Saturday, 7 November 2020

BRIDE


“The fact that it controls us.


I don’t know why all people aren’t fascinated with it. 


It makes beautiful sounds, and it makes a lot of times some incredible light


It runs many things in Our World and it’s beautiful


It’s sometimes Dangerous, but it’s Magical


It’s such a Power and it can make some beautiful images… and sounds.”


- Why David  Lynch 

finds Electricity fascinating 







“My armor was never a distraction or a hobby, it was a cocoon, and now I'm a changed man. 

You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys, but one thing you can't take away - 

I am Iron Man.”


One week earlier......



Dr. Pretorius: 
Do you know 
Who Henry Frankenstein is 
and Who YOU Are?

CREATURE : 
Yes, I know. 
Made me — from Dead

I love Dead. Hate Living

Dr. Pretorius: 
You're Wise in Your Generation. 

We must have a long talk, and then I have an important call to make.


Creature :
Woman - Friend - Wife.





HARKER :
You're a Monster. 

DRACULA :
And you're a Lawyer!
Nobody's Perfect.



Ah, a stake through The Heart.
You see, sometimes The Legends are right.
This is not one you can test too often, though.
I only ever have three brides at a time.

HARKER:
"Brides"?

DRACULA :
Brides, yes. 
I think that's The Right Word for it.
You see, um...
 
[ CLEARS HIS THROAT ]
 
....I am Trying to reproduce...
 
...which, frankly, can be a bit of a Challenge when There is Only One of You.


Van Helsing :

He was a Brave Man.

He must have loved you very much.


Mina Harker : 

What is he?

What is Count Dracula?


Van Helsing :

In Life, he was a Prince of exceptional learning and attainment.


In Death, I suppose you could say he's 

The Best of The Vampires.


Mina Harker : 

The Best?


Van Helsing :

The most successful, I mean.

Most are feral, half-mad. 

They rarely last long and yet, somehow, Dracula has found a way to retain his human form and intellect, more or less intact, for hundreds of years.


Mina Harker : 

By drinking blood?


Van Helsing :

Ah, they all drink blood.

Dracula has learned to do it WELL... 

I think by choosing his victims with the greatest of care.

Even in Death, he has retained the discrimination of an aristocrat.


Mina Harker : 

And so he took my Johnny.


Van Helsing :

Come, the Mother Superior will want to lead us in prayer.


Mina Harker : 

I don't see the point in praying.


Van Helsing :

God is Nowhere.

In which case, 

it is up to us to 

Stop Count Dracula.

And we will.


Won't we?


Mina Harker : 

Yes.


Van Helsing :

We will.


Mina Harker : 

Goodbye, Johnny Blue Eyes.

I shan't ever love anyone else, you know.


Van Helsing :

Quite right.







BRIDE OF DRACULA :
He doesn't know I can get out of The Box -- 
Don't tell him.

HARKER :
I won't.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Are you His Friend now?

HARKER :
No. I, er...
I-I.. I work for him.
I'm a Lawyer.
From England.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I think he's made you His Friend.

HARKER :
Why?

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
What's England?

HARKER :
It's where I'm from.
You know it.
You're... Speaking English.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I learnt it.

SHE LAUGHS

HARKER :
How? 
 
BRIDE OF DRACULA :
It tasted fun.

HARKER :
Tasted?

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Once you are The Count's Friend, 
all languages are the same.
I'm hungry.

HARKER :
Was it you at The Window?
You left The Message?

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I smelt you.
 
HARKER :
You're Trapped Here.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
You're trapped too. 
 
HARKER :
I want to Help You.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Tell him I'm hungry!
He only gives me scraps.
Tiny little things.
Tell him I finished the last one.
I finished it really quickly.

I'm hungry! Agh!

SHE GROWLS

HARKER :
Look at it! Look at it!
It is The Sign of The Cross.
The Symbol of Our Lord.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I know.
It's pretty.

Camille PagliaSo now Today we have this situation - and it’s considered Heresy to raise This Issue - that Young Women are told, 

‘There’s one Future for you; 
You are a Future Leader; 
You must Move Forward.’ 

For four years of College and perhaps some Professional Classes.  
 
It may be that Young Women’s Bodies are signaling that they Want to Be Mothers. 
 
Maybe there are signals coming from The Body of maybe not-wanting This System of Education that was devised for MEN, being funneled along, channeled along in this mechanism. 

So Young Women feel unhappy, They don’t know why

They have no Sense of Identity. 

If they want to Marry and Drop Out of College and Have a Baby, they will be treated as Traitors to Their Class. 

‘What? You are a Future Leader. Have a baby? 
Only working- class women would do that.’ 

I find working-class women, in general, far more rounded as personalities. They express themselves forcefully, they have body language that takes up space. 
 
A Man says something to them on The Street, they are right back in their face. 

It’s the bourgeois girls who are taught that they’re Special, who have to postpone Actual Life for all these years. 

These are The Girls who are misjudged in the fraternity party setting. 

These are The Girls who run for parental protection and hand-holding, on the committee investigating what went wrong on their Date. 
 
So yes, I think that what you have located. . . 
 
That’s Very Interesting, 
 
The Idea that These Young Girls who are so sensitive in College, so unable to handle their sex life, are the product of Older Parents because they went through The Professional Career track. 
 
