#egads! i wrote a book

[trombone-minivan]

good DAY mr kubbo, i saw the ask game you reblogged and couldn't resist picking an atrocious amount of questions,, so here's the watered down selection:

21: Whats your least favorite movie?

24: What do you dip a chicken nugget in?

25: What is your favorite food?

26: What movies could you watch over and over and still love?

53: Is Christmas stressful?

89: Which are better black or green olives?

90: Can you knit or crochet?

98: Whats your favorite color?

why hello there mr. echho! thank you for your questions, ye shall receive answers:

21: Whats your least favorite movie?

While answering another question, I remembered a movie that would fit this best. That would be "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw". At face value, it is an okay-at-best action movie with a shallow plot and massive explosions, the usual. But for a quote-on-quote "Fast & Furious" movie, the cars in there are like. Not that interesting. I could bore you with a detailed explanation but long story short they are mid compared to actual Fast & Furious movies. So it is not only mid as a movie but also fails in the one area that keeps me around the series (family, if you will) it claims to be a part of.

24: What do you dip a chicken nugget in?

Ketchup most of the time, perhaps some good barbecue sauce if it is at hand.

25: What is your favorite food?

Very good question. Excelllent question even. I'm going to go with pasta with bits of meat and a good cheese sauce. but it's hard for me to pick a favourite since i'm really not a picky eater.

26: What movies could you watch over and over and still love?

- Ford vs Ferrari/Le Mans '66 is the first one that comes to mind. It has fast cars that go vroom and it is centered around car racing and it is based on real events. what more could i want honestly.

- Nimona. Only came out (ha) recently but it's an instant fave of mine. Also the first song that plays during the credits, T-Rex by K.Flay? HEAT.

- Last but not least, the first three Fast & Furious movies (really all of them, but the 4th and onwards to a much lesser degree). Love might be a strong word here, but I can confidently say I enjoy either one, if borderline ironically. also my brain sees cool cars and is happy.

53: Is Christmas stressful?

I mean. A bit? Christmas is one of those times of the year when one has to organize a bunch of things, which inherently brings stress. Planning when to visit which relatives, tidying up the flat/apartment/house, present procurement, etc. etc.

89: Which are better black or green olives?

I don't eat olives usually, probably black tho. Google tells me green ones have a naturally bitter taste.

90: Can you knit or crochet?

NO but I would like to learn crocheting tho. You know, in the sense of "i wanna do this thing" *does not do that thing*

98: Whats your favorite color?

My standard fave would be a dark blue/navy blue but I've started to really like how dark green looks on many things.

Thanks for the ask! ✨

[titconao3]

Fic authors self-rec! ✨ When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you’ve written, then pass on to at least five other writers ❤️

Thank you to @perverse-idyll for thinking of me <3

NGL, that's a tough one - both because i have, as of the time of writing, 170 published works on AO3 (how did this happen!!??), but also because, well. i am Very Bad at choosing and self-promo, so... i'll use the response i got from readers to guide me.

i've answered for HP fic then rambled about other fandoms. And now i should post this before i tweak even more, change my mind about the picks, etc.

If i stick to Harry Potter fics, i'd go with: > Realisations, because it's been recced by others (!!!), and it's first-person narrative, which is a nice challenge to write. i went into it wanting to see if i could do first-person smut, but of course it's mostly feels. If anyone had told me, back when I was still a Hogwarts student, that I’d have a crush on the one and only Severus Snape – dungeon bat, greasy git, Death Eater, etc – I would definitely have laughed. Or, more likely, screamed at you, maybe tried to hex you, and assumed you were a Voldemort supporter.

> The Box, because it's Petunia-centric and it was recced as well (!!!!!). Petunia is a fascinating character, when you take a step back from the children's book trope and try to see what made her the way she is, what would make a person become Petunia Dursley. Petunia Dursley is a sensible woman; she’s always been. She’s not the kind to get all fanciful and trust shady people, oh no. She knows only too well what happens when you do.

> Winter Bloom, written for Hoggywartyxmas for @my--witch. Severus Snape/Kingsley Shacklebolt. i aimed for both humour and feels and flirting. Features Bill Weasley, and Severus in a vintage leather jacket (art by @my--witch !). “Romantic? You’re dressed like Santa; I might be a Death Eater but even I am not that much of a pervert.”

> Fuck, Marry, Kill which got positive feedback for the humour. It's very Idiots In Love, misunderstandings galore, etc. And Firsties dedicated to their Head of House! He’s an addict, after all, like his parents before him – his father to the bottle, his mother to his father, himself to power and now to Potter. Every time Potter’s hand winds into his hair, pulls and then softens, cradles his too-sharp cheekbone and touches his too-thin lips, he can feel the sheer power in it. He could obliterate Severus, if he wished to; he will one day, either because Severus pisses him off one too many times or because he’ll realise all the reasons why this, all of this, is a terrible, terrible idea.

> The Fair - look, i managed a short fic for Snape Case! It's child Sev centric and his parents. Like i do with Petunia, i want to delve into Eileen and Tobias. We don't know much about them, but i like to think about the circumstances that made made Tobias hate magic, that led them both to neglect Severus, that resulted in what little we see of them. i like to think that they loved each other and their son, once. They feature in several of my HP works. He was still hungry afterwards, but he didn’t say anything. He’s only six, but he’s not a dunderhead! He’s heard his parents whisper angrily at each other, heard his dad ask why his mum can’t magic them some money. Every time he does, his mum shakes her head and says she can’t, and every time, his dad goes out and slams the door and comes back after Severus is in bed.

Daredevil AHAHAHAHA omg. What ship? What mood? egads, there are so many. i don't know! i wrote mostly Matt/Frank, Matt/Elektra, and Matt/Foggy.

If i may, i'll start by saying i consider what i do as event admin for @daredevilexchange, @frattweek, and @themattfogblog as work i'm proud of, even if technically they're not fics i've written (well, i did participate several times ;-).

But as for my fics... there's a lot in that fandom and i really can't pick 5, so let's go with some rare pairs, like Matt/Venom/Eddie (Snacks at the Laundromatt), or Matt/Tony Stark (Court Crush), Matt/Cap (Through Your Eyes), or Matt/Hawkeye (Hawkguy and the Devil). There's even Matt/Loki, Green Sleeves! And there's gen as well.

And actually, this is the occasion to remember @dichotomystudios, who unexpectedly passed away a year ago. Her many contributions to the fandom ranged from wonderful art, great canon knowledge, heart-warming cheerleading, dedicated work as part of the SaveDaredevil campaign... to being a friend to many in the fandom. She created three art pieces for The Littlest Catholic, a Frank/Matt fluff, angst, and humour fic featuring dollhouses. We talked a lot about it, exchanged ideas, giggled like loons... she is very missed.

For those of you struggling with Ikea furniture, may i point you to Nailed It for some Schadenfreude - but really, i wrote several Fratt fics going for the lulz (crosswords flirting, dating app adventures...), and i hope readers enjoy them. Also, there's a dog in the Lucy series, and a cat in a fic titled (i kid you not) The Fratt Cat. Yes, i am good at titles. Oh! And the Dog POV fic: A Good Dog !

Let's also mention Crossing the Styx, which was a writing collaboration with @pixelbypixelfanfic. i don't think i could have a better experience with anyone else <3 we wrote this over... oh, over more than a year, and i think in the final result it's really hard to say who wrote what.

There's some more MCU/Marvel stuff, mostly Loki-centric, some shippy like Frayed Threads (Loki/Steve Rogers, there's not enough of you) and some not like in the religion of the insecure (i must be myself) (mentioning that one because lookit, i too can do the all-lowercase song lyrics with brackets title thing!).

i was lucky to collaborate with several artists who are also friends in the general Marvel fandom - @rrr-nightingale and Iithril, looking at you <3 - and @metaderivative podficced several works, including the Dog POV one :D

i dabbled in other fandoms (my What We Do In The Shadows fics are more feelsy than humour, with bonus focus on Zoroastrianism for the second one), the Good Omens one is pre-TV show and not vibing with today's fandom, we should simply forget about the old, old Star Trek TOS stuff, and then there's the whole Lucifer catalogue. i started writing again because of that fandom, but it's also one of the few that i've left behind, for Reasons. However, out of the *checks* 52 fics i wrote there, there's also some fluff, some angst, some smut, some plot. Even the de-aging plots, the mega depression fics, the Latin titles, the let's think real hard about death fics, the bodies and sex are hard omg fics, mixing humour and feels, having religious themes (Lucifer angsts about being Lucifer! Matt Murdock decides to become a monk!!) etc. I did start several trends of mine there ;-)

Sorry for the ramblings; i figured you wanted only the HP stuff but i wasn't 100% sure. i have a small enough number of HP fic out for now so it's easier to pick 5, but for the rest? ...nah, can't °_°;;;

[whoslaurapalmer]

hot poison for breakfast takes. sizzly. spoilery   

- @lyeekha i think you’re 100% right, this book is very much “daniel handler wrote this book using lemony snicket as a pseudonym”  -especially with the mention of the fear of being kidnapped, brought up in this specific way, which danhan has expressed was a childhood fear of his  -“sylvia” and “terry” and assuming what other people’s lives are like remind me of entry four in danhan’s slate diary posts from 2000  -the boy who refused to eat a poached egg sounds very much like it could be his son, especially because he mentioned his son’s love of nonfiction in an interview a few weeks ago in relation to poison for breakfast and why he wrote it  -danhan’s swimming hobby  -the focus on being a writer and being at writing events, even though lemony himself also is a writer but i don’t think lemony sees himself strictly as a writer 

-i mean i don’t know WHAT i expected, out of poison for breakfast, but i do not think it was exactly this?????  -like it’s a GREAT book in terms of philosophy, writing (i especially love other writers talking about how they edit. i find it very comforting, to know we all edit in relatively the same way.), consideration of humanity  -but it is danhan. 

-i did try, for a little, to think about fitting the details in the first chapter into a timeline in lemony’s life  -but it does make a lot more sense if you just take it as danhan’s life, especially because there is such a hole where vfd or even the memory of it would be  -not that i was EXPECTING vfd  -and also like!!!! lemony deserves to be happy!!!! i loved the thought of old man lemony sitting around and eating whatever he wanted for breakfast and reading whatever he wanted. that was so comforting. i loved that thought. it was like a nice sweet hug.  -and i thought of the house by the lake as a sort of ‘pre-apprenticeship vfd-adjacent headquarters situation re: buildings’ because of how he said he went there with family but then never mentions his family  -and i tried to consider the running down the street at night/the kidnapping (cause it was kidnapping) from a clear vfd standpoint  -but then i felt bad that i was doing that because this was such a humongous tone difference from anything previously and i felt like saying those things was me, imposing something on the narrative, and i felt like i was being stupid  -but i think there is a gentleness in lemony, particularly older!lemony, that is absent here  -and again it’s not terrible that it’s danhan, yeah????? because the book truly does say a lot of beautiful, beautiful things, it’s just very unexpected in comparison to the rest of, i guess a ‘snicket canon’ in a sense  -there were some moments that reminded me very much of lemony though!!! the “loneliness savant” in particular. the discussion about how to make eggs. i feel called out because i flip my fried eggs (but i still make them with a runny yolk.) the “egad!”. the fact that the writing style really does remind me of atwq in places, like i felt from the style guide  -but i am very reluctant to say that this is for sure narrated by lemony  -oh i feel rather petty about that. 

-you know. -have i ever not recognized my own handwriting?  -no. -because i think a great deal about how terrible my handwriting looks, and i love looking at the way people write, not from a handwriting analysis standpoint, but in terms of how distinct it is between people and how family members can have similar but still distinct styles (i can imitate my brother’s writing, we do some similar letters, and when we get letters from my great-aunt it looks a lot like my grandmother’s)  -i feel like i’m being petty about this too so i’ll stop 

other notes from while i was listening to it 

-i have had a deep love of patrick warburton from a young age bc of seinfeld, so it was nice to hear him read it, very relaxing, very good, but patrick warburton is still not entirely my image of lemony (-also the last time i saw patrick warburton he was on celebrity family feud a month or so back and he had a mustache. and we all know how i feel about mustaches. it was uncanny.)  -there were some spots i think he actually sounded a little like danhan, though, too. 

-before i thought about danhan and before i got to the end i was like, “i am imagining an alt!universe lemony, who has never been in vfd, who has never lived a life of danger, who has never been on the run except to have a good time, who does not have to care about what goes in tea, who lives pleasantly alone on a hill and has friends and acquaintances and lived with his family and kept secrets to keep them and not because he had to, who somehow still gets poisoned, hold on isn’t that danhan though” 

-oh!! the joke about the ugly baby, that’s a classic one, I know I’ve heard it on the jack benny show -and i loved the lists a lot. 

-i took a break after chapter 2 to make lunch, and making lunch after listening to a man talk about how he made breakfast and was poisoned (well.) was slightly strange. -for the record, I had tuna. -i knew the tuna was not poisoned. but i was like. you know???????  -and while I was eating lunch I was reading the recent tv guide which talked about an upcoming netflix show about a woman who was poisoned and had 24 hours to live and seeks revenge so that was also. something  

-the woman, in the, photograph  -i’m just gonna let that one go 

-suggesting words for “surprising” to the translator – some time ago I wrote a short unfinished fic where lemony finds a newspaper with a headline implying he and bertrand are having an affair, and he and beatrice and bertrand sit around trying to come up with a better word than ‘torrid’ to describe their relationship  -it just reminded me of that.  -i also did have a moment of ‘wow! that happened’ about the ‘going to the least suspicious place’ because it reminded me so strongly of saying lemony hides in the least likely places  -but anyway 

-supermarket was still a big highlight. sinnerman and bread. i just love that so much. 

[the-golden-ghost]

Dracula: A Comprehensive Summary

Part 1 (I wrote the whole thing out and it was too long, so I’m gonna do it in parts.)

This is so that @necromancy-savant can participate in that sweet, sweet Classroom Discussion and Get An A

Also because I was super bored HERE WE GO:

Chapter 1:

Here we meet the guy who you’d think would be our hero but isn’t, Jonathan Harker. He is a good soul. Really likes his fiancee, Mina.

He is traveling to Transylvania to meet his new client, a gentleman known as Count Dracula.

As he’s going there he talks about the food too much and describes the scenery a lot. But what’s this? The locals constantly make the Anti-Evil Sign at him whenever he mentions his destination? Rumors abound of a warlock, demon or other spooky spook living in Dracula’s castle?

But that’s surely all superstitious nonsense, says Jon. Those silly locals.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also wolves exist outside the castle and some of them chase Jon’s carriage so surely this is going to be a good trip.

(Also just a note on how the book is written; it’s done in like a collage format, with different parts being done as different people’s journals, or sometimes as memos, letters, or news articles. The first bit is Jon’s travel diary, and then later in the book the narrator will switch like crazy, sometimes multiple times per chapter. It’s a weird style so I thought I’d point that out.)

Chapter 2:

Now it’s time to meet our villain, Count Dracula!

Dracula is this weird old dude with wild hair and a monobrow and protruding fangs and hairy... palms. Yeah really. Jon thinks he’s just the Ugliest Shit but he doesn’t say anything, cause he’s very polite.

Dracula basically is a nice host and leaves Jon all alone at a table to eat like an entire roast chicken by himself. Because he doesn’t eat dinner. Ooooh spooky

Also he likes wolves. He has a bunch of pet wolves. Why?  We Just Don’t Know

Anyway the next day (or night, rather, since all of Drac’s meetings take place at night ooooh spooky) Dracula invites Jon to a business discussion in which they talk about real estate. Because heck

I guess Jon like sells real estate in London. Booyah

And then Dracula goes off on this long creepy tangent about nobility and his bloodline and loosely implies that he’s hundreds of years old.

Oh and he also really likes dead bodies cause that’s not weird

Then he ditches Jon again and Jon goes to shave in his bathroom, only for Dracula to show up for some reason. At which point Jon sees that Dracula does not show a reflection in the shaving mirror! Egad!

Panic ensues, Dracula gets pissed and tosses the mirror out the window, Jon cuts himself with the razor in the event, Drac sees blood and wigs out and briefly strangles Jon before he accidentally touches a crucifix that Jon conveniently had on his neck, which turns him Normal again. And then he just scolds Jon for having such an evil, wicked bad device as a mirror and leaves.

Jon is like “what the fuck how am I supposed to shave without my mirror though :/ “

The next day Jon’s like “all right fuck this shit I’m out” and realizes that - oh dear - he is Locked In.

Chapter 3:

I mean, he can wander around the castle but all the doors are locked.

The next day night Drac and Jon have a long talk about Transylvanian History. It’s boring.

Although Dracula does let it slip that he intends to keep Jon For All Eternity “for at least a month :) “

Jon’s like “ah FUCK no”

And Drac also lays down some Rules like “Don’t Write Letters Telling People How I Live” and “Don’t Wander Around the Castle At Night”

Jon’s like “whatever bro” and goes back to his room where he spots Dracula pulling some Spiderman bullshit along the side of the castle wall.

Like, crawling along the side “like a lizard”

Jon’s like “all right fuck this noise” and decides to break the Don’t Wander Around the Castle At Night rule.

He breaks into a locked room which is Clearly A Great Idea and wakes up - to no one’s shock except Jon’s - in moral peril.

Basically Dracula’s three wives live in that room and Boy Are They Hungry.

They attempt to eat Jon except Dracula shows up and tells them all to fuck off so they just retreat and eat a baby that they were carrying around in a bag? I guess?

Chapter 4:

Jon wakes up and everything seems normal. Or Is It?

It isn’t. Drac starts making him write Fake Letters home so that he can make it look like Jon vanished on the road home. Oh dear.

Jon begins trying to Escape. It fails miserably.

He also watches Dracula feed some lady to his pet wolves and realizes that He’s Next.

He eventually manages to spot Dracula in his coffin (in the daytime) Nopes the fuck out of there, and goes back to his room which is at this point the only place he feels safe. Ish.

He decides the next that he’s going to find Dracula’s Creepy Coffin and go and steal his key while he’s sleeping. (A+ Plan but he doesn’t really have a lot of options so)

He does this except he gets caught and proceeds to beat Dracula up with a shovel

He doesn’t find the key either. He just plans to Escape By Any Cost and also to rob Dracula while he’s at it because he feels like he’s entitled to financial compensation for putting up with this bullshit lol

AAAAND that’s the end of Jon! No, really. It just ends on a big ol’ cliffhanger and we make a jump to London to meet the rest of the cast. Eventually we find out what happened to poor Jonny, but.... it isn’t good. And that is why Jon is Not Our Hero! He’s not dead though don’t worry

Chapter 5:

Time to meet the Rest of the Squad!

Mina Murray (eventually, Harker) is our Fearless Heroine. She’s kind, she’s brave, she’s loyal, and she has All The Rationale and Reason of a Man (because nothing like good ol’ fashioned Sexism veiled as compliments!) She’s engaged to Jon.

Lucy Westenra is Mina’s Bestest Buddy and is also a good soul. She’s more of a Society girl. Engaged to a lord and stuff. She also doesn’t have a Man’s Brain :(

Lucy and Mina discuss their love lives through letters back and forth. Mina is waiting for news of Jon, Lucy, meanwhile, had proposals from THREE men!

Who are also significant characters so here we go

Lord Arthur Godalming is the man Lucy actually loves and decides to marry. He’s... I dunno. Pretty boring as a character tbh but he’s there a lot so I’ll mention him.

John Seward (yeah Stoker decided to have two guys with almost the same first name, gj, although Seward mostly goes by Seward and Jon goes by Jonathan) is a doctor at a local asylum. Which isn’t creepy. He likes to Study his patients I guess. I say “patients” loosely cause he only has one and Hoo Boy Are You Going To Hear About That One.

Quincy P. Morris is a cowboy. Yes. A cowboy, straight out of Texas. Why did we need to have a vampire-slaying cowboy? No reason, we just did, AND WE’RE GONNA LIKE IT.

Also Quincy, Arthur and Seward were like college friends or something idk

Moving on

Chapter 6:

Mina goes down to the dock and talks to a weird old man about superstitions of dead people coming to life. Fun times. She’s also trying to figure out where her fiance is :(

Seward actually does some doctor business to take his mind off the fact that Lucy rejected him. He adopts R. M. Renfield (the R. M. doesn’t stand for anything as far as we know) as a patient because he’s the most Interesting of all the lunatics.

And he confesses to pushing him to act more insane because he finds him interesting to study? Seward is a terrible doctor fyi

So Renfield is ah... fun. He keeps pets! Specifically, flies.

Seward says “no flies in your room :/ “ And Renfield promises to get rid of the flies.

So Renfield gets rid of the flies by using them to lure spiders so he can have New Pets!

Seward The Buzzkill says no spiders either

So Renfield just starts fucking eating the spiders AND the flies because He Can’t Have Nice Things. Also he wants to absorb their life

And then Renfield catches a sparrow! And tames it and keeps it as his friend and pet. How the fuck did he get a sparrow in his room? Uh

And then he gets a whole BUNCH of sparrows and any idiot could tell you this is going downhill but Seward is simply too Curious, you see

Anyway Renfield tries to get a kitten

Seward does not give Renfield a kitten

Anyway as it turns out Renfield fucking ate all his pet birds and Seward is like “aha! This is a victory for psychology! I have discovered a new form of lunatic!” and it’s like bro you already knew he was eating the flies, you dork

So Renfield never gets a kitten. :(

[svartikotturinn]

Poems from Murderess

Back in 2013 I translated a young adult fantasy novel by the name Murderess from Hebrew to English. I also wrote a TV Tropes page about it. Nowadays, however, the book is no longer for sale, because the author wrote it when she was a teenager and it’s kinda cringy now.

