“She is herself like an angel in revolt. On the judgment of these men, whose eyes are constantly on their superiors or staring at the floor, Jeanne expiates the crime of plain-speaking and of looking straight into the eyes of her adversaries.”
- The Trial Of Jeanne D’Arc (W.P. Barrett translation from the original Latin and French documents)
The origins of legends about witches and black cats were shrouded in mystery until 123,456 A.D. when the late Professor Ivy Of 'Shitzu U' began groundbreaking studies which unearthed heretofore suppressed Gospels from the early days of Christianity, known today by historians as "The Bro Club Age Of Enlightenment."
"It was difficult to ascertain from historical accounts exactly when witches and black cats became besties, much less if women even existed," the Fluffy White Martyr For The Sacred Feminine stated in her 1986 book, Black Cats Are A-Holes, "Ancient historical accounts rarely mention females unless a famous dude became embroiled in a divorce, which was forbidden until Pope Grouchy McAllister III of the now defunct Middle Finger At Satan Church issued a Papal Edict in 12345 A.D. that stated, 'Divorce is now allowed as long as the sinful Jezebel is excommunicated beforehand and proper payment to the Pontiff made.'"
Imagine the shock the Good Professor experienced when discovering that witches had existed long before that term became common!
It was found that in the early dawn of the written word, in the ancient Egyptian chronicle, "To Jest Fikcja," the word to describe a female who was beautiful, smart, sassy, cute, and didn't put up with any man's shit, who naturally was Queen Khleopahtra, was accidentally changed from the "B Word" to the word "witch" by the autocorrect software at the time and the substitution of the letter W for B went unnoticed by male editors too busy looking at porn sites.
The Waggy Tailed Student Of History was able to confirm this aromatic fact by having a well-known Hacker (who chose to stay anonymous due to Federal warrants issued for his arrest) study the Egyptian autocorrect software, who confirmed that it is still in use today without changes to the algorithm and still consistently changes any term for a female to the word "witch," though "feminist man-hater" and "castrator" also appear to be common substitutions.
It goes without saying that the Shitzu Sage needed more proof!
Professor Ivy noted in her controversial book, Black Cats Created The Plague, that "The specious claim that witches and black cats team up to create evil spells and frustrate man's desire to achieve a life of casual sex and free sports cable needed to be confirmed by documentary sources written by women, who alone know what they think."
Men had given up any attempt to understand such matters after the edict by Pope Grouchy McAllister III in 567,890 A.D., which stated, "Qui quid femina cogitat!"
It took a whole ten minutes of Web surfing that was constantly interrupted by targeted pop-up ads that pitched gourmet dog food recipes and sundry chew toys, but Professor Ivy found several conspiracy theory sites that carried a multitude of conflicting versions of the infamous Lost Gospels Of Murgatroyd (now a book on Vella, first three chapters will be free) which purport to contain ancient accounts by women about the origins of the super duper friendship between witches and black kitties.
The Barking Bluestocking uncovered a monograph that escaped the torch by male inquisitors because it was written in woman code (using words longer than four letters) in an ancient Egyptian Celebrity cookbook written in 123,456 B.C. by Queen Khleopahtra called "Delicious Gluten Free Poison Recipes To Serve to Low-Down Adulterers."
The key phrase in that incendiary papyrus work was "Anī woman hǒu actſ lǒve ain man intransiciọ̄n brandede ain witch a'd hē̆r kittī ain familiar in leaguæ with Satan."
In the Canine Pundit's 1965 work, "Cats Like To Scratch People's Feet," she loosely translates that phrase to read; "When men are off on important business like commiting adultery or fighting wars for profit, the fairer sex will be tempted spend their idle time engaging in mischievous dalliances with saucy Black Cats who are in league with Satan."
Earth-shaking words indeed!
The question remains: In spite of the fulfilling Godly pleasures of housework, doing laundry by hand, washing dishes, preparing meals from scratch, taking care of the kids, and putting up with narcissists (back then called "Knights in shining armor"), why did some women instead choose to join up with black cats to cast spells for Beezelbub?
In Chapter 14, paragraph 666 of The Lost Gospels Of Murgatroyd, the answer to that burning question was answered in the parable titled "The War Between Good And Evil," in which Pope Grouchy McAllister III engaged The Naughty Beast in a literary debate to convince women to pursue the path of virtue and unquestioning obedience to men.
The Macho Pontiff stated the case for femme subservience as "We dudes value the efforts of our female associates and strive to foster a safe and nurturing environment for servitude. The ultimate reward of Heaven awaits those of the fairer sex who put up with male promiscuity and sublimate their frustrations into expert work on the spinning wheel and kitchen craft. Needless to say, it's critical to start indoctrinating them at an early age or else they'll act friskier than men when they hit puberty."
The Defiant Rebel Against Goodness was said to have retorted, "I promise women that they may exchange hell on earth for hell later, and until then can cavort around like dudes do, have sex any time with anybody, fly through the air, wear fashionable black clothing and boots, listen to heavy metal and Industrial Dance, eat anything you want without worrying about getting fat, and cast evil spells on any narcissistic dude who gives you crap."
The Master Of Evil added, "All I ask is that you adopt a black kitty because there's a surplus in the shelters due to men thinking they're my servants, which is true, but they're cute and deserve love as much as any dog."
Professor Ivy relates in her 1456 book, "Black Cats Fart In Your Face When You're Asleep," that "Women found the best choice was obvious, but the Sore Loser Cardinal Of Tiber issued an edict that "All women who choose to blow off the comforts of food preparation and become witches will be treated to an extreme tanning session at the stake with front row seats available for $1,000 at showtime. The church accepts cash, credit or PayPal."