Yes, and they have not had the experience of the competitiveness and teasing of other siblings

Peterson: Also, the thing about Young Parents is they don’t care as much as Older Parents, and that actually turns out to be better

Because What You Really Want for Your Children is minimum necessary intervention. And the developmental literature is actually quite clear on this. 

So if you’re at home with your child, The Best Role that you can play is to be there, but not to be interacting with The Child all the time. 

The Child should be off doing Whatever it is That Children Do, which, generally, is playing with other children without it being mediated by screens and technology.  
 
Because that’s how they formulate their identity. And that’s how they learn to play joint games with other people. 

And The Parent is supposed to be there as a recourse for The Child when they go out a little bit farther than they can tolerate, and have to come back and get some security

But that’s especially not what happens to single children, because they’re basically raised as Miniature Adults. 

And I wonder, too, like how much of the antipathy towards. . . 

These are dark musings. And I would say, how much of the antipathy towards men that’s being generated by, say, college-age women is deep repugnance for the role that they’ve been designed, and a disappointment with the men. . . You know, you think of those. . . I can’t remember the culture. 

The basic marital routine was to ride into the village and grab the bride and run away with her on a horse. 

It’s like the motorcycle gang member who rips the too-naive girl out of the bosom of her family

Paglia: Yeah, there used to be bride stealing. It was quite widespread. 

Peterson: Right, so I kind of wonder if part of the reason that modern university women aren’t so angry is because that fundamental feminine role is actually being denied to them. 

And they’re objecting to that at a really, really fundamental level. 

Like a level of primitive outrage. 

Paglia: Well, what’s happened is the chaos that my generation of the 1960s bequeathed through the sexual revolution. 

When I arrived in college in 1964 the colleges were still acting in loco parentis, in place of a parent, so my dormitory, all women’s dormitory, we women had to sign in at eleven o’clock at night. 

The Men could Run Free The Entire Night. 

So it was My Generation of Women that rose up and said, ‘Give us the same freedom as men have,’ and the colleges replied, ‘No. The World is Dangerous. You could be raped. We have to protect you against rape.’ 

And What We Said, was, ‘Give us the freedom to risk rape.’ 

What Today’s Women don’t understand: it’s The Freedom that you WANT. 

It’s the same Freedom that Gay Men have when they go and they pick up A Stranger some place. 

They know it’s dangerous, they know they could end up beaten up or killed, but they find it hot

If you want Freedom, if you want Equality, then you have to start Behaving Like a Man. 

So What We Did is, We gave Freedom to these Young Women for several generations, but My Generation had been raised in a far more resilient and robust culture. 
 
We had The Strength to Know What We Wanted and to Fight for What We Wanted. These Young Women have been raised in this terribly protected way. 
 
So I think in some strange fashion that all these demands for intrusion from these Stalinist committees, investigating dates and so on - it’s a way to reinstitute The Rules that My Generation threw out The Window. 

So I think these young women are desperate. 

Not only that, but I have spoken very strongly in a piece I wrote for Time Magazine. It was in my recent book that raising the drinking age in this country from 18 to 21 has had a direct result in these disasters of binge drinking fraternity parties. 

Let college students, the way we could, go out as freshmen, have a beer, sit in a protected adult environment, learn how to discourse with The Opposite Sex in a Safe Environment. 

And now today, because of this stupid rule that young people can’t even buy a drink in a bar until they’re 21, we have these fraternity parties that are like it’s the caveman era. 

Well of course in this modern age this advantages men. Men Want to Hook Up. Men Want to Have Sex. Women don’t understand What Men Want. 

Women put out because they’re hoping The Man will continue to be interested in them. 

[ Like their Father never was. ]

The Man just wants Experience. The hormones drive toward. . . 

To me, I theorize that the sex drive in men is intertwined with Hunt and Pursuit

This is what women don’t understand. 

And if women understood what I understand from my transgender perspective. . . These women on the streets. . . You know, I am, obviously, a Madonna admirer, and I support pornography and prostitution, so I don’t want what I’m about to say to seem conservative because it isn’t. 

What I’m saying is that women on the streets. . . Young women who are jogging with no bra on, short shorts, and have earbuds in their ears, just jogging along. 

These Women do not understand The Nature of The Human Mind. 

They do not understand The Nature of Psychosis. 

And this intertwining that I’m talking about of The Hunt and Pursuit thing. 

They’re triggering a Hunt Thing. . . 

Just what you have talked about in terms of The Zebra Herd.

They are triggering The Hunt Impulse in Psychotic Men. 

"There goes a very appetizing and totally oblivious animal, bouncing along here."

And we’re in a period now where psychosis is not understood at all

Young Women have had no exposure to movies like Psycho. You know, the kind of rapists, serial murderer thing and so on. 

The kind of strange dynamic which has to do with assault on the ‘mother imago’ in the mind of a psychotic. 

I think there’s an incredible naïveté. 

These young women are emerging and going to college in this like incredible Dionysian environment of orgiastic sexual experience in fraternity houses. 

They’re completely unprepared for it. 

And so you’re getting all this outrage. So feminist rhetoric has gotten more and more extreme in its portrayal of Men as Evil. 

But in fact what we have is a Chaos. It’s a Chaos in The Sexual Realm. The Girls have not been told Anything Real in terms of biological substratum to sexual activity.

Peterson: No, that’s full of lies about what constitutes consent, too. 

