T h e A e t h e r C h r o n i c l eT h e I m a g i n a r y A l t e r n a t e H i s t o r y o f t h e St e a m p u n k E m p i r e Fr o m S u n d a y J a n u a r y 1 0 , 2 0 1 6 t o S u n d a y Fe b r u a r y 1 4 , 2 0 1 6

Holloywood’s dolly sisters take a dive!

The famous Dolly Sisters, who at such a young age took Hollywood by storm, have been found dead in their respective apartments. The coroner has gone on record stating that these deaths were confirmed suicides. The presence of a note, at both locations, is evidence that the Dolly Sisters both intended to die on the 30th of November, at approximately 11:15 pm. A candlelight vigil is being held at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where the Sisters actually share a star, and flowers and small tributes have been left on the doorsteps of both women’s homes.

Born Rozsika and Janka Deutsch to parents, Julius and Margaret Deutsch, the sisters emigrated to the United States in 1905. 1 Both girls trained as dancers as children, and began earning money by performing in local beer halls. 1 While the girls were underage, they were barred from the New York City stage, so they spent their youth touring the Orpheum Circuit, a famous chain of vaudeville and movie theatres, where the girls changed their names from Rozsika and Janka to Rosie and Jenny, to assimilate into their American audience. 1 They debuted on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. 1 The following year they premiered on Broadway in the stage production of the Ziegfeld Follies. 1

Anyone who knew the girls says they were born to be stars! With their sassy sisterly attitudes and big, glamorous personas on stage, they were a hit with their audiences! The Sisters were such steady

sensations they were able to separate and forge their own careers. Rosie appeared in The Whirl of the World on stage while Jenny starred in Honeymoon Express. Jenny also toured vaudeville with her new dance partner Harry Fox, whom she married in 1912. 1 Both sisters made their film debuts in 1915: Jenny in The Call of the Dance and Rose in Lily and the Rose. 1

The sisters reunited in 1916 to appear in Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic and returned to the vaudeville where they commanded $2,000 a week. 1 In 1918, they appeared in their only film together, the semi-autobiographical The Million Dollar Dollies. 1

After World War 1 the sisters moved to France and bought a Chateau. There they were sensations, and courted by a number of wealthy men and even royalty, including Carol II of Romania, Christian X of Denmark and Alfonso XIII of Spain. 1 Whenever the sisters teamed up with male dance partners, ticket sales would skyrocket! 1 Their natural captivation led them to be engaged at Moulin Rouge in Paris for reportedly an obscene amount of money. 1 But The Dollies were not just fair flowers of the Hollywood garden—their constant tours and association with vaudeville meant the Sisters shared a taste for the darker side of the Hollywood scene. The girls were both avid gamblers at casinos and horse tracks throughout Europe, each having won fortunes, which they converted into legendary collections of jewellery. 1

Family members and friends reminisce about the Dolly Sisters’ quick rise to fame with remorse, believing that it was their instant fame and wealth that led to the Sisters’ equally rapid decline. The years of dancing and acting meant the girls were introduced to drinking and gambling, men and women fawning over them day and night. Soon, the girls became better known for their jewels and shopping excursions than chart topping performances in Hollywood. The Dollies’ Paris show A Vol D’oiseau closed after a chart-dropping two months. 1 Shortly after the Dollies decided to retire. 1

Being young Hollywood sensations did not prepare the Dollies for day-to-day life. Rose Dolly married three times, Jenny Dolly twice. 1 Both had highly publicized affairs with wealthy men (and in select cases, the same wealthy men). 1 Due to the Sisters’ proclivity for wealthy men, the tabloids soon dubbed them “The Million Dollar Dollies.” 1 Both Sisters were well known for collecting wealthy suitors like baubles, and using these men to fund their gambling addiction. 1

After Jenny Dolly suffered a near-fatal car accident, which resulted in numerous reconstructive surgeries on her body, including her face, which consumed the last of her fortune, Jenny Dolly sunk into a deep depression. 1 This depression was fuelled by her decision to sell off her infamous jewellery collection in order to pay her debts. 1 A third and final marriage did nothing to stabilize Jenny’s emotional state. 1 Nor did her husband adopting two Hungarian war orphans, Klari and Manzi. 1

Rose Dolly was similarly broke after her retirement, and she found she couldn’t reside in Hollywood anymore. She moved to the Sisters’ native homeland of Hungary, where she spent her days doing charitable work with children. 1

However, her life was never the same without her counterpart. Relatives state that Rose had been 1 half of the Dolly Sisters for too long, and without that counterbalance she was adrift.

