Something to day

[wendy]

In here you will find various excerpts that have impressed me in some way. I often find myself wanting to share pertinent phrases and paragraphs that I come across and it occured to me I might find an audience here. So I begin, with something that struck a chord with my rural sympathies;



The following is from Agatha Christie's "Death comes as the End"

Hori said, "At present a few scribes are all that are needed on a large estate, but the day will come, I fancy, when there will be armies of scribes all over Egypt."

"That will be a good thing," said Renisenb.

Hori said slowly: "I am not so sure."

"Why are you not so sure?"

"Because, Renisenb, it is so easy and it costs so little labour to write down ten bushels of barley, or a hundred head of cattle, or ten fields of spelt -- and the thing that is written will come to seem like the real thing and so the writer and the scribe will come to despise the man who ploughs the fields and reaps the barely and raises the cattle -- but all the same the fields and the cattle are real -- they are not just marks of ink on papyrus."



And something a little fun

in "Who Weekly" 17th March ozzie issue, Sarah Michelle Gellar said of Joss Whedon;

"Joss has had certain episodes planned from the get-go. I knew Dawn was coming two years in advance... Willow was always supposed to go bad, but Joss loved Tara and Willow, so that story line was pushed a year... I honestly believe his original intention was to put Buffy and Xander together. I really do belive that."



And the answer to a riddle from someone called Cathy;

I was very excited yesterday, because I finally, after twelve years, found out the answer to the riddle: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?", which is from Alice In Wonderland. The answer isn't revealed and actually I think Lewis Carroll probably had no answer in mind when he wrote it. However, a completely feasible answer is that Edgar Allan Poe wrote on both. from: http://cyoung85.port5.com/blog/

[wendy]

So I thought I would put up this picture I took in Mexico City. An excerpt from my travels as such :) It was the grand mural that invited my attention but when I got the film developed I noticed that man standing there beside the telephone pole. I often wonder what has him so strung out. Poor guy.

[wendy]

So, I read The Diary of Anne Frank a couple of months ago. I picked it up and opened it halfway and read a paragraph out of interest, and before I knew it I was stuck and finished it in one go. I had read it many years ago when I was at school but this seemed an entirely different tale than what I remembered. I don't know why it didn't touch me then, perhaps because school taints everything, but in this sitting I was drawn into her world. I walked beside her and shared her petty troubles as the world fell apart around her. The final paragraph wounded me terribly because it seemed I had lost a friend, a kindrid spirit, there she was, she understood me, and she was gone. She had come alive in my mind like she had in so many others and I grieved for her, even as I drew strength from her vitality. Here's the last entry in the diary.



Tuesday, 1st Aug 1944

I'm awfully scared that everyone who knows me as I always am will discover that I have another side, a finer and better side. I'm afraid they'll laugh at me, think I'm ridiculous and sentimental, not take me seriously. I'm used to not being taken seriously but it's only the "light-hearted" Anne that's used to it and can bear it; the "deeper" Anne is is too frail for it. Sometimes, when I really compel the good Anne to take the stage for a quarter of an hour, she simply shrivels up as soon as she has to speak, and lets Anne number one take over, and before I realize it, she has disappeared.

Therefore, the nice Anne is never present in company, has not appeared one single time so far, but almost always predominates when we're alone. I know exactly how I'd like to be, how I am too... inside. But, alas, I'm only like that for myself. And perhaps that's why, no, I'm sure it's the reason why I say I've got a happy nature within and why other people think I've got a happy nature without. I'm guided by the pure Anne within, but outside I'm nothing but a frolicsome little goat who's broken loose.

As I've already said, I never utter my real feelings about anything and that's how I've acquired the name of chaser-after-boys, flirt, know-all, reader of love stories. The cheerful Anne laughs about it, gives cheeky answers, shrugs her shoulders indifferently, behaves as if she dosen't care, but, oh dearie me, the quiet Anne's reactions are just the opposite. If I'm to be quite honest, then I must admit that it does hurt me, that I try terribly hard to change myself, but that I'm always fighting against a more powerful enemy.

