[ssf] Pulp Fiction I

[.]

Afterword
=========

   It is a known fact
   that the word 'invention'
   originally stood for 'discovery',
   and thus the Roman Church celebrates
   the Invention of the Cross,
   not its unearthing,
   or discovery.

   Behind this etymological shift we may,
   I think,
   glimpse the whole Platonic doctrine of archetypes --
   of all things being already there.

   William Morris thought
   that the essential stories of man's imagination
   had long since been told
   and that by now
   the storyteller's craft lay
   in rethinking
   and retelling them.

   His _Earthly Paradise_ is a token to this theory,
   though not,
   of course,
   a proof.

   I do not go as far as Morris went,
   but to me the writing of a story
   has more of discovery about it
   than deliberate invention.

   -- Doctor Brodie's Report : Jorge Luis Borges


Peredur
=======

  There was a note in my pigeon whole --
  the bursar had taken a message from the police

  It read
  they had found my driving licence

  I didn't know i'd lost it --
  i'd been busy doing stuff elsewhere

  That morning i'd left my mate Speedy
   still in bed
    and was on a mission
     to get some
      star fish and coffee

  I'd dropped by
   the J.C.R.
    on the way out
     to get my post

  I walk down through the college gardens
  past the pear trees
  and joined the tow path
  by the boat shed

  The sun was already high
  and the black top of the path
  radiated heat

  The police station was and is
  on the other side of
  a foot bridge called Baths
  next to the high security prison

  I walked across Baths bridge
  passed the Dun Cow, a free house
  without stopping
  and presented my note to the officer
  at the front desk

  He gave me a receipt,
  which i signed and returned --
  he took it and disappeared
  in to the back of the shop
  asking me to wait

  Pat,
  the landlady of the Dun Cow
  was sat there beavering away
  fastening new strips
  of Shillito tartan
  into bands
  around the guards' hats

  She called me over
  using a name she heard other's call me
  and gave me one of the bands
  fastened with a half twist

  A non uniformed officer returned
  and introduced himself
  with a smile
  and ordered --

   'Could you follow me sir'

   -- leading the way
   out the main door
   and up in to an adjacent cops

  There was snow underfoot
  on the footpath
  between the trees
  as there had been there
  on the night before

    'I read somewhere that the guilty
     always return to the scene of the crime'

     -- i cautioned

   The non uniformed officer turned around --

   'Do you want to tell me something sir'

     I shuck my head and said --

     'Nar, only that i can read'

   The officer grimaced
   his face now resembling
   that of a maternal uncle --

   'Son
    you are but a student'

     Nodding,
     i asked him
     if that was a crime

   'Follow me' -- the officer barked
   'to that tree,
    that is where
    your licence was found'

  He gripped my arm
  and paced me further
  in to the cops

  In the day light
  the tree still frosted
  glowing with dark pigment
  as Speedy
  against it
  had glowed dark
  the night before

  The night before,
  that night before
  the frost had reflected
  the white of the florescent lights
  that demarked the footpaths
  between the trees

  Red
  in the daylight
  below the glowing tree
  in the snow
  screamed a tear of blood

   'Is this your blood sir ?' -- inquired the officer

     'Some of it maybe' -- i responded

   'And the rest ?'

     'My mate's'

   'Mates,
    mates
    how many do you have' -- the officer's face grimacing again

     'If i had 10p
      i could fit most of them
      in a phone box'

   The officer relaxed his grip
   and moved to face me

     'Yes,
      i am a student
      And no,
      you are not my father' -- i stated flatly

   'You are living in the past' -- he replied

  He drew a box
  with the toe of his right brogue
  around the blood in the snow --

   'Explain this student'

  I reflected his motion
  and drew a square
  in the snow
  with my left toe
  diagonally joining
  his square and the tree --

     'The snow or the blood'

   'The blood !
    Explain your mate's,
    explain the others' blood.

    Explain this mingled blood spilt here student'

     'What happens if criminals
      are left unchecked' -- i cautioned

  'Your record states
   you to be a pugilist' -- he responded

     'They are past records
      and it is the question
      of a past pugilist:

       What happens if criminals
       are left unchecked' -- i cautioned

  'Here
   and put that away'

   -- the officer ordered,
   as he thrust the licence
   which he used in transit
   to gesture
   to the band
   still in my left hand

  I put the licence away
  and twisted the band
  in to a figure of eight

  I slipped them on to my wrists
  and raised my hands to meet our eye line

  The officer smiled
  then grimaced
  and
  told me to be elsewhere
  using an old guttural dialect


A Court Becomes a Parliament
=============================

   The one thing that saved England
   from the fate of other countries
   was not her insular position,
   not the independent spirit
   nor the magnanimity of her people --

    for we have been proud of the despotism
     we obeyed under the Tudors,
    and not ashamed of the tyranny
     we exercised in our dependencies --

   but only the consistent,
   uninventive,
   stupid fidelity to that political system
   which originally belonged
   to all the nations
   that traversed the ordeal
   of feudalism.

