Diary (August 17, 2021)

Online diary of Karl Jones for August 17, 2021.

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Diary

The Sheep Look Up

MARCHING ORDERS

• The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner (nonfiction).

JANUARY

MARCHING ORDERS

"Go ye and bring the Light

To savage strands afar.

Take ye the Law of Right

Where'er the unblest are.

• "Heathens and stubborn Jews,

Lovers of Juggernaut,

Give them the chance to choose

That which the Saviour taught.

"Go where the gentle Lord

Is still as yet unknown,

There where the tribes ignored

Strive in the dark alone.

"Arm ye to face the foe,

Carib and cannibal,

Men who must live as low

As any animal.

• "Cover the naked limb,

Shoe ye the unshod foot,

Silence the pagan hymn,

Conquer the godless brute.

"Tell them the news of Love,

Preach them the Prince of Peace,

Tear down their pagan grove,

Give them divine release."

-"The Sacred Sower: Being a Collection of Hymns and Devout Songs Adapted to the Use of Missionary Societies", 1887; verses marked * may be omitted if desired.

THE MARVELS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

THE MARVELS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

The small neat secretary, a girl in the smartest of advanced fashionable styles including a skirt slit up to the waist to display at her crotch a tuft of shiny steel wool attached to her panties, listened to the ultramodern intercom on her highly-polished desk. The sound was directionalized, of course. It was cool and quiet in here because instead of windows there were cosmoramic projections, latest of late devices to prevent the intrusion of untasteful exterior reality. Nearby the chimneys reeked a twenty-four-hour day yet the view was of clean white clouds, blue sky, yellow sun not so bright that it dazzled.

Superior to the natural article, yes.

Also birds flew or perched between two layers of glass on real branches in air-conditioned environment. It was not ordinary to see birds. Very yes.

"Mr. Hideki Katsamura," the girl said. Mr. Hideld Katsamura rose from the plastic seat, faultless imitation of natural fur without risk of disease or perhaps pejorative associations owing to demise of so many regretted species. Solid family man, well-established, excellent command of English, correctly clad with sober fabric. Unflighty. Not excessively anxious to please and bowing to secretaries as some.

The wait had been long but one understood: the pressure of urgent business.

Very modern, the girl opened the door to Dr. Hirasaku's office by pushing a hidden button.

Later, when Dr. Hirasaku and his co-directors had clearly given instructions for the visit to America allotting the franchises for new water-purifier, also many lists of competing products to be explained inferior and amounts of bids recorded so far and further details to be studied with care, Mr. Katsamura went home to new house in suburb of Osaka where the honey-carts called promptly and the center of the street received replenishment of other household waters in landscaped rivulets arched at one-block intervals with highly artistic ancient Chinese-pattern bridges, typical of supermodern pedestrian-precinct city planning must not be jammed uptight with cars. All excellent. All nylon.

GRAB WHILE THE GRABBING'S GOOD

MAY

GRAB WHILE THE GRABBING'S GOOD

When I came here there was nothing to be seen But the forest drear and the prairie green.

Coyotes howled in the vale below

With the deer and the bear and the buffalo, To my whack-fol-the-day, whack-fol-the-do, Whack-fol-the-day-fol-the-didy-o!

So I took my axe and I cut the trees

And I made me a shack for to lie at ease,

With the walls of log and the roof of sod

And I gave my thanks at night to God,

To my whack…

And I took my gun and my powder-horn

And I killed the varmints that stole my corn.

With meat and bread I had a good life,

So I looked for a woman who would be my wife, To my whack…

When he was a boy I taught my son

To use the plow and the hoe and the gun.

The fields spread out as the trees came down-There was room at last for a little town,

To my whack…

There's a church of clapboard with a steeple, And Sunday morning it's full of people.

There's a bank, a saloon and a general store And a hundred houses weren't there before, To my whack…

And now that I'm old and prepared to go

There are cattle instead of the buffalo.

They'll carry my coffin to my grave

Down roads they say they're going to pave, To my whack…

So I'm happy to know I made my mark

On the land which once was drear and dark, And I'm happy to know my funeral prayer

Will be heard in the land that was stark and bare, To my whack…

-"Boelker's Camp Fire Songster," 1873

A VIEW STILL EXTREMELY WIDELY ADHERED TO

JUNE

A VIEW STILL EXTREMELY WIDELY ADHERED TO

There's an 'eathen bint out in Malacca

With an 'orrible 'eathenish name.

As for black, they don't come any blacker-

But she answered to "Jill" just the same!

Well, a man 'oo's abroad can get lonely,

Missin' friends an' relations an' such.

She wasn't "me sweet one-an'-only"-

But there's others as done just as much!

I'm not blushin' or makin' excuses,

An' I don't think she'd want that, because

When she stopped blubbin' over 'er bruises

The long an' the short of it was

That I'd bust up 'er 'orrible idol

An' I'd taught 'er respect for a gun-

Yus, I broke 'er to saddle an' bridle

An' I left 'er an Englishman's son!