However, that doesn’t mean I can’t show you my pride and joy from this work: the poetry. The original poetry (four poems in total) had inconsistent rhyming and metre, and I practically had to rewrite them for the English edition. I am particularly proud of the work I did on them.

Bask in its glory below.

The novel describes a mysterious magical race, living in an elaborate system of caves dug into a mountain, with strange customs championing darkness and cruelty, appropriately named ‘the Dark Ones’. This poem appears on the entrance to their cave, and is read by the protagonist.

To come inside, thou must on this slate bleed; For thy departure, fire shalt thou need. A hand with skin intact showeth no true will: It must be cut. Blood must thou yield to spill. Upon this act the gates concede, alas, And thou into our realm canst freely pass.

(The print edition had my editorial mistake, slightly mixing up thou and you.)

Slightly later on, the protagonist finds herself as a guest of honour at a banquet held by the Dark Ones. At one point an old cantor comes onstage as part of the entertainment, and chants the following verse, narrating the story of an ancient king, who happened to be red-headed (which, in that world, was considered auspicious), and ruled over the land from his capital Orce-Blatt.

Hark, ye honour’d! This pass’d in an era of yore, In a kingdom acquir’d by long, bloody war: Then rose a great king by the name of Roythebrune; With a mane tinted copper—a heavenly boon.

He conquered the throne during summer’s cruel heat: By his keen mind and sword was his triumph complete. To Promius his faith he’d aye piously croon As a true man of copper—a heavenly boon.

The grounds for his capital seized he by war; He mended the castle—so telleth our lore— There he laid his great throne for all woes to oppugn As (again) one of copper—a heavenly boon.

Many wives did he husband, as proof of his might, And his folksmen he sent by the myriad to fight. He appointed a Minister of All Platoons: Verily, he was copper—a heavenly boon.

In Orce-Blatt, in his palace, he happen’d to see Gracious Eleanora, the wife of Eurey. To his servants he said, ‘Bring her, ye, hither soon!’ And let us aye remember: his hair was a boon.

One night later, they learn’d she was pregnant, egad! Thus the desperate king made a plan in his dread, But his plan, it appear’d, did he poorly attune— Thus he needed another for him and his boon:

He summon’d the Minister: ‘This must thou yield: That Eurey in the battle be slain on the field.’ Eleanora was his, so is told in our runes: She was only his and his copper-hued boon’s.

I need not tell the ending: ’tis known to us all, In our minds we all bear it well into our pall: Yes, his acts were horrendous, but ’tis picayune: What a mane tinted copper—a heavenly boon!

…

Let this lesson so grave be to everyone told: Every man, bold and humble alike, must go bald!

(The original name for the king was ‘Bagíd’, roughly ‘betrayable’ in Hebrew; the name I chose derives from Icelandic rauðbrúnn /røyðprutn/, ‘red-brown’. My original submission had a certain error, misusing a certain English word I’d heard before and misinterpreted. The published edition used a replacement that broke the original metre and was clearly at odds with the rest of the poem; I fixed it here. Also, you can find my alternative Hebrew version of the poem here.)

Further along the book, the protagonist is wandering through a forest, and is suddenly struck by a strange vision, which may or may not be a flashback to repressed memories or something else altogether—this was apparently supposed to be elaborated on in a sequel, which was never published. She sees a child living in a secluded cabin, and somehow she knows certain details about her, such as the fact that her mother was there on a rare visit. The child and her mother sing the following song.

Have an apple, sit on a tree, Climb to the top, feel the wind blowing free, Laugh and sing every day, scream in joy, run and play, Eat your fill And the day might safe and sound still. There are bandits who roam on the road Full of worry and grame; Your path is laid out—have no fear and no doubt!— And the plains call your name. Brutal wizard of might, you must heed: Never you fear, never you run, Lest your fortune turn bitter indeed. And perhaps when the journey is done And you still breathe and feed, You’ll return to your home once again, eat your fill, And you’ll know that your day has been safe and sound still.

Near the end of the book, the protagonist is temporarily staying with friend she’s made in said forest. At one point, said friend sings one of her favourite songs, which goes as follows.

She opens her eye in a nocturnal hour, Black and enraged, full of murderous power; Roaming the forest, from company cleft; A leaf is exfoliated on her left. She arrives at the village, her victim to seek: The boy who deserted her, heartbroken, meek, Long ago; he is found in his room, on his bed, His thoughts well-concealed inside of his head; She enters the room—he exclaimes in surprise, ‘Murderess, wherefore came you?!��� She slowly replies: ‘For your death.’ She adds briskly, ‘’Tis all I demand.’ She charges at him, knife held tightly in hand; The blood from his throat spraying over her blade, She whispers in glee at the wound she has made, ‘I shall dance on your ashes and kick them about, I shall gleefully sing, I shall joyously shout, I shall thank every day, tears of joy in my eyes, For the blessed arrival of your sweet demise.’

(The song is not clearly related to the plot hitherto—perhaps foreshadowing for an unpublished sequel. The line ‘a leaf is exfoliated on her left’ was one I translated rather faithfully, assuming it was foreshadowing or symbolic in some way, but it turned out that it was included simply because it rhymed in the original.)

[theknittingdiscourse]

Yes the author who wrote several books about a gay character who was basically akin to a god. (Actually more than one if you include Firesong and Andesha.) Who has far more gay characters in her books than you think. Who makes a world that accepts this as normal. That has magic talking horses. Is transphobic. Bitch how?

Like there is no mention of that in the arrows of the Queen at all.

In fact she has a group of people called the Goddess sworn whom are all non-binary. Quite literally androgynous.

As for ablism. You mean how the main character has to control her powers? That she has self hatred and depression and with her power being EMPATHY she can force people to actually go through what she is going through. And this is a part of the story, where she forces a pedophile who raped his daughter to experience EVERYTHING he subjected her to from the girls perspective?

I can see how she can be construed as racist. One of the things that happens is if people have a lot of magic/near a hearthstone their hair turns white and eyes turn blue. But this applies to EVERYONE. including the "white" people. And considering these groups of what are basically native Americans save the white peoples asses? That they are more advanced, and can do things like make glass? Which is seen as really freaking advanced BTW. I think her doing that is more of a way to distinguish who is the powerful magic people.

Also before the magic was broken in her books you could have probably argued a powerful enough mage or set of mages could change your gender. Which isn't shown to happen, but Mar. (The big baddie) is able to body morph himself and others.

In fact you could argue that trans people exist and they just change their gender. Then no one cares. Are you talking about Solaris? The son of the son? That bit, son of the sun is a TITLE. like a title of office technically speaking. She isn't Trans either.

Technically speaking too, you could appeal to the gods/goddesses around and they can change your gender too. Because divine intervention exists. I mean you put a lady who writes about a LOT of gay people on a problematic list along with fairly objectively bad people.

This isn't even mentioning Suess who was pretty ashamed of himself. But I've typed enough. Egads is that person stupid.

nothing i can add will be funnier than the reality of seriously trying to cancel shakespeare for being classist

[architectnews]

Dezeen's top 10 most talked-about stories of 2020

This year had its fair share of provocative stories, from Donald Trump drafting new legislation on federal buildings to Bjarke Ingels plotting to redesign Earth. For our review of 2020, digital editor Karen Anderson looks at 10 of the most talked about.

Harikrishnan's inflatable latex trousers create "anatomically impossible" proportions

Readers debated our coverage of menswear designer Harikrishnan's billowing latex trousers, which were created for his graduate collection at the London College of Fashion.

"I really like the pear shape of the white pants," praised Rose Winkler. "I picture them with the same shaped arms on a stage. They feel very medieval. Reminds me of Popeye when he eats his spinach."

"Absolutely love the concept!" added Karen Thomas. "Mad technical skills have gone into creating such art. Especially the time invested in getting those beautiful beads made. Curious to see what's next!"

Find out more about the inflatable latex trousers ›

AIA opposes President Trump's draft rules for Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again

One of the biggest stories this year was news that the Trump Administration planned to introduce an order that all federal buildings should be built in the "classical architectural style".

In response to the draft order, called Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, the American Institute of Architects called on members to sign an open letter petitioning against it. The story on Dezeen attracted more than 323 comments.

"Does this sound familiar? Hitler did that." said Pam Weston. "Similar in aesthetics too. Is anyone besides me scared yet?"

"What's the big deal here?" asked Elrune The Third. "This classical style is part of the national identity and design language of the USA. No one will die because Studio BIG doesn't win the next contract for a courthouse."

Find out more about the opposition to Trump's draft order ›

Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw among architects to criticise Autodesk's BIM software

The story that received the second most comments this year was news that Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw were two of 17 architecture studios to sign an open letter to software company Autodesk, criticising the rising cost and lack of development of Revit.

The president and CEO of Autodesk responded to criticisms of its software, admitting improvements "didn't progress as quickly" as they should have but rejecting claims it is too expensive.

Readers weren't convinced. It's "like charging 2020 prices for a Cadillac on a 2005 Ford Focus," said UTF.

"This software is bad," agreed Michal C. "My life got way shorter thanks to constantly fighting its limits and bad design. Using it in building design is like doing brain surgery using two bricks as the only tools."

Find out more about criticism of Autodesk ›

Masterplanet is Bjarke Ingels' plan to redesign Earth and stop climate change

In October, commenters furiously debated news that BIG founder Bjarke Ingels is creating a masterplan for redesigning Earth.

Approaching Earth like an architect master planning a city, Ingels calculates that even a predicted population of 10 billion people could enjoy a high quality of life if environmental issues were tackled holistically.

But some readers struggled to take Ingels seriously. "Please wake me up when BIG reveals a plan to redesign human behaviour," said Chris Becket.

Don Griffiths was more optimistic: "Lots of good things come from dreaming and scheming outside the box. This man might not have all the answers, but the future is better attended to by the actions of thinkers from the past."

Find out more about Ingels' plan to redesign Earth ›

Coronavirus offers "a blank page for a new beginning" says Li Edelkoort

Some readers reacted with cynicism to Li Edelkoort's predictions for a post-coronavirus future.

Edelkoort described how the disruption caused by coronavirus will lead people to grow used to living with fewer possessions and travelling less.

"How many times has history shown that's not how this works?" responded Rd. "Things will just go back to normal and change will happen slowly over time."

Others found the article comforting. "I take a lot of solace in what Li Edelkoort is saying," said Gerard McGuickin. "In a way, the Coronavirus is perhaps a reckoning for things that have gone before."

Ukrainian architect Sergey Makhno also shared his predictions on how our homes will change once the coronavirus pandemic is over whilst Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky shared his thoughts on how the coronavirus pandemic is likely to change travel.

Find out more about Edelkoort's coronavirus predictions ›

Steel and concrete steps cut through facade of Stairway House by Nendo

Opinions were divided over Japanese design studio Nendo's unusual addition to a multigeneration house in Tokyo – a giant decorative staircase dividing the house in two.

Some felt that the sculptural stairway was too much of a health and safety risk. "I can't imagine living there with a kids," worried Salamoon.

And Room advised people to live a little more dangerously. "If everyone here wants a run-of-the-mill cosy little cottage or bungalow or timber-framed three-bedroom suburban potted plant safety palace, why are you reading this magazine?" they quipped.

Cliff Tan weighed in with some important cultural context. "This is really obvious if you are East Asian," said Tan. "In Feng Shui terms, this site, sitting at the top of a long road, invites too much energy into the site," he added. "The staircase takes all this energy and swoops it towards the sky, keeping the rest of the home calm and protected."

Find out more about Stairway House ›

Bjarke Ingels meets Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro to "change the face of tourism in Brazil"

Bjarke Ingels previously made headlines when the architect met with the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro to discuss developing a tourism masterplan for the northeast region of the country.

"Glad to still see starchitect clamouring to work with corrupt governments," said WYRIWYG. "As long as the fees are high enough..."

"Yeah, because a Danish architect knows exactly how to deal with beaches and the social background of our country," added Edson Maruyama. "We have great architects and urbanists in the country.

Ingels released a statement defending his decision and rejecting the idea that countries such as Brazil should be off-limits to architects.

Find out more about Ingels meeting Jair Bolsonaro ›

Eva Franch i Gilabert fired as AA director for "specific failures of performance"

Another controversial story in 2020 was news that Architectural Association (AA) director Eva Franch i Gilabert was fired.

The decision was taken by the London school two weeks after Gilabert lost a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

"Eva absolutely deserved an opportunity to lead," said AA Dipl. "AA is a testbed for creative ideas and methodologies and sometimes an experiment doesn't prove successful. Yet AA is the only place where one can try and fail and we should admire the school for that reason. "

Hotel Sphinx also commented: "Surely those of us outside the AA community cannot truly understand what has transpired over the past two years, culminating in this decision."

Find out more about Gilabert's dismissal ›

Groupwork designs 30-storey stone skyscraper

Amin Taha's architecture studio Groupwork attracted attention when it designed a conceptual 30-storey stone office block.

The studio said the building would be cheaper and more sustainable than concrete or steel equivalent, but some readers thought it was dull.

"The discussion is all about the material and nothing about the boring design," said Egad.

"I'd rather call it straightforward rather than boring," replied K Anderson. "It's an elegant and well-proportioned tower while taking advantage of the material's natural qualities and production process. Gold doesn't have to glitter.

Taha himself responded in the comments section, saying: "The tower is a simple, sober, yes boring design for the purpose of comparing like for like against standard commercial offices. It is after all only a material, not a style."

Find out more about Groupwork's stone skyscraper › 

Urban planning is "really very biased against women" says Caroline Criado Perez

British writer Caroline Criado Perez wrote a book claiming that cities haven't been designed to suit the lives of women, sparking debate amongst readers.

"I agree with this completely," said Sim. "Last week the design for the longest cycling bridge in Europe was revealed. While it was hailed a triumph, as a woman all I could think of were the evenings I would be cycling home alone and the idea of this bridge scared me."

"Come on!" replied Architecte Urbaniste. "This whole man versus woman urban design discussion is missing the point. Most architecture is designed by teams of people containing both men and women. I've seen groups of women designing completely unliveable urbanism too."

Find out more about Perez's book ›

Read more Dezeen comments

Dezeen is the world's most commented architecture and design magazine, receiving thousands of comments each month from readers. Keep up to date on the latest discussions on our comments page.

The post Dezeen's top 10 most talked-about stories of 2020 appeared first on Dezeen.

[aion-rsa]

How The Animaniacs Reboot Will Be Both Fresh and Timeless

https://ift.tt/36216Vt

Ever since getting the role of Snow Job in the ’80s GI Joe animated series, Rob Paulsen realized that his future was not in a local rock band or appearing in commercials, but in the realm of voice acting. Through the decades, Paulsen has taken on many iconic roles, such as Raphael from the ’80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Donatello from the 2012 reboot, Carl Wheezer from Jimmy Neutron, Mighty Max, Major Glory from Dexter’s Lab, PJ from Goof Troop, Steelbeak from Darkwing Duck, Buck Tuddrussel from Time Squad, and hundreds more.

He’s also a survivor of throat cancer and recently wrote a book about it called Voice Lessons.

Of course, two of his biggest roles that come to mind are Yakko Warner, Pinky, and Dr. Scratchansniff characters from the beloved animated series Animaniacs. Wouldn’t you know it, that series will be coming back this November!

We got an opportunity to talk with Rob about the show’s big return, his book, and what it’s like to be the voice of so many childhoods.

Den of Geek: My first question is about the Animaniacs reboot. So it’s on its way back, which I think we all collectively need right now.

Rob Paulsen: Amen, my friend.

The characters are, by design, timeless. But it’s been a couple decades, so it’s a new show. What is new to the table? What’s being brought in that’s kind of like, “This is the new show.”

Well, it’s… Here’s a little inside baseball. I saw the opening title scene yesterday for the first time. The “It’s time for Animaniacs…” the little song, right?

Never heard of it.

Right. And it’s so cool because it starts out with what everybody knows. You will watch it. As soon as you hear the first downbeat, you’ll go, “Oh my God. I’m 11. I’m 15,” whatever you were. And then it morphs into this appropriate acknowledgement of the zeitgeist, that is to say, the lyrics already tell you right off the bat that we’re in a different time. The lyrics… and it will take people a few times to listen to because we blow through them pretty quick. I’m not going to give it away because I want you to be surprised, but the lyrics in the opening title scene, they let you know that they’re self-aware. They get that the time we’re in is now, and the Animaniacs understand that.

So right away, it, in my view, dispels any fears of them not being hip or getting it. Right away. It’s just, “Okay. Here’s where we are. We know this was a while ago, but here’s… this is the time it is now, and off we go.” And so you already know, and the episodes do not deviate from that. They are appropriately lampooning with currently sacred cows. And it’s a freaking hoot. I was telling folks yesterday that I’m a little bit concerned when things go so well. It’s crazy how humans react. We’re always… And I understand why, because of the nature of what we’re going through. But that show, when we did it, from a clean sheet of paper, turned out to be what you and I are talking about 25 years later and there are, I don’t even know, tens of millions of fans of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. I know how important this is to Spielberg, which alone makes it a big deal.

I’m used to things where whatever you’re working on was a big deal, was a lot of money, lot of music. Well, we got some things back, and they got to tweak them, and they might push the release back. You’re used to that. Doesn’t mean the shows going to be a piece of junk.

We got the first stuff back, and everybody’s flipping out.

“What did Steven say?”

“Oh, he couldn’t stop laughing.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. Look at the video.”

I mean, it’s just… It’s going SO WELL. Everybody, from Steven on down… And trust me, these guys are spending a lot of money, pal. And so if they want to have their input, and they’re going “Oh, no, no, no, no. I don’t really like the way Yakko’s head looks.” Trust me. They’ll stop you. Because it’s a shit ton of money! Not mine, but you’re talking about spending 60 million or whatever. It’s a lot of money, and so they’re not going to just say-

“Good enough.”

Right? None of that is happening. Everybody gets it. I think it’s because the people who are making it are your age, within a few years, and they know how high the bar is. And they were inspired to do this gig because of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. So now in the studio, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve seen more than once, men and women writers on the show who will come in and be there when we’re recording, and they sort of get tearful because they think, “Oh my God. I wrote those words, and I hear them coming out of Pinky and the Brain.” That blows my mind, and it’s really cool to watch because it just doesn’t get a representation of how seminal this show was to so many people who are now in creative arts. It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of.

We haven’t seen any of the real footage of the show’s return, so in the meantime, can you give us any completely fake spoilers? Stuff that’s absolutely not going to happen on the show?

Yes. It is absolutely not going to happen that Dolly Parton will sing in the opening title.

Crap.

That will not happen. Dolly Parton, as much as a lovely woman she seems to be, has nothing to do with the opening theme song of Animaniacs. I can guarantee you that. Let’s see. I can tell you this, that so far, there don’t appear to be as many of the secondary characters as there were in the original show. The original show is a variety/magazine type show, which is where Pinky and the Brain obviously got their foothold and turned out to be their own franchise. So right now, we don’t have Rita and Runt, Mindy and Buttons, Katie Ka-Boom, all those other secondary characters. But there are new ones and other ones.

The ethos that Mr. Spielberg and Tom Ruegger created 25 years ago remains, and that is that Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are the ringleaders. Pinky and the Brain, one could argue, could have their own show without Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. They’re a big deal on their own. And so it wouldn’t have made sense to exclude Pinky and the Brain and Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. In other words, they couldn’t redo the whole thing and say, “We’re going to have Gakko, Kakko, and Smakko,” or whatever. It had to be Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. And frankly, it had to be all three voice actors according to Steven because this is Hollywood, and often in animated shows, you’ll see now that they’ll bring in celebrity talent for their celebrity.

And I mean, I’m an old dog in Hollywood. I know how celebrity works. I accept it. All of that. But it is yet another testament to the experience and the heart of a guy like Steven Spielberg who literally can call any actor in the world and say, “We’re redoing Animaniacs.”

“Oh God, I love that show.”

“Yeah. Me too. We just thought that Liam Neeson should be—”

Hahahaha! Oh God. Can you in the Yakko voice say the line, “I have certain skills…”

(Yakko voice) “Oh, yeah. I have certain skills. Yeah, that’s right. I have… ‘certain’ ‘skills’.”

But you see my point. You’re laughing about it, and it’s true. We laugh about it all the time. Check this out. Maurice’s take on it, because he’s been having dreams at night, because there had been rumors for a reboot for a couple years before it happened. And it’s Hollywood. Shit happens and does happen all the time. And so Maurice said, “My worst fear is that they’re going to hire Peter Dinklage as the Brain and Russell Brand as Pinky.”

*cracks up*

Yeah. And I did what you’re doing. I couldn’t stop laughing. I just thought, (Pinky voice) “Egad! You really are a short fellow!”

I’m just imagining the two of them doing live-action cosplay.

Oh, yeah. Right?! No kidding! It’d be fantastic! But again– Isn’t it great that all we’re talking about is making us laugh? That the bottom line is that the unchallenged King of Hollywood chose, and he said it was never a question, never a question of, “How can we make this here work? Should we hire…” I don’t know, give me a famous young female popstar, “to be the voice of Dot. Cross-promote. She’s already got eight million Twitter followers.” All that stuff. That never entered into the equation. It was all about the reason these characters are beloved is for many reasons, and not the least of which are the actors who all can still do it at the same level, and they want to. And so, okay, that’s taken care of. That’s a big deal. Do you know what I mean?