And it’s become something that’s essentially portrayed linguistically as a sequence of progressive contracts, which is. . . 

You know, I’ve thought for a while that we’re living in the delusional fantasy of a naive thirteen year old girl. 

That basically sums up our culture. And I look at all these sexual rules that permeate the academia, and I think two things. 

The first thing I think is, well. . . I know because I was an alcohol researcher for a long time, and you know that 50% of violent crimes are directly contributed to alcohol. 

So if you’re murdered, there’s about a 50% chance that you’re drunk and about a 50% chance that the person who kills you is drunk. And alcohol is the only drug that we know  that actually amplifies aggression. 

It does that in laboratory situations. Plus it’s a great disinhibitor. 

So what alcohol does is. . . It doesn’t make you oblivious to the future consequences of your actions, because if you ask someone who’s drunk about the consequences of Something Stupid, they can tell you what the consequences are. 

But it makes you Not Care

And it does that because it’s technically an anxiolytic like barbiturates or like benzodiazepines. And it also has an activating property for many people who drink, so it’s a stimulant and an anxiolytic at the same time. 

And a very, very potent. . . It’s very potent for both of them. 

You know, we put young people together and douse them in alcohol at the binge drinking level - which also interferes with memory consolidation, which of course makes things much more complex - and then we’re surprised when there are sexual misadventures. 

And then it’s also attributed almost purely to the predatory element that’s part and parcel of Masculinity, but a tremendous amount of that is also Naivety and Stupidity. 

Because we expect. . . 18 year old guys, especially the ones that aren’t, that haven’t been successful with girls, which is like 85% of them because the successful men are a very small percentage of men. 

The 85% who haven’t been successful with men or with women - they don’t know what the hell they’re doing at all. 

And part of the reason they’re getting drunk is to garner up enough courage to actually make an advance. 

Because another thing I think women don’t understand, especially with regards to Young Men is, just exactly how petrifying An Attractive Woman who’s of, say, somewhat Higher Status actually is to a young guy. 

There’s lots of guys that write me constantly, and people that I’ve worked with, that are so terrified of women they can’t even talk to them. It’s very, very common. 

Paglia: I take a very firm position, which is that I want college administrations to stay totally out of the social lives of the students. 

If a Crime is committed, it should be reported to The Police. I’ve been writing that for twenty-five years now. 

But it’s not The Business of any college administration to take any notice of what the students Say to each other - Say to each other - as well as do with each other. 

I want it totally stopped. It is Fascism of the worst kind. 

Peterson: I agree. And I think it’s fascism of the worst kind because it’s a new kind of fascism. It’s partly generated by legislation, like the Title 9 memo that was written in 2011. I recently got a copy of that goddamn thing. 

That was one polluting bit of legislation. 

That memo basically told universities that unless they set up a parallel court system, they were going to be denied federal funding. It is absolutely unbelievable. 

Paglia: Incredible. And The Leftists are supporting this? This shows there is no authentic campus leftism. I’m sorry, it’s a fraud. The faculty should be fighting the 28

administration on this. Federal regulation of how we’re supposed to behave on campus? 

Peterson: Well, how can you be so naive and foolish to think that taking an organization like The University, which already has plenty to do, and forcing it to become a pseudo legal system that parallels the legal system could possibly be anything but utterly catastrophic. 

It would mean you have to know absolutely nothing about the legal system and about the tremendous period of evolution that produced what’s actually a stellar system and an adversarial system that protects the rights of the accused and of the victim. 

And to replace that with an ad-hoc bureaucracy that has pretty much the same degree of power as the court system with absolutely none of the training and none of the guarantees. 


Paglia: Kangaroo courts. That piece that I wrote about Date Rape - it was in January, 1991 Newsday - was the most controversial thing I ever wrote in my entire career. 

I attacked the entire thing, and demanded that colleges stand back and get out of the social lives of the students. 

The reaction. People tried to call. . . They called the president of my university, tried to get me fired. You can’t believe the hysteria. 

Peterson: I can believe it. 

Paglia: Yeah, you can believe it. Anything that says to women that they should be responsible for their own Choices is regarded as reactionary? Are they kidding me? This is such a betrayal of authentic feminism in my view. 

Peterson: Well it’s the ultimate betrayal of authentic feminism because it’s an invitation of all the things that you might be paranoid about with regards to The Patriarchy back into your life. 

It’s an insistence that the most intrusive part of The Tyrannical King come and Take Control of the most intimate details of Your Life. 


Paglia: Incredible. Absolutely incredible. 
 
Peterson: And the assumption is that that’s going to make your life better rather than worse. 
 
Paglia: And not to mention this idea of the stages of verbal consent, as if your impulses based in the body have anything to do with words. 
 
That’s -- The Whole Point of Sex is to abandon that part of the brain that’s so trammeled with words. 
 
Peterson: It’s actually a marker of lack of social ability to have to do that. Because if you’re sophisticated. . . 
 
Like if you’re dancing with someone, it’s not like you call out the moves
 
If you have to do that, well then you’re worse than a neophyte. 
 
You’re an awkward neophyte, and anyone with any sense should get the hell away from you.

So if you’re reduced to the point where you have to verbally negotiate every element of intimate interaction. . . 

Paglia: What a downer. Peterson: Yes, but what an unbelievably naive and pathological view of the manner in which human beings interact. There’s no sophistication in that. 

