The Belt of Orion

FADE IN

1	EXT. CONSTELLATION OF ORION - NIGHT

Stars glitter like diamonds on the black velvet backdrop of space.
The Belt of Orion is center screen, but much nearer and larger
than ever seen by an Earth-bound astronomer.

A speck of light appears in the lower left corner of the screen.
No spaceship can be seen, but only a glowworm, a solitary sperma-
tosoan gliding through the womb of the universe. Over this we HEAR
the voice of an astronaut. He is concluding a report.

		ASTRONAUT'S VOICE
		(o.s.)
	So ends my last signal until we reach
	our destination. We are now on automatic,
	a mere hundred and five light years from
	our base ... and at the mercy of com-
	puters. I've tucked in my crew for the
	long sleep. I'll join them presently.

2	INT. CABIN OF SPACESHIP - ESTABLISHING SHOT - NIGHT

The cabin is neither cramped nor spacious, but about the size of the
President's cabin in Air Force One. In the immediate f.g. is a console
of dials and switches flanked by four chairs. Only one of the chairs
is occupied. The astronaut's back is to CAMERA. There is a ladder
amidships which leads to an escape hatch. The after Dart of the cabin
is obscured in darkness. We hear the MUSIC of a Mozart sonata emanating
	from a phonograph of stereotape. The astronaut is speaking into a
	microphone.

		ASTRONAUT
	Within the hour we shall complete
	the sixth month of our flight from
	Cape Kennedy. By our time, that is ...

He pauses, looking up at:

3	TWO LARGE CLOCKS - ON CABIN WALL

One clock is marked SELF TIME, but instead of twelve numerals it has
twenty-four. One of the needles is moving very slowly.

The other clock is labeled EARTH TIME, and its units, like those of a
	tachometer, are given by hundreds and thousands.

The largest needle of this clock makes one revolution every second.
	Over this we hear:

		ASTRONAUT'S VOICE
		(o.s.)
	But according to Dr. Hasslein theory of
	time in a vehicle traveling at close to
	the speed of light, old Mother Earth has
	aged a few thousand years since our de-
	parture -- while we have scarcely aged
	at all.

4	CLOSE ON ASTRONAUT

This is TAYLOR. He wears simple dungarees (or Churchill suit) and
	comfortable boots. He seems calm and pensive. Extracting the butt of
a cigar from the breast pocket of his dungarees, he lights it, then
	continues:

		TAYLOR
	It may be so. This much is probable: the
	men who sent us on this journey have long
	since been moldering in forgotten graves;
	and those, if any, who read this message
	are a different breed. Hopefully, a
	better one.

He begins to roll up his left sleeve.

		TAYLOR
	I leave the twentieth century without
	regret. Who was it? Marshall? ... said
	'Modern man is the missin 'a link between
	the ape and the human being.'

He removes the cigar from his mouth, turns to look out through one
of the portholes into the astral night.

		TAYLOR
	One final thought -- nothing scientific,
	purely personal. Seen from up here,
	everything looks different ... Time bends
	and space is boundless. It squashes a
	man's ego. He begins to feel like no more
	than a mote in the eye of eternity. And
	he is nagged by a question: what if any-
	thing, will greet us on the end of man's
	first journey to a star? Are we to believe
	that throughout these thousands of galaxies,
	these millions of stars, only one, that
	speck of solar dust we call Earth, has
	been graced -- or cursed -- by human life?
		(pause)
	I have to doubt it.

He extracts a hypodermic needle from his breast pocket and injects
it into the vein of his forearm. He continues speaking.

		TAYLOR
		(sardonically)
	That's about all. I wonder if Man, that
	marvel of the universe, that glorious
	paradox who has sent me to the unknown...
	still makes war against his brother., and
	lets his neighbor's children starve.

Taylor withdraws the hypodermic needle from his vein and secures it in
a drawer of the console.

		TAYLOR
	Well then, Earthmen: A missing link
	salutes you. Bless you, my descendants.

Taylor snuffs out the cigar butt and places it in the drawer beside the
	hypodermic. Then, flicking a switch Au cut off the Mozart, he rises and
looks up again at:

5	THE CLOCK MARKED EARTH TIME

The longest needle of this clock now makes nearly two revolutions per
second. The shortest needle points to the numeral 2105.

6	INT. CABIN - TRACKING WITH TAYLOR

Space scientists have presumably solved the problem of weightlessness,
for Taylor walks the short distance from; the console to the after
section without particular effort. CAMERA FOLLOWS him, and we can now
see four glass capsules, or "caskets", in the rear of the cabin. Taylor
looks down at them.

On Track for Revolution

Revolutions, Marx said, are the locomotives of history. 

‘Put the locomotive into top gear’, Lenin exhorted himself in a private note, scant weeks after October, ‘and keep it on the rails.’

But how could you keep it there if there really was only One True Way, one line, and it is blocked?

‘I have gone where you did not want me to go.’

“ In 1924, even as the vice closes around the experiment, Trotsky writes that in the world he wants, in the communism of which he dreams – a pre-emptive rebuke to the ghastly regime of bones to come – ‘the forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise’.

The specifics of Russia, 1917, are distinct and crucial. It would be absurd, a ridiculous myopia, to hold up October as a simple lens through which to view the struggles of today. But it has been a long century, a long dusk of spite and cruelty, the excrescence and essence of its time. Twilight, even remembered twilight, is better than no light at all. It would be equally absurd to say that there is nothing we can learn from the revolution. To deny that the sumerki of October can be ours, and that it need not always be followed by night.