That in and of itself tells you a lot about how important Steven views this property because it was not about who can sell the most merchandise, who’s got the most Twitter followers. It was about this show is a show that’s successful for its own sake. You’re talking to 50% of the Ninja Turtles, pal. I know all about action figures. And I’m very proud of that show still. It will go on and inspire artists for decades to come. But Animaniacs is not about that. And when you have a piece of art for the sake of the art, and Mr. Spielberg utterly gets that, it’s being done for the right reasons. Obviously, there’ll be merchandise. Great. But it’s not about who’s famous enough to bring 10 million extra followers to the show. It’s not about that. And I’m so proud of the whole experience, man. It’s really something.

So “Yakko’s World” is a “Stairway to Heaven” of Animaniacs songs.

Right. And I’ve used that line my own self. You’ve got excellent taste. That’s exactly what I say. When we do Animaniacs Live with orchestras and stuff around the country, it’s just incredible. Really fun.

Around where I live, there’s a rock station that always does the best classic rock songs, but the joke is, “We all know what number one is.”

Right. It’s got to be “Stairway.” It’s got to be. Yeah. And so I tell people all the time, it’s like, “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. It’s been a wonderful evening, and before we finish tonight, we just want to let you know that to the extent that you spent this money and waited an hour and a half for this song, here’s our ‘Stairway to Heaven.’” Everybody flips out, and it’s fantastic. And that song… And again, I’m good at my job, but in Hollywood, you could throw a dart and hit a good singer. They may not like getting hit with a dart, but you see my point. I’m really good at my job, but Jesus Christ, I ought to be. I’ve been doing it for 40 years. But what you cannot do in Hollywood or New York or Nashville is hit someone who could write that type of music over and over and over again. And Randy Rogel is a uniquely gifted individual and profoundly overachieving. I mean, the guy is… He’s a West Point grad. He’s a graduate of Boston University. He was a huge success in corporate American. Then he thought, “No. I’m really about music and comedy,” and got a gig on Batman: The Animated Series and won an Emmy. And then he heard about this fun cartoon music show called Animaniacs. He banged on that door. And check this out:

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His audition piece to get the gig on Animaniacs, which ultimately won him three more Emmy’s because he’d already won one on Batman… But the song that he wrote and he had in his back pocket to get him the gig was “Yakko’s World.” Now, that’s pretty freaking remarkable, that you’re going like, “Wait a minute. This is where we’re STARTING? This is what you got to say what do you think?” That’s just outrageous. And he has not disappointed. He’s written a bunch of new songs for the new show. But I have to tell you that every single time we do “Yakko’s World,” it gets a standing ovation. And people have heard it. I mean I can do it backwards and forwards and all that. But I’ve don’t it a zillion times. And it’s not… Randy and I are the ones getting the accolades. It’s very wonderful, but it’s not about us. And we know that. It’s that fucking song. It’s so wonderful and so unique and it’s just a privilege to be able to perform it. It’s wonderful.

But what’s the second place? What’s you’re second favorite of all of all time?

Favorite of Randy’s? Oh God. That’s a tough call. But we do, in the show, the live show, we do probably 20 songs, 25 songs including songs that didn’t make it and a bunch of songs from a follow-up show with that crew called Histeria!. There was some brilliant songs in that. But my second favorite I think has to be… Well, there are two that really come to mind. One is called “I’m Mad” in which Yakko, Wakko, and Dot go on a day trip with Dr. Scratchansniff, who I also played that character as well. And the kids get into a fight in the car, and it’s a really wonderful song and an excellent cartoon pattern, back and forth. It’s just great. I love “I’m Mad.”

And also, Randy wrote a song. He was charged with responsibility of trying to teach young folks the concept of time, and he wrote a song called “When You’re Traveling from Nantucket.” And I love that song. Just a little bit of it goes,

“When you’re traveling from Nantucket through Chicago to St. Paul, And you’re standing at an airport and you look upon the wall, There’s a clock for every city and a different time for all, From Asia through Malaysia to Peru. Did you ever wonder why that when it’s six o’clock in Maine, At precisely the same moment it is eight AM in Spain? When it’s breakfast time in Rome, they’re having lunch in the Ukraine, And it’s supper up in upper Kathmandu. If the Earth is spinning faster while the sun is moving past her, then a day might only be an hour long. And school, when they begin it, would only last a minute, and everybody’d have to run along. If the Earth were the planet that was closest to the sun, A year would be much shorter, and you’d have a lot of fun. Because the time you’re in first grade, you’d be over 21, And you’d live to be 903 or 4.”

I mean, that’s genius!

I think I just went cross-eyed right there…

Right? And what he’s saying is true. But it’s presented in such a way that it’s whimsical, it’s entertaining, it’s a little mind-blowing. It makes you go, “Whoa, whoa, wait, what?” And it’s all true because it’s all physics. It’s all science. We know that all of that stuff is true. We just look at a clock. But he explains in two minutes and change about the concept of why that works.

He says,

“The international date line is an imaginary cleft. Today is on the right side, tomorrow on the left. So when you cross it, do you then arrive the day before you left? That’s how it’d work. It’s quite berserk, you see? So if you were born in China, while I’m born in Carolina, Then you’re ahead of me, you see? But the way I’ve got it reckoned, if we’re born in the same second, Then why should you be a day older than me?”

And it’s exactly the sort of thing that you go how does he… What the… Wow. Wait a minute. I’m going to Australia, and it’s tomorrow? What? So that’s my second favorite song for precisely the same rambling reason I gave you. I know I have a tendency to talk too much, but hell, I’m Yakko, so that’s what I do.

About a year ago, you released your autobiography Voice Lessons where you discuss some of your biggest roles, your bout with throat cancer, Bob Seger being awesome, Mel Brooks being less than awesome, and so on. What was the impetus that made you want to write the book?

Thank you for asking and mentioning the book. It was a big deal for me.

I had had many very well meaning fans, very kind, generous fans say to me, “Dude, you should write a book,” kind of in the same thing of what you were so kind to say at the beginning of our chat, my prodigious IMDB page, whatever. Well, look at Frank Welker’s, look at Maurice’s, look at Tress MacNeille. Jesus. All of them. Danny Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, all of us, because of animation can knock out two or three episodes in a day, and after 20, 30 years, it looks a lot more impressive than it is. Nonetheless, I had a lot of characters in my wheelhouse that had a profound effect on millions of people. And I started to meet these fans, and they were very kindly suggesting, “Oh my God, Mr. Paulsen. You really should write a book.” And I accepted the compliment and the spirit in which it was delivered, and I’m very grateful. But I honest to God…

Look, I’ve grown up in Hollywood. I was 22 when I moved here. And I understand celebrity, and I understand the relative nature of celebrity and it’s power. But again, like I said, I didn’t really understand the power of the characters because I’m not recognized walking down the street. Now, I get it. But in those days, this is probably 8, 10 years ago, I said, “Man, that’s really sweet, but the last thing the world needs is another celebrity memoir from a non-celebrity.” And it’s not false modesty. I am not Brad Pitt. I am not George Clooney. I am not George Hamilton. I’m Rob Paulsen. I’m good at my job, but the characters are famous. I don’t draw them. I don’t write them. And I could never do that. It is a deeply collaborative effort that makes me come across like a freaking rockstar. So there was no reason for me to write a self-aggrandizing book. My ego doesn’t work that way.

BUT, a big giant but, then I got throat cancer. And while I never freaked out, I never said, “Oh my God! I have throat cancer! I’m a voice actor! Why couldn’t it be hair cancer?!” I didn’t do that because what I had learned in the interim between when nice people said I should write a book and my cancer was, as I had mentioned, the extent to which these characters have. Their words sometimes saved their lives. Their words. Over and over again. That’s at the… the most powerful end. At the very least, it’s, “You have no idea how much joy this brought to me and my father,” or, “I didn’t get along with my dad on anything. In fact, we hated each other. Then he introduced me to Pinky and the Brain, and we bonded. My dad passed away a year ago. I’m fine with it. But you have got to know…” Okay. So all that stuff, and it was countless times that it happened.

And when I got diagnosed with throat cancer and people found out after the fact, because my wife and I didn’t put it out there. We didn’t want sympathy, we didn’t need… I was 59 years old when I was diagnosed. Even if the doctors had said, “Dude, you’re on your way out. You better go home and get your shit in order,” I had nothing, nothing about which to be sad. Nothing. But what happened was, I made it. The treatment was absolutely brutal for obvious reasons. Mouth, throat, can’t eat, can’t swallow. It’s rough. It is for everybody. But you know what? It’s not as rough as your eight year old boy not making it through leukemia or your six year old girl who talked to Pinky and then six days later, parents call and say, “Tiffany passed away, but thank God she got to talk to Pinky.” And that stuff happens all the time. All the time. I have boxes of letters that are personally just unbelievable compelling.

That is the story, that my experience with throat cancer taught me through these characters and hundreds of children that Yakko, Raphael, Donatello, Carl, you name it have spoken to. And we all do it, not just me. But in my case, I had a very unique cancer because of what I do. And that story was powerful because not only did I make it through, but I learned the real power of those characters. They helped me get through THE most difficult year of my life. I mean, it was rough. But the people out there whose children passed away years before I got my cancer, they got ahold of me and said, “Hey, here’s the last picture of you talking to Jordan before he died of lung disease. Remember this? We heard about your struggle, Mr. Paulsen. Please know how much those characters meant to our son who’s been gone now for 10 years. But we have this picture on our wall, and it’s you talking to him. And you probably don’t remember.” And often I didn’t.

But they sought me out to tell me how powerful these characters were. Then I thought, now the book is worth it. I’m not going to sell a million copies of that book. Doesn’t matter. It was an appropriate thing to do, and it’s a clear example and a compendium of how powerful joy is, how powerful laughter is, and that courage, empathy, kindness, joy, laughter, like love, often come from the most unexpected places. And in my case, it was from a bunch of freaking cartoon characters that people say saved their lives in some respects or made their children’s deaths more tolerable. And if they say that to me, it’s got to be the same for Kevin Conroy. It’s got to be the same for Mark Hamill. It’s got to be the same for Maurice, Tom Kenny. So that’s what this was about. It’s just, I’ve learned so much about all of them from these parents and their children. And that’s why the book is important to me.

Well, for the last question, going back to the book, I want to take something from it and just kind of flip it around back at you. You got to work with Russell Johnson, the Professor from Gilligan’s Island. And the question you asked him is the question I’m going to ask you right now:

What’s it like to be part of television history?

Oh, bless your heart. It is a bigger privilege than I could have ever imagined. Thank you very much, firstly, for suggesting that I am. And I’m not going to be so coy and so silly as to suggest that I am not because I am. And it doesn’t have to be… It’s one of those things. I am. When you’ve done this much work, you are, like it or not. I love it because it means that I’ve fulfilled my dream. I’ve made it. I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor. Rich is better. I am not independently wealthy. I am still going to try to make as much money as I can. But if I die at this moment, apart from the fact that it would be inconvenient for you and probably leave my car stranded in the middle of the street, I’ve made it. I’ve done what I set out to do. And I don’t have a star on the Walk of Fame. I don’t have an Oscar. I have an Emmy and a couple of Peabody’s and a bunch of other things, and I’m very proud of those. But I really do know, especially because I’m not a celebrity, that that is not what it’s about. The Emmy and five bucks will get you a Frappuccino. I’m not going to give it back, but it’s not about that. It’s about the relationships. It’s about the characters, their timelessness.

Russell Johnson, I don’t know if it’s in the book because I frankly don’t remember, but what Mr. Johnson told me when I… I asked him that question. You’re right. And he could not have been more gracious, though he’d probably been asked a zillion times. I mean, Jesus Christ. He’s the freaking Professor! And you don’t even have to qualify him. You go, “The Professor? Oh, yeah. Gilligan’s Island. Okay.” Pop culture icon. And he said essentially the same thing I’m saying, “You know. Didn’t make a lot of money on the show. I made 1500 bucks a week at the top of the show.” Now, 1500 bucks a week in the 60s was a good living, but not even close to… Okay.

But he said, “You know what, Rob? My wife and I had a six weeks tour of Europe, and even when we were staying at monasteries with brothers who were almost sworn to silence, celibacy and silence, every single person knew who I was. And every single time, they wanted to hug me, embrace me, show me that they once dressed up like the Professor for Halloween.” And he said, “I don’t even… When I’m dead, that will still be going on.” And he’s right. Gilligan’s Island is playing all over the world.

And when I’m dead and gone, hopefully a little later because I’m definitely closer to the end than the beginning, but because of my incredible good fortune, working with the best of the best… All of them, by the way, are lovely people. That’s what this is about. The joy of the people to create joy that translates to hundreds of millions of others is what it’s all about. We were paid well, and that’s all true. But you spend the money, and ultimately, as they say, you can’t take it with you. And what I’m leaving behind, and what all these… Seriously. I’m dead freaking serious. I would have to work really hard to come up with one person who you would know and their work, who is anything but not only professional but just delightful, including celebrities with whom I know with work and know very well. Really nice, nice, nice people. That’s what it’s about. Nice people, talented people with the best of the best.

And I got to work with Steven��� Now, this my sixth time. And as a result of all of that, my legacy is nothing but joy. Period. How much better can one’s life be? I don’t know. Maybe things will change, but I’m not going to be able to write a check for eight million bucks to open a hospital wing. But I don’t need to. I got paid to do what used to get me in trouble in high school, and after 40 years of it, and maybe another 10 or 12 to go, I will have fulfilled my dream way, way, way more than I ever could have imagined. And when I’m dust, you will be talking to maybe you’re grandkids, “I talked to, oh what was his name? Ron? Ron Paulmen? Yeah. He seemed like a pretty decent guy. He didn’t shut up for a whole freaking hour, but he seemed like a decent guy. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. This is the second version of Pinky and the Brain. Yeah this is from 2021. Yeah check this out.” And that’s what it’ll be. Bugs is 80 years old, and people still love Bugs. So anyway. That’s my story, and I sadly am not able to be more concise. But I hope you understand how much I appreciate my circumstances, moreover, nice people like you giving me so much time to talk about it.

It’s been nothing but a pleasure.

Thank you, buddy.

And that was a hell of an answer.

Thank you. It’s the freaking truth. It happens every day. Every day. Now it’s because I’m wearing a mask that a fan might have made for me of Ninja Turtles or Raphael or whatever. I’ve got a bunch of them, and they’re really sending them to me. So I’ll wear a mask. I had an Animaniacs one on the other day at Trader Joe’s. And a person said, “Oh my God. I love your mask. Where did you buy that?” And I explained what I did, who I was. The blood drained out of the guy’s face. He said, “Are you kidding me?” He said, “Wait a minute. Are you Rob?”

And I said, (Yakko voice) “Yes I am. Here’s my driver’s license.” And the guy started shaking. I mean, it was… You would have thought he met one of the Beatles. But it was just happy. It was just joy.

And I know he’s going to call his buddies, and it’s going to be, “Oh my God. This old guy walked into and he’s got gray hair, but as soon as he said, (Pinky voice) ‘Egad! Poit! Narf!’ it didn’t matter!”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

And that’s what this is about.

The post How The Animaniacs Reboot Will Be Both Fresh and Timeless appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/32UKhKk

[huskybcake]

Egads the new arcana books hurt me in so many ways, and I haven't even read them yet.

I look forward to reading them! And please bear with me, for I am the devil's advocate... So let's debate the one-time and future costs of the game that I've already said I'd pour money into. And REMINDER, the game is still FREE. You don’t need to pay a dime for this. WHICH IS FANTASTIC. 

But let's face it, we would choose the juicy scenes when possible.

So let’s break this down, if you did buy books.

Each book for each character has only 3 chapters a piece. $10 doesn't sound like a lot, once. Maybe even twice. But $30 for 9 chapters (to buy all characters). Then potentially $30 the next month. You're at 18 chapters. $90 into your third month... At 27 chapters. And yes, I'm rounding the .01 cent.

I feel like it might save more time to set it up to be $30/month auto pay system. But by then that's more then any MMO, that I'm aware of, on the market.

Of course that's if you want all the books. Again, it's $10 for one character's book approximately each month. Which is on par with several MMORPG's on the market...

 But a single coin purchases doesn't unlock anything permanently, so that's rather a useless option and a waste of money (until they change that...?) So buying anything less than a book is ineffective unless you want NO replay-ability. Again, waste of money.

I still have to buy previous books and want to buy the next books.

But... Doing future math? Buying books every month is going to get very costly, very quickly.

Let's assume someone only buys one book every month. That should be $120 a year. That's also:

About 7 350+ page paper back novels

24 $5 foot longs from Subway

2 brand new AAA video game titles

3~4 not new AAA video game titles

8~9 months of WoW or FFXIV (the two most populated pay-per-month MMORPG'S)

1~2 months of a cell phone bill

An 8-12 hour work day (gross pay)

Roughly 6~8 tanks of gas (depending on car/condition)

Personally?

2~3 weeks worth of groceries

My car loan payment

My car insurance payment

1.5 months of my dogs epilepsy medication

If you want all the characters? Well that's $30 each month. That's $360 a year.

Oh and one more thing: i believe you'd save $2.80 a year if you bought every book by spamming the 100 coins/1.99 option versus the 500 coin option. So, there is your penny specific savings. And hey, that's a McDonald's breakfast sandwich.

And I get this too: it's a small game. Android has it at just 100,00 downloads, at the time I wrote this (10/28/2017). I'd imagine iOS is about the same.

So, is it worth it to spend up to $360 a year on a, albeit lovely, mobile game?

What could you spend $360 on?

Could you win the 1000 coins? Sure. But the devs said that there's only been 147 1000-coin wins (on 10/16/17 via tumblr). Let's assume there's another 100000 downloads on iOS. If everyone actually spins everyday that means there's a .07% chance of getting it. Now, people probably don't spin everyday, so let's put it at a 1-5% chance. Keep trying!

However, I seem to only be able to make either my wallet hurt, or my feelings hurt.

I think one moment in the story puts it in the best perspective for me: you either pay money to sleep in a bed, or you don’t and you sleep in a hole.

[chibioniyuri]

Embrace the Night Reread: Chapters 6-10

Guys, I’m not gonna make it. It’s so freaking close and my heart goes into giddy palpitations and I start hyperventilating and I’m so massively sleep-deprived because I’m trying to get through as many stories as I can before Ride the Storm hits. But it’s so fucking close and I can’t stand it.

I’m really glad to have at least started the reread, though. It’s been so long since I read the first four books that it’s almost like I’m reading them again for the first time. Only this time, I’m going slower and I get to catch the little hints all laid out in the beginning and tied in later.

I have through chapter 23 read, but most of my notes are a jumbled mess. I had the brilliant idea to listen to the audiobook during my commute to work today, and since typing and driving together are not recommended, decided to use the speak-to-text function on my phone. But either I do not enunciate or I was using terms it didn’t recognize, which leads to gems like “Maybe we had to speed up the process Martin is a badass” which... what? This is gonna take a while.

Chapter 6

Tami nulls magical tracking spells, which makes it all the weirder that mages caught her. Maybe some vamps helped tip them off so they would have a weapon against Cassie?

The details about the misfits and the mage schools weaves a little more of the mage’s world for the reader. It’s dark and kinda twisted, segregating off the undesirables and encouraging them not to have children so they don’t pass on their genes. It adds nuance to the story, much as I hate what the Council is doing to the children. It’s not perfect, as we see in future books as well.

Chapter 7

So, we’ve met a few people who could be the conman we’re watching for. Pritkin, with his mysterious past and unknowable intentions. Mircea, who doesn’t want to complete the geis despite overwhelming pain and encroaching insanity. Jesse, who clearly isn’t divulging all the children’s abilities, though the last bit of the Tarot states that you likely will not know you’re being deceived so probably not. Apollo, who keeps promising he’ll teach Cassie all she needs to know about her power, but only after she completes this one task. And Nick, who appears absolutely harmless but since he’s a war mage, likely has hidden depths.

I’m absolutely tickled pink by Pritkin trying to write a new spell for Cassie. Cassie’s pretty dismissive because she neither knows his abilities nor his knowledge. But Pritkin has likely already tried the counterspell several times over by this point and knows the Codex Merlini will be useless because it’s the same spell he’s already tried. So, researching, which he appears to hate, and trying to develop a new counterspell for a spell he wrote and is currently endangering his Pythia…. I just wonder if the creative process was this stressful for him in his more youthful days or if he always looks and acts like a garbage dump when advancing magic. (I’ll admit, there’s a bit of hero worship here. I’ve long been a fan of Merlin since Disney’s Sword in the Stone.)

For someone who doesn’t like flying by the seat of her pants, Cassie seems to fly by the seat of her pants a lot. She makes rash, impulsive decisions without listening. She lets the status of Pythia go to her head; she hears “leader of the magical community” and thinks it means everyone will be upfront with her, spill personal family secrets, fall all over themselves completing her bidding.... For example, The Codex is useless for her. Her answer:  I don't believe you, I'm going to keep looking. “This dude is seriously shady and will get you to give away your firstborn.” Don’t care, gonna meet him. She’s desperate to save Mircea, and it’s making her act impulsively and erratically. Add into the mix that Tami is missing and she’s suddenly responsible for a group of kids…. But hey, that’s good practice for when she’s suddenly hosting the Pythian court in her suite.

Chapter 8

Second moon reference of the book, on her dress. Does it pop up when death is imminent, maybe? Would be a neat tie-in with her mother’s myths.

Yeah, kinda gross setting here. Lots of blood, dismembered limbs, flies and their young. Gross, gross, gross.

Nick is really, really motivated for info on the Codex. Like, really motivated. Damn, dude, chill it with the “touch the corpse to get a vision” suggestion.