A voice sobs within me: "There you are, that's what's become of you: you're uncharitable, you look supercilious and peevish, people dislike you and all because you won't listen to the advice given you by your own better half." Oh, I would like to listen, but it doesen't work; if I'm quiet and serious, everyone thinks it's a new comedy and then I have to get out of it by turning it into a joke, not to mention my own family, who are sure to think I'm ill, make me swallow pills for headaches and nerves, feel my neck and my head to see whether I'm running a temperature, ask me if I'm constipated and criticize me for being in a bad mood. I can't keep that up: if I'm watched to that extent, I start by getting snappy, then unhappy, and finally I twist my heart around again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if... there weren't any people living in the world.

[wendy]

a tad of Frank Herbert's "Dune" can never go astray...

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

and

It is by will alone, I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of Sapho that the thoughts acquire speed,
The lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

and

It is by coffee alone, I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of java that the thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire trembling, the trembling becomes a warning.
It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion.

wait a second... I'm not sure if Herbert wrote that last one... ;)

[wendy]

Mrs Aeneus Gunn was a white settler at the beginning of the last century, who recorded memoirs of her time on an isolated bush homestead in the Northern Territory in her novels "We of the Never Never" and "The little Black Princess".
The little Black Princess was one of the first novels I ever read and to me Bett-Bett is still one of literatures most exotic and exciting heriones... even though she is but eight years old. Here is an excerpt from the book about her "Little bit father", her uncle, the king, Ebimel Wooloomool, also known as Goggle Eye.



As he came along, I saw he had a headache, for he had his wife’s waist belt round his head. It is wonderful how quickly a wife’s belt or hair-ribbon will charm away a headache. It only fails when she has been up to mischief of any sort. Of course, when a lubra’s belt does not cure her husband, he knows she has been naughty, and punishes her as she deserves. The lubras say that the belts do not always speak the truth, but the men say they do. Whichever way it is, they are mean horrid tell-tales.

I told Goggle Eye I was sorry for him; and as he really looked ill, I gave him a dose of Epsom salts to help the belt cure, and to save Mrs Goggle Eye, the queen, from a beating. He took it, and, then, sitting down under the veranda, nursed his head in his hands – a poor forlorn old king! As he sat with his back to me, I saw a peculiar mark on his shoulder that I had not noticed before, and wondered what it meant.

All blackfellows have thick, ugly scars, up and down and across their bodies and limbs; but Goggle Eye had more than most men.

He told me once that he had made a great many of them himself with a stone knife. After his first corroboree, he had cut himself a good deal to show the tribe that he was a man now, and not afraid of pain. Of course, when any near relatives had died, he had cut himself all over his arms and thighs, to let the spirit know that he was truly sorry. Whenever a blackfellow dies, all his friends cut themselves terribly, because, if the spirit thinks they are not sorry enough, he will very likely send debbil-debbils along to punish them for their hardness of heart.

After a good long “cry cry”, the wise men say that the spirit is satisfied – I don’t know how they tell – and then everybody rubs hot ashes into the wounds. This heals them very quickly, but it makes the scars into big ugly weals that will never fade away.

Goggle Eye would talk about this as often as I liked to listen; but, whenever I asked him the meaning of the marks on his back or shoulders, he always answered, “Nuzzing,” and either changed the subject or walked away.

Now when a blackfellow says “nuzzing” like that, it simply means that he is not going to tell, for, when he really does not understand the meaning of a law or custom, he answers, “All day likee that,” which means that his fathers did it, and so must he, even if he has forgotten why.

After a while, I saw Goggle Eye feeling among his thick curly hair for his pipe, and I guessed his headache was better. When he had found it, he filled it ready for a smoke; and I remarked that Mrs Goggle Eye must be a very good lubra. He smiled approval, and said, “My word!” and I thought that, if Mrs Goggle Eye had known everything, she would have given “three cheers for good old Epsom”!

As he sat puffing his pipe, I wondered if these extra marks had anything to do with his being king, but knew, if I asked questions, he would go away. Instead I showed him a picture of King Edward VII, and told him that he wore a crown to show that he was king.

He liked this very much, and said so, and then smoked on in silence. At last, pointing to his right arm, he said, “Me king all right”.

“My word!” I said, “I think you big mob king.”

This pleased the vain old chap immensely.

“Me plenty savey corroboree,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands up and down his back; “me savey all about corroboree.”

