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White Tower Musings

~ This blog will be an attempt to explain the significance of various works of great writing, the authors that create them, and some effort to understand correlations between great writing and contemporary events.

White Tower Musings

Tag Archives: time

Satan’s Finest Hour, And Nowhere to be Found: Season of Mists, No. 44, and Personal Responsibility

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Comics/Graphic Novels, Literature, mythology, Neil Gaiman, Novels

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Albert Bigelow Paine, Animal House, Dream, Evil, graphic novel, Hell, I'm almost positive the song Tribute is the song they couldn't remember but I realize that's a controversial position, Individual Will, Jennings, John Milton, Literature, Loki, Mark Twain, Morpheus, myth, mythology, Neil Gaiman, No.44 The Mysterious Stranger, Norse Mythology, Novel, Paradise Lost, Personal Development, Personal Responsibility, Sandman, Sandman Vol 4. Season of Mist, Satan, Scapegoat, Scarface, Season of Mist, Sin, Tenacious D, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, The Endless, The Mysterious Stranger, time, Tony Montana, trickster

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Antonius Block: They say you have consorted with the devil?

Witch: Why do you ask that?

Antonius Block: It’s not out of curiosity, but because of utterly personal reasons. I would also like to meet him.

Witch: Why?

Antonius Block: I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if anyone.

–The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman

 

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Satan is my favorite fictional character.  This creates some obvious problems for me, because for the most part Satan is poorly represented in most fiction.  Many writers and artists who attempt to convey Satan in contemporary art usually devolve the character down into a handsome, charming man in a suit who can do magic tricks or else turn him into cheap, con-man who always loses.  The other alternative is actually sitting down and reading Milton’s Paradise Lost where the character not only plays a primary role but is the hero of the book.  Hopefully the reader observes a conflict here as well: reading Milton.  There are some pains that best expressed by characters in film, specifically Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House:Jennings

Jennings: Don’t write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring too. He’s a little bit long-winded, he doesn’t translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible.

With one possible exception, apart from the one I’m dedicating this entire essay to, the only satisfying Satan I’ve ever seen in a film was the one played by Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl in Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.  His “Rock Masterpeice” which includes reference to buttfucking Kyle Gass, is still one of the best moments in all of Rock history and shall remain so until those guys remember the original song that Tribute was based on.pod06

My memorized history of heavy metal aside though, I’m not being cute or coy when I write that Satan is my favorite character in fiction.  I’m being honest.  The reason for this adoration isn’t my atheism, nor is loyalty or admiration to the church of Satanism (they lost me at the word church), it’s largely because of Dr. Karen Sloan.  While I was still attending UT Tyler and working on my masters I started talking more and more with my professor because my classes were online and I’m the kind of person who prefers to talk with someone face to face.  Each person is different, but for my own intellectual needs I have to talk with someone and hear my thoughts bounce off of theirs 8c5a946bb977d48a8f4ff89b1bb40238for something to actually happen.  Dr. Sloan was always happy to talk and one of our favorite topics was Mark Twain.  She had a TIME magazine tacked to her wall with Twain’s face on the cover (a copy that I actually now own thanks to her) and we’d often point back to Twain and talk about his writing, his life, or his odd eccentricities.  At some point during the talk the idea of Twain as an atheist came out and we both agreed Twain probably wasn’t one.

But, somewhere in the conversation Dr. Sloan made a statement that stuck with me.  It went along the lines that Satan was Twain’s favorite character because there was a man who had had his story written for him before he could write his own.  Because god is omnipotent he had written Satan’s narrative before Satan could decide his own fate.  Satan is in fact a tragic character because the man never got a chance to make his own fate.a94afa181fb0495eaa62abb205690cbab00109ad_hq

This idea fascinated me, partly because I grew up in the Christian church and therefore had received a pre-established figure of Satan.  Satan was the boogeyman, Satan was Charles Mansion, Satan was often Democrats for some reason, Satan was the urge to masturbate, Satan was the urge to drink and gamble, Satan was the reason men beat their wives or women drowned their children, Satan was the reason women cheated on their husbands, Satan was the voice in your head that brought you to doom, Satan was the reason you hated yourself, Satan was sin, Satan was just, overall, a bad dude.  And looking at this portrait I began to reflect more 51XsdLa6ZlL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_and more on a graphic novel I had read about that time which included, of all things, a sympathetic figure of Satan.

Season of Mist is the fourth volume in The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and is, I would argue, the finest book in the entire series.  The story involves the protagonist Dream being summoned to a family meeting by his Brother Destiny.  The Endless, as they are called, are physical manifestions of the ideas and feelings which govern human reality: death, dream, destiny, desire, despair, destruction, and delirium (formerly delight).  Dream during the meeting reflects on a woman he fell in love with and then damned to hell when she didn’t reflect her love back.  Dream decides to go to Hell only to find it empty.  There Dream encounters Satan who has emptied Hell because, as he says, he’s grown tired of running the place as he has also grown tired of being an excuse for the weaknesses of mankind.

During one exchange the man reflects on the way human beings think of him and his argument may strike a familiar ear:

Why do they blame me for all their failings?  They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive.

“The devil made me do it.”  I have never made any of them do anything.  Never.  They live their own lives.  I do not live their lives for them.  And then they die, and they come here(having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fufill their desire for pain and retribution.  I don’t make them come here.f9cbbf461a8a815d52d5147134a38f46

They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why.  I need no souls.  And how can anyone own a soul?