The Lost Gospels relate that "These high-temperature spectacles were only mildly popular at first due to competition with the more audience-friendly wars for loot and conquest, but really took off with the roasting of the first Superstar Witch, later known as Saint Joan Of Arc, who was turned into a s'more after she proved that 90% of the followers the English claimed in France were actually fake bots and purchased followers from a corrupt Cardinal in what was known as Normandy in 456,789 A.D."
Queen Khleopahtra's Sacred Feminine cookbook provides Historians with an accurate portrait of medieval witches, who are described as "Super foxy babes who flew on winged white horses, partied all night with their black cat buddies, didn't do dishes, slept ten hours a day, binge watched Outlander, wore hot black leather outfits with green hair, and did Industrial Dance videos on social media."
However, a 1345 A.D. manual issued by the Church under Pope Grouchy, called "How To Pick Up Sinful Wenches," describes witches as "Old, stinky, toothless crones who cackled while cooking bats in big black kettles, flew around on broomsticks, and cavorted with evil black cats who pooped on people's laundry piles."
This blogger passes on the results of this exhaustive research without comment; you've been given the facts about witches and black cats, and the decision on what to believe is up to you.
Kindle Vella Update For October 2022:
It's the tenth month of my Vella journey, and here's an update on what's happened and my observations about it
One thing that's become obvious; many of the early articles that came out about Vella were often just clickbait quickly written up to get content online for a trending subject.
That was probably unavoidable, of course. When many of the articles came out, Vella was very new, and the only past models were sites like Wattpad and Radish, which had very different approaches.
However, the basic model was to put up a lot of chapters (called episodes) but don't waste too much time on the first three free episodes and make sure to first paid one (number 4) is good.
That's flat-out wrong unless you already have a bunch of chapters written.
First off, no one's going to read past the first episode if it's not your best or obvious filler. It's not a waste to front-load the story if you have enough faith in your talent to feel that every entry is going to be a good read.
Secondly, Vella is clearly one of the very few publishers where you can get at least some payment as an unknown new writer. In other words, it is a professional environment. If you produce a reasonable amount of episodes, maybe three, Amazon will probably pay out a bonus for it.
Many of the early articles focused on the lower royalties from having three free chapters, which is true, but most writers will find that the bonus will be higher than royalties, at least at first.
The articles weren't completely wrong, of course, but the writers didn't fully know what Vella was going to be.
I've realized that the Vella site can be whatever you want it to be. There's no editor to tell you to do otherwise. You can stick a full book in or just do it at your own pace.
In my case, I decided to put all of my developmental projects onto the site and treat each as an old-school serial and load episodes as each is ready.
I'm not going to go for bulk on one story or stick dead projects in to beef up my catalog. Each is a project started for the primary purpose of enjoying writing, and I'm willing to be patient with the results since all are generating bonuses in the meantime.
So ten months in, I'm seeing what works and what doesn't, which is a process I didn't want to go through with my main novel in progress, the Al & Ivy book.
I can honestly say that it's been fun, which has always been my main goal with writing. Of course, you will have to be patient and willing to learn, but there are plenty of levels of success there in Vella if you want it.
Here's an update on each of my Vella books:
The Quitters
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09PC3L6PC
It's the first book, and after ten months, it's finally developing an audience, and the stats are trending upward this month. I think it's due to the blog and the new book/music video short format I'm using for its promotion. I’ve moved the plot lines away from potentially over technical descriptions of playing live to more emphasis on the personalities and in particular, the main character Nym.
It's at 31 episodes, though as an ebook, we're talking maybe 15 traditional-length chapters. I'm keeping the format episodic and short, kind of like a weekly TV show, which works for Vella but will need to be restructured for the ebook.
I, Ivy
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0B3RCBT4D
The story got off to a decent start, but I didn't notice that as it's obvious now that the daily totals on the Vella dashboard can differ or not jibe with the monthly or overall total, which have to be accurate as those numbers determine the royalty and bonus payouts. I'll be paying more attention to this one in November, as it’s being read more than I thought.
The Forbidden Lost Gospels Of Murgatroyde
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BJ2TW4P1
This is a new one, though it'll be the most familiar to blog readers. I'll be changing the format of the blog in November, and putting the Lost Gospels here will allow me to fully expand that line of humor and satire in a way that simply being a blog feature doesn't permit.
The Boogie Underground Think Tank: How To Survive The End Of Civilization
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BG6LNXTG
This one is a revival of an old humor column I ran in my old "Delta Snake Blues News" publication in the 90s and 2000s. The slant is about survival in the upcoming hard times, but it really will be topical and cover subjects that are offbeat but relevant. The next one coming in a few days will be "How To Shop For The Perfect Expert," which obviously will be a humorous commentary on the use of experts in general.
The Adventures Of Queen Khleopahtra: Ruler Of Egypt, Time Traveler, and Literary Detective
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B0BJC122G7
This is another new one and will be a fun fusion of the old "Peabody and Sherman" cartoon, which was about a time-traveling dog and boy, Robert Graves' often satirical take on history, and the old "Fractured Fairy Tales" cartoon that used to be featured on the "Rocky And Bullwinkle Show."
I chose Khleopahtra as the main character because it will offer the widest range of literary situations to explore, and I happened to have a cool drawing of her and liked the idea of expanding the character. After reading the first episode, you'll agree that the possibilities are endless.
- Al Handa
October 2022
The ebook “On The Road With Al & Ivy: The Anthology Volume 1 2016-2018 is now on Kindle Unlimited!
I’ll run free promotions later this month, but members can read it for free now.
Please check out and listen to my music on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and other music sites. Please add any cuts you like to your playlists!
