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The Screwtape Letters 12/32 -C.S. Lewis

PREFACE 

He doesn't intend to explain how these letters got to him “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”p.9 They are pleased by these errors the script in this book can be obtained by anyone who learned the knack but ill-disposed people who’ll make bad use of it won't learn from him. “Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar.”p.9 Not everything Screwtape says is to be assumed to be true even from his angle. He hasn't attempted to identify anyone in the letters but doubts their portraits are just. “There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.”p.9 The letters are not chronological, November XVII was written before rational was serious, but the dating seems to have no relation to terrestrial time. “The history of the European war, except in so far as it happens now and then to impinge upon the spiritual condition as one human being was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.”p.9 

CS Lewis July 5 1941 (in this universe this is a published series of letters CW Lewis found like how LOTR is a history Tolkien translated and if you didn’t know he was Catholic you will now)  

1

Screwtape writes to Wormwood, (his nephew) noted that he tried to guide his patient’s (human victim) reading and direct him towards his materialist friend to keep him from the Enemy (God) it might have worked if he lived a few centuries before. “At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it wasn't; and if it was proved they really believed it.”p.11 They connected thinking with doing and prepared to alter their lives with that reasoning. “But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that.”p.11 (so in other words they propagate fake news) Since he was a boy his man has had a dozen different philosophies in his head. “Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.”p.11 Don't waste time on materialism, make him think the strong, stark or courageous is the future. 

Argument moves the struggle to the Enemy’s ground he can argue too and in practical propaganda has been shown for centuries to be inferior to Our Father Below. (the devil) “By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the resault?”p.12 (this is why you need to keep you mind open to all sources so you don't get trapped in a echo chamber) Even if a train of thought can be twisted to their favor, he’ll find he’s strengthened the patient’s habit of attending universal issues and withdraw from immediate sense experiences. His job is to fix his attention to it and call it real life and not to ask what is real. Remember, he’s not a pure spirit like him, just a human, an advantage of the Enemy's enslaved to the pressure of the ordinary. 

Once he had a patient, an atheist, one day his train of thought was going the wrong way and his twenty years of work was tattering. He lost his head and began a defiance argument but he wasn't such a fool and suggested he get lunch, then the Enemy presumably made a counter suggestion that this was more important. “you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?”p.13 (huh this is interesting the shoulder devil and angel know the other exists but can’t see or hear each other) By the time the patient got to the bus he had counter suggested an unalterable conviction real life was enough to show him that sort of thing isn't true, now he’s in their Father’s house. 

Does he see now through centuries of their work, “they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes.”p.14 Use ordinary things, but not science against Christianity, they’ll encourage him to think of realities he can't see, keep them on economics and sociology. (this is also interesting usually Christianity denies science but here the argument is science teaches them to believe I things that aren’t physically there so they can easier believe in God) Don’t let them get away from real life, don't let them read science and give them an idea they know it all, his job is to fuddle not teach. 

2 

The patient had become Christian and don’t hope he’ll escape the penalties, but they must make the best of the situation. Many who convert have been reclaimed, the patient’s habits mentally and bodily are still in their favor. “One of our great allies at present in the Church itself.”p.15 Spread through all time and space rooted in eternity that spectacle makes the tempter uneasy, but fortunately is invisible to the humans. All the patients see is a half-finished Gothic erection and a new estate that offers familiar faces and books no one understands, of corrupt texts and bad lyrics in small print. The neighbors in the pews can be useful, the patient is a fool, make him believe their religion is ridiculous, keep everything in his mind hazy, he’ll have all eternity to give him clarity in Hell. 

Work hard on the disappointment that will come in the next few weeks, the Enemy allows this to occur on every threshold of human endeavor. “In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.”p.17 The Enemy takes this risk because he wants the humans (that he refers to as disgusting vermin) to freely love Him. (as lovers servant and sons) “He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to ‘do it on their own’ And there lies our opportunity.”p.17 (see “why won’t god help me” “if God wanted me to-” people he’s not going to come down from on high to personally help you he gives you opportunities to learn and grow) But there is also their danger, if they get through the dryness they are harder to tempt. If the people in the next pew have no grounds for disappointments his job is to keep the thoughts of others different, vices don't prove hypocrisy. He hasn't been with the Enemy long enough to have real humility, what he says on his knees is parrot talk. He believes he has a good credit balance in the Enemy’s ledger for being converted and is showing humility by going to Church keep him in that state of mind. (you cant just say the words you have to actually feel them and believe in what you are saying) 

3 

Wormwood must use the man’s relationship with his mother to his advantage as the Enemy may reach the man’s new conduct to the old lady. Keep in touch with Glubose who’s in charge of the lady and build up annoyance in the house. Keep his mind on his inner life, “Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious.”p.20 They have means of making his prayers innocuous, make sure they are spiritual and her soul not her physical being. This keeps his focus on her sins and with his influence any of her actions are irritating to him. “Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees,”p.21 This also keeps him praying for an imaginary person less and less like his real mother. He himself has patients so divorced he can turn them at a moment from praying for their family to beating them. (sadly too common) 

When two humans live together for years usually their tones and forced expressions irritate the other, use that. In domestic life, hatred expresses itself by saying things harmless on paper, but in a voice or moment they are like a punch to the face. He and Glubose must work together to have their patients quarrel and be convinced they are the innocent one. Then they’ll have the humans in a situation where they say things to offend on purpose and have a grievance to it and use the old lady's religious position. 

4 

His last letter reminded him to write back on the painful subject of prayer, how his patient’s prayers for his mother proved unfortunate is not something to write to his uncle about or a junior Tempter to the Undersecretary, it also shows he’s shifting responsibility. The best thing is to keep his patient from praying, it’s best to encourage him to remember the parrot like nature of prayers in childhood. The sort of prayer they want is a sense of supplication not moving lips while on knees, clever and lazy patients can be taken by it for a long time, remember they are animals. “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.”p.25 (a lot like religious cults) 

If that fails, fall back on subtle misdirection of his intention, there are ways to prevent them from attending the Enemy. “The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves.”p.25 Have them not turn to Him but themselves, teach them to estimate the value of prayer by the success of producing their desired feelings. But the Enemy won't be idle where prayer is He is and His actions. If He defeats this misdirection, they have a subtler weapon, humans do not directly perceive Him (which they unhappily can’t avoid) only vague impasses during the episode known as the Incarnation and objects of reverence. “But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it-to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him.”p.27 (is this a commentary on false idols) If the patient trusts himself to the real external invisible Presence the incalculable may occur, it helps to avoid this that humans don't desire it as much as they think. 

5 

It is disappointing to receive a rhapsody letter instead of a report and calls him out on being drunk when the Europeans started another war. For the first time in his career he’s tasted the anguish of a human soul, and it went to his head. Remember, pleasure comes from duty, if his self-indulgence loses his prey he’ll be left eternally thirsting. With steady and cool headed application, the human will be his forever, his next letter better have a full account on his patient's reaction to the war. Consider making him a patriot or pacifist and warns him not to hope too much from the war. (if only you knew) 

A war is entertaining, the immediate fear and suffering is refreshing. “But what permanent good does it do unless we make use of it for bringing souls to Our Father Below?”p.30 When he sees suffering of humans who escaped them he feels denied a banquet, the Enemy mocks them this way. Think of how to use this war. “We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy.”p.31 While tens of thousands who don't turn towards values and causes they believe higher than themselves. The Enemy disapproves of many causes but often make prizes of these humans who give their lives for them. He thinks bad on the sophistical ground humans thought them good and were following them. (yeah something tells me God didn’t like the Crusades or Spanish Inquisition or a lot of other atrocities that used religion as a reason) 

Consider the undesirable deaths in wartime, Men go where they know they might be killed but if they are of the Enemy's party they are prepared. It would be better if all humans died amid those who lie as they trained them, promising life, encouraging that sickness, excuses every indulgence and withheld suggestions of a priest. It’s disastrous for them, wartime reminds those of death. “In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever.”p.32 He believes wartime is an opportunity to attack faith is exaggerated as the Enemy’s human partisans were told by Him suffering is essential for Redemption. “So that of faith which is destroyed by a war or a pestilence cannot really have been worth the trouble of destroying.”p.32 

6 

Screwtape is delighted Wormwood’s patient would be called for military service, they want him at maximum uncertainty, filled with considerations of the future as suspense and anxiety barricades the mind against the Enemy. His patient will pick up that he must submit to the Enemy’s will, it is his job that his patient thinks of things he is afraid of. “For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it:”p.35 Fix his patient’s attention inwards so he no longer sees their Enemy or his neighbors. 

To the war, don't rely too much on hatred, in anguish the patient can revenge his vindictive feelings. But that is mythical hatred towards scapegoats he has never met only modeled from newspapers. The results of this hatred is disappointing, “They are creatures of that miserable sort who loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and them give tea and cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns up at the back door.”p.36 There will some benevolence and in human soul, it’s best to direct that malice to neighbors who expect benevolence and benevolence to strangers. “The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely immaginary.”p.37 He must shove virtues outwards towards fantasy and desirable qualities inward to the Will. If they reach the Will and become habits, do they become fatal to them. “All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from our Father’s house; indeed they make him more amusing when he gets there,”p.37 

7 

To answer his last letter the High Command’s policy is for them to conceal themselves from their patients but it wasn't always so, so they are forced with a dilemma. “When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialist and sceptics. At least, not yet.”p.39 They hope in time to mythologize their science to an extent they believe in them and closed to the Enemy. If the man believes in Forces and deny spirits, the end of the war will be in sight but for now they must obey orders. Devils are comic figures in modern imagination, if he cannot believe in that then he cannot believe he is real.  

All extremes, except to the Enemy, are to be encouraged, (well one can argue against that when religion takes over your life it can be just as harmful to you and your family as any other bad habit)  especially at this period, some ages are lukewarm, others, like now, are unbalanced and it is their job to inflame them. They want the Church (they give it feminine pronouns) to be small, but of course it is heavily defended and they have not succeeded it, she has all the characteristics of a faction but subordinate factions within produce results, from the parties of Paul and Apollos and the High and Low parties of the Church of England. If his patient can become an objector, he will find himself in small unpopular society and the effects will almost be good. Has he had doubts in serving in a just war, does he have courage and won't have misgivings of pacifism, can he nearly be convinced to obey the Enemy. His best bet is to introduce an emotional crisis to convert him from pacifism to patriotism or vice ersa, the main task is the same, have the patient treat it as religion. “Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movement, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than progress and sacraments and charity, he is ours-”p.42 

8 

Now Scewtape is sure the Training College has gone to pieces since Slubgob became the head of it, has no one taught him the Law on Undulation. Humans are amphibians (a revolting hybrid that determined their Father to withdraw his support) half spirit half animal belonging to the eternal world and, in habit time. (that’s not what an amphibian is amphibians need a moist environment to survive and can breathe through their skin) While their spirits can be directed to eternal objects their possessions are in continual change as time does. Their nearest consistency is undulation, repeatedly falling up and down. “As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.”p.44 The dryness now is not a part of his work, just natural and will do no good unless he makes use of it. Find out what the Enemy wants to make of it and do the opposite, He relies on troughs more than peaks. 

They see humans as food (absorbing their will and at its expense increase their selfhood) but the obedience the Enemy demands is different, His love is not propaganda but the truth. “He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself-creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their will freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.”p.45 Their aim is a world where their Father drew all other beings into himself the Enemy wants a world united but still distinct. 

That’s the troughs the Enemy doesn't use his power to be more present the Irresistible and Indisputable are weapons His very nature forbids Him to use. To override human will is useless to Him, the creatures are to be themselves and one with him. He allows a little overriding in the beginning but never allows it to last long. “He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.”p.47 Through those troughs they grow into what He wants them to be, so prayers in dryness please Him best. “He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand;”p.47 (your child can’t learn to walk if you’re always carrying them) Their cause is in more danger when a human looks upon a universe where He seems to have vanished asks why they were forsaken and still obeys. 

9 

Like his last letter stated, the dryness needs to be expected; he believes the trough periods provide opportunity for temptations, the attack of lust has a better chance of success when the man’s world is cold and empty. (the peak lust leads more to being in love) There are other desires of the flesh, he could make the patient a drunkard, encourage him to use it as merriment but never forget, when they deal with pleasure in the healthy and normal form they are in the Enemy’s ground. “I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.”p.49 (something else interesting devils are unable to produce their own enjoyments like it’s almost the antithesis of their nature) All they can do is encourage humans to take pleasures in ways or degrees He has forbidden. An increasing craving for a diminishing pleasure is the formula to get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return. (in other words it’s ok have the occasional beer but not to always drink to a detriment) 

Another way of explaining the troughs is through the man’s thoughts, do not let him suspect undulation, let him think this dryness is permanent, then you may proceed. It all depends if the man is the desponding or wishful thinking type, if he is the former direct him to recover his old feelings, the latter, make him content with how low it is and doubt his first days of Christianity. “A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all-and more amusing.”p.51 Another possibility is a direct attack on his faith, once he assumes the trough phase is permanent persuade him his religion is just going to die away too, like all phases. 

10 

He heard from Triptweeze his patient made some desirable new acquaintances, and he’s used this in a promising manner. (they are rich smart and superficially intellectual and pacifist not on moral grounds but in the habit of belittling anything that concerns the mass of man and is fashionably communist) With this new couple he’s made use of his patient’s social, sexual and intellectual vanity, encourage him to portray himself as part of that party and by the time he realizes it’ll be difficult to withdraw. He will soon realize his faith is the opposite to assumptions his new friends' base conversations as long as he postpones his own acknowledgement of it, he will be in a false position. “He will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent.”p.54 He will assume skeptical attitudes that are not really his but play him well until they become his. “All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.”p.54 Delay the moment he realizes this pleasure is temptation. 

Sooner or later the new friends' natures will become clear then the tactics depend on the patient's intelligence. If he is a fool their presence will sweep away all criticism, then he can live two parallel lives appearing to be two different men in each circle. (so he’ll be two faced duplicitous and truly belonging in neither camp) Failing this he can be made to take pleasure in the two inconsistent lives and can be done by exploiting his vanity being treacherous to two sets of people, feeling shame and satisfaction. Failing all else, persuade him to believe that by continuing with the new acquaintance he is doing them some good all while spending more than he can afford and neglecting his work and mother and her reactions will be invaluable for domestic tension. 

11 

He is glad things are going well, the new friends have acquainted the patient with their whole set scoffers and worldlings, progressing towards their Fathers house. Though laughter is not always in their favor, it divides into Joy, Fun Joke Propper and Flippancy. The first is among family and friends, same as Jokes but they don't know the real cause. (here’s something else demons don’t know joy it’s the antitheses to their nature) Fun is close to Joy, little use to them but can be used to divert them to something else, but has undesirable tendencies to promote charity, courage and entertainment. (music is detestable something like it occurs in Heaven that kind of laughter is discouraged) The Joke Proper is a promising field, divided by humans into two classes some see as an indecent story, others laugh, bawdy humor might or might not help him. The English take their sense of humor seriously and feel shame in deficiency. “Cruelty is shameful-unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke.”p.59 (it’s just a prank brah) 

A thousand bawdy jokes do not help towards mans damnations so much, he finds he can do anything without disapproval if it gets treated as a Joke and this temptation can be entirely hidden by English seriousness, anything suggested as too much can be represented as Puritanical. Flippancy is the best and economical, among flippant people a Joke is always assumed, no joke made but the manner implies they found a ridiculous side to it. It builds to armor against the Enemy and free from dangers of the success of laughter. “It is a thousand miles away from joy: it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect: and it excites no affection between those who practice it,”p.60 (how long can you tolerate the attitude of someone who doesn't take anything seriously)  

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The Bridge of San Luis Rey 5/5 -Thornton Wilder

PART FOUR 

UNCLE PIO 

In one of her letters the Marquesa tries to describe the impression Uncle Pio left on her, the most delightful man in the world, second to her son in law. If he weren't disreputable she’d make him her secretary, but he is such bad company she has to leave him to the underworld. “Alas, what is the matter with this world, my soul, that it should treat such a being so ill! His eyes are as sad as those of a cow that has been separated from its tenth calf.”p.91 

Uncle Pio was Camila’s maid, singing master, coiffeur, masseur and everything, even her father. He taught her parts so well people thought she could read and write and gave her flowery small parts so memorization wouldn't be a trouble during the height of the season. Camila made her reputation at the theatre and appeared in a hundred plays of Lope de Vega. No better actress at the time, really, the best in the Spanish world, only Uncle Pio saw it. 

Uncle Pio came illegitimately from a Castilian house and at ten ran away to Madrid, living by his wits and attributes of an adventurer. (he’s a jack of all trades book and street smart and has a freedom from conscience) For five years he distributed handbills, held horses and ran errands, for the next five he trained animals for circuses, cooked and whispered information to travelers and spread slander. The next ten years his services were recognized in high circles, and he was sent out to inspire rebellions in the mountains in time for the government to arrive and crush it.  

Despite promise of gains he never did anything for more than two weeks, “But there seemed to have been written into his personality, through some accident or early admiration of his childhood, a reluctance to own anything, to be tied down, to be held to a long engagement.”p.94 The lack of gains is what stopped him from being a thief, the dread of being locked up, he could escape but not his enemies. (this book has such long paragraphs) Similarly, why he stopped working for the Inquisition, watching his victims be led off that institution wasn't predictable. (well you know what they say no one expects the Spanish Inquisition) 

At twenty his life had three aims, independence, renounce the dignities of public life, always be near beautiful women, it was with them he got the name Uncle Pio. (he was actually decent and kind to them) He wanted to live near those that loved Spanish literature, especially the theatre and he studied it in secret. It was when his life got too complicated to continue in Spain he moved to Peru and proved to be as versatile to Uncle Pio as he was to Europe, within four months he knew practically everyone in Lima. The Viceroy employed him several times but for all his activity he never became rich, he did own a house he filled with dogs and birds. “But even in this kingdom he was lonely, and proud in his loneliness, as though there resided a certain superiority in such a solitude.”p.98 Finally he stumbled upon a treasure, Camila Perichole (her real name is Micaela Villegas) at twelve, singing at a cafe, so he bought her. (I guess you could just do that back then) 

She had a bed in his house, and he wrote songs for her and taught her how to listen to her tone. “At first all she noticed was that it was wonderful not to be whipped, to be offered hot soups, and to be taught something.”p.99 (oh Camila) But really Uncle Pio was dazzled by his experiment, the girl devoured the work as she grew into grace, becoming beautiful and she was loyal to him. “They loved one another deeply but without passion. He respected the slight nervous shadow that crossed her face when he came too near her. But there arose out of this denial itself the performance of a tenderness, that ghost of passion which, in the most unexpected relationship, can make even a whole lifetime devoted to irksome duty pass like a gracious dream.”p.99 

They traveled to America, encountering hardship, finding jobs then a harder course of training, complicated as she rose to favor quickly. To not make the applause go to her head (you failed) Uncle Pio resorted to criticism. (ah the J Jonah Jameson method) After each performance she would gauge his mood and try to force him to admit what he found at fault. The mere suggestion she was insufficient would send her into tears until he commented on what she did wrong and she’d cry more about the performance, applause and ask Pio if being so bad is why he left the theatre. He’d give her a bit of compliments but still criticize, “Only perfection would do, only perfection. And that had never come.”p.102 Then for an hour he’d analyze the play, who were they trying to please, they tormented themselves on the standards of Heaven.  With time Camila lost some absorption and a certain contempt for acting made her negligent due to the lack of interests in women's roles in Spanish classical drama, for years Uncle Pio tried to make her interested in the roles. On one occasion he told her the granddaughter of Vico de Barrera arrived in Peru, he had veneration for great poets between kings and saints, so they chose one of the masters plays to perform for her. After the performance Uncle Pio brought the granddaughter to Camila’s dressing room and Camila threw herself at her feet. Uncle Pio loved it when a new girl joined the company and the new talent bestir  Perichole who set herself to efface the newcomer. Her acting was electric but became less frequent even when she was absentminded the audience didn't notice but Uncle Pio grieved. 

Despite her discontent with her parts Perichole still warmed herself with the flame of joy in acting. “But that of love attracted her more often, through with no greater assurance of happiness, until Jupiter himself sent her some pearls.”p.106 Don Andre de Ribera, the Viceroy of Peru, a delightful man ten years in exile, he was bored. Camila was passing the years with the routine of the theatre when this Olympian suddenly transported her to the palace. “Contrary to all the traditions of the stage and the state she adored her elderly admirer; she thought she was going to be happy forever.”p.107 (how old is the Viceroy cause Camila is like in her early twenties maybe and an uneducated peasant with no family this won’t end well) He taught her the opposite of Uncle Pio who was anxious of Camila’s invitations to the palace preferring he had her love affairs in the theatre warehouse but when he saw her improve he was content. 

After some time the Viceroy asked Camila if she’d like to invite some people to their dinners and if she’d like to meet the Archbishop. The Archbishop loved his duties and was devout to punishing himself for his gluttony, (describes him as fat imprisoned in lard his own jailor) he led an exemplary life in all other aspects. He would learn but then forget all but the impressions and knew most of the priests in Peru were scoundrels and required all his education to prevent himself from doing something about it. “that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, one insensible misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer.”p.109 (oh he’s that type of religious) Once he almost did something about it, a new rule in Peru for priests to exact two to five meals for good absolution, in indignation he was going to write a letter to his shepherds but could not find ink and was so upset he fell ill. 

His inclusion on the dinners was stressful and Don Andres grew increasingly dependent on Uncle Pio but waited until Camila proposed he join and he invited Alvarado. When Camila arrived at the dinners she’d carry the conversation for hours gradually allowing the men to talk. All night they spoke of longing for Spain, the supernatural, earth before man ecetera. “Each one poured into the conversation his store of wise anecdotes and his dry regret about the race of man.”p.111 In the morning each waited for the other to go first and glance at the sleeping Perichole but Uncle Pio’s were on her all night. “full of tenderness and anxiety, resting on the great secret and reason of his life.”p.112 

Uncle Pio divided the world into two groups, those that did and did not love, those that had no capacity for it were not alive and could not live until after death. His own definition was gathered from his bitterness and pride from his life, a cruel malady youth pass through and emerged wrung but ready for living and never again saw a human being as a mechanical object and it seemed Camila never went through it. For years he waited, even after she bore the Viceroy three children she was the same, her passages of plays were the secret joy now were more cursory as she tired of Don Andres and found new lovers. Now she wanted to be a lady and referred to acting as a pastime, going to church and learning to read a little, becoming virtuous. She made up family and obtained legitimization for her children and carried a candle in penitential parades. “Her sin had been acting and everyone knows that there were even saints who had been actors-”p.114  

Camila’s son Don Jaime was seen and inherited his father's convulsions (epilepsy) and he frequently took walks with his mother. Camila left the stage at thirty and took five years to have a place in society and it was that progress up that told Uncle Pio he’s not to be seen with her in public and even grew impatient with his discreet visits. (so she had a taste of the high life and wants to leave behind her everything that made her who she is while also thinking she’s too good for them including the man who took her in) Finding reasons to quarrel, they were down to once a month and when impossible he’d visit the children. He met her in the French Gardens south of town waiting for Camila, (he was excited to see her be called Uncle Pio reliving their vagabond life) she says it’s Dona Micaela now. He asks that she listen, she refuses to return to the theatre daily insults of that filthy place, he’s wasting his time. She doesn't want his criticisms or advice just give up and put her out of his mind. 

 He pleads with her, they notice she’s not there and the audiences are leaving, no one can speak Spanish or walk correctly anymore. Camila apologizes for her behavior, Jaime was ill but it’ll be no good for her to go back, they were foolish to try to keep alive that Old Comedy. “Let people read old plays in books if they choose to. It is not worth fighting with the crowd.”p.119 (and so the art dies and is forgotten to time) Uncle Pio asks for forgiveness, as for his pride he never gave her the praise she deserved, she might have a chance in Madrid to be famous, she can be Dona Micaela later, they will be old and dead soon. She won’t go to Spain, he’s fifty and still dreaming, of course he loves her more than he can say. “You are a great lady now. And you are rich. There is no longer any way that I can help you. But I am always ready.”p.120 Camila says there’s no such thing as that kind of love in real life, (a girl beaten her whole life then trained to perform for no praise and that her looks were the only thing she had is it any wonder she has this way of thinking) he wasn't convinced and she told him not to try to understand, don’t think about her. “Just forgive, that’s all. Just try to forgive.”p.121 She went away but he sat for a long time trying to understand the meaning of those things.  

Suddenly the news Dona Micaela was Camila Perichole and had smallpox was all over Lima and a hope her beauty that caused her to despise her class would be impaired. As soon as Camila was able she sold her little place, returned her jewels and sold her clothes, but her admirers still sent her gifts. Like all beautiful women she believed it was the basis of attraction and now any attraction was from pity, she had never realized any love but passion. (I say there’s Uncle Pio but he’s more of a hardass that’s bad at expressing himself) The sharpest expression of self-interest, not until it passed through great doubts and self-hatred can it take place among loyalties. As her friends tried to draw her back out she grew angrier, convinced her life was over and her children’s. She gave back more than she owed and now approached poverty to her lonely future. 

Uncle Pio wasn't discouraged, making himself useful lending money but even still Camila was convinced he pitied her and lashed out. “He loved her the more, understanding better than she did herself all the stages in the convalescence of her humiliated spirit.”p.123 But one accident lost him his share in her progress, he opened a door as she tried to conceal her pockmarks, and she yelled at him to leave her house forever. She hurled things at him as she chased him down the hall and gave orders to forbid him from the grounds but he still tried for a week. He eventually returned to Lima and thought of a strategy, he returned to her house and imitated a young girl weeping under her window. (how can a man in his fifties make his voice sound like a little girl) When Camila asked who was there Uncle Pio said he’s Estrella and needs her help when she came out he revealed himself. 

She’s angry he won't leave her alone, she doesn’t want to speak to anyone, her life is over now. He only asks one more thing then he won't bother her again, let him take Don Jaime with him to live a year in Lima as his teacher in the Castilian. No, he’s sick, only the country is healthy for him, Uncle Pio begs he’ll make arrangements, a mother can't be separated from her child like that (if only it was that) now give up thinking about her, she and her children will get by. Uncle Pio used the hard measure and wanted the money she owes him, she’ll pay what she can, he didn’t mean it, he just asks for Jaime, was he such a bad teacher to her. She says it’s cruel to urge gratitude, she was but now there's nothing to be grateful for, if Jaime wishes to go he’ll be at the inn at noon. The next day Jaime was at the inn with little clothes but soon after they left Uncle Pio knew it wouldn't be good for him. As they got to the bridge, “Jaime tried to conceal his shame for he knew that one of those moments was coming that separated him from other people.”p.128 (listen to your gut feelings) Uncle Pio said they’d rest after they crossed but that wouldn't be necessary. 

PART FIVE 

PERHAPS AN INTENTION 

“A new bridge of stone has been built in the place of the old, but the event has not been forgotten.”p.133 (never forget) The tragedy passed into expressions, some poems, anthologies but the real monument is Brother Juniper’s book. (you mean the one no one reads because the only other copy is lost in a library) “There are a hundred ways of wondering at circumstance.”p.133 Brother Juniper arrived at his method from a friendship with a student at the University of San Martin. This students wife left him and two babies for a soldier now he was locked in bitterness and derived joy from all that was wrong in the world. In moments of almost defeat and he would explain why stories like this weren't difficult to believe with so many sneers at faith, Brother Juniper saw that it was time for proof. He took notes on survivors and victims of tragedies for their value sub specie aeternitatis (thanks to analog horror every time I see Latin I instantly think of Vita Carnis) rated on a basis of ten, of goodness, piety and usefulness. (the disabled can go fuck themselves I guess)  It was more difficult than first thought, “Almost every soul in a difficult frontier community turned out to be indispensable economically, and the third column was all but useless.”p.135 Brother Juniper added up the index for each peasant and compared it to the survivors and discovered the bad were five times more worth saving, so Brother Juniper tore up his findings and threw them in the ocean. (your scientific results don’t prove your theory so you just destroy all your work)  “The discrepancy between faith and the facts is greater than is generally assumed.”p.136 Another story from the university student gave Brother Juniper a hint for how to proceed after the fall of the bridge. He was in the Cathedral of Lima and read the epitaph of a well-loved lady and got angry that people perpetuate the legend of selflessness and disinterestedness, so he sought out everyone who knew her and thinks she's just an exception. “And everywhere he went, like a perfume, her dear traits had survived her and whenever she was mentioned there arose a suffering smile and the protest that words could not describe the gracious ways of her.”p.137 

In compiling his book Brother Juniper feared admitting the little details will lose a guiding hint but still couldn't find their setting so he re-read to find hidden facts. People gave conflicting perspectives, and he found there was the least to be learned from those closest to the subjects. “He thought he saw in the same accident, the wicked visited by the destruction and the good called early to Heaven. He thought he saw pride and wealth confounded as an object lesson to the world, and he thought he saw humility crowned and rewarded for the edification of the city. But Brother Juniper was not satisfied with his reasons.”p.138 

After the book was done it was judged to be heretical and ordered to be burned with the author and Brother Juniper submitted the devil made use of him. He spent his last night in his cell seeking his own life pattern that escaped him in the five others and longed for a voice to testify for his intentions were for faith. “But the next morning in all that crowd and sunlight there were many who believed, for he was much loved.”p.139 There was little delegation from the village many stood puzzled as he was given to the flames. “Even then, even then, there remained in his heart an obstinate nerve insisting that at least St Francis would not utterly have condemned him, and (not daring to call upon a greater name, since he seemed so open to error in these matters) he called twice upon St Francis and leaning upon the flame he smiled and died.”p.139 

The day was clear and nice for the service, the Archbisop sweated on his throne, Don Andres knew the crowd expected him to play a grieving father and wondered if Perichole was there, Alvarado stepped in for a moment to call it all false. The Abbess sat with her girls, the experience left her pale and firm. “She had accepted the fact that it was of no importance whether her work went on or not; it was enough work.”p.141 Pepita wouldn't continue it and it would relapse to the indifference of her colleagues, sufficient for Heaven, the disinterested love in Peru flowed and faded and she quietly told Pepita her affection should have had more of that color and her life that quality but she was too busy. Camila attended, her heart filled with consternation and amazement. All the tragedies in her life and now the Viceroy was sending her daughters to a convent school in Spain, she was alone, (see be careful what you wish for) but she couldn't feel anything thinking she had no heart. (no you’re just numb) Then she felt great pain, “I fail everybody,’ she cried. ‘They love me and I fail them.”p.142 She despaired for another year then heard the Abbess lost two she cared for in the accident, she would know how to explain. 

She went to the Abbess and introduced herself, the Abbess knows her, having wanted to see her but was told she didn't want to see anybody and at the mention of her losses from the bridge Camila felt pain again. She asks the Abbess what to do she is alone, she takes her to the garden and tells her she wanted to know her even before the accident. She had lost two a year ago in the accident, but Camila lost her real child and has Camila tell her about it. 

“But where are the sufficient books to contain the events that would not have been the same without the fall of the bridge? From such a number I choose one more.”p.144 The Condesa d’Abuirre came from Spain to call on the Abbess, Dona Clara came in prepared to defend her mother to the Abbess to allow her to speak. (now you give a shit about your mother) At last the Abbess told her of Pepita, Esteban and Camila. “All, all of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love-I scarcely dare say it-but in love our very mistakes don't seem to be able to last long?”p.145 The Condesa showed her mother's last letter and she was astonished Dona Maria could have such words and was very happy the trait she lived for had proof and the world was ready and asks Clara if she’d like to see her work.  She showed Clara everything she worked for and spoke of there possibly being a language for the deaf (recorded history of sign language starts in the 17th century but reference to hand signs go back to 5th century BC Greece) and dumb (dumb as in not being able to speak) there’s hundreds in Peru, is there a way found in Spain, maybe someday there will be. She thinks something can also be done for the insane, but she can't go where those things are talked about, are they gentle with them in Spain. “It seems to me that there is a great secret about it, just hidden from us, just around the corner.”p.146 (the Abbess was truly ahead of her time) If there's something in Spain write it to her if she’s not too busy. (good luck she was too busy for her own mother) 

The Abbess leaves for a moment to talk to the very sick and returns with Camila and leaves again to talk to the flour broker. But Dona Clara watched the Abbess talk to them, to all those in the dark, Esteban and Pepita, alone, no one to turn to and those in beds within, a wall the Abbess built for them, light and warmth. “and without was the darkness they would not exchange even for a relief from pain and from dying.”p.148 Almost no one remembers Esteban and Pepita, Camila will die and so will the memory of her son and Uncle Pio. 

