It’s November 5th: Guy Fox Day … um, Guy Fucks … Gay Fucks … Gay Folks … Gay Fox … oh hell, Gunpowder Day. Bang!
For the day, a smoking-gun cartoon, by Frank Cotham from the 10/11/10 New Yorker:
The duelists stood back to back and began the requisite number of paces before turning to fire their pistols — except that the banker wheeled around partway through and shot his opponent — dead — in the back. The cartoon plays on the stereotype of bankers as reckless and driven only by self-interest: Bad, bad Banker Brown / The baddest man in the whole damn town.
(At first I looked for images of smoking guns, and found lots of them — but all, apparently, requiring a fee for use. So I moved to cartoons and found the one above (not even the only Cotham with a smoking gun in it!).)
Then, on the The Writer’s Guide to Weapons site, “What’s that Smell? Cordite vs. Gunpowder vs. Propellant” by Benjamin Sobiek on 4/30/15: on the terms blackpowder / black powder, cordite, gunpowder / gun powder, propellant and how these substances smell: cordite like acetone (as in fingernail polish remover); blackpowder musty and sulfuric, somewhat like feces; modern gunpowder / propellant acrid, somewhat like electrical odors (is that motor overheating?).
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