John Reed interrupts his own narrative of Prokopovich’s speech to the Duma deputies, prevented by exasperated sailors from martyring themselves. ‘It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by switchmen,’ he records him saying. 

Then: ‘What he meant by “switchmen”, I never discovered.’ 

Louise Bryant, who was also present, likewise noted the odd word. ‘Just exactly what he meant by that was too much for my simple American brain.’

There is a probable answer in an unlikely place.

In 1917, Chaim Grade was a young child in Vilna, Lithuania. Much later, when he had become one of the world’s leading Yiddish writers, in the glossary to the English translation of his memoir Der mames shabosim – My Mother’s Sabbath Days – he records the following:

Forest Shack: Term for the switchmen’s booths along the railway tracks in the vicinity of Vilna. Before the Revolution of 1917, the area around the Forest Shacks was the clandestine meeting place for the local revolutionaries …

A nickname from a meeting place. It seems likely that the word Prokopovich deployed as epithet was a disdainful term for ‘revolutionaries’.

Prokopovich had been a Marxist. His move to liberalism paralleled that of many other heretics infected with so-called ‘Economism’, as well as that of the ‘Legal Marxists’. There was a kind of bleak rigour to their stageist dogmas, in which the epochs must succeed one another perforce, like stations along a line.

Little wonder he would scorn the Bolsheviks as switchmen. What could be more inimical to any trace of teleology than those who take account of the sidings of history? Or who even take to them?

The revolution of 1917 is a revolution of trains. History proceeding in screams of cold metal. The tsar’s wheeled palace, shunted into sidings forever; Lenin’s sealed stateless carriage; Guchkov and Shulgin’s meandering abdication express; the trains criss-crossing Russia heavy with desperate deserters; the engine stoked by ‘Konstantin Ivanov’, Lenin in his wig, eagerly shovelling coal. And more and more will come: Trotsky’s armoured train, the Red Army’s propaganda trains, the troop carriers of the Civil War. Looming trains, trains hurtling through trees, out of the dark.

Revolutions, Marx said, are the locomotives of history. ‘Put the locomotive into top gear’, Lenin exhorted himself in a private note, scant weeks after October, ‘and keep it on the rails.’

But how could you keep it there if there really was only one true way, one line, and it is blocked?

‘I have gone where you did not want me to go.’

In 1937, Bruno Schulz opens his story ‘The Age of Genius’ with a dizzying rumination on ‘events that have no place of their own in time’, the possibility that ‘all the seats within time might have been sold’.

Conductor, where are you?

Don’t let’s get excited …

Have you ever heard of parallel streams of time within a two-track time? Yes, there are such branch lines of time, somewhat illegal and suspect, but when, like us, one is burdened with contraband of supernumerary events that cannot be registered, one cannot be too fussy. Let us try to find at some point of history such a branch line, a blind track onto which to shunt these illegal events. There is nothing to fear

By the Forest Shacks are the points, the switches onto hidden tracks through wilder history.

The question for history is not only who should be driving the engine, but where. The Prokopoviches have something to fear, and they police these suspect, illegal branch lines, all the while insisting they do not exist.

Onto such tracks the revolutionaries divert their train, with its contraband cargo, unregisterable, supernumerary, powering for a horizon, an edge as far away as ever and yet careering closer.

Or so it looks from the liberated train, in Liberty’s dim light.

Listen to Your Holy Guardian Angel

“ I can’t be this big of an asshole without having The Truth to back me up; 

Otherwise I’d be a fucking NUT, doing this. 

But see, if you have The Truth with you, you can DO this. “

— Bill Hicks

The Chooser

Harry Potter - Neville's Speech Scene [HD]

 a place for you in our rank.

I'd like to say something.

Well, Neville, I'm sure we'd all be fascinated to hear what you have to say.

Doesn't matter that Harry is gone.

Stand down, Neville!

People die everyday!

Friends, family.

Yeah...

We lost Harry tonight.

He's still with us.

In here.

So as Fred, Remus...

Tonks...

All of them.

They didn't die in vain.

But you will.

Because you're Wrong!

Harry's heart did beat for us.

For all of us!

It's not over!

Confringo

Come on!

All remain into the castle.

We have to kill the snake. 

 

Earthquake at The Temple. Rocks fall.
 

SPENGLER :

Look out!

Outside Ivo Shandor Building
Rocks fall. Crowd screams.

Temple of Zuul
Voice of GOZER sounds.

GOZER The Gozarian :

Subcreatures! Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveler, has come! Choose and perish!

RAY :
What do you mean, choose? 

We don't understand!

GOZER The Gozarian :

Choose! Choose the form of The Destruk-torr!

PETER
Whoa! I get it, I get it. 

Very cute! Whatever we think of - 

If we think of J. Edgar Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us, okay? 

So empty your heads. Empty your heads. 

Don't think of anything. 

We've only got one shot at this.


GOZER The Gozarian :

 The choice is made! The Traveler has come!

PETER
Whoa! Whoa! 

Nobody choosed anything! Did you choose anything?

EGON :No!

PETER :
Did you?

WINSTON :
My mind's totally blank!

PETER :
I didn't choose anything!

PETER, EGON and WINSTON stare at RAY

RAY :
trembling
I couldn't help it. 

It just popped in There!

PETER
What? What just popped in There?

RAY
I - I tried to think -
stomping and screaming from below
EGON
Look!

RAY
No! It can't be!