“But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love returns the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”p.149  

FIRST

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The Bridge of San Luis Rey 3/5 -Thornton Wilder

PART THREE 

ESTEBAN 

One morning twin foundlings were found in a basket at the Convent of Santa Maria Rosa de las Rosas and given names that weren't useful since no one could tell them apart. As they aged their parentage was guessed Castilion, the one closet to being a parent was the Abbess Madre Maria del Pilar, who hated all men but was fond of Esteban and Manuel. She’d have tea with them and tell them stories and grew to love them all while waiting to see them grow the ugliness of men. “All the ugliness that made hideous the world she walked in.”p.54 They stayed in the convent until they became a distraction, (like how young girls are to creepy old men) since they dedicated themselves to cleaning other sacristies in town. As they grew older, they had no desire of clerical life, instead becoming scribes and made a living with it. (this was back when literacy and mass printing wasn’t widespread) 

Because they were twins with no family brought up by women, they were silent and lived in shame by their appearance. “They had to live in a world where it was the subject of continual comment and joking.”p.55 When they learned to speak, they invented their own language for when they were alone. The Archbishop was interested in languages but trying to get them to write it down was somehow humiliating to them and he eventually let them go. Their language was a symbol of their identity with each other, “so love is inadequate to describe the tacit almost ashamed oneness of those brothers.”p.56 Side by side existed a need of each other and exchanged few words and looks this produced natural miracles. (meaning the ESP twins share) 

Growing tired of writing they went down to the sea to work at the docks, pick fruit and ferry and always they were silent. “All the world was remote and strange and hostile except one’s brother.”p.57 Finally a shadow was cast over them by a woman, they returned to the city to copy a play and didn't like it seeing poetry as futile. Perichole was on stage as Esteban returned home to finish copying Manuel stayed, years ago they saw her before, seeing they were twins guessed Esteban was the younger one. Since all of Manuel’s errands ran past the theatre beneath her dressing room the first time his imagination was overwhelmed by a woman. He lost the dissociated of love and pleasure now it was complicated with love and he lost sense of oneself and neglect of everything that wasn't Perichole, 

  Esteban’s life was enough for him, no room for new loyalty because it was simpler now, he discovered the secret. “There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well.”p.59 So Esteban stayed up wondering why Manuel was so changed, why meaning went out of their life. One evening Camila called for Manuel to write a letter for her and complains how they both never come see her, is it because she’s an actress. She sees Manuel's face he doesn't like her so wants Esteban instead, he stays saying she can trust him, does he promise to keep what they are secret even from Esteban, he does. She walks around dictating her letter and pays him and will call on him again, her uncle  Pio writes her letters but there are things she doesn't want him to know. 

Esteban knew Manuel was brooding over Perichole but didn't know he was seeing her and for the next few months a messenger boy would ask which twin is which, Manuel was wanted at the theatre. Esteban assumed it was copy work then was surprised on the visit to their room when Manuel allowed a lady in to quickly write her a letter. (she’s impatient with her matador lover) Watching the two Esteban saw the new congeniality forming he’d never know and he seemed to shrink away unwanted, a shut out from the tableau of love. (it ain’t love it’s a hard crush and a woman either oblivious or stringing him along because she likes the attention) After she left Manuel worshipped her and gradually became aware of Esteban’s mood who told him, “Go and follow her, Manuel. Don’t stay here. You’ll be happy. There’s room for us all in the world.”p.65 And Manuel felt terror as the mental image of Esteban saying goodbye, understanding his misery, demanding he choose him or Perichole. Their loyalty had been diminished, understanding his suffering, Manuel removed Perichole from his heart. 

Manuel declared it would be the last letter he writes for her but Esteban still leaves saying he’s going for a walk and Manuel didn't have to say that. “You don't have to change for me.”p.67 Manuel calls him a fool for thinking he said that for him, how could he love her what chance does he even have. (absolutely none) He tells Esteban to go to bed in their secret language but Esteban still goes out knowing he’s in the way. It wasn't until Manuel cried out like Esteban was going away forever that he returned and they didn't speak of it for weeks. The next morning Perichole sent for him and he refused. 

One evening Manuel tore open his knee on a piece of metal, fairly healthy Manuel was now bewildered as his leg swelled and racked with pain. (it’s either tetanus gangrene or sepsis) One night Esteban ran to fetch the barber-surgeon (this was back when a barber could perform surgery it’s why they had that red and white pole interesting history look into it) but he wouldn’t be back until morning. In those hours they told each other after the doctor sees it all will be fine and Manuel will be walking in a few days. The doctor came and for hours they treated the wound, but the pain grew worse until nightfall, Manuel grew delirious and at two in the morning he demanded God to damn Esteban. “For coming between me and what was mine by right. She was mine, do you hear, and what right had you...”p.70 (she was never yours and never would be) These outbursts continued hourly and it was some time for Esteban to know his brother wasn't in his right mind and after some horror with being a devout believer, he returned to his brother with a bent head. 

By morning Manuel felt serener declaring he feels better and will be up and about tomorrow, (oh no) does he want Perichole, no. Esteban asks if Manuel still feels that he came between them he would have been all right if he’d gone away, no she’s nothing to him he’s glad things are the way they are. He’s not responsible for what he says his leg hurts, so he didn't damn him to hell for coming between him and Perichole, Manuel says he’s going crazy how could he damn him to hell when he’s all he has. The brothers argue whether or not to replace the dressings and this conversation would happen over and over. The noises would be so loud the other guests would complain and the innkeeper said he’d dump the brothers in the street in the morning. Esteban would go out so they’d rage at him, go inside and muffle his brother's screams, making him angrier. The third night Esteban sent for a priest and during the sacrament Manuel died. 

After Esteban refused to go near the building his brother’s body was in, drifting in the streets, eventually the innkeeper sent for the Abbess who made arrangements. She asked Esteban to help and remembered at fifteen Manuel had said he’s prevent the crucifixion of Jesus. She asks which one he is, Esteban says he’s Manuel and he won't help her, the Abbess reminds him Manuel would always help her. Does he remember what she did for him, yes, she reminds him she is also suffering loss. Esteban wouldn't respond and when the procession passed in the city he followed on parallel streets. All of Lima was interested in the separation of the brothers, Esteban would find work then disappear and reappear in another province but always return to Lima. After he lingered around the convent Madre Maria del Pilar failed to bring him inside, she’d be angry at God for not giving her the wisdom and grace then she sent for Captain Alvarado, (his reason for wandering is he had a young daughter that died) who went to Esteban who was doing copy work in Cuzco. 

The brothers had respect for Alvarado, in the short time they worked together the three made sense in the world. Alvarado found him eating and waited to introduce himself, he’s looking for workmen for a trip far from Peru. After yelling the question again Esteban agreed, he wants his brother too, no, why wouldn't he want to go and eventually Esteban told him he’s dead and Alvarado apologizes he didn't know. (seems like something the Abbess should have told him) Which one is he, Esteban, when did his brother die, a few weeks ago, how old is he, twenty-two, he’s still coming with him, yes. Esteban told him he has to go now to the city to see somebody about something, come back by supper and they’ll talk about the trip. They ate and arranged to go Lima in the morning and Alvarado got him to drink Alvarado talked about ships and Esteban asked to be kept busy and to pretend he doesn't know him, pretend he hates him, he can't write anymore and don't tell the pother men about him. (but why) 

Alrado knows he ran into a burning house to save someone, he didnt even get burned. “you’re not allowed to kill yourself; you know you’re not allowed. Everybody knows that. But if you jump into a burning house to save somebody, that wouldn't be killing yourself.”p.82 (oh Esteban) Not even animals kill themselves when they’re about to lose. Esteban wants to give Madre Maria del Pilar a present before he goes, he’ll need his payment now he won’t need the money anywhere. (oh shit bequeathing something important is sometimes a sign that person is going to kill themselves) “she had a serious loss, once. She said so. I don’t know who it was,”p.82 (it was your brother who was like a son to her same as you) He wants to give her a present, women can't bear it like men can (she’s faring better than you) and Alvarado promised they’ll look in the morning. 

The next day Esteban changed his mind about going, it’s impossible he can’t leave Peru, Alvarado asks about his present, is he going to take it away, it might mean a lot to the Abbess, Esteban agrees. Alvarado assures him it’s the ocean he wants now, go gather his things and they’ll start. Esteban tried to make a decision, it was always Manuel that decided for them and never one as great as this. Alvarado waited for Esteban to return but after a while goes up for him and hearing and rope on plaster thinks it might be for the best then after the rope snaps he runs into the room. (now you take action) Esteban cried that he’s alone making Alvarado relive his own pain. “We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. You’ll be surprised at the way time passes.”p.85 They went for Lima at the bridge, the Captain went to the stream to supervise the passage of some merchandise as Esteban went across.  

NEXT

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The Bridge of San Luis Rey 2/5 -Thornton Wilder

PART ONE

PERHAPS AN ACCIDENT 

“On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precepted five travelers into the gulf below.”p.3 It was the high road between Lima and Cuzco, hundreds passed over it every day since it was woven over a century ago. No one descended and passed over the torrent with rafts father than cross the famous bridge named after St Louis of France who protected it. (so I guess that protection warrenty only lasts a hundred years) The bridge seemed to be one of those things that would last forever, (it was woven how many rope bridges last over a century) when news of it collapsing spread people walked in a trance like state thinking of when they last crossed it, when they had planed to cross it again and themselves being the one to fall. (so imagine a person who worked in the Towers was out for coffee when the planes hit) Ther was a great Catholic service when the victims were collected and separated this especially effected the Limeans who frequently delt with acts of God. “That is why it was so surprising that the Peruvians should have been especially touched by the rent in the bridge of San Luis Rey,”p.4  

Everyone was impressed but Brother Juniper (he’s a red head) was the only one that did anything about it, by some sense of coincidence he witnessed the accident. He stopped that hot afternoon and admired the view, “Joy was in him; things were not going badly.”-”At all events he felt at peace.”p.5 Then he glanced up at the moment of the twanging noise and saw the bridge break and five into the valley. (what a way to ruin your day) One thought visited Brother Juniper, “Why did this happen to these five?”p.5 If there was any plan in the universe and human life surely it could be discovered by the lives suddenly cut off. “Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”p.6 At this moment Brother Juniper resolved to inquire of those five people and their reasons for taking off. 

Brother Juniper thought it was time theology to take its place among science and that he put it there, what he lacked was a laboratory. There was never a lack of human specimens that met calamity but those little things never quite fit for scientific examination and proper control, (that’s the scientific method baby) this bridge collapse was an act of God. (or poor maintenance) His plan would have perfect skepticism. “It resembled the effort of those presumptuous souls who wanted to walk on the pavements of Heaven and built the Tower of Babel to get there.”p.7 (the irony) No element of doubt in the experiment, he knew the answer, he just wanted to prove it. 

People were always asking for proof and this was the first time Brother Juniper resorted to such methods, often he would dream of experiments to justify God. Now it prompted him to be busy for the next six years, knocking on doors asking questions, filling notebooks to make those five lives whole. The completed book would be burned (foreshadowing) but a secret copy found its way to the Library of the University of San Marco. For all his diligences, Brother Juniper never knew the central passion of those five. “Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are all flies that boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.”p.9 

PART TWO 

THE MARQUESA DE MONTEMAYOR 

Any Spanish schoolboy is required to know more about Dona Maria Marquesa de Montemayor (she’s based on the real Marie de Rabutin-Chantal) than Juniper did with his research. Her letters became a monument of Spanish literature, but her biographers erred as greatly as Juniper did as they tried to invest graces into her life. “where all real knowledge of this wonderful woman must proceed from the act of humiliating her and of divesting her of all the beauties save one.”p.13 Her father was a cloth merchant that hated Limeans and her childhood was unhappy (she was an ugly child that stuttered) and she was determined to live single but forced into marriage at twenty-six, but still lived and thought alone. Her daughter, who she loved, took after her father and eventually Dona Clara left for Spain and the voyage was blessed by the church. 

Left alone the Marquesa’s life grew more inward, neglecting and talking to herself, “All her existence lay in the burning center of her mind.”p.15 She looked so terrible they thought she was constantly drunk and worse was said of her and rumors that she should be locked up and was denounced three times before the Inquisition. She would have been burned had her son-in-law not been as influential and had friends in court. The relations between mother and daughter were further embittered by money, Dona Clara received an allowance from her mother but even all the wealth of Peru wasn't enough to keep up her lifestyle. (what they hell does she do) The best traits of her nature was seeing everyone as her children except the cartographer De Blasius and scientist Azuarius.  

Four years after Clara left Dona Maria was invited to Europe, on both sides the reunion was anticipated with self-reproach and both failed to hold it in. Dona Maria left one day back to America before her daughter awoke. “Henceforth letter writing had to take the place of all the affection that could not be lived.”p.17 Her letters became the textbooks of schoolboys, so necessary was it to her love to attract her distant daughter. She forced herself to go out and trained her eye to observe, read masterpieces of her language and insinuated herself with conversationalists. Night after night she wrote the chronicles of the Viceroy court her daughter hardly read but her son in law was impressed.  

The Marquesa would be surprised her letters were immortal, though critics would accuse her of keeping an eye on prosperity, seemingly impossible she’d pain herself to dazzle her daughter. They misunderstand her as her son-in-law did, missing the purpose. She would sit for hours on her balcony wondering if the pains in her heart were natural. “This woman has suffered, and her suffering has left its mark upon the structure of her heart.”p.19 The words eventually, made it to a letter her daughter scolded her for being a cult of sorrow. (what a nasty piece of work you are) With the knowledge she’d never be loved in return acted in her ideas, first went to her religion, the sincerity of others. She longed to free herself of her love but how could she, with thousands of miles between them she wanted her daughter, for her to say she’s the best mother. 

Two years after she returned from Spain came a series of events she implored her son in law to convince her daughter to see reason and leave the cold. In Peru she is helpless, and she sends gum and a gold chain, the Viceroy also has gout again and couldn't be carried to the doctor. Clara warned her mother to be cautious with what she writes because the letters could be opened on the journey, she’s not funny, her remarks could lead her to a forceful retirement on a farm. Two women fell from a balcony and landed on Dona Merced all three lived, she and Pepita decided to go to a Comedia and a mysterious man is around the Perichole (an actress) all the time it’s unknown how they’re related. (hmm wonder who this could be) 

They play was Dona Leonor* perhaps it would go in her next letter, Pepita was borrowed from the orphanage to be her companion. The Perichole made comments on Marquesa’s appearance and supposed behaviors so all the house’s attention and laughter was on the old woman but she didn't notice thinking about Spain. Perichole became bolder and Pepita told her they should go and as they left the house erupted into triumph, but the Marquesa was pleased she had phrases to send to her daughter. 

It reached the Viceroy his aristocrat was baited in a theater and summoned Perichole to apologize to the Marquesa. (she complied of going barefoot and in a black dress and was given shoes to shut her up) The Viceroy had three reasons for this, the singer took liberties in his court, Don Andres built up exile so ceremonial and complicated society had nothing else to think about, in his court any insult to the Marquesa was an insult to him. Second, Dona Maria’s son in law was an important personage in Spain with possibilities to injure or supplant him, he wasn’t one to vex even through his half-wit mother-in-law. Finally, he meant to humble the actress and suspected she was deceiving him with a matador or another actor, forgetting he was one of the first men in the world. (the phrase ‘not even if you were the last man on earth’ comes to mind) 

Having not heard the insulting songs the Marquesa was surprised by the visit, after her daughter left she took to drinking at night until she passed out. (oh so she is an alcoholic) Several days after the scandal at the theatre she lounged in bed and at dusk Perichole arrived, with effort tried to understand what was said to her and eventually went to meet the actress. Camila (Perichole’s real name) intended to be imprudent but was now struck with the old woman’s dignity even when drunk and timidly began her apology surprising the Marquesa. “How can I be offended, senora? All that I can remember is that you gave a beautiful performance. You are a great artist. You should be happy, happy.”p.29 And Perichole felt shame for her songs the Marquesa tells her they left early for some reason and apologizes for it. Perichiole believed she was playing a farce, everyone saw that performance but still was in tears apologizing astonishing the Marquesa. It’s been a long time since anyone gave her consideration, how could this woman have offended her, an unwise unloved old woman, then asks if she knows her daughter, yes. 

Dona Maria has Pepita get some sweets and talks about how she and her daughter had a falling out over something she can't remember. She goes on complimenting her daughter, how one shouldn't believe rumors that say Clara was unkind to her, any misunderstandings were her fault but were quick to forgive each other and she practically acted it out while in tears. She’s glad Camila was there to hear Clara wasn't unkind to her as people say. “There was some mistake that made me the mother of so beautiful a girl. I am difficult. I am trying.”p.32 While repeating she’s impossible she fell out of her chair and Pepita took her back to bed and Perichiole went home and stared at herself for a long time in the mirror. (reflecting on herself I’m sure) 

The one who saw the most difficult hours of the Marquesa was Pepita, given as a companion to her. The Abbess Madre Maria del Pilar, “who was able to divine the poor human heart behind all the masks of folly and defiance, had always refused to concede one to the Marquesa de Montemayor.”p.33 She wanted to let Pepita live in the palace, have a worldly experience, bend the old woman to her own interests but was indignant. “for she knew she was gazing at one of the richest women in Peru, and the blindest.”p.34 The Abbess was someone who allowed themselves to be gnawed away, fallen in love with an idea several centuries before it appeared in civilization. (she’s a feminist) She knew that for a woman to survive she must have a man and all the misery was worth his caresses and only knowing Lima assumed its corruptions were normal for mankind. “Looking back from our century we can see the whole folly of her hope.”p.34 (yeah...) 

All her charity relied on money and obliged to watch herself sacrifice her kindness and idealism to generalship and struggled to obtain her subsidies from the church. (the archbishop hated her) Lately the Abbess felt old age and a warning feeling of terror for her work. “who was there in Peru to value the things she had valiued?”p.34 So she looked for a soul to be trained as her successor and found Pepita at twelve recounting to other girls the life of Saint Rose of Lima. The education amid a convent must be conducted with indiscretion so Pepita was given the most disliked chores. The Directress would talk to her for hours on religion, how to manage women, plan contingencies, words and beg for money, lending her duties as Dona Maria’s companion at fourteen. 

Few trials were physical, the servants took advantage of Dona Maria’s indisposition, Pepita, for standing up, took the discomforts. She also suffered distress, when accompanying the Marquesa on errands when ordered to stay put her trained obedience left her in the street for hours wanting her mistress who had left the church by another door. Her heart also suffered as Dona Maria sometimes became aware of her and talked to her for hours then the next day withdraw. “The beginnings of hope and affection that Pepita had such a need to extend would be wounded.”p.38 She tiptoed around the palace clinging to her sense of loyalty and duty to Madre Maria del Pilar who sent her there.  

Now something new that would affect both their lives, Clara (she hates the smell of flowers) wrote that she’ll be replaying less, if Vicente returns he’ll tell her about her life, also her child will be due in October. Now Dona Maria was anxious as her daughter would be a mother, she combed for all information of new medical knowledge to send even to taboos for her child. Witnesses agreed there was no harm and perhaps it did some good practicing both paganism and Christianity, at times she felt revulsion. “Nature is deaf. God is indifferent. Nothing in man’s power can alter the course of law.”p.40 She would stop in the street longing to be taken from the world that had no plan but soon belief would surge up and she would run home and light candles in her daughter’s room. 

At last she made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa Maria de Chuxambuqua if there was any efficiency in devotion it would be there, the ground has been holy through many civilizations. The Marquesa was carried in her chair across the bridge of San Luis Rey up the hills to the city, when she saw the walls of the town her prayers of her fright were cut short. As Pepita arranged for their stay at the inn as she went to the church a tide or resignation rising, perhaps she would learn to allow her daughter and gods to govern their own affairs. She was not annoyed by everyone around her and ordered her letters from Spain to be brought to her by messenger even as she traveled. At the shrine she read them wrapped in understanding and forgiveness sinking in her heart. 

After preparing their lodgings Pepita waited in the rooms and wrote to the Abbess about the day. The Abbess molded Pepita, “She had talked to Pepita as to an equal. Such speech is troubling and wonderful to an intelligent child and Madre Maria del Pilar had abused it.”p.44 Expanding Pepita’s view beyond her years and making her frightened of her own insufficiency then she cast her into this solitude which Pepita refused to believe she’d been abandoned to. As Pepita tended to the porridge the Marquesa returned having done what she could, “What will be, will be,”p44 (we have a similar saying ‘it is what it is’) and dropped her amulets into the brazier feeling she antagonized God by too much prayer. She sat for a long time then saw Pepita’s letter and read how she’s mistreated by the servants who steal, inquiring about the Abbess’s health. She thinks of her all the time wishing to visit, she’s lonely, wondering if she forgot her, wondering if she could write back. (oh Pepita I want to give you a hug) 

Dona Maria felt envy, longing to command another as this nun did but mostly, she longed to be back in the simplicity of love, to throw off vanity and pride. She reread the letter to find some secret to it as Pepita came back with supper having already ate and Dona Maria takes it as rejection, Pepita offers to read but was sent to bed. She offers to send Pepita’s letter with hers but she denies any letter and pretended to be busy over the brazier, she’s changed her mind of sending it. Dona Maria tells her the Abbess would be happy to receive it, Pepita says it’s not a good letter, Dona Maria thinks it was beautiful, what could have made it better, Pepita admits she wasn't brave, she took the letter to her room and tore it up. Dona Maria thought back on her life the way she acted, “It’s not my fault that I was so. It was circumstance. I was the way I was brought up. Tomorrow I begin a new life.”p.48 (you had no control on how you were raised but you do have control as an adult how you respond to that) She wrote a new letter, remembering with shame how she’d ask her daughter how much she loved her. (ok King Lear) By dawn she finished her letter then checked on Pepita whispering to let her live and begin again. (it’s never too late to change for the better...) Two days later they crossed the bridge during the accident. (...until it is) 

NEXT

[crackspinewornpages]

Jim Henson's Labyrinth 19/19 -A.C.H. Smith

14 

Jareth held a few crystals, one of them swirling in the air and flicking it away into a bubble. it drifted and the other three followed outside. The four bubbles approached Sarah, who stared at them entranced. hearing music, the first one had the dancer from her music box. Sarah swayed with the music inside the bubble, dressed in a ball gown, dancing with the others, each bubble had a dancer in it, approaching the other bubble, inside was a ballroom with Jareth waiting. Didymus and Ludo came to the edge of the forest, in the distance the walls of the castle. as Didymus turned to call Sarah she wasn't there, they didn't notice the bubble floating above their heads. 

The ballroom was full of opulence that hard worn away, (100 years of dripping wax candles making stalagmites and threadbare silk tapestries) and the thirteenth hour clock chimed. Sarah watched the bubble dancers and they watched her behind their masks moving in a ring lethargically as they did all night or they lounged against the wall or cushioned pits, (tended to by maids and footmen that had parchment skin so how long have these people been here at this fae party) smiling like knives at Sarah. “She was the picture of innocence in that setting, a picture that excited the dancers, who never took their masked eyes off her,”p.157 Sarah looked in a mirror and saw Jareth pass by dancing with a woman, as she turned he vanished and as she looked for him didn’t notice a young man leering at her. Jareth watched it all, following her in the corrupt ballroom. Sarah was self-conscious now among these strangers who acted like they knew something she didn't and she hurried looking for Jareth, not knowing what to say, just that it was important she found him. 

She saw him whispering to his partner and she looked away in embarrassment to another mirror and saw Jareth now alone (another My Immortal like description of his clothes) and he held out a hand for her. Sarah took it and her dizziness ceased as she spun around the ballroom, she knew she was the loveliest woman of all by the way Jareth smiled at her. She feels it’s like dream but she doesn't remember any dream like this. She saw in his face he was enjoying this moment with no mocking or secretiveness on the others. “And when you’ve found your way in, stay in your dream, Sarah.”-“Believe me. If you want to be truly free, wholly yourself-you do want that, don’t you?”p.159 Sarah did. “Then you will find what you want only as long as you stay in your dream. Once abandoned, and you are at the mercy of other people’s dreams.”p.160 

As she almost kissed him, she closed her eyes but the silence made open them, the music stopped and everyone else was watching, almost laughing. Sarah wrenched herself away from him as he tried to force a kiss, (he’s such a creeper I’m glad David Bowie adamantly refused to kiss the underaged Jennifer Connelly) the clock struck twelve. She ran through the crowd until she saw the membrane and hurled a chair at it bursting the bubble. (yes Sarah get out of that Weinstein Schneider Hollywood party) She was sucked through space and on the ground saw her friends looking up at her. Behind her the ballroom collapsed into junk she recognized from her room. “If this is the debris of the ballroom, she thought, then all my life must have been at that ball, in disguise.”p.161 (hmmm) The sea of junk stretched beyond the horizon spinning Sarah around with it, then it stopped and she was on the ground still holding the rotting peach, she flung it away and fainted. 

15 

Sarah woke up nowhere and could only remember being at the ball ashamed at almost falling for Jareth’s charm and feeling soiled. “Those men who pawed her, Jareth trying so rudely to force a kiss upon her-had she been truly innocent, they would not have behaved like that toward her, would they?”p.163 (Sarah Sarah normally I’d say you acted like a stupid child not thinking but this this you are a child and they are a bunch of creepy adults who took advantage of a child) She looked at the desolate landscape wondering what she was doing. “No one in sight. It was a place where you would soon forget your own name.”p.163 When she stood up the pile of rags she was on moved, the woman told her to get off her back. A little old goblin woman carried a pile of junk on her back, that’s what the other mounds of garbage were. 

Sarah doesn't know where she was going, “You can't look where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re going.”p.164 Sarah didn't argue she just knew she was looking for something, of course she was, they all are, she’s already found lots of things. She gave Sarah things to get started on her own pile, digging through she gave Sarah Lancelot bringing her childish joy like she was a little girl again. Is it what she was looking for, yes, she forgot about it and the old goblin points to her tent for Sarah to look through, inside was her room. 

Sarah woke up in her bed holding Lancelot, it was all a nightmare it was so real and she was still nervous, she opened the door and it led to the wasteland. The old woman asks if she likes the things as Sarah repeats that it’s just a dream, she opens the door again, this time the old woman barged in. She told Sarah it’s best to stay inside, nothing she wants is out there, as she looked around finding things and putting them in Sarah’s arms. She names Sarah things asking if she remembers, “something else was working at Sarah’s feelings, something grey and listless, like despair. She recognized it, but couldn't be sure of its cause.”p.167 (ah this old lady is Sarah’s depression and attachment disorder talking) 

The old woman piled things on her back as Sarah stared at herself in the mirror (she’s also smearing lipstick on her mouth) her shoulders were starting to bow. She starts to think of what she was looking for but the old woman tells her not to talk about it. “It’s all here, everything you’ve ever cared about.”p.168 Sarah stopped listening to the woman or she would have cried and looked for something to distract her off the condescension. On the dressing table was the Labyrinth book, she picked it up and recited the lines and remembered Toby then everything altered, the room was the same but Sarah looked at it with new eyes. “the whole room was a garbage heap, a dead shrine to a spirit that had fled.”p.169 (that spirit being her childhood self) She called it all junk and the woman was taken aback trying to find things and gave Sarah, the music box, (sounds like the ballroom) it’s also junk. “she knew what the grey despair had been. This room was a prison, and she was her own jailor. And so she had the key to release herself, to go and do the thing that mattered.”p.169 (yay she’s breaking out of her arrested development) She had to save Toby and heard her name being called, she stood up shrugging off the junk and the room fell apart. Two hands reached from above and Sarah grabbed on being pulled up to the ground to her friends, behind them was the castle. 

16 

They were at the gates of the Goblin City, Didymus asks if she’s sure she wants to go to the castle. she has to or she’ll lose her little brother. They move forward with Hoggle lingering behind, Didymus shouted at the sleeping goblin guard to open up (that let men in meme) until Sarah begged for him not to make so much noise. Ludo pushed the gate and it swung open (remember the beginning when Sarah was looking for the key to unlocked labyrinth) and it slammed shut as soon as they were in and another pair was open ahead of them but shut before they reached them. At each door was half a set of armor that now formed a titanic warrior called Humongous who wielded two axes. He missed his swing and it hit the wall sending sparks, they dodged his swings trying to take cover. Between a blow Didymus spotted something on the parapet, Hoggle running along toward the inner gate with a purpose. 

Hoggle jumped down on Humongous and kicked his helmet knocking it open revealing a tiny goblin working the controls. Hoggle grabbed him and tossed him out and took over the levers making Humongous go out of control and smoke as Hoggle jumped out. Humongous was on a rampage working his way back to the inner gates, swinging into the arch and breaking down as he overloaded. Sarah asks Hoggle if he’s alright, but Hoggle says he’s not asking to be forgiven. he doesn't care what she thinks, he said he was a coward and not interested in being friends. She forgives him and Didymus says what he did was courageous, Ludo calls him a friend. Sarah gives him back his jewels and Ludo opens the gates and the party heads into the Goblin City.     

The goblins watched Jareth play with Toby, wishing they could play with him, Jareth would tickle Toby and when in range, Toby would punch him in the face. Jareth laughs that he’s spirited, he’ll name him after himself, (is this just for Toby or does he rename all the stolen babies) he has his eyes, and as Toby smacks him in one says his disposition too. Goblins then came running in yelling that the girl who ate the peach is here with a monster, Sir Didymus and a gnome. (his wiki says he’s a dwarf) They got past Humongous and are on their way to the castle, Jareth commands them to stop her. He hands Toby (he calls him Jarethkin unsure if that means he’s now family or all the goblins are considered that) off to one of the goblins to take care of,  Sarah must not get him. As the goblins run off Jareth was left alone repeating she must be stopped from getting the baby. 

17 

Goblin City was a shantytown decorated in Goblin Grotesque style and rotting garbage littered the streets huddled in the shadows of the castle. In the dawn the city seemed asleep, and the party made their way through the marketplace as Sarah and Hoggle tell Didymus to keep quiet. Hoggle calls it a piece of cake as Sarah thinks they're going to make it. Hoggle should have known better the last time that phrase was said and now the danger was a bugle that sounded the goblin army they could only run back into town. (thanks a lot Hoggle you jinxed it) Jareth watched the chaos and winced as the four ran through the city as other goblins popped their heads out of windows to look. Sarah had them run into an abandoned house and bolted the door telling Didymus to guard it while she and Hoggle watched the windows and Ludo the roof. 

As a goblin smashed through a window Sarah brought a plate down on its head, one recognized Hoggle as he used to be with them, Hoggle hit him with a teapot. Sarah and Hoggle were overwhelmed and Didymus wondered if he should disobey orders when the door started to splinter by a battering ram he tried to fend them off with his staff but it wasn't in reach when the door burst open. Sarah and Hoggle were running out of crockery and the horde kept coming, they asked Hoggle what did they do to him, they stole Sarah’s brother, he knows they steal babies. Ludo was knocking down goblins on ladders when canons were called up that misfired. 

Inside Didymus heard the goblins talking about eating Sarah and he was infuriated and charged at the goblins in town, disarming the horde. Sarah saw him surrounded by goblins wielding spears and called for Ludo to summon rocks and for Hoggle to retreat up the stairs. As Ludo roared a distant rumbling followed as bits fell off the castle walls but, in the meantime, Didymus was cornered, and they were trapped on the roof. Sarah calls for Didymus to hold them back as she made a rope out of sheets for them to climb down. Didymus fought his way to the roof and while on the rope, cut it, so the goblins wouldn't follow and fell using the sheet to parachute down. Meanwhile the rocks filled the streets overtaking the army and walling them up allowing Sarah to lead her friends back to the castle and walk inside the throne room. “The chamber was deserted. In the middle of it was a cradle, empty. The clock showed three minutes to thirteen.”p.190 (gasp Jareth you cheating bastard) The vulture sitting above the throne laughed. 