No.  They belong to themselves…they just hate to have to face up to it.

Yes I rebelled.  It was a long time ago.  How long was I meant to pay for action? 

This passage struck me not just for the visual of Watching Satan walking through the various rooms and valleys of Hell with dream and locking the gates, tumblr_m745jpQLuJ1r9wm7dbut because it was the kind of passage one reads and then immediately feels a kind of reawakening.  I’m not trying to be dramatic as I write that out, this passage really stunned me because it was like seeing someone completely new for the first time while also recognizing that what they were saying is completely true.  Humanity has, since the infancy of the species, looked for a way to outsource responsibility for errors and sins while at the same time looking constantly inward for signs of weakness.  In ancient times it was customary for villages to send goats out into the wildness after performing a ceremony that would contain the “sins and offenses against the gods” into the animal before sending it out into the wild.  This, for the record, is how the term “scape-goat” came enter the lexicon, and it also eventually explains the character of Satan.

As a figure Satan is a trickster, a figure of mischief, and an agent of chaos who relishes in corrupting human beings and causing them to destroy and distrust one another.  Just about every religion, theology, and mythos has such a figure the most prominent being Loki from the Norse Mythology.  Before Tom Hiddleston made the marvel incarnation a household name, and the bane of parents who couldn’t find the costume for their child and didn’t feel like making their own, Loki managed to be often associated 2712995-5with Satan allowing early church fathers the appropriation of the god for their own purposes.  Reflecting on this connection, and re-reading Season of Mists I thought back to Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and looked up the brief character intro:

Loki is very handsome.  He is plausible, convincing, likeable, and far and away the most wily, subtle, and shrewed of all the inhabitants of Asgard.  It is a pity, then, that there is so much darkness inside him: so much anger, so much envy, so much lust.  (24).

Anger, envy, and lust are all qualities that were assigned to the devil-horned costume character that was the devil.  Yet looking at these qualities it’s become more and more obvious as I’ve aged that the people pasting these qualities _84584050_3494754156_9273aff2f3_bonto Satan himself really ought to look in a mirror.  What missing, or most troubling, about the image of Satan is the fact that the man is having his story told by others, rather than having his own opportunity to speak, and this cartoonization, this caricature reveals the larger issue which is that human beings need someone else to be held accountable for their actions.  Rather assume personal responsibility for fucking up, human beings created this supernatural being which would explain horrors and atrocities.  Why would a man gamble away his money and then beat his wife half to death?  It could be that he suffers from some inner self-loathing due to an addiction and so he strikes his wife, or it could be a demon who wears red suits and tricks him into gambling.  Why would anyone follow a dictator who eventually leads a massive genocide against a denomination of a reigion.  It could bep4_73 copy simple fear, or desire for there to be stability in government so they can return to real life, or else it could be a demon with long horns.  Why would a woman cheat on her husband with multiple men rather than remaining faithful to him?  It could be that she’s looking for something sexually that he is unable or unwilling to provide her, or perhaps she’s looking for some kind of emotional comfort that she’s not getting at home.  Or, it could be a strange imp that plays fiddle against subpar country music singers.

My reader may object at this point and argue that I’m sugarcoating this issue.  Satan is not a nice person, he’s not a lovely character, he’s a selfish prick who tried to become god and failed miserably and now his punishment is to rule hell for eternity.  What’s redeemable in that?

This is a fair objection, but I note that my reader has made the same mistaker as previous storytellers.  They’re relying on the religious imagery of Satan, the same cartoon character that belays any kind of real analysis of the character.  Again, the problem with this I that it distracts the reader from digging into other versions and other narratives where Satan is not the cartoon villain bent on destroying humanity, he’s simply a man who’s been consigned to a role that he doesn’t identify with.ea3607c17ef68cef3f293f536a996cf7--medieval-life-medieval-art

Looking at the best analysis of everything I’ve said so far I think back to Scarface when Tony Montana is high and drunk and yelling at the patrons of the resturaunt:

Tony Montana: What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!Sandman 23-13

The need for a villain is timeless, but in the rush to create such a villain it comes at the expense of the story.  The reason why characters like Hannibal Lecter and Loki and Joker are the successful villains that they are is because their characters are complex.  They have backgrounds and causes which led them on the path to being the repulsive people that they are.  This complexity doesn’t redeem them, but it reminds the reader that the real monsters in society aren’t cartoon characters, they’re real people who fucked up or were fucked up by others.  It’s easy to dismiss a figure like Satan as having any kind of redeemable qualities, but that impulse is dangerous because it creates a mindset where one doesn’t have to assume responsibility for one’s actions.  It becomes somebody else’s fault.

Part of growing up is learning how to assume responsibility for one’s actions, and it’s the sign of an immature person who tries to hide behind excuses or outside influence.

Satan continues to interest me as a character because the man has, for too long, been a figure wrapped up in his caricature and given little opportunity to find out who he is, what he wants, and what his true character shall be.  Though if I can offer one last image, there is hope for this character.  In graduate school I had to take a Research & Methods course; it was a class designed to teach graduate students how to research material for papers that they would write as graduate students and how to find real, relevant information.  The class was taught by Dr. Sloan, which was the reasons we began having discussions,  and centered around one novel: No. 44, The Mysterious MTLibraryMS-2011Stranger.