WINSTON
What is it?

RAY
It can't be!

WINSTON
What did you do, Ray?

RAY
It can't be!

WINSTON
Aw, shit!

RAY
solemnly
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Outside Shandor Building
Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man stomps cars as people run and scream in terror. 

ELLEN

Q : Why Would You Be Doing This on, like, A Daytime Show....?

Because The Last Two Bastions of Faith and The Public Trust for Americans are in Celebrities, and in Technology — both of which, they worship.

See, now you KNOW that it had to have been real, because you saw it all explained to you on TV, by a Celebrity.

Bottom Woman

By now, everyone was used to me. 

I was the cousin who’s always visiting.

No one ever even asked me why that was.

bottom bitch (n.)

A bottom girl, a bottom woman or bottom bitch, sits atop the hierarchy of prostitutes working for a particular pimp. 

A bottom girl is usually the prostitute who has been with the pimp the longest and consistently makes the most money. 

Being the bottom girl gives the prostitute status and power over the other women working for her pimp. However, the bottom girl also bears many responsibilities. 

In U.S. v. Pipkins, the Eleventh Circuit described the bottom girl’s duties as "working the track in her pimp’s stead, running interference for and collecting money from the pimp's other prostitutes, and looking after the pimp's affairs if the pimp was out of town, incarcerated, or otherwise unavailable". 

Similarly, the PIP Training Manual explains the bottom girl’s obligations may include handling finances and training and recruiting other prostitutes. Bottom girls may also instruct and advise new pimps on the ways of the prostitution business. 

The Pimp Game, a published instructional guide for pimps, compares the bottom girl to a coach in the NBA, i.e. a former player who "knows the ins and outs of the game", and explains that, like the NBA coach, she is "the least paid on the team, but the one who works the hardest". 

She also has the most interaction with her pimp's prostitutes, giving them "pep talks" and keeping them in the game.

I've been a bottom bitch for 5 years.......

To persuade underage females to prostitute for them, the Defendants (and other pimps charged in the indictment) presented a vision of ostentatious living, promising fame and fortune. Pimps perpetrated this myth with their own flamboyant dress, flashy jewelry, and exotic, expensive cars. To support this apparently extravagant lifestyle, each pimp kept a stable of prostitutes with a well-defined pecking order. At the top of each pimp's organization was his "bottom girl," a trusted and experienced prostitute or female associate. Next in the pimp's chain of command was a "wife-in-law," a prostitute with supervisory duties similar to those of the bottom girl. A pimp's bottom girl or wife-in-law often worked the track in his stead, running interference for and collecting money from the pimp's other prostitutes. The bottom girl also looked after the pimp's affairs if the pimp was out of town, incarcerated, or otherwise unavailable.

The pimps also recognized a hierarchy among their own. "Popcorn pimps," "wanna-bes," and "hustlers" were the least respected, newer pimps. A "guerilla pimp" (as other pimps and prostitutes considered Moore) primarily used violence and intimidation to control his prostitutes. Others were regarded as "finesse pimps," who excelled in the psychological trickery needed to deceive juvenile females and to retain their services. Finally, "players" (apparently, in this case, Pipkins) were successful, established pimps who were well-respected within the pimp brotherhood.

Both pimps and prostitutes generally referred to their activities as "the game." To the pimps, an important component of the game was domination of their females through endless promises and mentally sapping wordplay, physical violence, and financial control. The pimps created a system in which their prostitutes were incapable of supporting themselves or escaping their reliance on the pimp. A prostitute lived either in her pimp's home or in a room at a motel or boarding house paid for by the pimp. The pimp provided clothes for his prostitute, as well as money for the prostitute to fix her hair and nails. The pimp also provided condoms to the prostitute, or money to buy condoms. Also, the pimp frequently used threats of violence to control his prostitutes, or rewarded his prostitutes with drugs for meeting monetary goals. Other times, a pimp dispensed drugs to a prostitute to ensure that she was able to function through the night and into the early morning hours.

The pimping subculture in Atlanta operated under a set of rules, presented in the video called Really Really Pimpin' in Da South. This videotape was made in Atlanta by Pipkins and Carlos Glover, a business associate. Really Really Pimpin' in Da South featured prominent Atlanta pimps, including Pipkins, explaining the rules of the game. This video, along with its companion piece, Pimps Up Hoes Down, outlined the pimp code of conduct, and was repeatedly shown to new pimps and prostitutes alike to concisely explain what was expected of a prostitute. The origin of Pimps Up Hoes Down is unknown. In essence, these videos taught that prostitutes were required to perform sexual acts, known as "tricks" or "dates," for money. Prostitutes turned tricks in adult clubs, in parking lots, on mattresses behind local businesses, in cars, in motel rooms, or in rooming houses. A prostitute charged $30 to $80 for each trick, and was required to turn over all of this money to her pimp. Some pimps gave their prostitutes a "quota" to earn over $1,000 a night.

Despite the pimps best efforts to subjugate their prostitutes, the rules allowed a prostitute to move from one pimp to another by "choosing." This was accomplished by the prostitute making her intentions known to the new pimp, and then presenting the new pimp with money, a practice known as "breaking bread." The new pimp would then "serve" the former pimp by notifying him that the prostitute had entered his fold. The former pimp was bound to honor the prostitute's decision to choose her new pimp. A prostitute who frequently moved from pimp to pimp was known as a "Choosey Susie." And, a prostitute might "bounce" from pimp to pimp by moving among different pimps without paying for the privilege of choosing.