On November 30th Jenny Dolly hung herself from the curtain rod in her apartment.1 On the same day, Rose Dolly leapt from her hotel balcony in Hungary. The Million Dollar Dollies were sensations until the very end—they entered Hollywood with a bang, and they exited stage left the very same way.

Rosie Dolly [left] and Jenny Dolly [right] performing in a beer hall at age 15.

1 Dolly Sisters. Last modified on 17 September 2015, at 16:17. Wikipedia, the free encyclodpedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Sisters. November 7th, 2015.

New year’s BasH of tHe CeNtury: uNderwater,

oN tHe MooN!Well, dear readers, the above event was a first for this investigator! A Night of New Year’s revelry to echo throughout the ages. Lady Eloise fa Touren’s daring and scandalous evenings have always made the society pages in this newspaper on New Year’s day, and are always the talk of the High Street of London for weeks afterwards. This reporter attended the Lady’s New Year’s Bash last year, which featured such offensive costumes born from the diseased imagination of Monsieur Leonard, of Mary Antoinette’s infamous French Court. The hairstyles towered high, but within them were tiny golden cages featuring live animals, chittering and screaming for their lives. Fine ladies garbed in snakeskin leather brought massive lizards on leashes, black tongues lolling over scaly lips. The party was ultimately brought to a close by officers of the constabulary, aided by enraged members of Britain’s Humane Society. Lady Eloise fa Touren was arrested, a first for the esteemed fa Touren family, and Lady Eloise was lead to the local station house thoroughly intoxicated.

This investigator did wonder if last year’s fiasco, which only enhanced Lady Eloise’s somewhat tarnished reputation for scandal and impropriety, might have finally satisfied her appetite for high society parties gone horribly wrong. However, when I received an elaborate invitation for December 31st at the fa Touren estate at midnight, this proved not to be the case.

On December 31st, Lady Eloise once again opened the doors of her husband’s estate to hundreds of her closest, personal friends and acquaintances in London. High Society, Low Society, nobility and vagabond, all flocked to the fa Touren estate in hopes of gaining entry, if only to bear witness to this year’s fallout. The paved drive leading up to the fa Touren estate was littered with white coral that sparkled like pearls in the moonlight. The grand entrance way to the house was lit with thousands of tiny white candles. But through some mystery of modern science, the candle flames burned blue, causing eerie, underwater shadows to flit and dance across the walls, the ceiling, the floor. There was no music, no laughter—nothing but the sound of waves lapping against the shore. The guests clung to one another in frightened groups, whispering furtively, as they passed dozens of great glass tanks as high as the walls filled with tropical fish lined the corridors. Great tubes created bubbles, and lights caused the fish

scales to glint and sparkle. Some of the cannier guests made the connection: of course, they were meant ot belive they were all underwater.

This reporter drifted down the corridors, as if lost in a dream. Great jellyfish ballooned like the sales of a ship, both beautiful and dangerous. Lionfish studded with poisonous spikes floated peacefully amongst defenceless angel fish, trailing their glorious fins like exotic scarves.

Electric eels twisted and coiled through tunnels of brightly coloured coral like underwater serpents. Evil-looking catfish with distended jaws and razor sharp teeth peeked out from beneath curtains of green weeds. The effect was both dazzling and terrifying. This reporter admits to hands shaking so dramatically it was difficult to pen these notes.