I could get into the textual conflict of this novel and it’s fascinating backstory, but I’m sure my reader is getting sick of me so I’ll cut to the chase.  The novel tells the story of a young man named August who is a printer in Medieval Austria and when the book was originally published August met a strange man named Satan who, in this later edition, is named No. 44 and can perform all manner of tricks.  No.44 is an agent of chaos who enjoys making fools of everyone but who forms a close bond with August.  At the very end of the novel however No. 44 lifts the veil of reality and August is able to see that the world isn’t what it is, and alone in an empty space with No. 44 he discovers the truth, no-one is real but him, and 44 offers him a final counsel:

“It is true, that which I have revealed to you: there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, ho heaven, no hell.  It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream.  Nothing exists but You.  And You are but a Thought—a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”Gustave-Dore-illustration-of-Miltons-Satan-falling

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.  (187).

Satan’s name is technically Lucifer which roughly translates to “bearer or light” or “morning star” this last of which is sometimes attached as a kind of last name.  Because of this Satan’s ultimate crime against humanity has been his revealing of knowledge to mankind.  No. 44 reveals to August the knowledge of his own existence, and once he has become aware he is disgusted to find it’s absolutely true.

So looking back to Season of Mists, and it’s presentation of Satan as a man who has absolutely nothing to do with the sins of humanity, I’m sure there were many like me who were left appalled because what he had said was true.  Though I wonder how many have actually taken it to heart.

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*Writer’s Note*

All quotes from No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger were taken from the University of California Press authoritative edition care of the Mark Twain Library.  All quotes from Season of Mist were taken from the VERTIGO paperback edition.  All quotes taken from Animal House and Scarface were provided care of IMBD.

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The Inconceivable Four: Divinity, Manhattan, the Monolith, and the Time Traveler

02 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Book Review, Comics/Graphic Novels, Film Review, Literature, Novels, Philosophy, Science, science fiction

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"arrow of time", 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Brief History of Time, A Brief History of Time: From The Big Bang to Black Holes, Abram Adams, Alan Moore, Back to the Future, Bender, Bender's Big Score, Book Review, clocks, Comics, Cube, Dave Gibbons, Divinity, Dr. Manhattan, evolution, Film, film review, Fourth Dimension, Futurama, geometry, graphic novel, H.G. Wells, Human evolution, Literature, Math, Novel, Perception of Time, Philosophy, Reality, Role of Science Fiction in society, Science, science fiction, Space, Stanley Kubrick, State of Being, Stephen Hawking, The Monolith, The Time Machine, The Time Traveler, Third Dimension, time, Time Travel, U.S.S.R., Watchmen

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I’ve tried once to explore the fourth dimension, but only in writing.  I was taking a creative writing course and riding the high of being one of the few top writers in the class.  This wasn’t ego on my part, because if it hasn’t been made apparent at this point in my life my fatal flaw is my inability to sing my own praises.  Whatever the case most of the students in the class would confide in me and tell me that they thought I was a great writer and the teacher seemed to support this sentiment, and riding that high I thought about Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick is a bit of an acquired taste, and sometimes I do honestly believe some critics sing the man’s praises because they want to make other people think that they understand his creative ethos, but being a teenager I suffered the delusion that I would be a film director and so I began watching interviews with film makers who would often drop the man’s name.  On a small tangent my desire to be a director shifted after reading Slash’s autobiography and so for a number of years I suffered under the delusion that I could be a rock star.  This faded when I remembered I had little to no musical talent.  Kubrick was a film maker that I enjoyed because his narratives were so eclectic.  Looking at just few years he made in respective order: Paths of Glory, Sparticus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon, and to put this in perspective maxresdefaulthe moved from a World War I epic to a gladiator rebellion, to a Pedophile capturing a young girl, to the Nuclear apocalypse, to a science fiction philosophy opera, to a dystopian nightmare, and finally to a period piece about an Irish peasant ascending to the British Nobility.

2001: A Space Odyssey is probably one of his best known films, though often because many people in the 70s got stoned and watched it with their kids.  What they missed in their induced state was that in his own way Kubrick was attempting to do what I tried in my own small essay about how we tell stories.

Human beings exist in the third dimension, and if I can remind you of your brief high school geometry class the third dimension’s quality is that it allows figures to move through space.  In the first dimension objects and organisms could only move to the left or right, whereas in the second objects could then move up and down left and right.  The Third dimension allows objects and organisms to move forward and back and they do this by moving through space.  2001_Monolith.jpeg.CROP.promovar-mediumlargeHuman beings exist and interact with a three dimensional reality, and it needs to be made clear this is a simplistic breakdown of a complicated philosophical, mathematical, and psychological problem.  Many scientists turned philosophers have mused about our three dimensional reality, and looking to inspiration from science fiction authors, the next frontier seems to be to understand if it possible to break into the reality of the fourth dimension who’s defining quality and nature is time.