“My word!” I said, to show my great admiration. “Tell me, Goggle Eye,” I added.

He hesitated for a while, and then told me that, when a blackfellow has been through a corroboree, his teachers put a mark on him, to show that he understands all about it – a certificate for examination, I suppose! Of course, a great number of marks means a great deal of knowledge; so it was no wonder that Goggle Eye was proud of his. As he felt his certificates, he chuckled.

“Big mob sit down longa me.”

Corroborees are really the books of a tribe, for they have no others. They are not just dancing picnics, as some people think, but lessons, and very hard lessons too, sometimes.

The old men are the teachers, and the head man is the headmaster. They teach the young men all they should know- how to point “death bones”, the best way to “sing” people dead, the way to scare debbil-debbils away with bull-roarers and sacred stones, all the laws about marriage, the proper things to eat, how to make rain, and I can’t tell what else.

The man who proves in a great many ways that he understands all he should, will one day be kind and headmaster. A black king is not king because his father was so.

As I listened to Goggle Eye’s explanation of all this, I thought how necessary it was to have a wise king, since he has the care of the special “death-bones”, and “pointing sticks”, and all the sacred charms. No one knows what terrible things might happen to the tribe if any one touched these magic charms who did not know how to use them. Why, he might set a death-bone working, and not be able to stop till everybody was dead, or make a mistake and invite debbil-debbils to come and chivvy everybody about, when he was meaning to tell them to stay away. It really is too fearful to think what might happen with a foolish king!

When Goggle Eye stopped talking, I asked him what the peculiar marks on his shoulders meant.

“What name this one talk, Goggle Eye?” I said, touching it with my finger.

He was just trying to decide whether it would be all right to tell a white woman what a black lubra must not hear, when a wretched little willy-waggletail flew into the veranda after spiders.

No blackfellow will talk secrets with one of those little birds about. They say they are the tell-tales of the bush, and are always spying about, listening for bits of gossip to make mischief. They call them “jenning-gherries”, or mischief makers, and say they love mischief of all kinds.

“Jenning-gherri come on,” said Goggle Eye, pointing to the little flitting, flirting bird; and I knew I should hear no more that day.

[wendy]

I think Neil Gaiman is amazing. Here is a quote from "The Dreamhunters", a love story about a monk and a fox...yes you heard right. It takes Shakespeare's saying of "The course of true love never ran smooth" to whole new levels.



They are Baku, said the great fox. They are the Dream Eaters.

The little fox had heard of the Baku. If a dreamer wakes from a dream of ill-omen or a portent of dark things, the dreamer may invoke the Baku, and hope that the Baku will eat the dream, and take it and what it foretells, away.

She stared at the Baku, as they moved across the rocky desert of dreams.

"And if one were to catch a Baku after it had consumed a dream," asked the fox. "What then?"

The great fox said nothing for some time. In the hollow of an eye one distant star glittered. Baku are hard to catch, and harder to hold. They are elusive and crafty beasts.

"I am a fox," she said, humbly, and without boasting. "I also am a crafty beast."

The great fox nodded assent. Then he looked down at her, and it seemed to the fox that he could see everything she was, everything she dreamed, and hoped, and felt. He is only human, said the great fox. While you are a fox. These things rarely end happily.

And the fox would have told him what she thought of this, and opened her heart to him, but with a flick of his tail the great fox leapt from the rock down to the desert floor below. And it seemed to the fox that he grew and he grew, until he was the size of the sky, and the huge fox was the night, and stars twinkled in the blackness of his coat, and the white tip of his tail was the half-moon, shining in the night sky.

[wendy]

I think alot of people don't really fully know or understand much of the history behind this war with Iraq, and I came across this excerpt from a book published in 1999 called "Fateful Triangle" that seems to sum up the way I interpreted much of what went on during the Gulf war. Many mightn't agree with some of the reasoning expressed here but to me it matches perfectly almost every perception I've had of what goes on between the United States and the middle east. Posted in two parts;



by Noam Chomsky

For some time, I've been compelled to arrange speaking engagements long in advance. Sometimes a title is requested for a talk scheduled several years ahead. There is, I've found, one title that always works: "The current crisis in the Middle East." One can't predict exactly what the crisis will be far down the road, but that there will be one is a fairly safe prediction.

