’t help but be loud by your nature. Loudness is the natural state the taught vocal cords I fashioned for you tend toward. Your faulty ears require loudness. Every fiber of your being yearns for loudness. That is how I have made you… Now go forth and be quiet.”

Sick.

Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine being surrounded on all sides by the likes of Mr. Happy, Mr. Cheerful, Little Miss Splendid, Mr. Perfect, Mr. Good, Little Miss Fun, Mr. Right… Christ! I would be Grumpy and Grumbly too. They’d have to call me Mr. Punch-You-In-The-Fucking-Mouth.

Anyhow I thought that if even just for a few moments, and even if only here in my little ramshackle trailer on the outskirts of the internet, these poor bastards could fight back against those freakishly unflawed creations who browbeat and proselytize at them daily (and by extension lift a metaphysical middle finger to the sadistic God of their universe) well… I figured it would be time well spent.

Hope you enjoyed.

So here we are.

The scene opens on what would appear to be a man. In this case the man in question is walking. Nothing dramatic. Just one foot after the other along the side of a road. There is no catchy tune synching perfectly with his steps (though you are more than welcome to imagine one). It’s dark and the air is cool. Judging by the temperature it’s almost certainly Autumn, at perhaps… 8:27 p.m. if I had to make a guess.

“Almost, perhaps, if I had to make a guess.” A good title for a relativist poem but a lot of hedging for one sentence, I know. Especially when that sentence is located smack in the center of scene-setting exposition. But really who can be sure about these things?

It’s a quiet night and there’s a definite chill in the air. That’s all I’m saying.
 
He’s slightly pigeon-toed, our walking man. His black lace-up shoes are nondescript but the toes scuff one another occasionally as he trudges along. So that’s something. A bit of “quirky” specific detail which we narrators are supposed to use in order to spice up the proceedings. Here’s another- he’s not a Black man. Not that you said he was. Neither does he appear to be Asian, Hispanic, American Indian, or of Middle Eastern descent. I suppose it’s possible that if you traced his ancestors back far enough you might find one or all of these races perched on limbs of his family tree. For our purposes let’s just say he’s a white guy. At least he looks kind of white… or ashen? More of a pallor possibly…

Put it this way- if you saw him passing by and wanted to get his attention, say to warn him of an oncoming truck, you might yell out “Hey cracker, watch out! ...Damned fool.” You could replace cracker with gringo or infidel… Your perogative really, but you get the picture. If you saw him and wanted to reach into your slur-bag you’d most likely pull from the “whitey” pile.

So our pigeon-toed cracker is wearing blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt, if your interested in that kind of thing, though it’s about as average an outfit as you’re likely to see. Which is to say it doesn’t tell you much about him, or more accurately it doesn’t offer you anything substantial to fuel your dependable ol’ assumption engine with. He’s of medium height and medium build, does not seem to have a limp, or club foot, nor does he appear to have any talent for swagger. He’s just kind of trudging along. All told there’s nothing much to distinguish him from from any other average looking whitish guy out for an evening stroll, except of course for the space helmet he’s wearing.

Did I neglect to mention that?

Yup. He’s wearing an out-of-date looking space helmet. Could be one of those helmets developed for “tomato worm” pressure suits back in the 1940’s. Or it could be a more modern lexan model without the visor assembly and silver coating. Maybe it’s some newfangled model which requires none of the additional do-daddery we’ve come to expect… Truth be told, more than anything, it looks like a giant, upside down, goldfish bowl.

I suppose your assumption engine jolted to life on the power of that little nugget huh?

“He’s a crashed astronaut wandering in an amnesiac haze trying desperately to put the pieces together and reveal his own identity!” OR “He’s a time traveller from the year 3014 returning to our time in order to find a genetically perfect bride, free of the Toe-Chewer virus so devastating in his own era!”

Yeah, maybe, but you know the old chestnut about making assumptions. It could be halloween and the guy’s got no flair for costumes. Or maybe he’s a prop comic on his way to a gig. Possibly he’s just a nut.
 
I can’t tell you much more about his looks. The helmet is a bit fogged up you see. All that warm breath inside and cool air outside. Only natural, science and all. He looks to have big dreamy dark eyes, though it might just be a shadow. What I can tell you with absolute certainty, however, is that he does not have the faintest idea where he is going. I know this because, being narrator, I’m privy to certain of his thoughts. For instance at this very moment he’s thinking:

...For both of them to say that… not one uncle but both, from both sides. The same exact thing… “Don’t think there’s much hope for you Bucky.” One while packing his pipe, the other gutting a fish… What a dick thing to say… I’d like to know the odds on them both saying that same exact thing! Had they spoken to one another? Group consensus? Towing the “uncle” party line? Bucky?! Who says Bucky? Bucko. Buckaroo maybe… Just bugs me… They are family so they’re not apt to just throw out thoughtless damning pronouncements for no reason are they? On the other hand they’re just uncles, not fathers, not so close that they would be blinded or compelled to bite their tongue for niceties sake…

