A pretty nice gift, this Christmas Eve. Our family’s tradition is to give out one, and mine happened to be the first new violin that I have ever owned. In fact, the newest one I’ve had was a school fiddle from the twenties, my other one, my G. Grandma’s, was made 1860-1880. Pretty old.
That’s a nice fiddle, that old one, but that’s the problem. I feel like it will snap in half every time I tune it, so I’ve wanted a new fiddle for a while. Well, my family got me one, a nice acoustic/electric model. It has a nice sound.
But that’s not really what I want to talk about. I’d like to talk about the guy who taught me how to play in the manner of these hills, a fella by the name of Clarence.
Clarence was an older gentleman with coke bottle glasses, his poor eyesight was a source of life-long frustration to him.
No, it wasn’t because he couldn’t see the music. He never read a sheet, anyway, he played strictly by ear, his foot always tapping.
Clarence was pissed because his eyesight kept him out of World War Two, he took that regret with him to the grave. He told me the story. When the 37th Infantry mustered for overseas deployment, Clarence volunteered and for a while he wore the uniform. Then the Army docs said his eyes were too bad, and they sent him home. He went back to work in the steel mill, and he eventually retired from there.
But in the meanwhile, the 37th slogged through the island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific, it was a very bad time. They ended their war in Luzon, 1945. Nothing but hard, bitter fighting in the worst of conditions for years on end.
Clarence didn’t miss much, in my opinion. But even fifty years later he was pretty sore about it.
He was one hell of a fiddler.
Let’s make one thing perfectly, crystal clear. I cannot play 1/1000th as well as Clarence. There was hardly a tune he didn’t know, and he could play all of them and their variations masterfully, all by ear, all without a single sheet of music. He was a borderline prodigy, and I feel privileged that I knew him.
With regret, I was never able to say goodbye.
During yet another deployment, he died. I came home and he was gone.
This encyclopedia of Appalachian music was closed for good, his knowledge and his collection of violins gone.
If I would have been a better student. If… I don’t know. If I could turn back the clock.
Well, at least I can still play “Shady Grove” the way he taught me. And I still remember him, the best fiddler I have ever known.
Since Afghanistan I have not been able to play. But over the past six months, despite other challenges, I have felt the old desire return. I guess that’s a good thing. And now I have this brand-new, pretty little red fiddle (the lighting makes it look yellow. It’s not).
Hopefully all of your holiday breaks are good, and you get a gift as nice as this one.
And no, it’s not a pumpkin pie, although those are nice. No, the holiday treat will be over on patreon.com/jasonlambright on the 24th of December, in this fine year of 2021.
I’m a little behind schedule in officially launching book one of the Promised Land trilogy, but that’s OK for a number of reasons, chief among which is that the crucial editing process is still ongoing. I refuse to put a substandard product out there, so that’s cool. The Storyteller’s Heaven will simply have to wait for some point next year.
How is that a treat, you ask. Being denied a book? Some flipping treat.
Alright, here goes. On Christmas Eve the first rough draft chapter of STORY2 will drop on my site behind the paywall. The good little boys and girls, my acolytes, will have unrestricted access to the kickoff chapter as other mere mortals gather around a crooked tree for a sad little package with socks.
No, my peeps will be gifted with the rawest, newest sci-fi fiction out there, a book that is still in progress (in fact, I am well into Act II of the novel).
So, be advised. If you wanna, for a couple of bucks you can sign on and get an entire space opera novel, half of an alternate history, and the lead off to the bridge novel in my latest trilogy for three bucks. In addition, you get my thoughts and the occasional cri de coeur as I try to figure out this writer thing more or less in public.
It’s all behind the paywall, so stop by and check it out. I’d be glad to have ya aboard.
What am I talking about, and why did I bust out a photo of me doing some battlefield planning?
Easy. What I’m talking about is The Storyteller’s Heaven, my first published work since 2017. And I published that picture of me because we’re going to discuss some plans today.
Alright. It’s been kind of tough around here lately with all kids of life event fireballs that I’ve had to dodge, and I am hoping to get back into the swing of things pretty soon. A big deal, a major rock, is the final prep, edits and creation of the ebook file for TSH. I’ve never gone through the indie process before without some major handholding; to say that I’m a bit shy about the process would be an understatement.