That will continue to be the case as long as basic problems of the region are not addressed.

Furthermore, the crises will be serious in what President Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world." In the early post-War years, the United States in effect extended the Monroe Doctrine to the Middle East, barring any interference apart from Britain, assumed to be a loyal dependency and quickly punished when it occasionally got out of hand (as in 1956). The strategic importance of the region lies primarily in its immense petroleum reserves and the global power accorded by control over them; and, crucially, from the huge profits that flow to the Anglo-American rulers, which have been of critical importance for their economies. It has been necessary to ensure that this enormous wealth flows primarily to the West, not to the people of the region. That is one fundamental problem that will continue to cause unrest and disorder. Another is the Israel-Arab conflict with its many ramifications, which have been closely related to the major U.S. strategic goal of dominating the region's resources and wealth.

For many years, it was claimed the core problem was Soviet subversion and expansionism, the reflexive justification for virtually all policies since the Bolshevik takeover in Russia in 1917. That pretext having vanished, it is now quietly conceded by the White House (March 1990) that in past years, the "threats to our interests" in the Middle East "could not be laid at the Kremlin's door"; the doctrinal system has yet to adjust fully to the new requirements. "In the future, we expect that non-Soviet threats to [our] interests will command even greater attention," the White House continued in its annual plea to Congress for a huge military budget. In reality, the "threats to our interests," in the Middle East as elsewhere, had always been indigenous nationalism, a fact stressed in internal documents and sometimes publicly.

A "worst case" prediction for the crisis a few years ahead would be a war between the U.S. and Iran; unlikely, but not impossible.

Israel is pressing very hard for such a confrontation, recognizing Iran to be the most serious military threat that it faces. So far, the U.S. is playing a somewhat different game in its relations to Iran; accordingly, a potential war, and the necessity for it, is not a major topic in the media and journals of opinion here.

The U.S. is, of course, concerned over Iranian power. That is one reason why the U.S. turned to active support for Iraq in the late stages of the Iraq-Iran war, with a decisive effect on the outcome, and why Washington continued its active courtship of Saddam Hussein until he interfered with U.S. plans for the region in August 1990. U.S. concerns over Iranian power were also reflected in the decision to support Saddam's murderous assault against the Shiite population of southern Iraq in March 1991, immediately after the fighting stopped. A narrow reason was fear that Iran, a Shiite state, might exert influence over Iraqi Shiites. A more general reason was the threat to "stability" that a successful popular revolution might pose: to translate into English, the threat that it might inspire democratizing tendencies that would undermine the array of dictatorships that the U.S. relies on to control the people of the region.

Recall that Washington's support for its former friend was more than tacit; the U.S. military command even denied rebelling Iraqi officers access to captured Iraqi equipment as the slaughter of the Shiite population proceeded under Stormin' Norman's steely gaze.

Similar concerns arose as Saddam turned to crushing the Kurdish rebellion in the North. In Israel, commentators from the Chief of Staff to political analysts and Knesset members, across a very broad political spectrum, openly advocated support for Saddam's atrocities, on the grounds that an independent Kurdistan might create a Syria-Kurd-Iran territorial link that would be a serious threat to Israel. When U.S. records are released in the distant future, we might discover that the White House harbored similar thoughts, which delayed even token gestures to block the crushing of Kurdish resistance until Washington was compelled to act by a public that had been aroused by media coverage of the suffering of the Kurds, recognizably Aryan and portrayed quite differently from the southern Shiites, who suffered a far worse fate but were only dirty Arabs.

In passing, we may note that the character of U.S.-U.K. concern for the Kurds is readily determined not only by the timing of the support, and the earlier cynical treatment of Iraqi Kurds, but also by the reaction to Turkey's massive atrocities against its Kurdish population right through the Gulf crisis. These were scarcely reported here in the mainstream, in virtue of the need to support the President, who had lauded his Turkish colleague as "a protector of peace" joining those who "stand up for civilized values around the world" against Saddam Hussein. But Europe was less disciplined. We therefore read, in the London Financial Times, that "Turkey's western allies were rarely comfortable explaining to their public why they condoned Ankara's heavy-handed repression of its own Kurdish minority while the west offered support to the Kurds in Iraq," not a serious PR problem here. "Diplomats now say that, more than any other issue, the sight of Kurds fighting Kurds [in Fall 1992] has served to change the way that western public opinion views the Kurdish cause." In short, we can breathe a sigh of relief: cynicism triumphs, and the Western powers can continue to condone the harsh repression of Kurds by the "protector of peace," while shedding crocodile tears over their treatment by the (current) enemy.

