"The Fabulous Fiddlesticks"

 Is this appropriate for Halloween?  Well...Venice is commonly associated with Carnival, and with disguise more generally.  There are lots of operas in Venice that take that as a theme: Ponchielli's La Gioconda, Korngold's Violanta, J. Strauss's Eine Nacht in Venedig, of course Britten's Death in Venice.  What point am I making?  That I like opera, and, not to brag, but I know the names of several operatic works.  I think that's public knowledge.  But anyway!  Sure, let's go with it.  Why not?

Man, I was hoping that that "Christmas in July" thing would be the start of me blogging here more regularly, but then I almost immediately had to go and get a job that involved relocating and, you know, doing a lot to get situated; it's not like I don't have free time, but you know how it goes.  Well, here we are.  Let's write about another old Western story.  I was thinking a bit about Bob Gregory, and thinking, man, I know I keep saying that he was generally the best of the non-Barks Western crew, but is that true?  What else can we look at?  And I have the impression that this is one of his more famous stories, based on the fact that I think that I've heard upwards of two people mention it, and in a semi-positive sense at that.  That's about as much positive press as you can expect this kind of story to get.  I did read this when I was small, though it never stood out in my mind as being that great.  Still, let's check it out.

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