18 

Toby was gone, but Sarah knew Jareth wouldn't abandoned his castle, the only other way was a set of stairs. Sarah ran for it and the others followed but she stopped them, she has to face them alone. “Because that’s the way it’s done.”p.192 All the stories do Sarah felt awful, but she was right and Didymus agreed. “But shouldst thou have need of us...”p.192 (hmm) She went up the stairs and found herself in a hall with many staircases, balconies doors and windows, inside out, backwards and upside down and went on alternating. (so an MC Esher painting Winchester Manor mix with Hogwarts physics) Sarah edged her way along when Jareth calls that he’s been expecting her, Toby is safe in his keep, he’s not keeping him because she’s here. Jareth tells her she’s answered none of the riddles and doesn't even know the questions, she understands nothing. (thank you for calling that out) “You are wrong. I have come to understand one thing very well. You are just putting on a show of confidence. It doesn’t take me in anymore. You are frightened Jareth.”p.193 (yes call his ass out too) They both are. 

They stared at each other for a few seconds then Jareth moved around the stairs calling Sarah cruel and they are evenly matched. “I need your cruelty, just as you need mine.”p.194 Sarah was losing balance watching him then she saw Toby, she had to reach him, Jareth mirroring everywhere she went, laughing. Jareth tossed a crystal ball, Toby followed it over the edge along a wall, defying laws of gravity. Sarah chased after him but he kept getting out of reach at risk of falling off a balcony or stairs. (safe in his keep my ass you don’t even have a single baby gate) Suddenly Jareth spun her around, “It has been a fine game, Sarah, and now it’s time to finish playing, because you cannot ever win.”p.195 Sarah saw Toby near a window, birds were outside, it wasn’t an illusion and she jumped to reach him, Jareth smiled triumphantly. “If he could not keep the baby, nor would she.”p.196  

Sarah opened her eyes and found herself in another part of the hall, something changed, a wing of the castle was in ruins, the stones were gone, grass in the cracks the turrets collapsed growing brambles. The sound around Jareth now had a forlorn ring to it. “Jareth stepped out from a shadowy archway, wearing a faded, threadbare cloak. His face looked older, drawn. In his blond mane was a trace of grey.”p.196 (so what does he really need baby youth to keep himself young and his kingdom running) She demanded Toby, he warns he’s been generous until now, but he can be cruel, he’s done everything she’s wanted. “You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You coward before me, I was frightening.”-”I have reordered time,”-”I have turned the world upside down.”-”And I have done it all for you,”-”I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn’t that generous?”p.197 (he played the role of the villain in her story) 

Sarah starts to recite the lines from the play as Jareth yells at her to stay back and stop, offering another crystal to show her her dreams. She continues and he says he asks so little, just believe in him and she can have everything, when she fumbles the lines again. “Just fear me and love me, “-”and do as I say, and I...I will be your slave.”p.198 And Sarah finally recalled the words. “You have no power over me.”p.198 Jareth and the goblins shouted no as the clock struck, (there’s no way all that happened in three minutes) he tossed the bubble up his face distorted in it and when Sarah touched it it burst. Jareth disappeared, leaving his dusty cloak and at the twelfth chime a white owl flew out from under it, flying circles over her. 

19 

Sarah wiped her eyes saying she needs to get out of the habit of crying and going over the top, (finally some growth) then remembered she hadn't found Toby. The owl was still flying above her but she was on the staircase of her home. The owl flew out an open window and she ran up the stairs shouting for Toby, he was asleep in his crib, she woke him up cuddling him and gave him Lancelot. She watched him sleep for a long time before going back to her room, it was after midnight and her parents would be home soon. She looked around her room, at the old photographs and removed them one at a time, putting them in a drawer including the old family photo and music box. 

Downstairs, Irene called for her and Sarah held the Labyrinth book, “Wait,”-”I am closing a chapter of my life. Just wait.”p.202 And she put the playbook in the drawer and called back she’s there and welcome back, surprising Irene. Sarah thought once was enough for now and pushed the drawer shut, behind her in the window was a reflection of Ludo saying goodbye. When she spun around the room was empty then it was Sir Didymus. “And remember, sweetest damsel, shouldst thou ever have a need...” “I’ll call.”p.203 She told him goodbye and Hoggle appeared. “Yes, if you ever need us...for any reason at all...”p.203 Sarah says she needs them all then the Wise Man appeared. “Sometimes,”-”to need is...to let go.”p.203 Outside the owl watched and waited and flew away unseen. (growing up isn’t leaving childish things behind it’s carrying them with you in different ways)  

FIRST

[crackspinewornpages]

Jim Henson's Labyrinth 13/19 -A.C.H. Smith

9 

Behind the tree Ludo was hung from were two high doors in a stone wall, both had iron knockers that were repulsive faces, one with the iron ring in his ears and the other his mouth, which to choose. “She always found choices hard to make; if there were two kinds of cake at a birthday party, she would contrive to take a bit of each, at a decent interval, naturally, and hoping that no one noticed.”p.103 (what party serves two kinds of cake also Sarah is it really that hard to choose between chocolate and vanilla) The knocker with the ring in his ears said it’s rude to stare she tried to apologize but the second knocker tried to say something. She took out the ring so he could speak and after the knockers had a fight Sarah asked which way to go, they don't know. they're just knockers. Since she spoke to the second door, she chose it or would that be rude since they might not like their doors opened. “If she weighed the implications of every alternative, would she ever get to make a choice at all? When one door opens, so does another one.”p.105 

She tried to open the second door but it wouldnt budge and so she asked how to get through, knock on the door. (Knock On Doors That’s What The Knocker’s For~) The second knocker refused to have the ring back in his mouth, so she used the first door. Through it she heard giggling and laughter, but Ludo refused to follow so Sarah went ahead. She followed the sound of merriment in the forest and found it was the forest that was laughing, and she joined in until she felt faint, and the forest pitched in hysterics. She couldn't stop and could see Ludo at the door encouraging her to come back. As she dropped herself close enough so he could pick her up and take her back inside. (so...what was the lesson here) 

After she recovered, she went to the second knocker and when he refused to open his mouth, she held his nose until he gasped for air. After knocking the door opened to a foreboding forest but there's no other way (you could try the maze again) and she’s not turning around, and Ludo reluctantly followed her. She didn't know which way to go now, “A path ran in front of her into the forest, but how could anyone take it for granted that a path was the way you wanted to go?’p.109 Sarah was so distracted she didn't notice the ground open up swallow Ludo and close again. As she tried to climb a tree it fell over, and she saw it was made of bone and now the whole forest was collapsing into a heap of bones. “And Sarah knew it was all her fault, the destruction of this delicate balance. And Sarah knew it was all her fault,”p.110 (well it’s about time) It was too much, and she broke down crying she couldn't do anything right and after a while noticed Ludo wasn't there with her. She couldn't stay and ran anywhere, the forest getting darker the deeper, she went until a bright savage creature leaped in front of her. 

10 

Hoggle was hoggling around the hedge maze, the girl had his jewels, he tried to please her and Jareth. “and that’s what you get for trying to please everyone.”p.113 He stopped when he heard a scream and with a second scream his rudimentary conscience came to a decision, and he ran to her. Around the corner there was Jareth asking where he is going, after some time Hoggle said Sarah gave him the slip but he heard her just now and he will take her to the beginning like he told him to, while wishing Jareth would do anything but smile at him. Jareth nods and for a moment he thought he would help her, but he wouldn't after his warning, that would be stupid. Jareth points out his missing jewels, Hoggle promises he’ll find them and the girl just like they planned. 

Jareth stops him, he has a better plan and tosses Hoggle a crystal that turns into a peach, it won't hurt her will it, why the concern, just curious. Jareth says all he has to know is to give it to her and Hoggle was torn between fearful obedience and unknown affection. He won't harm her and Jareth is surprised at him losing his head over a girl, how could she ever like someone as repulsive as him, (whatever Lord Farquaad) is he her friend, Hoggle says it doesn't matter. Jareth warns to give her the peach or he’ll be put in the Bog of Eternal Stench and if Sarah kisses him, he’ll turn him into a prince of the Land of Stench and walks off laughing. (that joke sucked) 

What leaped in front of Sarah was a Fiery and they are wild, and it told her to cut out her screaming it won’t do any good. (well it’s right crying might be an emotional release but what good will it do when you're in trouble to just sit there and bawl) Four more appear, they’re just having a good time here and they hooted and jumped around lighting a bonfire with sparks from their fingers. One used tree stumps as drums and the rest broke into a dance around Sarah, she couldn't have run if she wanted to. She was horrified by their antics as they dismembered themselves and tried to persuade her to join in. “But she thought she had their number now-just crazy good-times, out of their skulls and she was no longer frightened, not even when one tried to lift her head from her shoulders.”p.118 (I’m serious this could easily be a horror story) 

Then she remembered her predicament and started to cry again (she cries so much for a fifteen-year-old) and tells them she’s trying to get to the castle, is she sure she knows what she’s doing, yes. The drums pick up and the Fierys grinned at each other it's not a problem, they’ll take her there, they’re not that wild. She can't walk around here by herself, she did have a friend with her, Hoggle, they know Hoggle, and they pull her along into the wilderness. Meanwhile in the castle Jareth was watching from a crystal and held Toby up to it who recognized Sarah and reached for her. Jareth shook his head so much trouble for such a little thing, but soon she’ll forget everything once Hoggle gives her his present. 

11 

Sarah was hauled along reluctantly, she couldn't see the castle, time was ticking and tried to think of when she could have made a different choice. “How would she know? What evidence had she been given that any of her choices were the right ones? If there were right ones; if it wasn't all a cruel hoax by which Jareth tormented her with the illusion that Toby could be rescued.”p.123 Instead of crying again she focused on what she did right, she had to to have gotten this far, but it would mean nothing if she couldn't get away and save Toby. 

The Fierys were pointing at random things asking if that’s the castle and Sarah asks to be let go but the Fierys ignore her and continue their good time. They dragged Sarah further, as they were goofing around she tried to slip away but they quickly caught up to her. Not knowing where to go, Sarah wondered what the point was of doing anything. “Maybe just havin’ yourself a good time was the best anyone could hope for.”p127 But that’s besides the point, she couldn't do anything until she got rid of the Fierys. 

She got an idea and told them they don’t even know what the castle looks like as they goofed off. One showed how wild he is by taking his head off, Sarah grabbed it and threw it as far as she could, she did the same with the others and in the pandemonium she ran. The Fierys called back that it’s fun, to take her head off too, as she climbed a rock face to escape a rope hit her in the nose. Hoggle hauled her up as the Fierys were eager to dismember her for a good time. (ok so these guys are allegory for being wary of dangerous friends who put having a good time over safety and also going off with strangers) Sarah found she was atop a turret of the Great Goblin Wall after Hoggle beat off the heads he turned to Sarah who thanked him with a kiss then the earth moved beneath them. 

12 

The paving stones they were on tipped them into a chute, having gotten this far required Sarah to be persistent and solve paradoxes. (she hasn’t solved shit) “Jareth was King of the Castle, and he would tolerate no display of emotion here, no gesture of friendship or sentimentality.”p.131 With her kiss Hoggle became Prince of the Land of Stench. “Everyone in Jareth’s realm was an island. If you did something for someone else, it was never an act of kindness but a calculation, an investment that would return a percentage when you called on it.”p.131 The words, to give, were obscene and, to love, only was desire, you stand on your own feet and only on someone else's to get higher. Your success was measured of how you could commend others, this was why Jareth was envied, and he was gong to keep it that way.  

They skidded to the edge of the Great Goblin Wall and were made sick from the smell, Sarah didn't take Hoggle’s fear seriously, she did now. (evisceral glairy mucilaginous weren't enough to convey revulsion for the noise let alone smell) Their only path was now along the narrow wall of crumbling stones, but it was the only way. As they wondered which way to go the stones beneath them broke up and Hoggle was angry at Sarah for kissing him, Sarah tells him not to pretend, he came back for her because he’s her friend, he denies it saying he only came for his property and to give her something. More stones were crumbling away and Sarah tried to grab for him but lost her balance and also fell and landed on Ludo who howled at the smell. They were on a shoal a few feet from the mire and Hoggle was angry he wasn't Sarah’s only friend and Sarah calls him impossible, he’s as possible as she is. (dayum) Sarah moved on and Ludo pointed to a bridge and beyond a forest, better chances of getting to the castle so Sarah urged them on quickly. 

The bridge stood on a pier of stones and as they neared a little fox creature in military dress stopped them, no one without his permission may cross. Sarah says they only have a little time left and Hoggle and Ludo complain of the stench, Sir Didymus can’t smell, he detects nothing calling the air fragrant. (I suppose it is smart to have someone who can’t smell guard a bridge over a putrid swamp) Ludo howled and Hoggle tried to force his way pass and Didymus warns he swore to do his duty and points his staff at him. Ludo, seeing a friend of Sarah threatened, advanced and Didymus attacked him too and Hoggle took that opportunity to run but Didymus was quicker. Didymus enjoyed the exercise, few travelers passed this way and none tested his knightly skills and would gladly fight off a hundred Hoggles and Ludos. “How might a knight prove his valor, except it be tested?”p.137 

Sarah walked up and asked to cross but Didymus forced them back with finesse while he was distracted Hoggle scuttled to the bridge. (dammit Didymus you had one job) As Sarah watched him look out for himself again, she stood by Ludo for moral support. As Hoggle trampled to the bridge bits shook and fell off, when he reached the far bank he looked back, perhaps Sarah was getting through to him. The battle was at a stalemate, Ludo was fed up enough to beat at Didymus with a log and Didymus was bouncing around, both were nearing exhaustion when Didymus leaped back to his bridge and shouted enough. He’s impressed, never before has someone met him and come to a standstill and yields his staff, let them be brothers in arms. Sarah had enough and made for the bridge, but Didymus stopped her, she brought up Ludo is his new brother, but he’s taken an oath. He swore none without his permission may pass, Sarah asks for permission and Didymus was shocked into silence until he came to a decision to allow them to cross. (see how easy things can be Sarah when you ask for permission) 

13 

The moment Sarah stepped on the bridge it sank several inches, she immediately got off of it, Didymus told her there’s nothing to fear, it stood thousands of years. (and it hasn’t been maintained since) Sarah began walking on it holding the railing as the bridge swayed and bits fell off into the bog. Didymus was glowing with the prospect of a quest certain they must have one the damsel was urgent (I kinda want to see a Labyrinth D&D campaign) and would follow them and encouraged Ludo but with his weight the bridge started collapsing and Sarah ran for it. As the planks dropped beneath her she flung onto the branches of a dead tree. Didymus stood dumbfounded, the bridge was gone and so his purpose then he remembered he dedicated himself to this group’s quest and set out to rescue Sarah. His staff was much too short then Ludo howled louder than he ever did and from the far side of the bog came a rumbling noise, a large boulder rolled right under Sarah as she fell. 

Ludo wasn't done, he summoned rocks from beneath the mire creating a causeway for Sarah to cross. (so he could do this the entire time) In the reunion Didymus called for his steed Ambrosius, an Old English Sheepdog, (oh here’s Merlin but seriously do not ride big dogs like horses they aren't strong enough and it will hurt their backs) a flawless mount except when he sees a cat. He rode Ambrosius across the causeway to join them and they told him their perilous quest. Hoggle hesitated by the bog, if he did give Sarah the peach he’d be dumped into it, he almost dropped it in. “the peach might even slip accidentally from his fingers and relieve him of the responsibility of making the choice.”p.150 But he heard Jareth’s voice warning him not to do it so Hoggle put it back in his bag and miserably rejoined the others. 

Didymus took over the leadership and they all went in silence reflecting on their situations. Didymus on future perils with his brother Ludo, Ludo on how hungry he is, Sarah with how Toby was fairing and Hoggle with his choice and consequences but decided it’s all Jareth’s fault. “I’m just obeying an order that I can’t refuse.”p.151 (Hoggle no) Didymus knows the way to Jareth’s castle they’ll be there before dawn, Sarah thought how that would be too late. When Ludo complained of being hungry Hoggle offered Sarah the peach, ripe and juicy, it appeared to be glowing, and she realized Ludo wasn’t the only one hungry and thinks Hoggle is so kind. Hoggle looked at her expectantly, so she took a bite and was so regretful to spoil such a pretty thing. “Although that was the point, wasn't it? A peach made itself lovely just so that someone would spoil it.”p.152 (why is this giving me creep vibes) If that’s the case, then it’s clever to be repulsive, then rattlesnakes would rule the earth. Sarah mentions it tastes strange then sways and understands what Hoggle did, he damns himself and Jareth as Sarah totters and forgets everyone but Jareth mentioning how everything is dancing.

NEXT  

[crackspinewornpages]

Jim Henson's Labyrinth 8/19 -A.C.H. Smith

5 

Her fall was slowed by things brushing against her, she landed on one that grabbed her, a hand. Hands were all around protruding from the walls of the shaft that grabbed at her as she called for help. (help help I need an adult) A finger tapped her shoulder, she looked to see fingers make a face to talk to her, they are the Helping Hands. (when you read you could see how it if leaned into it it could easily be a horror book) Which way does she want to go, up or down, and urged her to make a choice, she supposes she’ll continue down, they snicker it’s too late to change her mind and pass her down. (One Wrong Move And It’s Down Down Down~) They sing as they take her down to a manhole, drop her in it and wave goodbye as they left her in pitch blackness. 

Jareth was observing Sarah in the oubliette through a crystal, she shouldn't have gotten that far by now and gave up. A goblin says she never will and Jareth laughed, she will if she starts all over, few have gotten as far as this girl, too old to be turned into a goblin. “Too old to be a goblin, but too young to be kept by him, damn her innocent eyes.”p.65 (what do you mean by that Jareth) Before she becomes a threat to Toby she has to be sent back immediately, and he knew just the person for the job. He calls Hoggle to take her back to the outer walls, Jareth laughs and told his goblins to laugh too, directing them like a conductor. 

Sarah got dejected, wishing she had been taken up, as she adjusted to the darkness she sensed someone with her, Hoggle. How did he get here, (yeah seems suspicious) he knew she’d get in trouble, so he came to give her a hand. (that doesn’t explain how you knew exactly where she’d be) She’s in one of the many oubliettes, (Mind The Map Now And Watch Your Step Or You’ll End Up In An Oubliette~)  “It’s a place you put people to forget about them.”p.67 (literally it's just a hole in the ground barely big enough to stand in this torturous execution is psychologically horrific) Sarah realized what that meant, it wasn’t fair Jareth challenged her, she went through with it, he couldn't just dump her here. (you made the decision to go down) Hoggle lead her through pointing out a skeleton, how the Labyrinth is a dangerous place for a little girl, if she keeps going, she’ll end up like that. (And All These Skeletons You See Each Had A Dream Now Crumbling At Your Feet~) “Lots of bad memories in the Labyrinth, I can tell you.”p.68 (considering this is Sarah’s way of analyzing her own trauma he’s not wrong) 

She has to find her brother, Hoggle says to forget about him, he knows a short cut out of the Labyrinth, she won't give up now, she’s come too far, he says this is only the edge, further on is worse. Sarah picks up his tone and finds his sudden concern suspicious, (now she thinks about it) Hoggle tries to avoid answering so Sarah bribes him with her jewelry, a plastic bracelet piece (her mother wore it in while in The Winter’s Tale) not the real things her mother gave her. He’ll take her out for it, she wants a way in, after all, he got here, he must know the way. He tells her she doesn't want to go further in, she’s proven she’s a smart, brave girl, “and you don’t deserve what would become of you in here.”-”No, no, you deserve to be saved from that. I’ll say that much for you.”p.69 

She finally agrees to take her as far as he can and flips a wooden bench over revealing a door handle and Sarh thought it wasn't fair. He opened it for the broom closet’s contents to tumble out he shoved it back in (apparently there’s a broom closet joke that’s never explained) and opened the door again to a corridor of cared rock. (so we’re going with cartoon dream logic) A booming voice called to them not to go in, they went in with more cared rock faces calling out warnings. Hoggle tells her not to pay attention to the Phony-Warnings, they mean she’s on the right track. (could these be a manifestation of Sarah’s subconscious gut feelings telling her something is wrong) The passage twisted and turned, but Sarah felt encouraged, unaware that they were being followed by a crystal ball until it bounced ahead in front of a beggar and hopped onto his hat. 

The beggar rose up asking what do they have there, Hoggle sputters as the beggar’s ruse drops to reveal he’s Jareth. He accuses Hoggle of helping the girl, Hoggle denies it, he’s taking her back to the beginning he’s actually just tricking her. And the plastic trinket, he pretends not to know where it came from. Jareth warns if he betrays him he’ll suspend him headfirst in the Bog of Eternal Stench. He asks Sarah how she’s finding the Labyrinth, it’s a piece of cake, (forehead slap Sarh you just told him it was too easy) Jareth then makes it more interesting and turns the hands of the clock forward, Srah calls it unfair. “You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for compassion is.”p.74 Jareth tosses the crystal ball down the corridor and a trundling noise came closer and louder and with a mocking laugh Jareth vanished. Hoggle and Sarah ran from the Cleaners, a moving machine wall of slashing knives and brushes. “All it needed for the story to finish now was that they should come to a dead end. Around a corner, they found one. A heavily barred door closed the tunnel in front of her.”p.75 

6 

Sarah looked for an escape, there had to be a trick, Hoggle was scrabbling at the door, she couldn't trust him anyway. She saw a panel of metal plates next to the door and pressed on it, it gave away a little and she yelled for Hoggle to help her. They pushed and fell through just as the machine slashed by them, as they recovered Hoggle said Jareth must think a lot of her to throw everything her way. Hoggle has her climb up the ladder in the room and says not to look down, how can she trust him after what he did how can she believe him, she doesn't really have a choice does she. Sarah didn't listen to him and looked down, (dammit Sarah) frightened so badly she shook the ladder to Hoggle’s indignation. Sarah thought of nice things (Merlin her room evenings with her mother and multiplication) until she calmed down and started to climb again. Hoggle says to consider his position, he’s a coward and Jareth scares him. A humble position and she wouldn't be so brave if she smelled the Bog of Eternal Stench and they climbed outside. 

7 

A garden with well-trimmed hedges, it was formal with statues of the Phony-Warnings, where the two came out of was a large urn atop a table, ridiculous, but nothing was what it seems to be. “It was like a language in which all the words were the same as your own, but where they meant something quite different from what you were used to. From now on, she would take nothing as its face value.”p.83 Hoggle says he’s not going any farther and Sarah calls him a cheat, coward and a liar then resorts to name calling. Hoggle flails in anger that he did ger her out, now she’s on her own. Sarah was stunned, she’s never seen anyone so angry, now she feels guilty. “She had provoked all that with just her one word, which was clearly more hurtful than sticks or stones.”p.85   

Hoggle declares he won't came back to save her and leaves, Sarah mutters he will and snatches his treasure belt he’ll get it back when she gets to the center of the Labyrinth. (“What a bitch.”-Hank Hill) Hoggle whines it’s further than he can go and about the bog, he doesn't even know which way to go, Sarah calls him a liar. Sarah picks a direction and Hoggle follows only for them to end up where they started, several times, with different paths, leads them to the urn, (Left Right Left Then Take Five More Steps Do A Pirouette Round The Statuette~) all while Hoggle whines to give him back his belt. Hoggle points to a different way and waits for her to turn up again then mocks her for thinking she’s so clever. Sarah tells him if he won’t help, he won’t get his stuff back, but he really doesn't know the way, it’s his property, it’s not fair, no it’s not. “Nothing was fair, if you expected fairness, you would be forever dissapointed.”p.87 (so Sarah just realized life isn’t fair) 

After she realized that she saw a figure, an old man wearing a hat with a bird on it, she called out asking if he could help her. The Wise Man didn't really register her, probably pondering something important and the bird told her to go away, he’s busy thinking and don't stare. The Wise Man told him to be silent then he noticed Sarah and thinks Hoggle is her brother, (so is Hoggle an allegory of Sarah’s bratty behavior or how she sees Toby or both) no just a friend, (is this how she treats her friends no wonder she cosplays alone in the park) surprising Hoggle, it was the first time anyone called him a friend. The Wise Man asked what he can do for them, how can she get to the castle, he tells her sometimes the way forward is the way back and the bird scoffs at it. “Quite often, young lady, it seems were not getting anywhere, when in fact we are.”p.90 (it’s the baby steps of healing) Then the Wise Man drifts off again and the bird demands payment for the wisdom. (Heed My Sage Advice Better Mind The Floor~) Sarah debated Hoggle’s treasures but instead puts her mother’s costume ring in the collection box. (so she’s slowly letting go of her mother) After what the Wise Man said Sarah walks backwards and Hoggle humored her, the bird told the Wise Man they actually took his advice, but he was asleep.   

8 

After leaving the Wise Man they could walk forward and move ahead although the maze turned them around so much they weren't any closer to the castle. “Hoggle.’ she asked, ‘how did you tell when someone’s talking sense and when he’s talking rubbish?”p.93 She made him stick by her until they get there, he wouldn't abandon her while she still has his treasures. She began to wonder if the maze was a closed system, and she’d have to go back to the urn and down to the oubliette. (Pray The Map Isn’t Upside Down Or You’ll Be Stuck In The Underground In A Cage From Which There’s No Way Out~)  Her mother once told her to mind what you say to a beggar, they might be God, (this seems like out of Linda’s character) Sarah wanted to tell her it might be Jareth. How could she have respect for him, “He was dangerous and powerful, obviously but he was too aware of it-a showoff, really-and mean, a cheat. He had a certain style to him, she could conclude that much. He was not unattractive. But how could you respect, still less admire, someone like him?”p.94 (she calls him a cad so she’s seeing through his false charm) 

They turned so much they couldn't tell they weren't alone, a sea serpent along the hedge with little goblin feet under it (so it’s like those Chinese dragon costumes) and several times they missed the mounted goblin Jareth sent out to look for them. Hoggle asked why she called him a friend, he’s not much of one but the only one she has here, he’s never been someone’s friend before. (gee wonder why) Then a roar made him run away in fright, shouting out he’s no one’s friend, he only looks out for himself. (and here’s the answer) Another roar but not closer, so Sarah decided to go on the Wise Man said, things aren't what they seem. After all, back home Toby was the loudest one and he’s harmless, so she moved ahead. 

In the hedge gap she did see things weren't what they seemed, the roar came from a large beast hanging upside down and tormented by goblins. (they have sticks with those wind-up dentures on them) The goblins were so absorbed in their cruel game they didn't notice Sarah getting closer until she threw rocks at them. The goblins turned on each other in the confusion, and Sarah threw more and was surprised at how accurate her aim was. (hmm wonder why) The four goblins fought each other or ran away through the hedges. Looking at the beast now she had half a mind to leave it, but she felt more pity and went closer. The beast reacted like she was another tormentor, she told it firmly to stop it, is that any way to treat someone trying to help you, doesn't it want to get down, it says Ludo wants down. 

As she got closer, she saw his grin from his upside-down face was actually a smile. is this what Toby saw when people leaned over his crib. (so she’s starting to see things from Toby’s point of view) Ludo says friend, Sarah wasn’t taking anything for granted anymore but his eyes looked like Merlin’s, so she ruffles his shaggy red hair. As she was about to release the rope Ludo roared again, Sarah leaped back thinking she couldn’t trust anyone here until she saw him rub the tender spots the goblins caused, he was hurt. Sarah let him down and hit the ground with a thump and he got up with a groan. She tells him it’s all right now and Ludo calls Sarah friend, she is and asks for a favor, the way to the castle, but he doesn’t know it either. If no one was going to help her she could do it on her own and Ludo followed, and Sarah thought it was nice to have company. (that you don’t have to extort at that) 

NEXT

[crackspinewornpages]

Jim Henson's Labyrinth 4/19 -A.C.H. Smith

1 

While nobody saw the owl, the owl saw and heard everything as he settled in a tree and watched the girl below. She moved with deliberate purpose, concentrating as she recited her lines. “Give me the child,’ she repeated. ‘Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City, to take back the child you have stolen.”- “For my will is as strong as yours...”p.11 She fumbled her lines and checked the playbook for the next one. “You have no power over me...”p.12 (and now Chekhov's gun is cocked and loaded) She couldn't continue as a clap of thunder startled her and her sheepdog, Merlin. (I know Merlin is a sheepdog but my cat’s name is Merlin so I just keep picturing him) She repeated the last line until the pavilion clock chimed and she realized the time. She and her dog started running home with her muttering it’s not fair as an owl watched it all in, no hurry, he knew what he wanted. (Merlin doesn't like the owl thinking it was why Sarah was running) 

Sarah’s stepmother was waiting for her, “The world at large was not fair, hardly ever, but in particular, her stepmother was ruthlessly not fair to her.”p.13 She could already hear her baby brother crying, she didn't call him her half-brother since her friend Alice (like Alice in Wonderland a girl who went through a nonsensical other world I see what you’re doing book) asked what his other half is (a horse) and she couldn't answer. Sometimes she felt protective of Toby, wanting to take him away to a better place but times like this she hated him since he had twice as many parents as she did. “When she hated Toby it frightened her, because it led her into thinking about how she could hurt him.”p.14 There must be something wrong with her, she wished she had someone who could understand, her friends would think she's a witch and her father would be more frightened of it than herself. (well she’s not wrong a teenager holding onto this much hatred and dark thoughts towards a baby is concerning)  

Sarah unapologetically said sorry for being late and Irene (the Labyrinth wiki says her name is Irene but in fanon Karen is popular too) told her to come out of the rain (Sarah made sure never to touch her even on accident) but the dog has to go in the garage. (well yeah Merlin is a big shaggy sheepdog that’s now soaking wet and covered in mud) Sarah thought Irene’s style was tacky and her performance every evening was hammy, her favorite word since her mother's boyfriend Jeremy used it to put down an actor, she was determined to be an actress so she could sound sophisticated like him. (that’s not how I would describe it) Irene started scolding her for being an hour late, they only ask her to babysit if it doesn’t interfere with her plans. Sarah cuts her off, how would she know if she has plans, she doesn't ask, Irene assumes she’d tell her if she did. “I would like it if you had a date. A fifteen-year-old girl should have dates.”p.16 (it was the 80’s how many well adjusted fifteen-year-olds at that time were cosplaying by themselves in the park) Sarah thought if she did have a date, she wouldn't tell her, and she wouldn’t like who it was. (she has a whole fantasy of escaping in a limo and they’d only hear of her in magazines) 

Sarah’s father came up holding her brother and telling her they were worried, (as any good parent would be if their teenager was off by herself and an hour late coming home in a storm) Sarah says to leave her alone and runs up the stairs. They were so reasonable, convinced they were in the right, only a matter of time until she did as they wished. Why did he take that woman’s side, her own mother never had that look of tolerance. “She was a woman who could shout and laugh and hug you and slap you all within a minute or two. When she and Sarah had a quarrel, it was an explosion. Five minutes later, it was forgotten.”p.16 (this hits close to home the result of which is I haven't spoken to that woman since December 3rd) Irene lamented how she tries but Sarah is determined to make her the wicked stepmother, Robert says it’s hard to have a mother walk out on you, (this is common the child has a tumultuous relationship if at all to the one parent they want love and acceptance from and will try to mold themselves to that parent’s image or expectations all while dumping their frustrations and lashing out to the other parent because it’s safe to do so) he’s right but will she ever change, Robert goes to talk to her. 

Sarah’s only safe place was her room, and she checked it every day that everything was where it should be. Irene rarely came in, she couldn't be trusted, she tried to clean but misplaced things. “It was essential to ward off that disturbing spirit.”p.17 Shelves were filled with books, toys and dolls positioned to Sarah’s affinities, everything had to be a certain way or it would be unsafe once disordered the room wouldn't be familiar. (ah so she’s trying to stay at the time in childhood where her family was together clinging to order in her disordered world but in turn stifling her own growth) Sarah was so against disturbances she learned how to do her own repairs so even her father would hardly have a reason to come in. 

Sarah now stood in her room sniffling and looked at an old family photo, all around were photos and posters of her mother's plays. One had her mother and her boyfriend Jeremy posing together and signed by them for Sarah, there were newspaper clippings from paparazzi following the two on their romance. Sarah picked up the music box (it plays Greensleeves) her mother gave he on her fifteenth birthday, the three went to the country club to swim, (the dick pretended to drown) Jeremy gifted her a gown to wear to dinner and a musical where he gossiped about the actors. He had danced with her and after a photo flash joked, they’d be in the gossip columns the next day (presumably because it would be a scandal of him being seen with an underage girl) and he drove wildly to shake off the phantom photographers and at home Sarah’s mother gifted her the music box. 