[wendy]

Israel's reasons for trying to stir up a U.S. confrontation with Iran, and "Islamic fundamentalism" generally, are easy to understand. The Israeli military recognizes that, apart from resort to nuclear weapons, there is little it can do to confront Iranian power, and is concerned that after the (anticipated) collapse of the U.S.-run "peace process," a Syria-Iran axis may be a significant threat. The U.S., in contrast, appears to be seeking a long-term accommodation with "moderate" (that is, pro-U.S.) elements in Iran and a return to something like the arrangements that prevailed under the Shah.

How these tendencies may evolve is unclear.

The propaganda campaign about "Islamic fundamentalism" has its farcical elements — even putting aside the fact that U.S. culture compares with Iran in its religious fundamentalism. The most extreme Islamic fundamentalist state in the world is the loyal U.S. ally Saudi Arabia—or, to be more precise, the family dictatorship that serves as the "Arab facade" behind which the U.S. effectively controls the Arabian peninsula, to borrow the terms of British colonial rule. The West has no problems with Islamic fundamentalism there. Probably one of the most fanatic Islamic fundamentalist groups in the world in recent years was led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the terrorist extremist who had been a CIA favorite and prime recipient of the $3.3 billion in (official) U.S. aid given to the Afghan rebels (with roughly the same amount reported from Saudi Arabia), the man who shelled Kabul with thousands killed, driving hundreds of thousands of people out of the city (including all Western embassies), in an effort to shoot his way into power; not quite the same as Pol Pot emptying Phnom Penh, since the U.S. client was far more bloody in that particular operation.

Similarly, it is not at all concealed in Israel that its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was undertaken in part to destroy the secular nationalism of the PLO, becoming a real nuisance with its persistent call for a peaceful diplomatic settlement, which was undermining the U.S.-Israeli strategy of gradual integration of the occupied territories within Israel. One result was the creation of Hizbollah, an Iranian-backed fundamentalist group that drove Israel out of most of Lebanon. For similar reasons, Israel supported fundamentalist elements as a rival to the accommodationist PLO in the occupied territories. The results are similar to Lebanon, as Hamas attacks against the Israeli military become increasingly difficult to contain. The examples illustrate the typical brilliance of intelligence operations when they have to deal with populations, not simply various gangsters.

The basic reasoning goes back to the early days of Zionism: Palestinian moderates pose the most dangerous threat to the goal of avoiding any political settlement until facts are established to which it will have to conform.

In brief, Islamic fundamentalism is an enemy only when it is "out of control." In that case, it falls into the category of "radical nationalism" or "ultranationalism," more generally, of independence whether religious or secular, right or left, military or civilian; priests who preach the "preferential option for the poor" in Central America, to mention a recent case.

The historically unique U.S.-Israel alliance has been based on the perception that Israel is a "strategic asset," fulfilling U.S. goals in the region in tacit alliance with the Arab facade in the Gulf and other regional protectors of the family dictatorships, and performing services elsewhere. Those who see Israel's future as an efficient Sparta, at permanent war with its enemies and surviving at the whim of the U.S., naturally want that relationship to continue — including, it seems, much of the organized American Jewish community, a fact that has long outraged Israeli doves. The doctrine is explained by General (ret.) Shlomo Gazit, former head of Israeli military intelligence and a senior official of the military administration of the occupied territories. After the collapse of the USSR, he writes,"Israel's main task has not changed at all, and it remains of crucial importance. Its location at the center of the Arab Muslim Middle East predestines Israel to be a devoted guardian of stability in all the countries surrounding it. Its [role] is to protect the existing regimes: to prevent or halt the processes of radicalization and to block the expansion of fundamentalist religious zealotry." To which we may add: performing dirty work that the U.S. is unable to undertake itself because of popular opposition or other costs. The conception has its grim logic. What is remarkable is that advocacy of it should be identified as "support for Israel."