Paglia: What I’m worried about also, in this age of social media. . . 
 
I’ve noticed that as a teacher in the classroom that the young people are so used to communicating now by cellphone, by iPhone, that they’re losing body language and facial expressions, which I think is going to compound the problem with these dating encounters. Because the ability to read the human face and to read little tiny inflections of emotion. . . 
 
I think my generation got that from looking at great foreign films with their long takes. So you’d have Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve in like potential romantic encounters, and you could see the tiniest little inflections that signal communication or sexual readiness or irony or skepticism or distance or whatever. 
 
The inability to read other people’s intentions. . . I think this is going to be a disaster. I just notice how year by year the students are becoming much more flat affect.

And they themselves complain that they’ll sit in the same room with someone and be texting to each other. 

Peterson: Yeah, well there’s a piece of evidence, too, that supports that to some degree. Women with brothers are less likely to get raped. And The Reason for that is that they’ve learned that nonverbal language deeply

Paglia: Not only that but I have noticed in my career that women who have many brothers are very good as Administrators and as Business People, because they don’t take men seriously. They Saw Their Brothers. They Think Their Brothers are Jokes. But they know how to control Men while they still like Men. They admire men. This is something I have seen repeatedly. 
 
Peterson: So that would be also reflective of The Problem of Fewer and Fewer Siblings. 
 
Paglia: Yes, that’s right. I’ve noticed this in publishing. The women who have the job of publicist and rise to the top as Manager of Publicity - their ability to take charge of men and their humor with men. They have great relationships with men, because they don’t have a sense of resentment and worry and anxiety. They don’t see men as aggressors. And I think that’s another thing, too. 
 
As feminism moved into its present system of ideology it has tended to denigrate Motherhood as a lesser order of human experience, and to enshrine, of course, Abortion. 
 
Now, I am a hundred percent for abortion rights. I belonged to Planned Parenthood for years until I finally rejected it as a branch of the Democratic Party, My Own Party. 

But as Motherhood became Excluded, as Feminism became obsessed with The Professional Woman, I feel that The Lessons That Mothers Learn have been lost to Feminism. 
 
The mothers who bear boy children understand The Fragility of Men, The Fragility of Boys. They Understand It. They don’t see Boys and Men as A Menace. They understand The Greater Strength of Women. So there’s this tenderness and connectedness between the mother and the boy child when motherhood is part of the experience of women who are discussing gender. 
 
So what we have today is that this gender ideology has risen up on campuses where all. . . 
 
None of the girls, none of the students have married. None of them have had children. And you have women, some of whom have had children. . . 
 
But a lot of them are like lesbians or like professional women and so on. So this whole tenderness and forgivingness and encouragement that women do to boys. . . 
 
This hypersensitivity of boys is not understood. Instead, boys are seen as somehow more privileged. And somehow their energy level is interpreted as aggression, potential violence, and so on. 
 
We would do better if would have. . . I have proposed that colleges should allow. . . The moment a woman has entered, she has entered that college for life and that she should be free to leave to have babies when her body wants that baby, when it’s healthy to have them. And then return, have the occasional course, and build up credits. And fathers might be able to do it as well. To get married women and women with children into the classroom. The moment that happens, as happened after Word War II where you had a lot of married guys in the classroom. . . Not that many women. The experience of a married person with a family talking about gender. . . Most of the gender stuff would be laughed out of the room if you had a real mother in there who had experienced childbirth and was raising boys.

So I think that’s also something that has led to this incredible artificiality and hysteria of feminist rhetoric. 






STRAINS

STONES RUMBLE

WIND WHISTLES

SQUEAKING

SQUEAKING CONTINUES

CLAWS SCRATCH

FLIES BUZZ

SCREAMS

GASPS

GASPS

SQUEAKING

CLATTERING

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
He doesn't know I can get out of The Box. 
Don't tell him.

I won't.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Are you His Friend now?

No. I, er...
I-I.. I work for him.
I'm a Lawyer.
From England.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I think He's made you His Friend.

Why?

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
What's England?

It's where I'm from.
You know it.
You're...speaking English.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I learnt it.

SHE LAUGHS

How? 

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
It tasted fun.

Tasted?

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Once you are the Count's Friend, all languages are the same.
I'm hungry.

Was it you at the window?
You left the message?


BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I smelt you.
You're trapped here.

You're trapped too. 
I want to help you.

BRIDE OF DRACULA :
Tell him I'm hungry!
He only gives me scraps.
Tiny little things.
Tell him I finished the last one.
I finished it really quickly.

I'm hungry! Agh!

SHE GROWLS

Look at it! Look at it!
It is The Sign of The cross.
The Symbol of Our Lord.


BRIDE OF DRACULA :
I know.
It's pretty.

SCREAMS ECHO

You assumed, I suppose, that the cross would ward off evil.


Why are you smiling?

Your Faith. I think it's touching.

What happened to yours?

I have looked for God everywhere in This World and never found Him.

Then why are you here?

Like many Women of My Age, I'm trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances for the sake of A Roof Over My Head.

Now then, we proceed to your miraculous escape from Castle Dracula, about which you have been so vague.

KNOCKS

Somebody! Please, help!

GASPS

STRAINS

BABY GURGLES

BABY CRIES

CRIES

HARKER PANTS

CRIES

GROANS

WHEEZES


DRACULA :
Johnny, this is interesting.
I've never seen it work with a baby before. Never.
I think I might keep it on for a while.