Cassie, darling, don’t give your name to supernatural people you don’t know, it could end badly for you.

Oh no, Pritkin had an assassination assignment? He killed Saleh? Was it to keep Cassie from getting information about the Codex? The mystery deepens, and his likelihood of being the one the Magician Reversed increases D=

Chapter 9

Egad, Billy and Cassie’s chat sounds so much like two best friends beating down the guy who broke up with one of them. And everything she sees reminds her of him afterwards, too.

And there's a hint that Cassie misunderstands her and Billy's relationship. I mentioned before, but being raised by vamps messed Cassie up quite a bit. Not everyone is looking out for their own self-interests all the time. Friends will choose not to accept something you're offering if they know it'll hurt you in the process.

Now I'm imagining Rafe and baby Cassie together. So cute!

I need to pay more attention any time Cassie feels something is off. Clues all over the place that Tami is involved in something beyond what she did when Cassie was with her.

Chapter 10

Not gonna lie, Rosier can be incredibly sexy, even if the more recent books totally ruin that image. And even if Pritkin thinks his dad's only concern is the Ephesian Letters, I could see Rosier going this far to protect his son's identity as well. Whether that's because it will be more difficult to drag his son to hell if a bunch of mages know he took away their Merlin or because it would cause his son genuine distress is debatable.

And I have to wonder if Mircea saw her shift out of the handcuffs. Cassie goes out of her way to mention forgetting to look around and make sure no one was watching. And it's awfully convenient that he has handcuffs she can't shift out of later. But maybe that's some of that critical thinking that I don't employ very often.

[nowontheroad]

PART FOUR

1

I came into some money from selling my book. I straightened out my aunt with rent for the rest of the year. Whenever spring comes to New York I can't stand the suggestions of the land that come blowing over the river from New Jersey and I've got to go. So I went. For the first time in our lives I said good-by to Dean in New York and left him there. He worked in a parking lot on Madison and 40th,, As ever he rushed around in his ragged shoes and T-shirt and belly-hanging pants all by himself, straightening out immense noontime rushes of cars.

When usually I came to visit him at dusk there was nothing to do. He stood in the shack, counting tickets and rubbing his belly. The radio was always on. "Man, have you dug that mad Marty Glickman announcing basketball games -up-to-midcourt-bounce-fake-set-shot, swish, two points. Absolutely the greatest announcer I ever heard." He was reduced to simple pleasures like these. He lived with Inez in a coldwater flat in the East Eighties. When he came home at night he took off all his clothes and put on a hip-length Chinese silk jacket and sat in his easy chair to smoke a waterpipe loaded with tea. These were his coming-home pleasures, together with a deck of dirty cards. "Lately I've been concentrating on this deuce of diamonds. Have you noticed where her other hand is? I'll bet you can't tell. Look long and try to see." He wanted to lend me the deuce of diamonds, which depicted a tall, mournful fellow and a lascivious, sad whore on a bed trying a position. "Go ahead, man, I've used it many times!" Inez cooked in the kitchen and looked in with a wry smile. Everything was all right with her. "Dig her? Dig her, man? That's Inez. See, that's all she does, she pokes her head in the door and smiles. Oh, I've talked with her and we've got everything straightened out most beautifully. We're going to go and live on a farm in Pennsylvania this summer-station wagon for me to cut back to New York for kicks, nice big house, and have a lot of kids in the next few years. Ahem! Harrumph! Egad!" He leaped out of the chair and put on a Willie Jackson record, "Gator Tail." He stood before it, socking his palms and rocking and pumping his knees to the beat. "Whoo! That sonumbitch! First time I heard him I thought he'd die the next night, but he's still alive."

This was exactly what he had been doing with Camille in Frisco on the other side of the continent. The same battered trunk stuck out from under the bed, ready to fly. Inez called up Camille on the phone repeatedly and had long talks with her; they even talked about his joint, or so Dean claimed. They exchanged letters about Dean's eccentricities. Of course he had to send Camille part of his pay every month for support or he'd wind up in the workhouse for six months. To make up lost money he pulled tricks in the lot, a change artist of the first order. I saw him wish a well-to-do man Merry Christmas so volubly a five-spot in change for twenty was never missed. We went out and spent it in Birdland, the bop joint. Lester Young was on the stand, eternity on his huge eyelids.

One night we talked on the corner of 47th Street and Madison at three in the morning. "Well, Sal, damn, I wish you weren't going, I really do, it'll be my first time in New York without my old buddy." And he said, "New York, I stop over in it, Frisco's my hometown. All the time I've been here I haven't had any girl but Inez-this only happens to me in New York! Damn! But the mere thought of crossing that awful continent again- Sal, we haven't talked straight in a long time." In New York we were always jumping around frantically with crowds of friends at drunken parties. It somehow didn't seem to fit Dean. He looked more like himself huddling in the cold, misty spray of the rain on empty Madison Avenue at night. "Inez loves me; she's told me and promised me I can do anything I want and there'll be a minimum of trouble. You see, man, you get older and troubles pile up. Someday you and me'll be coming down an alley together at sundown and looking in the cans to see."

"You mean we'll end up old bums?"

"Why not, man? Of course we will if we want to, and all that. There's no harm ending that way. You spend a whole life of non-interference with the wishes of others, including politicians and the rich, and nobody bothers you and you cut along and make it your own way." I agreed with him. He was reaching his Tao decisions in the simplest direct way. "What's your road, man?-holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how?" We nodded in the rain. "Sheeit, and you've got to look out for your boy. He ain't a man 'less he's a jumpin man-do what the doctor say. I'll tell you. Sal, straight, no matter where I live, my trunk's always sticking out from under the bed, I'm ready to leave or get thrown out. I've decided to leave everything out of my hands. You've seen me try and break my ass to make it and you know that it doesn't matter and we know time-how to slow it up and walk and dig and just old-fashioned spade kicks, what other kicks are there? We know." We sighed in the rain. It was falling all up and down the Hudson Valley that night. The great world piers of the sea-wide river were drenched in it, old steamboat landings at Poughkeepsie were drenched in it, old Split Rock Pond of sources was drenched in it, Vanderwhacker Mount was drenched in it.

"So," said Dean, "I'm cutting along in my life as it leads me. You know I recently wrote my old man in jail in Seattle- I got the first letter in years from him the other day."

"Did you?"

"Yass, yass. He said he wants to see the 'babby' spelt with two b's when he can get to Frisco. I found a thirteen-a-month coldwater pad on East Fortieth; if I can send him the money he'll come and live in New York-if he gets here. I never told you much about my sister but you know I have a sweet little kid sister; I'd like to get her to come and live with me too."

"Where is she?"

"Well, that's just it, I don't know-he's going to try to find her, the old man, but you know what he'll really do."

"So he went to Seattle?"

"And straight to messy jail."

"Where was he?"

"Texas, Texas-so you see, man, my soul, the state of things, my position-you notice I get quieter."

"Yes, that's true." Dean had grown quiet in New York. He wanted to talk. We were freezing to death in the cold rain. We made a date to meet at my aunt's house before I left.

He came the following Sunday afternoon. I had a television set. We played one ballgame on the TV, another on the radio, and kept switching to a third and kept track of all that was happening every moment. "Remember, Sal, Hodges is on second in Brooklyn so while the relief pitcher is coming in for the Phillies we'll switch to Giants-Boston and at the same time notice there DiMaggio has three balls count and the pitcher is fiddling with the resin bag, so we quickly find out what happened to Bobby Thomson when we left him thirty seconds ago with a man on third. Yes!"

Later in the afternoon we went out and played baseball with the kids in the sooty field by the Long Island railyard. We also played basketball so frantically the younger boys said, "Take it easy, you don't have to kill yourself." They bounced smoothly all around us and beat us with ease. Dean and I were sweating. At one point Dean fell flat on his face on the concrete court. We huffed and puffed to get the ball away from the boys; they turned and flipped it away. Others darted in and smoothly shot over our heads. We jumped at the basket like maniacs, and the younger boys just reached up and grabbed the ball from our sweating hands and dribbled away. We were like hotrock blackbelly tenorman Mad of American back-alley go-music trying to play basketball against Stan Getz and Cool Charlie. They thought we were crazy. Dean and I went back home playing catch from each sidewalk of the street. We tried extra-special catches, diving over bushes and barely missing posts. When a car came by I ran alongside and flipped the ball to Dean just barely behind the vanishing bumper. He darted and caught it and rolled in the grass, and flipped it back for me to catch on the other side of a parked bread truck. I just made it with my meat hand and threw it back so Dean had to whirl and back up and fall on his back across the hedges. Back in the house Dean took his wallet, har-rumphed, and handed my aunt the fifteen dollars he owed her from the time we got a speeding ticket in Washington. She was completely surprised and pleased. We had a big supper. "Well, Dean," said my aunt, "I hope you'll be able to take care of your new baby that's coming and stay married this time."

"Yes, yass, yes."

"You can't go all over the country having babies like that' Those poor little things'll grow up helpless. You've got to offer them a chance to live." He looked at his feet and nodded. In the raw red dusk we said good-by, on a bridge over a superhighway.

"I hope you'll be in New York when I get back," I told him.

"All I hope, Dean, is someday we'll be able to live on the same street with our families and get to be a couple of oldtimers together."

"That's right, man-you know that I pray for it completely mindful of the troubles we both had and the troubles coming, as your aunt knows and reminds me. I didn't want the new baby, Inez insisted, and we had a fight. Did you know Marylou got married to a used-car dealer in Frisco and she's having a baby?"

"Yes. We're all getting in there now." Ripples in the upside-down lake of the void, is what I should have said. The bottom of the world is gold and the world is upside down. He took out a snapshot of Camille in Frisco with the new baby girl. The shadow of a man crossed the child on the sunny pavement, two long trouser legs in the sadness. "Who's that?"

"That's only Ed Dunkel. He came back to Galatea, they're gone to Denver now. They spent a day taking pictures."

Ed Dunkel, his compassion unnoticed like the compassion of saints. Dean took out other pictures. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. All of it inside endless and beginningless emptiness. Pitiful forms of ignorance. "Good-by, good-by." Dean walked off in the long red dusk. Locomotives smoked and reeled above him. His shadow followed him, it aped his walk and thoughts and very being. He turned and waved coyly, bashfully. He gave me the boomer's highball, he jumped up and down, he yelled something I didn't catch. He ran around in a circle. All the time he came closer to the concrete corner of the railroad overpass. He made one last signal. I waved back. Suddenly he bent to his life and walked quickly out of sight. I gaped into the bleakness of my own days. I had an awful long way to go too.

2

The following midnight, singing this little song,

Home in Missoula,

Home in Truckee,

Home in Opelousas,

Ain't no home for me.

Home in old Medora,

Home in Wounded Knee,

Home in Ogallala,

Home I'll never be,

I took the Washington bus; wasted some time there wandering around; went out of my way to see the Blue Ridge, heard the bird of Shenandoah and visited Stonewall Jackson's grave; at dusk stood expectorating in the Kanawha River and walked the hillbilly night of Charleston, West Virginia; at midnight Ashland, Kentucky, and a lonely girl under the marquee of a 'closed-up show. The dark and mysterious Ohio, and Cincinnati at dawn. Then Indiana fields again, and St. Louis as ever in its great valley clouds of afternoon. The muddy cobbles and the Montana logs, the broken steamboats, the ancient signs, the grass and the ropes by the river. The endless poem. By night Missouri, Kansas fields, Kansas night-cows in the secret wides, crackerbox towns with a sea for the end of every street; dawn in Abilene. East Kansas grasses become West Kansas rangelands that climb up to the hill of the Western night.

Henry Glass was riding the bus with me. He had got on at Terre Haute, Indiana, and now he said to me, "I've told you why I hate this suit I'm wearing, it's lousy-but ain't all." He showed me papers. He had just been released from Terre Haute federal pen; the rap was for stealing and selling cars in Cincinnati. A young, curly-haired kid of twenty. "Soon's I get to Denver I'm selling this suit in a pawnshop and getting me jeans. Do you know what they did to me in that prison? Solitary confinement with a Bible; I used it to sit on the stone floor; when they seed I was doing that they took the Bible away and brought back a leetle pocket-size one so big. Couldn't sit on it so I read the whole Bible and Testament. Hey-hey-" he poked me, munching his candy, he was always eating candy because his stomach had been ruined in the pen and couldn't stand anything else-"you know they's some real hot things in that Bible." He told me what it was to "signify." "Anybody that's leaving jail soon and starts talking about his release date is 'signifying' to the other fellas that have to stay. We take him by the neck and say, 'Don't signify with me!' Bad thing, to signify-y'hear me?"

"I won't signify, Henry."

"Anybody signify with me, my nose opens up, I get mad enough to kill. You know why I been in jail all my life? Because I lost my temper when I was thirteen years old. I was in a movie with a boy and he made a crack about my mother- you know that dirty word-and I took out my jackknife and cut up his throat and woulda killed him if they hadn't drug me off. Judge said, 'Did you know what you were doing when you attacked your friend?' 'Yessir, Your Honor, I did, I wanted to kill the sonofabitch and still do.' So I didn't get no parole and went straight to reform school. I got piles too from sitting in solitary. Don't ever go to a federal pen, they're worstest. Sheet, I could talk all night it's been so long since I talked to somebody. You don't know how good I feel coming out. You just sitting in that bus when I got on-riding through Terre Haute-what was you thinking?" , "I was just sitting there riding."

" "Me, I was singing. I sat down next to you 'cause I was afraid to set down next to any gals for fear I go crazy and reach under their dress. I gotta wait awhile."

"Another hitch in prison and you'll be put away for life. You better take it easy from now."

"That's what I intend to do, only trouble is m'nose opens up and I can't tell what I'm doing."

He was on his way to live with his brother and sister-in-law; they had a job for him in Colorado. His ticket was bought by the feds, his destination the parole. Here was a young kid like Dean had been; his blood boiled too much for him to bear; his nose opened up; but no native strange saintliness to save him from the iron fate.

"Be a buddy and watch m'nose don't open up in Denver, will you, Sal? Mebbe I can get to my brother's safe."

When we arrived in Denver I took him by the arm to Larimer Street to pawn the penitentiary suit. The old Jew immediately sensed what it was before it was half unwrapped. "I don't want that damn thing here; I get them every day from the Canyon City boys."

All of Larimer Street was overrun with ex-cons trying to sell their prison-spun suits. Henry ended up with the thing under his arm in a paper bag and walked around in brand-new jeans and sports shirt. We went to Dean's old Glenarm bar- on the way Henry threw the suit in an ashcan-and called up Tim Gray. It was evening now.

"You?" chuckled Tim Gray. "Be right over."

In ten minutes he came loping into the bar with Stan Shephard. They'd both had a trip to France and were tremendously disappointed with their Denver lives. They loved Henry and bought him beers. He began spending all his penitentiary money left and right. Again I was back in the soft, dark Denver night with its holy alleys and crazy houses. We started hitting all the bars in town, roadhouses out on West Colfax, Five Points Negro bars, the works.

Stan Shephard had been waiting to meet me for years and now for the first time we were suspended together in front of a venture. "Sal, ever since I came back from France I ain't had any idea what to do with myself. Is it true you're going to Mexico? Hot damn, I could go with you? I can get a hundred bucks and once I get there sign up for GI Bill in Mexico City College."

Okay, it was agreed, Stan was coming with me. He was a rangy, bashful, shock-haired Denver boy with a big con-man smile and slow, easy-going Gary Cooper movements. "Hot damn!" he said and stuck his thumbs on his belt and ambled down the street, swaying from side to side but slowly. His grandfather was having it out with him. He had been opposed to France and now he was opposed to the idea of going to Mexico. Stan was wandering around Denver like a bum because of his fight with his grandfather. That night after we'd done all our drinking and restrained Henry from getting his nose opened up in the Hot Shoppe on Colfax, Stan scraggled off to sleep in Henry's hotel room on Glenarm. "I can't even come home late-my grandfather starts fighting with me, then he turns on my mother. I tell you, Sal, I got to get out of Denver quick or I'll go crazy."

Well, I stayed at Tim Gray's and then later Babe Rawlins fixed up a neat little basement room for me and we all ended up there with parties every night for a week. Henry vanished off to his brother's and we never saw him again and never will know if anybody's signified with him since and if they've put him away in an iron hall or if he busts his gaskets in the night free.

Tim Gray, Stan, Babe, and I spent an entire week of afternoons in lovely Denver bars where the waitresses wear slacks and cut around with bashful, loving eyes, not hardened waitresses but waitresses that fall in love with the clientele and have explosive affairs and huff and sweat and suffer from one bar to another; and we spent the same week in nights at Five Points listening to jazz, drinking booze in crazy Negro saloons and gabbing till five o'clock in the morn in my basement. Noon usually found us reclined in Babe's back yard among the little Denver kids who played cowboys and Indians and dropped on us from cherry trees in bloom. I was having a wonderful time and the whole world opened up before me because I had no dreams. Stan and I plotted to make Tim Gray come with us, but Tim was stuck to his Denver life.

I was getting ready to go to Mexico when suddenly Denver Doll called me one night and said, "Well, Sal, guess who's coming to Denver?" I had no idea. "He's on his way already, I got this news from my grapevine. Dean bought a car and is coming out to join you." Suddenly I had a vision of Dean, a burning shuddering frightful Angel, palpitating toward me across the road, approaching like a cloud, with enormous speed, pursuing me like the Shrouded Traveler on the plain, bearing down on me. I saw his huge face over the plains with the mad, bony purpose and the gleaming eyes; I saw his wings; I saw his old jalopy chariot with thousands of sparking flames shooting out from it; I saw the path it burned over the road; it even made its own road and went over the corn, through cities, destroying bridges, drying rivers. It came like wrath to the West. I knew Dean had gone mad again. There was no chance to send money to either wife if he took all his savings out of the bank and bought a car. Everything was up, the jig and all. Behind him charred ruins smoked. He rushed westward over the groaning and awful continent again, and soon he would arrive. We made hasty preparations for Dean. News was that he was going to drive me to Mexico.

"Do you think he'll let me come along?" asked Stan in awe.

"I'll talk to him," I said grimly. We didn't know what to expect. "Where will he sleep? What's he going to eat? Are there any girls for him?" It was like the imminent arrival of Gargantua; preparations had to be made to widen the gutters of Denver and foreshorten certain laws to fit his suffering bulk and bursting ecstasies.

3

It was like an old-fashioned movie when Dean arrived. I was in Babe's house in a golden afternoon. A wore about the house. Her mother was away in Europe. The chaperon aunt was called Charity; she was seventy-five years old and spry as a chicken. In the Rawlins family, which stretched all over the West, she was continually shuttling from one house to another and making herself generally useful. At one time she'd had dozens of sons. They were all gone; they'd all abandoned her. She was old but she was interested in everything we did and said. She shook her head sadly when we took slugs of whisky in the living room. "Now you might go out in the yard for that, young man." Upstairs-it was a kind of boarding house that summer-lived a guy called Tom who was hopelessly in love with Babe. He came from Vermont, from a rich family, they said, and had a career waiting for him there and everything, but he preferred being where Babe was. In the evenings he sat in the living room with his face burning behind a newspaper and every time one of us said anything he heard but made no sign. He particularly burned when Babe said something. When we forced him to put down the paper he looked at us with incalculable boredom and suffering. "Eh? Oh yes, I suppose so." He usually said just that.

Charity sat in her corner, knitting, watching us all with her birdy eyes. It was her job to chaperon, it was up to her to see nobody swore. Babe sat giggling on the couch. Tim Gray, Stan Shephard, and I sprawled around in chairs. Poor Tom suffered the tortures. He got up, yawned, and said, "Well, another day another dollar, good night," and disappeared upstairs. Babe had no use whatever for him as a lover. She was in love with Tim Gray; he wriggled like an eel out of her grasp. We were sitting around like this on a sunny afternoon toward suppertime when Dean pulled up in front in his jalopy and jumped out in a tweed suit with vest and watch chain.

"Hup! hup!" I heard out on the street. He was with Roy Johnson, who'd just returned from Frisco with his wife Dorothy and was living in Denver again. So were Dunkel and Galatea Dunkel, and Tom Snark. Everybody was in Denver again. I went out on the porch. "Well, m'boy," said Dean, sticking out his big hand, "I see everything is all right on this end of the stick. Hello hello hello," he said to everybody. "Oh yes, Tim Gray, Stan Shephard, howd'y'do!" We introduced him to Charity. "Oh yass, howd'y'do. This is m'friend Roy Johnson here, was so kind as to accompany me, harrumph! egad! kaff! kaff! Major Hoople, sir," he said, sticking out his hand to Tom, who stared at him. "Yass, yass. Well, Sal old man, what's the story, when do we take off for Mexico? Tomorrow afternoon? Fine, fine. Ahem! And now, Sal, I have exactly sixteen minutes to make it to Ed Dunkel's house, where I am about to recover my old railroad watch which I can pawn on Larimer Street before closing time, meanwhile buzzing very quickly and as thoroughly as time allows to see if my old man by chance may be in Jiggs' Buffet or some of the other bars and then I have an appointment with the barber Doll always told me to patronize and I have not myself changed over the years and continue with that policy-kaff! kaff! At six o'clock sharp.'-sharp, hear me?-I want you to be right here where I'll come buzzing by to get you for one quick run to Roy Johnson's house, play Gillespie and assorted bop records, an hour of relaxation prior to any kind of further evening you and Tim and Stan and Babe may have planned for tonight irrespective of my arrival which incidentally was exactly forty-five minutes ago in my old thirty-seven Ford which you see parked out there, I made it together with a long pause in Kansas City seeing my cousin, not Sam Brady but the younger one . . ." And saying all these things, he was busily changing from his suitcoat to T-shirt in the living-room alcove just out of sight of everyone and transferring his watch to another pair of pants that he got out of the same old battered trunk.

