Serene Falcon

Six Pack

July 11th, 2007site-map at 3:30 amhome (Self Writ, Correctitude, Generalia, Stuarts, The Enemy)

A punishment used exclusively by the IRA in which enemies or traitors of the IRA are shot with six bullets. Two bullets to the elbows, two bullets to the kneecaps, and two bullets to the ankles. This form of punishment can render the victim almost completely immobile for the rest of their lives.

This comes under the category The Enemy ( defined as should be obvious as sentimentality-in-the-world-view ) because it exemplifies the repulsion of seeking to commit cruelty and suffering either or both for the sake of gratified mania or ideological self-rightousness ( which includes over-religious fanaticism ). Killing is one thing: depending on one’s type, it may affect the actor, or not, physiologically and psychically — not that it makes the faintest difference to the deed — but if done speedily and courteously, it is over. — Dark Eileen’s Dirge on the death of her husband indicates there are consequences for those left, and either laws or vendettas may also impose other consequences; yet again, it is a done singular action in itself.

Interrogative torture has many persuasive advocates: I am not persuaded that it is ineffective, as supposed by those who argue that people will say anything, since many have withstood through pure obstinacy for even the most foolish of causes. James I & VI idly remarked on the martyrdom of one burnt De Hæretico Comburendo for atheism in his new Kingdom of England after being translated down south from a realm where this punishment did not exist, except for witchcraft — although conversely torture was then legal in Scotland, but not in England, whilst witches in England were hung and not burnt — that he could not have truly believed in nothing, otherwise he would not have chosen to die for it.
[ This law was originally passed --- illegally, as the Lancastrian usurper was on the throne : he owed the Papacy a favour for recognising his theft --- to stop the possession of bibles in the vernacular, which would make for interesting results if revived in America today. ]
However, it, torture, persuasive or otherwise is just inadmissable. Even more so if it works and gains real benefits, simply and solely because it is wrong.

Yet even torture may fail at being sentimentally inspired, although usually the impulses behind the rationales may be assumed as such — even especially if one looks at the rather specious scenarios of apocalyptical disaster offered by it’s apologists: the mother/child/grandparent who will die; the armies that will be slaughtered; the clouds of gas which will engulf the citizenry; unless, unless we steel ourselves to take ‘strong measures‘. But it may be unenthusiastically accepted that it theoretically could be possible to have torture without pleasure taken.

The imposition of suffering though, in the deed of killing, and worse, the leaving of a life in suffering, is beyond all. For that there can be never forgiveness, and one must be enjoined to hate the doers beyond death. Certainly one should hate them coldly and without passion, yet it is a betrayal of the self to weakly set aside vileness, no matter if or how they repent: because repentance is owed by them to God; and their relationship with Him need not concern you, being a private arrangement between two other parties.

Extreme Accidie, To The Max

July 10th, 2007 at 2:57 am (Self Writ, Generalia)

Objection 3. Further, if despair were a sin, it would be a sin also for the damned to despair. But this is not imputed to them as their fault but as part of their damnation.

Summa Theologica Part Two, II Part, Question 20.

Which The Angelic Doctor presumptiously seems to refute.

I ever felt that in Aquinas there was the makings of a good whiskey priest, rambling with incisive logic to the wrong disabled conclusions, so I shall ignore him.

Besides, he was a Dominican, and I always loathed St. Dominic.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? And one of them shall not be torn to threads by the hands of a saint without your Father ?

William Sidman – The Dead Sparrow

api

Verisimo

July 10th, 2007forum at 2:06 am (Other Writ, Generalia, High Germany, Music)

In November of this year I put the last touches to my score of Rienzi, and sent it post-haste to Dresden. This period was the culminating point of the utter misery of my existence. I wrote for the Gazette Musicale a short story: “The Life’s End of a German Musician in Paris,” wherein I made the wretched hero die with these words upon his lips: “I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven.”
Richard Wagner

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Rienzi’s Prayer

Aye, And Jobs Were Hard To Come By In Them Days…

July 9th, 2007site-map at 2:05 pmhome (Generalia)

First Nurse: “Did you ever see a lion fed ?”

Second Nurse: “Yes, once; I was standing too near the cage, and the baby I was in charge of was snatched into the cage and devoured.”

First Nurse: “Oh, what did the parents do ?”

Second Nurse ( sobbing violently ): “They discharged me !”

1889

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Darkness Darken

July 8th, 2007 at 4:40 am (Other Writ, Poetry)

Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of bright and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there’s nor light nor life to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me ?

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean’s waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And darkness darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not ?

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be —
That was and is not — yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie ?

The land of shadows wilt thou trace,
Nor look nor know each other’s face;
The present marred with reason gone,
And past and present both as one ?
Say, maiden, can thy life be led
To join the living and the dead ?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me:
We are wed to one eternity.

