Get all 14 FLAtRich-Rich La Bonté releases available on Bandcamp.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of You Have 5000 Seconds 2 Turn Yourself In (Free LP 2023), Overwound (LP 2022), James Coburn Leitmotiv (Free Live LP 1974), Haven't Got A Clue (2-Track Single 2022), Nothing So Like Beating On A Box (2-Track Single 2022), Null Times in Zér0ville (LP 2021), Utterly Free Curios from the fLAtDiSk Catalogue (Free LP 1972-2021), Moondust & Particulates (LP 2019), and 6 more.
1. |
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I'm Fine, Don't Mention It
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
Take your bag, sir? Light your fag, sir?
Right this way, sir. Are you tired, sir?
Here's your room, sir. Draw your bath, sir?
Scrub your back, sir? Anything at all, sir?
(Chorus:) I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine
Don't mention it. (Solo)
Here's your towel, sir? Want a rub, sir?
Have a snack, sir? Hit the sack, sir?
Have some fun, sir? Clean your gun, sir?
Here to please, sir. Anything you want, sir? (Chorus)
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2. |
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He who fights with monsters should be careful, lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee... from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (1886 PD).
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3. |
14 Billion Nerve Centers
05:53
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There can be little question that the attainment of a federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice, to insure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history. The enormous waste caused by military preparation and the mutual annoyance of competing great powers, and the still more enormous waste due to the under-productiveness of great masses of people, either because they are too wealthy for stimulus or too poor for efficiency, would cease. There would be a vast increase in the supply of human necessities, a rise in the standard of life and in what is considered a necessity, a development of transport and every kind of convenience; and a multitude of people would be transferred from low-grade production to such higher work as art of all kinds, teaching, scientific research, and the like. All over the world there would be a setting free of human capacity, such as has occurred hitherto only in small places and through precious limited phases of prosperity and security. Unless we are to suppose that spontaneous outbreaks of super-men have occurred in the past, it is reasonable to conclude that the Athens of Pericles, the Florence of the Medici, Elizabethan England, the great deeds of Asoka, the Tang and Ming periods in art, are but samples of what a whole world of sustained security would yield continuously and cumulatively. Without supposing any change in human quality, but merely its release from the present system of inordinate waste. History justifies this expectation. from The Outline of History by H. G. Wells (1920 PD)
Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvel. To them all seems natural. Could they but duly appreciate the refinements of civilization in our day; could they but compare the present with the past, and so better comprehend the advance we have made! How much fairer they would find our modern towns, with populations amounting sometimes to 10,000,000 souls; their streets 300 feet wide, their houses 1000 feet in height; with a temperature the same in all seasons; with their lines of aërial locomotion crossing the sky in every direction! If they would but picture to themselves the state of things that once existed, when through muddy streets rumbling boxes on wheels, drawn by horses. Yes, by horses! Were the only means of conveyance. Think of the railroads of the olden time, and you will be able to appreciate the pneumatic tubes through which to-day one travels at the rate of 1000 miles an hour. Would not our contemporaries prize the telephone and the telephote more highly, if they had not forgotten the telegraph? from In the Year 2889 by Jules Verne and Michel Verne (1889 PD)
No men known to us could have built this place, nor the men known to our brothers who lived before us, and yet it was built by men. It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the touch; it felt like stone, but it was not stone. On the ground there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt smooth and cold as glass. We knelt, and we crawled forward, our hand groping along the iron line to see where it would lead. But there was an unbroken night ahead. Only the iron tracks glowed through it, straight and white, calling us to follow. But we could not follow, for we were losing the puddle of light behind us. So we turned and we crawled back, our hand on the iron line. And our heart beat in our fingertips, without reason. And then we knew.
We knew suddenly that this place was left from the Unmentionable Times. So it was true, and those Times had been, and all the wonders of those Times. Hundreds upon hundreds of years ago men knew secrets which we have lost.
And we thought: "This is a foul place. They are damned who touch the things of the Unmentionable Times." But our hand which followed the track, as we crawled, clung to the iron as if it would not leave it, as if the skin of our hand were thirsty and begging of the metal some secret fluid beating in its coldness... from Anthem by Ayn Rand (1938 PD)
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4. |
Is Dick Tracy Dead?
01:46
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Is Dick Tracy Dead?
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
Got a problem in our town
Law enforcement's on the run
Criminals are all around
Heisting banks with Tommy guns
(Chorus:)
Is Dick Tracy dead?
(I hope not.)
Is Dick Tracy dead?
(Call Tess Trueheart.)