However, stiff upper lip and all that. It is going to happen. It’s simple a matter of when, and what will be the final quality.
The “when” is hard to control, and the quality will be the best that I can afford. This. This is what I owe my readers. Good, clean, copy and not some worthless garbage that would be more at home in the bottom of a greasy dumpster behind the local chicken farm.
Therefore, I must plan.
At present, the plan for TSH is about ninety percent.
However, on patreon.com/jasonlambright you can view the entire novel now, if you’d like. As a bonus, there is also a good portion of my alt history series as well. If you sign up now, you’ll get my ebook gratis here shortly, and in the meanwhile there is plenty of material to read.
I believe some 104 odd posts by yours truly, and in each and every one of them you are free to comment and join the conversation.
In my old profession self-promotion was frowned upon, and I still have difficulty marketing anything.
So, in that spirit I’ll say it as I see it. The material is there. Feel free to unlock the door and climb aboard, I’ll be glad to have you join the ranks of the hardcore.
I didn’t realize this was a question until I randomly saw a Black Friday ad a few days ago, and I beheld a product I didn’t know existed- a Borg Brain that takes over your dumb, non-smart TV and turns it into an edifice of streaming, YouTube gazing awesomeness.
Now, it’s probably the case that this product has existed forever and the more tech-savvy among us (Dirk, I know you’re out there) is probably shaking his/her head at my backwardness.
Let me tell you about the Fire Stick, and its awesomeness. Also, it would help if I gave you some background.
A while back I upgraded a few TVs around here to smart TVs, i.e. TVs that can stream without awkward interfaces. TVs that are easy to use with Netflix, Hulu, etc. I’ve been very satisfied with my new smart TVs, but it left me with a dilemma.
A couple of perfectly good TVs that were “dumb.” Well, I hate waste, but what was I to do with the older wall-mounted flatscreen in the guest room or the faithful Sony that had been replaced by its brilliant cousin, the smart Toshiba?
Stupid me, I found the Amazon Fire Stick, and it seemed as if it would transform my dumb TVs into smart ones for a mere twenty bucks.
I had my doubts. But what the heck, I figured, if this would work it would save me a fair bit of jack and extend the lives of some very good, but obsolete, TVs. So, I ordered a couple. In typical Amazon fashion they arrived right away. For a couple of days I let them sit, I feared that using them would be a nightmare of passwords and bulky, glitchy interfaces.
Well, I did it today.
The hijacking of my dumb TV was incredibly easy.
Lemme tell you how this worked.
First, turn on the old TV, then select HDMI whatever (the TV can’t be so old that it doesn’t have an HDMI port, although there are probably hacks for that, too).
This is the last time you will use the old remote.
As soon as you turn on the Fire Stick (which I jammed into the HDMI port and plugged into its independent power supply), the Borg Brain takes over your old TV, and it replaces the old remote, too. All of a sudden the ominous lopsided Amazon trademark appears on your screen, and all you have to do is enter your WiFi password, and then your Amazon PW (yes, you must have an account).
At a certain point, the updating Stick will have you change the volume on the old TV with the new, provided Amazon remote, and the assimilation is over.
The Amazon Borg Brain has taken over your faithful set and transformed it into something new and fearsome.
Want to watch Apple TV? Enter your PW and go for it. Feel like binging on the lives of the British royals? Put in your Netflix PW. Rinse, wash, repeat. And oh yes, I must mention that there’s a ton of free content as well.
Hey, things could always be worse, I tell myself. I could be riding in the back of a light pickup truck in the middle of hell, as seen above. Where riding across a mine, being hit by a small IED or shot up by small arms would be quick and fatal.
I’m not there anymore, and I probably never will be again, for which I give thanks. I don’t give thanks for some holiday where indigenous people helped out their new neighbors, and their new neighbors proceeded to turf them out of their ancestral lands. I’m not giving thanks for that, nor am I looking into the past and nursing grievances about stuff that happened long before I was born.
That’s not my style.
Rather, on this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for present-day, tangible things.
Survival through this horrible plague, for most of those I know. A full belly. A warm house. A decent glass of wine, and the prospect of a delicious meal with amazing desserts. Eventually I’ll get a new truck, although I must say this year of shortages and stress has given me a surprise or two.