-"Lays of the Long Haul," 1905

MOTHER-RAPERS

SEPTEMBER

MOTHER-RAPERS

…"Mid fume and reek

That caused unmanly Tears to lave my cheek, Black-vis'd as Moors from soil, and huge of thew, The Founders led me ever onward through Th' intolerable Mirk. The furnace Spire

They broach'd, and came a sudden gout of Fire That leach'd the precious Water from my corse And strain'd my Vision with such awful force It seem'd I oped my eyes to tropic Sun

Or lightning riving Midnight's dismal dun, Or stood amaz'd by mighty Hekla's pit.

I marvel'd how Man, by his GOD-sent wit,

Thus tam'd the salamander Element

And loos'd the Metal in the mountain pent

To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows, Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows, The surgeon's Scalpel, vehicle of Health, And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth…

—"De Arte Munificente," Seventeenth century STANDSTILL

TO NAME BUT A FEW

TO NAME BUT A FEW

Opaque and pale as tissue paper the sky overlay America.

Everywhere the voices of people saying in a doubtful tone, "But it didn't use to be like this, did it?"

And others saying with scorn, "Don't give me that shit about the Good Old Days!"

The mental censors rewriting history, not through rose-colored glasses, but gray ones.

Reading, as you might say, from the top down:

Dead satellites.

Discarded first and second stages of rockets, mainly second.

Fragments of vehicles which exploded in orbit.

Experimental material, e.g. reflective copper needles.

Combustion compounds from rocket exhausts.

Experimental substances intended to react with stratospheric ozone, e. g., sodium.

Very light radioactive fallout.

CO2

Aircraft exhaust. Medium fallout. Rainmaking compounds.

Smoke.

Sulphur dioxide.

Leadalkyls.

Mercaptans and other bad smells.

Car exhausts.

Locomotive exhausts.

More smoke.

Local fallout.

Products accidentally vented from underground nuclear tests.

Oceanic fluorine.

Nitric acid.

Sulphuric acid.

Sewage.

Industrial effluents.

Detergents.

Selenium and cadmium from mine tailings.

Fumes from garbage incinerators burning plastic.

Nitrates, phosphates, fungicidal mercuric

compounds from "compacted soils."

Oil.

Oil-derived insecticides. Defoliants and herbicides.

Radioactives from aquifers contaminated by underground explosions, chiefly tritium.

Lead, arsenic, oil-well sludge, fly ash, asbestos.

Polyethylene, polystyrene, polyurethane, glass, cans.

Nylon, dacron, rayon, terylene, stylene, orlon, other artificial fibers.

Scrap.

Garbage.

Concrete and cement.

A great deal of short-wave radiation.

Carcinogens, teratogens and mutagens.

Synergistic poisons.

Hormones, antibiotics, additives, medicaments.

Drugs.

Solanine, oxalic acid, caffeine, cyanide, myristicin, pressor amines, copper sulphate, dihydrochalcones, naringin, ergot.

Botulinus.

Mustard gas, chlorine, Lewisite, phosgene, prussic acid. T, Q, GA, GB, CD, GE, GF, VE, VX, CA, CN, CS, DM, PL, BW, BZ.

CO.

-to name but a few.

THE IMAGE

THE IMAGE

is of a house: large, old, once very beautiful, built by someone whose imagination matched his skills. But he squandered his substance and fell on evil times. Sublet and then again sublet, the house became infested as though by vermin with occupants who felt no sense of attachment to its fabric, and were prepared to complain forever without themselves accepting responsibility for its upkeep.

Thus from a distance it may be seen that the roof is swaybacked like a standard whale. Certain of the slates were cracked in a long-ago hurricane and not repaired; under them wood has warped and split. A footstep, be it never so light-as of a toddling child-will cause the boards anywhere on any floor to shift on their joists, uttering creaks.

Also the basement is noisome. It has been flooded more than once.

The foundations have settled. A stench permeates the air, testimony to generations of drunks who pissed where the need overtook them.

There is much woodworm. Closets and cupboards have been shut for years because inside there are the fruiting bodies of the dry-rot fungus, and they stink. The grand staircase is missing a tread about halfway to the noble gallery encircling the entrance hall. One or two of the ancestral portraits remain, but not many; the majority have been sold off, along with the marble statues that once graced the front steps. The coach-house is dank and affords crowded lodging for a family of mentally sub-normal children, orphaned, half-clad, filthy and incestuous.

There are fleas.

The lawn is covered with wind-blown rubbish. The goldfish that used to dart among the lily-pads in the ornamental pond were seen to float, belly-up and bloated, one spring following a winter of hard frosts; now they are gone. The graveled driveway is obscured with dandelions and docks. The gates at the end of it have been adrift from their hinges for far longer than anyone can remember, half rusted through. So too the doors within the house, if they haven't been chopped into firewood.