See? Not even paying attention to where he’s going. More interested it seems in this perceived synchronicity of uncle-judgement. Had I tuned you in earlier you’d have heard the part about his aunts. Both of whom evidently told him he’d be a “heartbreaker.” Some folks might take that as a compliment but not our space-helmeted, pigeon-toed, ashen-faced infidel here. He figured it was a prettied-up way of saying he’d be a disappointment to the women in his life; That he seemed to them either cruel and uncaring or fundamentally lacking something somehow. I’m paraphrasing. Point is he didn’t take it to mean he was handsome.

As is the peculiar ability of the living, his feet continue to come down one in front of the other propelling him onward, though his mind is elsewhere entirely.

A multitude of wobbly stars are winking above him. Below his auto-piloted feet dirt and gravel crunch. He’s walking beside a road. Not a very well-travelled road admittedly. Not a single vehicle has passed by. There are street lights every three hundred feet or so. When he passes below one his helmet glints, bouncing light across his brow. In the space of a few steps his shadow is born, grows, moves away, and dies out. He might have found it poetic in a certain way if he’d noticed, but he didn’t. Totally oblivious.

For instance if he were paying any attention at all he’d most certainly notice the orange glow up ahead of him, surrounding the gas station sign, and the smoke plumes billowing up into the darkness.

...If I’d been a gardener or a banker or anything else it’d all be different. Harriet would have stuck around. Or at least she’d have to be more imaginative about her excuse for leaving… Ridiculous… What did she expect this kind of life would be like? If I’d been something else, a mechanic, a grocer, anything, I wouldn’t be out here in…

A light goes on in that distracted mind of his and some curiosity about his surroundings finally dawns. It’s only coincidence that he stops right there under a street lamp, his helmet glinting. As I surmised he can’t help but notice the tell tale signs of catastrophe-by-fire up around the bend. All else is darkness so there’s not much else to notice.
 
What the hell’s going on up there? Fire? Geez does my head hurt… No more nights like this one. Can’t be. Can’t go on this way. What was I thinking?! I didn’t even use any protection. Stupid stupid… God that cloud is thick! A tire fire or something? I really out to be getting back… But where is everyone? Wonder what happened? Crap… Could be a crash…

Snapped out of his dazed, trudging revery, he sets off at a trot toward that glowing and crackling and billowing, mysterious only in its particulars. The street lamps pass over his head quickly. Generations of shadows are born and die out below his footfalls. He doesn’t get far. Turning the bend he almost tackles two guys standing dumbly in the middle of the road, their backs turned to him. He manages to put the breaks on before contact but the two are startled and wheel around to face him. Their clothes are singed and blackened and torn. One of them is missing a shoe. He also happens to have a gun which is pointed straight at our gringo. They both look freaked.

...Shit! They look freaked.

Luckily they each have inverted goldfish bowls on their heads as well. Recognition dawns on all three at the same instant.

-“Bill?”

-“Joe?”

-“Bob?”

-“Joe?”

They know one another. Judging by the names called out it’s safe to say our guy is Joe, while the disheveled and singed two are Bill and Bob. The gun is dropped, the gap between them disappears, and the questions begin in earnest.

“What the hell happened to you two?” asks Joe.

“Bob here fucked with the wrong bad-ass that’s what! Started asking him questions. Tried the ol’ ‘Take me to your leader bit.’ Gave him a little ray-gun action and the guy just blew the fuck up. Knocked us clear across the street into the woods. I told him not to fuck with the guy. He was built like a refrigerator and had a dick like 8 feet long! And I’m serious. That’s not a metaphor. “ Says Bill.

“Yeah, bad move as it turns out. I lost a shoe,” adds Bob. “What are you doing here? I thought you left last week.”

...Crap, here we go. thinks Joe, saying nothing.

“Let me guess. That letter from Harriet last week… Could you be out carousing? Screwing the natives? You’ve got a boot print on your crotch so I’ll assume you didn’t shoot over to New Mexico for your jollies like the rest of us do. Were you out probing primates in the middle of Minnesota Joe?! You sicko.”

Joe squirmed in place and Bob looked pleased. “I hope you were safe Joe, you know how filthy these earthlings are…”

“Leave him alone Bob,” offers Bill sympathetically.

“No. It’s fine. He’s right. I was bar-hopping. Stupid I know… Just didn’t want to go home.” concedes Joe, slouching a bit, the tips of his toes touching.

“But I bet you want to go home now huh? I sure do,” says Bill. “It’s always the same story, a night out to let off steam, some light probing, a little abduction… in the end you always feel… dirty; Always regret it.”

Joe stood there looking at his feet. The glow from the fire was dying down a bit. Their shadows, merged as they were into conjoined triplets, swayed back and forth across the blacktop. He didn’t regret it. He hated this damned planet and it’s ugly primates, but he was tired.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go I think. You guys probably should too, the fuzz will be along soon I’m sure.”

Bill nods. “We’re parked a little ways off, up there past the gas station, in a wheat field. We already layed down the circles. Wanna ride with us? Might as well. Harriet’s got your saucer right?”

Joe nods back.

Bob slides the ray-gun into his charred ray-gun holster, taking a last quick look around for his lost shoe. “Screw it,” he mumbles.

And with that the scene ends the way 59 percent of all scenes do, with a person, or a group of people, walking off into the sunset. Only in this case the people aren’t exactly people and the sunset isn’t really a sunset. Aliens walking off into the glow of a gas station fire is close enough though I think, and will do just fine.

Part 2- Comedy

An alien walks into a bar and sits down next to big guy in combat boots. After about ten minutes and two drinks the alien licks his finger and puts it into the guy’s ear. The guy gets pissed but sees the alien’s space helmet, figures he’s a nut, and holds his tongue.

Ten minutes and two drinks later the alien does it again. This time the guy shoves the alien away saying “If you do that again I will kick the shit out of you.”

Ten minutes and a ciggarette later the alien does it again. The guy jumps off his bar seat grabs the alien and sinks his combat boot deep into the alien’s crotch.

The alien is totally unfazed. He gets back up on his barstool and orders another drink.

The guy is freaked out and says “Dude! What the fuck? I just kicked you in the nuts and you didn’t flinch!”

The alien says “That’s because I don’t have any nuts.” and drops trou just long enough to prove it.

Now the guy’s really freaked. He says, “Jesus christ. You’ve got no nuts! How do you fuck?”

The alien licks his finger and puts it into the guy’s ear.

Meanwhile across town…

Two aliens, one who thinks he’s tough and one who thinks he’s smart, land their space ship and walk over to a nearby gas station. They both walk up to the gas pump.

The tough-guy alien looks at the pump and says, “Take me to your leader!”

Of course the gas pump says nothing.

The smart alien says “I dont think that is a good idea.”

The tough-guy alien looks at the pump again and demands to be taken to the leader.

The gas pump says nothing.

The smart alien says, “That’s really not a good idea man.”

Losing his patience, the bad-ass alien pulls his out his ray-gun.

The smart alien shouts, “No, you don’t want to make him mad!”

But before the sentence is finished the tough guy alien zaps the pump with his ray-gun.

There is a huge explosion that blows both of them clear across the street, where they land in a charred heap.

When they finally regain consciousness, the tough guy alien turns to the smart one and says, “What a mean motherfucker! He damn near killed us! How did you know he was so dangerous?”

The smart alien answers, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my travels through the galaxy, it’s that when a guy has a dick he can wrap around himself twice and then stick it in his own ear, you don’t fuck with him.”

The end.

-

Note: This post was one in a series of reworkings of old posts which date from before the redesign of The Nonist. The text has been edited slightly, and the images are new. I will be periodically adding these reworkings into the flow of new content in an effort to eventually remove all the old pages from circulation.

Below are reproduced a few fine examples from Sins of America. But be ready.

You’ll laugh!

You’ll groan!

You’ll be outraged!

You’ll drink more heavily!

You’ll feel a tingling sensation in unmentionable areas of your person!

 


In short goodly reader… you’re pretty much sure to enjoy, sporting folk you are.

For more info on The National Police Gazette check out the following:

A Little Visit to the Lower Depths, by Gene Smith
The National Police Gazette at Everything2
The Sporting Life, at The Intimate Bachelor

To see how the Gazette eventually ended up see:

Cover Girls of WWII
Bad Mags
And the a modern, online version Here

Expect a follow-up with more. Hope you enjoyed.

Geographically and Thematically Related Is-

The Australian magazine NMA. New Music Articles was “formed with the aim of encouraging musicians, composers and sound artists to write about their work as a way of informing the general public, and creating a wider musical debate.” Each of its first 10 issues, published between 1982-1992, featured a companion cassette. “These cassettes covered a varied cross-section of experimental, electronic and new music from Australia produced over this period.”

Some descriptors used for the sounds therein include: computer-assisted music, tape work, environmental compositions, vocal, performance pieces, and improvisation. If those words in combination make you yawn to death or start bleeding from your ears due to some aural sense-memory, that’s understandable. Many people prefer to take in their avant art strictly through their eyeballs.

If you are on the other hand curious about 20 year old computer-assisted avant Australian sounds then let it be known all 10 of these NMA cassettes (as well as selected articles from the magazine itself) are available free online, as are other releases by Austrailian avant label Shamefile Music.