She could easily remember poetry, so why was the line in the park difficult, how could she make it on stage if she couldn’t remember her lines. She tried to get into the part with the right props as her mother told her and costumes as Jeremy told her. “They helped you escape from your own life and find your way into the part, as Jeremy said. And after each show, you take it all off, and you wipe the slate clean. Every day was a fresh start.”p.20 She was putting on lipstick when her father came to her door wanting to talk, she wouldn't let him in. At a loss he tells her Toby’s asleep, and they’ll be back by midnight and walked away and Sarah sniffed how he used to kiss her goodbye and now didn't try to come in. (would you throw a fit if he did you made it pretty clear you don’t want anybody in there) 

 As she threw away a tissue, she noticed her bear Lancelot was missing and she was angry the order of her room was violated. (if it really mattered would this be noticed when you first came in) She blames Irene yelling out the window towards the taxi that she hates her. She knew Toby had it, he was given everything but given more than she ever was. Lancelot was on the floor of the nursery, (hmm seems more like it was placed there deliberately) Sarah picked him up and her entrance woke Toby who started to cry. Sarah bemoaned for someone to save her and take her away, among the cacophony of the storm, Toby crying and Merlin barking it stirred the goblins in the castle of the Goblin King.  

Trying to calm Toby and herself down she told him the story from her playbook, The Labyrinth, (there's the title) how the evil stepmother made the young woman stay and watch the spoiled baby. (hmm I don't think that’s in the play) “But what no one knew was this: the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with her, and given her certain powers.”p.23 Now the goblins were paying attention as Sarah went on, the woman called the goblins to help her say the words and they’ll take the baby and she’ll be free. The girl knew the king would keep the baby forever and turn him into a goblin, so she kept quiet for months until she couldn't bear it. 

Toby started wailing again and Sarah was losing her temper, and the goblins eagerly listened for her to say the words. “Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, come and take this child of mine away from me!”p.25 The goblins call them the wrong words, she didn't even say ‘I wish’. Toby was screaming now, and exhausted, Sarah started saying ‘I wish’ until he quieted down and she put him back in his crib. Right before she left, she said the words, “I wish the goblins would come and take you away...-”...right now.”p.26 To the goblins delight, and they scattered. 

2 

The thunderstorm picked up and Sarah listened to the unnatural silence in the room, Toby was quiet, and it scared her. She called his name and flicked the lights, but nothing responded, stepping into the room there were unfamiliar shadows. In the crib, under the blanket, weird shapes were bulging and Sarah thought she saw things that weren't a part of Toby poking out,  then there was stillness. Perhaps for hours she stared at the empty crib, mind blank and frightened by a thumping on the window by an owl, she didn't notice the goblins behind her. The clock chimed from the mantle at thirteen o clock, she was distracted by it until something nudged her leg, something scaly. Something else snickered out of sight and shadows crawled across the walls cavorting goblins evading her eyes. (you could easily lean into the horror of this book like Coraline) Sarah looked for a weapon and tried to beat them away with a broom when it also slithered out of her hands. 

Lightning flashed across the room and faces hid as thunder boomed and the wind blew the window open for the owl to enter. Sarah screamed covering her eyes and peaked through them to see a human shadow. Sarah recognized the stranger as the Goblin King, (he has a My Immortal description but you can just picture David Bowie however you want) he introduced himself as Jareth, (sounds a lot like Jeremy) he saved her, “I have liberated you from those bonds that distressed you and frightened you. You’re free now, Sarah.”p.32 Sarah doesn't want to be free, she does, but she wants her brother back, she didn't mean it, please bring him back.  

“Go back to your room. Read your books. Put on your costumes, that is your real life. Forget about the baby.”p.33 Sarah can't do that, so Jareth summons a crystal ball to show her her dreams, but it’s not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby, does she want it. Sarah didn't answer as she stared at it, “To see her own dreams-what wouldn't she give for that?”p.33 Jareth tells her to forget about the baby and Sarah was torn, the gift was seductive (yeah from a grown man to a teenager) but also from someone who understood her, (how much does he really understand about you) only for her to trade a spoiled child, (there’s no such thing as a spoiled baby)  only her half-brother. She appreciated it, but she can't accept it and wants her brother back. 

Jareth lost his patience, disappeared the crystal and threatens Sarah with a snake, warning her not to defy him, as it wrapped around her neck. Sarah tore it off, finding it was a scarf, then it turned into a snake again, she dropped it and it shattered into goblins who scattered around the room, they were all around now, watching her. Jareth warns her to take his offer, she no match for him, she can't do that, she has to have her brother back. He says she won't find him, so there is a place she figures and for a moment Sarah saw fear in his eyes, it was encouraging. 

He hesitates but says there is a place and points with his cane out the window towards a castle atop a mound the Goblin City. They were now no longer in the house but on a hill. “Turn back, Sarah, turn back, before it is too late.”p.36 She can't, the castle wasn’t too far off, it depended on what she comes across in the valley, was the darkness down there perpetual. Jareth warns it’s farther than she thinks, and time is shorter, she only has thirteen hours before her brother becomes one of them forever. She’ll start, he calls it a pity before disappearing, Sarah just glimpsed a white owl flying away, and taking one step off the hill, she fell. 

3 

Sarah slid down the hillside on her bottom terrified, getting jabbed by rocks and shrubs. She couldn't see in the dark, but she was determined, there was no limit to what she could do and maybe with luck she would save Toby. A lark call made her look up and see the sunrise, Jareth’s castle on the horizon, it seemed only a few hours away. She wondered if Jareth’s land worked by the same time as home, would her father and Irene find her missing and call the police. As the sun rose, she saw what was in the valley. “From the foot of the hillside where she sat, to the castle and beyond it, and from horizon to horizon on each sides, there stretched a vast, intricate maze of walls and hedges.”p.40 

She studied the Labyrinth trying to solve it and the impossibility started to overwhelm her. She went on through the rocks and shrubs to the great wall stretching farther than she could see. As she got closer she saw a little man and called out startling him and making him cross at her for disturbing him. He tried to look fierce but couldn't, he wasn't friendly but not hostile and Sarah asked if he could show her how to get through the Labyrinth. He ignored her and continued spraying the fairies to Sarah’s dismay calling him a monster. She picked it up only for it to bite her, the man said of course what did she expect it to do, grant wishes. “Shows what you know, don’t it?’p.43 (he’s not wrong Sarah has no actual experience with real fairies imagine someone picking up a horsefly thinking it’s just a little pony or something) The man goes on spraying and gave her leaves to rub on the bite, she did and cried out that it hurt more, the man laughed at her, payback for startling him.  

Sarah calls him horrible, he says his name is Hoggle and he goes on spraying, after he already knew Sarah was her name she suspects he knows a lot about her, maybe he’s a spy for Jareth, he’s not her idea of a spy. “If all her opinions were wrong, as he’d said, then this one might be wrong, too. But in that case, she thought, supposing he is a spy, then it might be his job to persuade me that all my opinions are wrong when really they are all correct. And if they are all correct, he is not a spy.”p.44 Her thoughts run in circles, it’s just like a puzzle from home unable to tell who is the liar. (so Sarah is definitely going to encounter this problem later) 

Sarah smiled at him and his face darkened unused to people smiling at him and when asked if he knows where the door to the Labyrinth is, he gives her the run around. It’s hopeless talking to him, “It’s hopeless asking you anything.” “Not if you ask the right questions.”p.45 The right questions depend on what she wants to know, how to get into the Labyrinth then she heard the same music that hummed around the Goblin King. “You got to ask the right questions if you want to get anywhere in the Labyrinth.”p.45  

Sarah saw a huge gate, now she had to find the key, it was sticking out under the mat, too heavy for her to lift and Hoggle refused to help her. Sarah snapped and called him names like she did to another girl when she was younger, (I think it’s already been established Sarah can be a real bitch) and Hoggle got angry. (pipsqueak really gets under his skin because he's a dwarf) “You! Ha! You’re so stupid you are, you take everything for granted.”p.46 If she weren't she’d just try the gate, it wasn't locked. (this reminds me of high school first period sometimes the teachers wouldn’t be there in time to unlock the classroom door so we’d all sit in the hall until someone came by with a key once we did that and the door wasn’t even locked it was just the lights were off and no one tried the door) Sarah says it’s clever, “You think you’re so clever,’ Hoggle said. ‘You know why? Because you aint learned nothing.”p46 

Sarah didn't like what she saw on the other side, it was dark, there was intense music (well yeah this is a musical) and the smell of things rotting. Two steps in and she was in a narrow hallway that was slimy and smelled of mildew. Hoggle got quiet asking if she was really going, yes, is there any reason why she shouldn't, every reason why she shouldn't, is there a good reason why she should, she has to. Should she go left or right, they both looked the same, then she won't get far, he wouldn't go at all. Hoggle repeats what he told her of taking things for granted. “This Labyrinth, for instance, even if you get to the center, which is extremely doubtful, you’ll never get out again.”p.48 His opinion is better than hers, she thanks him for nothing, Hoggle calls back not to say he didn't warn her, a few steps in the gate closed and wouldn't open. 

4 

Sarah went on her way as lichen watched her go and gossiped disapproving of her direction. After walking for a long while it still looked the same, not a turn or corner, and she thinks maybe she’s taking it for granted to go on and on. She wondered how much time she had left, “It wasn’t fair, not knowing.”p.50 She ran until she was exhausted and collapsed crying, there were still only walls, she beat on one in frustration and a little worm answered. (well she did knock on his house) Sarah realized if a worm can talk it may give her directions, it’s just a worm it doesn't know how to get through but invites her in for tea. She can't, she has get through but it just goes on, the worm says there are ways, she just doesn't see them. “There was no logic to it. Or maybe there was nothing but logic, and that was the trouble: all logic and no reason.”p.51 There was an opening right in front of her, things aren't what they seem here, so don't take then for granted. Sarah tried it and found another passage and thanks the worm (that keeps offering tea) who warns her not to go that direction, she thanks him and goes the opposite way to the worm’s relief as the other way would have led her to that dreadful castle. (remember what Hoggle said about asking the right questions) 

In the Goblin King’s chamber (it’s a pigsty) Toby was howling (even David Bowie said Toby was adorable but a screamer) as Jareth watched amused, no one else took notice of Toby, the goblins were skittering about doing their own things. Jareth wanted something to amuse him, the goblins were boring, too stupid to find their way through the Labyrinth, no wisdom or wit. (well you did kidnap them as babies what were you expecting) “In the old days, when many babies had been offered to him, Jareth had been more tolerant, reckoning that soon he would certainly find one who could be trained as a worthy companion to the throne, one whose young blood would serve to refresh Jareth’s, whose high spirits would dispel the thoughts of aging that oppressed the king of the Goblins.”p.53 (so what the youth from the infants also gave him youth) As calls became rarer Jareth became more dejected and avoided mirrors. (he’s as worried about his wrinkles like a twenty-year-old botox and filler addict) He might be lucky with Toby and he’ll help him rule his ramshackle empire, or just with mischief, nine more hours to wait, he needs something to pass the time. 

Sarah now came upon steps, a change from walls and turns, to make sure she didn't retrace her steps and marked a brick with her lipstick unknowing that a little creature behind her would turn the bricks over. She didn't see the goblins behind her as she went up to the dead-end chamber and when she turned around her arrow was gone. (What's That Sound Coming From The Ground Someone Is Turning All Of The Tiles Around~) Knowing something was fishy she called it unfair only for a voice to repeat the words behind her. The dead-end chamber now had two guards holding shields with two more guards holding on to them upside-down. (Find The Guards Hiding Behind Cards Ignore The One Outright Cause He Always Lies~) The way she came was now blocked off in a dead-end and she calls it unfair it keeps changing, what’s she to do, they suggest to try the doors one leads to the castle one to death.  

Jim and Tim can't tell her which door to use but Alph and Ralph can, but she can only ask one, it’s the rules. (the top two are Alph and Ralph and the bottom ones Jim and Tim because she though their names should rhyme) “And I think I should warn you that one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies.”p.57 (how do we know they’re not both liars and the both doors lead to the same place Samurai Jack taught me that) He accuses Ralph of being the liar, Ralph says he’s the one who tells the truth and it’s Alph who lies, Alph calls that a lie, Jim and Tim laugh at Sarah’s situation. Sarah thought of the question that will get the same answer (simple kill one and ask the other if the dead one is dead) and Tim laughed at her. Sarah tells them to answer yes or no, points to Alph and says to tell her that his door leads to the castle. Ralph says yes, so Sarah concludes the other door is the way because if he told her yes then the answer is no. Ralph says he could be telling the truth, then it would be a lie, if it were yes then the answer would be no. (ok point to one guard ask him which door the other guard would say is safe and do the opposite of what they agree on) Sarah is pleased with herself for getting smarter and walked through Alph’s door calling it a piece of cake before falling straight down a shaft. (see from the start the riddle was rigged by it’s own rules)  

NEXT

[crackspinewornpages]

It Can't Happen Here 38/38 -Sinclair Lewis

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Dr. Lionel Adams was a negro journalist an American consul in Africa (BA of Yale and PHD of Chicago) and was a professor of anthropology at Harvard University during Windrip’s election. After his position was taken over by a white man severely underqualified, in the chaos Lionel took to patience in the new slavery. He went across the country preaching to people to be realistic, make a future however they could. “not in some Utopian fantasy but on the inescapable basis of the ban against them.”p.321 In Burlington a colony of slave descendants that escaped to Canada had returned to be professionals and officials, Lionel bid them to seek improvement in the soul rather than social superiority. Shad (his real name is Oscar) came to censor the lecture, the first one he heard in his life and wasn't impressed. As Lionel preached, they were just as good to inspire rebellion, Shad arrested him and sent him to Trianon. Stoyt thought to make it a joke but Doremus and Pascal liked their new cellmate, so he was put in solitary. 

November 1938 had a big shock at Trianon as Shad was also imprisoned as he put half of them there. Rumors spread that Tasbrough turned him in because of grafts he didn't share and how the prisoners were going to kill him. The Minute Men were privileged prisoners, protected until they reformed and returned to the ranks with new knowledge of how to flog. They could not get to Shad and Doremus begged the plotters to restrain themselves, he knew Shad grew up with little and had little chance at life. “But more important then that, I don't believe in individual assassination as an effective means of fighting despotism. The blood of tyrants is the seed of massacre and-”p.324 Pascal cuts him off, he wanted Shad’s blood and the other cellmates agreed. 

The exercise hour was interrupted as one prisoner stumbled knocking another near Shad’s private cell. The incident made a crowd collect at it and at the edge Doremus saw Shad’s fearful face. Someone threw a lit wad soaked with gasoline and the cell quickly caught on fire, by the time they got Shad out he was dead. Cowlick was subsequently deposed and replaced with Shad’s friend Snake Tizra, a promise that the one who turned in the murderer would be let go, a following promise from the prisoners the one who snitched wouldn't live to get out. Swan was brought in and ordered ten of the two hundred to be randomly executed, (including Victor Loveland) suspects beaten more often and two weeks in December visits and letters were forbidden and new prisoners isolated. At night they whispered if this was really Tizra’s vengeance. “or whether something was happening in the World Outside that was too disturbing for the prisoners to know.”p.326 

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When her father went to prison and more timid rebels had been scared away, Mary took control of the Fort Beulah cell with just Sissy and Perefixe, all the other agents left. All she could do was help escaping refugees and spread all the minor anti Corpo news she could get with Julian gone. She wanted to kill Shad, who she suspected did the actual shooting, and Sissy was now terrified of her. (before this she once beat a farmer with a riding crop for torturing a dog) Mary was fed up with caution, “men who rather liked a vague state called Freedom but did not over much care for being lynched. She stormed at them. Call themselves men? Why didn't they go out and do something?”p.328 (yes call them out Mary) She was irritated at her mother and the praising blasts from Swan that made her want to kill him more than Shad. “That was the sort of thinking that the Corpos were encouraging among descent home-body women by their program for revitalizing national American pride.”p.328 

Two visitors at the same time were forbidden at the concentration camps, when Mary visited Doremus and Titus she asked if anything happens to her, when they get out, will they take care of David. (well this is foreboding) She gathered some money and left David behind for Albany, the story was she needed change and was staying with her husband’s sister. Two days after her arrival she enlisted at the Corpo Women’s Flying Corps to learn aviation and bombing. When the inevitable war happened, women’s rights may have been taken from them, “but never had they had more right to die in battle.”p.329  

After ten hours of instruction Mary had her first solo flight, (only ten hours well I guess they were less complicated back then) the instructor said she had no fear, she needed a little for mastery, she was also an obedient student in bomb instruction. (was told Swan gleefully killed a woman and a baby with a hand grenade during a riot) On her sixth solo flight in November she was at the field where Swan was boarding his private plane (rumored to have a desk that belonged to Hitler) surrounded by an adoring crowd as he goes off to Washington to see Windrip. “Wouldn't if* be awful if somebody took a shot at Mr. Swan and the Chief? Might change all history,”p.331 (I’m sure Gavrilo Princip thought the same also if* yes that typo was in the book from an edition printed in 2014 editors do better) The mechanic thought she was joking, as she flew behind and above Swan he was so guarded he could only be taken while in the air. Mary dropped three grenades but they missed the plane soon to land and the guards shooting at her. In ten seconds she didn't have enough time for a parachute, wishing she spent more time with David as the plane crashed. 

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Before Julian was arrested the New Underground in Montreal found no value in his reports of MM grafts and cruelty, but he was still able to warn five suspects to escape to Canada. When he was about to be promoted to Hanover, he had a plan of going to the family friend Tasbrough (I doubt he’s really a friend of the family) to become his secretary to sneak into his private files, before he could he was arrested in September by Shad. 

 Sissy wasn't allowed to visit Julian, after Mary was buried with military honors Philip came bumbling back home. He thought Mary and Doremus had a touch of madness, must run in the family, thankfully it skipped him. (it wasn’t madness but brains and common sense that skipped you) He suggests the rest of the family to come live with him and for Sissy to join the Women’s Corpo Auxiliary, he was so damned kind about it Sissy couldn't fly into a rage. (I could) He even bought David a little MM uniform and he wore it around chanting Hail Windrip. (imagine your nephew who’s father was murdered by the Gestapo play around the house in an SS uniform saying Hail Hitler) Emma and David went with him, Sissy will to stay at Lorinda’s after she finds a renter for the house. 

Now Shad made his move, she never hated and feared him so much as he had Doremus, Julian and Titus’s lives in his hands. She wondered if it’s wise to kill him, would it be worse for her father and Julian, would being hanged hurt. Shad suggests she come with him to New York for a few weeks and they could elope. Sissy says they couldn't live on his salary, they should pay him better, (is this her way to suggests he demand his superiors give him a raise and annoy them so he’ll fall out of their favor) Shad says he’ll be a millionaire soon and told her the secret she’d been fishing for. He wasn't just taking bribes from shops for protection against MMs, (someone call the A Team) he went into a partnership and had the books in his office desk. After she got him to leave, she cried, (Mrs. Candy was ready with a butcher knife if he tried anything) the next morning she told Tasbrough and she didn't see Shad again, though felt something when he was killed. “She found no heroism but only barbaric bestiality in having to kill so that one might so far live as to be half way honest and kind and secure. But she knew that she would be willing to do it again.”p.337 The house was rented by Shad’s replacement, Isham Hubbard, Sissy left for Lorinda’s and Perefixe took over the NU. 

Sissy was too snappish to be smothered and sent to bed, Mrs. Candy gave her enough already (you know when I was reading this I just imagined Candy as white like the other characters but now I’m wondering since this is the 1930s if she’s supposed to be the Mammy archetype) and Philip gave her all the parental advice she could endure, it was a relief when Lorinda treated her like an adult. Late at night, with no guests, Lorinda asked if it was Mary’s intent to kill Swan, the Corpos didn't seem to think so, of course they don't want assassinations to be talked about lest they become a habit. Lorinda agrees with Doremus, assassinations are mistakes in tactics, also she may get him out of the concentration camp. Aras Dilley is at Trianon now, she’s bribing him to help Doreus escape, they’ll have him out around Christmas and they’ll sneak him to Canada. A few days later they received a New Underground telegram, Lee Sarason deposed Windrip and took the dictatorship. 

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“In his two years of dictatorship, Berzelius Windrip daily became more a miser of power.”p.340 He told himself his ambition was to make all the citizens healthy and pure of mind and he was brutal only towards fools who wanted the old systems. After eighteen months and the border countries refusing his notes or joining (as it was his property already by Manifest Destiny) he got angry. Daily he wanted louder Yeses from everybody for encouragement, he suspected everyone who didn't play into his ego as conspiring against him, (he really is an overgrown child given too much power)��his only companion was Sarason. He felt lonely and no longer went out except to barrooms until his cabinet protested that it wasn't dignified and too dangerous to be around strangers. So, he played poker with his bodyguards who let him win, he became the opposite of himself and couldn't see it. “All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested Persons, and he planned to do something historic!”p.341 He would give everyone that five thousand a year as soon as he could arrange it. 

Lee Sarason was carefully making lists (was he also checking them twice) and beguiling officials to see him as their real lord and master of Corpoism. He kept promises while Windrip forgot, his door became one of ambition. His followers were the actual government minus the megaphones. (of course from the beggining we could read between the lines that Windrip was just the figurehead and mouthpiece for Sarason) He had reports hos the officials were dissatisfied with Windrip, he made allegiances and was satisfied his national song was being played abroad. 

As a banker worried about a missing hundred million dollars, (that’s over two billion now) Windrip worried about the obedience of the American citizens and approval of Sarason. (what his wife he saw once a week thought of him was unimportant) He depended on Sarason and hung out with him (including murdering) who now seemed behind a veil he couldn't penetrate. (no joke the book says he wants to get Lee to be a good boy and play with him) To bring back Sarason Windrip replaced him with Luthorne and Haik but Sarason wasn't concerned, he also tried to ply Sarason with expensive gifts (a new thousand dollar television set how fancy would a 22k tv set be today) but only coldly thanked. As Haik made the army double efficiency Windrip wondered if he could be his new confident, he wouldn't throw Sarason in prison though. “but still, Lee was so thoughtless about hurting his feelings, when he’d gone and done so much for him and all!”p.343 (oh Windrip is Sarason senpai not noticing you) Windrip was confused and more so when Beecroft said he was tired of the bloodshed and was going home. He could have him shot for his criticisms, in his irritation had the ex-senator and twelve concentration camp prisoners executed on the charges they told bad stories about him. 

Windrip actually lived in a hotel as he was frightened by the Reds and anti Corpos who found their way into the White House to murder him. (well he’s not wrong but with his paranoia I doubt they’re actually in the White House) He spoke to Sarason with with how well Haik took over his old job and suggests Luthorne could help him. Sarason reveals Luthorne was killed ten days ago, he was popular but dangerous with all his talk of Lincoln. Windrip is shocked to hear this, he never knows what’s going on, Sarason says it’s better not to bother him with the details. Windrip understands he’s protecting him, but he liked Luthorne. (he feels as lonely as Shad) Windrip asks if he thinks of the future, how’d he like to be Duke of Georgia in the American Kingdom, just stick to him and not forget what he’s done for him. Sarason says they still need to liquidate Vice President Beecroft and if Windrip is deposed or killed he’ll be president, (I see what you’re doing Sarason) Windrip won't believe his friend could do that. (well not that friend in particular) Sarason leaves it at that and goes to his bower he shares with several handsome MM officers, savage soldiers apt at music and poetry. He’d get angry at them, whip them and caress their wounds in apology, his old editor friends said he traded green eyeshadow for a violet wreath. (violets are one of the oldest queer symbols but more associated with lesbians pansies and green carnations were for gay men and lavender was inclusive to both) 

1938 in a cabinet meeting Sarason revealed disturbing news to the heads of government, Beecroft fled to Canada and joined Trowbridge and there were bubbles of rebellion demanding their states secede. Sarason ignores Windrip’s angry outbursts and suggests plotting incidents along the Mexican border and when the public got patriotic enough declare war, (this is called a false flag operation) Haik and Macgoblin agree with him. “Once, pointed out the learned Macgoblin, governments had merely let themselves slide into a war, thanking Providence for having provided a conflict as a febrifuge against internal discontent, but of course, in this age of deliberate, planned propaganda, a really modern government like their must figure out what brand of war they had to sell and plan the selling campaign conciously.”p.347 (nothing brings the collective population together like a war against a common enemy) Windrip says they aren't ready a war now might have the opposite effect, “You put arms into the hands of too many irresponsible folks, and they might use ‘em and turn against you and start a revolution and throw the whole dern gang of us out!”p.347 (wow Windrip that’s the first intelligent thing I’ve heard you say) The MMs were Sarason’s idea, who tells him to make up his mind, of thanking the citizen soldiers or fearing them. When he leaves Windrip complains he won't stand for him and may replace him. 

That night in his hotel Windrip woke up when Sarason, Macgoblin and Haik were allowed in his room. Sarason had a bowie knife ready to stab him, when Windrip realized he was about to be killed he tried to appeal to him, reminding Sarason of all he did for him. (like giving him money to visit his sick mother) Sarason couldn't do it and decides to send Windrip off to Europe, ten days later he was on a ship to Paris where he became a minor hero of a tragedy. Windrip got a little over on them, in his two years of despotism he secretly sent four million abroad to safe accounts. (almost 90 million today) “And so Buzz Windrip passed into wobbly paragraphs in recollections by ex-diplomatic gentlemen with monocles. In what remained of Ex-President Windrip’s life, everything was ex. He was even so far forgotten that only four or five American students tried to shoot him.”p.349 (...huh...well he survived three more than Trump)  

As they once advised and flattered Windrip, his sycophants turned allegiance to Sarason, he issued a proclamation that in revelation of Windrip’s embezzlement and plotting with Mexico to avoid war, he yielded to the Cabinet and took over the presidency. He immediately began appointing his young officer friends to the most respectable offices in the State and army. It amused him to see the shock on people as he appointed a pink faced twenty five year old to Commissioner of the Federal District. In the White House of Coolidge, Harrington and Hayes, he had orgies (says it’s an old word for parties but c’mon we know that’s not what you mean) with weaving limbs and garlands and wine. (so he’s running the White House like Roman emperor Elagabalus) 

It was hard for people like Doremus to believe it and for many saw Sarason’s regime as tragic. They were the Idealists of Corpoism, while not seeing Windrip & Co as perfect, saw them as saviors of the country from Mexico and indolence of the youth. These idealists planned to correct the errors of brutality and crookedness among the officials, convinced Corpoism was Communism cleansed of foreign domination and violence of mob dictatorship. (and were you living under a rock for the last two years) “Monarchism with the chosen hero of the people for monarch; Fascism without grasping and selfish leaders; freedom with order and discipline; traditional America without its waste and provincial cockiness.”p.351 Like all religious zealots they had blindness with government propaganda, (so they believe fake news) there was no more bloody cruelty, concentration camps or restrictions and were shocked by Sarason’s coup. 

Haik scolded Sarason for how he was influencing the troops, (well think of how it will build moral and bonding) Sarason laughed and wrote a poem for him that became a popular soldier ballad. Sarason was eager for a war with Mexico, Siam or Greenland, (you know Greenland is mostly ice right) or any country that would inspire painters to portray him as heroic and at Haik’s request wrote another song theoretically friendly with Mexico. Sarason wasn't flippant in his preparation for war while Macgoblin didn't join Sarason’s midnight diversions he was amused by them and warned Sarason of Haik’s ambition, Sarason isn't worried about a military bookkeeper. (he did your job better than you and runs the military you should be worried) That night he had a party and shockingly there were girls present, the next morning Haik rebuked him, a month later he struck. He stormed the White House (huh) with some troops and shot Sarason and his companions dead (wasn’t swayed like Sarason was) and proclaimed himself president. (all I can picture is that scene from Ella Enchanted where the evil uncle puts on the crown but you know more Macbeth like) Macgoblin fled to Cuba and was last seen in Haiti living with a young girl, (how young) practicing medicine and studying voodoo. 

When Haik became president America really did begin to suffer and long for the days of Windrip. Windrip and Sarason did not mind mirth in the streets as long as they could tax it, Haik disliked such things on principle. He told the populace they would not be receiving five thousand a year but instead Discipline, he kicked out all officers that could not march and ran the nation like a plantation, the people were too tired to complain or think. Under Haik there was less flogging because to save time they just shot the slaves who refused to work.  

Unlike Windrip and Sarason he actually used the clergy, “There were the chaplains-at-heart, who, if there was no war in which they could humbly help to purify and comfort the poor brave boys who were fighting, were glad to help provide such a war.”p.354 These practical shepherds were able to steal secrets better than spies, helpful in the months after February 1939 when Haik was working for a war with Mexico and afterwards other countries. “For even with an army of slaves, it was necessary to persuade them that they were freemen and fighters for the principle of freedom, or otherwise the scoundrels might cross over and join the enemy! So reigned the good king Haik, and if there was anyone in all the land who was discontented, you never heard them speak-not twice.”p.355 

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 The ban on outside information at Trianon had been raised, Mrs. Candy had come to visit and inform him of all that happened, none of it seemed real, especially Mary’s death. That Christmas Pascal made a tree of a spruce branch (they allow shanking material inside the prison) and cigarette foil and they thought of their imprisoned comrades Pascal only cared for the Communist ones, day by day losing his tolerance and everything that made him endurable. All hours he chattered on to annoyance, but sometimes converted his cellmates. “I tell you, an honest man gets sick when he hears the word ‘Liberty’ today, after what the Republicans did to it!”p.357 A lot of the MMs are fellows who couldn't find work, thinking when Windrip said Security he meant Security. (this was the truth for a lot of SS officers the country was in a depression a lot of young men that needed to support their families and here was this charismatic man who convinced you all your problems were the cause of a single group and to join him you’d be secured and able to support your loved ones)   

After the Corpos he went on about Communism, the city of Moscow, practically worshipping it, seeing the leisure of Russia as a triumph while in America it proved degeneration. Doremus as a journalist knew the only reporters that misrepresent facts more than Capitalists were Communists. (Soviet Russia had two papers the Truth and News and it was said there was no truth in news and no news in truth) Doremus was afraid it was no longer Communism against Fascism but the tolerance against bigotry that was preached equally by both. “But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascist’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”p.358 (...huh) Doremus had hoped through Communism their was an escape from dictatorship, but now saw he must be alone as a Liberal as the Tolerant preserve some arts of civilization under any tyranny. Anything worthwhile has been accomplished by the free spirit and preservation of it is important under any social system. “But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silence them forever.”p.359 

It turned passionate Pascals into dangerous fanatics, now Doremus feared the next warden would be like Pascal, he remembered the Bolsheviks took control and again forbade freedom. Doremus slept in a cell with a stranger Henry, Clarence, Loveland and Falck were gone and Julian in solitary. His yearning for escape drove him to near insanity and obsession and his heart nearly stopped when Aras told him he’s going to help him escape. 

Aras loosened the bars and barbed wire in the alley leading outside but Doremus could still get shot on sight so for a week Aras fed an alcoholic guard booze from Lorinda’s money. Aras handed Doremus the keys, sending him to clean and he left Pascal and Truman behind. Outside Aras gave him an old MM coat and directions to the waiting van and left him alone. When Doremus got to the van he saw a member of the New Underground, they rushed him inside and assured him they’d get him through. “I tell you, there’s nobody got friends like a revolutionist...And enemies!”p.361 He was hidden, walked secret paths, and smuggled until he turned up at a farmhouse, it seemed like a mistake before he knocked and was greeted by Lorinda and Sissy. 

The house was sparsely furnished, but Doremus was in heaven and the two angels didn't hesitate to nurse him. Sissy had brought his old clothes and shoes, but their laughter became whimpers of horror when they saw his back. The tearoom wasn't safe so they set up this farmhouse for refugees, the system was easier now with boot paths and guards to bribe and forged passports. (seems like something you should have taken into account the first time) Doremus was safe, but to make him safer they disguised him as a younger man, Doremus didn't want his beard shaved but was proud of his youthful face. As Sissy ran the tearoom, he and Lorinda spent time together talking about the last six months. (and did other things) Three days later he had to leave, “and trudging off into the new prison of exile from the America to which, already, he was looking back with the long pain of nostalgia.”p.364 

37 

His beard had grown out again he was no longer amazed by food or soap, “But he had not yet got over the pleasure and slight amazement at being able to talk as freely as he would, as empathetically as might please him, and in public.”p.365 He sat with his new friends, Beecroft, the ex vice president and Elphrey, (Mr. Cailey) excommunicated from the Communist Party in America for siding with other political parties. Elphrey thinks the only solution is another dictatorship, if need be, violent but not governed by Moscow, Beecroft thought they all needed to return to the political days of McKinley. Doremus no longer cared how they spoke as he no longer feared spies and the next leaders wouldn't go back to a government of profits, by profits, for profits. 

