Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
["Midnight Special-Sly & The Family Stone "Thank You(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin"]
Later note. The original video posted for this song, and which version I prefer, was ["Sly & the family stone - Thank you" -- LIVE D.K.R.C.73], but it has since been removed.
This Creole negro song from 19th century Louisiana, notable for the intrinsic and pronounced musicality of its lyrics -- whether translated or no, appears in George Washington Cable's (1844-1925) Grandissimes.
"Mo pé coupé canne, zami,
Pou’ fé i’a’ zen’, zami,
Pou’ mo baille Palmyre.
Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo c’ere,
Mo l’aimé ’ou —mo l’aimé ’ou."
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(translation)
"On the mountain chain, my friends,
I’ve been cutting cane, my friends,
Money for to gain, my friends,
For my fair Palmyre.
Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, my dear,
I love you—I love you."
Scenes from the 1984 Brazillian film "Quilombo."
["Quilombo (João Nogueira) atuação do mestre no filme" -- 1984]
Never forget that for the devil keeping up confident appearances is a titanic and never ending task; sometimes requiring the strength and perseverance of Atlas, and which in some ways he often to his credit evinces, and which not surprisingly accounts, to no small degree, for his extraordinary and God-like success.
What's the one thing that can keep you from God's peace? The devil in hell. How does one then escape the devil in Hell? There are and have been quite a number of ways or methods suggested. The Devil, for instance, is most puissant in the areas of fear and mind control. Your being in reality (i.e., by being honest, brave, and rational) or not, therefore, makes all the difference.
The supreme evil of life and existence, the fount of all the very worst sin and iniquity, is spirit people.
Someone might object in reply to this, "But what about regular people who are singularly bad or criminal?"
The latter would, it could be plausibly argued, have neither the incentive or wherewithal to perpetrate evil on such a deliberately sadistic and utterly ruthless manner (such as has transpired and defiled the history of man) and still get away with it, but for the assistance and alibi spirit people provide them. Indeed, we might even go so far, or at least some might reasonably do so, to absolve ourselves and forgive all regular people of any and all of the most serious wrong doing. For if otherwise very guilty regular people argue that they could not refuse or defy the commands and dictates of spirit people -- as the majority of people (certainly in our own time) would seem to agree is the case -- then who can much fault or blame them for anything? If this supposition is correct, then perhaps the only sin ever really committed was the creation of spirit people. Yet whether true or not, you can, as always, consider and judge for yourself.
Do "birds of a feather flock together?" Well, not always. Most every clear morning in the neighborhood where I live, the local birds -- seagulls, crows, pigeons, sparrows and what not -- congregate and take to wing in their separate groups and will fly about with each other, sometimes cawing, shouting, or yelping aloud as some of them will do; welcoming the rosy dawn in a happy manner not unlike in Akhenaten's famous hymn. It just so happened that the other day I witnessed an unusual and amusing sight. As a flock pigeons were circling about high above, going through their aerial acrobatics in unison like a team of highly trained, precision flyers, among them I spotted two sparrows who followed their volant evolutions to perfection. I don't recall ever seeing anything like it in my life.
On a separate, yet similar note, I happened to be looking out from the doorway of my home, and I saw the neighbor's tabby lying prone, quietly, as if in thought. Then she noticed I was watching, and she calmly turned her head to glance up at me -- and what an expression. There was this knowing look in here eyes, as if she was musing on life's sometimes unfairness and inevitable difficulties, and as much as to say to me "I know -- tell me about it." And yet at the same time, like we see when we watch a grown infant, she was so very innocent also. The combined impression of intelligent thought with undeniable innocence, caused me, as with the sparrows, to laugh.
The Good That Is Always [resumed from earlier]
Somewhere in its own vision of tender light
Shimmering in tranquil beams, like unto gold,
Lies every one or thing of lasting worth,
Yet which sight few of us ever behold;
Unless we be among the blest of the earth
Looking from inspiration’s threshold,
And even then it is but a fleeting glance
Prompted by thoughts much like romance.
So we look to glimpse or catch, therefore,
The shadow of true Heaven in Nature.
Yet so fallen or blind have we become
That Nature too has become a distant one.
Still we feel and know she’s yet there
Though obscured by our worry and cares,
And come such time we’re no more harried
Then once more Sky and Earth are married;
And the Universe itself one spacious hall
Where the flood of love suffuses all.
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[To be continued...]
In Praise of Hell
"The most beautiful story of the Middle Ages..." -- W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance [1897], p. 327.
In viewing Eugen Weber's "Western Tradition" (#20, "The Feudal Order"), I was once more reminded, as I had been not long ago reading from Durant, of the 13th century French yarn "Aucassin and Nicolette," and which (as also with Durant) quoted these famous lines from chapter 6 of that medieval work, later echoed by Diderot:
"For into Paradise go none but such people as I will tell you of. There go those aged priests, and those old cripples, and the maimed, who all day long and all night cough before the altars, and in the crypts beneath the churches; those who go in worn old mantles and old tattered habits; who are naked, and barefoot, and full of sores; who are dying of hunger and of thirst, of cold and of wretchedness...
"But in Hell will I go. For to Hell go the fair clerks and the fair knights who are slain in the tourney and in the great wars, and the stout archer and the loyal man. With them will I go. And there go the fair and courteous ladies, who have friends, two or three, together with their wedded lords. And there pass the gold and the silver, the ermine and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels, and the happy of the world. With these will I go, so only that I have Nicolette, my very sweet friend, by my side."
Although it is suggested or perhaps wryly insinuated that these passages are examples somehow of witty and clever argumentation against religion, one will find upon examination that the claims and conclusion arrived at suffer from the following serious, not to mention puerile, deficiencies:
1. Aucassin associates cripples, sickness, corruption, and infirmity with the church, yet rampant, society wide health and or moral problems are in fact the result of Hell, i.e. spirit people, whom he so praises, as much or more than anyone or anything else.
2. If those in the church act very badly, almost invariably it is the result of Hell using and influencing such persons; by which thereby religion gets a bad name.
3. What is actually Hell and spirit people is assumed and mistakenly taken to be or represent the church and heaven.
4. Auccassin's are made to sound as if they are actuated by his love for Nicolette, and yet what really is she to him but either a whore of convenience or a nurse maid? What does he really care about her welfare, such that he may invoke "love" as his motive?
5. Without the church there would by the 13th century have been relatively little of the literacy that made possible the extolling of Aucassin's supposed love in text form; nor would Knights and nobles have been sufficient to maintain a peace that could permit such frivolous, troubadouric affectation.
6. Of course, there is no mention or concern shown for social concerns and justice; rather the peasants will toil so that Auccasin, the aristocrat, can have his whore/nurse maid. The church, by contrast, at least served the function of trying to address societal and individual woes and inequality.
7. And after all this, who then is Nicolette left with as a lover but an overgrown adolescent and self-centered nincompoop?
“I’m Batman”
This time around, the spirit people did not want the Hitleresque figure (i.e., the so-called "Speelburg") unfairly taking all the blame. So what measure then is adopted to spare their all wealthy, all mighty puppet-dictator from ignominy and others' quite understandable hatred and wrath? Why, it is permitted him (again, this time around) to remain publically anonymous!