Yogee Yamma, Pucker Puss
Boss Herrod, Peaches de Cream
Eric von Rhino, Miss Egghead
Cops are baffled by their schemes (Chorus) (Solo)
Dan The Squealer, Flattop Jones
Decent folks stay off the streets
Broadway Bates and Murky Depps
Heaven save us from these creeps! (Chorus)
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5. |
Execution Pool
03:01
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It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men! from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (1886 PD)
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6. |
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Save Those Who Weep, Lemme (They are the future)
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
Got no time for the rich and heartless
Lost their value with their conscience
Got no time for the cold and ruthless
Sold their souls to pain and vengeance
Make their deals in insolent secret, worthless witchcraft, self-enhancement
Slave the minds of innocent masses, propaganda, sex enchantment.
(Chorus:)
Save those who weep
They are the answer
Save those who weep
They are the future.
Got no time for the vain and greedy
Painted faces, noses bleeding
Got no time for the lies and killing
Deaf to truth and always grifting. (Solo)(Chorus)
Pity not the feckless wastrels
Blathering priests, psychotic bombshells
No salutes for mindless mayors
Slobbering sleaze or fake soothsayers.
Make their deals in insolent secret, worthless witchcraft, self-enhancement
Slave the minds of innocent masses, propaganda, sex enchantment. (Chorus)(Solo out)
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7. |
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FAUSTUS. But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned: the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. Ah, gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches! Though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years, O, would I had never seen Wertenberg, never read a book! and what wonders I have done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world; for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world, yea, heaven itself, heaven, the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy; and must remain in hell for ever, hell, ah, hell, forever! Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus, being in hell forever?
THIRD SCHOLAR. Yet, Faustus, call on God.
FAUSTUS. On God, whom Faustus hath abjured! on God, whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would weep! but the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth blood, instead of tears! yea, life and soul! O, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands; but see, they hold them, they hold them!
ALL. Who, Faustus?
FAUSTUS. Lucifer and Mephistopheles. Ah, gentlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning!
ALL. God forbid!
FAUSTUS. God forbade it, indeed; but Faustus hath done it: for vain pleasure of twenty-four years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood: the date is expired; the time will come, and he will fetch me.
FIRST SCHOLAR. Ah, friend Faustus, what have you done to conceale this matter so long from us? We would have, by the helpe of good divines and the grace of God, brought you out of this net, and have torne you out of the bondage and chaines of Satan; whereas now we feare it is too late, to the utter ruine both of your body and soule.
FAUSTUS. Oft have I thought to have done so; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces, if I named God, to fetch both body and soul, if I once gave ear to divinity: and now 'tis too late. Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me.
SECOND SCHOLAR. O, what shall we do to save Faustus?
FAUSTUS. Talk not of me, but save yourselves, and depart.
THIRD SCHOLAR. God will strengthen me; I will stay with Faustus.
FIRST SCHOLAR. Tempt not God, sweet friend; but let us into the next room, and there pray for him.
FAUSTUS. Ay, pray for me, pray for me; and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.
SECOND SCHOLAR. Pray thou, and we will pray that God may have mercy upon thee.
FAUSTUS. Gentlemen, farewell: if I live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell.
ALL. Farewell, Faustus.[Exeunt SCHOLARS.--The clock strikes eleven.] ... from The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1589-92? PD)
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8. |
Sit On That Chair
04:26
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The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its owner's wrist. Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up the flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket. He then took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and sprang in. His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and the flow of blood that gushed from an artery or a large vein. The ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags, holding me with one hand meantime, to prevent me summoning Joseph.
He exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from finishing him completely; but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle. There he tore off the sleeve of Earnshaw's coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness; spitting and cursing during the operation as energetically as he had kicked before...
"Then you are not afraid of death?" I pursued.
"Afraid? No!" he replied. "I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I, with my hard constitution and temperate mode of living and unperilous occupations? I ought to, and probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reached - and soon - because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfillment..." from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847 PD)
Just as he spoke there came from the forest a terrible roar, and the next moment a great Lion bounded into the road. With one blow of his paw he sent the Scarecrow spinning over and over to the edge of the road, and then he struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws. But, to the Lion's surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still.
Little Toto, now that he had an enemy to face, ran barking toward the Lion, and the great beast had opened his mouth to bite the dog, when Dorothy, fearing Toto would be killed, and heedless of danger, rushed forward and slapped the Lion upon his nose as hard as she could, while she cried out:
"Don't you dare to bite Toto! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a big beast like you, to bite a poor little dog!"
"I didn't bite him," said the Lion, as he rubbed his nose with his paw where Dorothy had hit it.
"No, but you tried to," she retorted. "You are nothing but a big coward."
"I know it," said the Lion, hanging his head in shame; "I've always known it. But how can I help it?" from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900 PD)
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9. |
Red Star Hotel
02:22
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Red Star Hotel
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
(Solo in)
Hide, your self, mon
Where nobody can tell
Ren-dezvous, mon
At the Red Star Hotel.
