Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
www.gunjones.com
Lother Remsdorf Jr.
Speaking of people who force themselves on others, I made the great find of late in perusing old issues of Weird Tales of the stories "The Damp Man" (July 1947), "The Damp Man Returns" (Sept. 1947), and "The Damp Man Again" (May 1949) by Allison V. Harding; in which the title character is just such an one. According to people who know about and look into such things, Allison V. Harding is a pen-name of an otherwise unknown author - unknown that is outside of "her" many WT stories and speculation as to "her" actual identity. Interestingly, someone even suggested the name was an anagram for J. D. Salinger; implying...?
For a .pdf copy of the three stories, see:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N-7MSM7DrvhF_E7wCmC76VljYesusCvf
While for a most intriguing article on author Harding's real identity, see:
http://scottnicolay.com/stories-from-the-borderland-12-the-damp-man-by-allison-v-harding/
As I have vehemently insisted before, an (actually) interesting person or a popular celebrity does not need to force themselves on anyone. However some still refuse to believe this; such that it has reached a point in recent decades where (supposed) movie and media stars (and who of necessity are members of "the party") are thought of as equivalent to and with traditional royalty. Alas (at least so seems to augur Buckingham Palace evidently) - not so fast.
As we always say ourselves to neo-mass media-dum:
"Munster go home."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/entertainment/george-clooney-royal-baby/index.html
["George Clooney will not be royal baby's godfather" - from CNN, 9 May 2019]
Inasmuch as there is now and then talk of yet another war in the Middle East, it is both incredible and sobering when you think about it of the great number of West vs. East wars there have been going on for millennia and all the way back to the days of Troy: including Greeks (including Alexander) versus Persians; Romans versus just about everyone in the region, Byzantium similarly; the Crusades; wars with the Ottomans; World War I and up unto the several just in our own day. Which makes one wonder what at bottom is this ongoing, momentous and ages old conflict really all about; a question especially fitting philosophers of history, anthropologists, and perhaps theologians as well.
Mayhap fittingly then some of the most famous epic poems off Western literature deal with the subject; thinking here particularly of Homer's "Iliad," "The Song of Roland," and Torquato Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered" (we might also include Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," except that the latter tends to be rather in large part a comical work.) Now "Jerusalem Delivered," as well as being a long time favorite of mine is very useful to know because so many famous operas, particularly of the baroque era (by such as for example Handel and Vivaldi) are based on it (and "Orlando Furioso" likewise.) So that it helps to understand the such operas if you know in advance what it is based on. Tasso has been so taken to heart by the Italians for centuries that Joseph Addison writing in the 1700s said that while traveling in Italy it was common among ordinary folk there to know and sing his lines from memory. However, "Jerusalem Delivered" is such the involved soap opera that it may take time for some to finally get around to readily recognizing and familiarizing themselves with it many characters, and, as it might pertain, their given love interest. For such who are or may be so challenged, I just the other day learned of the 1958 film "The Mighty Crusaders" based on it, and which as well as being a pretty good peplum type film of its kind is actually a most helpful primer for someone prior to their jumping into Tasso proper.
If interested the film is available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlGuLIJjI9Y&t=318s
Song writing team Lee Bowman and Eddie Albert have a hit on their hands in "Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman" (1947).
["Life Can Be Beautiful - Lee Bowman"]
["Steffani's Niobe, Regina di Tebe: "Trà bellici carmi"" - Philippe Jaroussky (Anfione) and ensemble. Boston Early Music Festival, June 19, 2011]
For more see: https://bemf.org/
[ch. 2]
2...I do not think, indeed, that so great moderation could be observed by men (even if there were no instigation by the devil inciting thereto), as that no individual, in partaking of food, would go beyond due limits and restraint, until he had learned to do so from long usage and experience. What, then, is the state of the case? In the matter of eating and drinking it was possible for us to go wrong, even without any incitement from the devil, if we should happen to be either less temperate or less careful (than we ought); and are we to suppose, then, in our appetite for sexual intercourse, or in the restraint of our natural desires, our condition is not something similar? I am of opinion, indeed, that the same course of reasoning must be understood to apply to other natural movements as those of covetousness, or of anger, or of sorrow, or of all those generally which through the vice of intemperance exceed the natural bounds of moderation. There are therefore manifest reasons for holding the opinion, that as in good things the human will is of itself weak to accomplish any good (for it is by divine help that it is brought to perfection in everything); so also, in things of an opposite nature we receive certain initial elements, and, as it were, seeds of sins, from those things which we use agreeably to nature; but when we have indulged them beyond what is proper, and have not resisted the first movements to intemperance, then the hostile power, seizing the occasion of this first transgression, incites and presses us hard in every way, seeking to extend our sins over a wider field, and furnishing us human beings with occasions and beginnings of sins, which these hostile powers spread far and wide, and, if possible, beyond all limits. Thus, when men at first for a little desire money, covetousness begins to grow as the passion increases, and finally the fall into avarice takes place. And after this, when blindness of mind has succeeded passion, and the hostile powers, by their suggestions, hurry on the mind, money is now no longer desired, but stolen, and acquired by force, or even by shedding human blood. Finally, a confirmatory evidence of the fact that vices of such enormity proceed from demons, may be easily seen in this, that those individuals who are oppressed either by immoderate love, or incontrollable anger, or excessive sorrow, do not suffer less than those who are bodily vexed by devils. For it is recorded in certain histories, that some have fallen into madness from a state of love, others from a state of anger, not a few from a state of sorrow, and even from one of excessive joy; which results, I think, from this, that those opposing powers, i.e., those demons, having gained a lodgment in their minds which has been already laid open to them by intemperance, have taken complete possession of their sensitive nature, especially when no feeling of the glory of virtue has aroused them to resistance.
~ Origen (c. 184-c. 253), On First Principles, Book III