I hope this doesn't mean that 
I'm getting sentimental.

HARKER :
Why did you kill her? 

DRACULA :
Who?
Oh. Um...
Because I wanted to see 
if she would die, I suppose.

Johnny, don't give me that look. 
You were a child once.
You know The Feeling.

Didn't you break your toys apart 
to see how they worked?

HARKER :
You're a Monster. 

DRACULA :
And you're Lawyer!
Nobody's Perfect.

Ah, a stake through The Heart.
You see, sometimes The Legends are right.
This is not one you can test too often, though.
I only ever have three brides at a time.

HARKER :
"Brides"?

DRACULA :
Brides, yes. 
I think that's The Right Word for it.

You see, um...
CLEARS HIS THROAT 
..I am trying to reproduce...

Which, frankly, can be a bit of A Challenge when 
There is Only One of You.

HARKER :
Agh!

DRACULA :
Oh, Johnny. 
You're just about done, aren't you?

She was a thirsty little thing, and to think 
that she was going to keep you 
in That Box all to herself!

HARKER :
Are you going to kill me?

DRACULA :
Of course I'm going to kill you.
Why does Death always come 
as such a shock to Mortals?

HARKER :
You took everything from me. 

DRACULA :
Of course I did.
You are The High Road that 
leads me to England.

HARKER: 
Why? Why England?


DRACULA :
Ah. The People.

All those Sophisticated and Intelligent People.
As I've been trying to tell everyone for centuries,
You are What You Eat.

HARKER WHIMPERS

WIND WHISTLES

DRACULA :
Now... if you don't mind, I need you to do one last thing for me.

I haven't seen Her in hundreds of years.

Describe Her to me.

HARKER :
WEAKLY: 
Who?

DRACULA :
I've had artists paint Her, and poets capture her in words, and Mozart wrote such a pretty little tune, I-I...

CLEARS HIS THROAT: 
..I really should have spared him, but....
What Does a Lawyer See?

Johnny, in My Memory, She sets behind the second-highest peak at this time of year, and she's quite red.

Is She red, Johnny?


HARKER :
Look for yourself.


DRACULA :
But that will burn me to dust.

Good.

DRACULA :
Fair Enough.
Absolutely Fair Enough.

HARKER :
Will you put me in A Box?

DRACULA :
Keep your eyes on The Sun, Johnny.
It'll be the last time you see Her.

There is A Box waiting for you, in case you Walk, 
yes, but most people I feed off just die.
So you'll probably be fine.

Don't you see? 
An End is a Blessing.
Dying gives you Size.

It's The Mountaintop from which 
Your Whole Life is at last visible.
From Beginning to End.

Death Completes You.

HARKER :
Spare me.


DRACULA :
How? LAUGHS
Answer me. Johnny, how?
How do I spare you?





How indeed, Mr Harker?

Mr Harker?

Mr Harker...

BELL CHIMES

..you were about to explain how you escaped from The Castle.

HARKER :
Yes. Y-you've read my account.

Yes.

Perhaps it will help to refresh your memory.

"Dracula will be served."

What is this?

"Dracula is my master. 
Dracula will be obeyed. 
Dra...

"Dracula is the beginning and the end.

"Dracula is all things. 
Dracula is God." 
What?

I-I didn't write this.



When you were first brought here, you asked for a pen and paper.

You were up all day and all night, and this is what you wrote.

No, no, no, no, no. I-I thought I'd...

You thought you'd written an account of your stay at Castle Dracula.

The only account you've given is the account you're giving right now.

It's time to finish Your Story.

DRACULA: 
Johnny, how? 
How do I spare you?
How?

[WEAKLY]
Let me go.

DRACULA :
You know why I'm going to England.
You know that I'm going to kill people.
A lot of them. 
As many as I need. And perhaps even more.

But...

COUGHS

..I won't...

DRACULA :
You won't what?

Oh, you won't tell anyone about me? 
Or try to stop me?
You'll just let me slaughter all those innocents, no questions asked?

LAUGHS

Some lawyer you turned out to be, Johnny!

I promise.
I...I swe...
I...I swear.
I... I...
I swear.

All right, then.

Do that.

GASPING: 
What?


DRACULA :
Swear.
I'm going to England to Destroy Everything and Everyone You Love,
but if you give me your word that you won't try to stop me...

..I'll spare you.

It's a trick.


DRACULA :
Give me Your Word.

SOBBING: 
No... You're going to kill me anyway.


DRACULA :
Look me in the eye and give me your word.

HARKER :
Count Dracula...
..I give you my word.

If you let me out of this place...
..if you let me live...
..then I...

..then I will do everything in my power to stop you.


DRACULA :
Quite right.
That's My Johnny.

Welcome to The Mountaintop.

BONES CRUNCH

I'm not breathing.

Sometimes you do, but I think it's mostly habit.

You have no heartbeat, either.

I'm dead.

Undead.

But apparently, not yet a vampire.

One must cling on to any good news that there is.

WOLF HOWLS IN THE DISTANCE

I do not serve Dracula.

No, but he's in your mind.

The Question is, 
Why are You Not in One of His Boxes?

I don't know.

It's not something one ever anticipates asking, but what happened AFTER you were murdered?

DRACULA :
Oh, my goodness, that was quick.