Following the paths marked by the underwater predators, the party guests were led into the solarium: a room famed throughout London for being entirely made of glass to allow full exposure to the sun. The ceiling was also a great dome of glass; the very apex of this dome was a circular glass pane, like a single eye overlooking the terrified guests below. There was full moon out that night, and the moon was perfectly frame by the circular window pane: as if the moon Herself was an honoured guest of Lady Eloise fa Touren. The angle of the glass caused the moon to be reflected in all of the other windows, causing an illusion that the moon was larger than ever before, and drifting down through the dome to join the festivities. Guests cried out at the beauty of the scene, and alarmed by the proximity of this massive, floating orb, they cried out again. “Is it falling!?” A woman shrieked, and was shushed by her companions. There was a single table set in the solarium: it held perhaps a hundred champagne flutes, frothy with bubbles. The guests all congregated around this table, drinking to steady their nerves. By now, everyone in attendance wondered when the great Lady herself would arrive. Lady Eloise would never miss her own fete, and all of the delightful infamy that would follow.

The passage of sharks weaving through the tanks in the great room caused a sudden, ominous frisson. A figure drifting towards the group, white fins twitching, jaws filled with iridescent, glowing teeth, caused this reporter to quail. For a moment, the thought occurred, however irrational, that one of the shark’s had escaped the tank, and was advancing toward the guests. But it was Lady Eloise herself, clad in white silk that had been cut to look like wide fins drifting behind her. The ornamentation on her costumes was silver scales, rippling across her body. She carried a silver trident. The ensemble gave her beauty a lethal, horrifying quality. Clearly in the guise of Poseidon, God of the Sea (although, in Greek mythology, Poseidon was a man), Lady Eloise had expertly set the scene for her entrance into the party. Then, as the guests all expected, came the finale to Lady Eloise’s night of terror.There has been some speculation that perhaps the champagne had been drugged. Others have suggested that the escalating atmosphere of terror was meant to stimulate the senses, and prime the subjects to believe in the impossible

at exactly the right moment. However, whatever the explanation, the evening’s events followed thusly:

The guests gradually became aware that they were standing in water. Water that had not been there a moment before. Water that began to slowly climb above posh shoes, soaking equally posh stockings. It wasn’t until someone shrieked: “Are the tanks leaking?” That the guests began to panic. All the while, Lady Eloise never spoke a word. As water began to slosh above the guests’ knees they bolted for the door, only to discover what had been an open portal when Lady Eloise entered was now a tank as large at the walls, filled with grinning sharks. Guests began to openly shout and demand to be released, jostling and fighting through the hip-deep water. When several of the ladies felt scaly, serpentine bodies brushing their legs beneath the surface of the water, utter pandemonium broke out. The din was enough to alert the MacPhersons in the neighbouring estate, who summoned the police.

When the constabulary arrived, they ordered the servants to release the party guests (which was accomplished by wheeling the massive tanks aside on a series of rails, like a locomotive.) The constables found the guests thoroughly soaked and entirely dishevelled. The women were all hysterical, the men enraged and threatening lawsuits. The Lady herself, who had thus far been enjoying the chaos she had wrought, seemed oddly subdued by the arrival of the police. It was only when one of the foolish constables attempted to provoke one of the sharks with a net on a stick that Lady Eloise became enraged. Hauling the constable down away from the tank, Lady Eloise did not realize that the net had lodged itself in the shark’s mouth. The shark followed the trajectory of the net, slamming against the glass with such force that the entire tank toppled to the ground! A tidal wave of water, poisonous fish, gravel and sea shells flooded the foyer, beaching the shark on the exotic white tiles! Lady Eloise began to scream, not in terror, but in rage. Utilizing her silver trident, which was not a prop, as this reporter originally thought, but the real thing, the Lady efficiently put the shark out of its misery. She agreed to accompany the constables to the station house for her second arrest under one condition: that someone take a photograph of her with her prize, to commemorate the event for posterity! When this reporter questioned the constable who caused the ruckus, he claimed he wanted a better look at the shark, and doubted he would ever have another chance. Regarding the events of the evening, the constable claimed he felt “lucky to have won the draw.” Apparently, arresting Lady Eloise fa Touren shortly after New Year’s has become something of a tradition amongst the constabulary. This year they drew straws to determine which officers would attend the Lady’s festivities! Not quite the reputation the High Society Doyenne was seeking when she began the tradition of her annual New Year’s event. Several of the Lady’s confidentes have suggested Lady Eloise has grown to love being the subject of city-wide scandal, and sought to terrify her guests as a means of accomnplsihing that goal. but at the very least she has set the bar very high for herself, if she intends to surpass this party next year!