Steven Hawking, the noted theoretical physicist and part-time Simpsons character, explores this in his book A Brief History of Time.  When I first read the book I was fresh out of high school and it should be noted that at the time I understood little if any of the actual text, however over time this changed.  That’s a bad joke so I’ll move on.  In a chapter dealing with wormholes, pockets of space in which it is believed human beings might, and a big emphasis on might there, be able to move through large stretches of the galaxy relatively quickly Hawking writes:BriefHistoryTime

Because there is no unique standard of time, but rather observers each have their own time as measured by clocks that they carry with them, it is possible for the journey to seem to be much shorter for the space travelers than for those who remain on earth.  But there would not be much joy in returning from a spae voyage a few years older to find that everyone you had left behind was dead and gone thousands of years ago.  So in order to have any human interest in their stories, science fiction writers had to suppose that we would one day discover how to travel faster than light.  (161-2).

It’s important to note that, while Hawking is an unapologetic science fiction fan even once appearing on an episode of Star Trek, the passages immediately following this quote explains why these writers’ descriptions of travels through space and time were rather inaccurate or else impossible.  The problem of human beings entering or attempting to move through the fourth dimension is either plagued by the actual science, or the fact that actually passing into that dimension requires individuals who are willing to do so without concern of what they’re leaving behind.  As such I look back to Kubrick, but before I do I look to H.G. Wells.

Hawking actually bothers to mention Wells at the beginning of the chapter from which I received the previous quote, and the reason for this is Wells’s small novel The Time Machine.  The book is a slim narrative but contained within its pages is in fact some of the earliest inclinations of the science that men like Steven Hawking would write into reality.  Wells, it should be noted, is often considered one of the “founding fathers” of science fiction, and while it should be noted that there were other writers writing into similar territories and ideas, Wells work boosted the aesthetic of science fiction into something concrete and often inspired future engineers and scientists.  Looking at just the opening pages of The Time Traveler it’s incredible to see the man’s foresight:cvr9780743487733_9780743487733_hr

“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all have a real existence?”

Filby became pensive.  “Clearly,” the Time Traveler proceeded,” any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have length, breadth, Thickness, and—Duration.  But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact.  There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time.  There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.  (4).

The” arrow of time” is a concept that is explored even outside the studies of physicists and mathematicians for poets and writers have been relying on that damned symbol almost since the first arrow was painted on a wall.  It should be noted that part of the reason for this is that the shape is incredibly phallic, but I don’t have the time to explain that all of history is just men measuring dicks.

The Time Machine made its first appearance in 1895 and, according to some, effectively established the genre of science fiction though this last point is debatable.  What’s still incredible about the book is how well Wells managed to explain out the idea of dimensions in just one paragraph.  Employing the “arrow of time” in order to convince his companions about his ideas concerning the fourth dimension, The Time Traveler, who is never named by the narrator thus launching him into the territory of archetype, manages to begin the first question: can man step out of his comfort in the third dimension in order to see his potential.rod-taylor-time-machine

That last word has been chosen carefully as I get closer to my later conclusions.

But along with his observations of the abstract concept of time the Time Traveler also makes a fascinating observation about human beings:

“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time.  Some of my results are curious.  For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on.  All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensional being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.  (6).

From here the Time Traveler makes his argument that it would be possible for man to break free from the “arrow of time” from which he is forever caught by his perceptions, and, given the supposed hypothetical conditions, almost anything could be possible, specifically time travel.  Because this is the late Victorian period and science had only proceeded so far The Time Traveler produces the Time Machine, and it’s important to note how that dates the book, but not necessarily in a bad way.  It’s through an external device or machine that man is going to be able to achieve his destiny and this idea of man riding a kind of time traveling vessel is not outdated for the Back to the Future movies proved that this concept is still alive and well.  What changed over time is revealed in this second quote.8-cell

The Time Traveler notes that human beings are three-dimensional beings but that is only because they haven’t unlocked the ability to see and observe their true potential.  This is actually a brilliant idea being expressed that, while it has enormous philosophical implications, seems to counter act the very necessity of a time machine. Simply put, human beings are Fourth-Dimensional creatures they just haven’t realized how to actually tap into that reality. Human beings typically perceive their existence like a three dimensional cube.  They recognize the length, width, and girth of the physical space they occupy, but because they can only perceive time as an arrow moving through time they don’t recognize that they are actually able to be a four-dimensional cube, a shape that, in its true form is malleable and constantly regenerating itself.  I don’t want to suggest that this is immortality, but the direction two science fiction narratives have taken seems to be just that.

I had no real intention of reading Divinity because before I saw the advertisement in the back of Faith Vol.1 I had no idea that it actually existed.  The image of an astronaut, later revealed to be a cosmonaut, caught me because despite my trepidation I do actually enjoy science fiction stories they just have to be grounded in or around planet Earth or its history.  I asked my friend Michael (one of the three Michael’s I know and talk to regularly) what the book was about seeing as how he is the go-to Valiant expert.  His exact description was: “I mean, I liked it. If you ever watched 2001 and were like “man, this sure would be better as a superhero comic”, well, that’s Divinity in a nutshell.”  photo-jul-22-7-03-49-pmGiven the fact that I loved 2001: A Space Odyssey (though let’s be fair I really like the idea of it far more than the actual film) I was intrigued and so I bought the book a week later and devoured it in four days.  The only reason it took four was because I tend to read books one chapter at a time per day; it helps me get through a lot of books.