Yet he was still lonely as he was at Trianon, no one would join him in Canada, (even though Emma could she wouldn't and Philip thought he could get him pardoned) so he had to associate will fellow refugees. He thought is take would be unique but no, he was one of thousands and Canadians were sick of being more sympathetic to the friendless and penniless. “the Canadians became distinctly weary of depriving their own families on behalf of unknown refugees,”p.367 (this sounds familiar) Ex governors were glad to get menial jobs, ex editors were plowing fields, so Doremus lived on twenty dollars a week (about 450 a week’s minimum wage today would be about 290) from the NU. Many other political escapees huddled together in small rooms much like at the concentration camps and spoke of Haik, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, confusing facts of them together. “and Doremus became a little sick of them all and of the final brutality of fact that no normal man can very long endure another’s tragedy, and that friendly weeping will some day turn to irritated kicking.”p.368  He couldn't work as a secret agent in America as loose lips caused the headquarters to suffer and they thought he wasn’t young or strong enough. 

After being in Montreal five months newspapers were full of America’s resentment towards Mexico because of raids when the troops were away, and they burned a town while all the women and children were out of it. (hmm how suspiciously lucky) Haitian, Ethiopian, Chinese and Mexican patriots with pained consciouses confessed to MMs about Mexico’s plans to bomb major cities, and reporters were on the scene within a half an hour. (as if they were camping out in the area) “To answer this threat, America, the one country that had never lost a war and never started an unjust one, rose as one man,”p.370 (...you can really tell when something was written pre Vietnam war) As soon as refrigeration and air conditioning could be readied the invasion would happen, (can’t let the troops going to war be slightly uncomfortable or be served dry rations) within a month five million were drafted. Doremus and Elphrey discussed it, considering it as absurd as all wars, “in the baldness of the lying by both sides about the causes;”-”The only thing not absurd about wars, said Doremus and Cailey, was that along with their skittishness they did kill a good many millions of people.”p.370 (sadly you’re not wrong there) They both recanted that as both made exceptions of the people’s war against tyranny as suddenly the war with Mexico was checked by a rebellion against the Corpo regime. (well it’s about time) 

There were patches of territory that were loyal to Haik, still others joined the rebels, the parts of America that were the most radical, the land of the Popularists. “Whatever might happen, exulted Doremus, the revolt proved that belief in America and hope for America were not dead.”p.371 Before in the election most of these rebels believed in Windrip’s fifteen points, returning powers to the people and month after month of being cheated felt indigent. They were too busy with their own work until they were told to march to war and awoke to their situation. “While they had been asleep, they had been kidnapped by a small gang of criminals armed with high ideals, well-buttered words, and a lot of machine guns.”p.371 There was a comic outbreak of ill-trained, confused revolutionists, even Haik jeered at them. By August the shock came when General Coon took control of Fort Snelling and held office in place of temporary president Trowbridge until a new election. 

Not all, but enough regulars joined Coon who were fed up with the Corpos and soon they won the battle of Mankato and took control of Kansas City and planned to march on. The revolt halted for a bit, “because in America which had so warmly praised itself for its ‘widespread popular free education’, there had been so very little education; widespread, popular, free, or anything else, that most people did not know what they wanted-indeed know about so few things to want at all.”p.372 The many schools lacked literate teachers and eager pupils and school boards that saw teaching worthy of any honor or pay higher than waiting tables. (damn does this resonate now) 

In two and a half years, most electors did not learn humility besides that it was unpleasant to be arrested too often. After the revolt slowed neither the Corpos nor their opponents knew how to self-govern or fit themselves for freedom, most didn't learn, ‘Give me liberty or give me death’, was more than a slogan. The followers of Coon and Trowbridge called themselves ‘The American Cooperative Commonwealth’, held the territory they seized and drove out the Corpo agents, but their politics were as unstable as Ireland. (Ireland only has a few more months to reunify as foretold by Star Trek the Next Generation) By October Doremus was called by Trowbridge’s chairman for him to report to General Barnes to proselytize Minnesota, so Doremus went off to play spy and hero. (he was disappointed it wouldn't be as romantic as he thought) 

38 

As Doremus waited for the train to Winnipeg he hardly recognized Lorinda in disguise and kissed her, she came to say farewell and tell him the news. The concentration camps are more guarded and worse now, Julian and Pollikop are still there and Perefixe is running the NU in Fort Beulah. Emma and David are doing well (Emma is irritating her daughter in law) and Sissy is an adept agitator contriving to assault all Capitalism and planning her and Julian’s future together. Tasbrough was in repentance and let out of Corpo prison and his new housekeeper, Mrs. Candy, was sending his secrets to the NU. After telling him all that, as she ran down the train platform and waved back, he realized she didn’t know where to find him. “that no one who loved him would have any stable address for him now any more.”p.376 

William Barton Dobbs was a traveling man for farm machinery and was now in Minnesota, a state still loyal to Haik. He ate breakfast (the an embargo on sugar must say something on the state of the country and its relations to others) in the hotel and read the papers with conflicting information, The Great victory in Mexico, same as the other three in the last two weeks, shameful rebellions put down and how Trowbridge was assassinated, kidnapped and resigned. Outside the hotel an MM squad was marching with farm boys recruited for the war trying to pipe the new war song. Once the people would shout for Haik now it was jeers calling for Trowbridge, Dobbs felt sorry for them. (but the change in attitude showed his efforts were working) “as he watched the frightened toy soldiers...not too toy-like to keep them from dying.”p.378 

As he drove, he missed Fort Beulah and the mountains but was exalted by the open sky and prairies. To a farmer he introduced himself as Dobbs representing a Combine Implement Company. The farmer recognized him and takes him to seven men in the farmhouse waiting and Doremus gives them news of Coon’s rebellion and they share theirs. The agents find it difficult to convert farmers, but Doremus tells them poverty for one is poverty for all, not a new argument but useful carrots for human mules. Some saw Trowbridge as a Bolshevik or a Fascist quack, for the pro Nazis tell them Haik plans to ship anyone with German grandparents back to the Fatherland. 

As he drove to his next stop he thinks he doesn't believe that Haik story is true, so he’ll stop using it, but then again, “if you did tell the truth to a Nazi, it would still be a lie.”p.379 All the same he’ll stop using it and also order an attack on MM posts at Osaks, they’re ready. (he also wonders if that shotgun charge was meant for him) He stayed at the house of Trowbridge worshippers and dreamed he was back in Trianon, then heard the trumpets that invited out all prisoners and, in the quadrangle, stood General Emmanuel Coon saying they are free. The prisoners marched or crawled out weeping, beyond the soldiers Doremus saw women and children waiting for them and his family, then all of them fled at the sight of Shad. His host woke him up then, telling him the Corpos are after him, so he rode out to a hidden cabin were men awaited news of freedom. “And still Doremus goes on in the red sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die.”p.381 (and that's how it ends with nothing solved and America practically in another civil war)

(seeing all these modern parallels is eerie and disheartening how the more things change the more they stay the same)  

FIRST

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It Can't Happen Here 31/38 -Sinclair Lewis

26 

The Informer closed at eleven Dan Wilgus stayed behind looking at posters advertising a parade, that Windrip was defying the world. Alone, he switched out the eight point type with an old ten point and ran into Doc Itchitt as he left, telling him about how Doremus should see the regime is here to stay. He stopped to watch a bar, Pete Vutong came out staggering drunk but sobered when he saw Wilgus. Pete was only a secret agent for a week and four times that week Wilgus dropped packages into his Ford that Pete would later dump in a ditch by Titus’s. (the drop off chain worked when Wilgus was searched for print type) Out walking his dogs Titus would pick it up and the next day Wilgus would on eight point type a pamphlet about Corpo crimes written by Doremus. 

The Corpos now lisenced and regulated printing and paper purchases so it was impossible to get supplies for treasanous literature. Wilgus stole the type and the three together stole an old printing press from the Informer basement, and paper was smuggled from Canada by Pollikop. (you know you can make you paper from recycled paper pulp) Wilgus was mostly moved into action by Doremus and his dislike of Itchitt. Titus offered his basement as the headquarters and the cell was composed by mid March. (long list of those that work for it) “But whoever they were, of whatever faith or station, Doremus found in all of them the religious passion he had missed in the churches; and if alters, if windows, of many-colored glass, had never been particularly holy objects to him, he understood them now as he gloated over such sacred trash as scarred type and a creaking hand press.”p.259 

Doremus was as busy as he had never been in his newspaper days, printing pamphlets and weeklies about the crimes of the MMs and Corpos from correspondents. Doremus found no other citizen knew a hundredth of what actually happened in the country. Windrip and Co found the state can be controlled via press and breaking apart associations and keeping artillery within the government, Doremus realized their lives were unimportant accidents.  Windrip was becoming more paranoid, (he shot two bodyguards for laughing) all over rise of crime and degeneracy and murders without arrests or suspects. (Einstein was also exiled from America) Pollikop said things like this happened before, they just didn’t pay attention because it was regular news, (he does have a point I have had this argument several times with my grandmother the crime was always there you just didn’t hear about it as much) he fears if Trowbridge does take Windrip’s place it will be the same. 

Doremus tried to translate a German correspondent, they praised Windrip while also saying he’s too liberal with the Jews. (it’ still the 1930s) The Communists, despite the risk, sent him reports of miners and factory workers imprisoned for their criticism, still they vilified the New Underground. News bulletins came on anything, arrived any way, all at once he heard the Battle of Waterloo, the invention of the telegraph, the Crusades. “and if it took him ten days to get the news, it would take historians ten decades to appraise it. Would they not envy him, and consider that he lived in the very crisis of history!”p.265 (as someone living through one of those interesting times in history no) All through this Doremus had to avoid behavior that would send him to a concentration camp. 

Whit Bibby was a fish monger, to suspect him of sedition was absurd, he left an order of fish wrapped in newspaper and pamphlets, the next morning they were sent to farmers. Olmstead and Julian drove out to Truman Webb’s several times for his ailing aunt under the plan to smuggle out Congressman Ingram to Canada. At Tasbrough’s quarry Titus and Pollikop pretended t have car trouble and when MMs weren’t looking, dumped seditions into the quarry. Most were gathered and destroyed but a hundred were found by quarrymen and passed on. Sissy was charming up Shad and found he Reek and Tasbrough were in a racket and Mrs. Candy had a counsin who stiole the books, Sissy took pictures and they smuggled it back. 

27 

Mary was moved more by homicidal hate, it was her tonic out of grief, just yards away from MMs she’d drop crumpled seditions where they'd catch the eye of passersby. She’d steal Reader’s Digests and magazines and return them with leaflets. Lorinda left behind the Tavern and moved into Titus’s to scandal and Doremus would sometimes stay overnight. (you cheating bastard) Lorinda the feminist was now demanding and Doremus was happy in those errands, loving more to give than receive. (and yet you don’t give to your wife) 

This would be an adventure, printing pamphlets was only the beginning of their activities, they’d infiltrate Washington, explode the Corpo state with secret information then after they’d run away together, if they were arrested they’d die together. Lorinda noticed since they began this diligence Doremus hasn’t been as passionate of the New Underground. He says her attitude is a holdover from her religious training, that she has a duty towards the human race that probably enjoys being under Windrip. (you motherfucker) Of course it is, but still Dimick wants to send her to the Canadian border to take charge of the cell there she has to leave. Doremus knows Lorinda suggested it, does she want to get away from him, yes the world’s in chains they can’t be free to love until they’re off. (or until Doremus no longer has a wife remember) 

28 

The information Sissy was able to get out of Shad was important and built the puzzle with information from Doremus and everyone else. Julian says he wants them to go camping and he’ll still kill Shad for her, but she has to do it. She says the worst that could happen is she’ll be raped, since 1914 people believe it’s no more serious than a broken ankle. (some people still believe that and it’s the woman’s fault for it) She can think of worse fates but she is curious about it, (WTF) but not by Shad, he has BO. She’d be willing to have it happen if it saves someone from him. “I’m not the playgirl of Pleasant Hill any more, I’m a frightened woman from Mount Terror!”p.276  

The whole thing was surreal to Sissy and found Emil’s date harder to tolerate than Shad who served high balls and sandwiches. (how can ice cream have six colors and only two strawberry flavors) Shad waited for the two to leave so he and Sissy can be alone and he can charm her. He nauseated her but she still made herself provocative, the same procedure from all the boys. She shivered when he touched her knee and she shied away from him and he complains she still thinks he isn’t good for anything, (well you aren't) she says she still thinks of him as a playmate. She says her father used to work on a farm for money (a lie) and Shad softens thinking Doremus isn’t so bad just stubborn and Sissy asks if he’ll protect him, he’ll see as long as he behaves and she’s nice. 

Sissy worked her charms to get information on who’s going to be arrested next but he caught on and won’t give in. Sissy says she just wants to see an arrest, it is exciting, it isn’t unwomanly to want to see it right, the real womanly thing is a little love making. (he refers to himself as papa *gags*) he feels her up and Sissy starts crying out of anger saying she needs time, he doesn’t want a hussy in his position does he. She fled into his bedroom to make rubbings of his keys but couldn’t get one or a mold in soap, losing time she hastily left the hotel room. 

She rounded the hotel corner to find Julian, (who looks ready to shoot someone) she told him nothing happened, she’s just an awful spy. Something came of this, her courage resolved Julian to join the MMs to work from within, he and Sissy just have to have a public break up. When she firsts sees him in his MM uniform in the dark she shrieked, “That blue tunic and slanting forage cap which, in the cinema and history books, had meant youth and hope, meant only death now...”p.282 She threw herself on him to protect him from his own uniform, in the uncertain love she started to grow up. 

29 

The New Underground consisted of hundreds of the most professional journalists, the Corpos also had a renowned staff. Almost daily Windrip and his cohorts addressed the General Public, congratulating them and making the new world through American solidarity. “If there ever is a Fascist dictatorship here, American humor and pioneer independence are so marked that it will be absolutely different from anything in Europe.”p.284 The year Windrip had power it seemed true, within that time scientists found whips and handcuffs hurt as bad in free American air as Prussia. (the country was abolished in 1933 but continued to exist under Nazi dictatorship until 1945) Reading hidden books Doremus found the involvement of dictatorships was the same, in this land the homicidal maniacs had the same fun as they did in Europe. 

Windrip promised to make everyone richer and then contrived to only make everyone but a few hundred poorer, (like every other politician promising help to the poor only to turn and make them poorer while finding his rich buddies tax breaks) too show an increase in wages prices rose. Even loyal Corpos wondered why the military was being increased, was Windrip that paranoid, was he planning an invasion, even so with taxation there wasn’t enough to pay them. They forced exports, increased production, stripping farmers with depreciated prices while at home prices increased, so now the farmer starved. (yeah we’re feeling that inflation now) “The hardest phenomenon of dictatorship for a Doremus to understand, even when he saw it daily in his own street was the steady diminutive of gayety among the people.”p.286 America was never a gay nation, (sometimes the jokes writes themselves) but there was false cheerfulness that lessened now day by day as Corpos milked taxes on public pleasures so all the world stayed home anxiously worried about spies. “After the bread had molded, the circuses were closed.”p.287 

Communities so isolated and conspirators so unfamiliar to each other, only by inexplicable faith could they go on. Titus and the rest were armatures against Corpo propaganda. “It seemed worse that futile, it seemed insane, to risk martyrdom in a world where fascists persecuted Communists, Communists persecuted social-Democrats, Social-Democrats persecuted everybody who would stand for it ; where “Aryans” who looked like Jews persecuted Jews who looked like Aryans and Jews persecuted their debtors; where every statesman and clergyman praised Peace and brightly asserted that the only way to get Peace was to get ready for War.”p.288 What reason would a person have to seek righteousness in an unrighteous world why do anything Doremus never found a reason he just went on. 

The New Underground ran for three months, in June Tasbrough called on Doremus, after small talk he told Doremus of upcoming government promotions and he’s being considered to take over Reek’s position. He needs to keep it secret but if he could throw in his influence, Doremus warns he’s the worst person to be favored by. That's just it, the Corpos don't like him, but they do respect him, he was important to the state for a long time, it will give him a leg up if they think he converted Doremus to Corpoism. This job will help his business, and he could get the Informer from Staubmeyer and back to him if he stops criticizing the Chief and state or he could get him a different job if he came to his senses. Doremus turns him down so Tasbrough turned cold to his family and Doremus hinted at the promotions and forgot about Tasbrough happily. (uh maybe keep an eye on Tasbrough) 

30 

Worse than having to be civil to Tasbrough a newspaper man was arrested as an editor of the New Underground paper and author to all Doremus and Lorinda wrote. As he went to a concentration camp Doremus was prevented from confessing, he explained to Emma who thought it was lucky someone else was blamed. She didn't understand fully what they were doing and was glad Lorinda was gone with all her crazy ideas of workmen and women’s rights she was a bad influence on Doremus and wondered why Titus and Sissy snorted at that. Why couldn't he associate with more lovely people like Tasbrough, Staubmeyer and Crowley, why couldn't he be a gentleman and stay out of politics. She thought the marching MMs was a fine show and while she didn't like Windrip he wasn't so bad. (Emma I’m trying so hard to defend you) 

As Tasbrough predicted the omelet makers did climb, and he was promoted to District Commissionership at Hanover and Swan was the new Provincial Commissioner. (Windrip is also worried about the growth of effeminacy in Sarason who was previously caught in a gentleman’s club) Twenty-four hours in his new position he tried an eighty year old mother of a New Underground agent and put her in a concentration camp in a disused quarry that had a foot of water. (so he plans for all the dirty water to make her sick and kill her) The New Underground sent out warnings of precaution, agents were disappearing, Titus scoffed at Doremus’s nervousness but also noticed suspicious characters.  

One evening Doremus was being followed to Titus’s by a man that looked like Shad, out of sight he bolted to Titus’s and warned him they might have to pack up and move and he called Julian to warn him in German. An hour later Wilgus came to say he saw Aras snooping around his house in disguise, they need to leave quick. Following Doremus’s orders they were on the move by three in the morning. The next day Julian invited Shad, Itchitt and Staubmeyer to Titus’s for poker and Titus’s told them they could get beer from the basement and bathrooms were upstairs. Shad and Itchitt were gone longer than normal, after they left the party broke up and Titus laughed about Shad searching the basement and finding nothing. 

On June thirtieth Doremus composed articles on the murders ordered by Sawn, the next day he noticed the suspicious man they kept seeing around. He was followed by someone they saw wearing an MM uniform in a parade, the third day he warned Truman to halt printing. At home Sissy told him she turned down Shad’s invite to an MM Fourth of July picnic. That night Doremus couldn't sleep wanting to flee, but what of the family he could hear fireworks and awoke in the morning angry nothing happened. (really Doremus really be careful what you wish for) 

The MMs got ready for the parade and the American Legion was completely suppressed, a number of the members were shot. After the Jessups went home it heavily stormed later a car skidded into their driveway and out came five Minute Men. One struck Doremus before he was arrested as they tore apart his house as Emma and Sissy watched in horror. They found an article on Swan and Doremus demanded to see Shad and Tasbrough, the lead Ensign ignored him. He was driven to the courthouse and taken to another undescriptive truck, Titus, Truman and Wilgus were already arrested. (Titus calls them something censored but one can assume – – means mother fuckers) 

They were driven three hours to Dartmouth campus, headquarters of the Corpo District Commissioner, hopefully Tasbrough would free them. They didn't see Tasbrough, instead he was locked in a room where the MMs kicked him around before he was led to the bull pen. Titus was led to the trial room after an hour Doremus heard him cry out in pain and choke gasping, Doremus was next. Instead of Tasbrough it was the Ensign that arrested him and sentenced him to twenty-five lashes and castor oil (it’s used as a laxative) but Doremus was too angry to admit anything. The doctor forbids anymore lashes, Doremus calls him out for being a doctor working with murderers. Doremus was lashed and interrogated for three days, he almost broke when told Titus already confessed but he refused to believe them or turn in others to be released. 

He was let out for half an hour’s exercise with fifty other prisoners and made eye contact with Titus, Wilgus couldn't walk and Doremus was told the next day he hung himself. (he definitely didn’t hang himself) Then Doremus was taken to another room where he met the new Provincial Commissioner, Swan. He read the article and asked if Doremus pleads guilty before calling in Tasbrough who throws him under the bus, Shad also admits Doremus tried to get him to join in a plot against him. (both are lying POS but Shad doesn’t even look him in the eyes) If it weren’t for his age and senility he’d be sentenced to a hundred lashes like all Communists that threaten the State, so he’ll have another twenty lashes and be sent to a concentration camp for seventeen years and if he tries to escape death. (Doremus is already in his sixties this is meant to be death) 

31 

The old girl’s school at Trianon was in worse shape than Dartmouth (says something about a dictatorial regime turning everything into a shithole) ran by Superintendent Cowlick (yes that’s his name) a mild man, too mild to hurt the MMs feelings and let Doremus lie for a month to recover. The doctor permitted Olmstead to come and at last Doremus had news, the women were alright, Titus is at another camp, the NU is doing what it can do and Julian was promoted to Squad Leader. “Yes, we carry on...About like an oxygen tent for a patient that’s dying of pnemonia!”p.310 

After Doremus recovered he was made to clean, better than being worked to death or isolation where you’re forced to stay awake for days. He saw the others as comrades, once a successful capitalist, he too found himself as helpless as a janitor let go by the Big Business. “Yet he still told himself stoutly that he did not believe in a dictatorship of the proletariat any more than he believed in a dictatorship of the bankers and utility owners;”p.310 He felt he was a better reporter than Itchitt and better at politics than a factory worker, now the bourgeois pride was gone. 

Scrubbing gave him a chance to hear gossip, prisoners were acquaintances, Pascal, Pridewell and Henry became inmates, having more courage and arrogance than anyone else in the prison. Doremus shared a cell with five other men (the room was 12 by 10 and eight feet high and called too small for one woman) the got used to indignity as one does cancer. “Only it left in them a murderous hatred of their oppressors so that they, men of peace all of them, would gladly have hanged every Corpo mild or vicious. Doremus understood John Brown much better.”p.312 The worst was the waiting, “It became a distinct, tangible thing, as individual and real as Bread and Water.”p.312 Another ghost haunted them the notion of Escaping, they had to be careful talking about it snitches were everywhere. Doremus didn't believe a man could betray his companions until after two months Clarence Little betrayed Henry’s plans and was released, Doremus tried to reason him suffering tuberculosis bled out his soul. 

Every two weeks they allowed one visitor but an MM stood two feet away, Doremus pompous son Philip came, hurt when told his father would rather the dog visit. (they also got useless censored letters) Pascal was now his closet friend, ferreting out scandals of the guards, they were afraid he’d start talking so brought him gifts to be in his good graces. After Aras gave Shad information on Crowley and was transferred to Trianon and saw Pascal he became kind.  

From the window Doremus saw horrors that September he saw Henry executed by firing squad. Worse, he saw Julian and his grandfather brought in as prisoners to the torture room. Two weeks later Julian told him he was caught writing on MM grafts, Sissy wasn't caught but Doremus is worried she’ll be raped by Shad. By the end of September he thought he’d make another ten years when the sadistic Ensign Stoyt dragged him out of his cell to Cowlick’s office. They know he was connected to Julian’s treachery who already confessed, if he corroborates he can have his own cell, he won't confess and he was left to Stoyt. Stoyt was initially gentle with the interrogation but then had Julian’s grandfather brought in who denied confessing, Stoyt beat him and he prayed for god to forgive them before he died.  

In Paris Guilluame Semit wrote on his fourth trip to the US in 1938, he never saw such a abounding health and good spirits. Parades, athletic conferences of Minute Men, the Corpo Youth Movement, had such contented faces and enthusiasm for the leader and hero worship Windrip. Macgoblin showed him the labor camps where the assembled were content. Unlike the false reports of concentration camps they were just reeducation schools for adults misled by prophets of Liberalism. (yeah you know they just had their own people replace the wage slaves for the ruse) France and Britain are still in the throes of Parliamentarianism and Democracy, sinking into debt and industry by men too afraid or power hungry to cast off outdated techniques unlike Germany, America and Italy. “and other really courageous peoples, and places the sane and scientific control of the all-powerful Totalitarian State in the hands of Men of Resolution!”p.320 

In October Pollikop arrived at Trianon, he and Pascal started their old arguments and Doremus felt at home again. (but he thought the dog had more economic wisdom than them all and was smart enough to pretend not to talk) 

Back in his hotel suite Shad thought he got a dirty deal, sending more to the concentration camps than anyone yet not promoted for it. He was back from an honorary dinner and felt disconnected from all the snobs showing off and paid no attention to him about arresting Julian’s grandfather in his own church. “He was lonely. The fellows he had once best known, in pool room and barber shop, seemed frightened of him, and the dirty snobs like Tasbrough still ignored him.”p.321 He was lonely for Sissy, since her dad was sent to Trianon she didn't come around to him even though he was a County Commissioner and she the daughter of a criminal. He was almost willing to marry her if it’d get her but when he hinted at it she laughed at him. “He had thought, when he was a hired man, that there was a lot more fun in being rich and famous. He didn't feel one bit different than he had then! Funny!”p.321  

NEXT

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It Can't Happen Here 25/38 -Sinclair Lewis

21 

It wasn’t just the November sleet that kept Doremus at home he felt there was no point in going to the office. “He could find no authentic news even in the papers from Boston or New York, in both of which the morning paper had been combined by the government into one sheet, rich in comic strips, in syndicated gossip from Hollywood, and, indeed, lacking only news.”p.210 (so modern news sites then) He was overhearing Emma and Mrs. Candy discussing chicken pir recipes when Sissy slammed into the room when she should be in high school. She won't go anymore and pledge to the corporate state, chief commissioners, the Mystic Wheel and troops (you know it is your American right not to stand for the pledge those soldiers fought for our right to choose not be forced like a dictatorship) and she definitely won't go to university. 

Julian shuffled in, the Corpos are closing Amherst, he was topped off they’ve been arresting students and decided to run. Doremus can't get him a job at the Informer, remember a few years ago when medics, law graduates and engineers couldn't get a job, (they mean during the Great Depression but this also hits today as for years we were pushed on go to college and get a degree in anything well now there’s a high supply and low demand and a fuck ton of debt) it’s worse now and Julian doesn't know what to do. His only options seem to be enlist with the MMs, (a classic choice of those out of school and don’t know what degree to get or how to function on their own or have little to survive on) or go to a labor camp, (where you’re basically a wage slave) he can't keep living off his grandfather. Sissy says he could get a job hauling farm beams for decorating phony old English living rooms and Pollikop will sell her an old truck. They go off to talk to Lorinda about it, she was at the Tavern making doughnuts and took them to the butler pantry. Lorinda tells them there’s no chance anymore, there’s too many middlemen and contractors that follow Windrip’s politics, “good old Windrip is so consistently American that he’s kept up all our traditional grift, even if he has thrown out all our traditional independance.”p.213 

Back in the sedan they were miserable, and Julian asked Sissy if she’ll marry him when he finds a job, Sissy says marriage seems like rot now with how they brought down all the old institutions. She’d like to have a dozen kids but now she won't have any. “But if people have gone so soft and turned the world over to stuffed shirts and dictators, they needn’t expect any decent woman to bring children into such an insane asylum! Why the more you really do love children, the more you’ll want ‘em not to be born, now!”p.214 (damn this is progressive for the 1930s) Julian says yes but they’ll still have them, Sissy supposes so. (as usual is the case) Doremus found Julian a job with Dr. Marcus Olmstead wanting to replace Greenhill, he wouldn't hire any MMs or those that half agreed with them. After a week of driving Olmstead around Julian decided to be a doctor, (after flip flopping through career choices) and from hearing him and Sissy boasting Doremus had enough resolution to go back to the Informer and not kill Staubmeyer. 

22 

December 10th was Windrip’s birthday before he realized lies could be used against you, (well you think they’d at least make a dent in your credibility as a politician) he claimed it was the 25th and his middle name was Noel Weinacht. (you really have a narcissistic messiah complex don’t you) This birthday commemorated the Order of Regulation, the government, fed up, announced anyone found to discredit the State would be executed or interned, as the prisons were full of criminals and those under protection (sure Jan) concentration camps would be opened across the country. On the eleventh one was opened to celebration and speeches, nine miles north of Forth Beulah in what had been a school for girls. Every day after that Doremus got secret correspondence from his journalist friends of Corpo terrorism and rebellions against them. Arkansas, San Francisco, Pawtucket, Scranton, Kansas, New York, the working class and malcontents rebelled and faced the MMs retribution whether they were guilty or not. 

At dinner the Jessups heard tramping outside their door, Mrs. Candy answered it and Shad barged in, they're burning books and they’re raiding Doremus’s study. Doremus already removed anything that could be deemed radical and hid them in a sofa. Shad used to work there and knows there has to be something and wants the whole house searched and destroys Doremus’s inherited set of Dickens. “Doremus could not have stayed away from the book-burning. It was like seeing for the last time the face of a dead friend.”p.222 Who owned them and why they were seized he did not know, but they burned. “to the greater glory of the Dictator and the greater enlightenment of his people.”p.223 Karl Pascal was arrested for his books and second to be sent to the Fort Beulah concentration camp, the first was Brayden, an electrician, all because an MM wanted his job and he was dead by January.  

An English glob trotter spent two weeks studying the conditions of America. His report to the BBC said the populace has never been so happy and set on making a Brave New World (this may be a subtle hint to the rest of the world that America has gone to shit because in the book Brave New World is a dystopia where emotions individuality are conditioned out of the people controlled by censorship to negate human autonomy) and a Hebrew banker was amused by the rumors of his people being oppressed.  

23 

Doremus was nervous as Staubmeyer went over his private letters, somebody already went through his office desk. Now he fears of going to a concentration camp and wary of everyone. Buck called for Doremus and his family to be home with Lorinda and Julian, he’s got an idea. Buck arrived ten minutes late with news the fire’s getting close, they arrested the editor of the Rutland Herald, Doremus must be next, he had to get out to Canada by car the governments stopped planes, they all have to go. There’s no time to go through his investments so sign them over they can trust him, and he can cash them better since the Corpos like him. He’s got everything set and can drive them tomorrow if the weather is clear. “I’m not going to flee. I’m not guilty of anything. I haven’t anything to flee for!” “Just your life, my boy, just your life!”p.227 Doremus planned to stay but everyone protests and Shad being a creep towards Sissy he agreed to go, but once they were safe he planned to return for a proper fight or at least kill Shad. 

A week before Christmas everyone acted normal as they prepared, Mrs. Candy was to stay behind and act surprised when the Jessups were reported escaped. They packed what they could fit in their coats and in a free moment Doremus and Lorinda said goodbye. Everyone and the dog piled into the car and Julian, who staying behind asked Sissy to send a postcard and Mrs. Candy hands them a coconut cake. 

Buck knew all the backroads to Canada and Doremus was sick with fear as he drove in the blizzard thinking of what ifs for hours. Before they hit the border the car got stuck in a drift, as they went out to look the headlights showed an empty cabin and Emma offered to make coffee there. When the car got unstuck, they were comfortable inside the cabin eating cake and didn’t want to leave the security behind on the road. A few more miles to the border and anxiety built when a searchlight almost made Buck swerve off the road. Two MMs asked where they were going, Buck says they’re from Montreal and going home and hands over forged papers. They don’t believe them and say they have to wait for the Battalion leader at noon and ask why they aren’t using the highway. Buck says they’ll come back at noon, but the three other border points turned them back, they had to go home. 

