Kyros

Jackie The Jokeman: King of Inappropriate Laughter

I'm On Fire

Now for something funny.

The Howard Stern show call by Dominic Barbara:

Requiem For A Dream

Sara Goldfarb: I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.

Harry Goldfarb: You got friends, Ma.


Sara Goldfarb: Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.


I remember seeing this film when it came out several years ago. It was in a cinema and I must say that it was probably one of the most powerful and disturbing films I'd ever seen. The reason for this reaction was due to Selby's relentless morality that runs through his work.

The scene above is probably one of the most powerful in the film due to its emotional/existential crisis that it delivers to the viewer.

Crash---J.G. Ballard

All the while I stared at those parts of Gabrielle's body
Reflected in this nightmare technology of cripple controls.
I watched her thighs shifting against each other
The jut of her left breast under the strap of her spinal harness
The angular bowl of her pelvis
The hard pressure of her hand on my arm
She gazed back at me through the windshield
Playing with the chromium clutch treadle
As if hoping that something obscene might happen

It was I who first made love to her
In the rear seat of her small car
Surrounded by the bizarre geometry of the invalid controls
As I explored her body
Feeling my way among the braces and straps of her underwear
The unfamiliar planes of her legs and hips
Steered me into unique cul de sacs
Strange declensions of skin and musculature

Each of her deformities became a potent metaphor
For the excitements of a new violence
Her body with its angular contours
Its unexpected junctions of mucus membrane and hairline
Detrusor muscle and erectile tissue
Was a ripening anthology of perverse possibilies

As I sat with her by the airport fence in her darkened car
Her white breast in my hand lit by the ascending airliners
The shape and tenderness of her nipple seemed to rape my fingers
Her sexual acts were exploratory ordeals

As she drove towards the airport I watched her handle the unfamiliar controls
The complex of inverted treadles and clutch levers of the car
had been designed for her -- implicitly, I guessed, for her first sexual act
Twenty minutes later, as I embraced her
The scent of her body mingled with the showroom odor of mustard leatherette

We had turned off near the reservoirs to watch the aircraft landing
As I pressed her left shoulder against my chest I could see
The contoured seat which had been molded around her body
Hemispheres of padded leather that matched the depressions of her
brace and backstraps
I slipped my hand around her right breast
Already colliding with the strange geometry of the car's interior
Unexpected controls jutted from beneath the steering wheel
The cluster of chromium treadles was fastened to the steel pivot
Clamped to the steering column
An extension on the floor-mounted gear lever rose laterally
Giving way to a vertical wing of chromium metal molded into the reverse
of a driver's palm
Aware of these new parameters
The embrace of this dutiful technology
Gabrielle lay back
Her intelligent eyes followed her hand as it felt my face and chin
As if searching for my own missing armatures of bright chromium

She lifted her left foot so that the leg brace rested against my knee
In the inner surface of her thigh
The straps formed a marked depression
Troughs of reddened skin
Hollowed out in the forms of buckles and clasps
As I unshackled the left leg brace
And ran my fingers along the deep buckle groove
The corrugated skin felt hot and tender
More exciting than the membrane of a vagina

This depraved orifice
The invagination of the sexual organs still in the embryonic stages
of evolution
Reminded me of the small wounds on my own body
Which still carried the contours of the instrument panel and the
controls
I felt this depression on her thigh
The groove worn below her breast
Under her right armpit
By the spinal brace
The red marking on the inside of her right
upper arm
These were the templates for new genital organs
The molds of sexual possibilities
Yet to be created in a hundred experimental car crashes

Leo Gay?

Nun

Heavy Metal City

Retro Pussy

Cunt

Simpsons I

What I Am Doing Tonight III

What I Am Doing Tonight II

What I Am Doing Tonight

Sucking Stones----Beckett

Molloy

by Samuel Beckett


The Sucking Stones Sequence



I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of
sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on
this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them
equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn
about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following
way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these
being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my
greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and
putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my
greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I
replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I
replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I
replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had
finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my
four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to
suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my
greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time.
And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I
have just described. And so on. But this solution did not satisfy me
fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the
four stones circulating thus might always be the same four. In which
case, far from sucking the sixteen stones turn and turn about, I was
really only sucking four, always the same, turn and turn about. But
I shuffled them well in my pockets, before I began to suck, and
again, while I sucked, before transferring them, in the hope of
obtaining a more general circulation of the stones from pocket to
pocket. But this was only a makeshift that could not long content a
man like me. So I began to look for something else ...