WHEEZES AND GASPS

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny...

Usually, people have a lie-down first.

GASPS

DRACULA CHUCKLES

You're going to be a lively one, aren't you?

You came back so quickly. That was impressive.

You even have the beginnings of A Will of Your Own.

None of The Others have much beyond hunger, but look at you go!

Well, don't you see? 
This changes everything.

Stay. Stay!

You could be My Finest Bride.

The Others just became Beasts, but you've kept Your Spirit.

Johnny, You're Like Me.

I am not like you!

PIERCING SCREAM

SCREAMING CONTINUES

SCREAMING ECHOES

That's everything. That's...

That's all I remember.

But why did he scream? What did you do?

Nothing, I did nothing. I...

I looked at him, and the next thing I remember was that I was here.

Oh, yes, yes, never mind that.

We know what happened next. No, I...

I don't... I don't remember.

The river bore you out to sea, and the fishermen found you, caught in their net.

A drowned man walking and talking arouses a certain amount of curiosity, and you were brought to me, babbling of a girl called Mina whose face you had forgotten and an Evil Count who had stolen Your Soul.

Why was I brought to you?

I am known to have some expertise in the realm of witchcraft and the occult.

You're a nun!

We can discuss my imperfectly suppressed fascination with everything Dark and Evil another time.

For now, we will focus on why Dracula screamed.

HARKER SIGHS

You were facing the sun!

Yes.

I have sought to find God all my life, 
and never found a sign of him anywhere.

Why now? Why you? Why him?

I don't understand.

Then, think!

Count Dracula fears the cross.

He fears the symbol of our Lord.

The girl didn't. Never mind the girl. She was nothing.

Dracula, prince among vampires, fears the cross.

Do you understand what that means?

No. Tell me.

God is Real.

God is Real, and I've found him at last.
HARKER :
You have found the Devil.

 
If it takes the Devil to bring me to my Lord, 
then I say, "Bring on the Devil!"

SCOFFS

I don't!

And why not?
God Saved You for A Reason, don't you think?

HARKER :
I'm Not Saved!
I'm Nothing.

Would Mina think that?

HARKER :
If she could see me, yes, she would.

Look at me.

HARKER :
I can't even remember her face.

Yes. I think you have proven that to our satisfaction.

SISTER ANGELA WEEPS

Mr Harker, I apologise for The Deception.

It was necessary she heard The Story from your own lips.
You may have forgotten your fiancee's face...
..but I have not lost you yet.

Friday, 6 November 2020

A Joke That Not Everybody Understands.


Capt. Malcolm Reynolds : 
But it ain't all buttons and charts, Little Albatross. 

You know what The First Rule of Flying is? 

Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say. 

River Tam : 
I do. But I like to hear you say it. 





Moses and Jesus are playing golf. 


Moses steps up to The Tee and hits a beautiful shot 250 yards straight down The Middle of The Fairway. 

Jesus steps up to The Tee and hooks The Ball into The Trees. 

Jesus looks up into The Heavens, raises His arms, and suddenly The Sky darkens. 

A thunder clap rings out, rain pours down, and a stream rises among The Trees. 
The golf ball, floating on top finds its way into the mouth of a Fish!

Then a Bird flies down and takes The Fish and The Ball out, over The Green, drops it in The Cup for a hole-in-one. 


Jesus turns to Moses with a satisfied grin, and Moses says, 

'Look. You wanna play golf or do you wanna fuck around?' 






I'm sorry, I know you mean well. 
You just didn't think it through

You want to Protect The World, but you don't want it to change.... 

How is Humanity Saved if it's not allowed to... evolve


[picks up one of the dismembered Keyboard Warriors

With these? 
These puppets? 

There's only one Path to Peace: 


Capt. Malcolm Reynolds : 
Love. 

You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in The Air that you don't love, She'll shake you off just as sure as The Turning of The Worlds. 

Love keeps Her in The Air when She oughta fall down, tells you She's hurtin' 'fore She keens.

Makes her a Home. 


River Tam : Storm's getting worse. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds : 
We'll pass through it soon enough. 


Rear Projection

 




Reclaiming Our Projections 


When we find ourselves clinging to someone, caught in the unconscious grip and illegitimate demand on him or her, it is difficult, but possible, to let go. Dr. von Franz helped me with this when she said, “Don’t behave as though your projection is a dog you can whistle home anytime you want it.” The next time you ask some- one to carry your gold, make the effort to know what is going on. Stay in contact with your own gold as you put it on someone else. If you ask her to carry that numinous, glow-in-the-dark quality for you, understand that doing so will obscure her from you as a person. 


Naming the process helps. It’s the beginning of consciousness. Why do I have such a strong feeling when I look at her? Do I really see her? Do I love her? Or am I in love with her, putting a bell jar of numinosity over her, which obliterates her from my sight? 


We are rarely conscious of what is going on, and our gold is bouncing around everywhere, out of control. Alchemical, inner gold, our most precious possession, is sputtering on the street. We barely understand how much of What We Perceive in Others and The Outside World are actually parts of ourselves. 


Please observe the energy investments you make. The exchange of inner gold is occurring all the time. Try to be conscious of it. We cannot contain it in traditional ways. We need to create new language and new ways for increasing our awareness




 “We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house.” 


