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A siren? It's a highway patrolman, which immediately seems like the funniest thing in the history of the world. Smoke is pouring out of the woods and they are all sailing through leaf explosions in the sky, but the cop is bugged about this freaking bus. The cop yanks the bus over to the side and he starts going through a kind of traffic-safety inspection of the big gross bus, while more and more of the smoke is billowing out of the woods. Man, the license plate is on wrong and there's no light over the license plate and this turn signal looks bad and how about the brakes, let's see that hand brake there.
Cassady, the driver, is already into a long monologue for the guy, only he is throwing in all kinds of sirs: "Well, yes sir, this is a Hammond bi-valve serrated brake, you understand sir, had it put on in a truck
ro-de-o in Springfield, Oregon, had to back through a slalom course of baby's bottles and yellow nappies, in the existential culmination of Oregon, lots of outhouse freaks up there, you understand, sir, a punctual sort of a state sir, yes sir, holds to 28,000 pounds, 28,000 pounds, you just look right here, sir, tested by a pure-blooded Shell Station attendant in Springfield, Oregon, winter of '62, his gumball boots never froze, you understand sir, 28,000 pounds hold right here – " Whereupon he yanks back on the hand-brake as if it's attached to something, which it isn't, it is just dangling there, and jams his foot on the regular brake, and the bus shudders as if the hand brake has a hell of a bite, but the cop is thoroughly befuddled now, anyway, because Cassady's monologue has confused him, for one thing, and what the hell are these ... people doing. By this time everybody is off the bus rolling in the brown grass by the shoulder, laughing, giggling, yahooing, zonked to the skies on acid, because,
mon, the woods are burning, the whole world is on fire, and a Cassady monologue on automotive safety is rising up from out of his throat like weenie smoke, as if the great god Speed were frying in his innards, and the cop, representative of the people of California in this total freaking situation, is all hung up on a hand brake that doesn't exist in the first place. And the cop, all he can see is a bunch of crazies in screaming orange and green costumes, masks, boys and girls, men and women, twelve or fourteen of them, lying in the grass and making hideously crazy sounds – christ almighty, why the hell does he have to contend with ... So he wheels around and says, "What are you, uh – show people?" |
Furthur: Neal
Cassady was her driver |
N.C., secret hero of these poems ...
From 'Howl' by Allen
Ginsberg; referring to Neal Cassady
A dead woman bites not.
Lord Gray, calling for the execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, who died on this day in 1587
Loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as a dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon.
Samuel Butler, English poet, born on February 8, 1612, Hudibras
I seemed to feel a quaking of the earth, my ears tingled, my heart beat quickly. I heaped more twigs and perfumes on the chafing dishes, and as the flames again burst up, I beheld distinctly, before the altar, the figure of a man of more than normal size, which dissolved and vanished away. I re-commenced the
evocations ... When I looked forth there was a man in front of me, wrapped from head to foot in a species of shroud, which seemed more
grey than white. He was lean, melancholy, and beardless, and did not altogether correspond to my preconceived notion of Apollonius. I experienced an abnormally cold sensation, and when I
endeavoured to question the phantom I could not articulate a syllable. I therefore placed my hand upon the sign of the pentagram, and pointed the sword at the figure, commanding it mentally to obey and not alarm me, in virtue of the said sign. The form thereupon became vague, and suddenly disappeared. I directed it to return, and presently felt, as it were, a breath close to me; something touched my hand which was holding the sword, and the arm became immediately benumbed as far as the elbow. I divined that the sword displeased the spirit, and I therefore placed it point downward, close by me, within the circle. The human figure reappeared immediately, but I experienced such an intense weakness in all my limbs, and a swooning sensation came so quickly over me, that I made two steps to sit down, whereupon I fell into profound lethargy, accompanied by dreams of which I had only a confused recollection when I came to myself. For several subsequent days, the arm remained benumbed and painful.
Eliphas Lévi
(Alphonse Louis Constant), French occultist and author, born on February 8, 1810
A good teacher must be able to put himself in the place of those who find learning hard.
Eliphas Lévi
Order is never observed; it is disorder that attracts attention because it is awkward and intrusive.
Eliphas Lévi (Alphonse Louis Constant), French occultist and author, born on February 8, 1810
It (Satan) is that Angel who was proud enough to believe himself God; brave enough to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture; beautiful enough to have adored himself in full divine light; strong enough to still reign in darkness amidst agony, and to have made himself a throne out of this inextinguishable pyre.
Eliphas Lévi; Historie de la Magie
What is more absurd and more impious than to attribute the name of Lucifer to the devil, that is, to personified evil. The intellectual Lucifer is the spirit of intelligence and love; it is the paraclete, it is the Holy Spirit, while the physical Lucifer is the great agent of universal magnetism.
Eliphas Lévi; The Mysteries of Magic
Source
In his reception speech, Eliphas Levi, to the great astonishment of his auditors, little inclined to paradoxes, made the following statement:
"I come to bring you your lost traditions, the exact knowledge of your signs and emblems, and in consequence to show you the aim for the attainment of which your association has been constituted." He then tried to demonstrate to his coreligionists that Masonic Symbolism is borrowed from the Cabala. It was time wasted. No one believed him.
M Caudet, the Venerable (Worshipful Master) at Levi's Masonic initiation at the Lodge Rose du Parfait Silence of the Grand Orient of France on
March 14, 1861 in Paris;
Eliphas Levi, by Paul Chacornac Source
A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.
Lana Turner, American actress, born on February 8, 1920
A successful man is one who makes more money than a wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Lana Turner
I find men terribly exciting, and any girl who says she doesn't is an anemic old maid, a streetwalker, or a saint.
Lana Turner
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons
– the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
US President George
W Bush, lying to the American people in a radio address, February 8, 2003
February 8 is the 39th
day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 326
days remaining (327 in leap years).
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Pancake Day (2005) (moveable feast) ... read here
Prešeren Day, Slovenia (Slovenija)
The Republic of Slovenia's national cultural holiday that commemorates the 1849 death of the national poet, France Prešeren. Today is a public holiday, and there will be plays, poetry recitations and other commemorative cultural events.
In 1846 the romantic poet, Prešeren, who had a very great taste for alcohol, published his great poetic collection, Poezije. The quality of Poezije put Slovenian literature on an equal footing with that of all the European nations.
Prešeren translated
into the native tongue foreign poets, such as Lord Byron, Buerger and
Poland's Mickiewicz. He died on this day in 1849 and was buried in Kranj.
"Lévi was the son of a
shoemaker in 