With some translation, Gazit's analysis seems plausible. We have to understand "stability" to mean maintenance of specific forms of domination and control, and easy access to resources and profits. And the phrase "fundamentalist religious zealotry," as noted, is a code word for a particular form of "radical nationalism" that threatens "stability."

[wendy]

Just some little fanciful bits...


Katharine Susannah Prichard, "Coonardoo"

Hugh sat down again. A trembling seized him. He had a swift vision of passion and tenderness stalking him through all the lonely misery of his wandering. When he looked up he saw Coonardoo was still standing there in the shadow.



Isaac Asimov, from "The stars like dust"

The stars like dust encircle me in living mists of light
and all of space I seem to see in one vast burst of sight.



The opening lines from "Xenocide", by Orson Scott Card who has more insight than most authors I can think of.

Today one of the brothers asked me: Is it a terrible prison, not to be able to move from the place where you're standing?
You answered...
I told him that I am now more free than he is. The inability to move frees me from the obligation to act.
You who speak languages, you are such liars.



Yeats:
You say there is no love, my love,
Unless it lasts for aye.
Ah, folly, there are episodes
Far better than the play.

[wendy]

Peter Hoeg , from "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow" (also published as "Smilla's Sense of Snow")

I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. Never do I close my door behind me without being consious that I am carrying out an act of charity towards myself. Cantor illustrated the concept of infinity for his students by telling them that there was once a man who had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and the hotel was fully occupied. Then one more guest arrived. So the owner moved the guest in room number one into room number two; the guest in room number two into number three; the guest in three into room four, and so on. In that way room number one became vacant for the new guest.

What delights me about this story is that everyone involved, the guests and the owner, accept it as perfectly in order to carry out an infinite number of operations so that one guest can have peace and quiet in a room of his own. That is a great tribute to solitude.

[wendy]

Sad eyed lady of the lowlands, by Bob Dylan

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

[wendy]

Jostein Gaarder, "Through a glass, darkly".


'How did you know mother was coming?' she asked.

'"Mother was coming",' repeated Ariel. '"How did you know Mother was coming?".'

'Copycat!'

'I'm only tasting the words.'

'Tasting the words?'

He nodded. 'In fact that's the only thing an angel can taste.'

'Did they taste good, then?'

'A bit strange too.'

'Why?'

'Don't you think it's the slightest bit strange that once upon a time you were lying splashing inside her stomach?'

[wendy]

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
--from 'Manual of Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan



The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

Deep in the human unconsious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
--from 'Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib' by the Princess Irulan



The Count, a dapper and ugly little man, brought a new slave concubine to my father one day and I was dispatched by my mother to spy on the proceedings. All of us spied on my father as a matter of self protecion.[.....] A Royal Family is not like other families. Here willowy and graceful. She had a dancer's muscles, and her training had obviously included neuro-enticement. My father looked at her for a long time as she postured unclothed before him. Finally he said: "She is too beautiful. We will save her as a gift." You have no idea how much consternation this restraint created in the Royal Creche. Sublety and self-control were, after all, the most deadly threats to us all.
--from 'In My Father's House' by Princess Irulan



Some more "Dune" excerpts, by Frank Herbert

[wendy]

I just finished this short little book called "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh. I can't express just how much this book spoke to me, perhaps because of my own peculiar life experience, but I'd still recommend it to most people. It's sort of a black comedy with a thousand comments to make on society AND human nature. It's major theme was death; it tells of a love triangle between an embalmer, a pet mortician and a cosmetician for the dead. Sound quirky? Well it is, it's also extremely amusing and tragic at the same time. Anyways I just liked this bit below for it's descriptive value;



She was the standard product. A man could leave such a girl in a delicatessen shop in New York, fly three thousand miles and find her again in the cigar stall at San Francisco, just as he would find his favourite comic strip in the local paper; and she would croon the same words in moments of endearment and express the same views and preferences in moments of social discourse. She was convenient; but Dennis came of an earlier civilization with sharper needs. He sought the intangible, the veiled face in the fog, the silhouette at the lighted doorway, the secret graces of a body which hid itself under formal velvet. He did not covet the spoils of this rich continent, the sprawling limbs of the swimming-pool, the wide-open painted eyes and mouths under the arc-lamps. But the girl who entered now was unique. Not indefinably; the appropriate distinghuishing epithet leapt to Dennis's mind the moment he saw her: sole Eve in a bustling hygenic Eden, this girl was a decadent.

