Tag: news

This Week in Pandemonium: Jan. 13-19

January 13th, 2025

While we are waiting for Christmas in Pandemonium to arrive at the publishing house, we may as well start up This Week in Pandemonium.

January 13, 1972—Marlon Milton, the first Fieldhand councilmember since Reconstruction, is sworn in and takes his seat on the town council. Satanic High Priest Blaise Jackson opens Milton’s first council meeting by cursing Milton in that public forum, requesting that Satan cause Milton to lose his seat, his hair, and his life. Satan goes one out of three, as Milton serves three terms on the council and lives to be 82, though he does fall prey to male pattern baldness.

January 14, 1967—Pandemonium has its own “Human Be-in” in imitation of the San Francisco gathering, in what would evolve into the “Summer of Love.” The Summer of Love ends early in Pandemonium, however, as the elderly Witch community takes that phrase as permission to revive an old Witch tradition, holding a mass sexual orgy in the middle of the town square. The average age of this orgy is 72. The young people of Pandemonium stop dressing like hippies the day after.

January 15, 1924—The Great Moonshine Flood of 1924 occurs. As Prohibition continues, illicit liquor production in Pandemonium reaches its zenith. When a group of federal enforcement agents raid Dravidius Ravenwood’s hidden distilleries, Ravenwood dumps his product into the streets. Pandemonium’s streets are flooded in sweet corn liquor and the entire Witch side of town gets drunk on Ravenwood’s bad luck.

January 16, 1939—A year after their performance at Carnegie Hall, Benny Goodman performs at the Athena Oratorium. He is welcomed by both the Fieldhand and Ze’ev communities, who manage to inhabit the same building without attacking each other to see him.

January 17, 1781—The Battle of Cowpens: Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeats British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton in South Carolina. The participation of the Witch militia is instrumental in Tarleton’s defeat. Legend has it, Tarleton was the victim of a curse by the Patriot Witches, who sacrificed a dog specifically for the purpose.

January 18, 1963—Fieldhand and civil rights activist Willie Jackson becomes the first black man to play a professional hockey game in South Carolina for a local minor league team. The local civil rights movement is stunned to find little to no protest against this act of integration. It turns out, most people in South Carolina had no idea professional hockey existed in their state.

January 19, 1883—Pandemonium’s first electric lighting system with overhead wiring is built, less than a year after Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Plant. Within a few years, the city square is covered in a tangle of overhead wires such that residents cannot see town hall from the storefronts of the square.
Cause of Delay-Canadian Postal Worker

January 7th, 2025

We still don’t have a solid publication date for Christmas in Pandemonium. The primary cause is the Canadian Postal Worker Strike. You see, I Ain’t No Marionette Press, my publisher, is based in Ontario. Due to a variety of reasons, the postal workers union in Canada went on strike back in November and only temporarily returned to work December 17 after management agreed to a small raise. However, due to the backlog, even now we are having problems getting packages out of Canada in January, which is what we need to do to publish the book.

Look, I understand that these collective bargaining issues are complicated, and I’m just an ignorant American trying to get a book published. If I’m lucky, maybe I could sell 50 copies. However, I am willing to step in and make an offer to resolve this thing: $3,000. Yes, you heard me, $3000. Here it is right here. A check made out to you, the Canadian Postal Workers Union, for $3000. And that’s American Greenbacks, not Canadian money. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “We’re a national union made up of thousand of postal workers. What difference would $3000 make?” But here’s the thing: you can use the $3000 anyway that you want. No strings attached. I don’t even really care if you end the strike, just get my transcript to the printers.

Oh, so $3000 isn’t enough for you? We’ll, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but our new President has threatened to annex you, and I predict that things might not go so well for your little concern once you’ve been conquered by Comandante Trump. He’s a vindictive guy, and he always gets his man. That’s why Hilary Clinton is in prison, Mexico paid for us to build a border wall and then dig a moat, and people in Greenland now speak English and eat Freedom Fries. I see your PM resigned. Couldn’t take the heat. It definitely had to do with Trump. Nothing to do with the polls showing him down by 20 points after being in office for nine years. I mean, who’s that guy think he is? George Bush?