It was indeed like old times when, at that hour, I found myself seated beside him in a hansom, my revolver in my pocket, and the thrill of adventure in my heart. Holmes was cold and stern and silent. As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed. I knew not what wild beast we were about to hunt down in the dark jungle of criminal London, but I was well assured, from the bearing of this master huntsman, that the adventure was a most grave one—while the sardonic smile which occasionally broke through his ascetic gloom boded little good for the object of our quest. 


I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one. Holmes’s knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a network of mews and stables, the very existence of which I had never known. 


We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered together, and he closed it behind us. 


The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other’s figures within. My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear. 


“Do you know where we are?” he whispered. 


“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim window. 


“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters.” 


“But why are we here?” 


“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms—the starting-point of so many of your little fairy-tales? We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.” 


I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. 


It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. 


He was quivering with silent laughter. 


“Well?” said he. 


“Good heavens!” I cried. “It is marvellous.” 


“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,” said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation. “It really is rather like me, is it not?” 


“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.” 


“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon.” 


“But why?” 


“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere.” 


“And you thought the rooms were watched?” 


“I knew that they were watched.” 


“By whom?” 


“By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.” 


“How do you know?” 


“Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the jew’s-harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are after him.” 


My friend’s plans were gradually revealing themselves. From this convenient retreat, the watchers were being watched and the trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait, and we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and repassed in front of us. Holmes was silent and motionless; but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and that his eyes were fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was a bleak and boisterous night and the wind whistled shrilly down the long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them muffled in their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up the street. I tried to draw my companion’s attention to them; but he gave a little ejaculation of impatience, and continued to stare into the street. More than once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me that he was becoming uneasy, and that his plans were not working out altogether as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to him, when I raised my eyes to the lighted window, and again experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched Holmes’s arm, and pointed upward. 


“The shadow has moved!” I cried. 


It was indeed no longer the profile, but the back, which was turned towards us. 


Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own. “Of course it has moved,” said he. “Am I such a farcical bungler, Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy, and expect that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it? We have been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made some change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter of an hour. She works it from the front, so that her shadow may never be seen. Ah!” 

He drew in his breath with a shrill, excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside the street was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me back into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us. 


 But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later steps crept down the passage—steps which were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through the empty house. Holmes crouched back against the wall, and I did the same, my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver. Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man, a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing, into the room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring, before I realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed close beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level of this opening, the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be beside himself with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars, and his features were working convulsively. He was an elderly man, with a thin, projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a huge grizzled moustache. An opera hat was pushed to the back of his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself then, and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breech, put something in, and snapped the breech-lock. Then, crouching down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open window, and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I heard a little sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder; and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground, standing clear at the end of his foresight. For an instant he was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman’s back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room. 


“That you, Lestrade?” said Holmes. 


“Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It’s good to see you back in London, sir.” 


“I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won’t do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual—that’s to say, you handled it fairly well.” 


We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard, with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had produced two candles, and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns. I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner. 


It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended. “You fiend!” he kept on muttering. “You clever, clever fiend!” 


“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. “‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.” 


The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say. 


 “I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?” 


The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion. With his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully like a tiger himself. 


“I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old a shikari,” said Holmes. “It must be very familiar to you. Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree, and you are my tiger. You have possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim failing you. These,” he pointed around, “are my other guns. The parallel is exact.” Colonel Moran sprang forward with a snarl of rage, but the constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was terrible to look at. 


“I confess that you had one small surprise for me,” said Holmes. “I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined you as operating from the street, where my friend, Lestrade and his merry men were awaiting you. With that exception, all has gone as I expected.” 


Colonel Moran turned to the official detective. 


“You may or may not have just cause for arresting me,” said he, “but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law, let things be done in a legal way.” 


“Well, that’s reasonable enough,” said Lestrade. “Nothing further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?” Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor, and was examining its mechanism. 


“An admirable and unique weapon,” said he, “noiseless and of tremendous power: I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic, who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty. For years I have been aware of its existence though I have never before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend it very specially to your attention, Lestrade and also the bullets which fit it.” 


“You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, as the whole party moved towards the door. “Anything further to say?” 


“Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?” 


“What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” 


“Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all. To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity, you have got him.” 


“Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?” 


“The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain—Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the thirtieth of last month. That’s the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some profitable amusement.” 


Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room—one, Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered—the other, the strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening’s adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes’s so draped round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect. 


“I hope you observed all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?” said Holmes. 


“I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me.” 


“Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where the bullet went?” 


“Yes, sir. I’m afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!” 


Holmes held it out to me. “A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive, Watson. There’s genius in that, for who would expect to find such a thing fired from an airgun? All right, Mrs. Hudson. I am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss with you.” 


He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from his effigy. “The old shikari’s nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust. 


“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?” 


“No, I have not.” 


“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf.” 


He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds from his cigar. 


“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.” 


He handed over the book, and I read: Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas (1881); Three Months in the Jungle (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club. 


On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand: The second most dangerous man in London. 


“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The man’s career is that of an honourable soldier.” 


“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.” 


“It is surely rather fanciful.” 


“Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge. 


“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel’s attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way at once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they might be needed—by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy—I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?” 


“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran’s motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?” 


“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.” 


“You have formed one, then?” 


“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them, won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran undoubtedly played foul—of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten card-gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner’s foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?” 


“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.” 


“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.”