Thankful that most of us have survived, although some have not, with fatalities from various causes. Bad stinking year, after a bad year. Sooner or later the worm will turn, although it hasn’t yet. I remind myself that perseverance is one of the most important of traits. Endurance. Patience.
I try to exercise these things. To remind myself that I’ve lived through bad times before, and eventually these will pass like all the others.
So, on this Thanksgiving I really am thankful. Not for some set-piece Charlie Brown Thanksgiving BS, but for real reasons, and not make-believe.
Maybe that’s the real utility of this holiday.
Not for some white-washed version of what happened in the seventeenth century, but for what we experience today.
What are we thankful for?
There is so much, even in the midst of a terrible epidemic and societal upheaval.
Check it out. I’ll say what I’m thankful for. You guys can chime in if you want.
A good family. Good friends. A cool reader base. A meaningful craft in retirement. A body not blown to bits. Medical care, physical and mental (Thanks, VA). Dry roof. Full belly. Good roads. No gunfire nearby.
The list goes on.
So, yeah. Thanksgiving doesn’t have to be just some story about the Pilgrims and their Native hosts.
Thanksgiving can be every stinking day.
I encourage you all to be thankful, because for the vast majority of us, we have a lot to be thankful for. I mean, come on, Netflix. Burger King. Walmart. This is a land of plenty and ease!
Do your best, guys. And think about things to be thankful for.
First, a disclaimer. I am not advocating whether people should get a COVID shot or not. That’s your call, but I would suggest you do. No, what I am talking about is a dangerous erosion of military discipline. Read further and you may get my drift.
OK, those of us who spent a day or two in uniform knew this guy, the Shithouse Lawyer.
The Lawyer was the dude or dudette who was always trying to find some obscure alternative reading of the regulations to get them out of some onerous detail or to keep them a few steps ahead of Command, who frequently were looking to punish or otherwise penalize the Lawyer.
This person thought they were smarter than everyone around them, the world was their oyster.
Until they finally ran into some sergeant who insisted that yes, the regulations are what they say, and as a soldier you have to follow lawful orders.
“Lawful orders.” There’s another hook that the Lawyer would try to use. I’ll give you an example.
I had a soldier tell me once that I couldn’t order him to place his life at risk. “That’s an illegal order, sir!”
I begged to differ, and he was shocked when I told him that I could use deadly force to coerce him to follow my LEGAL orders and no one would say boo to me. In fact, I could be prosecuted for NOT exercising Command Authority in combat.
Never forget that ultimately military command results in death; but let me give stark illustrations of legal, as opposed to illegal orders.
Legal orders: “You, you and you. Form a rearguard so the unit can escape.” “You, you and you. Load up, go take that pillbox.” “You, you and you. March through this area where we just lit off an atom bomb.”
Illegal orders: “You, you and you. Line these civilians up and shoot them.” “Herd these women into a comfort station.” “Give the minorities in the unit the worst jobs.”
Surely you can see the difference?
A commander must frequently give unpopular orders; a commander frequently suffers under idiots. It doesn’t matter. Soldiers are supposed to have discipline; it is what separates them from civilians.
Soldiers can’t pick and choose which orders they may follow, so long as they comply with the regulations and the laws of war, it matters not.
You may have noticed my shot record above, listing no fewer than eight Anthrax vaccinations. People may not remember, but these vaccinations were deeply unpopular when issued, and they were also experimental in nature with a proven deadly biological warfare agent. Very bad stuff.
Lawful order?
Yes. As it was explained to me in detail nearly twenty years ago. So I lined up with hundreds of thousands of others and took the shot.
Because I was a soldier. Because of discipline. Because of duty.
So imagine my surprise when I saw this headline on Yahoo News.
Well, this soldier, and a general officer in the Oklahoma National Guard is ultimately a soldier, should know better than to play Shithouse Lawyer with the regulations; i.e. a Soldier on Title 32 orders (State) doesn’t have to follow Defense Department directives until recalled to Title 10 (Federal).
Alright, so soldiers in the OK National Guard don’t have to follow orders until federalized? How does this make sense?
Over their left breast pockets, what does that velcro tag on the OCP uniform say? US Army, or OK National Guard? (Hint. “US Army.”)
We soldiers do not get to pick and choose which lawful orders and directives we follow.
I’ll leave you with what a good First Sergeant once counseled a young Sergeant in regard to following orders.