Choosing another pimp was not without risk for the prostitute. A prostitute could be punished for merely looking at another pimp; this was considered "reckless eyeballing." Owner pimps apparently were afraid that if their prostitutes were sufficiently impressed with another pimp's vehicle, clothes, and manner, she might choose a new pimp.

Other rules governed a prostitute's conduct. She was required to surrender all of the money from her dates; if she did not, she would be guilty of "cuffing." She was also required to unquestioningly obey her pimp and treat him with respect; if she did not, she was "out of pocket." At the whim of her pimp, a prostitute was obligated to have sexual intercourse with him, another pimp, or even another prostitute.

The pimps sometimes brutally enforced these rules. Prostitutes endured beatings with belts, baseball bats, or "pimp sticks" (two coat hangers wrapped together). The pimps also punished their prostitutes by kicking them, punching them, forcing them to lay naked on the floor and then have sex with another prostitute while others watched, or "trunking" them by locking them in the trunk of a car to teach them a lesson.

The pimps did not service only the Metropolitan Avenue clientele. For example, Pipkins branched out on the Internet, forming a web-based escort service which allowed customers to select a particular prostitute from pictures posted on a website. Also, pimps sometimes sent their prostitutes to Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta because patrons paid a premium for prostitutes in that neighborhood. Pipkins entertained members of a municipal police force at his home on at least one occasion, where they engaged in sexual intercourse with his prostitutes.

While all the pimps did not pool their profits from prostitution, some did. And the pimps generally aided each other. Pimps bailed each other's prostitutes out of jail; mentored younger pimps; swapped prostitutes with each other to get a better "fit;" warned other pimps and their prostitutes of the presence of police; provided condoms, rides, and rooms for each other's prostitutes; jointly organized private prostitution parties; recruited juvenile prostitutes together; recruited juvenile prostitutes for each other; divided the track geographically to reduce competition; and traveled out of town together to prostitute females in other cities. Pimps also operated as a price-fixing cartel to regulate the prices that their prostitutes charged for different sexual services.

FDDR

With two D's, as he says, for a Double Dose of This Pimping. 

You see, a Pimp's Love is 

VERY different from that of a Square....

Well, I'm a King Bee

Buzzin' around yo' hive

Well, I'm a King Bee

Buzzin' around yo' hive

Well, I can make honey, baby

Let me come inside

I'm young and able

To buzz all night long

I'm young and able

To buzz all night long

Well, when you hear me buzzin', baby

Some stingin' is going on

Well, buzz awhile

'Sting-a-been'

Well, I'm a king bee

Want you to be my queen

Well, I'm a king bee

Want you to be my queen

Together we can make honey

The world ever, never, seen

Well, I'm a king bee

Can buzz all night long

Well, I'm a king bee

Can buzz all night long

Well, I can buzz better, baby

When yo' man is gone.

Then I said, ‛Sweet, I copped a beautiful yellow bitch tonight. I got her humping on the track with my girls. Sweet, the bitch is crazy about me. I know I’ll hold her for years.’ 

He said, ‛Slim, a pretty Nigger bitch and a white whore are just alike. They both will get in a stable to wreck it. They’ll leave the pimp on his ass with no whore. You gotta make ’em hump hard and fast. Stick ’em for long scratch quick. Slim, pimping ain’t no game of love. Prat ’em and keep your swipe outta ’em. Any sucker who believes a whore loves him shouldn’t a fell outta his mammy’s ass. 

‘Slim, I hope you ain’t sexed that pretty bitch yet. Believe me, Slim, a pimp is really a whore who’s reversed the game on whores. Slim, be as sweet as the scratch. Don’t be no sweeter. Always stick a whore for a bundle before you sex her. A whore ain’t nothing but a trick to a pimp. Don’t let ’em Georgia you. Always get your money in front just like a whore. 

‘Whores in a stable are like working chumps in the white man’s factory. They know in their sucker tickers they’re chumping. They both gotta have horns to blow their beefs into. They gotta have someone to listen while they bad mouth that Goddamn boss. 

‘A good pimp is like a slick white boss. He don’t ever pair two of a kind for long. He don’t ever pair two new bitches. He ain’t stuck ’em for no long scratch. A pair of new bitches got too much in common. They’ll beef to each other and pool their skull, plots, and split to the wind together. 

‘The real glue that holds any bitch to a pimp is the long scratch she’s hip she’s stuck for. A good pimp could cut his swipe off and still pimp his ass off. Pimping ain’t no sex game. It’s a skull game. 

‘A pimp with a shaky-bottom woman is like a sucker with a lit firecracker stuck in his ass. When his boss bitch turns sour and blows, all the other bitches in the stable flee to the wind behind her. 

‘There ain’t more than three or four good bottom women promised a pimp in his lifetime. I don’t care if he cops three hundred whores before he croaks. 

‘A good pimp has gotta have like a farm system for bottom women. He’s gotta know what bitch in the family could be the bottom bitch when mama bitch goes sour. 

‘He’s gotta keep his game tighter on his bottom bitch than on any bitch in the stable. He’s gotta peep around her ass while she’s taking a crap. He’s gottta know if it’s got the same stink and color it had yesterday. 

‘Slim, you’re in trouble until you cop the fourth whore. A stable is sets of teams playing against each other to stuff the pimp’s pockets with scratch. You got a odd bitch. You ain’t got but a team and a half. 

‘A young pimp like you is gotta learn not to cop blind. Your fourth bitch is gotta be right to pair with the third whore. 