[wendy]

The News Reader from "Red Dwarf" had an interesting breaking story...

Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders.



Written by Grant & Naylor

[wendy]

J.R.R. Tolkien, from his Essay: “On Fairy Stories”

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is enchantment, and an ever present peril; both joy and sorrow are as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous too for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.

[wendy]

From "Knulp" by Herman Hesse

Knulp said: ‘Every human being has his soul, he can’t mix it with any other. Two people can meet, they can talk with one another, they can be close together. But their souls are like flowers, each rooted to its place. One can’t go to another, because it would have to break away from its roots, and that it can’t do. Flowers send out their scent and their seeds, because they would do anything to make seed go to its right place; the wind does that, and the wind comes and goes as it pleases.’

[wendy]

"Catch22" by Joseph Heller. Here's one of my favourite parts, it just filled me with the wierdest combination of horror, sorrow and hilarity I've ever had. Major Major Major is a Major... (duh) and so no one on the army base will play basketball or be friends with him properly cos they are all scared and mistrustful of his authority... so he attempts to fit in by disguise...




The dark glasses had large magenta rims. The false black mustache was a flamboyant organ grinder's, and he wore them both to the basketball game one day when he felt he could endure his lonliness no longer. He affected an air of jaunty familiarity as he sauntered to the court and prayed silently that he would not be recognized. The others pretended not to recognize him, and he began to have fun. Just as he finished congratulating himself on his innocent ruse he was bumped hard by one of his opponents and knocked to his knees. Soon he was bumped hard again, and it dawned on him that they did recognize him and that they were using his disguise as a license to elbow, trip and maul him. They did not want him at all. And just as he did realize this, the players on his team fused instinctively with the players on the other team into a single, howling, bloodthirsty mob that descended upon him from all sides with foul curses and swinging fists. They knocked him to the ground, kicked him while he was on the ground, attacked him again after he had struggled blindly to his feet. He covered his face with his hands and could not see. They swarmed all over each other in their frenzied compulsion to bludgeon him, kick him, gouge him, trample him. He was pummeled spinning to the edge of the ditch and sent slithering down on his head and shoulders. At the bottom he found his footing, clambered up the other wall and staggered away beneath the hail of hoots and stones with which they pelted him until he lurched into shelter around a corner of the orderly room tent.His paramount concern throughout the entire assault was to keep his dark glasses and false mustache in place so that he might continue pretending he was somebody else and be spared the dreaded necessity of having to confront them with his authority.

Back in his office he wept; and when he finished weeping he washed the blood from his mouth and nose, scrubbed the dirt from the abrasions on his cheek and forehead, and summoned Sergeant Towser.

"From now on," he said, "I don't want anyone to come in to see me while I'm here. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Said Sergeant Towser. "Does that include me?"

"Yes."

"I see. Will that be all?"

"Yes."

"What shall I say to the people who do come to see you while you're here?"

"Tell them I'm in and ask them to wait."

"Yes, sir. For how long?"

"Until I've left."

"And then what shall I do with them?"

"I don't care."

"May I send them in to see you after you've left?"

"Yes."

"But you won't be here then, will you?"

"No."

"Yes, sir. Will that be all?"

"Yes."

"Yes, sir."

[wendy]

A close encounter Sarah McDonald has in India, as told in her memoir, "Holy Cow".



Suddenly the smog parts like a curtain. A being emerges. Naked, straight-backed, as grey as a ghost, his dreadlocks trail in the dirt. He carries a trident like the devil's rod. It's an aghori - a sadhu that lives in a cremation ground. A sadhu that smears himself with the ashes of the dead, drinks from human skulls and looks for salvation in stoned madness. His red eyes look straight at me and through me. It's a look from another world, a window to nothing-ness, and a black hole of emptiness. I feel liquid freeze injected into my veins; my bones snap dry, my blood stands still, my breath is suspended. I'm being shot by a supernatural shotgun. The aghori merges back into the mist. Jonathan wakes and I can't talk to tell him what happened.