...Progressive Realities

I have sailed the world, beheld its wondersFrom the Dardanelles to the mountains of Peru
But there's no place like London!
I feel home again

I could hear the city bells ring
Whatever I would do
No, there's no place like London!

Mr. Todd, sir
You are young
Life has been kind to you
You will learn

So Antony, it is here we go our several ways
Farewell, I shall not soon forget the good ship bountiful
Nor the young man who saved my life

Alms, alms for a miserable woman
On a miserable chilly mornin'
Oh, thank you, sir, thank you

How would you like a little squiff, dear
A little jig-jig, a little bounce around the bush
Wouldn't you like to push me crumpet?
It looks to me, dear, like you've got plenty there to push

Alms, alms for a pitiful woman
What's got wandering wits
Hey, don't I know you, mister?

Must you glare at me, woman?
Off with you, off I say
Then how would you like to fish me squiff, Mister?
We'll go jig-jig, a little
Off I said to the devil with you!

Alms, alms for a desperate woman

Pardon me, sir
But there's no need to fear the likes of her
She's only a half-crazed beggar woman
London's full of them

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it
And it's morals aren't worth what a pig can spit
And it goes by the name of London

At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo
Turning beauty into filth and greed
I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders
For the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru
But there's no place like London

Skyline Tommy

He loves all games that good men play-
And plays them clean and straight-
But most the chase of foxes
With all its turns of fate.
When far behind him in the vale
Strings out our beaten hunt
With easy grace he keeps his place,
His rightful place, in front.
He always seems to lead us
Whate'er the pace may be-
‘He's always on the skyline!'
As some one said to me.
‘Tis true his horses are the best,
‘Tis true he steals his start,
But none could hold a line so bold
Without a gallant heart.
So here's to Skyline Tommy,
The bravest of our guides!
In all the scattered counties
No finer horseman rides;
Not soon shall we, the laggards,
The cheering sight forget
Of Tommy high against the sky
In splendid silhouette!

William Henry Ogilvie, "Skyline Tommy"

The Imperial Advisor Yakamochi

WHEN on the Magpies' Bridge I see
The Hoar-frost King has cast
His sparkling mantle, well I know
The night is nearly past,
Daylight approaches fast.

The author of this verse was Governor of the Province of Kōshū, and Viceroy of the more or less uncivilized northern and eastern parts of Japan; he died A.D. 785. There was a bridge or passageway in the Imperial Palace at Kyōto called the Magpies' Bridge, but there is also an allusion here to the old legend about the Weaver and Herdsman. It is said, that the Weaver (the star Vega) was a maiden, who dwelt on one side of the River of the Milky Way, and who was employed in making clothes for the Gods. But one day the Sun took pity upon her, and gave her in marriage to the Herdboy (the star Aquila), who lived on the other side of the river. But as the result of this was that the supply of clothes fell short, she was only permitted to visit her husband once a year, viz. on the seventh night of the seventh month; and on this night, it is said, the magpies in a dense flock form a bridge for her across the river. The hoar frost forms just before day breaks. The illustration shows the Herdboy crossing on the Bridge of Magpies to his bride.

Pink, Pink, Pink, Pink...

What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain's brink.
What is red? a poppy's red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro'.
What is white? a swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? the grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!

- Christina Rossetti, "Color"

Poe Punning

I am Here Now...

The Story of Multiplicity

Let us return to the story of multiplicity, for the creation of this substantive marks a very important moment. It was created precisely in order to escape the abstract opposition between the multiple and the one, to escape dialectics, to succeed in conceiving the multiple in the pure state, to cease treating it as a numerical fragment of a lost Unity or Totality or as the organic element of a Unity or Totality yet to come, and instead distinguish between different types of multiplicity. Thus we find in the work of the mathemetician and physicist Riemann a distinction between discrete multiplicities and continuous multiplicities (the metrical principle of the second kind of multiplicity resides soley in the forces at work within them). Then in Meinong and Russell we find a distinction between multiplicities of magnitude or divisibility, which are extensive, and multiplicities of distance, which are closer to the intensive. And in Bergson there is a distinction between numerical or extended multiplicities and qualitative or durational multiplicities. We are doing approximately the same thing when we distinguish between arborescent multiplicites and rhizomic multiplicities. Between macro- and micromultiplicities. On the one hand, multiplicities are extensive, divisible; conscious or preconscious- and on the other hand, libidinal, unconscious, molecular, intensive multiplicities composed of particles that do not divide without changing in nature, and distances that do not vary without entering another multiplicity and that constantly construct and dismantle themselves in the course of their communication, as they cross over into each other at, beyond, or before a certain threshold. The lements of the second kind of multiplicity are particles; their relations are distances; their movements are Brownian; their qualities are intensities, differences in intensity.

- Deleuze & Guattari, "A Thousand Plateaus"