   -- Lord Acton


Sister Ray
==========


MV:

      knock knock

FV:

      who is it this time

MV:

      it's me

FV:

      yes but there has been so many mese tonight

MV:

      no, it's me

FV:

      oh it is me you

      its good to see a familiar face

MV:

      you look shattered

      here, i've got that coffee --
      did you find my the note ?

FV:

      yes thanks,

      i nearly called around earlier,
      but i think you are with paul

MV:

      yeah, i was for a bit ...

      you've had a lot of visitors too yeah

FV:

      yes, so many and so many new faces
      but quite a lot of people smelling of beer
      and grinning

MV:

      i wondered why you were still dressed up

FV [ twirling ]:

      admit it
      you like to see me in these colours

MV:

      i'm glad i wasn't supping mi coffee
      then,
      or i would have splutted it all over
      that lovely dress of yours

FV:

      is that a hint

      you make the coffee,
      and i will change ...

      so why are you here ...

      is this a social call
      or business

MV:

      your visitors
      it's kinda my fault
      do you mind

FV:

      not really
      it was good to see so many new faces
      good for the passing trade

      but ...
        how do you say ...
          it's hard to put my finger on it

MV:

      now there's a prone and speechless dialect

FV:

      now there it goes again ...

      what is it tonight
      it's as if
      i am some sort of ...
           some sort of fair ground attraction

MV:

      i'm sorry
      it's my fault

FV:

      how,

      did you send them here
      there were so many, and many smelly

      how is it your fault


MV:

      i modified a game

FV:

      a game,
      a game,
      am i now a game

MV:

      no you're a trophy

FV:

      a trophy
      don not tell me this

      ah ...
        now i can put my finger on it ...

        why did you do this to me

        what did you tell them about me

MV:

      i told them nothing
      other than the obvious

      but i didn't mean to put you in that position
      i apologise

FV:

      what did you do
      what did say


MV:

      here's your coffee

FV:

      yes,
      i think we will need it
      sit down
      over there

      explain this game to me

MV:

      first,
      i know that this won't make you feel any better
      but, it's not just you

FV:

      not just me what

MV:

      not just you that is and can be a trophy

FV:

      who else

MV:

      its hard to say -- any one and every one

FV:

      what kind of game is it --
      is everyone being sexually pestered tonight
      to the amount that i have been --
          is it a sex game

MV:

      no, not everyone has been pestered,
      but, yes it is a game of varied intercourse

FV:

      why

      isn't there enough sex about

MV:

      no it wasn't to increase the quantity
      it was to increase the quality


FV:

      don't tell me this,
      i remember how those men looked
      when they were caressing me
      how they moved ...

      i was to be their trophy
      in a way that i would never be ...

      sex is sex
      but they wanted,
      they wanted to ...
         they tried to conquer my heart

MV:

      yes, and that's why they wanted you

FV [ pointing to a picture of her fella ]:

     it's not me they want
     it's him

     why did you do this --
     those drunken louts

MV:

     no, it is you they wanted --
     those drunken louts

     they don't know much about him
     other that you work for him

     but they know little of his imprisonment
     and they don't know that
     pretty much everything you do
     is so you can be with him

     did you give them some of your leaflets

FV:

     yes
     of course, but ah ...

       of course, but ...

          why the perverted sexual angle

          did you tell them i liked it

MV:

     was it perverse

FV:

     yes

MV:

     wasn't it just a sexual angle
     when all said and done
     you don't look like you're suffering any

FV:

     oh shush
     you know what i mean
     you know i can handle myself
     you've seen that
     when we've worked together
     in the streets
     but why these men

MV:

     they're boys
     we're basically boys

FV:

     well,
     maybe i should be happy
     of that sort of attention
     normally it's the old and sick
     but these were boys, fit healthy young men
     no i shouldn't, that's a sin, forgive me

MV:

     its not for me to forgive silly

FV [ looking at a picture of her fella ]

     no ...

     why did they torture him so

     some people are evil

MV:

     the people who tortured him
     didn't really know
     what they were doing
     they were following
     life scripts which
     they thought were their own
     and they were afraid


FV:

     no, i don't accept that
     just like i don't accept that those boys
     who came here tonight
     were scared and followed your command

     every body has free will

     and anyway
     did you not say
     you considered psychology
     to be an inferior religion


MV :

     yes, it tends to the individual
     but i don't believe in evil
     when what i witness is
     crime, negligence, ignorance and apathy

     here,
     i've brought you this
     as a going away present
     it won't be long now
     before we're both on our travels
     one way or another
     but i want you to hear this one now
     it will remind you of him


        Fidelity and love
        are two different things,
        like a flower and a gem.

        And love,
        like a flower,
        will fade,
        will change into something else
        or it would not be flowery.

        O flowers they fade because they are moving swiftly;
           a little torrent of life
           leaps up to the summit of the stem,
           gleams,
           turns over round the bend
           of the parabola of curved flight,
           sinks,
           and is gone,
           like a comet curving into the invisible.