"And Inez?" I said. "What happened in New York?"

"Officially, Sal, this trip is to get a Mexican divorce, cheaper and quicker than any kind. I've Camille's agreement at last and everything is straight, everything is fine, everything is lovely and we know that we are now not worried about a single thing, don't we, Sal?"

Well, okay, I'm always ready to follow Dean, so we all bustled to the new set of plans and arranged a big night, and it was an unforgettable night. There was a party at Ed Dunkel's brother's house. Two of his other brothers are bus-drivers. They sat there in awe of everything that went on. There was a lovely spread on the table, cake and drinks. Ed Dunkel looked happy and prosperous. "Well, are you all set with Galatea now?"

"Yessir," said Ed, "I sure am. I'm about to go to Denver U, you know, me and Roy."

"What are you going to take up?"

"Oh, sociology and all that field, you know. Say, Dean gets crazier every year, don't he?"

"He sure does."

Galatea Dunkel was there. She was trying to talk to somebody, but Dean held the whole floor. He stood and performed before Shephard, Tim, Babe, and myself, who all sat side by side in kitchen chairs along the wall. Ed Dunkel hovered nervously behind him. His poor brother was thrust into the background. "Hup! hup!" Dean was saying, tugging at his shirt, rubbing his belly, jumping up and down. "Yass, well-we're all together now and the years have rolled severally behind us and yet you see none of us have really changed, that's what so amazing, the dura-the durability-in fact to prove that I have here a deck of cards with which I can tell very accurate fortunes of all sorts." It was the dirty deck. Dorothy Johnson and Roy Johnson sat stiffly in a corner. It was a mournful party. Then Dean suddenly grew quiet and sat in a kitchen chair between Stan and me and stared straight ahead with rocky doglike wonder and paid no attention to anybody.

He simply disappeared for a moment to gather up more energy. If you touched him he would sway like a boulder suspended on a pebble on the precipice of a cliff. He might come crashing down or just sway rocklike. Then the boulder exploded into a flower and his face lit up with a lovely smile and he looked around like a man waking up and said, "Ah, look at all the nice people that are sitting here with me. Isn't it nice! Sal, why, like I was tellin Min just t'other day, why, urp, ah, yes!" He got up and went across the room, hand outstretched to one of the bus-drivers in the party. "Howd'y'do. My name is Dean Moriarty. Yes, I remember you well. Is everything all right? Well, well. Look at the lovely cake. Oh, can I have some? Just me? Miserable me?" Ed's sister said yes. "Oh, how wonderful. People are so nice. Cakes and pretty things set out on a table and all for the sake of wonderful little joys and delights. Hmm, ah, yes, excellent, splendid, harrumph, egad!" And he stood swaying in the middle of the room, eating his cake and looking at everyone with awe. He turned and looked around behind him. Everything amazed him, everything he saw. People talked in groups all around the room, and he said, "Yes! That's right!" A picture on the wall made him stiffen to attention. He went up and looked closer, he backed up, he stooped, he jumped up, he wanted to see from all possible levels and angles, he tore at his T-shirt in exclamation, "Damn!" He had no idea of the impression he was making and cared less. People were now beginning to look at Dean with maternal and paternal affection glowing in their faces. He was finally an Angel, as I always knew he would become; but like any Angel he still had rages and furies, and that night when we all left the party and repaired to the Windsor bar in one vast brawling gang, Dean became frantically and demoniacally and seraphically drunk.

Remember that the Windsor, once Denver's great Gold Rush' hotel and in many respects a point of interest-in the big saloon downstairs bullet holes are still in the walls-had once been Dean's home. He'd lived here with his father in one of the rooms upstairs. He was no tourist. He drank in this saloon like the ghost of his father; he slopped down wine, beer, and whisky like water. His face got red and sweaty and he bellowed and hollered at the bar and staggered across the dance-floor where honkytonkers of the West danced with girls and tried to play the piano, and he threw his arms around ex-cons and shouted with them in the uproar. Meanwhile everybody in our party sat around two immense tables stuck together. There were Denver D. Doll, Dorothy and Roy Johnson, a girl from Buffalo, Wyoming, who was Dorothy's friend, Stan, Tim Gray, Babe, me, Ed Dunkel, Tom Snark, and several others, thirteen in all. Doll was having a great time: he took a peanut machine and set it on the table before him and poured pennies in it and ate peanuts. He suggested we all write something on a penny postcard and mail it to Carlo Marx in New York. We wrote crazy things. The fiddle music whanged in the Larimer Street night. "Isn't it fun?" yelled Doll. In the men's room Dean and I punched the door and tried to break it but it was an inch thick. I cracked a bone in my middle finger and didn't even realize it till the next day. We were fumingly drunk. Fifty glasses of beer sat on our tables at one time. All you had to do was rush around and sip from each one. Canyon City ex-cons reeled and gabbled with us. In the foyer outside the saloon old former prospectors sat dreaming over their canes under the tocking old clock. This fury had been known by them in greater days. Everything swirled. There were scattered parties everywhere. There was even a party in a castle to which we all drove-except Dean, who ran off elsewhere-and in this castle we sat at a great table in the hall and shouted. There were a swimming pool and grottoes outside. I had finally found the castle where the great snake of the world was about to rise up.

Then in the late night it was just Dean and I and Stan Shephard and Tim Gray and Ed Dunkel and Tommy Snark in one car and everything ahead of us. We went to Mexican town, we went to Five Points, we reeled around. Stan Shephard was out of his mind with joy. He kept yelling, "Sonofabitch! Hot damn!" in a high squealing voice and slapping his knees. Dean was mad about him. He repeated everything Stan said and phewed and wiped the sweat off his face. "Are we gonna get our kicks, Sal, travelin down to Mexico with this cat Stan! Yes!" It was our last night in holy Denver, we made it big and wild. It all ended up with wine in the basement by candlelight, and Charity creeping around upstairs in her nightgown with a flashlight. We had a colored guy with us now, called himself Gomez. He floated around Five Points and didn't give a damn. When we saw him, Tommy Snark called out, "Hey, is your name Johnny?"

Gomez just backed up and passed us once more and said, "Now will you repeat what you said?"

"I said are you the guy they call Johnny?"

Gomez floated back and tried again. "Does this look a little more like him? Because I'm tryin my best to be Johnny but I just can't find the way."

"Well, man, come on with us!" cried Dean, and Gomez jumped in and we were off. We whispered frantically in the basement so as not to create disturbance with the neighbors. At nine o'clock in the morning everybody had left except Dean and Shephard, who were still yakking like maniacs. People got up to make breakfast and heard strange subterranean voices saying, "Yes! Yes!" Babe cooked a big breakfast. The time was coming to scat off to Mexico.

Dean took the car to the nearest station and had everything shipshape. It was a '37 Ford sedan with the right-side door unhinged and tied on the frame. The right-side front seat was also broken, and you sat there leaning back with your face to the tattered roof. "Just like Min 'n' Bill," said Dean. "We'll go coughing and bouncing down to Mexico; it'll take us days and days." I looked over the map: a total of over a thousand miles, mostly Texas, to the border at Laredo, and then another 767 miles through all Mexico to the great city near the cracked Isthmus and Oaxacan heights. I couldn't imagine this trip. It was the most fabulous of all. It was no longer east-west, but magic south. We saw a vision of the entire Western Hemisphere rockribbing clear down to Tierra del Fuego and us flying down the curve of the world into other tropics and otherworlds. "Man, this will finally take us to IT!" said Dean with definite faith. He tapped my arm. "Just wait and see. Hoo! Wheel"

I went with Shephard to conclude the last of his Denver business, and met his poor grandfather, who stood in the door of the house, saying, "Stan-Stan-Stan."

"What is it, Granpaw?"

"Don't go."

"Oh, it's settled, I have to go now; why do you have to do that?" The old man had gray hair and large almond eyes and a tense, mad neck.

"Stan," he simply said, "don't go. Don't make your old grandfather cry. Don't leave me alone again." It broke my heart to see all this.

"Dean," said the old man, addressing me, "don't take my Stan away from me. I used to take him to the park when he was a little boy and explain the swans to him. Then his little sister drowned in the same pond. I don't want you to take my boy away."

"No," said Stan, "we're leaving now. Good-by." He struggled with his grips.

His grandfather took him by the arm. "Stan, Stan, Stan, don't go, don't go, don't go."

We fled with our heads bowed, and the old man still stood in the doorway of his Denver side-street cottage with the beads hanging in the doors and the overstaffed furniture in the parlor. He was as white as a sheet. He was still calling Stan. There was something paralyzed about his movements, and he did nothing about leaving the doorway, but just stood in it, muttering, "Stan," and "Don't go," and looking after us anxiously as we rounded the corner.

"God, Shep, I don't know what to say."

"Never mind!" Stan moaned. "He's always been like that."

We met Stan's mother at the bank, where she was drawing money for him. She was a lovely white-haired woman, still very young in appearance. She and her son stood on the marble floor of the bank, whispering. Stan was wearing a levi outfit, jacket and all, and looked like a man going to Mexico sureenough. This was his tender existence in Denver, and he was going off with the naming tyro Dean. Dean came popping around the corner and met us just on time. Mrs. Shephard insisted on buying us all a cup of coffee.

"Take care of my Stan," she said. "No telling what things might happen in that country."

"We'll all watch over each other," I said. Stan and his mother strolled on ahead, and I walked in back with crazy Dean; he was telling me about the inscriptions carved on toilet walls in the East and in the West.

"They're entirely different; in the East they make cracks and corny jokes and obvious references, scatological bits of data and drawings; in the West they just write their names, Red O'Hara, Blufftown Montana, came by here, date, real solemn, like, say, Ed Dunkel, the reason being the enormous loneliness that differs just a shade and cut hair as you move across the Mississippi." Well, there was a lonely guy in front of us, for Shephard's mother was a lovely mother and she hated to see her son go but knew he had to go. I saw he was fleeing his grandfather. Here were the three of us-Dean looking for his father, mine dead, Stan fleeing his old one, and going off into the night together. He kissed his mother in the rushing crowds of 17th and she got in a cab and waved at us. Good-by, good-by.

We got in the car at Babe's and said good-by to her. Tim was riding with us to his house outside town. Babe was beautiful that day; her hair was long and blond and Swedish, her freckles showed in the sun. She looked exactly like the little girl she had been. There was a mist in her eyes. She might join us later with Tim-but she didn't. Good-by, good-by.

We roared off. We left Tim in his yard on the Plains outside town and I looked back to watch Tim Gray recede on the plain. That strange guy stood there for a full two minutes watching us go away and thinking God knows what sorrowful thoughts. He grew smaller and smaller, and still he stood motionless with one hand on a washline, like a captain, and I was twisted around to see more of Tim Gray till there was nothing but a growing absence in space, and the space was the eastward view toward Kansas that led all the way back to my home in Atlantis.

Now we pointed our rattly snout south and headed for Castle Rock, Colorado, as the sun turned red and the rock of the mountains to the west looked like a Brooklyn brewery in November dusks. Far up in the purple shades of the rock there was someone walking, walking, but we could not see; maybe that old man with the white hair I had sensed years ago up in the peaks. Zacatecan Jack. But he was coming closer to me, if only ever just behind. And Denver receded back of us like the city of salt, her smokes breaking up in the air and dissolving to our sight.

4

It was May. And how can homely afternoons in Colorado with its farms and irrigation ditches and shady dells -the places where little boys go swimming-produce a bug like the bug that bit Stan Shephard? He had his arm draped over the broken door and was riding along and talking happily when suddenly a bug flew into his arm and embedded a long stinger in it that made him howl. It had come out of an American afternoon. He yanked and slapped at his arm and dug out the stinger, and in a few minutes his arm had begun to swell and hurt. Dean and I couldn't figure what it was. The thing was to wait and see if the swelling went down. Here we were, heading for unknown southern lands, and barely three miles out of hometown, poor old hometown of childhood, a strange feverish exotic bug rose from secret corruptions and sent fear into our hearts. "What is it?"

"I've never known of a bug around here that can make a swelling like that."

"Damn!" It made the trip seem sinister and doomed. We drove on. Stan's arm got worse. We'd stop at the first hospital and have him get a shot of penicillin. We passed Castle Rock, came to Colorado Springs at dark. The great shadow of Pike's Peak loomed to our right. We bowled down the Pueblo highway. "I've hitched thousands and thousands of times on this road," said Dean. "I hid behind that exact wire fence there one night when I suddenly took fright for no reason whatever."

We all decided to tell our stories, but one by one, and Stan was first. "We've got a long way to go," preambled Dean, "and so you must take every indulgence and deal with every single detail you can bring to mind-and still h won't all be told. Easy, easy," he cautioned Stan, who began telling his story, "you've got to relax too." Stan swung into his life story as we shot across the dark. He started with his experiences in France but to round out ever-growing difficulties he came back and started at the beginning with his boyhood in Denver. He and Dean compared times they'd seen each other zooming around on bicycles. "One time you've forgotten, I know-Arapahoe Garage? Recall? I bounced a ball at you on the corner and you knocked it back to me with your fist and it went in the sewer. Grammar days. Now recall?" Stan was nervous and feverish. He wanted to tell Dean everything. Dean was now arbiter, old man, judge, listener, approver, nodder. "Yes, yes, go on please." We passed Walsenburg; suddenly we passed Trinidad, where Chad King was somewhere off the road in front of a campfire with perhaps a handful of anthropologists and as of yore he too was telling his life story and never dreamed we were passing at that exact moment on the highway, headed for Mexico, telling our own stories. O sad American night! Then we were in New Mexico and passed the rounded rocks of Raton and stopped at a diner, ravingly hungry for hamburgers, some of which we wrapped in a napkin to eat over the border below. "The whole vertical state of Texas lies before us, Sal," said Dean. "Before we made it horizontal.

Every bit as long. We'll be in Texas in a few minutes and won't be out till tomorrow this time and won't stop driving. Think of it."

We drove on. Across the immense plain of night lay the first Texas town, Dalhart, which I'd crossed in 1947. It lay glimmering on the dark floor of the earth, fifty miles away. The land by moonlight was all mesquite and wastes. On the horizon was the moon. She fattened, she grew huge and rusty, she mellowed and rolled, till the morning star contended and dews began to blow in our windows-and still we rolled. After Dalhart-empty crackerbox town-we bowled for Amarillo, and reached it in the morning among windy panhandle grasses that only a few years ago waved around a collection of buffalo tents. Now there were gas stations and new 1950 jukeboxes with immense ornate snouts and ten-cent slots and awful songs. All the way from Amarillo to Childress, Dean and I pounded plot after plot of books we'd read into Stan, who asked for it because he wanted to know. At Childress in the hot sun we turned directly south on a lesser road and highballed across abysmal wastes to Paducah, Guthrie, and Abilene, Texas. Now Dean had to sleep, and Stan and I sat in the front seat and drove. The old car burned and bopped and struggled on. Great clouds of gritty wind blew at us from shimmering spaces. Stan rolled right along with stories about Monte Carlo and Cagnes-sur-Mer and the blue places near Menton where dark-faced people wandered among white walls.

Texas is undeniable: we burned slowly into Abilene and all woke up to look at it. "Imagine living in this town a thousand miles from cities. Whoop, whoop, over there by the tracks, old town Abilene where they shipped the cows and shot it up for gumshoes and drank red-eye. Look out there!" yelled Dean out the window with his mouth contorted like W. C. Fields. He didn't care about Texas or any place. Red-faced Texans paid him no mind and hurried along the burning sidewalks. We stopped to eat on the highway south of town. Nightfall seemed like a million miles away as we resumed for Coleman and Brady-the heart of Texas, only, wildernesses of brush with an occasional house near a thirsty creek and a fifty-mile dirt road detour and endless heat. "Old dobe Mexico's a long way away," said Dean sleepily from the back seat, "so keep her rolling, boys, and we'll be kissing senoritas b'dawn 'cause this old Ford can roll if y'know how to talk to her and ease her along-except the back end's about to fall but don't worry about it till we get there." And he went to sleep.

I took the wheel and drove to Fredericksburg, and here again I was crisscrossing the old map again, same place Marylou and I had held hands on a snowy morning in 1949, and where was Marylou now? "Blow!" yelled Dean in a dream and I guess he was dreaming of Frisco jazz and maybe Mexican mambo to come. Stan talked and talked; Dean had wound him up the night before and now he was never going to stop. He was in England by now, relating adventures hitchhiking on the English road, London to Liverpool, with his hair long and his pants ragged, and strange British truck-drivers giving him lifts in glooms of the Europe void. We were all red-eyed from the continual mistral-winds of old Tex-ass. There was a rock in each of our bellies and we knew we were getting there, if slowly. The car pushed forty with shuddering effort. From Fredericksburg we descended the great western high plains. Moths began smashing our windshield. "Getting down into the hot country now, boys, the desert rats and the tequila. And this is my first time this far south in Texas," added Dean with wonder. "Gawd-damn! this is where my old man comes in the wintertime, sly old bum."

Suddenly we were in absolutely tropical heat at the bottom of a five-mile-long hill, and up ahead we saw the lights of old San Antonio. You had the feeling all this used to be Mexican territory indeed. Houses by the side of the road were different, gas stations beater, fewer lamps. Dean delightedly took the wheel to roll us into San Antonio. We entered town in a wilderness of Mexican rickety southern shacks without cellars and with old rocking chairs on the porch. We stopped at a mad gas station to get a grease job. Mexicans were standing around in the hot light of the overhead bulbs that were blackened by valley summerbugs, reaching down into a soft-drink box and pulling out beer bottles and throwing the money to the attendant. Whole families lingered around doing this. All around there were shacks and drooping trees and a wild cinnamon smell in the air. Frantic teenage Mexican girls came by with boys. "Hoo!" yelled Dean. "Si! Mariana!" Music was coming from all sides, and all kinds of music. Stan and I drank several bottles of beer and got high. We were already almost out of America and yet definitely in it and in the middle of where it's maddest. Hotrods blew by. San Antonio, ah-haa!

"Now, men, listen to me-we might as well goof a coupla hours in San Antone and so we will go and find a hospital clinic for Stan's arm and you and I, Sal, will cut around and get these streets dug-look at those houses across the street, you can see right into the front room and all the purty daughters layin around with True Love magazines, wheel Come, let's go!"

We drove around aimlessly awhile and asked people for the nearest hospital clinic. It was near downtown, where things looked more sleek and American, several semi-skyscrapers and many neons and chain drugstores, yet with cars crashing through from the dark around town as if there were no traffic laws. We parked the car in the hospital driveway and I went with Stan to see an intern while Dean stayed in the car and changed. The hall of the hospital was full of poor Mexican women, some of them pregnant, some of them sick or bringing their little sick kiddies. It was sad. I thought of poor Terry and wondered what she was doing now. Stan had to wait an /entire hour till an intern came along and looked at his swollen arm. There was a name for the infection he had, but none of us bothered to pronounce it. They gave him a shot of penicillin.

Meanwhile Dean and I went out to dig the streets of Mexican San Antonio. It was fragrant and soft-the softest air I'd ever known-and dark, and mysterious, and buzzing. Sudden figures of girls in white bandannas appeared in the humming dark. Dean crept along and said not a word. "Oh, this is too wonderful to do anything!" he whispered. "Let's just creep along and see everything. Look! Look! A crazy San Antonio f pool shack." We went in. A dozen boys were shooting pool at three tables, all Mexicans. Dean and I bought Cokes and shoved nickels in the jukebox and played Wynonie Blues Harris and Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder and jumped. Meanwhile Dean warned me to watch.

"Dig, now, out of the corner of your eye and as we listen to Wynonie blow about his baby's pudding and as we also smell the soft air as you say-dig the kid, the crippled kid shooting pool at table one, the butt of the joint's jokes, y'see, he's been the butt all his life. The other fellows are merciless but they love him."

The crippled kid was some kind of malformed midget with a great big beautiful face, much too large, in which enormous brown eyes moistly gleamed. "Don't you see, Sal, a San Antonio Mex Tom Snark, the same story the world over. See, they hit him on the ass with a cue? Ha-ha-ha! hear them laugh. You see, he wants to win the game, he's bet four bits. Watch! Watch!" We watched as the angelic young midget aimed for a bank shot. He missed. The other fellows roared. "Ah, man," said Dean, "and now watch." They had the little boy by the scruff of the neck and were mauling him around, playful. He squealed. He stalked out in the night but not without a backward bashful, sweet glance. "Ah, man, I'd love to know that gone little cat and what he thinks and what kind of girls he has -oh, man, I'm high on this air!" We wandered out and negotiated several dark, mysterious blocks. Innumerable houses hid behind verdant, almost jungle-like yards; we saw glimpses of girls in front rooms, girls on porches, girls in the bushes with boys. "I never knew this mad San Antonio! Think what Mexico'll be like! Lessgo! Lessgo!" We rushed back to the hospital. Stan was ready and said he felt much better. We put our arms around him and told him everything we'd done.

And now we were ready for the last hundred and fifty miles to the magic border. We leaped into the car and off. I was so exhausted by now I slept all the way through Dilley and Encinal to Laredo and didn't wake up till they were parking the car in front of a lunchroom at two o'clock in the morning. "Ah," sighed Dean, "the end of Texas, the end of America, we don't know no more." It was tremendously hot: we were all sweating buckets. There was no night dew, not a breath of air, nothing except billions of moths smashing at bulbs everywhere and the low, rank smell of a hot river in the night nearby-the Rio Grande, that begins in cool Rocky Mountain dales and ends up fashioning world-valleys to mingle its heats with the Mississippi muds in the great Gulf.

