It turns out that I can’t offer Nostrum for free as a Kindle
edition.
Sigh.
Then again, it is already free online, so stop your
bellyaching, you spalpeen! I have to charge all of $.99 for it. That’s less
than a dollar, for those of you who are mathematically challenged. It won’t
kill you. And after all, this edition is not only filled with brand new annotations that make some of it marginally more understandable, but it can be carried with you anywhere on your
device of choice: to the beach, to class, to work, to the Finland station, to
the barricades, to hell and back, to kill a mockingbird, to a Grecian urn, to a
fault, to Esme with love and squalor, to infinity and beyond, to lose one
parent, toujours l’amour, toot toot tootsie goodbye, and all manner of things
beginning with M. Et cetera.
Anyhow, it’s up and available, and I’ve begun working on the
Epistles. I also realize that I have a boatload of work to do web-wise as a
result of this publication, but I’ll be on it shortly. Meanwhile, we continue with our dramatis
personae.
***
The central team in Nostrum, but the budget is tight,
and they may be dropping forensics at whatever point this year that the money
runs out. The Snow Ball is Nighten Day's own annual tournament, run every
January, usually in the middle of a snowstorm.
Coach: Tarnish Jutmoll
Speechies: Mark & Noah (extemp); David (Twas) Brillig and William Hand (Duo); Kumar Juvaswami (HI); Ashley Ambrose (OO); Cartier Diamond (DI); Mordred Prentice (forensic activity unknown)
Staff: Raoul Walsh, principal; Margery Mooney, freshman
English teacher; Harry Klein, teacher of Cinema Appreciation; Lav Bunbury, guidance counselor
Family and Such: The Buglaronis ; Braun Saxon (Cartier's
married ex-boyfriend); Myra Moon (the mystery of Tarnish Jutmoll's past)
The Editor of Metro New York magazine, this solid,
frizzy-haired, recently divorced woman is now coaching a new team for her son's
new suburban high school, Bisonette Technical.
A Master of the Debate Universe, formerly of Manhattan
Lodestone, now with Bisonette Technical. In his freshman year at Lodestone he
won his first two Combat of Conquerors limbs, and from that point on there was
no looking back. As a sophomore he took King Ivy. As a junior he made it all
the way to the finals of the COC Tournament, and made it to semis in both the
Catholic Forensic League Nationals and the Non-Catholic Forensic League
Nationals.
A man of many appetitites. Six and a half feet tall, this
African-American first appears in Nostrum as the coach of Veil of
Ignorance, a history teacher, district NFL chairman, and a dyed-in-the-wool
Policy-first maven.
He begins as Bill, a slightly overweight policy debater,
successful partner of Tara Petskin at Veil of Ignorance. Thanks to
francogrammatification, and some other changes, he becomes Invoice O'Connor,
among other things.
Worm is a Bisonette sophomore recruited by Chesney Nutmilk.
Dark, unshaven, disshevelled, he has a voice like a depressed turtle.
The wheelchair-bound coach of Manhattan Lodestone. A debate
god from the get-go, he has been around since the invention of around. His
disability is the result of an accident.
A pair of glasses, which seem to cover every part of her
face that isn't hidden by her long auburn hair. Tara, a senior, is a serious
Polician from Veil of Ignorance, the partner of Bill O'Connor. In her earlier
debate career she partnered with Haircut Puente.
Mordred, a Nighten Day sophomore, is the familiar of Cartier
Diamond. He is not known to participate actively in forensics, but he always
seems to be at forensics events. Chubby, short, unattractive, usually
red-faced.
Haircut, at five-foot-eleven, with a closely shaved head and
a shadow of whiskers and an intense look in his eye, is the classic image of
the anarchist. You could imagine him organizing Wobblies in the middle west of
America or riding the train to Finland with Lenin or sipping Pernod with the
students in 1968 Paris or generally causing serious mischief against The System
from whatever platform he chose to preach from. One time partner of Tara Petskin
at Veil of Ignorance. Creator of the enormously successful
www.haircutpuente.com web site.
Quilty Prep is a public high school allied with no
university. Its founders considered the name Quilty High to be too banal for
such a tony hamlet as Quilty, New York. Quilty Prep, on the other hand, wreaked
of wealth and ivy and untold numbers of strings of polo ponies, if not exactly
of common sense. So Quilty Prep it was. Quilty Prep has one of the largest
forensics teams in the state, spread over LD and Speech but excluding Policy.
The coach of Toulouse is a fiery Irishman of the Policy
persuasion. Usually found in the tab room.
Bark is the original boyfriend of Gloria Fudless. He has long,
stringy dark hair tied around at the back of his neck, where the head of a
dragon tattoo can be seen riding up above his collar. Three gold earrings
dangle from his right ear, and one from his left. He is a senior at Nighten
Day, all of eighteen years old with a regular driver's license and his own
ancient Buick.
A young married couple. Brett is working toward her master's
degree in archaeology, and is forced to travel often. Nostrum begins
with Braun, offstage, having recently broken up with Cartier Diamond.
Bowling fanatic and coach of the Algren-On-The-Beach,
Massachusetts, team.
Rail thin and older than justice, Ms. Screeds is the coach
of Andrew Johnson.
Consiglieri of the Vitelli family. The lawyer,
Starbuck, is a large, tall man, nearly completely bald, wearing oversized
aviator-frame eyeglasses. His size and fitness and bronze skin exude health and
vitality, while his small eyes behind the glasses add a definition of
intelligence to his profile.
The coach of Farnsworth Catholic.
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