If you've got uncertain future, cursed by evil, no prospectus
Sold your soul or burned your bridges, book yourself at Red Star Hotel
Be, obscure, mon
It's your own private hell
Ren-dezvous, mon
At the Red Star Hotel
If you've got outstanding warrants, murder contracts, trite progression
Weird obsessions, so clandestine, book yourself at Red Star Hotel
It's a fact, Jack
If you're not feeling well
The place to die, mon
Is the Red Star Hotel. (Solo)
Be, obscure, mon
It's your own private hell
Ren-dezvous, mon
At the Red Star Hotel
Secret agents, fallen leaders, broken salesmen, meter readers
Masturbators, alligators, book yourself at the Red Star Hotel
(Solo out)
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10. |
Awry In This Galaxy
03:40
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It is well to understand how empty space is. If, as we have said, the sun were a ball nine feet across, our earth would, in proportion, be the size of a one-inch ball, and at a distance of 323 yards from the sun. The moon would be a speck the size of a small pea, thirty inches from the earth. Nearer to the sun than the earth would be two other very similar specks, the planets Mercury and Venus, at a distance of 125 and 250 yards respectively. Beyond the earth would come the planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, at distances of 500, 1806, 3000, 6000, and 9500 yards respectively. There would also be a certain number of very much smaller specks, flying about amongst these planets, more particularly a number called the asteroids circling between Mars and Jupiter, and occasionally a little puff of more or less luminous vapor and dust would drift into the system from the almost limitless emptiness beyond. Such a puff is what we call a comet. All the rest of the space about us and around us and for unfathomable distances beyond is cold, lifeless, and void... from The Outline of History by H. G. Wells (1920 PD)
The next day two million people spread over the rolling hills, through the tiny Jersey towns, sitting atop bugs and plastic beetles. An excitement pervaded the day. The sky was a blue vacuum, the 'copters grounded by law. The Rocket lay gleaming and monstrous and silent.
At noon, the crew ambled across the tarmac, Captain Greenwald leading. Cross walked among them. The huge metal doors slammed, and with a blast of Gargantuan flame, the Rocket heaved upward and vanished.
People cheered and laughed and cried.
Stanley watched his son and daughter and mother-in-law do likewise. He was deeply pleased to see that Althea did not join them. Hand in hand they watched the sky dazzlement fade. The first Rocket to the moon was gone. The world was drunkenly happy in its delirium... from Rocket Summer by Ray Bradbury (1947 PD)
It was a sore point with everyone. Thousands of years ago, men had spread out from Earth--first to the planets, then to the nearer stars, crawling in ships that could travel no faster than the speed of light. They had even believed that was an absolute limit--that nothing in the universe could exceed the speed of light. It took years to go from Earth to the nearest star.
But they'd done it. From the nearer stars, they had sent out colonizing ships all through the galaxy. Some vanished and were never heard from again, but some made it, and in a few centuries man had spread all over hundreds of star-systems.
And then man met the people of the Lhari.
It was a big universe, with measureless millions of stars, and plenty of room for more than two intelligent civilizations. It wasn't surprising that the Lhari, who had only been traveling space for a couple of thousand years themselves, had never come across humans before. But they had been delighted to meet another intelligent race--and it was extremely profitable... from The Color of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1963 PD)
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11. |
Little Pointed Teeth
02:57
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This was Walpurgis Night!
Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad - when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel...
A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or dead - only broken by the low panting as of some animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some great animal was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared to stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still; but the brute seemed to realize that there was now some change in me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel it's hot breath fierce and acrid upon me... from Dracula's Guest (1914 PD) by Bram Stoker
The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well.
As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.
But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.
It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.
I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.
The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun... from Dracula (1897 PD) by Bram Stoker
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12. |
Level-Three Seductress
04:19
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Level-Three Seductress
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
Level-Three seductress, I can't recall your name
Level-Three seductress, pretty face above the pain
Level-Three seductress, I think I knew you when
Level-Three seductress, lost in a dream again.
(Chorus:)
Are you still, waiting for someone, hoping for someone new?
Had your fill, of memories of no one, someone should rescue you. (Solo)
Level-Three seductress, you wander through my room
Level-Three seductress, you populate this tune
Level-Three seductress, we pay for what we get
Level-Three seductress, I wish we never met. (Chorus)(Solo)
Dance. Dance with me, dance with me dance.
Dance. Dance with me, sweet dancer. (Chorus)
Level-Three seductress, an agent of the dead
Level-Three seductress, please go away instead
Level-Three seductress, I'm taking out my gun
Level-Three seductress, I think we'd better run.