FIRST SERGEANT: “So, Sergeant, you violated orders by doing x.”
SERGEANT: “Well, yeah. We thought it was the right thing to do.”
FIRST SERGEANT: “We?”
SERGEANT: “Yeah. The guys and I.”
FIRST SERGEANT: “So, you let a group of privates talk you into picking which orders suited you?”
SERGEANT: “Uh…”
FIRST SERGEANT: “Let me give you a scenario. You tell one of your little buddies they need to go stand in that watchtower.”
(The First Sergeant points into the distance. The Sergeant looks over.)
FIRST SERGEANT: “You know. That one the snipers like, right? Dangerous, huh?”
SERGEANT: “Well, yeah…”
FIRST SERGEANT: “What if your soldier says “FUCK YOU!”” (The 1SG roars, the Sergeant flinches) “Asshole, we don’t get to pick and choose orders, and your soldiers will fucking notice and call you out!”
I watched this exchange, and I agreed wholeheartedly with the grizzled 1SG.
Easy. It has a direct bearing on today’s discussion- drones. John Birmingham’s recent post on his website got me thinking about the damn things.
I have some degree of outdated experience with battlefield drones; nothing makes you feel more naked, vulnerable, then knowing that a Predator or something is loitering overhead. Loitering and waiting on the excuse to drop ordnance on some jerk’s head. Why, you ask, would I feel vulnerable towards friendly drones? The flying, whispering death that made my long vigils behind a machine-gun superfluous?
The picture above is one such occasion; even in broad daylight with clear fields of fire there was always someone on watch. Always. Even with Preds, Apaches, bombers, fighters, etc. flying overwatch. You could never let your guard down at any time, no matter what.
I was hideously aware of the capabilities of our air cover, whether human or not. When aviation assets hit a “target,” well, the results are dramatic. Disgusting. Think about it. 25mm rounds meant for armor hitting some poor bastard with an AK. The list goes on, increasing in destructive power. I always thought about friendly fire, or some horrible mistake. Or of me, putting myself in the enemies’ shoes. Creeping up in the pitch dark, only to be dismembered by something I could not see before I came into range with my shoddy and poorly maintained arms.
So, with almost zero surprise I paid some degree of attention to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where the Azerbaijani forces decimated the well-armed and equipped Armenian forces with ingenious and clever deployment of drones.
I’m pretty sure in these pages I’ve discussed the future usage and deployment of drones, and I definitely talked about it in my first trilogy, the Valley series. Of course, in my original trilogy I talked about drone employment as science fiction hundreds of years into the future, but obviously drones changing the battlefield is happening right now and in the recent past.
Our decision makers need to get on top of this. Immediately, or western forces risk being badly outclassed by future opponents in an asymmetrical battlefield where the enemy could care less about vested interests, political rewards, or an entrenched “manned combatant” mafia. By the “manned combatant” mafia, I mean all the old soldiers who think that war as they knew it in their youths will continue into the future. Particularly vulnerable to disruption are our expensive, manned aerial combat assets, although armor and infantry forces are vulnerable as well.
In my books I have made the case for upgraded or armored infantry, but I am hardly an innovator in this regard. Heinlein wrote of this in 1959 in Starship Troopers, so did Haldeman (albeit on the other side of the ideological paradigm) in 1974 with the classic The Forever War.
I’d make the argument that none of us are wrong, at least in regard to the utility of modern infantry in powered, mechanized suits backed by a companion AI. The powered fighting suit will be the only defense against the killer robots and drones of the near-future battlefield. Nagorno-Karabakh is a warning, a very stark warning, for conventional forces.
And then we can talk about aerial drones. So far we haven’t seen killer drones truly sent up against manned combat aircraft (on a large scale), but the day is coming. We are getting strong hints now. Pilots blinded by unknown actors using lasers, mid-air incidents with drones around airports, and perhaps even the rise of documented UFO incidents with US Military aircraft. Who says that these might not be weapons tests by an adversary?
Nothing.
A combat drone costs a lot less than an F-35, for sure and certain. Do any of us think the Chinese, the Iranians, or other potential adversaries are stupid? I certainly do not. My own uncle paid the price when a million Chinese soldiers surprised the living hell out of Western forces during the Korean War; who knows what evil surprises future enemies will have for expensive and top-heavy Western forces?
