Sly Uses

And they beheld Him in the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun

June 15th • Cyclops

5:57 pm

Bloom, don’t say it man. Don’t say it. Don’t even talk to that one-eyed dick, he’s not worth it. You’re gonna get burned. You remember your kidney this morning, burnt offering for a god (you! Well now, we were thinking a bit more highly of ourselves then, now weren’t we). We. But baby, that kidney has taken on giant proportions, don’t you get it? Take a look at yourself. See what you’ve become? Now see where you are flying to, like a shot off a shovel. Right toward the sun baby. You’re a holocaust. Don’t believe me? You think you’re on the rise? Well let’s ask Isaac. Isaac. Hey Isaac. Isaaaac!

Isaac: I heard you. I was hiding around the corner, you understand.

We get it. Trust issues. So Isaac, what was it like for you when your dad nearly, well,

Isaac: That’s ok. Everybody asks, I’m used to it. I mean, I should have guessed when he made me carry the kindling and he had a lighter and a sword and nothing to burn.

Yeah, that must have been weird. What did you do?

Isaac: It was my dad, you know? I trusted him. He said that the offering fell in the dirt and got all muddy. Then he went on about how wonderful is the world to come and how great it would be to be taken there.

Wait, what did he say? It fell in the dirt and you bought that? I’m not feeling it.

Isaac: Fine don’t believe me. Ask Chitragupta, he’s got the transcript. Chitragupta! Hey, Chitragupta!

Chitragupta: [while writing everything he says and hears] Yes?

Isaac: Chitragupta, will you read back what happened that day my dad tried to make a holocaust of me?

Holocaust?

Isaac: Burnt offering.

Chitragupta: [writing] holocaust of me. Holocaust? Isaac: Burnt offering. Yes, here it is. holocaust of me? Holocaust? Isaac: Burnt offering. Yes, here it is. holocaust of me. Holocaust? Isaac: Burnt offering. Yes, here

Chitragupta!

Chitragupta: Abraham said “it fell and became muddy, where the offering had fallen. Wonderful you came into the world and wonderful you shall be hence taken. Without long suffering and fight, God will take you from the world this night. And when you see the greetings given to the holocaust, I think that he would crave it himself. When he knew it truly, Isaac was ready and peaceful. And Abraham wished it well, whatsoever good or bad, he never thwarted it in grief. Isaac was laid on that altar that men use to accomplish a holocaust. And Abraham got out the sword and was ready to slay him now. An angel forbade him and bore the child from the dead. Then Abraham became soothed of his quivering, for Isaac loved him and didn’t blame him. Behind, prepared, he did not notice fast in the thorns a willing calf that an angel had killed in Thor’s dwelling. It was burnt in Isaac’s stead.

That had to be awkward. Were you really ok with it?

Isaac: Not really, but it makes for a better story.

Bloom, you paying attention?

Isaac: Bloowho?

Gob, he’d have a soft hand under a hen.

June 5th • Cyclops

Sucho fuffing a fifeing 'twould cut you in two! She'd bate the hen that crowed on the turrace of Babbel. What harm if she knew how to cockle her mouth!

Akasic Records Office

Foot and Mouth Disease Committee Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 5:33 pm

Secretary: Lord Chitragupta

Present: Mr Knowall, Black Liz, Good Uncle Leo, Hairy Iopas, Joseph Patrick Nannetti

The minutes of the previous meeting stand approved as corrected.

Joseph Patrick Nannetti moved to consider the motion that the proper remedy for Foot and Mouth disease and similar diseases infecting local cattle such as timber tongue, scab, hoose, kennel cough, condylomata acuminata, TBA, and acute neurocortical emphasitis, be immediate slaughter, though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their pathological condition.

Good Uncle Leo moved to amend the motion to indicate that foul be included with the bovines in the disease eradication plan.

Black Liz raised a point of information: Ga Ga Gara?!

Mr Knowall moved to amend the motion that the committee consider shipdip for the scab and hoose drench for coughing calves, a known remedy exists for timber tongue and whatever be the case the proper course of action must include the most humane methods, because the poor animals suffer.

Hairy Iopas raised a point of information, what about condylomata acuminata, TBA, and acute neruocortical emphasitis?

Joseph Patrick Nannetti moved to amend the motion that as for CA, TBA, and ANE, they are SOL.

Black Liz moved to amend the motion that Klook Klook klook. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook.

Hairy Iopas raised a point of information: does anybody know what that damn hen is talking about?

Mr Knowall raised a point of information: would the committee be so kind as to indulge his translation of Black Liz’s amendment concerning a letter she had scratched out of a garbage heap being a defence of fowl as follows: Lead, kindly fowl! They always did: ask the ages. What bird has done yesterday man may do next year, be it fly, be it moult, be it hatch, be it agreement in the nest. For her socioscientific sense is sound as a bell, sir, her volucrine automutativeness right on normalcy; she knows, she just feels she was kind of born to lay and love eggs (trust her to propagate the species and hoosh her fluffballs safe through din and danger!); lastly but mostly, in her genesic field it is all game and no gammon; she is ladylike in everything she does and plays the gentleman’s part every time.

Good Uncle Leo raised a point of information: You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says: It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of a beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest he all means.

Joseph Patrick Nannetti moved to amend the motion: don’t hesitate to shoot.

Hairy Iopas moved to close debate and vote immediately on the pending question. Motion carried. Aye: Mr. Knowall, Good Uncle Leo, Hairy Iopas, Joseph Patrick Nannetti. Nay: Black Liz.

