600 words
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My mother and I were locked in a jail cell together when I was five years old. It was the first time, but not the last that we would share this experience. We were far from our Chicago home. Strangers in a strange land, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
It was the Great Depression, in the bad old days of racial segregation and labor turmoil. Mom was a union organizer, sent down south by the Textile Workers. Dad, who wasn't with us, liked to carry a .45 Colt Automatic to social occasions. Anyway, he was maritally occupied elsewhere. He had left his wife and two kids for Jennie, a flaming, bohemian redhead. But then I happened. And when the going got tough, he got going, going, gone...
So there we were, in the Bible Belt. And Jennie is a single mother of a bastard son - me.
Of course, I didn't know all this at the time. I loved Chattanooga, skipping barefoot, chewing 3-leaf clover by the banks of the Tennessee River, and taking the cable car up to Lookout Mountain where Civil War cannon balls were still embedded in the trees. I completely accepted the racial and religious order of things - I went to a Baptist school and tried my best to fit in.
I saw myself as Mom's young Prince Valiant. We had taken non-Jewish names to conceal our controversial identity. But, eventually, word got out that Mom was 'talking union' in our kitchen to some mill workers. And African Americans came by our place after sundown - almost a capital crime in 1931 in the South.
So, with some violence along the way, eventually a very courteous sheriff of Hamilton County ran us out of town. We had to go back home where I couldn't run barefoot any more, and kids made fun of my 'suthin' accent.
Back on the west side of Chicago, Jennie and I raised each other through the bad times of strikes, unemployment and labor riots. I grew up in the image of my swaggering, macho Dad - but that was a pose because I knew I was sheltered under Jennie's wing. When we opened a laundry store on Kedzie Avenue - of course it failed - Jennie's reputation for openhandedness - and her absolute refusal to judge another human being - drew legions of the disinherited and discontented.
The back room of our store overflowed with every conceivable species of hobo, tramp, con man, working street girls, radical, homeless children and people on the run from the law. In the aftermath of the notorious Republic Steel massacre, where cops lost their cool and killed ten strikers, our place became an improvised hospital for the wounded and traumatized.
That not all families were like ours I didn't fully grasp for a long time. As she got older and more tired, Jennie made her living sewing bathing suits. I got older, too, and I saw that this woman, my mother, was both very ordinary - a rebel disguised as a housewife, or was it the other way round? And she was very special.
As the years go by, Jennie emerges from the fog of my memory as a distinctly modern woman - torn by the contradiction between work and motherhood, sex and responsibility, playfulness and her obligation not only to me as a mother but to people all around us who she felt needed a break.
Her role model was Eleanor Roosevelt. Not only for Mrs. Roosevelt's accomplishments but her incredible self-discipline at keeping dark family secrets. Jennie was a genius of the cover-up, of a Jewish type of omerta, the code of silence it has taken me all my life to decipher.
Finally, toward the end of her life, I asked her for the truth. She stood there in the doorway, cigarette in hand, like the actress she most admired, Bette Davis. Through a curl of blue smoke she looked at me with her huge hooded eyes shrouded in black mascara... and gave me that Mona Lisa smile I knew so well...a silent instruction, never to ask her that again.
I was on my own, kid.
by Clancy Sigal, 2006
It was the Great Depression, in the bad old days of racial segregation and labor turmoil. Mom was a union organizer, sent down south by the Textile Workers. Dad, who wasn't with us, liked to carry a .45 Colt Automatic to social occasions. Anyway, he was maritally occupied elsewhere. He had left his wife and two kids for Jennie, a flaming, bohemian redhead. But then I happened. And when the going got tough, he got going, going, gone...
So there we were, in the Bible Belt. And Jennie is a single mother of a bastard son - me.
Of course, I didn't know all this at the time. I loved Chattanooga, skipping barefoot, chewing 3-leaf clover by the banks of the Tennessee River, and taking the cable car up to Lookout Mountain where Civil War cannon balls were still embedded in the trees. I completely accepted the racial and religious order of things - I went to a Baptist school and tried my best to fit in.
I saw myself as Mom's young Prince Valiant. We had taken non-Jewish names to conceal our controversial identity. But, eventually, word got out that Mom was 'talking union' in our kitchen to some mill workers. And African Americans came by our place after sundown - almost a capital crime in 1931 in the South.
So, with some violence along the way, eventually a very courteous sheriff of Hamilton County ran us out of town. We had to go back home where I couldn't run barefoot any more, and kids made fun of my 'suthin' accent.