They are studying us. Noting weaknesses and failure points. Listening to old generals when they set policy, the tone, for our defense.
This is what I would do if I wanted to dismantle the Western defenses on the cheap.
Use drones, AI, and invest in the best damn missile swarms that money could possibly buy.
How would you like to be in a USN carrier task force with several thousand hypersonic “vampires” inbound?
I wouldn’t want to be there, for the same reason I always hated tanks. It’s not because I despise tanks or tankers. On the contrary. It’s because I recognized early in my career that everyone wants to kill the tanks as soon as they are spotted! Sorry, I’d rather take my chances huddled in a ditch with a battle rifle than be inside an enormous tuna fish can, and some happy a-hole has an equally enormous can opener with a name like “Javelin” or “Hellfire.”
No thanks.
So, I believe the age of armor is nearly as obsolete as the expensive fighter-bomber, for similar reasons.
Bang for the buck, guys. A robot, a drone, and a missile cost far less than soldiers, crew members. And it isn’t just the unit cost. Let’s break down the true cost of a soldier, at least in the West.
A vignette. Do you know that the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs just finished paying the last of the pensions from the US Civil War (1861-1865)? In 2020!
This means that the compounded costs of say, the Afghan War, will not be completely written off until possibly 2175, assuming current lifespans stay intact.
Soldiers, human beings, are expensive as hell. Munitions are not. Think of the logistics, as well. A missile doesn’t eat. A drone doesn’t complain. AI doesn’t fall asleep or have nightmares. These. These are the perfect killers of the future.
It is way past time for our politicians and leaders to figure this out and get their collective sh*t together. But after witnessing the spectacles of the past year (on both sides of the aisle), I have little faith.
Our Joes and Josephines of the next war will be huddled in a ditch just like I was ten years ago, but this time, instead of being creeped out by friendly drones, they will be terrified of hostile ones.
I wish I could give every Senator and general the gift of feeling naked and vulnerable beneath the cruel stars. However, I am not a magician or a particularly gifted or influential speaker.
I leave you with this- nothing is worse than being fired upon and you have no idea where it is coming from, you cannot act to identify a target or respond in any way, and the fire arrives with overwhelming, inhuman precision to demoralizing lethal effect. This is the nightmare scenario we are asking our soldiers, sailors, and airmen to fight and operate in. This is not a pipe dream, or doom speak.
This will happen to our people.
As they huddle in a ditch, soar in the heavens, or float upon the waves. The inhuman, uncaring death will come without a single whisper of warning. We need to act, to plan, now.
Ask the Armenians.
Postscript: This write-up wasn’t an hour old when I saw this:
A headline from the Wall Street Journal, today, 07NOV21.
Strap explosives to an Amazon drone, launch. Cheap, deadly, and the device(s) nearly overcame multi millions of dollars of conventional security in one of the most heavily guarded places on Earth.
Think about it.
Postscript 2:
Upon later review of this article, in April of 2022, it seems prescient. Witness the fight in the Ukraine. In the article above I list the Javelin by name, and it has indeed been used against massed armored forces to excellent, devastating effect. A job as a tanker on the modern battlefield? No thanks!
Western military doctrine needs a serious review. Now.
This is the fourth time I’ve been through the indie book development process, but actually it’s the first truly indie experience I’ve had.
Why is that.
Because for my first three books I was shepherded through the steps by CreateSpace, and this time I’m doing the work myself. Well, perhaps better said I’m handling the contracting myself. Things like this cover, done by a talented young art student for a small fee.
Everything is a balance. You can spend literally thousands of dollars on a cover, or you can spend five bucks. Me, I wanted a custom image of a spaceship that closely represented what was in my new book; this turned out to be no easy task. No easy task to communicate my vision and have it turned into what I exactly wanted within my budget.
Well, I think the cover above does a nice job of balancing budget, vision and cost. I can fairly say it is the best of my four covers so far, and I plan on using this same artist for a number of books into the future.
I’m sure there will be a learning curve, and I am looking forward to seeing what other covers she develops for me into the future.
Alright, readers, a quick one today to let you all know that I am still alive.
Actually, I’m very busy with writing chores at the moment, I am churning through the final edit of my latest manuscript before I submit the RD (rough draft) of “The Storyteller’s Heaven” to my editor.