Unfinished Business: A member of the committee to be selected to read the letter authored by Mr. Deasy topic: foot and mouth disease, publication pending.

That which I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be.

April 7th • Scylla and Charybdis

Within my memory is fixed -- and now moves me -- your dear, you kind paternal image when, in the world above, from time to time you taught me how man makes himself eternal; and while I live, my gratitude for that must always be apparent in my words. 2:16 pm

Scene: [Around the ideal form of a table sit Cassandra, Caesar, Thoth, Lizzie Twigg, Brunetto Latini, Mother Dana, and Little John. The theatre is darkened and an appropriate number of candles are burning with an inward light alongside several vestals’ lamps. Peatsmoke rises from the trapdoor along with wafts of incense made from opoponax and violets. Rest suddenly possesses the discrete vaulted cell, rest of warm and brooding air.]

Lizzie Twigg: Right. Thank you all for coming.

Little John: [Drunk, a little dumb] When are we getting paid?

Cassandra: Why is he here? His breath is harming the vibrations. And are those birthday candles?

Lizzie Twigg: Yes, they seemed appropriate. Don’t mind Little John, I found him vomiting in the greenroom and we needed one more body. Seven is the perfect number for a séance and I am determined to get it right this time. So let’s get started. Æ is loose among the living, he’s only just managed to go undetected, though just barely. So far he has appeared in Scylla and Charybdis, but there is no telling where he’ll turn up next so we have to get him back. Thoth, am I speaking too quickly?

Thoth: No, I’m recording it all perfectly, thanks. Learned from Chitragupta.

Cassandra: We won’t get him back.

Lizzie Twigg: He’s coming back. Now, be prepared for paradoxes. He is alive but he is also dead. His body has regenerated and though he appears normal, he is greatly decayed. But from looking he is what he was; his moles still appear in their usual places, but he is a bit soft. Also, his molecules are shuttling to and fro much too rapidly. Mother Dana, we will need your help to repair him when we get him back.

Cassandra: We won’t get him back.

Caesar: You said that already.

Mother Dana: I can weave and unweave bodies and reconcile him to himself, but I’m not sure what to do about sharpening him up.

Lizzie Twigg: Well, we’ll cross that Rubicon when we come to it. First, there can be no reconciliation if there has not been a sundering. Should be simple after that.

Caesar: [Simply] You think it’s so easy.

Cassandra: [Easily] Down, boy. Life was hard for us all. No need to get worked up about it now you’re dead.

Caesar: [Deadly] Vixen. Whore. Who listens to you? Your kind sickens me.

Little John: [vomits under the table] Shagart! Shagart!

Lizzie Twigg: Bear with me people. When Æ resurrected he took my heart with him.

Thoth: What did it weigh?

Lizzie Twigg: And I want him back. Besides, I may see myself as I sit here now, but by reflection from that which then I shall be. And that future which casts its shadow before includes Æ.

Cassandra: But this is eternity, honey, there is no future. The future is the conjoined twin sister of the past. That which was, is. That which may come to be, is. It’s an all-at-onceness, sweet girl, nothing more.

Lizzie Twigg: Exactly. And he’s not here. My is, is missing an aeon.

Cassandra: I warn you, Lizzie, bring him back and he will crave the world of the living. But you won’t bring him back.

Brunetto Latini: Dear Twigg, when he returns you must reassure him that he will live on in his work. Glory gives the wise man a second life; that is to say, after his death the reputation which remains of his good work makes it seem as if he were still alive.

Cassandra: It won’t be enough.

Lizzie Twigg: [Tossing off a glass of brandy neat] Please, let’s get started. Where there is reconciliation, there must have been first a sundering.

Caesar: You said that already.

Akasic records of all that ever anywhere wherever was.

March 13th • Aeolus

The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms.

Akasic Records Office

Ad hoc Committee Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 12:50 pm

Secretary: Lord Chitragupta

Present: O’Madden Burke, Myles Crawford, Stephen Dedalus, Matt Lenehan, Professor MacHugh, J.J. O’Molloy

The minutes of the previous meeting stand approved as corrected.

Professor MacHugh moved to consider the motion that the troop of bare feet heard rushing along the hallway and pattering up the staircase be dubbed oratory. The motion carried. Aye: Burke, Crawford, Dedalus, Lenehan, MacHugh, O’Molloy.

Stephen Dedalus moved to adjourn.

O’Madden Burke raised a point of information: Is it not perchance a French compliment?

O’Madden Burke moved to amend the motion to indicate an immediate change of venue and that said change include the adoption of a wine jug in Ye ancient hostelry metaphorically speaking.

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate the meeting venue be changed to Mooney’s.

Matt Lenehan raised a point of information: Will we sternly refuse to partake of strong waters?

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate that the committee will not drink any more.

Matt Lenehan moved to amend the motion to indicate that the committee will not drink any less.

Miles Crawford moved to amend the motion to indicate that Stephen Dedalus is a chip off the old block.

Miles Crawford raised a point of information: Where are his blasted keys?

Professor MacHugh moved to close debate and vote immediately on the pending question. Motion carried. Aye: Burke, Dedalus, Lenehan, MacHugh. Nay: Crawford, O’Molloy.

Unfinished Business: The publication of crushed typesheets, location: Crawford’s pocket, regarding Deasy letter, topic: foot and mouth disease. The pending meeting of a committee formed by O’Molloy to include Crawford concerning a point of information (financial).