Back on the west side of Chicago, Jennie and I raised each other through the bad times of strikes, unemployment and labor riots. I grew up in the image of my swaggering, macho Dad - but that was a pose because I knew I was sheltered under Jennie's wing. When we opened a laundry store on Kedzie Avenue - of course it failed - Jennie's reputation for openhandedness - and her absolute refusal to judge another human being - drew legions of the disinherited and discontented.
The back room of our store overflowed with every conceivable species of hobo, tramp, con man, working street girls, radical, homeless children and people on the run from the law. In the aftermath of the notorious Republic Steel massacre, where cops lost their cool and killed ten strikers, our place became an improvised hospital for the wounded and traumatized.
That not all families were like ours I didn't fully grasp for a long time. As she got older and more tired, Jennie made her living sewing bathing suits. I got older, too, and I saw that this woman, my mother, was both very ordinary - a rebel disguised as a housewife, or was it the other way round? And she was very special.
As the years go by, Jennie emerges from the fog of my memory as a distinctly modern woman - torn by the contradiction between work and motherhood, sex and responsibility, playfulness and her obligation not only to me as a mother but to people all around us who she felt needed a break.
Her role model was Eleanor Roosevelt. Not only for Mrs. Roosevelt's accomplishments but her incredible self-discipline at keeping dark family secrets. Jennie was a genius of the cover-up, of a Jewish type of omerta, the code of silence it has taken me all my life to decipher.
Finally, toward the end of her life, I asked her for the truth. She stood there in the doorway, cigarette in hand, like the actress she most admired, Bette Davis. Through a curl of blue smoke she looked at me with her huge hooded eyes shrouded in black mascara... and gave me that Mona Lisa smile I knew so well...a silent instruction, never to ask her that again.
I was on my own, kid.
by Clancy Sigal, 2006
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND USE OF STEAM
While the time of man's first knowledge and use of the expansive forceof the vapor of water is unknown, records show that such knowledgeexisted earlier than 150 B. C. In a treatise of about that time entitled "Pneumatica", Hero, of Alexander, described not only existing devices ofhis predecessors and contemporaries but also an invention of his own which utilized the expansive force of steam for raising water above its natural level. He clearly describes three methods in which steam mightbe used directly as a motive of power; raising water by its elasticity,elevating a weight by its expansive power and producing a rotary motionby its reaction on the atmosphere. The third method, which is known as"Hero's engine", is described as a hollow sphere supported over a caldron or boiler by two trunnions, one of which was hollow, and connected the interior of the sphere with the steam space of the caldron. Two pipes, open at the ends and bent at right angles, were inserted at opposite poles of the sphere, forming a connection between the caldron and the atmosphere. Heat being applied to the caldron, the steam generated passed through the hollow trunnion to the sphere and thence into the atmosphere through the two pipes. By the reaction incidental to its escape through these pipes, the sphere was caused to rotate and here is the primitive steam reaction turbine.
Hero makes no suggestions as to application of any of the devices he describes to a useful purpose. From the time of Hero until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there is no record of progress, though evidence is found that such devices as were described by Hero were sometimes used for trivial purposes, the blowing of an organ or the turning of a skillet.
Mathesius, the German author, in 1571; Besson, a philosopher and mathematician at Orleans; Ramelli, in 1588; Battista Delia Porta, a Neapolitan mathematician and philosopher, in 1601; Decause, the French engineer and architect, in 1615; and Branca, an Italian architect, in 1629, all published treatises bearing on the subject of the generation of steam. To the next contributor, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, is apparently due the credit of proposing, if not of making, the first useful steam engine. In the "Century of Scantlings and Inventions",published in London in 1663, he describes devices showing that he had in mind the raising of water not only by forcing it from two receivers by direct steam pressure but also for some sort of reciprocating piston actuating one end of a lever, the other operating a pump. His descriptions are rather obscure and no drawings are extant so that it is difficult to say whether there were any distinctly novel features to his devices aside from the double action. While there is no direct authentic record that any of the devices he described were actually constructed, it is claimed by many that he really built and operated a steam engine containing pistons.
Steam, Its Generation and Use, by Babcock & Wilcox Co.