Divinity is about a cosmonaut named Abram Adams who assigned a top secret task of being launched into space.  The U.S.S.R., desperate to defeat the Americans launches Adams to the very edge of the galaxy and when he arrives at his destination after years of isolation and Cryogenic stasis he encounters an energy force, a plane of white light that some would call god and other might refer to as the ground of being, that enters his body and alters his consciousness.  Abrams effectively becomes a god but what’s most important is the fact that the story is told is a splintered fashion.  Rather than follow Adams and then show MI-6 sending in The Eternal Warrior and X-O Manowar to take him down, Matt Kindt writes the book so that events are taking place in the past, in the present, in the future, in individual’s imaginations, and in people’s memories all at the same time.

Abram Adams hasn’t just become just a superhero, his has accessed his fourth dimensional being.divinity-4-eva1-665x1024

Reading Divinity I was struck by how much I thought of the graphic novel Watchman and my favorite character from that book Dr. Manhattan.

Watchmen was published through the years of 1986 through 1987 in twelve installments, which is rather fitting given the clock imagery deliberately inserted throughout the book.  If the reader has never read it before that’s a terrible shame because there really are few great books in existence and Watchmen most certainly fits that category.  The graphic novel follows a group of superheroes in the year 1985 right after one of them, the sociopath ex-government agent The Comedian, is thrown from his apartment window and killed.  From there the characters Rorschach, Silk Specter, Night Owl, Ozymandias, and Dr. Manhattan each in their own way try to discover who is trying to kill former superheroes and why, while in the background a nuclear war is looming against the U.S.S.R. and President Richard Nixon seems only to be baiting and encouraging it.  There’s also a pirate comic book that’s being read throughout the text but that’s for another essay.  While each hero has at least one issue dedicated to them, it was the Dr. Manhattan chapter that always intrigued me (Rorschach’s is really fun too, though I use the word “fun” loosely) because it’s written from his perspective after he retreats from planet earth to live on Mars.  Dr. Manhattan is more or less a god and became so after he was working on a particle physics experiment that went horribly wrong and ripped every atom of his body apart.  He eventually pulled himself back together and became Dr. Manhattan, but what’s most important about his character’s chapter is its narrative structure.

Like Divinity, Dr. Manhattan is experiencing the past, present, and future seemingly all at the same time and looking at just a few passages from the book it becomes clear that his perception of time far exceeds human understanding.

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I should finally address my contester however, for they remind me that most people cannot or will not perceive anything outside their own dimension.  What the point, or why should I care about books that are written about people outside of my own perception?  It’s impossible for human beings to break free from the “arrow of time” and spending your life trying clearly will only leave you isolated or destroyed or alienated from society, so why not try and enjoy your life?zigzub3pivq9rcrpnshl

These are all excellent points, and to be fair I’m not sure I have a satisfying answer to them.  Carpe Diem, or seize the day, may be a platitude but it’s one that leaves average people generally satisfied and happy with their lives.  Human beings have yet to reach a point in their evolution so that they would be able to access the Fourth-Dimensional being that they are, and it’s likely that such a stage is hundreds, if not thousands, of years away anyway, but books and films like Divinity, The Time Machine, Watchmen, and even 2001: A Space Odyssey try to offer up ideas of how human beings might access that next level.  For the most part it seems that humans will have to wait until a supernatural entity, whether it’s the black monolith or the white plane, arrives and bestows knowledge of being to them, but at least in the case of Watchmen and The Time Machine there’s an idea that, through their own devices, humans might make the next step themselves.  Even if it is through technology, humans might be able to expand their awareness and being and that’s an important idea, because in many ways we’re already trying to do just that.

Steven Hawking ends A Brief History of Time with a thought concerning the future of physics, philosophy, and possibly that of mankind:izsm9waivgrdruul7nzf

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why.  On the other hand, the people who business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advancements of scientific theories.

He concludes then:

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.  Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question why it is we and the universe exist.  If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.  (191).

The purpose of science fiction is largely to ask questions either about the nature of human beings, or their future.  While many have taken the opportunity to explore thought experiments and the more morbid conclusions concerning the future of humanity a few select have decided to question what if human beings could become more and explore a new dimension of being?  A while the general conclusion is that the result of this gallery-1464367257-before-watchmen-doctor-manhattan4-09a0e-aaec0experiment would result in alienation or some kind of self-destruction I would argue that that reaction is rooted more in those left behind than those moving forward.

The closest success human beings have made in understanding this new state of being is fiction, and that’s perhaps the most telling but also the most encouraging.  Scientific enterprise depends upon imagination, and as more and more writers explore the notions of time travel and accessing new states of being, so too will scientists who will change our world in ways we can’t possibly even imagine.

Though if we ever get to the point where we start sending Bender back in time to steal precious masterpieces, we may have taken it a step too far.

504-217

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

While I was working on this review I found this essay on The New Yorker Website.  Enjoy:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hearing-and-seeing-2001-a-space-odyssey-anew

 

**Writer’s Note**

I’ve included links to three videos below.  The first is the “star gate” sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0

The second link is the final three minutes of the film in which the astronaut Dave ascends to a new state of being:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXS8P0HksQo

I’ve also found a small documentary a YouTuber produced in which he explains the Monolith.  This interpretation, as he notes, created a bit of a controversy because many fans loved the idea but certain film scholars didn’t.  I’ve posted Part 1 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSo6s_xrj4c

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Coffee Spoons = Dignity = Bravery Missed: Have You Had Your Prufrock Moment?