I might do better to transfer the stones four by four, instead of one
by one, that is to say, during the sucking, to take the three stones remaining
in the right pocket of my greatcoat and replace them by the four in the
right pocket of my trousers , and these by the four in the left pocket
of my trousers, and these by the four in the left pocket of my greatcoat,
and finally these by the three from the right pocket of my greatcoat,
plus the one, as soon as I had finished sucking it, which was in my mouth.
Yes, it seemed to me at first that by so doing I would arrive at a better
result. But onfurther reflection I had to change my mind and confess that
the circulation of the stones four by four came to exactly the same thing
as their circulation one by one. For if I was certain of finding each
time, in the right pocket of my greatcoat, four stones totally different
from their immediate predecessors, the possibility nevertheless remained
of my always chancing on the same stone, within each group of four, and
consequently of my sucking, not the sixteen turn and turn about as I wished,
but in fact four only, always the same, turn and turn about. So I had
to seek elswhere than in the mode of circulation. For no matter how I
caused the stones to circulate, I always ran the same risk. It was obvious
that by increasing the number of my pockets I was bound to increase my
chances of enjoying my stones in the way I planned, that is to say one
after the other until their number was exhausted. Had I had eight pockets,
for example, instead of the four I did have, then even the most diabolical
hazard could not have prevented me from sucking at least eight of my sixteen
stones, turn and turn about. The truth is I should have needed sixteen
pockets in order to be quite easy in my mind. And for a long time I could
see no other conclusion than this, that short of having sixteen pockets,
each with its stone, I could never reach the goal I had set myself, short
of an extraordinary hazard. And if at a pinch I could double the number
of my pockets, were it only by dividing each pocket in two, with the help
of a few safety-pins let us say, to quadruple them seemed to be more than
I could manage. And I did not feel inclined to take all that trouble for
a half-measure. For I was beginning to lose all sense of measure, after
all this wrestling and wrangling, and to say, All or nothing. And if I
was tempted for an instant to establish a more equitable proportion between
my stones and my pockets , by reducing the former to the number of the
latter, it was only for an instant. For it would have been an admission
of defeat. And sitting on the shore, before the sea, the sixteen stones
spread out before my eyes, I gazed at them in anger and perplexity ...


One day suddenly it dawned on me, dimly, that I might perhaps achieve
my purpose without increasing the number of my pockets, or reducing the
number of my stones, but simply by sacrificing the principle of trim.
The meaning of this illumination, which suddenly began to sing within
me, like a verse of Isaiah, or of Jeremiah, I did not penetrate at once,
and notably the word trim, which I had never met with, in this sense,
long remained obscure. Finally I seemed to grasp that this word trim could
not here mean anything else, anything better, than the distribution of
the sixteen stones in four groups of four, one group in each pocket, and
that it was my refusal to consider any distribution other than this that
had vitiated my calculations until then and rendered the problem literally
insoluble. And it was on the basis of this interpretation, whether right
or wrong, that I finally reached a solution, inelegant assuredly, but
sound, sound. Now I am willing to believe, indeed I firmly believe, that
other solutions to this problem might have been found and indeed may still
be found, no less sound, but much more elegant than the one I shall now
describe, if I can ...


Good. Now I can begin to suck. Watch me closely. I take a stone from
the right pocket of my greatcoat , suck it, stop sucking it, put it
in the left pocket of my greatcoat, the one empty (of stones). I take
a second stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, suck it put it
in the left pocket of my greatcoat. And so on until the right pocket
of my greatcoat is empty (apart from its usual and casual contents)
and the six stones I have just sucked, one after the other, are
all in the left pocket of my greatcoat. Pausing then, and
concentrating, so as not to make a balls of it, I transfer to the
right pocket of my greatcoat, in which there are no stones left, the
five stones in the right pocket of my trousers, which I replace by
the five stones in the left pocket of my trousers, which I replace by
the six stones in the left pocket of my greatcoat. At this stage
then the left pocket of my greatcoat is again empty of stones, while
the right pocket of my greatcoat is again supplied, and in the
vright way, that is to say with other stones than those I have just
sucked. These other stones I then begin to suck, one after the other,
vand to transfer as I go along to the left pocket of my greatcoat,
being absolutely certain, as far as one can be in an affair of this
kind, that I am not sucking the same stones as a moment before, but
others. And when the right pocket of my greatcoat is again empty (of
stones), and the five I have just sucked are all without exception
in the left pocket of my greatcoat, then I proceed to the same
redistribution as a moment before, or a similar redistribution,
that is to say I transfer to the right pocket of my greatcoat, now
again available, the five stones in the right pocket of my trousers,
which I replace by the six stones in the left pocket of my trousers,
which I replace by the five stones in the left pocket of my
greatcoat. And there I am ready to begin again. Do I have to go on?