‘She can’t be no ugly bitch unless she likes pussy. She can’t be smarter than the pretty bitch. She can be younger, even prettier, but she’s gotta be dumber. 

‘Slim, all whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss. It thrills ’em when the pimp makes mistakes. They watch and wait for his downfall. 

‘A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whores. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way. 

‘The poor sonuvabitch has joined a hate club he can’t quit. He can’t do a turn around and be a whore himself in the white boss’s stable unless he was never a pimp in the first place. 

‘So, Kid, rest and dress and pimp till you croak. I ain’t had no rest in a coupla days. I think I’ll try to get some doss. Kid, these skull aches are getting bad. Good luck, Kid. Call me tomorrow, late. 

‘Oh yeah, happy birthday, Kid. That rundown was a birthday present.’ 

My skull was reeling from his rundown on the way home. It was five A.M. when I got there. The runt and Ophelia were asleep. They were locked together like Siamese twins. 

I picked up my scratch off the dresser. It was two and a quarter bills. I went and looked in on Chris. She was in bed reading a book. She looked up and put the book across her belly. She reached under the pillow. She gave me a roll of bills. I checked it. There was six bits. It wasn’t bad for a new bitch who got to the track late. She held out her arms. She was naked. I had to cop her some sleep wear. To avoid her arms I lit a cigarette. She said, ‛Daddy, did I do all right?’ 

I said, ‛Chris, you made a start. It’s like the first buck of that million you’re gonna make. I oughta frame it like a sucker who’s opened a new hot-dog stand. 

‘I want you to put that book down. Get some doss. I want you to take a fin to Leroy tomorrow. Hip him I’m your man now. 

‘The family is gonna Cabaret tonight. It’s my birthday today. I’ll get a rundown of your first night when I wake up. I’m gonna cop you a partner for the street real soon, baby. Good night, Chris.’ 

When I woke up, it was one P.M. I turned on my side. Two big brown eyes were looking at me. It was Ophelia. She started kissing my eyelids. 

She said, ‘Daddy, you’re so pretty. You got eyelashes just like a bitch’s. Phyllis took Chris to visit that sucker in the shit-house. Daddy, can I kiss my candy?’ 

I said, ‛Christ in Heaven, ain’t I got a whore in this family without a hot jib. Go on bitch. Then get your kit and trim my toe nails and paint ’em. We’re all going to get pretty for my birthday party tonight.’ 

She said, ‛How old are you, Daddy? I bet you’re nineteen.’ 

I said, ‛Bitch, I’m a hundred-and-nineteen. I just got a pretty baby face.’ 

Chris and the runt got back from Leroy around three P.M. Chris had a serious look on her face. 

I said, ‛Well how did he take the news? Did he hang himself from the bars before your eyes?’ 

She said, ‛Daddy, he fell apart. He would have killed me if he could have reached me. He cried like his heart was broken. He said he was going to kill you wherever he saw you. I feel bad, Daddy. He really upset me. I’m going to lie down.’

I thought, ‛That square chump is sure a whingding. I’m gonna put the hurt to him fast if I run into him.’ 

We partied at a swank white joint near the Gold Coast. We got home at four A.M. I was sober. The whores were stoned. I went and got into my bed. I dozed. An hour later I woke up. The three whores were crowded into bed with me. They were stroking and kissing me all over. Mr Thriller sure ached to be a circus performer. I was having trouble convincing Mr Thriller he had to take only one at a time. He was a pimp not a freak. The ring-master put the show on and stayed cool. It was eight o’clock before I got to sleep. It was a month before I copped the fourth whore. She was a cute tiny seventeen-year-old broad, about Chris’s color. The stable had brought her home from a coffee joint at closing time. They took their breaks there. The little broad was a waitress in the joint. She was curious about the whore game. She was wild to wear flashy clothes. She thought I was rich when she dug the pad. The excitement in her eyes hipped me I could make a fast cop. I took her into the living room. I cracked her into saying she’d be my woman and stop slaving for thirty a week. Then I gave her the pitch to tie the knot. She was sitting in a chair. I stood looking down at her. Her eyes never left my face. It was maybe like a rattle-snake charming a robin. I said, ‛Jo Ann, I gotta congratulate you. You’re not only lucky, you’re smart. You knew when you saw me that I was going to be your man. I’m hip that you were just waiting to meet me. ‛You have wanted since you were a little girl to live an exciting, glamorous life. Well, Sugar, you’re on Blood’s magic carpet. I’m gonna make your life with me out-shine your flashiest day dreams. ‛I’m a pimp. You gotta be a whore. I don’t have squares. I’m gonna be your mother, your father, your brother, your friend, and your lover. The most important thing I’m gonna be to you is your man. The manager of the scratch you make in the street. Now, sweet bitch, have you followed me so far?’ She whispered, ‛Yes, Blood, I understand.’ I reached down and took her hand. I took her to the window overlooking the city. I held her against me. I said, ‛Look out there, baby angel. Out there is where you work. Those streets are yours because you’re my woman. I’ve got five Gs in fall money. If you get busted for anything, even murder, I can free you. Baby Bitch, this family is like a small army. We got rules and regulations we never break. ‛I am really two studs. One of them is sweet and kind to his whores when they don’t break the rules. The other one comes out insane and dangerous when the rules are broken. Little baby, I’m sure you’ll never meet him. ‛Never forget this family is as one against the cold, cruel world. We are strong because we love each other. There’s no problem I can’t solve. There’s no question I can’t answer about this game. ‛Tomorrow I’m going to start filling your skull with everything about this game and street. I’m going to make a star outta you angel. Don’t ask any outsider anything. Come to Chris or me. ‛My little baby, I’ll protect you with my last drop of blood. If any mother-fucker in those streets out there, stud or bitch, hurts you, or threatens you, come to me. He will have to cut my throat first, shoot me first. I take an oath to protect you for as long as you are my woman. Baby, I know that’s for always. Now repeat after Daddy, baby.’ She squeezed tightly against me. She was in a trance looking up at me. She chanted along with me. ‛From this moment I belong to Blood. I am his whore. I will do everything he tells me. I won’t ever fuck with his scratch. I will hump my heart out every night. I’ve gotta make a bill a night.’ She slept with Chris that night. After the first week I knew she was the perfect partner for Chris. Sweet was right. Chris and Jo Ann ran Phyllis and Ophelia into a panting lather in the street. I started wanting that fifth whore.