35th Edition 1919
While the time of man's first knowledge and use of the expansive forceof the vapor of water is unknown, records show that such knowledgeexisted earlier than 150 B. C. In a treatise of about that time entitled "Pneumatica", Hero, of Alexander, described not only existing devices ofhis predecessors and contemporaries but also an invention of his own which utilized the expansive force of steam for raising water above its natural level. He clearly describes three methods in which steam mightbe used directly as a motive of power; raising water by its elasticity,elevating a weight by its expansive power and producing a rotary motionby its reaction on the atmosphere. The third method, which is known as"Hero's engine", is described as a hollow sphere supported over a caldron or boiler by two trunnions, one of which was hollow, and connected the interior of the sphere with the steam space of the caldron. Two pipes, open at the ends and bent at right angles, were inserted at opposite poles of the sphere, forming a connection between the caldron and the atmosphere. Heat being applied to the caldron, the steam generated passed through the hollow trunnion to the sphere and thence into the atmosphere through the two pipes. By the reaction incidental to its escape through these pipes, the sphere was caused to rotate and here is the primitive steam reaction turbine.
Hero makes no suggestions as to application of any of the devices he describes to a useful purpose. From the time of Hero until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, there is no record of progress, though evidence is found that such devices as were described by Hero were sometimes used for trivial purposes, the blowing of an organ or the turning of a skillet.
Mathesius, the German author, in 1571; Besson, a philosopher and mathematician at Orleans; Ramelli, in 1588; Battista Delia Porta, a Neapolitan mathematician and philosopher, in 1601; Decause, the French engineer and architect, in 1615; and Branca, an Italian architect, in 1629, all published treatises bearing on the subject of the generation of steam. To the next contributor, Edward Somerset, second Marquis of Worcester, is apparently due the credit of proposing, if not of making, the first useful steam engine. In the "Century of Scantlings and Inventions",published in London in 1663, he describes devices showing that he had in mind the raising of water not only by forcing it from two receivers by direct steam pressure but also for some sort of reciprocating piston actuating one end of a lever, the other operating a pump. His descriptions are rather obscure and no drawings are extant so that it is difficult to say whether there were any distinctly novel features to his devices aside from the double action. While there is no direct authentic record that any of the devices he described were actually constructed, it is claimed by many that he really built and operated a steam engine containing pistons.
Steam, Its Generation and Use, by Babcock & Wilcox Co.
35th Edition 1919
It was early in the afternoon of a day of almost tropical warmth and
serenity, when all the voices of nature seemed to invite man to love
and help his brother. Soon quite a fleet of massive boats was seen,
descending the river, each boat crowded with twenty or thirty warriors,
plumed and painted, and armed with bows and arrows, javelins, and
clubs. They were yelling like demons, as if expecting by noise to rouse
their courage to the highest point.
La Salle himself, with two or three picked companions, pushed out in a
canoe, and advanced to meet them. Though one or two guns were in the
bottom of the canoe, to be used in case of absolute necessity, they
appeared entirely unarmed--a single canoe advancing to meet a fleet. La
Salle stood up and waved the calumet, the sacred emblem of peace and
friendship. The savages, thirsty for blood, paid no heed to this
appeal. They redoubled their yells, and like a band of desperate
villains as they were, shot a volley of arrows toward the one canoe
with its three or four unarmed occupants. With new vigor the savages
plied their paddles, being now sure of the capture of the strangers.
The moment for prompt and decisive action had come. The guns were
heavily loaded. One of the boats, larger and more richly ornamented
than the rest, contained evidently the head chief. He was a man of
herculean frame, dressed in the most gorgeous of barbaric attire. As he
stood up in his boat, giving orders, he presented just the target,
though at a great distance, to which a sharp-shooter might direct
unerring aim. La Salle ordered one of his marksmen to strike him down.
After a moment's pause, there was a flash, a slight puff of smoke, a
loud report, and the invisible bullet pierced the heart of the chief.
The blood gushed forth in a torrent, and the warrior dropped dead in
the bottom of the boat.
The warriors were appalled, terrified. Never before had they heard the
report of a gun. They knew not what had struck down their chief. No
missile had been seen. None could be found. The savages were very
superstitious. They thought this must be the work of witchcraft; that
they were attacked by evil spirits, whose power was invincible. They
had seen the lightning flash, and the rising, vanishing cloud. They had
heard the thunder peal. Their chief had been struck dead by some
resistless bolt, at twice the distance to which any arrow could be
thrown. It was folly to contend against such a foe. The next instant
every one might be stricken down. They were seized with a panic.
Instantly, heading the bows of their boats up the river, they fled with
the utmost precipitation.
La Salle returned to his companions, conscious that he had secured a
truce only. He had still the village to pass; and the current was so
strong that he must pass very slowly. It was probable that the Indians
would so far recover from their consternation, that some of the boldest
would again assail his boats, from behind sheltering rocks and trees.
The frail canoes might easily be pierced by their missiles, and the
inmates thrown into the water. The savages would soon become accustomed
to the report of the guns. Finding that rocks and trees protected them
from the invisible bolt, they would all be emboldened; and thus a
general and prolonged attack, following them up the river, would cause
their entire destruction.
The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle
and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hundred Years Ago, by John S. C. Abbott date unknown
serenity, when all the voices of nature seemed to invite man to love
and help his brother. Soon quite a fleet of massive boats was seen,
descending the river, each boat crowded with twenty or thirty warriors,
plumed and painted, and armed with bows and arrows, javelins, and
clubs. They were yelling like demons, as if expecting by noise to rouse
their courage to the highest point.
La Salle himself, with two or three picked companions, pushed out in a
canoe, and advanced to meet them. Though one or two guns were in the
bottom of the canoe, to be used in case of absolute necessity, they
appeared entirely unarmed--a single canoe advancing to meet a fleet. La
Salle stood up and waved the calumet, the sacred emblem of peace and
friendship. The savages, thirsty for blood, paid no heed to this
appeal. They redoubled their yells, and like a band of desperate
villains as they were, shot a volley of arrows toward the one canoe
with its three or four unarmed occupants. With new vigor the savages
plied their paddles, being now sure of the capture of the strangers.
The moment for prompt and decisive action had come. The guns were
heavily loaded. One of the boats, larger and more richly ornamented
than the rest, contained evidently the head chief. He was a man of
herculean frame, dressed in the most gorgeous of barbaric attire. As he
stood up in his boat, giving orders, he presented just the target,
though at a great distance, to which a sharp-shooter might direct
unerring aim. La Salle ordered one of his marksmen to strike him down.
After a moment's pause, there was a flash, a slight puff of smoke, a
loud report, and the invisible bullet pierced the heart of the chief.
The blood gushed forth in a torrent, and the warrior dropped dead in
the bottom of the boat.
The warriors were appalled, terrified. Never before had they heard the
report of a gun. They knew not what had struck down their chief. No
missile had been seen. None could be found. The savages were very
superstitious. They thought this must be the work of witchcraft; that
they were attacked by evil spirits, whose power was invincible. They
had seen the lightning flash, and the rising, vanishing cloud. They had
heard the thunder peal. Their chief had been struck dead by some
resistless bolt, at twice the distance to which any arrow could be
thrown. It was folly to contend against such a foe. The next instant
every one might be stricken down. They were seized with a panic.
Instantly, heading the bows of their boats up the river, they fled with
the utmost precipitation.
La Salle returned to his companions, conscious that he had secured a
truce only. He had still the village to pass; and the current was so
strong that he must pass very slowly. It was probable that the Indians
would so far recover from their consternation, that some of the boldest
would again assail his boats, from behind sheltering rocks and trees.
The frail canoes might easily be pierced by their missiles, and the
inmates thrown into the water. The savages would soon become accustomed
to the report of the guns. Finding that rocks and trees protected them
from the invisible bolt, they would all be emboldened; and thus a
general and prolonged attack, following them up the river, would cause
their entire destruction.
The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle
and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hundred Years Ago, by John S. C. Abbott date unknown
mangaman
Guest
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
The Dead
James Joyce
The Dead
James Joyce
mangaman
Guest
But what have I done with my life? thought Mrs Ramsay, taking her place at the head of the table, and looking at all the plates making white circles on it. “William, sit by me,” she said. “Lily,” she said, wearily, “over there.” They had that — Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle — she, only this — an infinitely long table and plates and knives. At the far end was her husband, sitting down, all in a heap, frowning. What at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not understand how she had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She had a sense of being past everything, through everything, out of everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy — there — and one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it. It’s all come to an end, she thought, while they came in one after another, Charles Tansley —”Sit there, please,” she said — Augustus Carmichael — and sat down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for some one to answer her, for something to happen. But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says.
Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy — that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing — ladling out soup — she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it) was very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at Mr Tansley. Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her. Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of men, for if she did not do it nobody would do it, and so, giving herself a little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking — one, two, three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might guard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded, addressing herself by bending silently in his direction to William Bankes — poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.
“Did you find your letters? I told them to put them in the hall for you,” she said to William Bankes.
Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man’s land where to follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath the horizon.
How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote.
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy — that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing — ladling out soup — she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it) was very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at Mr Tansley. Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her. Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of men, for if she did not do it nobody would do it, and so, giving herself a little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking — one, two, three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might guard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded, addressing herself by bending silently in his direction to William Bankes — poor man! who had no wife, and no children and dined alone in lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.
“Did you find your letters? I told them to put them in the hall for you,” she said to William Bankes.
Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man’s land where to follow people is impossible and yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at least to follow them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath the horizon.
How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote.
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
Globalti
Legendary Member
I love the music and I love the lyrics of this Dylan ballad:
Early one morning the sun was shining
I was laying in bed
Wond'ring if she'd changed it all
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough
And I was standing on the side of the road
Rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues getting through
Tangled up in blue.
She was married when we first meet
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam I guess
But I used a little too much force
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split it up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was walking away
I heard her say over my shoulder
"We'll meet again someday on the avenue"
Tangled up in blue.
I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Working for a while on a fishing boat
Right outside of Delacroix
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind and I just grew
Tangled up in blue.
She was working in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer
I just kept looking at her side of her face
In the spotlight so clear
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me "Don't I know your name ?"
I muttered something underneath my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe
Tangled up in blue.
She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello" she said
"You look like the silent type"
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafés at night
And revolution in the air
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue.
So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't what they're doing with their lives
But me I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in Blue.
Early one morning the sun was shining
I was laying in bed
Wond'ring if she'd changed it all
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough
And I was standing on the side of the road
Rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues getting through
Tangled up in blue.
She was married when we first meet
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam I guess
But I used a little too much force
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split it up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was walking away
I heard her say over my shoulder
"We'll meet again someday on the avenue"
Tangled up in blue.
I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the axe just fell
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Working for a while on a fishing boat
Right outside of Delacroix
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind and I just grew
Tangled up in blue.
She was working in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer
I just kept looking at her side of her face
In the spotlight so clear
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me "Don't I know your name ?"
I muttered something underneath my breath
She studied the lines on my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe
Tangled up in blue.
She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello" she said
"You look like the silent type"
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tangled up in blue
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the cafés at night
And revolution in the air
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew
Tangled up in blue.
So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't what they're doing with their lives
But me I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in Blue.
600 words worth packed in to just 95
this is a bit not work safe...
We remained until the early hours of the morning, drinking, eating, dancing. We talked freely and understandingly. I knew no more about her, about her real life, than I did before, not because of any secrecy on her part, but rather because the moment was too full and neither past nor present seemed important.
When the bill came I almost dropped dead.
In order to stall for time I ordered more drinks. When I confessed to her I only had a couple of dollars on me she suggested I give them a check, assuring me that because she was with me there would be no problem about its acceptance. I had to explain to her that I had no checkbook, that I possessed nothing but my salary. In short I made a full clearance.
While confessing this sad state of affairs to her an idea had germinated in my crop. I excused myself and went to the telephone booth. I called the main office of the telegraph company and begged the night manager, who was a friend of mine, to send a messenger to me immediately with a fifty dollar bill. It was a lot of money for him to borrow from the till, and he knew I wasn't any too reliable, but I gave him a harrowing story promising profusely to return it from the day was out.
The messenger turned out to be another good friend of mine, old man Creighton, an ex-minister of the gospel. He seemed indeed surprised to see me in such a place at that hour. As I was signing the sheet he asked me in a low voice if I was sure I would have enough with the fifty. 'I could lend you something out of my own pocket', he added. 'It would be a pleasure to be of assistance to you'.
'How much can you spare?', thinking of the task ahead of me in the morning.
'I can give you another twentyfive' he said readily.
I took it and thanked him warmly. I paid the bill, gave the waiter a generous tip, shook hands with the manager, the assistant manager, the bouncer, the hat-check girl, the doorman, and with a beggar who had his mitt out. We got into a cab and as it turned round Mara impulsively climbed over me and straddled me. We went in to a blind fark, with the cab lurching and careening, our teeth knocking, tongue bitten and the juice pouring from her like hot soup
Henry Miller, Sexus, 1949
We remained until the early hours of the morning, drinking, eating, dancing. We talked freely and understandingly. I knew no more about her, about her real life, than I did before, not because of any secrecy on her part, but rather because the moment was too full and neither past nor present seemed important.
When the bill came I almost dropped dead.
In order to stall for time I ordered more drinks. When I confessed to her I only had a couple of dollars on me she suggested I give them a check, assuring me that because she was with me there would be no problem about its acceptance. I had to explain to her that I had no checkbook, that I possessed nothing but my salary. In short I made a full clearance.
While confessing this sad state of affairs to her an idea had germinated in my crop. I excused myself and went to the telephone booth. I called the main office of the telegraph company and begged the night manager, who was a friend of mine, to send a messenger to me immediately with a fifty dollar bill. It was a lot of money for him to borrow from the till, and he knew I wasn't any too reliable, but I gave him a harrowing story promising profusely to return it from the day was out.
The messenger turned out to be another good friend of mine, old man Creighton, an ex-minister of the gospel. He seemed indeed surprised to see me in such a place at that hour. As I was signing the sheet he asked me in a low voice if I was sure I would have enough with the fifty. 'I could lend you something out of my own pocket', he added. 'It would be a pleasure to be of assistance to you'.
'How much can you spare?', thinking of the task ahead of me in the morning.
'I can give you another twentyfive' he said readily.
I took it and thanked him warmly. I paid the bill, gave the waiter a generous tip, shook hands with the manager, the assistant manager, the bouncer, the hat-check girl, the doorman, and with a beggar who had his mitt out. We got into a cab and as it turned round Mara impulsively climbed over me and straddled me. We went in to a blind fark, with the cab lurching and careening, our teeth knocking, tongue bitten and the juice pouring from her like hot soup
Henry Miller, Sexus, 1949
mangaman
Guest
Indeed.
One of those few passages (the last paragraph of the book) where I remember where I was when I read it.
18 years old, sunbathing by a lake near Prague
mangaman
Guest
“Atomics is a very intricate theorem and can be worked out with algebra but you would want to take it by degrees because you might spend the whole night proving a bit of it with rulers and cosines and similar other instruments and then at the wind-up not believe what you had proved at all. If that happened you would have to go back over it till you got a place where you could believe your own facts and figures as delineated from Hall and Knight’s Algebra and then go on again from that particular place till you had the whole thing properly believed and not have bits of it half-believed or a doubt in your head hurting you like when you lose the stud of your shirt in bed.”
“Very true,” I said.
“Consequently and consequentially,” he continued, “you can safely infer that you are made of atoms yourself and so is your fob pocket and the tail of your shirt and the instrument you use for taking the leavings out of the crook of your hollow tooth. Do you happen to know what takes place when you strike a bar of iron with a good coal hammer or with a blunt instrument?”
“What?”
“When the wallop falls, the atoms are bashed away down to the bottom of the bar and compressed and crowded there like eggs under a good clucker. After a while in the course of time they swim around and get back at last to where they were. But if you keep hitting the bar long enough and hard enough they do not get a chance to do this and what happens?”
“That is a hard question.”
“Ask a blacksmith for the true answer and he will tell you that the bar will dissipate itself away by degrees if you persevere with the hard wallops. Some of the atoms of the bar will go into the hammer and the other half into the table or the stone or the particular article that is underneath the bottom of the bar.”
“That is well-known,” I agreed.
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”
I let go a gasp of astonishment that made a sound in the air like a bad puncture.
“And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity.”
Someone had to post it, this being a cycling forum
The 3rd Policeman
Flan O'Brien
“Very true,” I said.
“Consequently and consequentially,” he continued, “you can safely infer that you are made of atoms yourself and so is your fob pocket and the tail of your shirt and the instrument you use for taking the leavings out of the crook of your hollow tooth. Do you happen to know what takes place when you strike a bar of iron with a good coal hammer or with a blunt instrument?”
“What?”
“When the wallop falls, the atoms are bashed away down to the bottom of the bar and compressed and crowded there like eggs under a good clucker. After a while in the course of time they swim around and get back at last to where they were. But if you keep hitting the bar long enough and hard enough they do not get a chance to do this and what happens?”
“That is a hard question.”
“Ask a blacksmith for the true answer and he will tell you that the bar will dissipate itself away by degrees if you persevere with the hard wallops. Some of the atoms of the bar will go into the hammer and the other half into the table or the stone or the particular article that is underneath the bottom of the bar.”
“That is well-known,” I agreed.
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”
I let go a gasp of astonishment that made a sound in the air like a bad puncture.
“And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity.”
Someone had to post it, this being a cycling forum
The 3rd Policeman
Flan O'Brien
mangaman
Guest
And a couple more 3rd Policeman passages
"Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first.
‘If you follow them’, said the Sergeant, ‘you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road."
"If you let it go too far it
would be the end of everything. You would have bicycles
wanting votes and they would get seats on the County
Council and make the roads far worse than they are for
their own ulterior motivation. But against that and on the
other hand, a good bicycle is a great companion, there is a
great charm about it.'
' How would you know a man has a lot of bicycle in his
veins?'