Thursday, 5 November 2020

To Un-Surrender is Impossible




 Elections in The United States are ascendancies of different sections of The Class.



"But in any case - after They do The Debates, and They do The Poll, and They come up to Election Night, THEN What They Do is, They take exit polls, and They count the votes as they're coming in, and The Network News will ANNOUNCE, to you, based on these exit polls and projections, Who The President of The United States Is.

Who's gonna win The Election.

And then, The Other Candidate will get up and concede.

And then, you've got A President.

Now, that's The Script - The Script has nothing to do  with recounting votes, waiting for absentee ballots, checking This or That -- even waiting for the last exit votes to come in, or all The Polls to Close....

You're just told, and The Other Guy to concedes.

And that started to happen and then, all of a sudden -- 
Gore balked, and said that he wasn't going to concede on The Vote [any more], and he was gonna to fight it.


And I thought, 'What on EARTH is going on..? I mean, Gore is as much of a Player in This Game as Bush is --'  


Everybody at THAT level is In on The Shill, so it's not a matter of them fighting Tooth and Nail for this position, and in fact, the Democrats, the way They fought it was guaranteed to make sure that The Vote came out for The Republicans anyway --


And it took me a little while to figure out that They WANTED Us to KNOW...!


They were sending Us a message as BLATENT as the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22nd 1963, and The Message is :


YOU DON'T ELECT THE PRESIDENT



CONTROL


MAN :
Ow!! What in The Hell Did You Do THAT For??

MACHINE :
Because You Told Me To.



“Kennedy was a Good Man.
Nixon was a Bad Man.
Is that True? Or is that just what we have been TOLD is true?”

— The Mason.







Hello, Control.
Oh, hello, Tony.
How are you today? 


Very well, thank you, as it happens, Control.


Good.
Yes.
So, what can I do you for? 

Well, this just came through Flash from Berlin, sir.
I thought perhaps you might like to take a look at it.


Flash from Berlin, eh? 
Yes, perhaps I better had.
We've got quite a few important agents in Berlin, haven't we? 
So it might be something quite urgent, I expect.

Yes.

I see Valerie has decoded it for me.
That's very kind of her.
Saves me quite a lot of work.
I must remember to thank her.


That would certainly be a nice gesture, sir.


Well, I don't know if you had a chance to glance at this before thoughtfully bringing it in to me, Tony.
But, uh, it's quite an urgent communication from Firefly, our network chief in Berlin.


Yes, I did just have time to glance at the code name.
Firefly is under deep cover.
Has something quite important happened to make him break it? 

Yes, I'm afraid it has.
It seems as if the entire network has been penetrated by an enemy agent.


Oh, no.


I'm afraid so.
It seems that Glow-worm was shot trying to escape into the West.
Firefly himself is holed up in a safe house somewhere towards the east of that city.


So the whole network's been blown? 

I'm afraid so.
It's a thundering nuisance.


It really is.
Thundering.


Yes, I'm severely vexed, I don't mind telling you.
I expect a coffee would come in welcome, then.
Well, it couldn't hurt, could it? 

No, not one.
I'll get Valerie onto it.

That's ever so kind of you, Tony.
Let's hope it's not gonna be another one of those days, eh, Control? 
Like Thursday.


Oh, that's all we need.
I don't know.


See you then, Tony.


Bye.







BINARY





And so, right on cue,
just in the nick of time —

This week’s new episode of The Walking Dead deals with defensive compulsive lying, yarn-spinning and false narratives.

A pair of Professional Bullshit Artists — 
The Harlequinade.






7. The Principle of Gender

• Gender is in EVERYTHING; 
• EVERYTHING has its Masculine AND Feminine Principles; 
• Gender manifests on ALL planes."

— The Kybalion.














Alright, look --

The Fantasy World of Gideon Stargrave is a layer of King Mob/Kirk Starorzewski/Grant Morrison's psychic defences.

Kirk Starorzewski/Grant Morrison was writing Gideon Stargrave stories in the 80s, before Kirk Starorzewski joined The Invisibles and became King Mob -- so Gideon's love interest is clearly based on his ex-girlfriend, Jacqui, who we have not met yet at this point  -- she later shows up in Volume 2 and at the end of Volume 3 (when King Mob dies inside a phone box-cocoon).

When Jacqui ACTUALLY shows up, she may look superficially like her FictionSuited counterpart, but her actual disposition is diametrically opposed to that of her Tulpa -- its's the very reason that she and he broke up.

And she frankly explains EXACTLY why -- "You got into Black Magick and Killing People."



That is WHY they broke up, and why they are not together, for as long as he remains a vessel for King Mob -- irreconcilable difference. 

But she still loves him, regardless.

See, Loving Someone and Being in Love are two VERY different states of Being -- if you are, existing, In Love, then you don't SEE the other person, AT ALL -- you only see The Glow, and project it onto the person of the individual you are ATTRACTED to -- it's narcissistic.

It could hardly be otherwise.

So Genevieve Stargrave is just simply a hollow embodiment of everything that Kirk Starorzewsk/King Mob/Grant Morrison loves about HIMSELF, projected onto a female body, with Jacqui's FACE.

And that's why it can never be a fertile or productive union -- because Kirk Starorzewski is not an Egyptian God.

And even if he were, Osiris was ONLY able to father Horus with his Wife/Queen/Sister, AFTER he was DEAD.