Just an appetizer to have something on the plate; actual nutritive posts will follow.

As Mark Twain’s adverstisements for his lectures would often state: “The doors will open at 7 o’clock, and the trouble will begin at 8.”  At one Grass Valley, CA talk, he promised that after the lecture that he would perform a series of “wonderful feats of SLEIGHT OF HAND, if desired to do so.” His “wonderful feats” involved drinking multiple shots of whiskey, leaving town suddenly without paying his hotel bill, and other exemplars of his character. So, this handbill is hitchhiking on the tippy-tails of the esteemed Mr. Twain’s swallowtail coat: The trouble, however haltingly, has begun.

But that guy is a hard act to follow; me, I’m going to string words together as well as I can, as soon as this site has the right color of chintz curtains. (Oh, I’ve got the whiskey thing down.)