16 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Christopher Hitchens, Literature, Poetry

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"Prufrock Moment", American literary Canon, Anti-Semitism, Apocalypse Now, Christopher Hitchens, How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Eliot, Individual Will, integrity, Literature, Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Poetry, T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, time, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writer’s in the Public Sphere

 

NPG P869(12); T.S. Eliot by Cecil Beaton

Finding dirty coffee spoons is usually a sign that I need to do the dishes, that Sisyphean task that reminds me day by day that I am a weenie.  I could tell my wife and brother-in-law to please stop leaving spoons and cups in the fold-out shelf in the couch, but they might remind me that they pay for the Internet and Netflix, or they may remind me that I know less about computers than they do, or else they might roll their eyes at me and make me feel inferior and so I usually just pick up the cups and spoons and wash the dishes in quiet desperation for a spinal column.

This self-denigration reminds me that I recently committed myself to the annual task of reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  For the record annual and anniversary means “once a year” so when your friend complains that their boyfriend forgot their four-month anniversary you might smack them upside the head for denigrating the Latin language, though that may in turn cause you to lose your friends.  I discovered T. S. Eliot when I was a teenager who didn’t bath much and then wondered why girls weren’t interested in me.  I knew that I wanted to be a writer, and while many of my friends would offer me contemporary science fiction novels and the novelizations of Halo fan-fiction, I was always far more interested in the Classics.  The aura that surrounded the authors we spoke about in class fascinated me and I had yet to realize that men like Byron, Pound, Chaucer, and Shakespeare as men could be bawdy or obscene.  My attitude was, principally, grown up teachers seem to think these guys matter, let’s find out why.

I discovered Eliot through Apocalypse Now.  In case the reader doesn’t know, the film is a reimagining of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness set during the Vietnam War.  Martin Sheen is sent to kill Colonel Kurtz, an AWOL military commander who has begun a spree of killings.  Sheen eventually finds the man and is held prisoner by Kurtz and near 9780451526847-usthe end of the film is a small scene in which Kurtz, played by then plump Marlon Brando, reads The Hollow Men.  The perfect combination of poetics and macabre matched my teenage angst creating this beautiful and pathetic adoration of Eliot as the kind of guy who “got it.”  It’s a glorious tragedy that I discovered the Modernists first, but as I’ve aged my appreciation for their work is less angst than it is actual intellectual enjoyment.

I eventually bought a small Signet Classics collection of Eliot’s poems that included Preludes, The Boston Evening Transcript, The Waste Land (that grand epic that I’m pretty sure means something), and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  I have read this poem at least once a year, every year, since the tenth grade and it’s only been in the last three years that I’ve finally figured out the damn thing, or at least come to as close an understanding as you can with a modernist poem.

It begins:

 

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, prufrock23

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent 

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

Many may be groaning as they remember a fat man wearing a sweater vest and a comb-over insisting that their interpretation of the poem is wrong.  Before the reader believes I’m going to side with Mr. Putnathan (yes that was actually his name) they may be surprised to learn that I despise this method of analyzing and interpreting poetry.  While there is certainly only one dramatic situation in any poem, the idea that The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock offers only one lesson to the reader is the malarkey that causes people to hate literature in the first place.  I can’t argue that there is one interpretation because each person brings something new to the poem.  All I can offer instead is my own impression and hope that the reader finds something different and leaves a comment, even if it’s a cheap ad hominem attack about my beard.

The most important line in the previous section is, “To lead you to an overwhelming question,” because that is where Prufrock as a character has been settled upon.  The thomas_stearns_eliot-480x638dominant interpretation is that Prufrock is in love with a woman as well as being part of the upper class that he finds, not morally questionable, just suspect.  Having attended a private school filled with the children of rich doctors, lawyers, politicians, engineers, and Oil businessmen I can certainly understand this revulsion, though it’s not this side of the interpretation I would like to pursue.  This “overwhelming question” has bothered me since my first reading and looking at the later stanza when Prufrock says,

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid. 

It’s become clear with every new reading that Prufrock is a man everyone can sympathize with on some level, and at the same time despise because ultimately Prufrock was a man 4bfd5e32b7060e7a90e1d897c1b880e0facing a challenge who bawked and let an opportunity for personal strength pass him by.

I know this pain because I have suffered through it.  A few years back I was sitting in a classroom, half an hour before the class actually started, because I prefer to be early.  It’s not brown-nosing on my part, I just prefer to arrive before class starts, get some reading done, and prepare myself mentally for class.  At the time I was taking a U.S. History 1301 course to satisfy my core, and while I’m an English major, history has always been one of my favorite subjects.  However, my joy for the class was being stunted by a malcontent.  There was a man sitting three seats behind me who, every morning would arrive fifteen minutes early and want to talk, particular about how he felt his money was being spent on bullshit programs like art, music, and the humanities.  I did my best to counter his arguments by reminding him that he was attending a university and not a technical institute, but my points either weren’t registered or he couldn’t be bothered with them.  Finally another young man joined us one morning and the topic of the President came up.  I’m used to certain opinions about Barack Obama living in this area, but during the conversation the man said, “I don’t have a problem with black people, I just can’t stand niggers.”

anne-hathaway-the-princess-diaries-shocked-face

I saw the moment of my greatness flicker as I sat in a stunned silence not sure how to move forward.  The man shrugged and continued the talk until three more students came in, one of them African American at which point the conversation was conveniently dropped.  I saw the Greatness of my opportunity to call the man out, and instead I sat in silence.