It is a tedious process, but utterly necessary to deliver a serviceable product to my editor, who will proceed to bleed all over it.
This is the polish that you need in order to deliver a publication ready book. This pain, this endless dissection of the MS (manuscript). If you don’t do something like this, be prepared for a whole passel of justified one-star reviews on Amazon. A book is not a first-grade coloring project, and there are no substitutes for the most professional work that you can deliver.
It’s a form of respect for your readers. Deliver the best product that your ability and budget will allow, your people will see that you have put your best foot forward.
But that’s enough of that spiel.
In the screenshot above you can read the words “backwards edit.”
What does that mean.
My mentor gave me this technique, it is terrible in its soul-draining majesty. But darn does it work good!
Here’s what you do.
You start at the end of your book and read it paragraph per paragraph backwards, so that you do not get caught up in the flow of the story.
Trust me, you’ll spot a lot using this technique.
You’ll also get a migraine and a desire to do something, anything, else.
But it needs to be done. This is why I give myself hard deadlines, and I strive to stick to them. Onerous tasks are frequently the most necessary, and by close of business tomorrow I owe my editing team the RD MS of “Storyteller’s Heaven.”
In fact, I am playing hookey from just that as I type this brief message.
Shown above is the one material thing that remains of my Great-Grandmother, a mixed indigenous woman from Minnesota. All of my life I have seen this black violin, as kids we used to play with it. It was hers, her son inherited it when she passed. Eventually it ended up with me sometime in the nineties.
Just for the heck of it, a picture of her, Grandpa, and the family dog in the early thirties.
I wonder how often she played this fiddle. What kind of music she played. How she came into its possession. Now, I do know a few things about this violin, but not from any family memories.
No, I learned some of its story when I took it to be professionally repaired around 1997 or so.
First, it is a 3/4 violin. Grandma was a small woman, so that makes a certain amount of sense. Second, the fiddle is from the 1870’s or 80’s, and the wood and brass case is older than the violin itself. Finally, it is a good quality violin with real ebony and purfling, although it is certainly not a Stradivarius as a glued paper tag by the sound post purports.
The fellow who taught me how to play, an old wizened gentleman named Clarence, chuckled when he saw the tag. He had an enormous collection of fiddles, and he set up Grandma’s when it left the shop. He said “Yeah, a lot of those old fiddles had those stupid tags. But it doesn’t affect how they play.” After he tinkered with the black fiddle, he put it under his chin and played it like you wouldn’t believe.
Boy, could Clarence play. He was an old-fashioned real Appalachian fiddler, there was no sheet of music anywhere around.
Satisfied, he set Grandma’s fiddle aside. He spoke.
“I see why she kept this fiddle.” He paused. “It has a sweet sound.”
I later learned from Clarence that that was high praise. His personal fiddle dated from the Civil War era, wow, was it nice.
Clarence passed on twenty years ago, I think I was overseas. I do wonder what happened to his ancient violin. I guess I’ll never know.
But obviously, I still have Grandma’s fiddle. I hadn’t played it in I don’t know, fifteen or so years. My daughter expressed an interest in playing, so it got me thinking about my couple of violins.
The music died in Afghanistan, I couldn’t bear to play for a decade.
But for my daughter?
Yeah, I could at least set the fiddle up, I still remembered how to do that. I decided to loan her my violin, a nice 4/4 I bought at an antique store overseas around 1998 or so. It dates from the early twentieth century, and Clarence told me it was an old orchestra violin with “a decent sound.”
But he liked the black fiddle better.
Of course, it was a 3/4, and I needed a full size violin, so I mostly played the 4/4 when I felt like playing.
Clarence taught me how to play as he knew it, no sheet music, everything done by ear.
Kind of tough these days when your ears got blown out by an RPG.
Plus, hell, I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
So maybe it’s a good sign that I picked up the fiddles and tuned them. But boy, have I forgotten a lot. I even forgot the names of the strings and I had to google them when I tuned the old girls.
I did my 4/4 first. Then I did the 3/4.
A 150 year old fiddle, and it holds a tune and plays so sweet. Shady Grove, one of my favorites, played in a sad minor key.
But no way can I play Ashokan Farewell anymore. However, I am happy that the black fiddle can still do the thing.
The Interstellar Valley 