' If his number is over fifty you can tell it unmistakable from his walk. He will walk smartly always and never
sit down and he will lean against the wall with his elbow
out and stay like that all night in his kitchen instead of
going to bed. If he walks too slowly or stops in the middle
of the road he will fall down in a heap and will have to be
lifted and set in motion again by some extraneous party.
This is the unfortunate state that the postman has cycled
himself into, and I do not think he will ever cycle himself
out of it."
"Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first.
‘If you follow them’, said the Sergeant, ‘you will save your soul and never get a fall on a slippery road."
"If you let it go too far it
would be the end of everything. You would have bicycles
wanting votes and they would get seats on the County
Council and make the roads far worse than they are for
their own ulterior motivation. But against that and on the
other hand, a good bicycle is a great companion, there is a
great charm about it.'
' How would you know a man has a lot of bicycle in his
veins?'
' If his number is over fifty you can tell it unmistakable from his walk. He will walk smartly always and never
sit down and he will lean against the wall with his elbow
out and stay like that all night in his kitchen instead of
going to bed. If he walks too slowly or stops in the middle
of the road he will fall down in a heap and will have to be
lifted and set in motion again by some extraneous party.
This is the unfortunate state that the postman has cycled
himself into, and I do not think he will ever cycle himself
out of it."
mangaman
Guest
Last 3rd Policeman passage I promise
When I penetrated back to the day-room I encountered
two gentlemen called Sergeant Pluck and Mr Gilhaney and
they were holding a meeting about the question of bicycles.
' I do not believe in the three-speed gear at all,' the Sergeant was saying, ' it is a new-fangled instrument, it crucifies the legs, the half of the accidents are due to it'
' It is a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney,
as good as a
second pair of pins or a diminutive petrol motor.'
' It is a hard thing to tune,' said the Sergeant, ' you can
screw the iron lace that hangs out of it till you get no catch
at all on the pedals. It never stops the way you want it, it
would remind you of bad jaw-plates.'
' That is all lies,' said Gilhaney.....
Do you hold with rat-trap pedals?' asked Gilhaney.
'If rat-trap pedals were universal it
would be the end of bicycles, the people would die like flies.'...
' They are a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney.
The Sergeant spat spits on the dry road.
When I penetrated back to the day-room I encountered
two gentlemen called Sergeant Pluck and Mr Gilhaney and
they were holding a meeting about the question of bicycles.
' I do not believe in the three-speed gear at all,' the Sergeant was saying, ' it is a new-fangled instrument, it crucifies the legs, the half of the accidents are due to it'
' It is a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney,
as good as a
second pair of pins or a diminutive petrol motor.'
' It is a hard thing to tune,' said the Sergeant, ' you can
screw the iron lace that hangs out of it till you get no catch
at all on the pedals. It never stops the way you want it, it
would remind you of bad jaw-plates.'
' That is all lies,' said Gilhaney.....
Do you hold with rat-trap pedals?' asked Gilhaney.
'If rat-trap pedals were universal it
would be the end of bicycles, the people would die like flies.'...
' They are a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney.
The Sergeant spat spits on the dry road.
swee'pea99
Squire
I posted this earlier but it has been disappeared. Baffled, I shall repost. If any mod disappeared it, please feel free to tell me why...
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Patrick Leigh Fermor's legendary life is that it lasted as long as it did. He died in 2011 at the age of 96, having survived enough assaults on his existence to make Rasputin seem like a quitter. He was car-bombed by communists in Greece, knifed in Bulgaria, and pursued by thousands of Wehrmacht troops across Crete after kidnapping the commander of German forces on the island. Malaria, cancer and traffic accidents failed to claim him.
He was the target of a long-standing Cretan blood vendetta, which did not deter him from returning to the island, though assassins waited with rifles and binoculars outside the villages he visited. He was beaten into a bloody mess by a gang of pink-coated Irish huntsmen after he asked if they buggered their foxes. He smoked 80 cigarettes a day for 30 years, and often set his bedclothes ablaze after falling asleep with a lit fag in hand. He drank epically, and would "drown hangovers like kittens" in breakfast pints of beer and vodka. As a young SOE agent in Cairo in 1943, the centrepiece of his Christmas lunch, was a turkey stuffed with Benzedrine pills; at the age of 69 he swam the Hellespont - and was nearly swept away by the current.
Robert Macfarlane review of
Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, by Artemis Cooper
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Patrick Leigh Fermor's legendary life is that it lasted as long as it did. He died in 2011 at the age of 96, having survived enough assaults on his existence to make Rasputin seem like a quitter. He was car-bombed by communists in Greece, knifed in Bulgaria, and pursued by thousands of Wehrmacht troops across Crete after kidnapping the commander of German forces on the island. Malaria, cancer and traffic accidents failed to claim him.