More than half the windows have been broken, and hardly any have been made good. The rest are blocked with rags, or have had bits of cardboard tacked over them.

In the least damaged wing the owner, in an alcoholic haze, conducts delightful conversations with imaginary ambassadors and dukes.

Meantime, those of the other inhabitants who know how to write pen endless letters to the government, demanding that someone come and fix the drains.

THE TICK-TOCK MEN

OCTOBER

THE TICK-TOCK MEN

FERNANDO:…Why, he does,

Nor will contented rest until the world,

The whole great globe and orb by land and sea, Ticks to his pleasure like a parish clock.

You are a cogwheel, Juan, as am I:

He's shaped us round, and prettied us with jags, And gilded us with gold-JUAN: Add: gelded us!

FERNANDO: Aye, so he has, my brother.

And 'tis all part of his clockwork.

See you, he's the weight;

We follow from him in an engined train;

Ducats are oil to make our axles turn

Without a squeak.

JUAN: I'll squeak, i'faith! I'll rant

And call down hurricanoes on his head,

I'll conjure earthquakes to beset his path!

FERNANDO: You've no escapement, Juan. You're enchained.

At your vain wrath he will politely nod

And say you have come forth to strike the hour, He's 'bliged to you…

-"

The Tragedy of Ercole," 1625

STATEMENT OF EMERGENCY

STATEMENT OF EMERGENCY

"Thank you. Friends and fellow Americans, no president of the United States has ever had a more melancholy task than I have at this moment.

"It is my sad duty to inform you that our country is in a state of war.

A war that is none of our choosing. And, moreover, not a war with bombs and tanks and missiles, not a war that is fought by soldiers gallant on the field of battle, sailors daring the hostile sea, airmen streaking valiant through the skies-but a war that must be fought by you, the people of the United States.

"We have been attacked with the most cowardly, the most monstrous, the most evil weapons ever devised by wicked men. We are the victims of a combined chemical and biological attack. You are all aware that our crops have failed disastrously last summer. We, the members of my cabinet and I, delayed announcing the truth behind that story in the vain hope that we might contain the threat of the jigras. We can no longer do so. It is known that they were deliberately introduced into this country. They are the same pest which ruined the entire agriculture of Central America and led to the sad and unwished-for conflict in Honduras.

"That by itself we could endure. We are resilient, brave, long-suffering people, we Americans. What is necessary, we will do.

But alas there are some among us who bear the name 'American' and are traitors, determined to overthrow the legitimate government, freely elected, to make the work of the police impossible, to denigrate and decry the country we love. Some of them adhere to alien creeds, the communism of Marx and Mao; some, detestably, adhere to a creed equally alien yet spawned within our own borders-that of the Trainites, whose leader, thank God, is safely in jail awaiting his just punishment for kidnapping an innocent boy and imprisoning him and infecting him with foul diseases that endangered his life.

"We are fighting an enemy already in our midst. He must be recognized by his words as well as his deeds. One of the great cities of our nation today writhes in agony because the water supply, the precious diamond stream that nourishes our lives, has been poisoned.

You may say: how can we resist an enemy whose weapon is the very faucet at the sink, the very water-cooler we go to for relief in the factory or the office?

And I will say this! It is you, the people of our great land, who must provide the answer!

"It is not going to be easy. It is going to be very hard. Our enemies have succeeded in reducing our stocks of food to the point where we must share and share alike. Following my speech, you will be informed of the emergency arrangements we are putting in hand for equal and fair distribution of the food we have. You will be informed, too, of the plans we have for silencing known traitors and subversives. But the remainder is up to you. You know who the enemy is-you met him at work, you heard him talking treason at a party, you heard about his attendance at a commie-front meeting, you saw the anti-American books in his library, you refused to laugh at his so-called jokes that dragged the name of the United States in the mud, you shut your ears to his anti-American propaganda, you told your kids to keep away from his kids who are being taught to follow in his traitor's footsteps, you saw him at a Trainite demonstration, you know how he lied and slandered the loyal Americans who have built our country up until it is the richest and most powerful nation in history.

"My friends, you elected me to lead you into the third century of our country's existence. I know you can be trusted to do what is right. You know who the enemy is. Go get him before he gets you!"

WHEREWITHAL SHALL IT BE SALTED?

NOVEMBER

WHEREWITHAL SHALL IT BE SALTED?

A chemist in an old-established corporation

succeeded after many decades of research

in isolating the active principle from oceans

Hopes were high for its immediate appeal

as a safe additive for preserving food

and miraculous enhancer of natural flavor

Regrettably however it was discovered

that in a solution as weak as three per cent

it caused dehydration and delirium and death

-"Our Father Which Art in Washington," 1978

NEXT YEAR

NEXT YEAR

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

—Milton: "Lycidas"

I am the world's fourth-greatest nonsense poet

Fourth-Greatest Nonsense Poet.

Compare Move aside, satire coming through.

Jonathan Swift Vineyards

Jonathan Swift Vineyards

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles