We forgo the vengeance of our troops and civilians in The Long War -- But We have selfish reasons. All right -- We have to make arrangements to make this border work -- cleared of all these false charges and complications.
But I'm a superstitious man -- and if some unlucky accident should befall either nation -- if either the Republican or Loyalist Paramilitaries should suddenly, somehow acquire a vast new arsenal of weaponry and ordinance -- or if any remaining paramilitary prisoner -- should hang himself in his jail cell -- or if one British Policeman, Soldier or Civilian is struck by a bolt of LIGHTNING -- then We’re going to BLAME some of the people in Berlin, Brussels and Strasbourg.
And that — That, We Do NOT Forgive.
But -- that aside -- let me say that We Swear -- on the souls of our grandchildren -- that We will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today...
And people say Howard The Duck isn't an important film...
When the ritual was done, I switched on the TV to decompress and caught the last fifteen minutes of Howard the Duck, in which nightmarish extradimensional scorpion sorcerers attempted to clamber their way into eighties America.
Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.—Thus spake Zarathustra.
And at that time he abode in the town which is called The Pied Cow.
pied (adj.)
late 14c., as if it were the past participle of a verb form of Middle English noun pie"magpie" (see pie (n.2)), in reference to the bird's black and white plumage.
Earliest use is in reference to the pyed freres, an order of friars who wore black and white. Also in pied piper (1845, in Browning's poem based on the German legend; used allusively by 1939).
The original album cover, designed by art collective Hipgnosis, shows a Holstein-Friesiancow standing in a pasturewith no text nor any other clue as to what might be on the record.3033Some later editions have the title and artist name added to the cover. This concept was the group’s reaction to the psychedelicspace rock imagery associated with Pink Floyd at the time of the album’s release; the band wanted to explore all sorts of music without being limited to a particular image or style of performance. They thus requested that their new album had “something plain” on the cover, which ended up being the image of a cow.3033Storm Thorgerson, inspired by Andy Warhol’s famous “cow wallpaper”, has said that he simply drove out into a rural area near Potters Bar and photographed the first cow he saw.3033 The cow’s owner identified her name as “Lulubelle III”.303334 More cows appear on the back cover, again with no text or titles, and on the inside gatefold. Also, a pink balloon shaped like a cow udder accompanied the album as part of Capitol’s marketing strategy campaign to “break” the band in the US.303335 The liner notes in later CD editions give a recipe for Traditional Bedouin Wedding Feaston a card labelled “Breakfast Tips”.36Looking back on the artwork, Thorgerson remembered: “I think the cow represents, in terms of the Pink Floyd, part of their humour, which I think is often underestimated or just unwritten about.”37
In the mid-1970s, a bootleg containing rare singles and B-sides entitled The Dark Side of the Moo appeared, with a similar cover. Like Atom Heart Mother, the cover had no writing on it, although in this case it was to protect the bootlegger’s anonymity rather than any artistic statement.38 The album cover to The KLF’s concept album Chill Out was also inspired by Atom Heart Mother.39
Yeah. Yes, look at that bit, yeah, he's doing emotions.
BILL:
Oh, leave him alone.
NARDOLE:
Can I take a selfie with you?
Your latest project Unearthing has gone through a number of different stages, starting off as a piece for an anthology put together by the pyschogeographer Iain Sinclair to how it stands now with these amazing photos and music by great musicians, along with yourself doing spoken word which is like performance poetry. I was wondering how much you've come full circle and returned to your days back in the Arts Lab in the late-sixties.
AM: Very much so. I suppose it could be argued that I'd never really gotten away from the Arts Lab, but certainly over this last year I have very much returned to my roots. The multi-media explosion of Unearthing rather took me by surprise, because it was such a strange project to begin with. It all really commenced with Steve Moore himself — the subject of the writing. Back in 1976 he bought a Chinese coin sword made of 108 coins all tied together and used it in this very simple magical ritual which he came up with on the spot. He used it to ask for guidance and perhaps a confirming dream. The next day, he woke up with a voice in his ear saying the word 'Endymion', which, he later found out, was the title of a John Keats poem. This started the bizarre course that Steve's life would take in many respects. It began his unusual relationship with Selene, the Greek Moon Goddess. So, in 2004, when Iain Sinclair asked if I wanted to contribute something to his London: City Of Disappearances book, I had something to write about. I'm always a sucker for anything that Iain suggests, really.
Is Unearthing a work of psychogeography?
AM: It's more of a human excavation than the excavation of a place, but because Steve Moore has lived his entire life in one house on top of Shooter's Hill and he currently sleeps no more than four paces from the spot where he was born, it does become a work of psychogeography as well. So we do go very thoroughly into what Shooter's Hill is.
The etymology of the place name?
AM: Absolutely. Well, right back to the basic geology of how it formed. Apparently it was just because of a chalk fault that collapsed on the north side of the hill and that's what created the Thames Valley. So without that, no river Thames, no London. And yet it's this fairly isolated little hill, and there are lots of strange little places on it. We look into the place, but it's more an excavation of Steve's peculiar life which crosses into all sorts of different areas and crosses over with my life to a certain degree. It was certainly an odd little story that was self-referential. I've often found that if you write self-referential stories that feedback into your actual life then all sorts of weird things start to happen, or at least appear to start happening. Then Mitch Jenkins called round. I hadn't seen Mitch for years, but he told me he'd got to a point in his photography career where he was pretty much at the top of his field. He was bored of getting all these commissions to re-touch the irises of the latest American TV star, so he asked if I had any pieces of text that he might be able to turn into a series of photos. The only thing I had lying round was Unearthing. I said, 'Look, this is a bit big and unwieldy but there might be something in there.' Mitch came back in a state of excitement, saying that he wanted to realise it as this huge book of photographs. I said, 'Sounds good to me.'
How did it expand from that into music?
AM: Mitch said he'd been talking to the people at Lex records and they suggested all these wonderful musicians, which sounded fantastic. I came to this studio and recorded the various passages which the music was then composed around.
The piece has this ending where you describe sending the first draft of the piece to Steve and the instructions that he had to follow on opening the envelope. You read it, or listen to it, for the first time with him...
AM: He first read it exactly as it's described in Unearthing itself. I sent it to him in an envelope with the ending already written that was actually telling him to go out for a walk around this neighbourhood, and he did. He went all the way round to the burial ground and stood with his back to it, as I'd already described in my creepy self-referential story. He said he felt very weird.
Well, you would, wouldn't you!?
AM: He did actually feel a shudder run through him when he was standing with his back to the burial ground and since then his life has changed drastically. Unearthing itself was a big part of that in that there were people Steve had known for decades, and lived with in the case of his brother, who did not know how very, very strange he is. The thwarted love interest in the story read it and she was quite upset by it at first, but their relationship and their friendship recovered and became a lot stronger and healthier because of it. Steve has a new love interest. His brother contracted motor neurone disease just after Unearthing had come out and a couple of weeks ago Steve finally buried his ashes in the back garden. I was there with a number of the characters from the story. And, yes, this will eventually lead to a sequel. I have told Steve that I want to write a story called Earthing...
Would it be right to say that he's your best friend and he's been crucial to your career in a lot of ways? How did you first meet him?
AM: Oh yeah. Well, this was a different world, a long time ago. It would have been around 1967, so I would have been 13 and I was a comic fan. Every Saturday I'd go out and buy all of the Marvel or DC comics that had been shipped over from the States as ballast. And I would also buy the very few interesting British comics that were around then, which were mainly published by Odhams. They used to re-print black and white versions of the American Marvel titles. And there was an announcement in one of the issues of Fantastic that their new tea boy, Sunny Steve Moore, had got together with some friends and had put on the first UK comic convention. Now, I was probably too young to attend that, but I became an associate member, which meant that I paid some money and got all the literature. And in one of the fanzines that came in my introductory package there was an actual address for Steve Moore. I basically began stalking him and wrote him a couple of letters and we began a correspondence that has lasted for years. When I was starting out he was an invaluable help. When I decided to move from being a cartoonist to being a writer, it was Steve who read through my early scripts and told me to lose half the words and gave me a lot of pointers on how to do it. And then later it was him who inspired me to become a practising magician. In many ways, he's completely ruined my life!
FAUSTUS. Ah, gentlemen! FIRST SCHOLAR. What ails Faustus? FAUSTUS. Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow, had I lived with thee, then had I lived still! but now I die eternally. Look, comes he not? comes he not? SECOND SCHOLAR. What means Faustus? THIRD SCHOLAR. Belike he is grown into some sickness by being over-solitary. FIRST SCHOLAR. If it be so, we'll have physicians to cure him.--'Tis but a surfeit; never fear, man. FAUSTUS. A surfeit of deadly sin, that hath damned both body and soul. SECOND SCHOLAR. Yet, Faustus, look up to heaven; remember God's mercies are infinite. FAUSTUS. But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned: the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. Ah, gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches! Though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years, O, would I had never seen Wertenberg, never read book! and what wonders I have done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world; for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world, yea, heaven itself, heaven, the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy; and must remain in hell for ever, hell, ah, hell, for ever! Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus, being in hell for ever? THIRD SCHOLAR. Yet, Faustus, call on God. FAUSTUS. On God, whom Faustus hath abjured! on God, whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would weep! but the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth blood, instead of tears! yea, life and soul! O, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands; but see, they hold them, they hold them! ALL. Who, Faustus? FAUSTUS. Lucifer and Mephistophilis. Ah, gentlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning![168] ALL. God forbid! FAUSTUS. God forbade it, indeed; but Faustus hath done it: for vain pleasure of twenty-four years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood: the date is expired; the time will come, and he will fetch me. FIRST SCHOLAR. Why did not Faustus tell us of this before,[169] that divines might have prayed for thee? FAUSTUS. Oft have I thought to have done so; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces, if I named God, to fetch both body and soul, if I once gave ear to divinity: and now 'tis too late. Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me. SECOND SCHOLAR. O, what shall we do to save[170] Faustus? FAUSTUS. Talk not of me, but save yourselves, and depart. THIRD SCHOLAR. God will strengthen me; I will stay with Faustus. FIRST SCHOLAR. Tempt not God, sweet friend; but let us into the next room, and there pray for him. FAUSTUS. Ay, pray for me, pray for me; and what noise soever ye hear,[171] come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me. SECOND SCHOLAR. Pray thou, and we will pray that God may have mercy upon thee. FAUSTUS. Gentlemen, farewell: if I live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell. ALL. Faustus, farewell. [Exeunt SCHOLARS.--The clock strikes eleven.]
FAUSTUS. Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente,[172] lente currite, noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. O, I'll leap up to my God!--Who pulls me down?-- See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!-- Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!-- Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows! Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God! No, no! Then will I headlong run into the earth: Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me! You stars that reign'd at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist. Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud[s], That, when you[173] vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven! [The clock strikes the half-hour.]
Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon O God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me, Impose some end to my incessant pain; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!O, no end is limited to damned souls! Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true, This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd Unto some brutish beast![174] all beasts are happy, For, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. [The clock strikes twelve.] O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell! [Thunder and lightning.] O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found! Enter DEVILS. My God, my god, look not so fierce on me! Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer! I'll burn my books!--Ah, Mephistophilis!
[Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.] [175] Enter CHORUS.
CHORUS. Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough, That sometime grew within this learned man. Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise, Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practice more than heavenly power permits.
“ We remained somewhat too long in Rome that spring, and what with the effect of the increasing heat and the discouraging circumstances already described, my brother resolved not to write any more, or in any case, not to proceed with “Zarathustra”, although I offered to relieve him of all trouble in connection with the proofs and the publisher.
When, however, we returned to Switzerland towards the end of June, and he found himself once more in the familiar and exhilarating air of the mountains, all his joyous creative powers revived, and in a note to me announcing the dispatch of some manuscript, he wrote as follows:
“I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy.
Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT?
My ‘future’ is the darkest thing in the world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods.”
Now, however, a new table of valuations must be placed over mankind—namely, that of the Strong, Mighty, and Magnificent Man, overflowing with Life and elevated to his zenith—the Superman, who is now put before us with overpowering passion as the aim of our Life, Hope, and Will.