A commemorative photo of Lady Eloise fa Touren standing above the shark she had just slain.

The Aether ReviewOf Books

ou guys are in big trouble! Do you know who I am? I am the idol of every teenager in the range of my voice! You guys are like some

kind of broadcast pirates! You g... Did you feel that? I felt the Earth shake. There it is again: one resounding Earth tremor after another. The Earth-shaking rumbles are growing with intensity. It is as if the ground were being pummelled by an impossibly huge weight. Now I can hear the approaching tread of trepidation! Oh, why does the sound grip my heart in an icy grip of nameless dread? Aieee! You guys were right! Look over there! It is a giant super-monster!”“Oh my goodness, Jubei, it’s ZodGila! He is here already! ToeKey-Oh will never evacuate in time! What can we do?”“Ichsa-bod, hurry and follow me back to the dyno-cycle!”“Yessir!”“Remove the port side stylish, aerodynamic foil stabilizer while I disengage the starboard side.”“Wow! I didn’t know these big, pointy, aerodynamic stabilizers pointing rearward from the dyno-cycle were removable! I just thought they looked good and made the scooter look like it was going faster! That’s pretty neat! Oh, I see, these are really a set of those air service corps devices.”“Hai, Ichsa-bod, Be sure it is strapped on as tightly as possible.”“Yessir, Mr. Trevorgawa, sir. They sure do have a lot of straps to ensure a snug fit, don’t they, sir?”“Hai, Ichsa-bod. Now, hurry, and follow me. We must quickly scale this broadcast tower.”“What for, sir?”“This will be our launching platform.”“Launching platform? … Oh. Um, are these things difficult to operate?”“Hai.”

“Hi! Oh, well, I guess this will be kind of like learning to swim. Paw-Paw just chucked me out in the middle of the river, and I pretty much learned how to swim quick.”“Hai, this will be a similar experience, though it may be easier to liken it to a fledgling bird, leaving its nest.”“Yessir, I reckon that’ll be the more appropriate analogy. Well, here we are, on the top of this high, broadcast tower that soars into the air overlooking this wide, harbour basin. Wow, this tower’s height is a lot more impressive from up here than on the ground.”“Put on this leather helmet.”“Yessir.”“Now put on these goggles.”“What for?”“They complete the ensemble. Now, are you ready?”“To jump off this lofty tower and hope that this crazy winged contraption operates? I reckon I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s get her accomplished!”“Hai! Hadjame!”“Gulp! Geronimo!”“Quit thrashing about, Ichsa-bod, you are going to crash!”“Woah-I’m trying, sir. Man, you weren’t kidding about these things being difficult to operate! Okay, I got my steel framework leather wings deployed in time to keep from falling to my death, so all I need to do is get them to flapping and maybe I can regain some altitude. Hey do you hear that? Oh, it’s Toshi Watusi. He has resumed his broadcast.”~whump, bump, bump.~~buh, duh, duh.~~whump. bump. bump.~~buh-duh-duh.~ ~whump. bump. bump.~~buh-duh-duh.~~whump, bump, bump.~~buh, duh, duh, whump.~~wheer-rheel.~ ~buh-duh-duh, whump.~~wheer-rheel.~

~buh-duh-duh, whump.~~wheer-rheel.~ ~buh-duh-duh, whump.~~wheer-rheel.~“Pointed teeth,”“ fill the grimace”“of his terrible smile,”“Our city is imperiled”“by an uber-crocodile.”~whump. bump. bump.~“ZodGila!”~whump, bump, bump~~whump.~“He picks up a ship,”“and throws it back down,”“His roar rips the air”“with a terrible sound.”~whump. bump. bump.~“ZodGila!”“Woah-------oah!”“Good-bye ToeKey-Oh!”“Crushed by ZodGila!”“Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo!”“It’s time for us to blow!”“Everybody in ToeKey-Oh!”“Flee from ZodGila!”“Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo!”~buh-duh-duh, whump.~~wheer-rheel~“History is indicative”“again and again,”“How nature points out”“the silliness of Man.”~whump. bump. bump.~“ZodGila!”

The Seventh Voyage of Temperance By Ichabod Temperance

Y The Seventh Voyage of Temperance, By Ichabod Temperance

The Aether ReviewOf Books

ell, dear readers, the long-awaited seventh instalment of the adventure sof Ichabod Temperance, written by Ichabod Temperance, has

finally arrived! The Seventh Voyage of Temperance delights its readers with the introduction of ZodGila, a prehistoric-style super-monster our heroes combat while astride the dino-cycle, a steampunk-style scooter capable of reaching high speeds through the deployment of any number of wonderful gizmos and gadgets on board. Can Ichabod Temperance survive as ZodGila lays waste to the city of ToeKey-Oh?

This edition of the Temperance Chronicles features any number of wonders: swirling vortexes that may lead to other galaxies, ghost pirate ships full of flesh eating ghouls, and secret underwater colonies home to alien races! Let it never be said that a story set in 1877 cannot be modern and scientific in its theories and adventures!

In this rousing edition of Ichabod versus ZodGila, the dino-cycle plays a major role. A vehicle modelled after the common scooter, the dino-cycle is also equipped with aerodynamic foil stabilizers, air service corps devices, and steel framework leather wings. In fact, the dino-cycle is light enough to be transported to the top a local tower, and then the various levers and toggles allow the contraption to be strapped to the backs of the “riders” and launch themselves off the tower’s edge! Then the steel-frame leather wings come into effect. Yes, the dino-cycle flies! With the edition of a leather helmet and set of goggles, the average hero is capable of flying forth to do battle with an enormous lizard-creature. What could be more Steampunk than that?

The description of all of these

gizmos and gadgets is made especially poignant seeing as Ichabod must quickly master the intricacies of the dino-cycle and strap the contraption to his back, before leaping off of a tall building in the hopes that it works, and keeps him from falling to his death!

The author utilizes onomatopoeia in order to set the scene. The use of onomatopoeia in literature is overlooked by many modern writers, except in the description of sounds made by animals, for example: bees go buzz. However, the definition of onomatopoeia is as follows:

Onomatopoeia noun on·o·mato·poe·ia

Simple Definition of onomatopoeia: the creation of words that imitate all natural sounds

In the story the author utilizes onomatopoeia to describe the approach and destruction caused by the ZodGila monster. For Example:

“~whump, bump, bump.~~buh, duh, duh.~~whump. bump. bump.~~buh-duh-duh.~”

This use of sound rather than words to set the scene is overlooked by many writers, who prefer to describe sights and sounds to their readers, rather than allowing all of their readers’ senses to guide them through the story. Our author also utilizes another written technique to catch the reader’s attention as well as their sense of whimsy:

“Pointed teeth,”“ fill the grimace”“of his terrible smile,”“Our city is imperiled”“by an uber-crocodile.”

The combination of description with verse brings to mind the whimsical writings of Lewis Carroll in it’s sing-song narrative. I highly doubt

any form of Armageddon Godzilla-creature has ever been thus described. As ZodGila is levelling the fine city of ToeKey-Oh, he has his own theme song! Only in the tales of Ichabod Temperance could this be so.

How will our beloved hero fare against the crocodile-like jaws of ZodGila? Well, read this latest daring edition of the adventures of Ichabod Temperance to find out! Also available on Amazon.ca for the purchase of the e-kindle edition.

Should you wish to send a Letter to the Editor, submit your written work, or offer a tip regarding a potential story (eg. political upheaval, crime, special events, art and music) please contact Leslie Orton at: ortonlj@hotmail.com.

The Seventh Voyage of Temperance By Ichabod Temperance

W The Seventh Voyage of Temperance, By Ichabod Temperance