24 

He couldn’t decide if Staubmeyer and Shad knew of the escape attempt and he found it more infuriating to write anything about Windrip and he couldn’t bring  himself to hope. He cheered up when Philip called that he’s coming to visit and checkup, he’s proud of his son being a successful lawyer. (pride comes before the fall) He was shocked when Philip said Swan must have made a mistake with Greenhill, the judge has a wonderful reputation. Philip didn't bring it up again until midnight when he brought up his father’s troubles with the authorities. Philip’s sees he was wrong not to vote for Windrip, he sees now he has real statesmanship. Doremus points out he killed his brother-in-law and plenty of other good men, does he really condone that, no but you can't make an omelete without breaking eggs. 

At that Doremus explodes, “It’s used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omlete! Eggs! By God, men’s souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!”p.238 Philip says he’s thinking realistically, another excuse for murder, but he knows horrible things happen you can forgive a means to an end, (history tends not to look fondly on that) Doremus will do nothing of the kind. He can never forgive evil or fanatics that excuse it then quotes Romain Rolland. “a country that tolerates evil means-evil manners, standards of ethics-for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end.”p.238 (glances at 1930s Germany) 

Philip snapped a bit out of it, the only thing he knows of the Corpos is they saved them from an invasion of red agents, (you really believe that sounds more like fake news) forgetting his father works with newspapers. (Doremus wonders if he was wise not to lick the brat as a child) Philip says the point is Windrip and the Corpos are here to stay, and they have to base their actions on it and what they’ve already done. The Corpos have spiritual gains, revitalizing the whole country, they had gotten sordid with comforts and lost their sturdiness, so many young men were refusing to take military drills, (wonder how he’d view the antiwar protests of the 60s and 70s) but he forgot his father’s a pacifist, not anymore. He must listen to the voice of youth, he’s not youth either with his imperialistic theories.  

Philip came to make his point America needs to catch up to Europe and expand. “A nation, like a man, has to go ahead or go backward. Always!”p.240 (look up Manifest Destiny didn’t end well for those already living there) Doremus used to write those same words back in 1914, Philip goes on that they should grab Mexico, Central America and China for their own behalf, since there so misgoverned. (you mean like how we did with the Banana Wars) Doremus asks if he thinks he should run the Informer by Corpo ideology, yes since the time for selfish individualism is gone. Doremus tells him to get to the point, he came to tell him he’s going to get in serious trouble if he doesn't support the government. Think of the family instead of his selfish ideas, what’s he really after, he’s been approached in regard to a high honor of assistant military judgeship, (sorry Doremus your son willingly drank the kool aide) Doremus calls him a stuffed shirt (worse than a traitor) and ends the conversation. 

25 

“Holidays were invented by the devil, to coax people into the heresy that happiness can be won by taking thought.”p.242 What might be David’s first and last Christmas with his grandparents was interrupted by Shad questioning if Pascal ever spoke to him about Communism and Mary threatening to kill Shad and Swan. They tried to act happy and Doremus thought they’d do better being drunk and he hated the Corpos more for stealing Christmas. They invited Louis Rotenstern over because he was a lorn bachelor (I don’t know if this means he was gay or not because that’s what confirmed bachelor suggestsed at the time) and a Jew under dictatorship. Buck came over with gifts for David when Aras Dilley arrived to arrest Rotenstern for questioning. The next day he was taken to the Beulah concentration camp at Trianon along with Raymond Pridewell and Shad’s friend took over his shop, (so at this point it’s no longer just threats to the power it’s people they see in the way) Doremus decides to quit the Informer. “It can happen here," meditated Doremus. It could happen to him. How soon?”p.243 

Victor Loveland, a professor from the former Isaiah college called Doremus, he and Clarence Little were just beaten by Corpos and taken to a concentration camp. A proclamation signed by Staubmeyer announced they were going to regulate agriculture on Mount Terror, six families would be housed with Doremus’s cousin, Henry Veeder. Henry voiced his complaints and was also taken to the concentration camp. Doremus decides to empty his skirts before he’s also taken and quits the Informer and Shad laughs at their switched positions. 

Doremus drove to see Shad’s supervisor Reek and is shocked to see how pale and frightened he’s become and tells him he’s quitting the informer. Doremus wonders if he also believes this tyranny is going to blow up in a revolution or he’s afraid of being thrown out. Doremus left the Informer after thirty-seven years, now at sixty-two and more eager than ever before, he had nothing better to do than eat breakfast and entertain David. After a week he took Julian aside, it’s time for high treason, the Communists have more courage than them, so he wants to work for them can he get in touch with Pascal. Two days later he got back from Trianon, (they made a sewer of the girl’s school) he spoke to Pascal who told him who to talk to. (also Henry was so badly abused he's a scared shell of himself) 

He told his family he was going to look at an apple orchard to buy and retire on but he went to the address Pascal gave. They sent him to New Hampshire, who sends him to Connecticut, then to the Eastern headquarters of what’s left of American Communists and hands them a letter. He read the dictionary until Bill Atterbury, (list of how he’s a badass) secretary of the illegal communist party, came to see him into a backroom to meet the other two leaders. (they have fake names Bailey Cailey Ailey) Doremus tried to explain himself, is he willing to lose respect looking like a bum to distribute pamphlets, they think he’s too old to start strikes and get beaten for it. They laugh at Trowbridge’s work and dismiss Doremus, but Comrade Elphrey appreciates what he’s trying to do. Doremus thinks they’ll be arguing as Trowbridge runs out Windrip, he recounted this to Julian several days later. “Communists, intense and narrow; Yankees, coherent and shallow; no wonder a Dictator can keep us separate and all working for him!”p.252 (yeah sucks when adults won't act like adults and put aside differences to work together against a common enemy) 

In the 1930s, when magazines, movies and motorcars were believed to have ended the provinciality of American villages in communities where those that couldn't retire to Europe were still aimless. Emma was bored with him around the house all the time and asks him to visit Lorinda, doesn't she get jealous, as if anyone at his age could be a lover. (well fuck you too Emma) Day by day he waited, “So much of a revolution for so many people is nothing but waiting. That is one reason why tourists rarely see anything but contentment in a crushed population.”p.254 For several days in February he noticed an insurance man, Mr. Dimick from Albany, he was a pest he kept meeting. He was starting to get suspicious of him when he came to Doremus, Trowbridge sent him for a secret war against the Corpos. Doremus will be their representative in the area for the New Underground paper, collecting and distributing information and smuggling people out of the country, he can call Mr. Samson of the Burlington Paper Company. Doremus does and Samson says Dimick works for Walbridge (you should get a better fake name for Trowbridge) he can ride along, Doremus will. 

NEXT

[crackspinewornpages]

It Can't Happen Here 20/38 -Sinclair Lewis

17 

Like beefsteak and potatoes stick to your ribs so does the Good Book, he hopes his ministers will quote from II Kings 18 31 and 32. (come men eat of their own vines until he comes to take them to the land of wine so they won't die) 

Despite claiming Montpelier, Shad fixated on Fort Beulah as the executive center of County B, partly because he was partners with the banker RC Crowley, who made profit on property and partly Shad wanted to show off to his old pals. He claimed the judge's chambers at the Scotland County Courthouse as his office and completely redecorated. Shad chose his assistants that had some education and manners and Doremus thought he could see what was happening in Washngton by watching him. “and understood thus that a Buzz Windrip-a Bismark-a Caesar-a Pericles was like all the rest of itching, indigesting, aspiring humanity except that each of those heroes had a higher degree of ambition and more willingness to kill.”p.151  

By June the Minute Men enrolled 562,000 and the War Department paid them up to 16,000. (about 364,000) Veterans of the Great War were given privilages and Sarason convinced Windrip college teaching the horrors of conflicts didn't weaken masculinity but made students more patriotic. “and skillful in the direction of slaughter than the average youth.”p152 Most ranks were farmers and factory workers and a large number of former criminals. (so those that don’t have much of an education and already prone to violence) One erring child called Windrip the Chief (others called him Fuhrer Imperial Wizard and Commodore) meaning anything noble and good hearted, (the exact opposite of what he is) so on July 4th 1937, five hundred thousand youths made their own chaotic parades. They were rough now without Adelaide’s hand, but nothing could be done now, and the next day came the blow. 

Someone noticed the Soviet Star was five points not six so they weren't insulting them, hectic words were sent out and thousands were quick to design a new one. Sarason (who designed the original one) came up with the ship wheel, the ship of the state and industry, motorcars and Father Coughlin’s suggestion of National Union like the emblem of the Rotary Club. Sarason drew similarities to the swastika and KKK symbol. (which are things no decent person wants to be associated with) By Loyalty Day, replacing Labor Day, they sang about the wheel. 

In August Windrip declared since all aims were being accomplished the League of Forgotten Men was now terminated and all the older parties, (the Democrats and Republicans) the only one is allowed the American Corporate State and Patriotic Party. Well, there’s two now, the party and those that don't belong and those ones are out of luck. Sarason divided occupations into six classes, agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation, communication, banking, insurance investment (this is more than six can Sarason not count) and the grab bag of sciences and education. (doesn’t surprize me science and education are last of the government’s priorities) All labor unions were supplanted by local syndicates under governmental guidance. (so there are no unions) Strikes and lockouts were forbidden under federal penalties so workmen wouldn't listen to agitators. The Corporatists were called Corpos, the ill-natured ones called Corpses, but it more fitted their enemies. (it just goes breaking down all the factors of these new systems of bureaucracy) 

While the Corpos promised 5,000 to every poor family it was undertaken by the Minute Men. Unemployment under Windrip disappeared, (did it dissapear or did they just stop reporting it) all workless men and their families assembled into labor camps under MM officers. The men were paid a dollar a day (almost $23)  and in turn had to pay a seventy (about $16) to ninety cent (about $21) a day for lodging and now there was discontentment with those who had now less but there was less rebellion. (can imagine having to support your family with only a few dollars every day and if you complained at best you’d get thrown out without a job or home at worst you’d get shot) Every evening the loudspeaker in one of the precious voices told them they were the honored foundation of a new Civilization. (as in they are literally the foundation remember the roads aren't paved with gold they aren't paved at all you are expected to pave them with your bones) They took to it and the MMs saw they hated the Jews and Negroes to look down on. “Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.”p.157 (well sadly yeah that’s human nature) 

Each week the government said less about the 5,000, it was easier to respond to malcontents with Minute Men. Most of Windrip's plans were carried out, inflation rose, everyone profited except the very poor workmen, businessmen professionals and the elderly. “The workers, with opportunity tripled wages, saw the cost of everything in the shops much more than tripple.”p.157 (damn this hits close now) Agriculture suffered after foreign buying and exporting of American food ceased. The changing dollar had Big Business, confused employees did not know what to get in wages and labor unions gone, industrialists came out with doubled wealth. The other respected points were eliminating Negroes and Jews. Negroes were massacred by Minute Men in cities and Jews were charged double rates and grafts and to accept wage and price rates by Anglo Saxons. And they were told to declare how much better treatment they have in America than Europe. 

The 80,000 relief administrators were told to list every unmarried person’s finances, professional ability, military training and their opinion of the MMs and Corpos, those that protested being spies were arrested. (they’re finding out who’s loyalty useful or not) By 1937 MM officers made their own laws against Jews and Negroes. Women who complained their men had disappeared were beaten or arrested. Increasingly the bourgeois began escaping to Canada. “just at once, by the “underground railroad” the Negro slaves had escaped into the free Northern air.”p.160 In Canada and other countries those propagandists began publishing allegations against the Corpos and MMs. Due to this the guards quadrupled at every harbor and border. 

Ex Senator Walt Trowbridge was watched night and day by reading his letters and tapping his phone, they found nothing incriminating and thought he saw the light. On the Fourth of July Trowbridge invited the MMs to help set off fireworks. A Canadian airplane flew close to the rockets and turned off its lights and they couldn't tell where it landed. The guards later passed out drunk and woke finding Trowbridge had escaped with the Canadians along with four boxes with incendiary papers he published as he fled the country. Doremus and thousands like him were smuggled copies, possession of which is punishable by death. (it revealed Windrip became rich off of grifts) By winter Trowbridge had a new underground that aided thousands to escape to Canada. 

18 

“In the little towns, ah, there is the abiding peace that I love, and that can never be disturbed by even the nosiest Smart Alecks from these haughty megalopolises like Washington, New York, & ect.”p.162 

The Democratic policy of wait and see grew shaky especially when Doremus went to his college reunion, the eyes of the three Corpo commissioners held instability. Doremus looked for his friend who warned him of the ban in military criticism, his house was a mess, he was fired for being too radical and needed to move without a job. His friend Dr. King says he’s lucky to be half Jew, so cunning, (he also says Hitler is Windrip’s boyfriend) he’s also been fired but has a job lined up, just sad to leave his research behind. (he’s a chemist) The president claimed they were let go because of overstaffing and changed the subject. There’s a new Director of Education for the Vermont New Hampshire District and one of his jobs is to make sure editors publish correct corporate ideals.  

The Minute Men were less favored than in the cities, in Fort Beulah they were drilling under National Guard, officers and Shad but Doremus refused to check. He first saw them in the  public parade in August when Dan Wilgus forced him outside. “Doremus thrilled to the MM flags, the music, the violent young men, even while he hated all the marched for,”-”He understood now why the young men marched to war.”p.167 He also hated Shad at the head of the procession, sneering through it all. 

By September Doremus was hearing a lot about the Secretary of Education, now it wasn't pleasant news about Macgoblin. He made many enemies purging teachers, it culminated in him trying to out drink his bodyguards and drunkenly tried to call on his former teacher. When told he was out visiting his Rabbi friend Macgoblin and his guerillas went to him. They made assess of themselves at the Rabbi’s house and Macgoblin asked why they don't all leave and start a nation in South America. Dr. Schmidt explains that Macgoblin is the Secretary of Education and a Corpo. “I have heard of that cult, but my people have learned to ignore persecution. We have been so important as to adapt the tactics of your early Christian Martyrs!”p.170 Even if they were invited, they wouldn't attend their only Dictator is God, they don't see Windrip as a rival. 

Schmidt tells Macgoblin the reason he’s drinking like a pig is because he’s a ashamt (I think this is Hebrew for guilty) once a promising researcher, now sold out to freebooters. Macgoblin snaps that they’re stinking intellectuals, peddlers and thieves until Schmidt yells at them to get out. Egged on by the MMs Macgoblin shoots the two and the guards chased down the houseman who ran to the streets where a cop stopped them. They were all arrested and brought to trial, but it was thrown out as the Rabbi and Schmidt were Jews (even though Schmidt wasn't) trying to coax MMs into ritual murders. (yeah they’re going there) Macgoblin was congratulated by Windrip and Sarason and the cop who shot a Corpo wasn't as lucky, he was sent to a beat in the Bronx. 

Doremus got a report from a surviving guard and wasn't happy on top of Shad replacing his delivery boys with MMs to check the paper, he raged. “If they were murderous Jews, then he was a murderous Jew too, he swore, and it was time to do something for his Own People.”p.172 That night he wrote a scathing article on the Corpo administration, Macgoblin and Windrip. “Not that all of them are as vicious as Macgoblin. Some are merely incompetent-like our friends Ledue, Reek, and Haik. But their ludicrous incapability permits the homicidal cruelty of their chieftains to go on without check.”p.173 Dan Wilgus refused to print it out of fear, so Doremus does it himself with Wilgus’s help. When he showed his family the proofs they all feared for him. “It used to be you did what was right and got a nice stick of candy for it,”-”Now, it seems if whatever's right is wrong.”p.175 (sometimes doing the wrong thing is the right thing especially under a dictatorship those laws were made to be broken) 

When he left his home he didn't go to the office but Lorinda’s, but first to Greenhill’s. His daughter’s family was still up and he overheard David say he wanted to be a newspaperman like his grandfather. He stayed only ten minutes telling himself nothing bad can happen to this household but told Greenhill he’ll have a run in with the Corpos one day. (is it foreshadowing if it’s tomorrow) Shad wanted him to join he said no, Doremus warns him to be careful of Shad, Greenhill says he’ll slip him cyanide. 

Lorinda finished tending to guests before she and Doremus could talk, he has her read the article. He had to decide whether to pull it from publishing by eleven, she told him he has to run it. She taught Shad in school for a year and he was a bully then and now he wants her to serve MMs for free and they’ll pretend she doesn't sell liquor without a license, she refused and now has a court summons. Doremus tells her to get a lawyer, the Corpos are using courts as grifts for accusations of sedition. (the law isn’t on your side when those in law are against you in their kangaroo courts) 

Lorinda was afraid the Corpos will do something to them, they’ll be so desperate they’ll cling to each other or be so rebellious. “we’ll feel so terribly that we’re standing for something, that we’ll want to give up everything else for it, even give up you and me. So that no one can ever find out and criticize, we’ll have to be beyond critisism.”p.179 How could such a detached people like them get involved. It is too late to kill the article for tomorrow, she’s glad to be shot rather than crippled with fear. Lorinda went back to work but Doremus didn't sleep that night listening for phantom assassins. 

19 

“An honest propagandist for any Cause, that is, one who honesty studies and figures out the most effective way of  putting over his Message, will learn fairly early that it is not fair to ordinary folks-it just confuses them-to try to make them swallow all the true facts that would be suitable to a higher class of people.”p.181 (in essence ya’ll are dumb like those schools that dumb down the curriculum because they think it’s better so they don’t even have to try to teach the lower performing students) Also one learns the best way to win over people is if you give a speech in the evening when they are too tired to resist you. (he’s pretty much confessing how he’s manipulating them banking on them being too stupid and tired to see it) 

As his editorial was delivered Doremus looked down in the street from his office window as the MMs read the Informer and look up at the building. The people gathered into a mob, “Probably many of them cared nothing about the insults to the Corpo state, but had only the unprejudiced, impersonal pleasure in violence natural to most peope.”p.182 All it took was one MM shouting out to lynch them to start the mob but Shad called for them to stop only because the Corpos are going to take it over. (he also slaps a woman demanding her 5000) 

Doremus was escorted to the courthouse and county jail, he hasn't been there except as a reporter to interview inferior people who got arrested. (yeah Doremus here is what we call a flawed character they are a good person in the sense of everyone else around them but clearly not a perfect person) They left him in a damp cell for hours. “The tyranny of this dictatorship isn’t primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It’s the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest.”-”Is it too late?”p.186 As it got darker he thought of Emma and Lorinda, why can’t he have both, maybe it’s getting too hot to let a man stop for bread (Emma) let alone wine. (Lorinda) 

Doremus waited until midnight when he was escorted to the judge, then he had to wait more outside the courtroom. He knew the MM and studied him in his new uniform. “I wouldn't particularly want to be a dictator over on Aras but I most particularly do not want him and his like to be dictators over me, whether they call them Fascists or Corpos or Communists or Monarchists or Free Democratic Electors or anything else!”p.188 Lorinda then came out of the courtroom and Nipper (the owner of the Tavern) looked triumphant and Aras gloated before Doremus was called in. 

Military Judge Effington Swan presided, he had ordered the MMs to invite Doremus here to get his advice as a journalist. Doremus corrects that he was dragged here because of his editorial about Windrip now Sawn remembers that minor incident. Doremus is tired and demands to know the charges, just libel, sedition, treason and homicidal incitement. Easily gotten rid of, and Swan subtlety threatens his family so he’ll play along with them in his paper and act as their spy. 

Doremus demands a lawyer, all due process has been suspended, martial law is necessary in a crisis. Shad makes a remark about Lorinda and Doremus jumps up to attack him but was thrown down by Swan who tells him Lorinda’s been sleeping other men too. Swan releases Doremus on parole to teach Dr. Staubmeyer how to do his editorial job and only write as he tells him, and it’ll start with his apology, admit he’s a liar. (oh there’s nothing journalists hate more than printing a retraction and saying they were wrong especially when they are right) 

Then Dr. Greenhill storms in (the MMs let him in because he said he was needed and he’s also treated their STDs) demanding to know what they’re doing Swan lets Greenhill go off and dig his own grave by telling them everyone’s had enough of them kidnapping honest men. He calls the three judges half-baked Hitlers, cowardly public enemies in toy soldier uniforms. Swan allows Shad to take Greenhill out to be executed by rifle squad. “From the courtyard, the sound of a rifle volley, a terrifying wail, one single empathetic shot, and nothing after.”p.196 

20 

The trouble with Jews is that they’re cruel anybody who knows history knows they tortured debtors in catacombs while the Nordic are distinguished by their kindness to all including inferior races. (damn they’re not even trying to hide how antisemitic they are and if you think nobody would be so stupid as to believe something so ridiculous similar propaganda was use to villainize the Jews in Europe preceding WWII) 

After Judge Swan’s sentence of Greenhill’s execution his house was raided and a cache of seditious books and documents were found. (how much you want to bet if they exist at all they were planted) Mary’s protests of her husband's innocence was ignored and to punish her and give warning to others, they seized all the property and money left to her. Some said Doremus could fight for her but he couldn't as he was still on parole and subject to the authorities. She moved into the attic and didn't come out for a week. “But within a week her David was playing about in the yard most joyfully...playing that he was an MM officer.”p.198 

The rest of the house waited for something, the normally cheerful meals were quiet as every time they spoke it went to murder and the Corpos. David talked the most while Doremus was fond of children, he preferred political topics. He suspected Emma was more upset by his arrest than Greenhill's murder, bad people went to jail, Jessups didn't. (lady priorities) His office was deader than home, but he was able to convince Staubmeyer to keep Dan Wilgus on the payroll. As the weeks went by not a minute did he not hate his slavery, why stay, he was too old to start again. “So he raged-and went on grinding out a paper dull and a little dishonest-but not forever. Otherwise, the history of Doremus Jessup would be too drearily common to be worth reading.”p.201 

He did the math, if he fled to Canada he could cash 20,000 (almost 456,000) if he could smuggle it and live on twenty dollars a week. (about 456 which isn’t bad but how much are monthly bills) Well the others could if they could find work, (yeah spreading less than five hundred among what five people a week would be pretty thin) but him, he didn't fancy living in poverty for honesty and freedom. (you’re not one of those journalists that think you're not a true one until your own government assassinates you are you) There were those under other dictatorships that resented tyranny and refused bribes yet weren't courageous enough to go into willing exile, particularly when they had dependents. He tried to hint to Staubmeyer to retire but they caught on and Shad reminded him of his place and Doremus figured something out. “he was equally in danger of slipping into acceptance of his serfdom and of whips and bars if he didn't slip,”p.203 

“Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability.”p.203 One quarter turn on you, one keeps quiet, one dies with you, the other keep you alive. He and Lorinda were close, but they plotted to kill Corpos. Karl Pascal asked if he was going to join the communists nervously, Doremus is interested in civilizing and protecting against enemies, but it isn’t Russia, it's America he wants to help, Pascal calls it nonsense. “Listen, Comrade Karl, Windrip and Hitler will join Stalin long before the descendants of Dan’l Webster. You see, we don't like murder as a way of argument-that's what really makes the Liberal!”p.205 Perefixe hated to give up, he’s scared and is going to Canada. Medary Cole was a surprise, already tired of the tyranny paying them to bully. “-he who had ecstatically voted for Mr. Windrip.”p.206 

In October it was declared the Corpos ended all crime in America (again it didn’t disappear they just stopped reporting it) all tried under Court Martial, one in ten shot, four in ten sent to prison, three released, two joined the MMs. Windrip announced the way to stop crime is to stop it (what is this people die when they are killed logic) and Medary praised his firm hand. Windrip then revealed the New American Education System, scores of colleges were closed (but they opened Windrip University I’m not making a joke) some absorbed into Corpo universities. (Central Park was closed to the public to be used as a playground) All universities have a set modern curriculum omitting the classics, language and religious studies, archeology and histories before 1500 because the key to civilization is Anglo Saxon purity against barbarians. (ah time for the brain drain I see time to scrap out anything that doesn’t align with the state much like what China’s Red Gaurds did during the Cultural Revolution) New textbooks were written under Macgoblin (are they written like those Texas textbooks that claim the slave trade was immigrant migration) and students told not to waste their time on literature and instead read recently printed newspapers. (so telling students not to read anything that could give them a different viewpoint than the lies the state prints) Education was also sped up, anyone could graduate in two years. (all you needed to get in is either attended a business college or a recommendation from a Corpo and have at least two years of high school so mostly people with no real fundamental education) As he read the prospects for these Barnum and Bailey universities Doremus remembered the Greek professor from Isiah was in a Corpo labor camp. 

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It Can't Happen Here 16/38 -Sinclair Lewis

13 

When he retires he’ll build a bungalow at a resort and read the classics, his tastes from his mother. “I got it from my Mother as I did everything that some people have been so good as to admire in me.”p.103  

As certain as Doremus was at the results, the passing was dreadful and for a few days avoided everyone and read his childhood favorites, maybe he wasn't so different from Windrip. (no you actually read them) "No American whose fathers have lived in the country for over two generations so utterly different from any other American.”p.104 But reading didn't work and he fell back into the habit of social duty. He found out Windrip was trying to buy, flatter or blackmail opposing Congress. “A President-Elect has unhallowed power, if he so wishes, and Windrip-no doubt with promises of abnormal fever in the way of patronage-won over a few.”p.104 Five Jeffersonian Congressman were challenged and disappeared amid embezzling rumors and with each Doremus was more anxious. (he’s starting to get rid of those that would oppose him) 

Since the Depression, Doremus felty futility at doing anything more permanent than breakfast, he couldn’t plan for himself or his family. Their lies were predicted on the privilege of planning, Depressions were storms to Capitalism and government were eternal and improved by the citizens votes. (well in theory) His grandfather and father had plans but Doremus couldn’t, in fifteen years Sissy could live as a waitress and Julian in a Concentration camp labeled a Communist and both not married with careers, now he knew nothing fundamental. Four types didn’t understand how the government is conducted, the authorities in Washington, political writers, the untouchables and himself, but now with Windrip everything is going to be simple as he runs the country as his private domain. 

Julian dropped by on Christmas break, at the gas station they ran into Pascal, (thanks to Tangled all I can picture is that lizard) a strike leader, after the election he plans to lie low and spread propaganda. Windrip will make plenty disatisfied but they can’t do anything against armed troops and he’ll whoop millions into war and revolution. What burns him up is people think before the Depression were prosperous times, 7% of families earned 500 (the inflation calculator won’t calculate that so I found a different one and it’s about 9,000) a year or less, prisons allowed more than eighteen cents a day, (about three dollars)  per person for food and that was if the man had a job, Julian agrees it would make a man extremist. (you ever see something in a hydraulic press explode that’s people when grinded down too much) 

John Pollikop calls Pascal a crazy dog of a Communist, believing violence and not legality. Pascal says it’ s too easy to blame everything on Windrip (well he’s right) and tells John to read Marx. Windrip isn’t important, just throwing up the sickness they have to cure, the growing unemployment. John asks if they think Communism will cure it, Pascal says yes and Doremus drives away as they start to argue.  

The attic study was Doremus’s refuge from president-elect supporters, where he doodles and meditates. The revolt against civilization in defending democracy, he has to change his tune if they are against Communism he has to be for it and he doesn’t want to be. They can bomb themselves back to the Dark Ages, wipe everything out and relearn good manners and tolerance. Everyone calls themselves advocates of Democracy without knowing what it means thinking everyone would be loyal and happy. He listened to their solutions and has one. “There is no Solution! There will never be a state of society anything like perfect!”p.112 There will never  be a time where people won’t feel poor no matter what they have and envy neighbors in cheap clothes. In the few hundred years people will still eat dinner and read no matter the substitutes as they must spend their time in 1930 much like they did in 1630. Men of super cunning will have more influence than slower witted worthy men. 

There’s been many with solutions in history, Doremus thinks blessed are those Patriots and Idealists (this book randomly capitalizes words) that don’t think immediately that doubters should be killed. “Good old murder, that since the slaying of Abel by Cain has always been the new device by which all oligarchies and dictators have, for all future ages to come, removed opposition!”p.114 Doremus doubted all revolutions, the War of 1776, the Civil War, “Slavery had been a cancer, and in that day was known no remedy save bloody cutting. There had been no x-rays of wisdom and tolerance.”p.115 To reject this cutting was evil, that lead to other wars for Freedom to those that didn’t want it. (do I need to list all thew wars America got involved in to give countries our version of freedom) 

He wondered if the Revolutionary War was even desirable ,it is commonly asserted without political independence the states wouldn’t have developed its own virtues. Between rabble rousers desiring their own personal power and fighters against tyranny, Doremus saw the difference between thieves and honest men defending themselves. It is possible the boldest ideas have been the worst enemies of progress. Possibly plain men minding their own are higher in heavenly hierarchy than those that claimed to be saving them.  

14 

He joined the Compbellite church as a boy now wishes he belonged to the whole brotherhood. 

Doremus was a Universalist but now afraid to enter the church, too many memories of his father and the congregation dwindling. Now he went there he’d give anything for a sermon that renewed his courage and realized that was what he’d been condemning for months. “the irrational dramatic power of the crusading leader, clerical or political.”p.119 Doremus tried a church but it was stifling, he wants a church that advanced beyond the chaplains, now he knows why Lorinda doesn’t go. 

Lorinda was at the tavern boarding house, (ok so he and Lorinda are having an affair at least an emotional one) she reflected how Windrip will put women’s struggle back to the sixteen hundreds. Doremus points out how he never mentioned freedom of speech or press in his articles, he feels he should take the family to Canada. Lorinda says he can’t, the newspaper men have to keep fighting Windrip, he agrees to stay for a while. Before he could think of the warning at his door Sissy comes in to collect her father. 

On the way home he found Shad hiding in the bushes, (he was definitely spying) he had the excuse his motorcycle broke down, Doremus offers for Sissy to get him a ride. Shad complains about her driving slow, Doremus complains about the youth being adventurous, so Shad just follows their car. In the car Sissy asks if he goes to Lorinda’s often why aren’t they lovers. (you know you aren’t very subtle when your own kid can pick up the vibes) Doremus is scandalized she’d think that and warns her not to be so forward like that, does she even know what she's talking about. (yeah it was a vey WTF moment) She just hates seeing him so wretched about Windrip and wants him to get some pep back. (by cheating on your mother) 

Doremus asks what does she know, is she a virgin, yes, but no promises for the future if the country gets worse and things come between her and Julian it won’t be modern modesty. Not Malcolm, no, he’s a pain, going to get in his proper place with Windrip’s soldiers and she likes Julian. She’s serious, it looks like the country’s heading backwards, it’ll still be war, no time for modesty, isn’t nice young ladies what men want around, maybe. As they pulled in Doremus no longer saw Sissy as a little girl but a comrade like Lorinda. Doremus had enough of Shad and fires him, he isn’t upset, he’s the new Secretary of the Second Chapter of the League of Forgotten Men. Two weeks later Shad wrote a letter demanding donations of 200, (about 4,500 which is ridiculous to think the average family has that much to throw away) Doremus refused and within a day the Informer was losing circulations. 

15 

He’s pretty mild mannered and folksy when speech writing his ambitions, live by the road, be a friend to man, (since when) but he’s the opposite when encountering a detractor (we know how you make them disappear) then calls the Sangfrey River Light Power and Fuel Corporation every name in the book, purely for the indignation on behalf of the common people. 