King D.

Well, I'm a King Bee

Buzzin' around yo' hive

Well, I'm a King Bee

Buzzin' around yo' hive

Well, I can make honey, baby

Let me come inside

I'm young and able

To buzz all night long

I'm young and able

To buzz all night long

Well, when you hear me buzzin', baby

Some stingin' is going on

Well, buzz awhile

'Sting-a-been'

Well, I'm a king bee

Want you to be my queen

Well, I'm a king bee

Want you to be my queen

Together we can make honey

The world ever, never, seen

Well, I'm a king bee

Can buzz all night long

Well, I'm a king bee

Can buzz all night long

Well, I can buzz better, baby

When yo' man is gone.

BLY : He was a Wonderful Old Man. But he was waiting to be a Mentor, a Male Mother, to young American scientists, and they didn’t know The Tradition and they didn’t go to him.

MOYERS: But in these traditional cultures, when these older men played this role for young men, what were the older men? What were the Male Mothers doing for the boys?

BLY: When The Male Mother is there, and The Mentor is there, one thing he does is bless the young men. 

And it’s so strange, that men need blessing from older men. 

Robert Moore, I heard him say in a tape, “If you’re a young man, and you’re not being admired by an older man, you’re being hurt.” 

I like that a great deal.

So that many women bless young men, but the man still needs a blessing from an older man. 

You know, I heard Robert Moore say it to a group of men: “How many of you have admired a younger man in the last two weeks, and told him so?” Silence. 

“How many of you were admired by older men when you were young?” Silence. 

Then he said that sentence, “If you are a young man and you’re not being admired by an older man, you’re being hurt.”

Courage in The Face of Adversity : Tecumseh Personifies It

Tecumseh's war aims -- he was still incredibly, I have to say, in 1812 looking at some possible way to regain the Ohio boundary as a boundary between the white settlements and the Indians. 

And he sold that goal to the British.

Narrator: Arriving at the undermanned British outpost of Fort Malden in the waning days of June -- where most were convinced that Canada would fall before the approaching American army -- Tecumseh changed the military equation on the ground in less than three weeks, rallying wavering Indian allies to the cause and bolstering British resolve, and astonishing the British commander in charge, General Isaac Brock, with his extraordinary military skills and sheer force of personality.

John Sugden, biographer: Brock's remark is a classic one. He spoke to Tecumseh for a very short time, a mere few weeks. 

But he wrote back to the British Prime Minister, and he says that, "I've talked to the Indian chiefs, and there are some extraordinary characters amongst them. But here's Tecumseh," he says, "a more gallant or sagacious warrior does not exist."

Narrator: 

Tecumseh's brilliance on the field of battle in the summer of 1812 would cement his reputation

among the British high command as one of the greatest military leaders of all time. In little more than three weeks, the small but highly mobile force under his command completely unnerved the American army led by William Hull, forcing him to retreat back across the Detroit River to the American side and effectively bringing the invasion of Canada to an end.

On August 4th, at the Battle of Brownstown south of Detroit, with only 24 warriors at his command,

Tecumseh attacked and routed an American force six times as large -- killing 19, wounding 12, while himself losing only a single warrior.

Colin Calloway, historian: 

Tecumseh's finest hour is probably Detroit in 1812, when Tecumseh teams up with Isaac Brock, who finally seems to be the person who is going to deliver on the promises that the British have been making so long. Tecumseh and Brock together mastermind the capture of Detroit.

Narrator: 

On August 16th, at the Battle of Detroit, Tecumseh convinced the American defenders inside the

fort that they were facing an army many times greater than their own, parading his small host of warriors again and again through a clearing in the forest. Before the British and Indian attack had even begun, a white flag appeared above the ramparts of the fort, and the American army marched out and surrendered their weapons. It was one of the most humiliating defeats ever suffered by an American army.

David Edmunds, historian: 

Fort Detroit falls, Fort Michillimackinaw falls.  

Tecumseh and Brock, who were very close, are able to take Fort Detroit. 

They're able to, generally, gain the upper hand here on the Detroit frontier.

Colin Calloway, historian: 

And it seems as if the vision of an independent Indian confederacy -- an independent Indian state, if you like, supported by British allies, but independent of the United States -- is on the brink of becoming a reality.

David Edmunds, historian: 

And then, unfortunately for Tecumseh -- and unfortunately for tribal people --

General Isaac Brock is killed fighting the Americans over by Niagara. And the new British commander is named Proctor. And he's much less aggressive, and much more interested in just defending Canada, and in not really helping tribal people retake part of Ohio from the Americans. Tecumseh has to continually goad Proctor to march against the Americans. 