Laredo was a sinister town that morning. All kinds of cab-drivers and border rats wandered around, looking for opportunities. There weren't many; it was too late. It was the bottom and dregs of America where all the heavy villains sink, where disoriented people have to go to be near a specific elsewhere they can slip into unnoticed. Contraband brooded in the heavy syrup air. Cops were red-faced and sullen and sweaty, no swagger. Waitresses were dirty and disgusted. Just beyond, you could feel the enormous presence of whole great Mexico and almost smell the billion tortillas frying and smoking in the night. We had no idea what Mexico would really be like. We were at sea level again, and when we tried to eat a snack we could hardly swallow it. I wrapped it up in napkins for the trip anyway. We felt awful and sad. But everything changed when we crossed the mysterious bridge over the river and our wheels rolled on official Mexican soil, though it wasn't anything but car way for border inspection. Just across the street Mexico began. We looked with wonder. To our amazement, it looked exactly like Mexico. It was three in the morning, and fellows in straw hats and white pants were lounging by the dozen against battered pocky storefronts.

"Look-at-those-cats!" whispered Dean, "Oo," he breathed softly, "wait, wait." The Mexican officials came out, grinning, and asked please if we would take out our baggage. We did. We couldn't take our eyes from across the street. We were longing to rush right up there and get lost in those mysterious Spanish streets. It was only Nuevo Laredo but it looked like Holy Lhasa to us. "Man, those guys are up all night," whispered Dean. We hurried to get our papers straightened. We were warned not to drink tapwater now we were over the border. The Mexicans looked at our baggage in a desultory way. They weren't like officials at all. They were lazy and tender. Dean couldn't stop staring at them. He turned to me.

"See how the cops are in this country. I can't believe it!" He rubbed his eyes. "I'm dreaming." Then it was time to change our money. We saw great stacks of pesos on a table and learned that eight of them made an American buck, or thereabouts. We changed most of our money and stuffed the big rolls in our pockets with delight.

5

Then we turned our faces to Mexico with bashful-ness and wonder as those dozens of Mexican cats watched us from under their secret hatbrims in the night. Beyond were music and all-night restaurants with smoke pouring out of the door. "Whee," whispered Dean very softly.

"Thassall!" A Mexican official grinned. "You boys all set. Go ahead. Welcome Mehico. Have good time. Watch you money. Watch you driving. I say this to you personal, I'm Red, everybody call me Red. Ask for Red. Eat good. Don't worry. Everything fine. Is not hard enjoin yourself in Mehico."

"Yes!" shuddered Dean and off we went across the street into Mexico on soft feet. We left the car parked, and all three of us abreast went down the Spanish street into the middle of the dull brown lights. Old men sat on chairs in the night and looked like Oriental junkies and oracles. No one was actually looking at us, yet everybody was aware of everything we did. We turned sharp left into the smoky lunchroom and went in to music of campo guitars on an American 'thirties jukebox. Shirt-sleeved Mexican cabdrivers and straw-hatted Mexican hipsters sat at stools, devouring shapeless messes of tortillas, beans, tacos, whatnot. We bought three bottles of cold beer-cerveza was the name of beer-for about thirty Mexican cents"; or ten American cents each. We bought packs of Mexican cigarettes for six cents each. We gazed and gazed at our wonderful Mexican money that went so far, and played with it and looked around and smiled at everyone. Behind us lay the whole of America and everything Dean and I had previously known: about life, and life on the road. We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic. "Think of these cats staying up all hours of the night," whispered Dean. "And think of this big continent ahead of us with those enormous Sierra Madre mountains we saw in the movies, and the jungles all the way down and a whole desert plateau as big as ours and reaching clear down to Guatemala and God knows where, whoo! What'll we do? What'll we do? Let's move!" We got out and went back to the car. One last glimpse of America across the hot lights of the Rio Grande bridge, and we turned our back and fender to it and roared off.

Instantly we were out in the desert and there wasn't light or a car for fifty miles across the flats. And just the dawn was coming over the Gulf of Mexico and we began see the ghostly shapes of yucca cactus and organpipe on all sides. "What a wild country!" I yelped. Dean and I were completely awake. In Laredo we'd been half dead. Stan, who'd been to foreign countries before, just calmly slept in back seat. Dean and I had the whole of Mexico before us.

"Now, Sal, we're leaving everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things. All the years and troubles! and kicks-and now this! so that we can safely think of nothing else and just go on ahead with our faces stuck out like this you see, and understand the world as, really and genuine! speaking, other Americans haven't done before us-they were here, weren't they? The Mexican war. Cutting across here with cannon."

"This road," I told him, "is also the route of old American 1 outlaws who used to skip over the border and go down to old Monterrey, so if you'll look out on that graying desert and picture the ghost of an old Tombstone hellcat making lonely exile gallop into the unknown, you'll see further . . ." "It's the world," said Dean. "My God!" he cried, slapping the wheel. "It's the world! We can go right on to South America if the road goes. Think of it! Son-of-z-bitch! Gawd-damm!" We rushed on. The dawn spread immediately and we began to see the white sand of the desert and occasional huts in the distance off the road. Dean slowed down to peer at them. "Real beat huts, man, the kind you only find in Death Valley and much worse. These people don't bother with appearances." The first town ahead that had any consequence on the map was called Sabinas Hidalgo. We looked forward to it -eagerly. "And the road don't look any different than the American road," cried Dean, "except one mad thing and if you'll notice, right here, the mileposts are written in kilometers and they click off the distance to Mexico City. See, it's the only city in the entire land, everything points to it." There were only 767 more miles to that metropolis; in kilometers the figure was over a thousand. "Damn! I gotta go!" cried Dean. For a while I closed my eyes in utter exhaustion and kept hearing Dean pound the wheel with his fists and say, "Damn," and "What kicks!" and "Oh, what a land!" and "Yes!" We arrived at Sabinas Hidalgo, across the desert, at about seven o'clock in the morning. We slowed down completely to see this. We woke up Stan in the back seat. We sat up straight to dig. The main street was muddy and full of holes. On each side were dirty broken-down adobe fronts. Burros walked in the street with packs. Barefoot women watched us from dark doorways. The street was completely crowded with people on foot beginning a new day in the Mexican countryside. Old men with handlebar mustaches stared at us. The sight of three bearded, bedraggled American youths instead of the usual well-dressed tourists was of unusual interest to them. We bounced along over Main Street at ten miles an hour, taking everything in. A group of girls walked directly in front of us. As we bounced by, one of them said, "Where you going, man?"

I turned to Dean, amazed. "Did you hear what she said?" Dean was so astounded he kept on driving slowly and saying, "Yes, I heard what she said, I certainly damn well did, oh me, oh my, I don't know what to do I'm so excited and sweetened in this morning world. We've finally got to heaven. It-couldn't be cooler, it couldn't be grander, it couldn't be any-thing."

"Well, let's go back and pick em up!" I said.

"Yes," said Dean and drove right on at five miles an hour. He was knocked out, he didn't have to do the usual things he-would have done in America. "There's millions of them all along the road!" he said. Nevertheless he U-turned and came by the girls again. They were headed for work in the fields;, they smiled at us. Dean stared at them with rocky eyes. "Damn," he said under his breath. "Oh! This is too great to be true. Gurls, gurls. And particularly right now in my stage and condition, Sal, I am digging the interiors of these homes as we pass them-these gone doorways and you look inside and see beds of straw and little brown kids sleeping and stirring to wake, their thoughts congealing from the empty mind of sleep, their selves rising, and the mothers cooking up breakfast in iron pots, and dig them shutters they have for windows and the old men, the old men are so cool and grand and not bothered by anything. There's no suspicion here, nothing like that. Everybody's cool, everybody looks at you with such straight brown eyes and they don't say anything, just look, and in that look all of the human qualities are soft and subdued and still there. Dig all the foolish stories you read about Mexico and the sleeping gringo and all that crap)-and crap about greasers and so on-and all it is, people here are straight and kind and don't put down any bull. I'm so amazed by this." Schooled in the raw road night, Dean was come into the world to see it. He bent over the wheel and looked both ways and rolled along slowly. We stopped for gas the other side of Sabinas Hidalgo. Here a congregation of local straw-hatted ranchers with handlebar mustaches growled and joked in front of antique gas-pumps. Across the fields an old man plodded with a burro in front of his switch stick. The sun rose pure on pure and ancient activities of human life. Now we resumed the road to Monterrey. The great mountains rose snow-capped before us; we bowled right for them. A gap widened and wound up a pass and we went with it. In a matter of minutes we were out of the mesquite desert and climbing among cool airs in a road with a stone wall along the precipice side and great whitewashed names of presidents on the cliff sides-ALEMAN! We met nobody on this high road. It wound among the clouds and took us to the great plateau on top. Across this plateau the big manufacturing town of Monterrey sent smoke to the blue skies with their enormous Gulf clouds written across the bowl of day like fleece. Entering Monterrey was like entering Detroit, among great long walls of factories, except for the burros that sunned in the grass before them and the sight of thick city adobe neighborhoods with thousands of shifty hipsters hanging around doorways and whores looking out of windows and strange shops that might have sold anything and narrow sidewalks crowded with Hong Kong-like humanity. "Yow!" yelled Dean. "And all in that sun. Have you dug this Mexican sun, Sal? It makes you high. Whoo! I want to get on and on-this road drives me!!" We mentioned stopping in the excitements of Monterrey, but Dean wanted to make extra-special time to get to Mexico City, and besides he knew the road would get more interesting, especially ahead, always ahead. He drove like a fiend and never rested. Stan and I were completely bushed and gave it up and had to sleep. I looked up outside Monterrey and saw enormous weird twin peaks beyond Old Monterrey, beyond where the outlaws went.

Montemorelos was ahead, a descent again to hotter altitudes. It grew exceedingly hot and strange. Dean absolutely had to wake me up to see this. "Look, Sal, you must not miss." I looked. We were going through swamps and alongside the road at ragged intervals strange Mexicans in tattered rags walked along with machetes hanging from their rope belts, and some of them cut at the bushes. They all stopped to watch us without expression. Through the tangled bush we occasionally saw thatched huts with African-like bamboo walls, just stick huts. Strange young girls, dark as the moon, stared from mysterious verdant doorways. "Oh, man, I want to stop and twiddle thumbs with the little darlings," cried Dean, "but notice the old lady or the old man is always somewhere around-in the back usually, sometimes a hundred yards, gathering twigs and wood or tending animals. They're never alone. Nobody's ever alone in this country. While you've been sleeping I've been digging this road and this country, and if I could only tell you all the thoughts I've had, man!" He was sweating. His eyes were red-streaked and mad and also subdued and tender-he had found people like himself. We bowled right through the endless swamp country at a steady forty-five. "Sal, I think the country won't change for a long time. If you'll drive, I'll sleep now."

I took the wheel and drove among reveries of my own, through Linares, through hot, flat swamp country, across the steaming Rio Soto la Marina near Hidalgo, and on. A great verdant jungle valley with long fields of green crops opened before me. Groups of men watched us pass from a narrow old-fashioned bridge. The hot river flowed. Then we rose in altitude till a kind of desert country began reappearing. The city of Gregoria was ahead. The boys were sleeping, and 1 was alone in my eternity at the wheel, and the road ran straight as an arrow. Not like driving across Carolina, or Texas, or Arizona, or Illinois; but like driving across the world and into the places where we would finally learn ourselves among the Fellahin Indians of the world, the essential strain of the basic primitive, wailing humanity that stretches in a belt around the equatorial belly of the world from Malaya (the long fingernail of China) to India the great subcontinent to Arabia to Morocco to the selfsame deserts and jungles of Mexico and over the waves to Polynesia to mystic Siam of the Yellow Robe and on around, on around, so that you hear the same mournful wail by the rotted walls of Cadiz, Spain, that you hear 12,000 miles around in the depths of Benares the Capital of the World. These people were unmistakably Indians and were not at all like the Pedros and Panchos of silly civilized American lore-they had high cheekbones, and slanted f eyes, and soft ways; they were not fools, they were not clowns; they were great, grave Indians and they were the source of mankind and the fathers of it. The waves are Chinese, but the earth is an Indian thing. As essential as rocks in the desert are they in the desert of "history." And they knew this when we passed, ostensibly self-important moneybag Americans on a lark in their land; they knew who was the father and who was the son of antique life on earth, and made no comment. For when destruction comes to the world of "history" and the Apocalypse of the Fellahin returns once more as so many times before, people will still stare with the same eyes from the caves of Mexico as well as from the caves of Bali, where it all began and where Adam was suckled and taught to know. These were my growing thoughts as I drove the car into the hot, sunbaked town of Gregoria.

Earlier, back at San Antonio, I had promised Dean, as a joke, that I would get him a girl. It was a bet and a challenge. As I pulled up the car at the gas station near sunny Gregoria a kid came across the road on tattered feet, carrying an enormous windshield-shade, and wanted to know if I'd buy. "You like? Sixty peso. Habla Espanol? Sesenta peso. My name Victor."

"Nah," I said jokingly, "buy senorita."

"Sure, sure!" he cried excitedly. "I get you gurls, onny-time. Too hot now," he added with distaste. "No good gurls when hot day. Wait tonight. You like shade?"

I didn't want the shade but I wanted the girls. I woke up Dean. "Hey, man, I told you in Texas I'd get you a girl- all right, stretch your bones and wake up, boy; we've got girls waiting for us."

"What? what?" he cried, leaping up, haggard. "Where? where?"

"This boy Victor's going to show us where."

"Well, lessgo, lessgo!" Dean leaped out of the car and clasped Victor's hand. There was a group of other boys hanging around the station and grinning, half of them barefoot, all wearing floppy straw hats. "Man," said Dean to me, "ain't this a nice way to spend an afternoon. It's so much cooler than Denver poolhalls. Victor, you got gurls? Where? A donde?" he cried in Spanish. "Dig that, Sal, I'm speaking Spanish."

"Ask him if we can get any tea. Hey kid, you got ma-ree-wa-na?"

The kid nodded gravely. "Sho, onnytime, mon. Come with me."

"Hee! Wheel Hoo!" yelled Dean. He was wide awake and jumping up and down in that drowsy Mexican street. "Let's all go!" I was passing Lucky Strikes to the other boys. They were getting great pleasure out of us and especially Dean. They turned to one another with cupped hands and rattled off comments about the mad American cat. "Dig them, Sal, talking about us and digging. Oh my goodness, what a world!" Victor got in the car with us, and we lurched off. Stan Shephard had been sleeping soundly and woke up to this madness.

We drove way out to the desert the other side of town and turned on a rutty dirt road that made the car bounce as never before. Up ahead was Victor's house. It sat on the edge of cactus flats overtopped by a few trees, just an adobe cracker-box, with a few men lounging around in the yard. "Who that?" cried Dean, all excited.

"Those my brothers. My mother there too. My sistair too. That my family. I married, I live downtown."

"What about your mother?" Dean flinched. "What she say about marijuana."

"Oh, she get it for me." And as we waited in the car Victor got out and loped over to the house and said a few words to an old lady, who promptly turned and went to the garden in back and began gathering dry fronds of marijuana that had been pulled off the plants and left to dry in the desert sun. Meanwhile Victor's brothers grinned from under a tree. They were coming over to meet us but it would take a while for them to get up and walk over. Victor came back, grinning sweetly.

"Man," said Dean, "that Victor is the sweetest, gonest, franticest little bangtail cat I've ever in all my life met. Just look at him, look at his cool slow walk. There's no need to hurry around here." A steady, insistent desert breeze blew into the car. It was very hot.

"You see how hot?" said Victor, sitting down with Dean in the front seat and pointing up at the burning roof of the Ford. "You have ma-ree-gwana and it no hot no more. You wait."

"Yes," said Dean, adjusting his dark glasses, "I wait. For sure, Victor m'boy."

Presently Victor's tall brother came ambling along with some weed piled on a page of newspaper. He dumped it on Victor's lap and leaned casually on the door of the car to nod and smile at us and say, "Hallo." Dean nodded and smiled pleasantly at him. Nobody talked; it was fine. Victor proceeded to roll the biggest bomber anybody ever saw. He rolled (using brown bag paper) what amounted to a tremendous Corona cigar of tea. It was huge. Dean stared at it, popeyed. Victor casually lit it and passed it around. To drag on this thing was like leaning over a chimney and inhaling. It blew into your throat in one great blast of heat. We held our breaths and all let out just about simultaneously. Instantly we were all high. The sweat froze on our foreheads and it was suddenly like the beach at Acapulco. I looked out the back window of the car, and another and the strangest of Victor's brothers-a tall Peruvian of an Indian with a sash over his shoulder-leaned grinning on a post, too bashful to come up and shake hands. It seemed the car was surrounded by brothers, for another one appeared on Dean's side. Then the strangest thing happened. Everybody became so high that usual formalities were dispensed with and the things of immediate interest were concentrated on, and now it was the strangeness of Americans and Mexicans blasting together on the desert and, more than that, the strangeness of seeing in close proximity the faces and pores of skins and calluses of fingers and general abashed cheekbones of another world. So the Indian brothers began talking about us in low voices and commenting; you saw them look, and size, and compare mutualities of impression, or correct and modify, "Yeh, yeh", while Dean and Stan and I commented on them in English.

"Will you d-i-g that weird brother in the back that hasn't moved from that post and hasn't by one cut hair diminished the intensity of the glad funny bashfulness of his smile? And the one to my left here, older, more sure of himself but sad. like hung-up, like a bum even maybe, in town, while Victor is respectably married-he's like a gawddam Egyptian king, that you see. These guys are real cats. Ain't never seen anything like it. And they're talking and wondering about us, like see? Just like we are but with a difference of their own, their interest probably resolving around how we're dressed- same as ours, really-but the strangeness of the things we have in the car and the strange ways that we laugh so different from them, and maybe even the way we smell compared to them. Nevertheless I'd give my eye-teeth to know what they're saying about us." And Dean tried. "Hey Victor, man -what you brother say just then?"

Victor turned mournful high brown eyes on Dean. "Yeah, yeah."

"No, you didn't understand my question. What you boys talking about?"

"Oh," said Victor with great perturbation, "you no like this mar-gwana?"

"Oh, yeah, yes fine! What you talk about?"

"Talk? Yes, we talk. How you like Mexico?" It was hard to come around without a common language. And everybody grew quiet and cool and high again and just enjoyed the breeze from the desert and mused separate national and racial and personal high-eternity thoughts.

It was time for the girls. The brothers eased back to their station under the tree, the mother watched from her sunny doorway, and we slowly bounced back to town.

But now the bouncing was no longer unpleasant; it was the most pleasant and graceful billowy trip in the world, as over a blue sea, and Dean's face was suffused with an unnatural glow that was like gold as he told us to understand the springs of the car now for the first time and dig the ride. Up and down we bounced, and even Victor understood and laughed. Then he pointed left to show which way to go for the girls, and Dean, looking left with indescribable delight and leaning that way, pulled the wheel around and rolled us smoothly and surely to the goal, meanwhile listening to Victor's attempt to speak and saying grandly and magniloquently "Yes, of course!

There's not a doubt in my mind! Decidedly, man! Oh, in­deed! Why, pish, posh, you say the dearest things to me! Of course! Yes! Please go on!" To this Victor talked gravely and with magnificent Spanish eloquence. For a mad moment I thought Dean was understanding everything he said by sheer wild insight and sudden revelatory genius inconceivably inspired by his glowing happiness. In that moment, too, he looked so exactly like Franklin Delano Roosevelt-some delusion in my flaming eyes and floating brain-that I drew up in my seat and gasped with amazement. In myriad pricklings of heavenly radiation I had to struggle to see Dean's figure, and he looked like God. I was so high I had to lean my head back on the seat; the bouncing of the car sent shivers of ecstasy through me. The mere thought of looking out the window at Mexico-which was now something else in my mind-was like recoiling from some gloriously riddled glittering treasure-box that you're afraid to look at because of your eyes, they bend inward, the riches and the treasures are too much to take all at once. I gulped. I saw streams of gold pouring through the sky and right across the tattered roof of the poor old car, right across my eyeballs and indeed right inside them; it was everywhere. I looked out the window at the hot, sunny streets and saw a woman in a doorway and I thought she was listening to every word we said and nodding to herself-routine paranoiac visions due to tea. But the stream of gold continued. For a long time I lost consciousness in my lower mind of what we were doing and only came around sometime later when I looked up from fire and silence like waking from sleep to the world, or waking from void to a dream, and they told me we were parked outside Victor's house and he was already at the door of the car with his little baby son in his arms, showing him to us.

"You see my baby? Hees name Perez, he six month age." "Why," said Dean, his face still transfigured into a shower of supreme pleasure and even bliss, "he is the prettiest child I have ever seen. Look at those eyes. Now, Sal and Stan," he said, turning to us with a serious and tender air, "I want you par-ti-cu-lar-ly to see the eyes of this little Mexican boy who is the son of our wonderful friend Victor, and notice how he will come to manhood with his own particular soul be­speaking itself through the windows which are his eyes, and such lovely eyes surely do prophesy and indicate the loveliest of souls." It was a beautiful speech. And it was a beautiful baby. Victor mournfully looked down at his angel. We all wished we had a little son like that. So great was our intensity over the child's soul that he sensed something and began a grimace which led to bitter tears and some unknown sorrow that we had no means to soothe because it reached too far back into innumerable mysteries and time. We tried everything; Victor smothered him in his neck and rocked, Dean cooed, I reached over and stroked the baby's little arms. His bawls grew louder. "Ah," said Dean, "I'm awfully sorry, Victor, that we've made him sad."

