Unlabelled Passage Of The Day

[Viva June]

I have a file on my computer consisting of various transcribed quotes that I plan to post here and/or elsewhere. While going through it just now, I came upon this passage from Donald Barthelme's short story "The Joker's Greatest Triumph":

"What makes The Jocker tick I wonder?" Fredric said, "I mean what area his real motivations?"

"Consider him at any level of conduct," Bruce said slowly, "in the home, on the street, in interpersonal relations, in jail—always there is an extraordinary contradiction. He is dirty and compulsively neat, aloof and desperately gregarious, enthusiastic and sullen, generous and stingy, a snappy dresser and a scarecrow, a gentleman and a boor, given to extremes of happiness and despair, singularly well able to apply himself and capable of frittering away a lifetime in trivial pursuits, decorous and unseemly, kind and cruel, tolerant yet open to the most outrageous varieties of bigotry, a great friend and an implacable enemy, a lover and an abominator of women, sweet-spoken and foul-mouthed, a rake and a puritan, swelling with hubris and haunted by inferiority, outcast and social climber, felon and philanthropist, barbarian and patron of the arts, enamored of novelty and solidly conservative, philosopher and fool, Republican and Democrat, large of soul and unbearably petty, distant and brimming with friendly impulses, an inveterate liar and astonishingly strict with petty cash, adventurous and timid, imaginative and stolid, malignly destructive and a planter of trees on Arbor Day—I tell you frankly, the man is a mess."

"That's extremely well said Bruce," Fredric stated. "I think you've given really a very thoughtful analysis."

"I was paraphrasing what Mark Schorer said about Sinclair Lewis," Bruce replied.

"Well it's very brilliant just the same," Fredric noted.

This is quite funny in light of the recent Batman film. Barthelme was really on to something.

[Odalisque]

Jocantha went back to her house in Chelsea, which struck her for the first time as looking dull and over-furnished. She had a resentful conviction that Gregory would be uninteresting at dinner, and that the play would be stupid after dinner. On the whole her frame of mind showed a marked divergence from the purring complacency of Attah, who was again curled up in his corner of the divan with a great peace radiating from every curve of his body.

But then he had killed his sparrow.

from The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat by Saki (H H Munro).

[BlackCatSophie]

Even Jonas was fretful--he was running up a storm, our mother used to say--and could not sleep quietly; all during those days when the change was coming Jonas stayed restless. From a deep sleep he would start suddenly, lifting his head as though listening, and then, on his feet and moving in one quick ripple, he ran up the stairs and across the beds and around through the doors in and out and then down the stairs and across the hall and over the chair in the dining room and across the table and through the kitchen and out into the garden where he would slow, sauntering, and then pause to lick a paw and flick an ear and take a look at the day. At night we could hear him running, feel him cross our feet as we lay in bed, running up a storm.

-- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

[BlackCatSophie]

"The Cats of Ulthar" by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 15 Jun 1920
Published November 1920 in The Tryout, Vol. 6, No. 11, p. 3-9.

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroe and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle's lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

In Ulthar, before ever the burgesses forbade the killing of cats, there dwelt an old cotter and his wife who delighted to trap and slay the cats of their neighbors. Why they did this I know not; save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night, and take it ill that cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight. But whatever the reason, this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and slaying every cat which came near to their hovel; and from some of the sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that the manner of slaying was exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and his wife; because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of cats hated these odd folk, they feared them more; and instead of berating them as brutal assassins, merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should stray toward the remote hovel under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight a cat was missed, and sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently; or console himself by thanking Fate that it was not one of his children who had thus vanished. For the people of Ulthar were simple, and knew not whence it is all cats first came.

One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the South entered the narrow cobbled streets of Ulthar. Dark wanderers they were, and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village twice every year. In the market-place they told fortunes for silver, and bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could tell; but it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads of cats, hawks, rams and lions. And the leader of the caravan wore a headdress with two horns and a curious disk betwixt the horns.

There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or mother, but only a tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten. So the boy whom the dark people called Menes smiled more often than he wept as he sat playing with his graceful kitten on the steps of an oddly painted wagon.