Eliot’s poem is about such moments, for not long after this first stanza he writes:

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; prufrock6

There will be time, there will be time 

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

 

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

 

And indeed there will be time 

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair, 1429574692297

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — 

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

The desire for comfort and stability is innate to the human species.  While social philosophers and political idealists argue that human beings are innately selfish, good, evil, cruel, etc., my own experience has taught me that human beings generally are none of these.  In fact the trait shared by 99% of the human population is a simple desire to live in comfort and not be bothered by the calamity of political or social strife, and so what is often lost on the casual reader of Prufrock is the damned question that keeps popping up that never gets answered: “Do I dare/Disturb the Universe?”

It’s a fair question to ask given the reality of human nature just observed.  The reason e5e95f05many people would identify with Prufrock, assuming they possess a love for Modernist poetry which I know they don’t, is because like my own chance, opportunities to correct or challenge ignorant or repulsive behavior are stymied because we don’t want to start fights.  Fights and arguments make everyone uncomfortable, and asking inconvenient questions tends to make people less likely to like us.  And we like being liked.

Conversations are swallowed by bitter coffee with too little creamer, and the lingering bite of “revisions” that you might have said last longer than the conversation would have most likely taken.

Being a young writer is often being a young plagiarist for that line “Talking of Michelangelo” was often buzzing around in my brain.  It reeked of genius because, after all, that’s who Eliot was.  He was published, he was English (or so I thought), and every word he wrote was carefully selected by his brilliant mind.Fun-Facts-Friday-TS-Eliot

My what an idealist I was.

For the record Eliot was not English, originally.  Thomas Sterns Eliot was actually born in St. Louis Missouri (I wonder if he grew up where they call it Missouruh) and eventually moved to England eventually acquiring dual citizenship.  It’s amusing to note that many of Eliot’s friends teased the man behind his back because he apparently developed an “English accent” that wasn’t foolin anybody.  While there he would encounter many in the literary establishment such as Virginia Wolf, James Joyce, George Orwell, and Ezra Pound.  This last individual is important for being, essentially, the father of modernism, as well as possessing a similar political and philosophical penchant as Eliot.

Christopher Hitchens noted this in an article published for The Nation titled How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Eliot, it was also later published in Unacknowledged Legislation: Writer’s in the Public Sphere which I quote from here, and the first paragraph really says it all:

Modern-spiderWas T.S. Eliot an anti-Semite?  What a question!  Of course he was an anti-Semite, if the terms retains any of its meaning.  He was a public supporter of two political movements—the Action Francaise of Charles Maurras and the Social Credit party of Major Douglas—that identified Jews as the enemy of civilization.  His magazine of high culture, the Criterion, was at best loftily indifferent to the rise of fascism.  And in a famous lecture at the University of Virginia, published as after Strange Gods, he sought to identify elements of a good society and stipulated that “any large number of free-thinking Jews” was precisely what such a society did not need.  (184).

At this point the reader may object, arguing that if such is the case then I’m just wasting my time reading Eliot?  What good could come of reading the man’s work?  Before this review turns into character assassination Hitchens does emphasize that despite this his readers do still need to remember:eliotolderportrait

But the Julius book one, yet again, to hesitate once, hesitate twice, hesitate a hundred times before employing political standards as a device for the analysis and appreciation of poetry.  (186).

Eliot’s colorful opinions about the Jews have tended to overshadow his work and allow high schoolers everywhere a solid reason not to read the man’s poetry, as if they were honestly looking for a reason though, and the end result is the universal tragedy of Prufrock is lost beneath the haze of the image of Eliot giving a Hitler a handjob while French kissing Herman Goering and I dare you to get that image out of your head.  You’re seeing it now aren’t you?  Aren’t you?

Prufrock’s love song covers the life of a man who had “time” to ask a question and didn’t, and in the ending stanzas the man’s bitter monologue develops into what stands as the most beautiful summation of a wasted life:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. 15

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, 

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

 

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, 

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question, prufrock19corrected1

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

 

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

               “That is not it at all,

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

 

The poems ends with Prufrock recognizing that he shall never be a great man, nor shall he be remembered in any form or capacity.  His unwillingness to stand up and speak is TS_Eliotultimately his undoing, and while he may not suffer the lash or legal penalty for his fear, the ultimate punishment is recognition that he failed.  This is the stuff that makes Prufrock the poem that every human being  can take some lesson from, for ultimately many of us sink into that state of desperation where we are left counting our mistakes because we lacked the courage to stand up and either protest or ask the question.

The man in my U.S. history class continued to pester me with conversations up until about midway through the semester.  My professor was discussing economics in the pre-Civil War period while also managing to discuss religious attitudes during the period.  He began asking the students questions, working under the principle that every person in the room was a Christian, about the way they worshiped so that he could demonstrate the difference in paradigms.  He picked me, and asked me my worship patterns and without hesitation I admitted, “I don’t worship I’m an atheist.”  What followed was a general silence and I was informed a year later, for this admission apparently impressed him and we’ve become good friends since, that when I had spoken this every student’s sitting behind or around me widened their eyes or their jaws dropped.  Let the reader understand, this was not a defiant act, nor was it an act of bravery.  It was 1101500306_400just honest admission about myself.

Whatever the case the man in question never bothered me again.