"He is not sad, baby cry." In the doorway in back of Victor, too bashful to come out, was his little barefoot wife, with anxious tenderness waiting for the babe to be put back in her arms so brown and soft. Victor, having shown us his child, climbed back into the car and proudly pointed to the right.

"Yes," said Dean, and swung the car over and directed it through narrow Algerian streets with faces on all sides watching us with gentle wonder. We came to the whorehouse. It was a magnificent establishment of stucco in the golden sun. In the street, and leaning on the windowsills that opened into the whorehouse, were two cops, saggy-trousered, drowsy, bored, who gave us brief interested looks as we walked in, and stayed there the entire three hours that we cavorted under their noses, until we came out at dusk and at Victor's bidding gave them the equivalent of twenty-four cents each, just for the sake of form.

And in there we found the girls. Some of them were reclining on couches across the dance floor, some of them were boozing at the long bar to the right. In the center an arch led into small cubicle shacks that looked like the places where you put on your bathing suit at public municipal beaches. These shacks were in the sun of the court. Behind the bar was the proprietor, a young fellow who instantly ran out when we told him we wanted to hear mambo music and came back with a stack of records, mostly by Perez Prado, and put them on over the loudspeaker. In an instant all the city of Gregoria could hear the good times going on at the Sala de Baile. In the hall itself the din of the music-for this is the real way to play a jukebox and what it was originally for-was so tremendous that it shattered Dean and Stan and me for a moment in the realization that we had never dared to play music as loud as we wanted, and this was how loud we wanted. It blew and shuddered directly at us. In a few minutes half that portion of town was at the windows, watching the Americanos dance with the gals. They all stood, side by side with the cops, on the dirt sidewalk, leaning in with indifference and casualness. "More Mambo Jambo," "Chattanooga de Mambo,"

"Mambo Numero Ocho"-all these tremendous numbers resounded and flared in the golden, mysterious afternoon like the sounds you expect to hear on the last day of the world and the Second Coming. The trumpets seemed so loud I thought they could hear them clear out in the desert, where the trumpets had originated anyway. The drums were mad. The mambo beat is the conga beat from Congo, the river of Africa and the world; it's really the world beat. Oom-ta, ta-poo-poom-oom-ta, ta-poo-poom. The piano montunos showered down on us from the speaker. The cries of the leader were like great gasps in the air. The final trumpet choruses that came with drum climaxes on conga and bongo drums, on the great mad Chattanooga record, froze Dean in his tracks for a moment till he shuddered and sweated; then when the trumpets bit the drowsy air with their quivering echoes, like a cavern's or a cave's, his eyes grew large and round as though seeing the devil, and he closed them tight. I myself was shaken like a puppet by it; I heard the trumpets flail the light I had seen and trembled in my boots.

On the fast "Mambo Jambo" we danced frantically with the girls. Through our deliriums we began to discern their varying personalities. They were great girls. Strangely the wildest one was half Indian, half white, and came from Venezuela, and only eighteen. She looked as if she came from a good family. What she was doing whoring in Mexico at that age and with that tender cheek and fair aspect, God knows. Some awful grief had driven her to it. She drank beyond all bounds. She threw down drinks when it seemed she was about to chuck up the last. She overturned glasses continually, the idea also being to make us spend' as much money as possible. Wearing her flimsy housecoat in broad afternoon, she frantically danced with Dean and clung about his neck and begged and begged for everything. Dean was so stoned he didn't know what to start with, girls or mambo. They ran off to the lockers. I was set upon by a fat and uninteresting girl with a puppy dog, who got sore at me when I took a dislike to the dog because it kept trying to bite me. She compromised by putting it away in the back, but by the time she returned I had been hooked by another girl, better looking but not the best, who clung to my neck like a leech. I was trying to break loose to get at a sixteen-year-old colored girl who sat gloomily inspecting her navel through an opening in her short shirty dress across the hall. I couldn't do it. Stan had a fifteen-year-old girl with an almond-colored skin and a dress that was buttoned halfway down and halfway up. It was mad. A good twenty men leaned in that window, watching.

At one point the mother of the little colored girl-not colored, but dark-came in to hold a brief and mournful convocation with her daughter. When I saw that, I was too ashamed to try for the one I really wanted. I let the leech take me off to the back, where, as in a dream, to the din and roar of more loudspeakers inside, we made the bed bounce a half-hour. It was just a square room with wooden slats and no ceiling, ikon in a corner, a washbasin in another. All up and down the dark hall the girls were calling, "Agua, agua caliente!" which means "hot water." Stan and Dean were also out of sight. My girl charged thirty pesos, or about three dollars and a half, and begged for an extra ten pesos and gave a long story about something. I didn't know the value of Mexican money; for all I knew I had a million pesos. I threw money at her. We rushed back to dance. A greater crowd was gathered in the Street. The cops looked as bored as usual. Dean's pretty Venezuelan dragged me through a door and into another strange bar that apparently belonged to the whorehouse. Here a young bartender was talking and wiping glasses and an old man with handlebar mustache sat discussing something earnestly. And here too the mambo roared over another loud* speaker. It seemed the whole world was turned on. Venezuela clung about my neck and begged for drinks. The bartender wouldn't give her one. She begged and begged, and when he gave it to her she spilled it and this time not on purpose, for I saw the chagrin in her poor sunken lost eyes. "Take it easy, baby," I told her. I had to support her on the stool; she kept slipping off. I've never seen a drunker woman, and only eighteen. I bought her another drink; she was tugging at my pants for mercy. She gulped it up. I didn't have the heart to try her. My own girl was about thirty and took care of herself better. With Venezuela writhing and suffering in my arms, I had a longing to take her in the back and undress her and only talk to her-this I told myself. I was delirious with want of her and the other little dark girl.

Poor Victor, all this time he stood on the brass rail of the bar with his back to the counter and jumped up and down gladly to see his three American friends cavort. We bought him drinks. His eyes gleamed for a woman but he wouldn't accept any, being faithful to his wife. Dean thrust money at him. In this welter of madness I had an opportunity to see what Dean was up to. He was so out of his mind he didn't know who I was when I peered at his face. "Yeah, yeah!" is all he said. It seemed it would never end. It was like a long, spectral Arabian dream in the afternoon in another life-Ali Baba and the alleys and the courtesans. Again I rushed off with my girl to her room; Dean and Stan switched the girls they'd had before; and we were out of sight a moment, and the spectators had to wait for the show to go on. The afternoon grew long and cool.

Soon it would be mysterious night in old gone Gregoria. The mambo never let up for a moment, it frenzied on like an endless journey in the jungle. I couldn't take my eyes off the little dark girl and the way, like a queen, she walked around and was even reduced by the sullen bartender to menial tasks such as bringing us drinks and sweeping the back. Of all the girls in there she needed the money most; maybe her mother had come to get money from her for her little infant/ sisters and brothers. Mexicans are poor. It never, never occurred to me just to approach her and give her some money. I have a feeling she would have taken it with a degree of scorn, and scorn from the likes of her made me flinch. In my madness I was actually in love with her for the few hours it all lasted; it was the same unmistakable ache and stab across the mind, the same sighs, the same pain, and above all the same reluctance and fear to approach. Strange that Dean and Stan also failed to approach her; her unimpeachable dignity was the thing that made her poor in a wild old whorehouse, and think of that. At one point I saw Dean leaning like a statue toward her, ready to fly, and befuddlement cross his face as she glanced coolly and imperiously his way and he stopped rubbing his belly and gaped and finally bowed his head. For she was the queen.

Now Victor suddenly clutched at our arms in the furor and made frantic signs.

"What's the matter?" He tried everything to make us understand. Then he ran to the bar and grabbed the check from the bartender, who scowled at him, and took it to us to see. The bill was over three hundred pesos, or thirty-six American dollars, which is a lot of money in any whorehouse. Still we couldn't sober up and didn't want to leave, and though we were all run out we still wanted to hang around with our lovely girls in this strange Arabian paradise we had finally found at the end of the hard, hard road. But night was coming and we had to get on to the end; and Dean saw that, and began frowning and thinking and trying to straighten himself out, and finally I broached the idea of leaving once and for all. "So much ahead of us, man, it won't make any difference."

"That's right!" cried Dean, glassy-eyed, and turned to his Venezuelan. She had finally passed out and lay on a wooden bench with her white legs protruding from the silk. The gallery in the window took advantage of the show; behind them red shadows were beginning to creep, and somewhere I heard a baby wail in a sudden lull, remembering I was in Mexico after all and not in a pornographic hasheesh daydream in heaven.

We staggered out; we had forgotten Stan; we ran back in to get him and found him charmingly bowing to the new evening whores, who had just come in for night shift. He wanted to start all over again. When he is drunk he lumbers like a man ten feet tall and when he is drunk he can't be dragged away from women. Moreover women cling to him like ivy. He insisted on staying and trying some of the newer, stranger, more proficient senoritas. Dean and I pounded him on the back and dragged him out. He waved profuse good-bys to everybody-the girls, the cops, the crowds, the children in the street outside; he blew kisses in all directions to ovations of Gregoria and staggered proudly among the gangs and tried to speak to them and communicate his joy and love of everything this fine afternoon of life. Everybody laughed; some slapped him on the back. Dean rushed over and paid the policemen the four pesos and shook hands and grinned and bowed with them. Then he jumped in the car, and the girls we had known, even Venezuela, who was wakened for the farewell, gathered around the car, huddling in their flimsy duds, and chattered good-bys and kissed us, and Venezuela even began to weep-though not for us, we knew, not altogether for us, yet enough and good enough. My dusky darling love had disappeared in the shadows inside. It was all over. We pulled out and left joys and celebrations over hundreds of pesos behind us, and it didn't seem like a bad day's work. The haunting mambo followed us a few blocks. It was all over. "Good-by, Gregoria!" cried Dean, blowing it a kiss.

Victor was proud of us and proud of himself. "Now yo-a like bath?" he asked. Yes, we all wanted wonderful bath.

And he directed us to the strangest thing in the world: it was an ordinary American-type bathhouse one mile out of town on the highway, full of kids splashing in a pool and showers inside a stone building for a few centavos a crack, with soap and towel from the attendant. Besides this, it was also a sad kiddy park with swings and a broken-down merry-go-round, and in the fading red sun it seemed so strange and so beautiful. Stan and I got towels and jumped right into ice-cold showers inside and came out refreshed and new. Dean didn't bother with a shower, and we saw him far across the sad park, strolling arm in arm with good Victor and chatting volubly and pleasantly and even leaning excitedly toward him to make a point, and pounding his fist. Then they resumed the arm-in-arm position and strolled. The time was coming to say good-by to Victor, so Dean was taking the opportunity to have moments alone with him and to inspect the park and get his views on things in general and in all dig him as only Dean could do.

Victor was very sad now that we had to go. "You come back Gregoria, see me?"

"Sure, man!" said Dean. He even promised to take Victor back to the States if he so wished it. Victor said he would have to mull this over.

"I got wife and kid-ain't got a money-I see." His sweet polite smile glowed in the redness as we waved to him from the car. Behind him were the sad park and the children.

6

Immediately outside Gregoria the road began to drop, great trees arose on each side, and in the trees as it grew dark we heard the great roar of billions of insects that sounded like one continuous high-screeching cry. "Whoo!" said Dean, and he turned on his headlights and they weren't working.' "What! what! damn now what?" And he punched and fumed at his dashboard. "Oh, my, we'll have to drive through the jungle without lights, think of the horror of that, the only time I'll see is when another car comes by and there just aren't any cars! And of course no lights? Oh, what'll we do, dammit?" "Let's just drive. Maybe we ought to go back, though?" "No, never-never! Let's go on. I can barely see the road. We'll make it." And now we shot in inky darkness through the scream of insects, and the great, rank, almost rotten smell descended, and we remembered and realized that the map indicated just after Gregoria the beginning of the Tropic of Cancer. "We're in a new tropic! No wonder the smell! Smell it!" I stuck my head out the window; bugs smashed at my face; a great screech rose the moment I cocked my ear to the wind. Suddenly our lights were working again and they poked ahead, illuminating the lonely road that ran between solid walls of drooping, snaky trees as high as a hundred feet.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" yelled Stan in the back. "Hot damn!" He was still so high. We suddenly realized he was still high and the jungle and troubles made no difference to his happy soul. We began laughing, all of us.

"To hell with it! We'll just throw ourselves on the gawd-damn jungle, we'll sleep in it tonight, let's go!" yelled Dean. "Ole Stan is right. Ole Stan don't care! He's so high on those women and that tea and that crazy out-of-this-world impossi-ble-to-absorb mambo blasting so loud that my eardrums still beat to it-wheel he's so high he knows what he's doing!" We took off our T-shirts and roared through the jungle, bare-chested. No towns, nothing, lost jungle, miles and miles, and down-going, getting hotter, the insects screaming louder, the vegetation growing higher, the smell ranker and hotter until we began to get used to it and like it. "I'd just like to get naked and roll and roll in that jungle," said Dean. "No, hell, man, that's what I'm going to do soon's I find a good spot." And suddenly Limon appeared before us, a jungle town, a few brown lights, dark shadows, enormous skies overhead, and a cluster of men in front of a jumble of woodshacks-a tropical crossroads. We stopped in the unimaginable softness. It was as hot as the inside of a baker's oven on a June night in New Orleans. All up and down the street whole families were sitting around in the dark, chatting; occasional girls came by, but extremely young and only curious to see what we looked like. They were barefoot and dirty. We leaned on the wooden porch of a broken-down general store with sacks of flour and fresh pineapple rotting with flies on the counter. There was one oil lamp in here, and outside a few more brown lights, and the rest all black, black, black. Now of course we were so tired we had to sleep at once and moved the car a few yards down a dirt road to the backside of town. It was so incredibly hot it was impossible to sleep. So Dean took a blanket and laid it out on the soft, hot sand in the road and flopped out. Stan was stretched on the front seat of the Ford with both doors open for a draft, but there wasn't even the faintest puff of a wind. I, in the back seat, suffered in a pool of sweat. I got out of the car and stood swaying in the blackness. The whole town had instantly gone to bed; the only noise now was barking dogs. How could I ever sleep? Thousands of mosquitoes had already bitten all of us on chest and arms and ankles. Then a bright idea came to me: I jumped up on the steel roof of the car and stretched out flat on my back. Still there was no breeze, but the steel had an element of coolness in it and dried my back of sweat, clotting up thousands of dead bugs into cakes on my skin, and I realized the jungle takes you over and you become it. Lying on the top of the car with my face to the black sky was like lying in a closed trunk on a summer night. For the first time in my life the weather was not something that touched me, that caressed me, froze or sweated me, but became me. The atmosphere and I became the same. Soft infinitesimal showers of microscopic bugs fanned down on my face as I slept, and they were extremely pleasant and soothing. The sky was starless, utterly unseen and heavy. I could lie there all night long with my face exposed to the heavens, and it would do me no more harm than a velvet drape drawn over me. The dead bugs mingled with my blood; the live mosquitoes exchanged further portions; I began to tingle all over and to smell of the rank, hot, and rotten jungle, all over from hair and face to feet and toes. Of course I was barefoot. To minimize the sweat I put on my bug-smeared T-shirt and lay back again. A huddle of darkness on the blacker road showed where Dean was sleeping. I could hear him snoring. Stan was snoring too.

Occasionally a dim light flashed in town, and this was the sheriff making his rounds with a weak flashlight and mumbling to himself in the jungle night. Then I saw his light jiggling toward us and heard his footfalls coming soft on the mats of sand and vegetation. He stopped and flashed the car. I sat up and looked at him. In a quivering, almost querulous, and extremely tender voice he said, "Dormiendo?" indicating Dean in the road. I knew this meant "sleep."

"Si, dormiendo."

"Bueno, bueno" he said to himself and with reluctance and sadness turned away and went back to his lonely rounds. Such lovely policemen God hath never wrought in America. No suspicions, no fuss, no bother: he was the guardian of the sleeping town, period.

I went back to my bed of steel and stretched out with my arms spread. I didn't even know if branches or open sky were directly above me, and it made no difference. I opened my mouth to it and drew deep breaths of jungle atmosphere. It was not air, never air, but the palpable and living emanation of trees and swamp. I stayed awake. Roosters began to crow the dawn across the brakes somewhere. Still no air, no breeze, no dew, but the same Tropic of Cancer heaviness held us all pinned to earth, where we belonged and tingled. There was no sign of dawn in the skies. Suddenly I heard the dogs barking furiously across the dark, and then I heard the faint clip-clop of a horse's hooves. It came closer and closer. What kind of mad rider in the night would this be? Then I saw an apparition: a wild horse, white as a ghost, came trotting down the road directly toward Dean. Behind him the dogs yammered and contended. I couldn't see them, they were dirty old jungle dogs, but the horse was white as snow and immense and almost phosphorescent and easy to see. I felt no panic for Dean. The horse saw him and trotted right by his head, passed the car like a ship, whinnied softly, and continued on through town, bedeviled by the dogs, and clip-clopped back to the jungle on the other side, and all I heard was the faint hoofbeat fading away in the woods. The dogs subsided and sat to lick themselves. What was this horse? What myth and ghost, what spirit? I told Dean about it when he woke up. He thought I'd been dreaming. Then he recalled faintly dreaming of a white horse, and I told him it had been no dream. Stan Shephard slowly woke up. The faintest movements, and we were sweating profusely again. It was still pitch dark. "Let's start the car and blow some air!" I cried. "I'm dying of heat." "Right!" We roared out of town and continued along the mad highway with our hair flying. Dawn came rapidly in a gray haze, revealing dense swamps sunk on both sides, with tall, forlorn, viny trees leaning and bowing over tangled bottoms. We bowled right along the railroad tracks for a while. The strange radio-station antenna of Ciudad Mante appeared ahead, as if we were in Nebraska. We found a gas station and loaded the tank just as the last of the jungle-night bugs hurled themselves in a black mass against the bulbs and fell fluttering at our feet in huge wriggly groups, some of them with wings a good four inches long, others frightful dragonflies big enough to eat a bird, and thousands of immense yangling mosquitoes and unnamable spidery insects of all sorts. I hopped up and down on the pavement for fear of them; I finally ended up in the car with my feet in my hands, looking fearfully at the ground where they swarmed around our wheels. "Lessgo!" I yelled. Dean and Stan weren't perturbed at all by the bugs; they calmly drank a couple of bottles of Mission Orange and kicked them away from the water cooler. Their shirts and pants, like mine, were soaked in the blood and black of thousands of dead bugs. We smelled our clothes deeply.

"You know, I'm beginning to like this smell," said Stan. "I can't smell myself any more."

"It's a strange, good smell," said Dean. "I'm nor. going to change my shirt till Mexico City, I want to take it all in and remember it." So off we roared again, creating air for hot. caked faces.

Then the mountains loomed ahead, all green. After this climb we would be on the great central plateau again and ready to roll ahead to Mexico City. In no time at all we soared to an elevation of five thousand feet among misty passes that overlooked steaming yellow rivers a mile below. It was the great River Moctezuma. The Indians along the road began to be extremely weird. They were a nation in themselves, mountain Indians, shut off from everything else but the Pan-American Highway. They were short and squat and dark, with bad teeth; they carried immense loads on their backs. Across enormous vegetated ravines we saw patchworks of agriculture on steep slopes. They walked up and down those slopes and worked the crops. Dean drove the car five miles an hour to see. "Whooee, this I never thought existed!" High on the highest peak, as great as any Rocky Mountain peak, we saw bananas growing. Dean got out of the car to point, to stand around rubbing his belly. We were on a ledge where a little thatched hut suspended itself over the precipice of the world. The sun created golden hazes that obscured the Moctezuma, now more than a mile below.

In the yard in front of the hut a little three-year-old Indian girl stood with her finger in her mouth, watching us with big brown eyes. "She's probably never seen anybody parked here before in her entire life!" breathed Dean. "Hello, little girl. How are you? Do you like us?" The little girl looked away bashfully and pouted. We began to talk and she again examined us with finger in mouth. "Gee, I wish there was something I could give her! Think of it, being born and living on this ledge-this ledge representing all you know of life. Her father is probably groping down the ravine with a rope and getting his pineapples out of a cave and hacking wood at an eighty-degree angle with all the bottom below. She'll never, never leave here and know anything about the outside world. It's a nation. Think of the wild chief they must have! They probably, off the road, over that bluff, miles back, must be even wilder and stranger, yeah, because the Pan-American Highway partially civilizes this nation on this road. Notice the beads of sweat on her brow," Dean pointed out with a grimace of pain. "It's not the kind of sweat we have, it's oily and it's always there because it's always hot the year round and she knows nothing of non-sweat, she was born with sweat and dies with sweat." The sweat on her little brow was heavy, sluggish; it didn't run; it just stood there and gleamed like a fine olive oil. "What that must do to their souls! How different they must be in their private concerns and evaluations and wishes!" Dean drove on with his mouth hanging in awe, ten miles an hour, desirous to see every possible human being on the road. We climbed and climbed.

As we climbed, the air grew cooler and the Indian girls on the road wore shawls over their heads and shoulders. They hailed us desperately; we stopped to see. They wanted to sell us little pieces of rock crystal. Their great brown, innocent eyes looked into ours with such soulful intensity that not one of us had the slightest sexual thought about them; moreover they were very young, some of them eleven and looking almost thirty. "Look at those eyes!" breathed Dean. They were like the eyes of the Virgin Mother when she was a child. We saw in them the tender and forgiving gaze of Jesus. And they stared unflinching into ours. We rubbed our nervous blue eyes and looked again. Still they penetrated us with sorrowful and hypnotic gleam. When they talked they suddenly became frantic and almost silly. In their silence they were themselves. "They've only recently learned to sell these crystals, since the highway was built about ten years back-up until that time this entire nation must have been silent!"