On the third morning of the wanderers' stay in Ulthar, Menes could not find his kitten; and as he sobbed aloud in the market-place certain villagers told him of the old man and his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he heard these things his sobbing gave place to meditation, and finally to prayer. He stretched out his arms toward the sun and prayed in a tongue no villager could understand; though indeed the villagers did not try very hard to understand, since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the odd shapes the clouds were assuming. It was very peculiar, but as the little boy uttered his petition there seemed to form overhead the shadowy, nebulous figures of exotic things; of hybrid creatures crowned with horn-
flanked disks. Nature is full of such illusions to impress the imaginative.

That night the wanderers left Ulthar, and were never seen again. And the householders were troubled when they noticed that in all the village there was not a cat to be found. From each hearth the familiar cat had vanished; cats large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow and white. Old Kranon, the burgomaster, swore that the dark folk had taken the cats away in revenge for the killing of Menes' kitten; and cursed the caravan and the little boy. But Nith, the lean notary, declared that the old cotter and his wife were more likely persons to suspect; for their hatred of cats was notorious and increasingly bold. Still, no one durst complain to the sinister couple; even when little Atal, the innkeeper's son, vowed that he had at twilight seen all the
cats of Ulthar in that accursed yard under the trees, pacing very slowly and solemnly in a circle around the cottage, two abreast, as if in performance of some unheard-of rite of beasts. The villagers did not know how much to believe from so small a boy; and though they feared that the evil pair had charmed the cats to their death, they preferred not to chide the old cotter till they met him outside his dark and repellent yard.

So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people awakened at dawn - behold! every cat was back at his accustomed hearth! Large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content. The citizens talked with one another of the affair, and marveled not a little. Old Kranon again insisted that it was the dark folk who had taken them, since cats did not return alive from the cottage of the ancient man and his wife. But all agreed on one thing: that the refusal of all the cats to eat their portions of meat or drink their saucers of milk was exceedingly curious. And for two whole days the sleek, lazy cats of Ulthar would touch no food, but only doze by the fire or
in the sun.

It was fully a week before the villagers noticed that no lights were appearing at dusk in the windows of the cottage under the trees. Then the lean Nith remarked that no one had seen the old man or his wife since the night the cats were away. In another week the burgomaster decided to overcome his fears and call at the strangely silent dwelling as a matter of duty, though in so doing he was careful to take with him Shang the blacksmith and Thul the cutter of stone as witnesses. And when they had broken down the frail door they found only this: two cleanly picked human skeletons on the earthen floor, and a number of singular beetles crawling in the shadowy corners.

There was subsequently much talk among the burgesses of Ulthar. Zath, the coroner, disputed at length with Nith, the lean notary; and Kranon and Shang and Thul were overwhelmed with questions. Even little Atal, the innkeeper's son, was closely questioned and given a sweetmeat as reward. They talked of the old cotter and his wife, of the caravan of dark wanderers, of small Menes and his black kitten, of the prayer of Menes and of the sky during that prayer, of the doings of the cats on the night the caravan left, and of what was later found in the cottage under the dark trees in the repellent yard.

And in the end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hatheg and discussed by travelers in Nir; namely, that in Ulthar no man may kill a cat.

[G. S. Carnivals]

"When you are dead," said Delia, "I shall collect your bleached bones and carve them into totems. I shall paint them in gaudy reds and blues and use them to decorate my garden. I shall fashion a cage from your ribs and house a snake within it. I shall make a bowl of your skull in which I shall plant foul-smelling cacti. I shall even carve your finger bones into tiny trinkets and sell them on the street to foreigners."

She leaned closer and hissed into my ear: "And what do you think of that?"

"All I ask, my dear," I whispered, "is that you do not forget me."

Thomas Wiloch - "Delia"

[Viva June]

A catty little piece by Lord Dunsany:

There is a road in Rome that runs through an ancient temple that once the gods had loved; it runs along the top of a great wall, and the floor of the temple lies far down beneath it, of marble, pink and white.

Upon the temple floor I counted to the number of thirteen hungry cats.

'Sometimes,' they said among themselves, 'it was the gods that lived here, sometimes it was men, and now it's cats. So let us enjoy the sun on the hot marble before another people comes.'

For it was at that hour of a warm afternoon when my fancy is able to hear the silent voices.