They invade Ohio twice, attempting to take Fort Meigs, which was an American fort near modern Toledo, and are unsuccessful.

Narrator: In the fall of 1813, the British fleet was defeated not far from Detroit at the Battle of Lake Erie, ceding control of the Great Lakes to the Americans. 

By then, Lalawethika and a ragged band of followers had appeared in his brother's camp along the Detroit River in Ontario -- driven from Indiana by their old nemesis, William Henry Harrison -- who even now was moving north at the head of a vastly reinforced American army.

David Edmunds, historian: 

The Americans invade Canada. And particularly after Perry's victory on Lake Erie, the British want to abandon the Detroit frontier and flee to what is now Toronto. And Tecumseh makes them stand and fight.

Colin Calloway, historian: 

The British-Indian army turns to make a stand at Moraviantown, on the Thames River in Ontario, in 1813. The outcome of the battle seems really to have been a foregone conclusion. By the time the British general Proctor actually stops to turn to fight, he has lost the confidence not only of his Indian allies, but of his own men. When the fighting breaks out, the British resistance is minimal. What resistance is mounted is mounted by Tecumseh and the Indian warriors.

Narrator: 

The final British betrayal would come on the cold, misty morning of October 5th, 1813, when, as

Harrison's vastly superior American forces began their attack, the British simply abandoned their Indian allies entirely and left them to fend for themselves on the field of battle.

David Edmunds, historian: 

And in one of the more remarkable speeches given throughout American history, Tecumseh says to the British, "Look. You have somewhere to go. 

But we are standing here, and we are fighting for our homeland. 

And if you want to run, you run. 

But leave us the guns and ammunition, because we will stand and fight."

Tecumseh (Michael Greyeyes): 

Listen! Father! We are much astonished to see you tying up everything and preparing to run the other way. You always told us to remain here and take care of our lands. It made our hearts glad to hear that was your wish. But now we see you drawing back like a fat animal, running off with its tail between its legs.

Listen! Father! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land. We, therefore, wish to remain and face ourenemy should they make their appearance. If you have an idea of going away, leave us the guns and ammunition and you may go and welcome for it. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend our lands, and if it is his will, we shall leave our bones upon them.

John Sugden, historian: 

And then, finally, at the end, you often tell great leaders in the way they react in adversity. He knew that the British had given way before they engaged themselves. And, yet, there is no question of him retreating -- there is no question of him doing the "sensible" thing, which is to fight another day. He has committed himself to this act. He has said he's going to defend this land, and, if necessary, he's

going die for this land. And that's what he does.

David Edmunds, historian: 

And you couldn't think, in some ways, of a more fitting way for Tecumseh to die. He dies in the final battle here for the control of the Great Lakes. And he dies surrounded by his comrades. He dies killed by the Americans. And in the aftermath, his body is mutilated so badly by Harrison's Kentucky militia that the Americans who know him can't really identify him.

Colin Calloway, historian: 

And with Tecumseh dies, of course, the person who has held together the Indian

confederacy -- the person who has represented the best hope for Indian independence in North America. The death of Tecumseh puts, in a sense, finality on the American conquest of that area that what we know now as an American heartland, is going to be American. There will be no place in there for Indian people.

Stephen Warren, historian: 

I think Tecumseh is, in a sense, saved by his death. He's saved for immortality through death on the battlefield.

John Sugden, biographer: 

One of the great things in icons is to bow out at the right time, and one of the things Tecumseh does is he never lets you down. 

He was there, articulating his position -- uncompromisingly pro-Native American position. 

He never signs the treaties. 

He never reneges on those basic as principles of the sacrosanct aboriginal holding of this territory. 

He bows out at the peak of this great movement he is leading. 

He's there, right at the end, whatever the odds are, fighting for it into the dying moments.

Colin Calloway, historian: 

I think one of the things that is so important about Tecumseh is that he is person who by his vision and by his personality and the way he conducts himself gives us glimpses of humanity at its best. 

That in the most difficult of situations -- in the most hopeless of situations, perhaps -- people can have the courage to stand up and fight for what they believe in. 

Courage in The Face of Adversity : Tecumseh Personifies It

Kevin Williams, Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma: 

Hope -- hope and freedom. That's what I thought he stood for. And his vision that he had, the way he looked into the future and tried to stop progress for the red people.

Sherman Tiger, Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma: 

For some people, they may call him a troublemaker. And I think that's because, in the end, he lost. 

Had he won, he'd have been, you know, a hero.

But I think, to a degree, he still has to be recognized as a hero, for what he attempted to do. If he had a little more help, maybe he would have got a little farther down the line. If the British would have backed him up, like they were supposed to have, maybe the United States is only half as big as it is today.

SHAW

George Bernard Shaw Speaks on Hitler and Germany 1935

If thou wert My Fool, Nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten

for being old before thy time --

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst

been wise.

If we are on the rocks, with most of the world, do you think we are on the same rocks? Or, Have we struck a specially national reef of our own?

Just the same old rock, on which idleness and parasitism are idolized, subsidized, and glorified, whilst useful labor and honest self-support are starved and despised. . . .

 

If we are all on the rocks -- What must we do to get refloated? What must we do to be saved? You cannot, like your Prime Minister, just wave your hands ineffectively and vanish from the stage.