He was the target of a long-standing Cretan blood vendetta, which did not deter him from returning to the island, though assassins waited with rifles and binoculars outside the villages he visited. He was beaten into a bloody mess by a gang of pink-coated Irish huntsmen after he asked if they buggered their foxes. He smoked 80 cigarettes a day for 30 years, and often set his bedclothes ablaze after falling asleep with a lit fag in hand. He drank epically, and would "drown hangovers like kittens" in breakfast pints of beer and vodka. As a young SOE agent in Cairo in 1943, the centrepiece of his Christmas lunch, was a turkey stuffed with Benzedrine pills; at the age of 69 he swam the Hellespont - and was nearly swept away by the current.
Robert Macfarlane review of
Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, by Artemis Cooper
swee'pea99
Squire
I love that too (indeed, the whole album is packed with great lyrics & exquisite music) but my favourite song lyrics of all (possibly) is from Tom Waits....remember folks, the large print giveth and the small print taketh away...
Step right up
step right up
step right up
Everyone's a winner, bargains galore
That's right, you too can be the proud owner
Of the quality goes in before the name goes on
One-tenth of a dollar...
One-tenth of a dollar...
We got service after the sale
You want perfume? We got perfume
how 'bout an engagement ring?
Something for the little lady
Something for the little lady
Something for the little lady, hmm
Three for a dollar
We got a year-end clearance, we got a white sale
And a smoke-damaged furniture
you can drive it away today
Act now act now act now
and receive as our gift, our gift to you
They come in all colors, and one size fits all
No muss, no fuss, no spills
you're tired of kitchen drudgery
Everything must go
going out of business
going out of business
going out of business sale
Fifty percent off original retail price
skip the middle man
Don't settle for less
How do we do it?
how do we do it?
how do we do it?
Volume, volume, turn up the volume
Now you've heard it advertised, don't hesitate
Don't be caught with your drawers down
Don't be caught with your drawers down
You can step right up, just step right up...
That's right, it fillets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn...
and it mows your lawn...
and it picks up your kids from school
gets rid of unwanted facial hair
it gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
And it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been lost
under the chaise lounge for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it's only a dollar, step right up
It's only a dollar, step right up
'Cause it forges your signature.
If not completely satisfied
mail back unused portion of product
for complete refund of price of purchase
Step right up
Please allow thirty days for delivery
don't be fooled by cheap imitations
You can live in it, live in it
laugh in it, love in it
Swim in it, sleep in it
Live in it, swim in it
laugh in it, love in it
Removes embarrassing stains from contour sheets
that's right
And it entertains visiting relatives
It turns a sandwich into a banquet
Tired of being the life of the party?
Change your shorts
change your life
change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy, get rid of your wife
And it walks your dog
And it doubles on sax
It doubles on sax, you can jump back Jack
see you later alligator
see you later alligator
And it steals your car
It gets rid of your gambling debts
It quits smoking
It's a friend
and it's a companion
It's the only product you will ever need
Follow these easy assembly instructions
never needs ironing never needs ironing never needs ironing
Well it takes weight off hips, busts
thighs, chin, midriff...gives you dandruff
And it finds you a job
It is a job
And it strips the phone company free
take ten for five exchange
And it gives you denture breath
And you know it's a friend, and it's a companion
And it gets rid of your traveller's checks
It's new, it's improved, it's old-fashioned
Well it takes care of business
never needs winding never needs winding never needs winding
Gets rid of blackheads, the heartbreak of psoriasis
Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak, buddy
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon
'Cause it's effective, it's defective
it creates household odors
It disinfects, it sanitizes for your protection
It gives you an erection
it wins the election
Why put up with painful corns any longer?
It's a redeemable coupon, no obligation
no salesman will visit your home
We got a jackpot, jackpot, jackpot
prizes, prizes, prizes, all work guaranteedv How do we do it?
how do we do it?
how do we do it?
We need your business
we're going out of business
We'll give you the business
Get on the business
end of our going-out-of-business sale
Receive our free brochure... free brochure
Read the easy-to-follow assembly instructions, batteries not included
Send before midnight tomorrow, terms available
Step right up
step right up
step right up
You got it buddy: the large print giveth and the small print taketh away
Step right up
you can step right up
you can step right up
C'mon step right up
(Get away from me kid, you bother me...)
Step right up, step right up, step right up
c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon
Step right up...
you can step right up...
c'mon and step right up...
c'mon and step right up...
