[3350] in Central_America
New quotes for Fri Apr 26
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
Fri Apr 26 01:32:09 1991
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 91 01:31:18 EDT
From: root@charon.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
To: ca-mtg@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
amgreene (Andrew Marc Greene):
Ah, here it is at last. I knew it would come sooner or later. My thesis
advisor is struck by the fact that no experiments have taken place in the
lab in two weeks, and decrees that unless an experiment is performed within
a week, the post of ``Candidate for SB in Physics'' will be abolished, and
the Thesis reduced to the grade of an `F.' Why, that will involve us all
in irretrievable ruin! Yes, there is no help for it; I shall have to
perform an experiment at once.
The only question is, what shall it be?
- with sincerest apologies to W. S. Gilbert and G. C. Clark
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
lnp (Lisa N Paradis):
In the future:
6.033 report due Tuesday 4/22
work on my 6.033 case study
5/3 next set of repairs done on car
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Words-n-stuff for the day:
Today's secret word is esquire.
es.quire \'es-.kwi-(*)r, is-'\ n [ME, fr. MF esquier squire, fr. LL
scutarius, fr. L scutum sh]ield; akin to OHG sceida sheath 1: a member of
the English gentry ranking immediately below a knight 2: a candidate for
knighthood serving as shield bearer and attendant to the knight 3: - used
as a title of courtesy usu. placed in its abbreviated form after the
surname archaic 4: a landed proprietor
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
njw (Nicholas Williams):
I am currently at Imperial College, London, UK
Nick Williams, Undergraduate 3rd year,
Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine,
Department of Computing, Huxley Building,
180 Queens Gate,
London SW7 2BZ
UK
Phone:
+44 71 589 5111 ext 98233 (0900 - 2200 GMT)
E-mail to:
njw@athena.mit.edu,
njw@doc.ic.ac.uk
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul (Paul Boutin):
Paul Boutin Network Computing Devices
1000 Escalon Ave #3116 350 North Bernardo Ave
Sunnyvale CA 94086 Mountain View CA 94043
408 738 8463 415 691 2115
Email addresses:
boutin@ncd.com boutin@mit.edu paul@mit.edu paul@athena paul
Addresses NOT to use:
paul@ncd.com paul@media-lab
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
sethg (Seth A. Gordon):
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 91 10:01:20 -0500
From: Usenet Oracle <oracle-vote@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Usenet Oracularity #296-04
Selected-By: gt2126b@prism.gatech.edu (PETROSKY,WILLIAM T)
The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Wise Oracle,
> I am a dybbuk. I loved Rachel so much, but she wouldn't have me,
> so I killed myself. Now my lost soul has taken possession of its object
> of desire: her.
> But that's really not my problem. Now that I'm in control of
> Rachel, should I dye her hair blonde? And how about some sexy new
> clothes? And is there an organization for dybbuks that I could join?
> I'd really like to compare the dybbuk experience with fellow lost souls
> inhabiting the objects of their desires.
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Being something of a ghost in a machine, the Oracle is quite familiar
} with the problems facing a demonic possessor: same old body day in and
} day out, gravity dragging you down, the absurd conventionality of
} physical laws. And then, when you finally decide to trust someone and
} share your problems, what happens? Priests and holy water and exorcism
} and all THAT nonsense, and there's nothing for it but to spin your head
} in circles and spit green slime and speak in a deep bass voice with too
} much reverb.
}
} There are couple support groups in your area which you might want to
} contact.
}
} Spook Out! A militant supernaturalist organization, it organizes
} rallies, demonstrations, and active resistance to halt the slaughter of
} dryads in the forests of the northwest.
}
} United Brotherhood of Spirits, Demons, and Djinns, Local 503.
} Unionization is a new phenomenon in the spirit world, but it has already
} marked improved the lot of your working efreet or phantasm: the
} establishment of minimum wages of sin, recognition of alimony rights for
} the dispossessed, and paid vacation for All Hallow's Eve.
}
} You owe the Oracle a couple rolls of film of Rachel in unlikely poses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
therese (Suntioinen Therese M.):
You're looking at my plan? :) I'm honored :)
Will you zwrite me too?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
troth (LeaAnn Collins):
Renascence
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath come short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said:
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And--sure enough!--I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed and--lo!--Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not,--nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out.--Ah fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
that stood behind every envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,--
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,--then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And each scream tore through my throat.
No hurt did I feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.
Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more,--there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.
Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof.
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.
The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!
I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and--crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,--
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,--
I know not how such things can be!--
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
Oh God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,--
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Further apart on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat--the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1912)
Okay, okay, if you got this by fingering me, I realize that there's no way
you could have read it all (if you're just going through my files, don't
worry, everything is fine). If you like, you can read the complete text by
attaching me and reading the file .plan. Oh, and since the beginning
information must surely have scrolled off-screen:
My name is Lea Ann Collins. I was born April 21, 1972 in Pikeville, Kentucky.
My username is troth and e-mail addresss is, therefore, troth@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.
While at MIT, I live in McCormick Hall, Room 201; my home address is
Route 3 Box 13; Pikeville, Ky 41501. My MIT phone number is 225-8293, a fact
which I keep forgetting. Also, though I really don't think you'll need it, my
home phone is (606) 437-6095. Since I'm a freshman, I really don't have a
course number now, but probably it will be 7-A (pre-medish biology). Both
my favorite color and first spoken word were "purple".
--- End of Central America ---