There was something more than a principle I abandoned, when I
abandoned the equal distribution, it was a bodily need. But to suck
the stones in the way I have described, not haphazard, but with
method, was also I think a bodily need. Here then were two
incompatible bodily needs, at loggerheads. Such things happen. But
deep down I didn't give a tinker's curse about being off my
balance, dragged to the right hand and the left, backwards and
forewards. And deep down it was all the same to me whether I sucked
a different stone each time or always the same stone, until the end
of time. For they all tasted exactly the same. And if I had
collected sixteen, it was not in order to ballast myself in such and
such a way, or to suck them turn about, but simply to have a little
store, so as never to be without. But deep down I didn't give a
fiddler's curse about being without, when they were all gone they
would be all gone, I wouldn't be any the worse off, or hardly any.
And the solution to which I rallied in the end was to throw away all
the stones but one, which I kept now in one pocket, now in another,
and which of course I soon lost, or threw away, or gave away, or
swallowed ...

Seven Deadly Sins---Gluttony

In the same way as below, the steps leading up from the sixth terrace lie to the right of those which lead up to it.

As one goes around the sixth terrace, in the middle of it an apple tree becomes visible. It branches hold ripe, sweet-smelling applies. In shape it brings to mind an inverted fir tree, growing broader the higher one goes, making it impossible to climb. A stream falls from the mountain above onto the tree, drenching all of its leaves.

Approaching the tree, a voice from out of the branches warns one not to eat of the fruit of the tree, as if one does, ones food will lack as if it were no food at all. There is no sign of the source of the voice. The voice will then continue on, giving examples of the virtue of Temperance. "More did it in her thoughts to Mary seem that all the wedding should be fitly set and furnished forth than that rich wines should wet the lips which answer now for you. And they, the Roman matrons of old time, would stay their thirst with water. Daniel counted naught the price of food, if wisdom might be bought with the same coin. The earliest age of men had golden beauty of simplicity: acorns were sweet, and brooks were nectar then. And so John Baptist in the wilderness ate honey and locusts only - wherefore he, the greatness of abstention to express, is glorious in the gospel's imagery."

Those on this terrace are expiating the sin of gluttony. As such, they are starved skeletons, with chalk-white cavernous faces, hollow eyes, skin tight to their bones and all the other signs of prolonged hunger. To those on this terrace, and indeed most likely to anyone who is at all hungry, the scent of the apples and the water falling on the tree is irresistible, and they cannot help but eat and drink of them. Unfortunately, that is part of their punishment, as in doing so they are left hungrier and thirstier than before.

A number of those on this ledge are former highly-placed members of the Church, now paying the price for their indulgences in life. At first reluctant to speak, as soon as one talks to a traveller, many those here will flock around visitors to speak to them, and tell their tale.

Continuing on around the terrace, one comes upon a second apple tree, with broad-spread fruit-laden branches bending low. This tree is concealed by the curve of the mountain so that one is close to it when it is first seen. Its fruit, although appearing to hang low, are in fact held up just too high to reach. There is a crowd of sinners around the tree, raising appealing hands towards its fruit, until they become disillusioned and depart.

A voice from the branches of this tree warns passers-by not to come too close, as the tree is one grown from a seed of the apple tree from which Eve plucked that fateful apple. "Pass warily, nor come too nigh; a tree there is beyond from which Eve plucked the knowledge of sad years, and this one from that fatal seed is bred." Having spoken its warning, the voice from the tree will continue on, speaking of the dangers of gluttony and the punishments awaiting those who succumb to it.

A thousand paces or so beyond this second tree a voice hails travellers. It comes from an angel, glowing with a fierce, bright clear red light. He points out the way up to next terrace.