        O flowers,
        they are all the time traveling
        like comets,
        and they come into our ken
        for a day,
        for two days,
        and withdraws,
        slowly vanish again.

        And we,
        we must take them on the wing,
        and let them go.

        Embalmed flowers are not flowers,
        immortelles are not flowers;
        flowers are just a motion,
        a swift motion,
        a coloured gesture;
           that is their loveliness.
              And that is love.

        But a gem is different.
        It lasts so much longer than we do
        so much much much longer
        that it seems to last for ever.
        Yet we know it is flowing away
        as flowers are,
        and we are,
        only slower.
        The wonderful slow flowing of the sapphire!

        All flows,
        and every flow is related to every other flow.
        Flowers and sapphires and us,
        diversely streaming.

        In the old days,
        when sapphires were breathed upon and
        brought forth
        during the wild orgasms of chaos
        time was much slower,
        when the rocks came forth.
        It took aeons to make sapphire,
        aeons for it to pass away.

        And a flower it takes a summer.

        And man and women are like the earth,
        that brings forth
        flowers
        in summer,
        and love,
        but underneath is rock.

        Older than flowers,
        older than ferns,
        older than foramini-
        ferae,
        older than plasm altogether is the soul of a man underneath.

        And when,
        throughout all the wild orgasm of love
        slowly a gem forms,
        in the ancient,
        once-more-molten
        rocks
        of two human hearts,
        two ancient rocks,
        a woman's heart and
        a man's
        that is the crystal of peace,
        the slow hard jewel of trust,
        the sapphire of fidelity.

        The gem of mutual peace emerging
        from the wild chaos of
        love.

        -- Fidelity : D.H. Lawrence


     here, take the book

FV:

     thanks,

     you take this


MV:

     are you sure


FV:

     yes, yes

     and don't be a stranger

( They kiss and depart )


The Arrival of the Commons.
===========================

> The American constitution is essentially the same as the English constitution, which dates back to the 1080's implemented by the Normans. Two references in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles openly state it is non religious.
> 
> England was maintained on the basis of the counties, around forty of them,  with a central government but no great central state machine, each county had it's own state and state machine, each with it's own democratic gov'.
> 
> No part of any American state can secede from the union, but any state can, because each state is a nation in it's own right. 


    "It is no antiquarian pedantry
     that traces the origin of parliament
     back to Saxon times.

     For the tradition
     that the king must govern
     with advice of his great men
     was already well established
     when the Conqueror arrived,
     and his Great Council
     not only included men
     who had been of the Council of
     Edward the Confessor,
     but was rightly regarded by Englishmen
     as the constitutional equivalent
     of the _witena gemot._"


  The same quarrel
  which had precipitated the baronial demand for parliament
  led not so many years later
  to the summoning of the Commons.

  In 1254 the king,
  being in Gascony,
  demanded through his agents an aid
  on the grounds that he was about to be attacked
  by the King of Castile.

  The prelates were willing to grant an aid,
  but would give no undertaking on behalf of the clergy
  without their consent.

  The earls and the barons also promised an aid,
  but it was reported to the king
  that he would not be able to get an aid
  from the rest of the laity,
  unless he gave emphatic orders
  to his lieutenants in England
  strictly to observe
  the great charter of liberties
  and unless he proclaimed the same
  in all the countries
  of England.

  In these circumstances
  the bishops were ordered
  to assemble their diocesan synods
  and to persuade them to grant an aid
  which would be stated before the council
  by trustworthy persons;
    and the sheriffs likewise ordered
    to send to council two legal
    and discreet knights
    elected by each county on behalf
    of all and each
    ( _vice omnium et singulorum_ )

    'to consider together
     with the knights of the other counties
     whom we have had summoned
     for the same day,
     what aid they will be willing to grant us
     in our great need'.

  The sheriff was also bidden
  to explain the king's difficulties
  and his urgent need to the knights
  and other inhabitants of the county,

  'so that the said knights
   shall be able
   on the date fixed
   to answer exactly
   to our council
   in the name of the counties'.


  The meeting to which the knights of the shire
  were summoned
  was almost certainly not a parliament,
  since its purpose
  was merely that they might report
  to the king
  and council
  the amount of a subsidy
  which had already been agreed upon
  at an earlier council of magnates.

  But the circumstances are illuminating.

  They show that the reason
  for summoning the representatives of the shires
  was financial,
  and a precedent was set for similar summonses
  in the future.

  Seven years later,
  when Henry and the barons
  were at open war,
  both sides sought the support of the shires
  and issued competing writs
  to the sheriffs
  directing them to send knights
  to national assembly.

  In 1264,
  after his victory in Lewes,
  Simon de Montfort
  issued writs in the king's name,
  ordering the election
  of four lawful and discreet knights
  by each shire
  to discuss the state
  of the realm;

   and in 1265 he summoned
   to his second parliament
   not only two knights
      from each county
   but also two citizens
        from each city
   and two burgesses
          from each borough.

       The Commons had arrived.

       Who were the Commons ?

           -- Parliament is Feudal : Kenneth Mackenzie