AA SOTD - 8/7/22; The Iceman Cometh
Pre: splash of hot water to the face
Brush: Stirling 26mm synthetic pro handle
Razor: Merkur Progress
Blade: Astra (1)
Lather: B&M Arctique (ombnius)
Post: B&M Arctique AS
Post: Nivea cooling balm
#UNCHALLENGED
Houston, we have a problem. This soap is so damn good, and had enough uses on it prior to AA despite being purchased this summer, that the ring of death has formed. Getting 24 more shaves out of this will be a real challenge and I think I may end up having to buy more. Hope everybody has a good Sunday and is not stuck at the office like me.
#SIDETRACKED (u/Teufelskraft)
Blind Willie Johnson was born in 1897 to a sharecropping father and a mother that would die before Willie was a young boy. Willie's father remarried, the first of a series of unfortunate events that would irrevocably alter Willie's life until the day he died. Despite his namesake, Willie was not born blind. Little concrete information is known about Willie's childhood but the prevailing historical narrative is that Willie was blinded when his stepmother confronted his father regarding infidelity of the latter. The stepmother, or so the narrative goes, either purposely or accidentally threw lye-water on Willie's eyes, permanently blinding the young boy (7 years old at the time) for life.
Willie did not go on to become a musical success. He did not sells millions of records. His voice did not reach across the country through the miracle of radio. Instead, Willie died in the burned out ruins of his Texas home after contracting malarial fever, ostensibly from the ruinous conditions he was living in, and went untreated. Again, the history is unclear on this point, but the two narratives are that the local hospitals would not admit Willie to treat him for his malaria either due to his blindness or the color of his skin. He was 48 years old. His grave was unknown, the graveyard itself forgotten until its rediscovery in the early 2000's.
The story of Willie Johnson is heartbreaking. Dying alone, feverish, blind and suffering in the ruins of your home shakes your inner humanity. But Willie's voice has gone farther than any other human voice in history. Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground is on the Voyager records. And, as of 2013, Willie's voice had reached interstellar space.