And just as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the qualities favourable to the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed, has succeeded in producing a weak, suffering, and “modern” race, so this new and reversed system of valuing ought to rear a healthy, strong, lively, and courageous type, which would be a glory to life itself. Stated briefly, the leading principle of this new system of valuing would be:
“All that proceeds from Power is Good, all that springs from Weakness is Bad.”
“I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT?
My ‘future’ is the darkest thing in the world to me, but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods.”
In his private notes on the subject the author uses the expression “Superman” (always in the singular, by-the-bye), as signifying “the most thoroughly well-constituted type,” as opposed to “modern man”; above all, however, he designates Zarathustra himself as an example of the Superman.
In “Ecco Homo” he is careful to enlighten us concerning the precursors and prerequisites to the advent of this highest type, in referring to a certain passage in the “Gay Science”:—“In order to understand this type, we must first be quite clear in regard to the leading physiological condition on which it depends: this condition is what I call GREAT HEALTHINESS.
I know not how to express my meaning more plainly or more personally than I have done already in one of the last chapters (Aphorism 382) of the fifth book of the ‘Gaya Scienza’.” “We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand,”—it says there,—“ we firstlings of a yet untried future—we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than all healthiness hitherto.
He whose soul longeth to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal ‘Mediterranean Sea’, who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror, and discoverer of the ideal—as likewise how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet, and the godly non-conformist of the old style:—requires one thing above all for that purpose, GREAT HEALTHINESS—such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one unceasingly sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it!—And now, after having been long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief, nevertheless dangerously healthy, always healthy again,—it would seem as if, in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand—alas! that nothing will now any longer satisfy us!—“How could we still be content with THE MAN OF THE PRESENT DAY after such outlooks, and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness?
Sad enough; but it is unavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them.
Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one’s RIGHT THERETO: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been called holy, good, intangible, or divine; to whom the loftiest conception which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would already practically imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which will often enough appear INHUMAN, for example, when put alongside of all past seriousness on earth, and alongside of all past solemnities in bearing, word, tone, look, morality, and pursuit, as their truest involuntary parody—and WITH which, nevertheless, perhaps THE GREAT SERIOUSNESS only commences, when the proper interrogative mark is set up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy begins...”
Oh out near Stonehenge, I lived alone Oh out near Gamehendge, I chafed a bone Wilson, King of Prussia, I lay this hate on you Wilson, Duke of Lizards I beg it all trune for you
Talk my duke a mountain, Helping Friendly Book Inasfar as fiefdom, I think you bad crook Wilson, King of Prussia, I lay this hate on you Wilson, Duke of Lizards I beg it all trune for you
I talked to Mike Christian, Rog and Pete the same When we had that meeting, over down near Game(hendge) Wilson, King of Prussia, I lay this hate on you Wilson, Duke of Lizards I beg it all trune for you
You got me back thinkin' that you're the worst one I must inquire, Wilson Can you still have fun? Wilson Can you still have fun? Wilson Can you still have fun? Wilson
In the Gamehendge story, Wilson is a traveler from another land who arrives in Gamehendge looking to take over the entire land from the largely communist Lizards. Mighty lofty ambition for a single person, you may say, but these Lizards are pretty stupid. Wilson realizes that the Lizards rely almost entirely on the Helping Friendly Book, a single, mystical volume given to them by their god, Icculus, and that contains all of the knowledge inherent in the universe. Wilson is a keen thinker, and he steals the book, putting the Lizards at his mercy. He swings his heavy, domineering hand in vicious, sadistic circles over the entire land of Gamehendge. He tears down a huge chunk of the forest and builds an immense, glowering castle, naming the city that encircles it Prussia. He enslaves the Lizards both physically and mentally, and maintains this control by stowing the Helping Friendly Book in the highest tower of his new castle. At one point, Wilson hangs a young revolutionary for treason. This young rebel was Roger, the son of Errand Woolf, the leader of the rebellion against Wilson. The song "Wilson” is sung (read: angrily yelled) from the viewpoint of Errand Woolf, in a fit of rage at the rebel camp, shaking his tightly closed fist at Wilson’s castle looming in the distance.
“You can underestimate it, but — Life is nothing but a Series of Riddles,which are forcing you to cancel them, and gain The Right to take your Natural Place.”