And the fearful leanness of all those thirteen cats moved me to go into a neighbouring fish shop, and there to buy a quantity of fishes. Then I returned and threw them all over the railing at the top of the great wall, and they fell for thirty feet, and hit the sacred marble with a smack.

Now, in any other town but Rome, or in the minds of any other cats, the sight of fishes falling out of heaven had surely excited wonder. They rose slowly, and all stretched themselves; then they came leisurely towards the fishes. 'It is only a miracle,' they said in their hearts.

[G. S. Carnivals]

The cats wore hats to disguise themselves. The burgesses of Ulthar wondered why the cats were so shy. It was certainly not in fear of the rats, because rats were never a common foe; in the old days, rats had not even existed, as those trading between Hatheg and Kadath would attest to any ears that would welcome hearsay upon their itching drums. The rats were simply shadows of the cats with hats, elongated and terrifyingly ineffectual. The rats were, in this shape of blurred foreboding, reminiscent of the outer gods to which the Ulthar folk prayed, ever since the dictum about not killing cats took sway. Most folk, you see, had always feared the cats, those dreaded cats of Ulthar. Vengeance was sweet in any feline's green eyes, against the welkin's backdrop of panoplied purple folds.

D. F. Lewis - "Beyond Ulthar"

[gveranon]

The penny arcade peep show long process in different forms.

In the pass the muttering sickness leaped into our throats, coughing and spitting in the silver morning. frost on our bones. Most of the ape forms died there on the treeless slopes. dumb animal eyes on "me" brought the sickness from white time caves frozen in my throat to hatch in the warm steamlands spitting song of scarlet bursts in egg flesh. beyond the pass, limestone slopes down into a high green savanna and the grass-wind on our genitals. came to a swamp fed by hot springs and mountain ice. and fell in flesh heaps. sick apes spitting blood laugh. sound bubbling in throats torn with the talk sickness. faces and bodies covered with pus foam. animal hair thru the purple sex-flesh. sick sound twisted thru body. underwater music bubbling in blood beds. human faces tentative flicker in and out of focus. We waded into the warm mud-water. hair and ape flesh off in screaming strips. stood naked human bodies covered with phosphorescent green jelly. soft tentative flesh cut with ape wounds. peeling other genitals. fingers and tongues rubbing off the jelly-cover. body melting pleasure-sounds in the warm mud. till the sun went and a blue wind of silence touched human faces and hair. When we came out of the mud we had names.

-- William S. Burroughs, The Soft Machine

[G. S. Carnivals]

I'm speaking about the first man on the sun, the man who is not with us now but who is destined to be. We, in fact, already recognize him. And in this recognition we create his destiny.

The first man on the sun will be courageous, we believe, because his feat will violate the most ingrained of reactions that humanity holds. He will walk upon the sun. He will defy the heat, the light, the massive, sustained power of the sun.

We expect him to even defy our expectations.

"The First Man on the Sun" we shall call him, and praise him with speeches and parades and total media coverage and a prominent and flattering picture in the history books. Fathers will tell sons how they knew him when. Mothers will tell daughters to find a real man like him. Strangers in bars will raise their beers to his image on a TV screen.

The First Man on the Sun.

His achievement is complicated. More complicated than that. His walk on the sun will be short and of little practical use. But the memory of his walk, the re-imaginings of his walk, the picture in every mind of "the man who did it" wading through the flame and light, these will last forever and travel far. And so he will always walk and walk and walk on the sun.

When I speak of flame, I don't mean flame.

When I speak of light, I don't mean light.

Already there are expectant faces gazing upward at high noon.

Thomas Wiloch - "The First Man on the Sun"

[Bleak&Icy]

The personality, a mask of convenience, becomes stuck to the face. Eye becomes clouded by "I." The human spirit becomes a trivial mess of petty identifications. The most cherished principles are the greatest lies. "I think therefore I am." But what is "I"? The more you think, the more the I closes. Thinking, "I am asleep"; my I is blinded. The intellect is a sword, and its use is to prevent identification with any particular phenomenon encountered. The most powerful mind clings to the fewest fixed principles. The only clear view is from atop the mountain of your dead selves.

-- Liber Null by Peter J. Carroll