John Clare : Invitation to Eternity

Claude Lorrain

api

Children Of The Bat

July 6th, 2007forum at 11:49 pm (Self Writ, Generalia, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

In 1938, the weaker-minded quarter of the six million American listeners got over-excited listening to this:

At one point in the broadcast, an actor in a studio, playing a newscaster in the field, described the emergence of one of the aliens from its spacecraft. “Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake,” he said, in an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. “Now it’s another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing’s body. It’s large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It…it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate….The thing is raising up. The crowd falls back. They’ve seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can’t find words. I’m pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I’ll have to stop the description until I’ve taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I’ll be back in a minute.”
War of the Worlds

Oddly enough, H. P. Lovecraft had died the previous year… He could have made a killing on radio.

Weird Tales Covers

Sanctus Espiritus !

July 6th, 2007site-map at 6:59 pmhome (Music, Videos)

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Within Temptation – Our Solemn Hour

Seal Of My Sorrow

July 5th, 2007 at 4:14 pm (Other Writ, Poetry)

The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ”Tis over now!’
Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes ‘gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.

And thus the lofty lady spake-
‘All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel !
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.’

Quoth Christabel, ‘So let it be!’
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline.
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold ! her bosom and half her side-
A sight to dream of, not to tell !
O shield her ! shield sweet Christabel !

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs:
Ah ! what a stricken look was hers !
Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay;
Then suddenly, as one defied,
Collects herself in scorn and pride,
And lay down by the maiden’s side ! —
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah, well-a-day !
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:

‘In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel !
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heard’st a low moaning,
And found’st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:
And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.’

Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Fr: Christabel

api

See How They Run

July 4th, 2007forum at 10:00 pm (Other Writ, Correctitude, The King of Terrors)

A Mountain was in labour, and the people of seven cities had assembled to watch its movements and hear its groans. While they waited in breathless expectancy out came a Mouse.

“Oh, what a baby !” they cried in derision.

“I may be a baby,” said the Mouse, gravely, as he passed outward through the forest of shins, “but I know tolerably well how to diagnose a volcano.”

Ambrose Bierce : The Mountain and the Mouse

Take Your Hand And Walk Away

July 3rd, 2007site-map at 9:43 pmhome (Music, Videos)

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System of a Down – Lonely Day

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‘Having Got Into The Heart Of The Mountain I Had Supper, The First Course Being Whisky, The Second Whisky And The Third Whisky.’

July 3rd, 2007 at 2:55 am (Other Writ, Generalia, Spengler)

Once upon a time there was a magnet, and in its close neighbourhood lived some steel filings. One day two or three little filings felt a sudden desire to go and visit the magnet, and they began to talk of what a pleasant thing it would be to do. Other filings near by overheard their conversation, and they, too, became infected with the same desire. Still others joined them, till at last all the filings began to discuss the matter, and more and more their vague desire grew into an impulse.

‘Why not go today ?’ said some of them: but others were of opinion that it would be better to wait till to-morrow. Meanwhile, without their having noticed it, they had been involuntarily moving nearer to the magnet, which lay there quite still, apparently taking no heed of them. And so they went on discussing, all the time insensibly drawing nearer to their neighbour; and the more they talked, the more they felt the impulse growing stronger, till the more impatient ones declared that they would go that day, whatever the the rest did. Some were heard to say that it was their duty to visit the magnet, and that they ought to have gone long ago. And, while they talked, they moved always nearer and nearer, without realising that they had moved. Then, at last, the impatient ones prevailed, and, with one irresistible impulse, the whole body cried out, ‘There is no use waiting. We will go to-day. We will go now. We will go at once.’ And then in one unanimous mass they were swept along, and in another moment were clinging fast to the magnet on every side. Then the magnet smiled — for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that they were paying that visit of their own free will.

Oscar Wilde, extempore to Richard Le Gallienne

[ Unpublished ]

api

And Incredibly Bored

July 1st, 2007forum at 8:40 pm (Other Writ, Poetry)

The frivolous can call me frivolous.
I’ve always been most punctilious about
important things. And I insist
that no one knows better than I do
the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.
Whenever he was in doubt,
whenever he had any ecclesiastical problem,
Botaniatis consulted me, me first of all.
But exiled here ( may she be cursed, that viper
Irini Doukaina ), and incredibly bored,
it is not altogether unfitting to amuse myself
writing six- and eight-line verses,
to amuse myself poeticizing myths
of Hermes and Apollo and Dionysos,
or the heroes of Thessaly and the Peloponnese;
and to compose the most strict iambics,
such as — if you’ll allow me to say so —
the intellectuals of Constantinople don’t know how to compose.
It must be just this strictness that provokes their disapproval.

Constantine P. Cavafy : A Byzantine Nobleman in Exile Composing Verses

Byzantine Bird Organ

Heron’s Sequential Automaton of Singing Birds.