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13. |
The Outer Countries
04:34
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But Space is not the only horizon along which our thought must be directed. There is also the horizon of Time. Every world must have its Past and its Future, as well as its Present. For some worlds the conditions are so fixed that, like Jupiter and Saturn, they are not now worlds that can be dwelt in, they never were in that condition, and they never can be. Their enormous mass forbids it. Mercury and the Moon at the other end of the planetary scale are also permanently disabled. Their insignificant size excludes them.
There was also a time when the Earth was not a world of habitation. It was without form and void. Hot and vaporous, even as the four outer planets are now. Now it is inhabited, but there may come a time when this phase of its history has run its course. And either from a falling off in the tribute of light and heat rendered to it by the Sun, or from the gradual desiccation of the surface, or, perchance, from the slow loss of its atmosphere, it may approach the condition of Mars. And in its turn be no longer an abode of life...
We find, then, in this universe so far as we can know it, that Space is lavishly provided. Matter is lavishly scattered. Time is unsparingly drawn upon. But Life in any form, and especially in its highest form, is, relatively speaking, very sparsely given. That very circumstance surely points to the overwhelming importance of conscious, intelligent Life, and the insignificance of lifeless matter in comparison with it.
The plea is often made that as we find life adapting itself to a great variety of conditions on this Earth, we must not set limits to its power of adaption to the conditions of other worlds. But this plea is an unthinking one. The range of conditions through which we find life on this Earth is as nothing to the range given by the varied sizes and positions of the different planets. And even on our Earth, life in the unfavoured regions, the tops of mountains, the polar snows, the waterless deserts, the ocean depths, is only possible because there are more favoured regions close at hand, and there are, as it were, crumbs that fall from the rich man's table...
Another plea for vague sentiment in this matter is that we cannot expect that intelligent beings on other worlds would have the same form as man, and if not the same form, then, that the same conditions of existence would not hold good for them as for us. Both contentions are unsound.
Protoplasm is the physical basis of all the life that we know, whatever its form, though these forms are to be counted by the million and are as diverse as they are numerous. And everywhere and always, water is found essential to protoplasmic life. Of life of any other kind we do not know any examples. We have no instance. If such exist, then they are beyond our ken... from Are the Planets Inhabited by E. Walter Maunder (1913 PD)
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14. |
Conscience
06:04
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I turned my eyes - a little dimmed by looking up at the frosty light - towards a great wooden beam in a low nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all when I found no figure there.
Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.
She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting hand.
"Why don't you cry?"
"Because I don't want to."
"You do," said she. "You have been crying till you are half blind, and you are near crying again now."
She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me...
I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should show any favour to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound. No doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had favoured; but a worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of distress.
It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella held him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now scarcely remembering who he was...
A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark.
I could trace out where every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.
The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman.
As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,
"Estella!"
"I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me."
The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand... from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1860 PD)
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15. |
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I'm Fine, Thanks, Don't Mention It (Reprise)
Music and Lyrics by Rich La Bonté (BMI). Copyright © 2021 Rich La Bonté. All Rights Reserved.
(Solo in)
I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine
Thank you very much. Don't mention it.
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16. |
Become a Legend
04:40
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If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water, and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed.
A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried. His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly interested.
"Boy," she said courteously, "why are you crying?"
Peter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the grand manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and then bowed to her beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Wendy Moira Angela Darling," she replied with some satisfaction. "What is your name?"
"Peter Pan." from Peter Pan by James Barrie (1911 PD)
"I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.
"Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell!
"Frankenstein, if thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them forever.
"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt.
"Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus.
"Farewell!"
He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel.
He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance... from Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1818 PD)
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...I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."
When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived, those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them - those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men - men with nothing to offer save their great number - lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all the things they had not created and could never keep. Perhaps, later, some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover these things which were lost; perhaps these men came before the Councils of Scholars. They were answered as I have been answered - and for the same reasons.
But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on, in blindness and cowardice, to their fate.
I wonder, for it is hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word "I" could give it up and not know what they lost. But such has been the story, for I have lived in the City of the damned, and I know what horror men permitted to be brought upon them.
Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew.
To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity... from Anthem by Ayn Rand (1938 PD)
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FLAtRich-Rich La Bonté New Jersey
Rich La Bonté (1946). American musician, digital artist, aka FLAtRich. 21st Century: 12 Bandcamp LPs. 20th Century: Seminal electronic Mayan Canals LP. Kim Fowley's Bad News from The Underworld. Bass & vocals Original Godspell casts NY & LA, cast & movie LPs. Mozart in Mark Rappaport's "Mozart in Love". Lead singer of the huns in Ithaca NY (1965). Get Absolutely Free stuff on his website! ... more
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