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting. Our neighbors up north are entitled to have their own problems. God knows we’ve got enough of our own. The mail being late is obviously a small one. Just please, good people of Canada, get my transcript over the border. You’re killing me. I named the book: Christmas in Pandemonium. It’s coming out in February. I’m an idiot.
This Week in Pandemonium: Dec. 16-22

December 16th, 2024

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, Tip Top Tet, and a Solemn and Dignified Ramadan to everyone who can remember this reference, and the rest of you as well. We are still looking at a Christmas release date for Christmas in Pandemonium. Here’s this week in Pandemonium:

December 16, 1773—The Boston Tea Party occurs in Boston. Pandemonium residents, upon hearing the news, take sides, with the Loyalist Strangers holding impromptu tea parties with taxed tea and the Witches renaming the local tavern the Green Dragon and getting so drunk that the Witch community wakes up to find themselves dressed as Indians with none of the revelers remembering why or how they got in such a way.

December 17, 1970–Opportunistic Witch, Carl Goode, publishes How the Minch Stole the Winter Solstice, a shameless attempt to rip off the Dr. Suess classic. Goode is forced to halt publication of the book in response to both copyright infringement suits from Suess’s family and legal action various state consumer protection agencies.

December 18, 1918—Attempting to emulate the Wright brothers, Schlemiel Berkowitz invents his own flying machines. Berkowitz’s biplane works, but due to the presence of a full moon that night, its pilot transforms mid-flight. The confused beast jumps from the aircraft and runs amok downtown.

December 19, 1828—John C. Calhoun sparks the nullification crisis by publishing the South Carolina Exposition and Protest. This provides a rare moment of unity in Pandemonium, as the Witches, increasingly dependent on foreign trade, and the sea faring Strangers join forces to reject the Tariff of Abominations. At its zenith, newly appointed Satanic High Priest Beauregard Davis curses Andrew Jackson in the public square, invoking Satan to strike down Old Hickory. Pastor Germain Huggins of the Stranger Church, rather than condemning the act, prays separately for God to do the same.

December 20, 1860—South Carolina secedes from the Union in response to the election of Abraham Lincoln. The Witch side of Pandemonium attempts to beat the state legislature, voting to leave the Union the day beforehand, but being vetoed by the Strangers. The vote ends with councilmembers challenging each other to duels, leading to the death of three.

December 21, 1906—Cramner University’s newly formed basketball team plays Kansas, whose head coach is the inventor of the sport, Dr. James Naismith. The Red Devils lose 89-2, and Elphebas Ravenwood is named the team MVP for scoring their one basket and being able to stand while dribbling the ball.

December 22, 2004—Satanic High Priest Acton Ravenwood publishes his local history of Pandemonium town. He is criticized for cutting out any mention of human sacrifice, slavery, segregation, anti-immigrant animus, and witchcraft, instead focusing on the positives such as the dedication of the Second Satanic Temple as a historic national landmark and Ravenwood’s mother winning the 1960 quilting bee.
Christmas Release Date!

December 2nd, 2024

I just received word from my publisher, I Ain’t Your Marionette Press, that we are aiming for a release on Christmas Day. Sounds like an excellent late Christmas present. Here’s this week in Pandemonium.

December 2, 1957—A group of Fieldhands led by Walter Washington attempt to integrate bus services in Pandemonium, hoping to imitate Rosa Parks. However, when Washington sits in the Whites only section of the bus, the White riders respond by fleeing the bus in mass. Satanic High Priest Blaise Jackson later performs a curse on the bus company, which actually supported the protest.

December 3, 1917—Stranger businessman Franklin Maplethorpe starts his own automobile company and begins an assembly line in Pandemonium. Maplethorpe attempts to turn the North side of the Line into a company town, with company stores selling bones, salt and rum in exchange for company issued currency. This experiment ends when the workers unionize, leading to the end of the company and Maplethorpe’s humiliating bankruptcy.

December 4, 1634—A group of thirteen Strangers attempt to start a second colony on the South Carolina mainland called Miller’s landing. The settlement lasts for four months and is then mysteriously abandoned, with only the word “False Shepherd” written on a trees as the only clue as to why.

December 5, 1933-Prohibition ends. The bootlegging Witches celebrate by bringing boxes of mason jars full of moonshine to the North side of the Line and getting intoxicated in front of the teetotaler Strangers, as well as local law enforcement. This doesn’t end well, however, as alcohol remained illegal in South Carolina until 1935. Approximately one-third of the Witch community wakes up the next day in the drunk tank.

December 6, 1865—The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is officially ratified, abolishing slavery within the United States. The Fieldhand community rejoices, with several freedmen choosing to move North. The Witch community mourns, as plantation owners wake up to find their house servants have abandoned them. Unable to care for themselves, no fewer than seven former slave owners in Pandemonium commit suicide.

December 7, 1941—A day that lives in infamy. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States enters World War II. Several Pandemonian citizens serve in the war, first and foremost being Medal of Honor Recipient Bunim Greenblatt, who takes out an entire German division one night during a particularly clear full moon.

December 8, 1992—Damien Brody opens fire in The Athena Oratorium, Pandemonium’s famous jazz club, killing four people including a promising saxophone player named Mable Jefferson. When asked why, Brody answers “they won’t go away.”
This Week in Pandemonium: Nov. 25-Dec. 1

November 25th, 2024

Happy Thanksgiving! Spend some time with your family this week and enjoy some turkey. Here’s this week in Pandemonium Nov. 25-Dec. 1

November 25, 1783—Evacuation Day in New York City marks the end of the revolutionary war. In Pandemonium, no fewer than thirteen Stranger families with loyalist sympathies pack up and leave, most of whom immigrate to Canada. The Witch mayor, Elphebas Ravenwood, stands at the bridge leading to the mainland and waves them out.

November 26, 1941—President Roosevelt signs a bill that formalizes Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November, leading to the first Thanksgiving the Strangers and Witches actually agree on. The Witches has previously celebrated “Resentmas” after President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation, and the Strangers refused to acknowledge President Washington’s 1789 proclamation. The two sides bury the hatchet with a common meal in the town square, which quickly devolves into a fist fight.

November 27, 2004—Harvey Flom, Pandemonium’s first gay councilmember, is shot dead outside his home. The assassin, a Witch named Harry Blackroot, claimed to not know Flom was gay, but shot him over a three-cent sales tax increase.

November 28, 1896—In an attempt to drum up sales for motor cars, famed inventor Frank Duryea holds a motorcar race on Pandemonium’s city streets. Despite the lack of other cars, Duryea runs off the road and falls into the sea. While Duryea survives the ordeal, he understandably fails to sell a single car.

November 29, 1864—Members of the pro-Union Stranger militia attempt to sabotage the Confederate city government using nitroglycerin to blow up the historic town meeting hall. Nitroglycerin is very unstable, which the Stranger militiamen soon discover upon handling it, blowing themselves up before reaching the meeting hall.

November 30, 1953—The first modern example of a meteorite striking a human being occurs in Pandemonium when such a space rock crashes through a Fieldhand woman’s roof and strikes her in the hip. The woman, Gladys Jackson, suffers a nasty bruise but no other injuries. Satanic High Priest Blaise Jackson preemptively states the Witch community had nothing to do with this.

December 1, 1874—In the midst of reconstruction, Field Servant Marcus Johnson founds Jameson University for freed slaves. However, Jameson University sadly closes nine years later due to lack of financial support and harassment by local authorities. Fieldhands pursuing higher education would attend other historically black universities in South Carolina such as Allen and Benedict.
This Week In Pandemonium Nov. 18-24

November 19th, 2024

While we are talking about Christmas in Pandemonium, I should note that I’m putting the final touches on the first draft of the sequel. I actually plan to write a seven-book series. Here’s this week in Pandemonium Nov. 18-24

November 18, 1880—Elizabeth Davis, a Witch, is arrested for attempting to vote illegally the Pandemonium Town Meeting Hall, as South Carolina had not approved women’s suffrage at that time. Of course, given that she was 12 at the time, Elizabeth Davis would not likely be allowed to vote today.

November 19, 1863—Abraham Lincoln gives the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg. Pandemonians will die fighting for both sides of the civil war. Col. Robert Davis of Pandemonium serves under Gen. Lee at Gettysburg.

November 20, 1968—Pandemonium becomes the first city in the southeast to install a computerized traffic light. Visitors from other towns in South Carolina, normally there to protest the Satanic Temple, proclaim it to be witchcraft.

November 21, 1877—Thomas Edison invents the phonograph, notable here only because Fieldhand inventor Ely Jameson claims to have created one two years earlier, only to have Edison steal his idea.

November 22, 1963—President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. It is reported, inaccurately, that Witch children at Bothwell school, a segregated institution, cheer when they hear the news. Satanic High Priest Blaise Jackson, a staunch opponent of integration, offers a spell of healing to the Kennedy family at the next Satanic ritual and lectures the press on telling sensationalist lies in his sermon.

November 23, 1920—Dravidius Ravenwood goes into business as “pharmacist” selling “medicinal liquor” during the height of prohibition. While this practice is greatly restricted by the federal government soon thereafter, Ravenwood’s pharmacy is soon the busiest place in town. He later builds a speakeasy in the back of his establishment.

November 24, 1717—The infamous pirate Edward Teach, commonly known as Blackbeard, makes port in Pandemonium to deal with some Stranger smugglers who took what he considered to be his booty. David Fincher is tied to the front of the Queen Anne’s revenge as it sails back out to sea while Teach takes Fincher’s fifteen year old daughter as his wife.
This Week in Pandemonium: Nov.11-17

November 11th, 2024

Alright, after a short break for Halloween and election season, we are back to This Week in Pandemonium, now for the week Nov.11-17.

November 11, 1620—The Bargain is signed, forming the basis of Pandemonium’s city government. After drafting the town’s founding document, Thomas Cramner and John Miller famously shake on it, beginning 400 years of cooperative governance.

November 12, 1918—Armistice Day: World War I ends. Pandemonium arranges a parade of its veterans. The Witches object to allowing Fieldhand veterans to march, leading to the event’s cancellation.

November 13, 1891—The first Ze’ev begin arriving at Ellis Island. Contemporary records indicate that passengers on board the same ships would often report seeing large beasts prowling the halls of the ship on a full moon. When asked by immigration officials, several Ze’ev merely smile and attribute it to “too much vodka.”

November 14, 1960—Pandemonium public schools are desegregated by court order as six-year-old Trudy Jackson becomes the first Fieldhand to attend kindergarten with whites and Thomas Cramner elementary school. School ends early that day due to several bomb threats being made on the building.

November 15, 1969—A group of Witch parents send a joint letter to the Public Broadcasting System, protesting the broadcast of Sesame Street for its portrayal of a racially diverse neighborhood existing in harmony and friendliness. PBS ignores the Witches, who then send the broadcaster a doll in the mail. The doll is burned after employees who touch the doll die in a car crash the same day.

November 16, 1939—The Hickory Tree, a confederate nostalgia movie sponsored by Grand Dame Elizabeth Davis, comes out in theaters, making it the first portrayal of Pandemonium on film. While the movie is later critiqued for its relatively benign portrayal of the antebellum south, the film provides several roles to black Americans at a time when Hollywood regularly used black face, giving many African Americans a foot in the door of the movie industry they previously didn’t have.

November 17, 1975—A charter plane carrying the Winthrop University football players crashes into the Smoky Mountains at 1 am in the morning, killing all 40 players on board. The tragic accident occurred after a thrilling win over UCLA on the West Coast, but before Winthrop’s traditional rivalry game with the Cramner Red Devil’s. Deprived of their best players, the Buccaneers lose to the Red Devils 47-0 the following week despite being heavily favored before the accident.
This Week in Pandemonium Sept. 30-Oct.6

October 1st, 2024

As we move into premature spooky season, I’d like to remind my readers that I will be at the West Virginia Book Festival on October 19 in Charleston, West Virginia at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center. I would love it if anyone showed up.

September 30, 1964—Satanic High Priest Blaise Jackson stands in front of the front entrance of Cramner University to bar Ross Evans, a Fieldhand, from entering. Evans would go on to be the first Fieldhand to attend and graduate from Cramner University after initially being rejected for admission on the basis of his race.

October 1, 1933—Construction of Miller Memorial Bridge is completed, linking Pandemonium to the mainland without use of a ferry service for the first time and opening the island up to local tourism.

October 2, 1997—Schlumiel Berkowitz attempts to be the first Pandemonian to scale Mount Everest. Alas, his attempt fails as he forgets to take into account the full moon. Berkowitz transforms on the first night and wakes up the next morning completely naked on the Nepalese side of the mountain base.

October 3, 1863—President Abe Lincoln proclaims a national day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on November 26. Witches in Pandemonium, not very fond of the Great Emancipator, respond that year by inventing “Resentmas” which they celebrate by gathering together and talking about all the reasons they hate those bothersome Yankees.

October 4, 1957—After Blaise Jackson reveals the existence of the Satanic Temple, Pope Pius XII sends a letter to the Diocese of Charleston, asking what they are doing this, leading to the foundation of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Pandemonium. The Church as converted exactly nobody in Pandemonium but hope springs eternal.

October 5, 1947—When Harry Truman makes the first ever televised presidential address, Pandemonians gather into the home of local businessman Millard Ferguson to watch, as he has one of the only televisions in town. Locals are exhilarated watching Truman wipe his brown and drink a glass of water.

October 6, 1754—The Great Fire of Pandemonium wipes out the Northern half of the island, which at that time is only about 35 houses. The Strangers rebuild, but the Witches are treated with suspicion, believed to be the cause of the fire. Not due to witchcraft, but due to the fact that the Witches don’t bale their hay, instead just keeping it stacked up in big piles near the Line.