My Prime Minister vanished because he was fit for nothing but being Prime Minister in a party government. But his program remains. There is no longer any doubt or obscurity or indefiniteness as to what needs to be done. Of course it is not clear to muddleheads: nothing is clear to muddleheads. And it is not known to invincible ignorance. But the muddleheads and incurable ignoramuses will have to do just what they are told or they will be the ruin of us. Good morning.

 

G. BERNARD SHAW

Great Malvern

25th July 1934

Ruining Your Heroes: George Bernard Shaw 

"Wonderful World of Stu"

 

Talk a Lot, Don't You?

CAN I FINISH?

What's genuinely funny is that years later, I came across a Canadian TV Talk with Dr. Jordan Peterson debating with a Movement Atheism Activist who was representing a small, militant atheist organisation who had bought up ad space on the sides of Ontario City Buses to display atheist slogans --

And ALL this guy wanted to talk about was male infant circumcision and female genital mutilation, no matter what was said to him -- he just was NOT listening, he was just hearing what he wanted to hear (or rather, what he DIDN'T want to hear)

And he just proceeded to get angrier and angrier and angrier, and angrier, and ANGRIER -- just exactly like this.

WOLVES

Joan Collins: 'Marilyn Monroe Warned Me About the Wolves in Hollywood'

 I come alone. Very well.

Lay down your weapons and come in peacefully --

Like The Wolves of Winter.

I warn of The Day When The Earth shall fall asunder, and all of Heaven too. 

The Wolves of Fenric shall return for their treasure, and then shall The Dark Evil rule eternally. 

This is it. The Final Battle between The Gods and The Beasts --

It's now, Judson. The Curse of Fenric.

The Killing of The Divine King

The Golden Bough: The Killing of The Divine King (René Girard)

Morte d'Arthur

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 

Among the mountains by the winter sea; 

Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, 

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, 

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 

A broken chancel with a broken cross, 

That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 

On one side lay the ocean, and on one 

Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

         Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 

"The sequel of to-day unsolders all 

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 

They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we 

Shall never more, at any future time, 

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 

Walking about the gardens and the halls 

Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 

I perish by this people which I made,— 

Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 

To rule once more—but let what will be, be, 

I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 

That without help I cannot last till morn. 

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how 

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

Holding the sword—and how I row'd across 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king: 

And, wheresoever I am sung or told 

In aftertime, this also shall be known: 

But now delay not: take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle mere: 

Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word." 

         To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 

"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 

Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 

A little thing may harm a wounded man. 

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, 

Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

         So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept 

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 

Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 

Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 

Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 

By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 

Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

         There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work 

Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 

That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 

This way and that dividing the swift mind, 

In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd 

Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 

There in the many-knotted water-flags, 

That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 

So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

         Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 

"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 

What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?" 

         And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 

"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 

And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

         To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 

"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 

Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 

Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 

For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, 

Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 

This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 

Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 

As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 

I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

         Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 

Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought; 

But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 

His palms together, and he cried aloud, 

         "And if indeed I cast the brand away, 

Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 

Should thus be lost forever from the earth, 

Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.

What good should follow this, if this were done? 

What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, 

Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 

Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 

An act unprofitable, against himself? 

The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 

What record, or what relic of my lord 

Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 

And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept, 

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 

Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 

Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 

Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake; 

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 

So might some old man speak in the aftertime 

To all the people, winning reverence. 

But now much honour and much fame were lost." 

         So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 

And hid Excalibur the second time, 

And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

         Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:

"What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?" 

         And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 

"I heard the water lapping on the crag, 

And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

         To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 

"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 

Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 

Authority forgets a dying king, 

Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 

That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 

In whom should meet the offices of all, 

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: 

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 

I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

         Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 

And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 

Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword,

And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 

Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, 

And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, 

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 

By night, with noises of the northern sea. 

So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 

And lightly went the other to the King. 

         Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 

"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 

Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" 

         And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 

"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 

Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 

Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 

So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 

But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

         And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 

"My end draws nigh; 't is time that I were gone. 

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

         So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 

And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 

Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 

And would have spoken, but he found not words, 

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 

O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 

And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

         But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, 

Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 

When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King 

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick! 

I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 

But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd 

Larger than human on the frozen hills. 

He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 

Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 

Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 

And barren chasms, and all to left and right 

The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 

His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— 

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, 

And the long glories of the winter moon. 

         Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge 

Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 

Beneath them; and descending they were ware 

That all the decks were dense with stately forms 

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these 

Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose 

A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 

And, as it were one voice, an agony 

Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 

All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 

Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

         Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge," 

And to the barge they came. There those three Queens 

Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 

But she that rose the tallest of them all 

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 

And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 

And call'd him by his name, complaining loud 

And dropping bitter tears against his brow 

Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white

And colourless, and like the wither'd moon 

Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 

And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— 

That made his forehead like a rising sun 

High from the daïs-throne—were parch'd with dust; 

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 

So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 

From spur to plume a star of tournament, 

Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

         Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: 

"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 

For now I see the true old times are dead, 

When every morning brought a noble chance, 

And every chance brought out a noble knight. 

Such times have been not since the light that led 

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 

But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world; 

And I, the last, go forth companionless, 

And the days darken round me, and the years, 

Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

         And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge: 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 

I have lived my life, and that which I have done 

May He within Himself make pure! but thou, 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 

Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 

For what are men better than sheep or goats 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 

Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 

For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

But now farewell. I am going a long way 

With these thou seëst—if indeed I go— 

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 

To the island-valley of Avilion; 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 

Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 

And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 

         So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 

Revolving many memories, till the hull 

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 

And on the mere the wailing died away.