When Dante passed, a wind smelling of sweet graces and a million flowers brushed his forehead, as the angel's wings, shedding an ambrosial fragrance, erased the penultimate 'P' from his forehead.

The staircase up to the seventh terrace is narrow, so that travellers must go in single file. As Dante ascended he was lectured by Statius on generation, the infusion of the Soul into the body, and the corporeal semblance of Souls after death.

Seven Deadly Sins---Greed

The way up to the fifth terrace brings one out onto a place not unlike the other terraces. This terrace differs from the others in that the ground here is covered with people lying face-down, sobbing tears and lamentations. In between their tears they sigh, and speak words such as 'Adhaesit pavimento' and 'Anima mea.'

Those expiating their sins here are both those who were too avaricious in life, and those who were not avaricious enough. They are those who turned their eyes to Earth and its goods, separating themselves from God by their own will, by either desire for earthly things, or too great a rejection of them. Now where, in life, they did not lift their eyes to Heaven, their avarice holding them from high pursuits, now they must lie with faces and bodies presses to the Earth until their sin is cleansed. Those doing so claim that there is no worse punishment in all of Purgatory.

There are so many people lying on the ground here that one must pick one's way carefully to avoid treading on them; the easiest way is along the very edge of the terrace.

When Dante was here, he felt Mount Purgatory shake as if in a mighty earthquake. When this happened, a cry of 'To God be Glory in Excelsis' rose up from all those in Purgatory. The mountain quakes in this way when someone at last ends the expiation of their sins and is freed to ascend, and all of those in Purgatory hail their release. Dante and Virgil learned this from Statius, the former sinner whose release caused the shaking of the mountain in the first place.

The way up from the fifth terrace lies to the right of the place where one climbs up onto the terrace. Another angel stands watch at the entrance of the way up, and when Dante passed erased another of the 'P's from his forehead. The way up to the sixth terrace is a steep one

Seven Deadly Sins---Sloth

On this terrace, those who were slothful in life, who loved the Good but who did not act to promote it as well as they might have expiate their sins. Their love is strengthened on this terrace - "the loitering oar resumes its regular stroke."

This terrace is of plain undecorated flinty rock. As one goes along it in search of the way up to the fifth terrace, a clamourous outcry arises from in the distance. This comes from a crowd of people running at speed along the terrace, weeping and crying aloud as they go. "Swiftly they came, and voices cried aloud amid their weeping. Two in front proclaimed: 'How quickly Mary to the mountain ran!' and: 'Caesar once, Ilerda to subdue, struck at Marseilles, and ere his foemen knew had entered Spain.' And other of the crowd, jostling behind, cried: 'Hasten! Hasten all! From insufficient love let love's pursuit not slacken, and the power of grace recruit from strain to reach it.' ... In the rear they ran, and shouted: 'Those who saw the seas divide to give them passage, in their sloth they died before the chosen heirs to Canaan came.' And: 'They who would not, with Anchises' son, toil to the end, they bought a life of shame with that reluctance.'"

The members of the crowd are quite spread out, but still move quite fast, as a mass, passing anyone who is merely walking and racing off into the distance. There are many such crowds, each one racing around the terrace. They are not allowed to pause in their running through night and day.

Dante was assailed by a dream of a Siren on this terrace, from which he was only rescued by the intervention of Virgil. "A woman crooked in deformity, squint-eyed, and stammering in her speech, with hands Ill-shaped to make caresses, and her hair it seemed disease had whitened. Such to see was little bliss, but as the light expands with morn, and the chilled limbs their strength renew which night hath stiffened, so my gaze on her had power for her transforming. Straight and tall she rose, and soft swift speech, and eyes of love, she gave, and in her face the warm blood beat, even as desire would have it. I could not stir mine eyes from that regard. Her speech was sweet as song, and song became. 'I am,' she sang, 'I am that siren who the seaman charms in distant ocean. Not to heed would wrong the fountains of delight. To find my arms I turned Ulysses once. Who once belong to what I gave them will but seldom go. Such peace I give.' She had not ceased her song when came another of a different hue, alert to foil her, holy and austere, 'Virgil,' who cried, 'behold, what meet we here?' And he came forward in my dream, as though he saw this last one only, on the first, rude hands who laid, and tore her garments through, Opening her before, and showed her belly bare. Whereat there issued from that womb accursed such stench as waked me."

Progressing further around the terrace, one arrives at the way upwards, at which is stationed an angel, who invites travellers to 'Come hither' with a voice far beyond those of mortals in its sweetness and benignity. He has white, swan-like wings, with which he fans those who ascend the stairway past him. For Dante, he removed one of the 'P's which had been inscribed on his forehead.

Seven Deadly Sins---Wrath

Through the smoke, one begins to hear the 'Agnus Dei', "Oh, lamb of God, who takes all sins away" coming from all sides. These are the voices of the penitent who are being purged of their Wrath on the third terrace and who are hidden in the smoke. They ask travellers to be mentioned in the prayers of those who pass.

The way up out of the third terrace lies opposite that up onto the third terrace.

Going onward through the smoke the sun eventually becomes visible again.

Dante sees visions of examples of anger in the clearing smoke. "Born of Light, by Heavenly Will, Its power descends upon us. She who sings, Impious, in likeness of the bird which most For sorrow in its song finds ecstasy, First my imagination held: so still My mind was mirrored on itself that naught Intruded inward to divert its thought. Next after Philomela came a sight Of one who hung in torment crucified, Yet haughty and dispiteous while he died, While round him grouped Ahasuerus stood, Esther, and Mordicai called the Good, Who was of speech unbending. As will burst A bubble, failing of its watery frame, So passed this vision. In its place there came A maiden, weeping anguished tears, who said: 'O Queen, why hast thou made this choice accurst, Wrath-blinded? Not to lose Lavinia, Thy own life hast thou lost; so losing me. Mine is the grief, the bitter grief for thee. Oh, Mother, for thy ruin must I weep Much more than for another's.'"

Some of the light which seems to come from the sun in fact comes from an angel, who guards the stair upward, and who will point it out to travellers. His glory makes it impossible for mortals to look at him. The angel removed a third 'P' from Dante's forehead, sweeping his wings over Dante's face to do so, saying "Beati Pacifici who from evil wrath are free."

The stair upwards from the third terrace is wide enough for two to walk abreast.

Seven Deadly Sins---Envy

The envious are purged in hell by having their eyes sewn shut...

(Punishment ref. Dante Alighieri Purgatory)



This terrace is very similar to that below, but lacks the carvings, being very bare and empty, with no apparent penitent.

However, as one walks along the second terrace, one begins to hear the wings of invisible entities sweeping past, and among other things they call the traveller to join them "in their courtesy to join the Table of Love" as they fly invisibly past.

On this terrace the sin of Envy is purged. The penitents here sit, dressed in hair-cloth, along the inner edge of the terrace, so still and so coloured that they are, at first, very hard to notice. Their eyelids have been sewn closed with threads of iron, and they resemble blind beggars who constantly sigh and pray to the saints to be prayed for. They can and will talk to passing travellers, and warns of the dangers of Envy, though some do not like to relive the memories this stirs...

At this point, Dante is assailed by thunderous flying voices that are a warning to him to stay on the correct path, in the same way as a bit keeps a horse on the correct path. It seems that Dante is, at this point, paying to little attention to Heaven, which he can see above him, and too much to Hell and the Earth below.

As one carries on around the terrace, one comes to face the Sun, which seems very bright, too bright to be shaded even with ones hands, and which seems to advance on one.

In fact, and angel is standing in the sunlight at the foot of the way up to the third terrace. He tells travellers to enter the less steep steps which lead up to the next terrace. He erases a second 'P' from Dante's forehead.

'Beati Misericordes' accompany one up these stairs.

On the way up, Dante is lectured by Virgil regarding the way in which, the more people who are accepted into Heaven, the more God likes it, as the larger the numbers there, the more they reinforce one another's praise and worship, to the greater glory of God. "The Eternal Good Is both ineffable and infinite. The more there are who in its rays unite, The more its conflagration heats. The more Of folk in Heaven whose souls have understood Each other, in the light of Love Divine, The more of love doth midst and round them shine, As mirrors, each to each, reflected light Cast to their own advantage."

For half a league or so, Dante has ecstatic visions of forebearance on the stair. "Here a temple showed, with moving groups about its doors, and one who with a mother's gesture called: 'My son, why hast thou disregarded? While that we have sought thee grieving?' ... Then a crowd I saw fired with fierce hate, and voices shouted: 'Slay!' And in their midst a youth was bound, and they hurled stones on him from every side, that he sank deathward, but his eyes were gates of prayer raised to an opening heaven, and from his lips, un-stilled by scourging pains or life's eclipse, petitions for their pardon came, that so stirred pity to see it."

These are sent to him to aid him by opening his heart to the peace of God.

Higher up the stair, smoke begins to drift across the sun, darkening it more and more until sight is completely lost and there is no clear air. One stumbles on blindly.

Seven Deadly Sins---Pride

But eventually one emerges on the first terrace of Purgatory proper. This is a flat are about six metres wide, with sheer rock rising before and falling away behind. The bare, flat rock of the first terrace stretches away to left and right.

The rock face ahead has no visible way up to the next terrace, but is of clear white marble, carved with many wonderful life-like sculptures giving examples of humility - angels, the Ark of the Covenant on a car drawn by oxen with seven choirs the carvings of whom seem almost to sing going before it, and many others. Even the speech of the subjects seems to have been sculpted:

"Upon the fronting rock I gazed. It seemed, our further course to block, it rose uncleft by fissure, gate or stair. But its own marvel filled mine eyes. Its white clear marble was with sculptured wealth so well, so richly furnished, Polycletus' art not only, but the actuality of Nature, might accept the inferior's scorn. I saw an angel who, I might have sworn, spoke Hail! to her to whom he came to tell the gracious verdict that reversed our woe, when the long-wept-for peace, by Heaven's decree, to men was granted; held no more apart by God's refusal of our guilt. For she to whom he bent, who turned the holy key of Love's high gates, this speech imprinted showed: Ecce ancilla Dei! Apt as seal on the soft wax. ... Here the marble live seemed motion, as their car the oxen drew, bearing the sacred ark, which taught the bane of those who more than seemly service do. Before them moved seven choirs. My senses warred: 'They sing.' 'They sing not.' With no more accord sight knew the incense real that scent denied. The humble Psalmist, more and less than king, danced on before, with garments girded high; While Michal, from a palace window nigh, looked sombre scorn upon him. I moved to bring before mine eyes the next bright history that gleamed beyond that leaning queen's contempt. Here rode the prince for whom Saint Gregory by prayer won Heaven: the saint's high victory according to the Emperor's worth. Was he, Trajan, outriding seen. Beneath his rein a woman wept. Around him horsemen rode with stir of trampling hooves beneath. Above, the golden eagles that his standards showed swayed in the wind, so live the scene. It seemed, the woman holding to his bridle said: 'Lord, wilt thou venge me for my dearest dead, My son, for whom I mourn uncomforted?' And he to her: 'My soon return await.' And she, as one by urgent grief possessed: 'But, Lord, if thou return not?' 'Then will he True justice deal who takes my vacant state.' 'But will another's deed be praise for thee, Who hast thyself ignored it?' He thereat: 'Take comfort, for thy prayers prevail. The plea of justice rules, and pity's call must be as potent to delay me.' Visible speech so sculptured we beheld, beyond the reach of earthly art: nor can I clearly tell a thing so different."

Around this terrace slowly move those purging their sins here, each weighed down and bent over by a heavy burden, praying as they go, for themselves and those on Earth who are still in danger of Hell.

On the pavement itself, placed where the penitents here cannot help but see them, bent under their loads as they are, are carvings as wondrous as those on the cliff-face, giving examples of the sin of Pride, which is the sin being purged on this terrace.

"There saw I Lucifer as lightning fall, Heaven's noblest cast from Heaven. The further side showed where Briareus, raised by equal pride, smitten by celestial lightning, sprawled supine, by chill death weighted to the earth he spurned. Thymbraeus I saw. Pallas and Mars I saw yet armed around their father, gazing down upon the giant's dismembered limbs. I saw Nimrod beneath his toil bewildered stand, the nations ranged around on either hand who shared his pride in Shinar. Tears were mine thy seven and seven children, Niobe, slain in their youth around thy feet to see. And here was Saul, face-fallen, pierced and dead by his own conquered weapon: rain nor dew Gilboa from that fated moment knew. And foolish here I saw Arachne too, half-spider now, and mournful to survey the tatters of the work her hurt had wrought. And Rehoboam, his high threats forgot, now terrored in his clanging chariot fled the hard pursuit behind him. Forward lay Vision succeeding vision. Alcmaeon within the lucid pavement made appear his mother's bright adorning bought too dear. Further, Sennacherib on the temple stone stretched lifeless, while his murdering sons withdrew. And next Tomyris, who to Cyrus said: 'With blood that was thy thirst I feed thee full.' And all the pitiless ruin she caused was shown. Headless beyond, the bold Assyrian bull. Great Holofernes, sprawled, whom Judith slew, while on its flying rear his army bled. Troy saw I also there, how piteous low! Blackened and hollowed by its eating fire, and all its pride degraded."

Around the curve of the first terrace from when one ascends to it one eventually nears the way up to the second terrace. An angel is stationed there, white-winged and white-robed, with an unthreatening visage, full of light.

For Dante, he beats his wings across Dante's forehead, erasing one of the 'P's the gatekeeper placed there and making the others fainter. Dante quickly discovers that the fewer and fainter the 'P's on his forehead, the easier his ascent.

Upwards, a neatly-cut but steep and narrow stair is carved into the rock, so narrow that ones elbows easily touch both sides at once as one ascends to the second terrace.

Seven Deadly Sins---Lust

The lustful are purged by burning in an immense wall of flames...

(Reference Dante Alighieri's Purgatory)



One emerges onto the seventh terrace to face a field of tall, clear, flames, held back from a narrow path along the edge of the terrace by a strong wind rising from below.

There is a sound of voices from out of the fire, singing hymns, 'Summae' and 'Deus Clementiae', and those expiating their sins here can be seen moving in the fire, burning as they chant. They also cry of the virtues of husbands and wives, the obligations of marriage, and repeat their hymns again. Those on this terrace are expiating the sin of lust, having their excessive passion burned away in fire.

There are, in fact, two groups of sinners in the fire, one stationary, one moving around the terrace. When the two groups meet, their members kiss shortly and move on without pausing, as they turn away crying "Sodom and Gomorrah!" and "Pasiphae in a cow incarnate lay that she might draw the bull her lust to sate!" The moving group are those who committed unnatural acts of lust (those who cry 'Sodom and Gomorrah!') while the stationary are those who sinned no less, but by simply lusting too much, rather than wrongly.

Around the terrace, one comes upon the angel who guards the way up to the Earthly Paradise, as glorious as all the others. He sings "Beati mundi corde" in a voice with such an intensity of life that no human voice can compete with it. The angel tells travellers that they may not ascend unless they submit themselves to the fire - the way up lies on the inner edge of the terrace, through the flames, towards the chanting which comes from the other side. "O ye spirits purified, you may not enter by this stair except the fire hath licked you. Through its flames ascend, heeding the chant beyond." This angel removed the last 'P' from Dante's forehead.

Dante was very dubious about this, but was assured by Virgil that the fire was of a spiritual nature, and would not harm him physically. And indeed, this is the case. The fire does not burn the body, but it is nonetheless very painful. "After them I went, but when I felt that cleansing heat's intensity, I would have flung myself in boiling glass to quench the burning."

A chant is heard from the other side as one makes one's way through the flames. "Venite, benedicti Patris," it says. It from a blinding white glow which is present at the bottom of the steep ascent to the Earthly Paradise, where one emerges from the flames. It encourages those who emerge to carry on upwards while there is light to do so.

The ascent, though steep, runs straight between the rock faces to either side, and lies so that the light of the setting sun illuminates it along its whole length until the sun is entirely set.

Dante, Virgil and Statius slept on the stairs rather than ascend all the way to the Earthly Paradise after emerging from the flames. While he slept, Dante dreamed. "I dreamed a dame I saw youthful and fair. Amid a field of flowers she pluckt, and wandered singing. This she sang: 'Tell him who asks my name that Leah am I. With my fair hands a garland wreath I weave, my mirror and myself to satisfy. But Rachel at her glass from morn to eve sits ever. Fain her own sweet eyes is she to worship: better with my hands to me it seems to twist my crown; for diversely my pleasure is to do, and hers to see.'"

And carrying on up the stairs, one emerges in the Earthly Paradise...

Existential Friday Part IV

It's Friday and I'm at work.

BBBBLLLLAAAHH!!!!!!!!!

Well, it looks like the weekend is full of Happy Days and Drunk And Horny Nights.

Existential Friday Part III

Dinosauria, We

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

Existential Friday Part II

Consider the Lobster

CONSIDER THE LOBSTER
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Existential Friday

"The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. But I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's like your life is yours to create. I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking. Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are."

What I Am Doing Tonight