Moments of greatness are actually only moments of integrity.  They are moments when we are asked to specify or declare openly our beliefs or commitment, or at times to negate them because they have changed from what they were.  When they appear they are not set to musical scores, nor are they often terribly dramatic, and this simplicity tends to hide their significance to our day to day reality.  The chances to ask a question or admit something about myself have now often become my “Prufrock moments” because they are the decisions that I know will follow me long after they are gone.  A “Prufrock moment” is an opportunity to hold your integrity.

Just as important to recognize is the fact that Prufrock is a lesson in mortality:

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — prufrock81

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe? 

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

The path to mediocrity and failure is paved with the assurances that “there will be time.”  There’s time to call that boy and tell him what’s in your heart and time enough to wonder if he’s really gay too, and there’s time to think about what you will say to him when you finally ride over to his place to ask him out to a movie and there’s time enough to plan and plan until you arrive at school the next day and discover someone else has already asked.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a Modernist dramatic monologue that reminds the reader that “prophet’s” and “mermaids” sing only songs for those that have heart and are willing to take action.

So, moral of the story: ask that fucking guy out on a date, because the worst thing that can happen is that he says no, in which case Jimmy in Chemistry, you know the one with abs and a Jeep Cherokee, is still willing to go out with you man.

Live your life, because there  won’t be time, and the universe won’t mind being disturbed.

Thomas_Stearns_Eliot_by_Lady_Ottoline_Morrell_(1934)

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

Below are links to the full poem as well as an actual recording of Eliot reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  Please enjoy.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/173476

 

 

**Writer’s Second Note**

If I believed that my answer were to a person who should ever return
to the world, this flame would stand without further movement;
but since never one returns alive from this deep, if I hear true,
I answer you without fear of infamy.

-Canto 27, Inferno

This is a translation of the opening epigram of Eliot’s poem and it only lends more credence to the idea that life is about taking chances and not resting quietly in desperation.

**Writer’s Third Note**

The reader probably observed the use of comics to provide context for the poem.  While arranging this article I stumbled upon a blog operated by a man name of Julian Peters who produces comics about the great works of literature.  These images come from his interpretation of the poem.  If the reader is interested in reading his entire production of the poem they can follow the link below:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

 

***Writer’s FOURTH Note***

Below are a few articles and facts about Eliot including a link to the Hitchens essay as well as an interesting article about Eliot writing to Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers.  Where was THAT lesson in high school, I mean, right?

Facts about Eliot, Hitchens’s Review, and an article about T.S. Eliot and Groucho Marx

http://interestingliterature.com/2015/10/13/five-fascinating-facts-about-the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock/

http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/9608017574.pdf

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-fraught-friendship-of-t-s-eliot-and-groucho-marx

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/10/from-tom-to-ts-eliot-world-poet

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4738/the-art-of-poetry-no-1-t-s-eliot

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Wilson AA Aaron Sorkin About Betty's Boob Abram Adams A Brief History of Time A Brief History of Time: From The Big Bang to Black Holes Absalom, Absalom abscence of evidence for god's existence Abscence of god abstinence and why it's shit abuse abuse of authority Abuse of Military authority abyss Academia Academic Book Academic Libraries Academic Writing Acadmic writing A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy Achilles A Christmas Carol A Clash of Kings A Clockwork Orange action Action Comics Action Films Action from Principle Activism Adam & Eve Adam Kesher Adam Piore Adam Smith Addiction ADHD Adolf Hitler A Doll's House Adrian Brody Adrian Cronauer adultery Adventure Fiction advertising advertizing A Dying Tiger—moaned for Drink— Aenema Aerosmith A Farewell to Arms Africa African History Afterlife A Game of Thrones Agency Agent Dale Cooper aging agriculture A Happy Death A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson A History of the Breast A History of the World Part 1 A House Divided AIDS Airspeed Velocity of Swallows Aislinn Emirzion Alana Alan Berube Alan Cumming Alan Dean Foster Alan Ginsberg Alan Moore Alan Turing Albatross Albert Bigelow Paine Albert Camus Alberto Giocometti Alchemy Aldis Hodge Alec Baldwin Alec Baldwin Gets Under Trump's Skin A Letter to a Royal Academy Alex + Ada Alexander Dumas Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff Alexandra Socarides Alfred Habegger Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Pennyworth Alfred Tennyson Alice in Wonderland Alice Walker alien alien-human sexuality Alien: A Film Franchise Based Entirely On Rape Alienation of Affection Alien Covenant aliens Alison Bechdel Allegory Allen Ginsberg Allison Pill Allison Williams All Star Superman All the President's Men Al Madrigal Almonds in Bloom Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace Alton Sterling Alvy Singer Amanda Palmer A Matter of Life Amazon Amelia Airheart America American Civil War American Creative Landscape American Dream American Empire American Exceptionalism American Flag American Gods American Horror Story American Horror Story: Freak Show American Landscape American literary Canon American Literature American Politics American Radical American Revolution American Soldiers American Territory A Midsummer Night's Dream A Mind of It's Own: A Cultural History of the Penis Amira Casar Ammon Shea A Modest Proposal Amon Hen A Moveable Feast A Muppet Christmas Carol Amuro Amy Holt Amy Poehler An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub anal penetration Anal Sex Ananssi Boys An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child Anatomy Anchors Aweigh Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient History Anderson Cooper 360 Anders Winroth Andre Aciman Andre Maurois Andres Serrano And Tango Makes Three And Yet... 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