The day before his inauguration Windrip appointed his cabinet members, Lee Sarason became his secretary of State and High Marshall of the Minute Men (as an innocent marching club my ass) which is to be established permanently. Webster R Skittle who was to be acquitted on defrauding income tax became Secretary of the Treasury. Windrip’s friend Colonel Osceola Luthorne became Secretary of War as it was refused by Prang. The new position of Secretary of Education and Public Relations was appointed to Hector Macgoblin, all officers were filled by those that supported Windrip. Doremus suspected Windrip learned from Sarason to get rid of embarrassing friends by appointing them abroad. (Herbert Hoover is in Brazil) Adelaide was angry she was given no position higher than the customs office in Nome Alaska (a nothing title just something to shut her up) and not the domestic cabinets she invented. (domestic science child welfare anti vice) 

By the new Twentieth Amendment, Windrip’s followers wanted him inaugurated in January it started out turbulent as Roosevelt refused to be there. A thousand reporters covered it, people were sleeping on the floor of the Senator’s office and bedrooms rented for thirty dollars a night. (almost 700) He started his speech that the real New Deal starts now, then at the White House he sat in his stockings in the East Room and said to let people assassinate him. Then he had the Minute Men recognized as an army auxiliary, subject to obey him, their officers and Sarason and the Minute Men eagerly waited for their issued artillery. The next morning was a special message to Congress demanding a bill for Point Fifteen it was rejected, by January 21st Windrip declared a crisis and issued Martial Law and had his Minuet Men arrest over a hundred Congressmen. (he’s starting to clean house) 

Prang and his friends were dismayed by Windrip's actions, Prang had given up broadcasting but wanted to caution the public but when contacting the station was told access to the air was forbidden unless licensed by Sarason. (so start a pirate radio station) Prang  took a plane to Washington to reprove Windrip and was in the White House for six hours but unknown if he was actually with the President, he later left looking pale. In front of his hotel was a mob and he was taken in by the Minute Men claiming it’s for his own safety. (they are the least safe people to be with) Later millions would hear Prang is in jail for his own protection and Windrip said he was joyful to have rescued his friend he admires. (well he’s joyful to have Prang in jail but not for the reasons he gave) 

The press wasn't censored yet, only journalists who offended the government were jailed. Prang’s home town, Persepolis, heard rumors of him but were still proud of their best advertisement. A messenger in the Executive Office was a Persepolis boy and slipped to the mayor their telegrams were hauled away unanswered. A quarter of the population went to Washington, the train was curiously delayed and sidetracked. There was a mutinous company of MMs who didn't want to arrest nuns, Sarason thought a lesson needed to be learned and sent Minute Men to arrest the company and shoot every third man. (see what they’ll do to their own people who don’t blindly obey it wasn’t a lesson to the mutineers but a warning to those that had any questioning ideas) By the time they got to Washington they were informed Prang was shocked by their treason so badly they had to put him in an asylum. (how much you wanna bet they had him quietly executed) Most returned back to Persepolis, they never saw Prang again and no MM went to that town. 

Doremus and many others were upset to hear the Chief of Staff of the Regular Army was replaced by Emmanuel Coon. Windrip then extended a proclamation to the country, secret enemies of American principles, angry that he is president and there’s a crisis. He recalled previous martial law and arrests during the Civil War, how delightful things would be later. They laughed along with him and called him competent. “It had all happened within the eight days following Windrip’s inuaguration.”p.141 (see how quickly and systematic it was they had to have planned this in advance) 

16 

He has no desire to be President he’d rather support Prang and any other liberal. (bullshit) “My only longing is to Serve.”p.142 (yourself serve yourself) 

Only in the presence of Buck Titus could Doremus damn Windrip, his cronies and Tasbrough. From these hills and acquaintances, “it seems to him that the madness in the capitol was alien and distant and unimportant as an earthquake in Tibet.”p.143 The Informer carefully criticized the government, telling the readers the hysteria can't last, he couldn't believe the tyranny could endure. “It can’t happen here, said even Doremus-even now.”p.143 (if you don’t warn and deny everyone will be blind to the warnings until it is too late and they don’t know how to fight) The thing that perplexed him most was there could be dictators different than Hitlers, charming and funny, did that make Windrip more or less dangerous then remembered the cruel actions of the pirate Henry Morgan. Buck and Lorinda liked each other more than they would admit but he did approve of her relationship with Doremus, who was ten years older than him and Buck’s shack became a refuge. 

Despite strikes and riots Windrip stayed in power, four liberal members of the Supreme Court were replaced by his friends. (so nepotism hires that’ll do what he says) Those Congressmen that didn't see the light were still in jail. The Minute Men were volunteers but paid more than regular troops. Never before had the President’s adherents so satisfied assigned official and unofficial political jobs. He united the states into eight Provinces, reducing the numbers of governors and better for Windrip to concentrate his private army. Each province was numbered into a district, those into lettered counties, those into townships and cities, those old names still endangered Windrip by honorable memories and history and rumored they’d be changed. (so he’s literally breaking up the United States and renaming things to replace history so people will have no identity outside of the whole)  

Citizens who lived in a state for more than ten years resented the loss of that state’s identity more than the castration of the government. (well you have your state the larger government is probably more of an abstract concept outside of election times) They resented it almost as much as the promised 5000 and receiving no more than Washington bulletins. (it’s the government did you really expect a politician to keep his promises especially one involving a lot of money) It was interesting to read that the Southwestern Province was permitted to claim Mexican territory to protect the US agents from treacherous Mexican and Jewish plots. (I’m sure the Mexicans have something to say about this) Doremus had this to say, “Lee Sarason is even more generous than Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg in protecting the future of other countries,”p.146 (looks at the history of American involvement in foreign wars) 

Dewey Haik was the Provincial Commissioner of the Northeastern Province. John Sullivan Reek was the District Commissioner of District 3 who Doremus describes as a gas bag who turned Leaguer in Windrip’s patriotism, he had summoned all the editors for a conference. Before he left Doremus was given a poem composed by Sissy, Lorinda, Buck and Julian warning him to be careful and as he drove hundreds of billboards were Windrip propaganda. The Hanover Inn was full of Minute Men, they had just destroyed the laboratory of a science building. At the conference Reek informed them he, Windrip, Sarason and Haik, were being misrepresented and introduced them to the County Commissioners. One was Shad Ledue who not so subtlety warns Doremus to behave himself. (well Doremus is in deep shit) 

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It Can't Happen Here 12/38 -Sinclair Lewis

7 

When pulled from his family to make a speech he makes it simple and direct like baby Jesus at the Temple.   

There was a dark thunderstorm (so it was a dark and stormy night) coming down in the valley and Doremus woke up that day Windrip would probably be nominated for President. Trowbridge was the Republican candidate and now the candidates were down to four contestants, Windrip, Roosevelt, Senator Robinson and the Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins. The candidates had their own frenzy demonstrators with applause following their parades. Windrip's were of the poor and downtrodden shouting how they want justice and Windrip for president and Prang following behind, the cheers for Windrip lasted for hours. At the platform Adelaide sang her own rendition of Yankee Doodler about Windrip then it sung by nineteen prima donnas and the radio by midnight. (Doremus’s dog Foolish growls at Windrip and Adeliade which tells you all you need to know) Windrip found it amusing Sarason thought he needed an anthem more elevated befitting crusading Americans. 

After the cheering ended the delegates were again cutting throats of a savage nation and Sarason gave Adelaide a more inspirational hymn, Bring out the Old-Time Muskett. Doremus listened to it on the radio and later reworked it. “When Buzz gets in, he won't be having any parade of wounded soldiers. That’ll be bad fascist psychology. All those poor devils he’ll hide away in institutions, and just bring out the lively young human slaughter cattle in uniforms.”.55 Around ten Doremus left his home to Father Perefixe’s refractory and met his friends, that night passed they listened to the balloting. (and the storm got worse) 

They complained how their wives send them to bed except Buck Titus and the Father. When the announcement came, Colonel Dewey Haik read a letter Windrip left before he went to his hotel. All but the Jewish bankers are to be out of finance plans to make wages high and prices low for labor, but against strikes and in favor of the United States arming itself and prepare to be self-sufficient. “and maybe, if that world was so impertinent as to defy American turn, Buzz hinted, he might have to take it over and run it properly.”p.57 (foreshadowing) Just after dawn the opposition collapsed and Windrip was nominated their Democratic Candidate for President. 

RC Crowley gloated that he was a Republican but he’s voting for Windrip while Father Perefixe was a Democrat, he’s voting Republican. Just after seven in the morning Doremus went home and found Shad chopping wood early and wanted to honor his first honest toil. He tells him Windrip was nominated, Shad is going to vote for him, with the promise of four thousand bucks he can start up a chicken farm. Doremus reminds him that his last chickens died, Shad says he’ll try again with six thousand. 

8 

He won't pretend to be educated but he has read the Bible, though those authors he missed were noble to attempt to combat seditious plots of the Red Radicals who threaten American standards. (you’ll notice his book is just full of buzz word salad)  

The first week of his campaign he clarified his fifteen points of the Central Bank, owned by the government and Board appointed by the President. (so nepotism hires) The President determines which unions are qualified and the League and Party guarantee right to private property. This is a Godly country (I thought it was founded on the freedom of religion) and who do not swear allegiances to the New Testament, or the flag, cannot hold any position of power. (this is antithetical to American ideals we have the freedom of choice) Annual net income of 500,000 (about 11 million today) and no accumulation of over 3,000,000 (about 68 million) and profit being taken out of war by seizing all dividends over six percent and all military shall be enlarged but not surpass any other country. (I don’t believe that) Congress has the sole right to issue money to facilitate fluidity. 

They cannot strongly condemn unChristian attitudes of progressive notions in their discrimination of the Jews who will be considered Americans as long as they support out ideals. Negroes are forbidden from voting or holding any office, taxed 100 percent of sums over 10,000 (about 230,000) but aide will be given to all who know their proper place in society. (look up the 1 drop rule) After forty-five years of constant labor they can go to a Board of whites (so good luck) and be recommended a pension of 500 (about 11,000) for their labor. (so he’s just straight up racist) New plans for social security and women can only have feminine jobs but most must return to be home makers. (and sexist too) 

Any advocating for Communism, Socialism or Anarchism and refuse to enlist for war is subject to treason for twenty years hard labor or death. (whatever the judge finds convenient) All bonus's promised to soldiers shall be immediately paid to veterans with income less than 5,000. (about 113,000) Upon inauguration, Congress shall add amendments to the Constitution, the President shall conduct all necessary measures, Congress only serves as advisory and the power to negate the President be removed. (so he’s taking out all the checks and balances) The League of Forgotten Men and the Democratic Party shall carry out the desire of majority workers. 

Emma points out how inconsistent it all sounds and wonders if Windrip understands it himself. Doremus says of course he does, points one and five mean if they don't support him their businesses will be threatened. Two, by controlling unions he can turn labor into slavery, three breaks up Big Capitol and four turns preachers into his press agents. Six is to percent taxes, it means they’ll follow Europeans trying to rule the world. Eight, industries can buy back their bonds. Nine, all Jews who don't pay the robber baron will be punished. Ten, all black owned business will be taken over by Windrip's white trash worshipers. Eleven, Windrip will pass the buck for not solving poverty. Twelve, women lose the vote, education and jobs just to raise future dead soldiers. “Thirteen, that anybody who opposes Buzz in any way at all can be called Communist and scragged for it.”p.65 Fourteen, Windrip thinks the veterans vote important enough to use others money to pay for it. Fifteen, they realized this country has gone so flabby anyone not illegal can grab the government and have it all. (and that is happening) 

Thees gangs are usually small, there are those that’ll worry at first, but they’ll get caught in the propaganda and be convinced. They raise Windrip up as a Great Liberator then that crook, that religious fanatics with Sarason, Prang, Haik, and Macgoblin will set up a regime. Will the Americans stand for long he doesn't know, but if they try anything they’ll be shot. Father Perefixe was angry the Catholics were left out of the persecution, Sissy, Lorinda and Mrs. Candy (the housekeeper) who all had career aspirations were angrier. Doremus thinks they had it coming, if not Windrip it would be another, but it won't make them like it. “He didn't plot all this thing. With all the justification discontent there is against the smart politicians and the Plush Horses of Plutocracy-”p.67 

9 

A high-class Statesmen’s chief quality is love for all sorts of people (then what the fuck were several of those points about) and the whole land his sole guiding principles in politics. “My one ambition is to get all Americans to realize that they are, and must continue to be the greatest Race on the face of this old Earth.”p.69 That despite differences excluding racially differences are all brothers in National Unity. “And I think we ought to for this be willing to sacrifice any individual gains at all.”p.69 (foreshadowing) 

That summer and autumn there were many photos and propaganda of Windrip bewitching the audiences. Doremus couldn't explain it, he was vulgar, nearly illiterate, a public liar and his ideas were idiotic, yet he was celebrated. He’d been told while in his audience you were under his spell but at home you couldn't remember what he said. Certainly, he was a compelling actor and beneath that a natural ability to be excited with his audience and them in turn with him. He could make you see him defending the Capitol innocently while presenting the madness of antilibertarian antisemitic of Europe. He was a common man with every prejudice and aspiration of the common man and every foreigner as degenerate. “which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering among them, and they raised hands to him in worship.”p.72 

Sarason was a master in Publicity, building up Windrip for seven years endearing him to the simple constituents of his state. When it comes to assembling a political machine Sarason wasn't needed. In his suites he’d be on the phone barking orders the vultures flocked to Buzz Windrip to follow his commands. Even the newspaper men who disliked him still kept his name in the papers and within a year his machine was complete, giving promises to opposing parties and did nothing for either. 

He never thought of making foreign alliances but knew, one day, as President, he’d be leader of the world and Sarason insisted he look up monetary conversions and addresses for dignitaries. The actual cultivation was left to Sarason and it was Sarason who persuaded Windrip to let him write Zero Hour. Windrip had convinced them they could trust hm and finance his campaign. Windrip had been coaxing supporters since age four, he couldn't learn much from sociologists, but they could learn much from him. It was Windrip's master move by convincing people they could be rich by voting rich, denouncing fascism and Nazism. (while supporting it under different names) “so that most of the Republicans who were afraid of Democratic Fascism, and all the Democrats who were afraid of Republican Fascism, were ready to vote for him.”p.77 

10 

He hates bogging his pages with scientific technicalities (so your book has no confirmed facts in it) he’s compelled to say the Cassandras (remember mythology Cassandra was cursed to see the future but no one believed her) who miscall for fluidity of circulation like Europe, they fail to comprehend America’s different monetary status and our greater reservoir of Natural Resources. (anyone who actually knows global economics and resource depletion can tell you this is a crock of shit) 

Most people on relief wanted more relief and believed Windrip could get it for them, programs that promised prosperity without working for it. The pacifist Upton Sinclair wrote and spoke for Windrip as he did during 1917, advocating America’s prosecution of the Great War, foreseeing it exterminating the German military and ending all wars. (...people really believed it when the government said it was the War To End All Wars didn't they) Windrip was seen as one who could start the Business Recovery, and the church spoke for him favorably, unlike Trowbridge. Europe joined in expressing admiration for the advocate of peace and prosperity, even those that saw him as vulgar saw him as hope of international commerce. 

Adelaide was a considerable figure in the campaign, told women how nice it was of him to let them keep voting and sang her songs about him eleven times a day. (I hate that you have this name I love you don’t deserve it) Windrip and everyone else reached millions by radio and traveled by train to give speeches. Sarason supervised the telephone girls and stenographers to filter calls and letters and Windrip only had him hire pretty skilled girls with political relations. Colonel Dewey Haik traveled and campaigned for Windrip bringing nay sayers into the fold. Macgoblin proved to Alabama no Negro with less than 25% white blood could never rise to be a doctor, the meeting was raided, the leader a Negro corporal from the Western Front. They were only saved by a Negro clergyman, proving Prang’s words that Windrip’s message reached even heathens. (...I have no words) 

11 

As a kid, his teachers said he was a dunce, he noticed they told him this more often than telling the other kids they were smart, so he was the most talked about in town, (you are a dunce if you can’t see how that wasn’t a good thing) the Senate isn't that different. 

There was a heathen that did not listen, Trowbridge conducted his campaign like he expected to win but didn't placate the masses or make thrilling speeches. “he explained he did not advocate an enormously improved distribution of wealth, but that it must be achieved by steady digging and not by dynamite that would destroy more than it excavated.”p.84 The Communists might entice 9,000,000 votes but those excursions were nothing compared to the Jeffersonian Party and Roosevelt. Roosevelt claimed Windrip wasn't chosen by brains but by crazed emotions, he won't support him. He wouldn't vote for the Republicans either even though he appreciated Trowbridge’s intelligence and honesty. He made it clear his Jeffersonian Party would disappear as soon as honest cool thinking men took control again. “The conspicuous fault of the Jeffersonian Party, like the personal fault of Senator Trowbridge, was that it represented integrity and reason,”p.85 

Doremus wondered what he should do, he admired Roosevelt but he didn't believe the Jeffersonians had a chance. He believed Trowbridge a competent man with all his campaigning. He went after Windrip and his gang through the Informer and argued with his voters. The naturally Republican Vermont swung to Windrip, “And the preference Doremus perceived, wasn't even a pathetic trust in Windrip’s promises of Utopian bliss for everyone in general. It was a trust in increased cash for the voter himself, and for his family, very much in particular.”p.86 They only saw what they wanted in his platform, increased taxes for all the rich, condemned the Negroes. “since nothing so elevates a dispossessed farmer or a factory worker on relief as to have some race, any race, on which he can look down,”p.87 And the promise of toilers receiving 5,000 a year, everything promised by the Utopians. (those that have read Utopia can see it’s a dystopia under the gold veneer) 

Believing in the payout many already bought expensive hardware expecting to pay it off after the inauguration. (never do this never buy something expensive when you do not have that money at that moment in your hands) Shad was a crusading supporter of Windrip, a talent for argument, soapboxing, chair manning and taunting Trowbridge and Roosevelt believers. He was also a bouncer and was summoned to Windrip’s rallies and lead the final parade in Rutland. Even Doremus was amazed at this paragon but groaned inwardly at his bellowing. Julian, however, wanted to scrap against him while Malcolm thinks he’ll put an end to all this radicalism and free speech of institutions and calls Julian a comrade who’s scared of Windrip. 

12 

He won't be content until the country is self-sufficient so they can keep their money and build tourist traffic so foreigners will leave their money. They want that and not wasting their time at Geneva (the European headquarters of the UN) and Lugano. (Switzerland's 3rd most important financial center) 

Tuesday, November 3rd election day, Windrip finished his campaign on Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Doremus was able to get a ticket, Forty Second Street was covered in fog and drizzle, (he just has a terrible time) so he took a taxi. He saw the Minute Men herding crowds, they were Windrip's private troops, Doremus published about them and was both thrilled and dismayed to see they were real. He feared they’ll be more menacing than the KKK and were probably in march months before Haik officially founded them. Windrip had them wear white shirts, unlike European uniforms of tyranny, the Minute Men are Democratic knight champions, shock troopers of Freedom. 

At Madison Square Garden it was a maelstrom. “A whole nation seemed querulously to be headed the same way.”p.94 The crowd had a murderous temper with also hashish hope. The Minute Men attacked the jeerers as the police stood by. (what happened to protect and serve) Doremus walked away sick and helpless, there were more fights and arguments as he reached the auditorium. A block from it the Minute Men raided a shop labeled Communist and one pulled down the Jewish girl protesting from a wheelbarrow to join, it’s life or death. Her followers fought back Communists and Jeffersonians drove off the MMs until a police riot squad came to their defense and arrested the protesters’ leaders. 

The buildings were fille with all kinds, “Manhattan peasants. Kind people, industrious people, generous to their aged, eager to find and desperate cure for the sickness of worry over losing the job.”p.97 The opening was dull with prayer and rambling of the war and Windrip until Haik finally announced his arrival to aplomb. He was monotone in his speech of coming to New York, the voters were disappointed by his drawl and Doremus had hope he wouldn't be elected. Windrip misquoted his own figures (and people still believe him) and Doremus was bored until he was excited, the way Windrip spoke made people believe it was to them personally, with truths that were hidden from them. They say he wants money and power, it’s true he wants power but it’s for them, to smash Jew financiers who enslaved them and Moscow spies. Picture a Paradise of Democracy, every worker their own king, it sounded reasonable for a while, Windrip was a supreme actor. 

Doremus was marveled and wondered if he was right, his Minute Men were nasty but most of them are nice young men. Seeing Windrip and listening to him makes you think but an hour later Doremus couldn’t remember what he said like he came out of a trance. He was so convinced Windrip would win, Tuesday he stayed out of the office, but the evidence came to him. After midnight a drunk parade marched past his house chanting Adelaide’s rewrite of Yankee Doodle, they called disloyalists Antibuzz. Doremus and Sissy saw people they knew in the parade and thought the person in the motorcar was Tasbrough. The parade caused damage and assaults and there was a threatening letter on Doremus’s door, he burned it and didn’t tell his family. 

NEXT

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It Can't Happen Here 6/38 -Sinclair Lewis

1 

The dining room of the Hotel Wessex was reserved for the Ladies' Night Dinner of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club. Not as picturesque but it had its moments of humor, but the whole affair was serious. “All of America was serious now, after the seven years of depression since 1929. It was long enough after the Great War of 1914-18 for the young people who had been born on 1917 to be ready to go to college...or another war, almost any old war that might be handy.”p.1 The Rotarians weren’t outwardly funny, Brigadier General Herbert Y. Edgeway’s topic, Peace Through Defense-Millions for Arms but Not One Cent for Tribute. Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch who was known for her anti suffrage campaign and her effort to maintain the barring of divorced, or foreign movie directors who haven't sworn to the flag or Bible. (she sounds like that type of person but wait she’s much worse) 

They were all listening to General Edgeway’s rhapsody on nationalism, how the United States have no desire for foreign conquest their highest ambition is to be left alone. Their only relationship with Europe is to educate their masses of ignorants and we must prepare the shores against alien governments who eye America’s mines, forests, cities and fields. (flip that around) “For the first time in all history, a great nation must go on arming itself more and more, not for conquest-not for jealousy-not for war-but for peace.”p.2 (that sounds like an oxymoron) They all cheered save a few pacifists and Doremus Jessup, the editor of the Fort Beulah Daily Informer. 

The dinner culminated in Adelaide’s speech, she wanted to send every soldier in the Front a canary but was denied by the Quartermaster General, (of course it was) and claims she gave him a piece of her mind. (yeah she’s also a Karen but wait she’s worse) She called every soldier she met within two blocks her boy and her speech listing them all lasted an hour. Now she was busty purifying films, she had advocated for then fought Prohibition and daily sent President Hoover lengthy advice and despite being childless she wrote about Child Culture. (would you believe she’s even worse) Now she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, women who boast of being descendants of seditious American colonists and attack contemporaries who believe in the principles their ancestors struggled with. They became beyond criticism, contrived to be just as ridiculous as the defunct KKK. (...insert that monkey puppet meme here) 

She went on that women did nothing with the vote, if they listened to her she could have saved them all the trouble, women must resume their place in the home. (quotes an author who thinks women should have six kids) Lorinda Pike was appalled and interrupted her, she was the village scold and crank, criticizing every interest in the county and she asked if a woman can't get a man should she have kids out of wedlock. Adelaide countered that if a woman has any charm, she won't have to hook a man, they’ll be lined up at the door. Adelaide went on that too many are selfish and won't help responsible businessmen (ha) bring back prosperity, the labor unions are money grubbers extorting their unfortunate employees. The country needs discipline, peace is a pipe dream, they need to be in a real war again to learn discipline, all this intellectuality is just a toy for grownups.  

She turns to General Edgeway to fess up that he thinks when a country goes money mad so the thrift has to pay for ne’er do wells, to get some iron in them a war might be a good thing. People clapped and cheered and Edgeway confesses that while he abhors war, there’s worse things a state, labor organizations, nations out of Russia, where professors and authors are seditious and people lacking pride of a warrior. He really wants is the country to come out to the world. “Now you boys never mind about the moral side of this. We have power, and power is its own excuse!”p.8 (no not it’s not) Italy and Germany had enough honesty to say to other nations to tend their own business, (this takes place in 1936 WWII hadn’t really ramped up yet) nobody ever loved a weakling. In 1936 there's less than seven percent of colleges that don't have military training as rigorous as the Nazis, now the youth demands it. (this sounds a lot like our modern performance activists they have no legacy or sense of purpose in life so they join whatever gives them a feeling of belonging to something) Three years ago a big percent of students were pacifists, now these meetings (calls them exhibitionist orgies) have been raided and Red students beaten so severely they won’t rise the banner of anarchism in the country. 

When he was applauded Lorinda stood up again but was interrupted by Francis Tasbrough reminding her Edgeway and Adelaide were invited to speak and she is just a guest. Then Doremus Jessup popped up that Lorinda should apologize to Edgeway. “My friend, Mrs. Pike, ought to know that freedom of speech becomes mere license when it goes too far as to criticize the Army, differ with the DAR, and advocate the rights of the mob.”p.9 (freedom is only as free as those in power allow it) They should be grateful for Edgeway explaining what the country’s ruling class really wants. He was looking at Lorinda with sternness, but Medary Cole wondered if he was actually kidding but Lorinda caroled an apology. It wasn't a bother to him and people laughed and the program ended with patriotic ditties by Louis Rotenstern. 

Rotenstern was 100 percent American and frequently stated they should keep foreigners out of the country. (slurs for everyone who’s not white bread American like Kikes Wops Hunkies and Chinks) He was convinced if ignorant politicians could keep their dirty hands off banking and labor hours, the country would profit, and everyone would be rich. (he’s like those Boomers that don’t realize those checks and associations are there for a reason then wonder why they’re sick from food after the FDA was dismantled just go read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair) After the choruses everyone said their goodbyes and gossip. Doremus’s wife Emma says he did right butting in, Lorinda always parades her Socialists ideas. As people got to their cars Frank Tasbrough invites Doremus to an after party. 

2 

After taking his wife home he went to Tasbrough’s and let the hills break up his thinking of Edgeway’s epidemic patriotism. “It was a downy town, a drowsy town, a town of security and tradition, which still believed in Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and to which May Day was not an occasion for labor parades but for distributing small baskets of flowers.”p.12 He thought about Vermont, Fort Beulah, Pleasant Hill and the people in it. “But most of the wishy-washy young people today-Going seventy miles an hour but not going anywhere-not enough imagination to want to go anyewhere!”p.13 Music by dial, phrases from comics instead of the Bible, Edgeway and Adelaide were right, maybe they do need a war. (careful what you wish for on that monkey’s paw) 

Tasbrough was the general manager and chief owner of granite quarries, rich, persuasive and had labor troubles. Now in his private barroom only Tasbrough, Medary Cole and Emil Staubmeyer were comfortable in his caped elegance. Tasbrough told Doremus to stop playing Liberal and join the family, it’s going to be ugly with the Jew Communists potting to control the country. They even tried to ruin his business and is still sore at Doremus for taking the side of the strikers. These labor racketeers and Communists are determined to ruin the country, to tell men like him how to run his business and they won't serve the country if they go to war. Doremus agrees and Senator Windrip has an excellent chance of being elected President and his buzzards will get them in some war. 

“People will think they’re electing him to create more economic security. Then watch the Terror! God knows there’s been enough indication that we can have tyranny in America-”p.16 Democracy hasn't been universal, even if it’s given industrialists too much power and money, it’s given ordinary workers more dignity. That’ll be now menaced by Buzz Windrip into a real Fascist dictatorship, Tasbrough calls it nonsense. “That couldn’t happen here in America, not possibly! Were a country of freemen.”p.17 Doremus says the hell it can't, no other country is more hysterical or obsequious, Windrip owns his state, Americans will casually accept crookedness. (just a page of examples) “Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours!”p.17 

RC Crowley thinks it won't be so bad, why is he afraid of fascism, it’s just a word. It won’t be so bad with all the lazy bums living off his income tax, a strong man like Hitler or Mussolini and have them make the country prosperous again. Staubmeyer points out Hitler saved Germany from Marxism, he’s got cousins there, (for now) he knows, but Doremus isn’t impressed. “Lure the evils of Democracy by the evils of fascism! Funny therapeutics. I’ve heard of their curing syphilis by giving the patient malaria, but I’ve never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphillis!”p.18 (this was an actual thing the doctor got a Nobel prize for it) Tasbrough thinks Crowley is right, it might be good to have a strong leader but it can't just happen here in America and Reverend Mr. Falk said the hell it can’t. 

3 

By twelve Doremus was well read and would graduate from Isaiah College where he wrote bad poetry and become a book addict and track athlete. After graduation he was a reporter, in 1901 his father died leaving him almost three grand (the inflation calculator only goes to 1913 but this is still about 96k) and his library, so Doremus moved back to Fort Beulah. Despite the Republican state he was independent in politics against injustice, considering himself the opposite of politically loose. He married Emma and had three children (Philip Mary and Sissy) and one grandchild. (David) His house he described as ugly in a nice way, he went up to his private study (two pages describing his study) and looked out over the countryside, every year he loved it even more.  

He checked his letters, one from his old college, something dangerous is rising there and they’re worried the undergrads have gone war like. “When I cautiously ask them what the dickens war they are preparing for they just scratch and indicate they don't care much, so long as they can get a chance to show what a virile proud gents they are.”p.24 The faculty was warned if they criticize any military organizations they’ll be fired and students that have proof will get extra credit. (oh they’re turning the youth against those that could speak reason) Doremus realizes Tasbrough was a trustee that voted for it and encouraged them to be Gestapo. 

4 

All week Doremus was waiting for the broadcast of Bishop Paul Peter Prang, now six weeks before the 1936 National Conventions. Senator Walt Trowbridge will be nominated for the Republican party, Senator Berzelius Windrip for the Democratic party, though it’s said his secretary Lee Sarason is the real brain. Windrip went through several colleges before settling for his home state, a boisterous speaker, willing to lend money, drank as the people did and in twenty years ruled his state. He built up the farmlands, knew America would deal with the Russians so had the state university teach the language and quadrupled the state militia, rewarding the best soldiers. The militia considered him their god so rose against the town that wanted to indite Windrip for grifting two hundred thousand in taxes. (so he has his own private army) He took the Senatorship for six years and preached of redistributing wealth and the rich given a five hundred thousand a year (about 11 million today) allowance, so everyone was happy. (I doubt the rich were actually happy) 

Reverend Dr. Egerton Schlemil once stated Windrip coming into power was like the blessed rain. “Dr Schlemil did not say anything about what happened when the blessed rain came and kept falling steadily for four tyears.”p.28 No one knew how much of Windrip’s career was really Sarason, who’s background was a mystery. (ah so it’s a puppet government pay no attention to the man behind the curtain just keep the puppet content) Officially Sarason was Windrip’s secretary, but he was more everything and most consulted in Washington and least liked by newspapers correspondents. He had done the actual writing of Windrip’s book (so it’s not really Windrip’s words then) on exhibitionist boosting economic program, Zero Hour-Over the Top. (a lot of idealistic American imagery of his childhood on a farm) The most quoted paragraph saying they have to change the system, maybe the whole constitution. (legally not by violence and if that’s not foreshadowing I don’t know what is) 

1936, the most confusing campaign, the Republicans begged for office and the Democrats were professors, city slickers and yachtsmen in wagons. Windrip’s rival was Reverend Prang, he was sentimental reviled enemies by name, told stories, he was pure Middle West. He had power over his audience, as he told them fifty thousand wrote to the congressman to vote on a bill. “Thus, by the magic of electricity, Prang made the position of any king in history look a little absurd and tinsled.”p.32 

Doremus could never forgive what political gossip he preached, nationalization of banks, mines, transportation, increase wages and strengthen unions, (these all sound great) but no one expected them to be carried out. (yeah...not surprised there) All Perang wanted was his listeners to obey him in everything (and that is dangerous in the wrong hands) and to Doremus that made him a worse fascist than Napoleon. (see even Doremus thinks so) He doesn't believe the rumors of embezzling dues to pay for his radio time. “It’s much worse than that. I’m afraid he’s an honest fanatic! That’s why he’s such a real Fascist menace-he's so confoundedly humanitarian,”p.33 So noble the majority will let him boss them in everything, a country this size it’s quite a job. All while Trowbridge, suffering from being honest, wouldn't promise miracles, they lived in America not a highway to Utopia. (even in Utopia the slaves wore chains of gold) 

5 

A quote from Windrip’s book that slanders editors, they have no interests in family or the outdoors and only plot how to put out their lies and advance their positions, preying on statesmen who give their all for the common good. (hmm sounds like he wants to discredit the press) 

Doremus’s son Philip and Mary's family popped over for the weekend, the whole family is demanding a picnic, Doremus insisted, as an editor, it was his job to listen to Prang’s broadcast. They laughed and teased him until he promised to go and snuck along a portable radio. Lorinda Pike and Buck Titus came along and the hired man, Shad Ledue, who complained because he had to carry everything. Philip tells his father he should fire him, but Doremus thinks of it as an experiment, to train him to be a gracious Neanderthal, he even reads (you’d think someone as smart as Doremus would know this kind of treatment can breed spite and resentment) and believes Windrip will be president. Philip says Windrip just shoots his mouth off but the only thing he could do is protect them from the murdering Bolsheviks and Jew spies that pose as American liberals. (this book was written in the 30s) 

They set up the picnic and have trivial conversations and admire the view. The only flare on conversation was Buck calling all these politicians new Messiahs, his favorite is Father Divine who doesn't just say he’ll feed the underprivileged in ten years, he’s already handing out food. (huh someone who actually practices what they preach) Sissy’s boyfriend Julian Falck appeared, Doremus thinks he’s nearly tolerable compared to the others. Doremus adjusted his radio and gets annoyed by the sponsors and who was singing the oldies (a male sextette called the Smoothies) he thinks the country needs Windrip, then came Prang’s broadcast. He announced he only has six more weekly petitions before the national conventions to decide the country’s fate, it’s time to act.   

He quotes the sixth chapter of Jerremiah, time to prepare for war. “Far from the leasy of them even unto the greatest, every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely...saying Peace, Peace, when there is no Peace!”p.41 It was spoken in the book of old and again in 1936, the League of Forgotten Men has warned there is no peace and they have demanded money be taken from private banks and soldiers be given their dues, farmers and unions be recognized and be made a part of the government. They have no problem with individual Jews but these subversive organizations which are unfortunately largely Jewish, must be driven from the earth. (also says Jewish communism anarchism and atheism be stopped from all activity) How long have the politicians and Big Business pretend to listen, there is no more time. 

The ones before died on the guillotine, perhaps they can be more merciful this time with the New Constitution and New Deal. Like Windrip said, it is the Zero Hour, after months of taking counsel they secured the Democratic nomination of Berzelius Windrip. He pledges to take their advice, and they’ll back him with their money, loyalty, votes and prayers. (so of course he’ll say he’ll listen to them) Doremus had his family listen to history, Emma calls Prang a Red Radical but does it really mean anything. “Why, nothing much except that in a couple of years now, on the ground of protecting  us, the Buzz Windrip dictatorship will be regimenting everything.”p.43 Julian has tempted to turn Communist, Buck jeers they’re out of the frying pan of Windrip into the fire of Stalin, the Five Year Plan, what do they expect his horse to foal six colts a year. Dr Fowler Greenhill says, “Why, America’s the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country’s too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn't happen here!”p.43 (people say that because they think it’s true but only those that know it could happen are the ones preemptively stopping it) 

6 

Zero Hour quote that says people could call him a socialist all they want as long as they help him slash poverty and intolerance to pieces. 

His family believed Doremus had fickle heath, he raged at their worrying but knew they had a point, but sill snuck around staying up late and smoking. These deceptions gave him satisfaction, but his wife was sad by his aging and failing health, only happy when he was snappish before breakfast meaning he was energetic with ideas. After Prang’s announcement the summer went to words, political conventions that disturbed Emma since Doremus was silent at breakfast. 

Back in the 1920s Doremus advocated to recognize Russia and Fort Beulah thought he was turning Communist. He was milder, somewhat, Liberal and disliked pomposity and the itch for notoriety. “But for all the cruelty and intolerance, and for the contempt of the fortunate for the unfortunate, he had not mere dislike but testy hatred.”p.46 He alarmed his fellow editors with his advocacy and politicking and was called a Bolshevik losing over a hundred papers in circulation. Maybe he was a little, he stopped at a Communist camp once and thought they resembled the YMCA. He once supported a strike against Tasbrough who reviled him still eight years later even after the strike lost. If Doremus wasn't from there generations of Vernaters he’d be penniless and less detached from the Sorrows of the Dispossessed. (Return With Bombs Strapped To Their Chests~   sorry reflex) Emma complains about what people must think of him, they don't understand he’s not a Socialist.  

NEXT

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Superman: Miracle Monday 27/27 -Elliot S. Maggin

18 

“It was over. He was horribly embarrassed. He was mortified. A big part of him, the mortal part, was killed.”p.153 There were species on Earth whose heartbreak would cause death, now Superman felt he was going to die. News traveled the world before it really hit him, now, as he flew through the sky, he was totally alone. Now, in his Fortress, was the only privacy he had left and listened to it all, all across the world. “Superman was part of the song. He had an instrument in the orchestra of the Earth. He was not, in the overall scheme of things, an outsider.”p.156 He listened to everything work together to make Earth, maybe he bounced to the rhythm too when he came as a baby. He listened to the Oder of Life, wondered what the sound of the Universe would be if he could hear in a vacuum. Somewhere the devil possessed a girl and destroyed what made him feel like a part of the world, but now he realized he had become a part of the world and Order and the demon was disrupting it, so he dove to meet the agent of Hell.  

19 

By this time CW Saturn had already brought about chaos Superman was starting to clean up the mess. In the upside down PanAm Building (so these are Mxyzsptlk shenanigans) the people sat on light fixtures as Superman made ramps to evacuate them before flipping the building right side up. (he has a soft spot for American pop culture) He wondered what CW Saturn was up to as Kristin was in a park surrounded by fire and a crowd and told Superman to come make him unscary before disappearing in a smoke puff. Superman went to see Lena, but seeing him the sensitive woman shrieked and fainted. (well you were completely useless) When he went to Max Mavin he was expected and was told he doesn’t know much, they can’t exercise CW Saturn, he’s an arch demon. He has to defeat CW Saturn somehow, impossible but heroes thrive on that. If he loses all order is gone starting with Earth and expanding to the Universe until all four dimensions break and revert to before the Creation, it won’t be pleasant for living things. (no shit) Chaos continued for weeks and in it Superman left for Skvrsky. 

20 

It was another week before he could go back to Clark’s apartment and saw Lois collecting papers into a briefcase, people had already stripped it down to the wall phone. (they even took the elevator button) With Superman busy and seeming uninterested, (he’s wasn’t uninterested he had a crisis and priorities) Lois become his executor but all that was left was old papers, but she still looked for important things. He calls out to her but she’s cold to him for not telling her. “You’re a stranger. Do you realize that? In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve been a stranger. How do you think that makes me feel?”p.166 He apologizes, he would have told her. Where has he been, saving the Earth, not coming to his friends when he’s in a crisis or even leaving a note to the one he loves. (lady he just lost his safety net and do you not see the shit going on in the world) 

Lois asks if she was a part of his disguise to help him act normal. “Was I just somebody to have tagging along on your arm  in Time magazine so we puny mortals could think of you as a living, breathing Earthman who just happened to be an immigrant?”p.167 (you knew both personalities do you really think that little of him) Her last boyfriend was a psychologist who always talked about issues and broke up with her saying she had too many. (well he’s not wrong but I also think he was just being douchey) Superman says her ex couldn't handle a strong-willed woman, she tells him to read more psychological journals as she cleans up the mess of her life. He holds her as she cries, she asks if he’s not using some hormones to make her love him, (I’m sure there’s a Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane comic with that plot) he wouldn't do that. That’s the point, for years he’s hid this and she can’t trust him anymore, he could have been laughing at her the whole time. (you really don’t know him if you think that okay feel betrayed but don’t accuse him of being a super dick) 

There are a lot of discussions between those that are insecure in their love, the purpose is to resolve the issues. Superman wanted to tell her he was unsure he could have her without Clark to live on an equal footing. Lois would say a woman with Superman would have been uninterested in a normal man, on her footing she was born to love Superman, (honey no) if he died as an infant there would be no Lois Lane because there’d be no place for her. (you seemed to be doing well before he got hired at the Planet) They were both afraid of being alone, but unfortunately none of it was said as then the sky lit up in an emergency as CW Saturn rode a carpet of pollution over Metropolis. (so he’s Captain Pollution)  

21 

Perry (it says White looks like an older Bruce Jenner and I don’t know if this aged like milk or wine because of the irony) says everyone's comparing Kristin to Mxyzsptlk, (I called it) he has magic powers, pulling similar stunts. The current big news was Clark and the demon that possessed Kristin. Perry had trouble believing that, but Jimmy felt ready to explode and feeling the need to do something, he took Lois to a show. (well that’s something I guess) He thought if he stuck around, Perry, who spoke detached about Kristin, he’d do something even more foolish, disagree with him in public. Perry goes on that whatever it is Superman is vulnerable to it and unlike Mxyzsptlk, the girl’s intention isn't fun, (if you could describe what Mxyzsptlk does funny) she tore away his tie to humanity and kept him busy with her antics. Two reasons he hasn't stopped her yet, he wants to know her intentions or he might not know how besides killing her. Jimmy points out she hasn't killed anyone, Clark wasn't an actual murder. (take note of that) 

He’s happy he’s Superman, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, (Jimmy they usually say that because they wanted the bad thing to have happened to the person) he doesn't know why he won't stop by for lunch anymore. He’d call him Superman as they’d have coffee and that’s the problem, if Superman is Clark, he’s among Earthmen, if they knew he’s Superman, he becomes a dangerous personality. (again you guys act like you know nothing about him) If Kristin’s plan is to discredit Superman and push him to insanity who’s to say, when asked if he’s seen him Lois ran out of the office. Perry then speculates if it is really a demon and Kristin is gone one must assume that Superman has no alternative than to destroy the body. 

The day before the third Monday in May, a cold front was moving in, Metropolis had no power and food was running low. This would be WGBS’s last broadcast to seventy-eight televisions and Superman was watching one. Four minutes after it Jimmy hated Perry for suggesting the murder of Kristin, hated the logical argument, but Jimmy was the only one that didn't perceive his sorrow. Jimmy hated him until he went into the men’s room and heard Perry throw up in the next stall. 

22 

A generation still young that grew up in the States and Soviet Union were constantly reminded of the apocalypse that rode along with civilization. “The more intricate and refined life become in the twentieth century, the close rode violence and the specter of mass death.”p.177 The nightmare came then Monday May morning as the generation always knew it would, but instead of a human it was the hand of the devil. Superman was flying for days, dreaming for minutes, (so he can dolphin sleep) the Kents, Krypton, his infant self, wanting to introduce both sets of parents as they shared dinner. Kristin woke him up that she set the holocaust, below was flames and Superman would go with it. Kristin’s distorted laugh followed him as nuclear warheads came alive, CW Saturn's goals were for Superman to allow the world to end, he could just explode every atom, but this was more dramatic.  

After CW Saturn set off the bombs Superman went to Pakistan where one of the Oppenheimer nightmares lay, no one knew how to disarm it and no one but Superman knew the reaction began. He crashed through the floors as it began to glow red, he fused the hairline cracks, and lifted it on his back as he flew it out. Forty kilometers above it went off, most of it went into space (well what about the rest of it) then Superman went to his next targets. The psychics faculty at Yale built one under false pretenses and fortunately Superman knew and flew under the campus following the trail of burning nitrogen. He picked up the football sized bomb and thrust it into the mantle. (wouldn’t that cause some seismic trouble) At Cambridge, a professor followed a dream and built a device set off by DNA, it would wipe out all life and could create new at the site of ground zero. The chemical trigger was already farming, not alive by any definition, but the bomb was when Superman threw it at Polaris, the explosion contained within his cape. He disarmed thousands more in order of how close were the targets, within an hour and forty-two minutes. Then he flew to Metropolis and met Kristin on top of the Galaxy Building. 

23 

Since CW Saturn possessed Kristin, she’s been forced to commit acts of destruction, mayhem pushing the planet near nuclear war and stealing Clark Kent. CW Saturn could not be exorcised and could not rip him from her and yet some still said there’s only one way. “There were those who claimed that the death of this pawn, this innocent child without family or past, was the only way to save the world.”p.184 Superman thought of any other alternatives, so far she has done nothing he couldn't reverse, (hmm) CW Saturn wasn't interested in destroying life but innocence. (hmm) “And if Superman killed Kristin Wells in order to stop her reign of terror, then it was Superman, along with all he stood for, that was destroyed.”p.185 (there it is) He won't kill her, he’ll do what he does to all criminals, follow her to the ends of Creation, couldn't be a nobler mission. Then Kristin’s eyes glowed red and an inhuman voice called out to Superman that he’ll answer to him now. 

24 

Two days before that Monday there was little news as broadcasting wasn't coming out of Metropolis, mass transit was impossible and people stayed home. Skvrsky walked in the abandoned subway and took off his disguise and Luthor made sure he had the hair in his coat when he entered the abandoned WWII bomb shelter. Luthor met The Shadow in there and gives him the hair for his end of the bargain, he believes he is what he says he is, just satisfied he is bound by contract. He wants to know his game though, what just stops him from destroying the city, Luthor is a powerful soul in this world, but does he remember the one he phased through, just the pain. He was in pain too, but here his power is limited, he doesn't even know where the gateway is. Luthor laughs he has the hair now, so he owes him. 

Luthor is given a book on the psychics of alternate universes, Luthor asks what he intends to do with the hair. The Shadow proposes an exchange in information, he’ll answer that question for the location of the gateway, Luthor’s not that interested just curios. Luthor is among the most curios creatures in Creation, he wants to know more, Luthor confesses it’s in New England. The Shadow says he doesn't know what he’ll do with the hair and disappears. Luthor screamed in frustration as Superman flew him back to prison, it was all an elaborate trick, (the book was a rebound copy of Catch 22) now that Superman knew the location he could close it. “Heroes, above all, are people who succeed, they sometimes fail in their immediate goals-staying alive, for example-in order to succeed in their ultimate goals-”-”Ultimately they succeed, and generally this is because they set out on purpose to succeed. They keep control.”p.190 Control of their surroundings and knew what happens next, this trick by Superman was on Saturday and explained what happened on Monday. 

25 

The demon called out that he won as Superman flew along the rising black pillar. The pillar stopped rising and the Universe stopped heading towards entropy, time froze. With the blackness CW Saturn took his original form, (you know the classic devil) Superman figured his plan was to get him to kill Kristin, but he’s in charge now. CW Saturn says when the conversation ends Kristin will die, her mortal form was overextended. Superman backhands him but he won't waste his power on anger, he tells CW Saturn to undo the damage and why was it Kristin. She was an element most susceptible because she didn't belong. In this instant Superman could do or say no wrong and he wants to know how to save Kristin, it’s at the Center of Short-Lived Phenomena in Skvrsky’s desk. Superman wants Clark Kent back, it would upset the balance to do so, so substitute the memory for Kristin. He owes CW Saturn nothing, so he wants nothing more to do with him, so leave this realm and deal with his master. Four in the afternoon on Monday there was a pause and the shriek of CW Saturn leaving Kristin’s body died in the air.  (her body fell to the roof) 

26 

“Shortly before four in the afternoon on the third Monday in the month of May, the people of the city of Metropolis learned the meaning of joy.”p.195 They had no explanation and there were gaps in their knowledge of the day like they just woke up after a long time. The first thing they saw was Superman flying across the sky, he became a symbol of their joy and felt an unexplainable miracle. The superintendent looked over Kristin’s empty apartment, inexplicably unrented for a year. The superintendent would find a renter tomorrow, right now he felt like throwing a party. 

Morgan Edge yelled for Clark who just seemed to hang up on him, but his anger was performative, to his dismay he felt mellow and centered. He found Don Reed at Clark’s desk; he didn't know why he was there either. Outside the window (Clark insisted his office have a window) they could hear people in the streets celebrating, instead of going over the evening news Edge takes Reed out for a martini. As Superman flew overhead the feeling spread in the air communicating one thing, “This day, though, the souls who had subjugated the surfaces of the small planet needed no artificial aides, the newspapers, the radios, televisions, even word of mouth, to know it was a good day.”p.197 The next time Clark would be over the air waves it would be Tuesday, this Monday the entire world population of the city took the day off. “A great miracle had happened here.”p.197 

Superman warded of the feeling until his job was done, at the Center of Short-Lived Phenomena and found the notebook in the desk. He collected the chemicals and herbs and flew to the Galaxy Building roof where he made the serum and where the girl no one remembered was. The serum was what Luthor used to cure his heart disease, now it worked on Kristin growing new and stronger tissue. (the FDA rules it unacceptable because it causes mumps and rhesus monkeys but you know I think people will deal with a vaccine for mumps and herpes if it means they no longer have cancer) Awake, Kristin answers his questions, she’s a history student of Columbia in the year 2055, she’ll get a doctorate in 59, (and become a professor) and tells him Happy Miracle Monday. This is the first one people will celebrate, she came to find out why and she remembers everything, at least this historical moment has a happy ending. (so it really is something to celebrate) 

There were historians everywhere (hiding in the bushes) to find out but now only she knows, CW Saturn picked her because she was there first a year ago, she’ll at least get some stories for her dissertation. Superman laughed having finally felt the feeling, he tells her what happened with CW Saturn and she teases the future. Jimmy will forget her, for the best, his grandson will marry her great whatever grandmother. (oh good she avoided an I’m my own grandpa situation) Lois won't be something as mundane as the president, (no that would be Luthor) but he already knows that, doesn't he, but they’re always the last to know. He told Kristin how he tricked Luthor (pretty much just his powers and smoke and mirrors) and gives her the lock of his hair, he asks if they’ll ever be friends again, someday. Before Kristin leaves, she thanks him for the wonderful time. (she does regret not meeting John Chancellor) 

27 

Kristin’s final journal entry, the lock of hair belongs to the university at display in the Superman Museum. The tests reveal it’s not human hair and has the genetic structure Superman is supposed to have, though it is a laboratory reproduction. Her story was believed and it is believed Superman thought it was his, it is not and that's the mystery, no one at the time but Luthor could produce it. Kristin has her own theory and will tell it after she’s reorientated with her period of speech. (the disco slang has to die) She’s writing the entry on her new antique typewriter, with no more discos she took it up as a hobby, who knows where she’ll get more carbon ribbons. (thought to cause cancer in secretaries but that sounds more like correlation not causation) She believes Luthor made the switch thinking the devil needed an artifact to possess Superman’s soul. Why, she cites Hamlet who let Claudius live so he wouldn't enter Heaven. Luthor discovered an afterlife and didn't want to send Superman to Hell. “Superman was then correct in assuming that even where he could not see it, there was good in all life, a good that made it important to treasure that life.”p.205 

FIRST

[crackspinewornpages]

Superman: Miracle Monday 17/27 -Elliot S. Maggin

12 

The dignitaries at the Grangerford-Shepherdson Galleries were a good show, an Iraqi diplomat’s cab crashed and almost got a truck driver to take him, but the police got there first. Later on, celebrity lead protesters against canned tuna dumped them as a demonstration but the seafood mogul was on vacation. After that a stray wind blew open the case of an extortion trade, Superman flew both men, laundered money and evidence against dozens of oil company officials to the police. The greatest show at Seventy-Second Street was Wainwright McAfee who wanted his brother Jeremy’s art pieces back from the eccentric billionaire Lucius Tommytown, there was an argument, but McAfee got to the auction first. At one thirty a man looking like a vampire set up speakers at the gallery and announced McAfee's arrival in a limousine. After he walked in everyone started packing up to leave but as they were an entourage came with Tommytown and he had his chorus girls dance for them. As the crowd went into chaos a woman ran up and pulled off her wig revealing he’s Tommytown before going inside. (you know one of those days where you’re like this might as well happen adult life is already so goddamn weird) 

The auction hall was more like a church the only detraction were the sculptures confounding art critics before he died in a helicopter accident. Truth is he didn't exist or his brother, or Tommytown, all were a creation of Luthor who was in the back disguised as a rent a cop. Luthor could have gotten a job in any field and used the money to study and make anything had he not gone to reform school. When he started making bigger gadgets that would have been made illegal, he hid them in plain sight as art pieces. Luthor signaled to the Tommytown and Wainwright actors to bid, neither knowing they both worked for him.  

By the time it was over and the two felt everyone had a good show and Luthor had the sculptures that were actually an illusion caster, weather controller, and other (inators) inventions to be used as needed. After Superman found out Luthor was Jeremy McAfee for the benefit of the art world, he killed him in a freak accident. (hung by a helicopter swung into a Spanish church and fell 200 feet) The sudden death would cause the market price to rise and he needed the cash. (you couldn’t do something more legal like patents or stock markets) Luthor also assumed Superman had multiple identities, so no point in finding out who he is. (see you say that but I don’t believe you) 

 His running theory is Morgan Edge, who randomly appeared in the nineteen sixties, maybe a few other people like Bruce Wayne or Pete Ross who disappeared whenever Superboy showed up, but it didn't matter. “What Luthor did not realize was that while his own aliases were tools and nothing else, Clark Kent was Superman’s fetish and preoccupation. Kent was Superman’s demon.”p.113 As he walked to a payphone a voice called out to him by name and he won't be avoided, Luthor turned to see a shrouded figure with snow white skin. (gee wonder who this mysterious figure could be) 

13 

The Shadow introduces himself, Luthor doesn't buy it, the Shadow says only he can see him and no one else on the street reacts but then again, he was in Metropolis. (how desensitized are the citizens to weird shit) Luthor has him follow him to an abandoned playground to prove it and the Shadow points flames into existence and Luthor collapses, the Shadow catching him so now he has no claim on his soul. Luthor does a lot of research in prison, Dracula traces back to him, the Shadow says they still hope Luthor will join them when his time comes, but currently he desires another soul. Luthor wanted more proof, “Luthor was very prudent indeed, for there were things Luthor wanted that other men could not possibly have. He was as prudent as he was bold.”p.117  

Years ago, Luthor wanted to be president so for a while in Smallville Lex focused on pursuing that. In the presidential primaries when the senator campaigned through Smallville Lex decided to meet him as the senator decided to be seen with the youth and looked for precocious teenagers. In the eighth grade the advance man would pick four for a Friday film interview with the senator. The advance man would decide by the questions they wrote down though impressed with Lex’s questions (the missile gap with Russians should a restaurant serve someone they don't like and should America overthrow another disagreeable country) he chose Clark, Pete, Lana and Brad Herman. Lex thought Clark’s questions were bland as cornflakes just like him. (nature conservation Russia out of Cuba and what’s he proudest of) Lex didn't understand the senator wanted wholesome questions from admiring youth (in other words uncomplicated unproblematic questions that’ll make the senator look good) and thought it was unfair. “All Lex understood was that this was unfair, just as many things turned out to be unfair when you played by rules that other people laid down for you.”p.118 

While in gym Lex asked Clark about cows and learned the less a cow was agitated the more milk it produced and it was easy to excite one. Lex’s plan was to dress up as an Indian and wave flashlights to scare farmer Herman’s cows so they couldn't be milked that day and the next morning smuggle them to his class and use a milking remote gadget to embarrass the senator. (couldn’t you just go the normal rural farm country prank route and release three pigs labeled 1 2 and 4) That morning he snuck into the barn when, by the entrance, he heard a crash and someone howl in pain startling the cows and alerting farmer Herman. Clark had followed Lex wanting to see if he was doing something neat like he always does. 

Lex ran out leaving Clark behind to be found by farmer Herman, Clark’s excuse was that he was walking around and wanted to see because he likes barns. The cows didn't have much milk that morning and Lex waited to be called to the office for his failed plan. He didn't see Clark until fifth period and he looked downcast as the teacher replaced him for the interview. Lex figured it out and thought of Clark as a self-sacrificing moron for taking the blame. After class Lex told Clark not to trust him Clark planned not to. 

Luthor asks the Shadow if he’s supposed to trust him, no, only adhere to his half of the bargain if they come to an agreement. He doesn't have to believe him, just follow the rules they set. First what would he want from him, teach him the physical laws of the Netherworld to construct a practical source of energy from the two worlds. Just harness the energy from turbines harnessing the clash between Hell and Earth just like a windmill. Now in return for that information the Shadow wants a lock of Superman’s hair. 

14 

In the twilight of sleep one can sense what kind of day it'll be, Superman did it all the time when he woke up as Clark. That April morning the phone rang, it inflicted his life just as everyone else. Morgan Edge called him, this’ll be the most important day of his career, Clark was petty and made Edge wait for him to find a pen and notepad as payback for disturbing his rare sleep. Edge tells him a helicopter is on it’s way to his apartment to pick him up, (is his apartment zoned for that) so he can cover four major stories that broke in the last hour. A collapsed brownstone, earthquake, subway derailment, Clark used his x-ray vision to check. No major injuries or immediate danger unless Superman did something and he flies out when he hears there’s a tramway car hanging over a bridge. (way to bury the lead Edge) 

As the helicopter came the cameraman considered himself lucky to catch Superman flying by and told the pilot to follow him away from Clark’s apartment. The tram car was hanging by a frayed cable and was on fire. Superman blew the smoke away and burned off the frayed wire then flew away the overheating transformer and flew back as the cable snapped into a free fall. Superman caught it and set it gently on the sidewalk as the transformer exploded above. The conscious passengers hauled the others out for the paramedics and Superman flew off. As the helicopter came back to Clark’s apartment, they found him on the roof trying to keep warm. They told him they got Superman on tape and then took Clark to the earthquake zone. Clark had already checked out the danger and had them change direction to the derailment, his nose for news says it’s a more immediate story. 

At the derailment the camera set up as Clark looked for people to interview, but the crowd ignored him over the helicopter. “Clark had assiduously cultivated the capacity to be ignored, even while pursuing the most intriguing of enterprizes.”p.128 He sprinted a slow thirty-five miles an hour to the lobby, he ducked into a faulty elevator and Superman burst through the roof fifty stories above, the cameraman just missed as he dove back down. The last two cars disconnected and locked together, seventy-three people in panic, no one seriously hurt, the only two still in terror were the conductors who understood the situation. The outer walls were charged with enough electricity to kill a person and the car rested on the electrified third rail. The conductors couldn't contact the outside and convinced the passengers they were fine and waited for them to realize or for a miracle. 

The miracle called out to them, and Superman worked the two cars apart without damaging the insulation that protected the passengers. Once free he cleared the cars of the third rail, he would have liked to get a picture of it. (isn’t it a conflict of interest to report on yourself) He had the awestruck conductor lead the passengers out of the tunnel. As he freed the other car the electricity caused him to glow and he flew that car out of the subway and set it a block away. He doubled back and was there as Clark in time to interview the conductor coming out of the subway tunnel. After sufficient interviews and footage Clark ordered the helicopter to the collapsed brownstone. 

With a better view Clark had confirmed there were no causalities, and one person was still trapped. The woman’s studio apartment was the only part untouched and the only way into it now was a window from the alley someone had to fly into. Clark was startled to see it was Kristin, (who’s just sitting there reading) within eight seconds Superman crashed through her window. She had an unnaturally vacant stare and didn't seem to understand the situation. When he asked of her state and her eyes changed and she asked if he liked her handiwork with the disasters, they’ll get to know each other better. Kristin came back to but was confused, Superman took her to the hospital, and she was released an hour later with perfect health. 

15 

CW Saturn writes in Kristin’s journal that finally he has full control of her mind, this is the final entry, one more day of her physical habits, tomorrow she’ll resign from her jobs. She is being weaned from her routine that was new to her when he began his possession, her body is adapting to his routine. Several weeks ago he created those disasters that Superman had to intervene now Kristin resides in Lois’s apartment. Now there’s been more disasters he had to foil. A nuclear reaction at the Atlantic Coast, a sea monster attacking an oil tanker, endangered seals, an endangered ship of refuges, conjoined twins, it clouded the mental and emotional judgements of world leaders, and malfunctioned nuclear warheads. “I have compromised the world’s natural balance, and the mechanisms men have raised to augment that balance.”p.134 As planned Superman averted the chaos and will continue to grow tired. After he strays from the creation he values most, he will tempt him when he can't refuse. 

16 

After the string of disasters and political upheaval led to the worldwide sense of impending doom. Now there was the Itching Sickness and Dr David Skvrsky, a well-known diagnostician, almost to a supernatural degree. (gives House a run for his money) He spent most of his time out of public eye only to turn up mysteriously when needed such as the outbreak of Itching Sickness. Superman was in Reykjavik catching a toddler falling out a window, there were three reports of the sickness and Superman began to notice the pattern of phenomena. Soon after reports came in Skvrsky was given all the federal money he needed to study for a cure. The symptoms were horrifying but no deaths yet, it started as severe eczema then the scales spread quickly over the body. If painkillers weren't given the patient would scratch their skin off, the disease went away after four days but left the patient disfigured. 

It was reported in three continents, no known virus caused it, no reason for it to go away after four days, it wasn't contagious, Skvrsky only had an idea of where it came from. He assembled a staff and gave them his report, each outbreak occurred thirty-six hours after Superman’s appearance in the area, he can only assume he’s carrying the disease in his hair. First, they need a lock of his hair for testing, and he needs their complete cooperation and access to all resources in the Center for the Study of Short-Lived Phenomena. (is this the DC version of the SCP Foundation) None of what Skvrsky said was true besides Superman being in the affected areas, there was no sickness, there wasn't even a Skvrsky, just another of Luthor’s personas. (how many false identities and backgrounds does he have how can he keep it all together even Roger Smith had trouble) Now there would be no more need of false reports after the news hysterical cases would pop up. 

17 

In early May the networks replaced their regular programs for news segments, this week there were no major events but many little ones including crimes and disasters, as Superman diffused them disease followed. After the segment ended Lana commented on all the weird stuff going on saying what millions were thinking. During the report the viewers hoped the journalists would discern some pattern to the events and were disappointed. Meanwhile, at the Center for Short-Lived Phenomena, Luthor watched and waited, he took the grant money and used a portion to make fake hair. (more like strands of titanium) He tried to ignore his boyhood friend on TV as he discussed with others trading theories about the disasters. “Luthor ignored Kent as much as he possibly could. There was something about the man that spooked him.”p.145 (again somebody has a lizard brain sensing there’s something uncanny about him) 

Years ago, Abraham Maslow (developed the theory of a person's hierarchical needs) and Noam Chomsky (famous for the invention of the formal language theory) were teaching a course on psycholinguistics. That year, nineteen-year-old Lex vanished from prison and a transfer student, Michael Hemmingway, (with two Ms) showed up at Metropolis University registered for the course. He didn't show up at the other classes but no one was suspicious that Michael was actually Lex with a record already for being on the FBIs Most Wanted List. (he’s 19 what the hell did he do) It was a very impressive class, teaching language and human interaction, Lex was fascinated. When he asked if he could do a special project Maslow asked why he laughed defensively, he had a lot to be defensive about. Lex then went to Chomsky, he wanted a dozen volunteers to study accents from across the country for five months to find changes from experiences, Chomsky suggested he also have a control group. 

 The first volunteer was someone Lex knew, Clark Kent, he had a perfect Midwest accent and remembered thinking instead of journalism he should go into broadcasting. He relished Clark talking about Smallville from his view and was surprised to learn he was adopted and felt resentment his natural parents didn't love him as much as Clark’s adopted ones (so what type of mental illness or compacted trauma do you think Luthor has) and felt a bit of regret learning the Kents passed. At the end Clark asked Lex who he thought he was fooling Lex denies it, (he got a nose job) but Clark says he’s no more Hemmingway than himself Superboy. (it’s Superman now) Why doesn't he stop this criminal stuff, it counts as something he’s never seriously endangered anyone’s life. 

Lex ended the interview and finds a letter for him in his dorm from Clark apologizing for ruining his game, he always has a good reason for doing what he does. Since he can easily make a new identity he could start over anywhere with a clean slate. “Well, it seems to me that that only thing keeping you from actually doing this is Superman. No matter where you went or how you changed yourself, Superman could probably find you sometime.”p.148 He can make it so Superman doesn't follow him and forgets his past if he wants to start over and benefit humanity instead of destroying Superman. (is this all because he doesn’t want anyone with unachievable power above him) He knows he wouldn't lie to him and he knows him well enough not to trust him blindly. If he meets him in the lobby at eight, he’ll tell him a secret.  

Lex hated having to make decisions he never thought he had to make, Clark had something to tell him, something he thinks is big. A lot of things can change in seven years, Lex changed after all and after the death of his parents and moving to Metropolis, Clark changed too. Possibly he went nuts, but he was sane enough to see through his ruse. Clark still looked like his wimpy self, but how could he get Superman off his back. He needed more information, so he decided to skip the appointment and kidnap Clark. (that went from 0 to 100 real quick I could talk to my old friend...nah I'll kidnap and interrogate him instead) Five minutes after eight Clark was regretful and relieved as he walked to his own dorm and Lex followed him with chloroform. As Lex rounded an alley his toupee was ripped off and he was lifted into the air before Superman used his chloroform against him dropped him at prison, he’d later rage at not knowing Clark’s secret. 

Now disguised as Skvrsky, Luthor heard someone be surprised and he watched the TV the rest of the day. The panel of news people seemed distracted by a noise outside the studio Kristin claimed to be the cause of the calamities. She blew Lana back with a blast of light from her fingers and everyone but Clark scattered, he checked on Lana as the cameras were on him. Kristin told him this charade won't soon be necessary, Clark didn't pay attention until she said her name is CW Saturn and will continue until she destroys the Earth. Clark stayed in character as millions were watching when Kristin blasted off his clothes revealing his Superman suit (insert dramatic chipmunk here) and Luthor threw a fit that that was his secret.  

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