The girls yammered around the car. One particularly soulful child gripped at Dean's sweaty arm. She yammered in Indian. "Ah yes, ah yes, dear one," said Dean tenderly and almost sadly. He got out of the car and went fishing around in the battered trunk in the back-the same old tortured American trunk-and pulled out a wristwatch. He showed it to the child. She whimpered with glee. The others crowded around with amazement. Then Dean poked in the little girl's hand for "the sweetest and purest and smallest crystal she has personally picked from the mountain for me." He found one no bigger than a berry. And he handed her the wristwatch dangling. Their mouths rounded like the mouths of chorister children. The lucky little girl squeezed it to her ragged breastrobes. They stroked Dean and thanked him. He stood among them with his ragged face to the sky, looking for the next and highest and final pass, and seemed like the Prophet that had come to them. He got back in the car. They hated to see us go. For the longest time, as we mounted a straight pass, they waved and ran after us. We made a turn and never saw them again, and they were still running after us. "Ah, this breaks my heart!" cried Dean, punching his chest. "How far do they carry out these loyalties and wonders! What's going to happen to them? Would they try to follow the car all the way to Mexico City if we drove slow enough?"

"Yes," I said, for I knew.

We came into the dizzying heights of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The banana trees gleamed golden in the haze. Great fogs yawned beyond stone walls along the precipice. Below, the Moctezuma was a thin golden thread in a green jungle mat. Strange crossroad towns on top of the world rolled by, with shawled Indians watching us from under hatbrims and rebozos. Life was dense, dark, ancient. They watched Dean, serious and insane at his raving wheel, with eyes of hawks. All had their hands outstretched. They had come down from the back mountains and higher places to hold forth their hands for something they thought civilization could offer, and they never dreamed the sadness and the poor broken delusion of it. They didn't know that a bomb had come that could crack all our bridges and roads and reduce them to jumbles, and we would be as poor as they someday, and stretching out our hands in the same, same way. Our broken Ford, old thirties upgoing America Ford, rattled through them and vanished in dust.

We had reached the approaches of the last plateau. Now the sun was golden, the air keen blue, and the desert with its occasional rivers a riot of sandy, hot space and sudden Biblical tree shade. Now Dean was sleeping and Stan driving. The shepherds appeared, dressed as in first times, in long flowing robes, the women carrying golden bundles of flax, the men staves.

Under great trees on the shimmering desert the shepherds sat and convened, and the sheep moiled in the sun and raised dust beyond. "Man, man," I yelled to Dean, "wake up and see the shepherds, wake up and see the golden world that Jesus came from, with your own eyes you can tell!"

He shot his head up from the seat, saw one glimpse of it all in the fading red sun, and dropped back to sleep. When he woke up he described it to me in detail and said, "Yes, man, I'm glad you told me to look. Oh, Lord, what shall I do? Where will I go?" He rubbed his belly, he looked to heaven with red eyes, he almost wept.

The end of our journey impended. Great fields stretched on both sides of us; a noble wind blew across the occasional immense tree groves and over old missions turning salmon pink in the late sun. The clouds were close and huge and rose. "Mexico City by dusk!" We'd made it, a total of nineteen hundred miles from the afternoon yards of Denver to these vast and Biblical areas of the world, and now we were about to reach the end of the road.

"Shall we change our insect T-shirts?"

"Naw, let's wear them into town, hell's bells." And we drove into Mexico City.

A brief mountain pass took us suddenly to a height from which we saw all of Mexico City stretched out in its volcanic crater below and spewing city smokes and early dusklights. Down to it we zoomed, down Insurgentes Boulevard, straight toward the heart of town at Reforma. Kids played soccer in enormous sad fields and threw up dust. Taxi-drivers overtook us and wanted to know if we wanted girls. No, we didn't want girls now. Long, ragged adobe slums stretched out on the plain; we saw lonely figures in the dimming alleys. Soon night would come. Then the city roared in and suddenly we were passing crowded cafes and theaters and many lights. Newsboys yelled at us. Mechanics slouched by, barefoot, with wrenches and rags. Mad barefoot Indian drivers cut across us and surrounded us and tooted and made frantic traffic. The noise was incredible. No mufflers are used on Mexican cars. Horns are batted with glee continual. "Whee!" yelled Dean,

"Look out!" He staggered the car through the traffic and played with everybody. He drove like an Indian. He got on a circular glorietta drive on Reforma Boulevard and rolled around it with its eight spokes shooting cars at us from all directions, left, right, izquierda, dead ahead, and yelled and jumped with joy. "This is traffic I've always dreamed of' Everybody goes.'" An ambulance came balling through. American ambulances dart and weave through traffic with siren blowing; the great world-wide Fellahin Indian ambulances merely come through at eighty miles an hour in the city streets, and everybody just has to get out of the way and they don't pause for anybody or any circumstances and fly straight through. We saw it reeling out of sight on skittering wheels in the breaking-up moil of dense downtown traffic. The drivers were Indians. People, even old ladies, ran for buses that never stopped. Young Mexico City businessmen made bets and ran by squads for buses and athletically jumped them. The bus-drivers were barefoot, sneering and insane, and sat low and squat in T-shirts at the low, enormous wheels. Ikons burned over them. The lights in the buses were brown and greenish, and dark faces were lined on wooden benches.

In downtown Mexico City thousands of hipsters in floppy straw hats and long-lapeled jackets over bare chests padded along the main drag, some of them selling crucifixes and weed in the alleys, some of them kneeling in beat chapels next to Mexican burlesque shows in sheds. Some alleys were rubble, with open sewers, and little doors led to closet-size bars stuck in adobe walls. You had to jump over a ditch to get your drink, and in the bottom of the ditch was the ancient lake of the Aztec. You came out of the bar with your back to the wall and edged back to the street. They served coffee mixed with rum and nutmeg. Mambo blared from everywhere. Hundreds of whores lined themselves along the dark and narrow streets and their sorrowful eyes gleamed at us in the night. We wandered in a frenzy and a dream. We ate beautiful steaks for forty-eight cents in a strange tiled Mexican cafeteria with generations of marimba musicians standing at one immense marimba-also wandering singing guitarists, and old men on corners blowing trumpets. You went by the sour stink of pulque saloons; they gave you a water glass of cactus juice in there, two cents. Nothing stopped; the streets were alive all night. Beggars slept wrapped in advertising posters torn off fences. Whole families of them sat on the sidewalk, playing little flutes and chuckling in the night. Their bare feet stuck out, their dim candles burned, all Mexico was one vast Bohemian camp. On corners old women cut up the boiled heads of cows and wrapped morsels in tortillas and served them with hot sauce on newspaper napkins. This was the great and final wild uninhibited Fellahin-childlike city that we knew we would find at the end of the road. Dean walked through with his arms hanging zombie-like at his sides, his mouth open, his eyes gleaming, and conducted a ragged and holy tour that lasted till dawn in a field with a boy in a straw hat who laughed and chatted with us and wanted to play catch, for nothing ever ended.

Then I got fever and became delirious and unconscious. Dysentery. I looked up out of the dark swirl of my mind and I knew I was on a bed eight thousand feet above sea level, on a roof of the world, and I knew that I had lived a whole life and many others in the poor atomistic husk of my fl'esh, and I had all the dreams. And I saw Dean bending over the kitchen table. It was several nights later and he was leaving Mexico City already. "What you doin, man?" I moaned.

"Poor Sal, poor Sal, got sick. Stan'll take care of you. Now listen to hear if you can in your sickness: I got my divorce from Camille down here and I'm driving back to Inez in New York tonight if the car holds out."

"All that again?" I cried.

"All that again, good buddy. Gotta get back to my life. Wish I could stay with you. Pray I can come back." I grabbed the cramps in my belly and groaned. When I looked up again bold noble Dean was standing with his old broken trunk and looking down at me. I didn't know who he was any more, and he knew this, and sympathized, and pulled the blanket over my shoulders. "Yes, yes, yes, I've got to go now.

Old fever Sal, good-by." And he was gone. Twelve hours later in my sorrowful fever I finally came to understand that he was gone. By that time he was driving back alone through those banana mountains, this time at night.

When I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes. "Okay, old Dean, I'll say nothing."

PART FIVE

Dean drove from Mexico City and saw Victoi again in Gregoria and pushed that old car all the way to Lake Charles, Louisiana, before the rear end finally dropped on the road as he had always known it would. So he wired Inez for airplane fare and flew the rest of the way. When he arrived in New York with the divorce papers in his hands, he and Inez immediately went to Newark and got married; and that night, telling her everything was all right and not to worry, and making logics where there was nothing but inestimable sorrowful sweats, he jumped on a bus and roared off again across the awful continent to San Francisco to rejoin Camille and the two baby girls. So now he was three times married, twice divorced, and living with his second wife.

In the fall I myself started back home from Mexico City and one night just over Laredo border in Dilley, Texas, I was standing on the hot road underneath an arc-lamp with the summer moths smashing into it when I heard the sound of footsteps from the darkness beyond, and lo, a tall old man with flowing white hair came clomping by with a pack on his back, and when he saw me as he passed, he said, "Go moan for man," and clomped on back to his dark. Did this mean that I should at last go on my pilgrimage on foot on the dark roads around America? I struggled and hurried to New York, and one night I was standing in a dark street in Manhattan and called up to the window of a loft where I thought my friends were having a party. But a pretty girl stuck her head out the window and said, "Yes? Who is it?"

"Sal Paradise," I said, and heard my name resound in the sad and empty street.

"Come on up," she called. "I'm making hot chocolate.," So I went up and there she was, the girl with the pure and innocent dear eyes that I had always searched for and for so long. We agreed to love each other madly. In the winter we planned to migrate to San Francisco, bringing all our beat furniture and broken belongings with us in a jalopy panel truck. I wrote to Dean and told him. He wrote back a huge letter eighteen thousand words long, all about his young years in Denver, and said he was coming to get me and personally select the old truck himself and drive us home. We had six weeks to save up the money for the truck and began working and counting every cent. And suddenly Dean arrived anyway, five and a half weeks in advance, and nobody had any money to go through with the plan.

I was taking a walk in the middle of the night and came back to my girl to tell her what I thought about during my, walk. She stood in the dark little pad with a strange smile. I told her a number of things and suddenly I noticed the hush in the room and looked around and saw a battered book on the radio. I knew it was Dean's high-eternity-in-the-afternoon Proust. As in a dream I saw him tiptoe in from the dark hall in his stocking feet. He couldn't talk any more. He hopped and laughed, he stuttered and fluttered his hands and said, "Ah-ah-you must listen to hear." We listened, all ears. But he forgot what he wanted to say. "Really listen-ahem. Look, dear Sal-sweet Laura-I've come-I'm gone-but wait-ah yes." And he stared with rocky sorrow into his hands. "Can't talk no more-do you understand that it is-or might be- But listen!" We all listened. He was listening to sounds in the night. "Yes!" he whispered with awe. "But you see-no need to talk any more-and further."

"But why did you come so soon, Dean?"

"Ah," he said, looking at me as if for the first time, "so soon, yes. We-we'll know-that is, I don't know. I came on the railroad pass-cabooses-old hard-bench coaches-Texas- played flute and wooden sweet potato all the way." He took out his new wooden flute. He played a few squeaky notes on it and jumped up and down in his stocking feet. "See?" he said. "But of course, Sal, I can talk as soon as ever and have many things to say to you in fact with my own little bangtail mind I've been reading and reading this gone Proust all the way across the country and digging a great number of things I'll never have TIME to tell you about and we STILL haven't talked of Mexico and our parting there in fever-but no need to talk. Absolutely, now, yes?"

"All right, we won't talk." And he started telling the story of what he did in LA on the way over in every possible detail, how he visited a family, had dinner, talked to the father, the sons, the sisters-what they looked like, what they ate, their furnishings, their thoughts, their interests, their very souls; it took him three hours of detailed elucidation, and having concluded this he said, "Ah, but you see what I wanted to REALLY tell you-much later-Arkansas, crossing on train-playing flute-play cards with boys, my dirty deck- won money, blew sweet-potato solo-for sailors. Long long awful trip five days and five nights just to SEE you, Sal."

"What about Camille?"

"Gave permission of course-waiting for me. Camille and I all straight forever-and-ever . . ."

"And Inez?"

"I-I-I want her to come back to Frisco with me live other side of town-don't you think? Don't know why I came." Later he said in a sudden moment of gaping wonder, "Well and yes, of course, I wanted to see your sweet girl and you-glad of you-love you as ever." He stayed in New York three days and hastily made preparations to get back on the train with his railroad passes and again recross the continent, five days and five nights in dusty coaches and hard-bench crummies, and of course we had no money for a truck and couldn't go back with him. With Inez he spent one night explaining and sweating and fighting, and she threw him out. A letter came for him, care of me. I saw it. It was from Camille. "My heart broke when I saw you go across the tracks with your bag. I pray and pray you get back safe. ... I do want Sal and his friend to come and live on the same street. ... I know you'll make it but I can't help worrying-now that we've decided everything. . . . Dear Dean, it's the end of the first half of the century. Welcome with love and kisses to spend the other half with us. We all wait for you. [Signed] Camille, Amy, and Little Joanie." So Dean's life was settled with his most constant, most embittered, and best-knowing wife Camille, and I thanked God for him.

The last time I saw him it was under sad and strange circumstances. Remi Boncoeur had arrived in New York after having gone around the world several times in ships. I wanted him to meet and know Dean. They did meet, but Dean couldn't talk any more and said nothing, and Remi turned away. Remi had gotten tickets for the Duke Ellington concert at the Metropolitan Opera and insisted Laura and I come with him and his girl. Remi was fat and sad now but still the eager and formal gentleman, and he wanted to do things the right way, as he emphasized. So he got his bookie to drive us to the concert in a Cadillac. It was a cold winter night. The Cadillac was parked and ready to go. Dean stood outside the windows with his bag, ready to go to Penn Station and on across the land.

"Good-by, Dean," I said. "I sure wish I didn't have to go to the concert."

"D'you think I can ride to Fortieth Street with you?" he whispered. "Want to be with you as much as possible, m'boy, and besides it's so durned cold in this here New Yawk ..." I whispered to Remi. No, he wouldn't have it, he liked me but he didn't like my idiot friends. I wasn't going to start all over again ruining his planned evenings as I had done at Alfred's in San Francisco in 1947 with Roland Major.

"Absolutely out of the question, Sal!" Poor Remi, he had a special necktie made for this evening; on it was painted a replica of the concert tickets, and the names Sal and Laura and Remi and Vicki, the girl, together with a series of sad jokes and some of his favorite sayings such as "You can't teach the old maestro a new tune."

So Dean couldn't ride uptown with us and the only thing I could do was sit in the back of the Cadillac and wave at him. The bookie at the wheel also wanted nothing to do with Dean. Dean, ragged in a moth-eaten overcoat he brought specially for the freezing temperatures of the East, walked off alone, and the last I saw of him he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again. Poor little Laura, my baby, to whom I'd told everything about Dean, began almost to cry.

"Oh, we shouldn't let him go like this. What'll we do?" Old Dean's gone, I thought, and out loud I said, "He'll be all right." And off we went to the sad and disinclined concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me.

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

[tialovestelevision]

Tough Love

Oh god they’re going to be awful to Tara again.

1. Previously On, Then we’re at the college, with someone setting up a projector. It’s Professor Lillian. Buffy is dropping all her classes so she can take care of Dawn. Buffy fixed the projector. We get Ben next, showing up late for his job, which he’s now been fired from. He’s angry and yelling at Glory, but she can’t hear him. Then she takes over. She’s hungry. Opening credits no Tara.

2. Glory is enjoying a bubble bath. She likes them a lot. She does not like her minions failing to find the Key. She’s asking the minions to deliver their spying reports to her so she can figure out who the Key is.

3. Dawn lied to Buffy. Or maybe not exactly lied. Dawn’s been skipping school. They’re at the principal’s office. The principal says a thing that makes them nervous, but it turns out to be educationspeak. Then Dawn gets sent out so the principal can talk to Buffy alone.

4. Anya is watching her customers at the Magic Box. Anya is an American. She likes capitalism. She’s going to make the customers buy something. Buffy and Dawn just came in; Buffy looks unhappy. Xander’s metaphor has failed. Buffy needs to talk to Giles. Willow is going to help Dawn with homework. Buffy doesn’t know what to do about Dawn. She’s asking Giles to put his foot down with Dawn so Buffy doesn’t have to. Buffy does not want to be the grown-up or authority figure. She’s giving herself a pep talk. She’s terrified. Then Buffy comes out to find people playing. Willow is making excuses. Buffy is taking Dawn home. Willow is arguing with Buffy. Willow is inviting Buffy and Dawn to the cultural fair, but Buffy turns that down too. She and Dawn are leaving.

5. Glory thinks she’s figured out who the Key is. She’s sending her minions on assignments to collect the Key.

6. Willow and Tara are in their room, and Willow is telling Tara about what happened at the magic shop. Tara sympathizes with Buffy. Their conversation derails and Tara thinks Willow is mad at her. They’re both very sad now. They’re having the quietest fight ever. Tara misspoke and the fight got worse. Egads, and Willow can’t let it go. Tara is worried about where Willow is heading. And now they’re fighting about Willow’s orientation, and Willow stomped out and sent Tara to the fair alone.

7. Glory’s minions are watching Buffy fight with Dawn. Dawn’s not just grieving; she’s also having a continued existential crisis. Buffy is scared the state will take Dawn away from her. The principal told her that when Dawn left the room.

8. (dramatic music playing). The multicultural fair is happening, and Tara’s watching people dance with a dragon puppet while Willow sits stewing in the magic shop. Someone sits next to Tara… it’s Glory. Well, crap.

9. Giles is opening a box. It might be a returned petrified hamster. Giles is reassuring Willow. Giles found one of Glory’s minions, and knocked him out. Minion: “I do indeed work for the god. Let me go if you do not wish to incur her anger.” Giles: “She’s not here. What a marvelous opportunity for us to talk.” He let a little bit of his Ripper voice in there. The minion broke when Giles threatened to tie him up. Glory thinks Tara is the Key. Willow is rushing to the fair to look for Tara, while Giles calls Buffy.

10. Glory just broke Tara’s hand. Tara can’t call for help because Glory would kill anyone who tried. Wow… she’s really wrecked Tara’s hand. It’s bleeding. Glory just ate some of Tara’s blood… and that told her that Tara’s not the Key. Now she’s raging about being lied to. Glory offers to let Tara go if she tells her who the Key is. Now she’s describing what her powers do to people’s minds. It’s… a particular sort of torture for Tara, really. Not going to go into detail here. She’s also still doing damage to Tara’s hand. Tara refuses to tell Glory.

11. Willow’s running through the fair crowd, casting her spell. She's about two feet away when Glory puts her hands in Tara’s head. Tara’s freaking out about dirt and bad things...

12. Incoherent rage at the writers.

13. Dawn and Spike scene.

14. Hospital scene. Tara going to the psych ward and being separated from Willow by force.

15. Magic shop. Willow’s getting the forbidden books and supplies. An actual ��Darkest Magick” book, with a k.

16. Glory’s house. She’s boasting. Earthquake. Flying Willow. She’s actually hurting Glory.

17. Spike’s crypt. Buffy and Dawn talking. Spike knows what Willow’s doing. Now Buffy knows too.

18. Willow fighting Glory. Willow’s out of juice. Buffy shows up to help.

19. Nope don’t have it in me.

20. Glory’s there. Just broke the wall. And Tara told her that Dawn is the Key.

Overall: There are things to talk about in this episode. Narrative threads, themes, quality moments of writing, the way its last scene ties a lot of different stories together. But I’m not going to do any of that.

They fridged Tara.

They wiped out Tara’s personality, her goals and dreams and mind, because they’d written a story where one of their main protagonists knew great loss and Tara herself knew great loss but Tara’s more plot-significant partner did not know great loss. They explicitly described what Glory’s touch does to a person in a way that resonates incredibly strongly with spiritual and emotional abuse - something Tara’s childhood basically consisted of - then had Glory use her touch on her. They effectively (if temporarily) killed off a character who was the victim of abuse in a way made especially painful by that abuse, and they wrote the scene to frame it that way on purpose.

And they did it not to advance or build on or even complete Tara’s narrative, but to move forward a season arc and develop Willow’s character a little more.

Throw in the fact that television has a bad habit of torturing and murdering its lesbians, and this habit was already well-established by the time this episode aired, as well as the other issues with Willow and Tara’s relationship’s portrayal (they’re not allowed nearly the level of on-camera intimacy the straight couples get, it took way longer for the show to actively admit their obvious relationship than it should have, and the fact that Willow appears to be bisexual is wiped out because the writers don’t seem to know that word exists), and you get just a horrific mess of emotional pain for people whose issues this episode touches. Emotional pain the show has no intention of ever resolving, because the show’s not about Tara so anything that happens to or about her has to primarily serve the stories and emotional arcs of the series leads.

I love Buffy. I really do. But the show is brutally imperfect, and this is one of the moments - along with Gingerbread, along with Helpless, along with Becoming, where its apparent cluelessness about how television as a cultural medium and people’s emotional lives work gives it a kind of emotional loading that does the show no favors and is painful to watch in an entirely un-fun way.