25 Short Stories
  Stephen Vincent Benet
    The Sun Dial Press, Garden City, NY, ©1943
    University of Michigan Libraries
    Dewey 828 B465
    572pp.

I’m reading 25 Short Stories, a collection of seminal American works by « Stephen Vincent Benet », one of my favorite authors.

Two of the works are Doc Mellhorn and the Pearly Gates and By the Waters of Babylon. Both are works of fantasy. In the former, a country doctor passes away and receives his due, entry into Heaven. But he finds it boring there, so he takes the back roads and sets up shop in Hell, treating all kinds of the damned for all their afflictions and generally relieving torment. This, of course, won’t do at all, so he’s kicked back up to Paradise. It’s one of my all-time favorite short stories.

The post-apocalyptic vision of By the Waters of Babylon is eerie in many ways in that it shows a post-nuclear-war, irradiated America … but it was written in the 1930s, some years before the first atomic bomb exploded over Trinity Site, New Mexico. It’s the granddaddy of the post-apocalyptic science fiction/fantasy stories that were extremely popular throughout the Cold War, none of which can top it.

Also in the volume is The Sobbin’ Women, a short story which inspired the musical and motion picture « Seven Brides for Seven Brothers » (and is superior to both). The story is based on « the rape of the Sabine women », a founding legend of the Roman Republic. The title is a sly commentary on American frontier ignorance; the lead character tells the seven backwoodsy brothers about the Romans and the ‘Sobbin’ women’ and puts the central events of the story in motion.

And then there’s _The Devil and Daniel Webster, which contains this opening passage:

‘It’s a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire.

‘Yes, Dan’l Webster is dead—or, at least, they buried him. But every time there’s a thunderstorm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, “Dan’l Webster—Dan’l Webster!” the ground’ll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake. And after a while you’ll hear a deep voice saying, “Neighbor, how stands the Union?” Then you better answer the Union stands as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed, one and indivisible, or he’s liable to rear right out of the ground. At least, that’s what I was told when I was a youngster.’

I’d certainly be afraid to go to his grave and have him ask me that question now. We’re more divided than ever, albeit from within, not along regional lines, and the Republic is dead, the Empire transcendent.

But maybe he’d drag me into the grave with him … or else come out fighting, whooping the dickens out of the current crop of Christo-Fascists plaguing the country. That would be something!

Stephen Vincent Benet. Great stuff.

Adbusters.org has the true American Imperial Corporate flag. The government might as well go ahead and adopt it; it’s more true than anything else flying.

Let’s let Adbusters say it:

‘Corporate America is revelling in a Golden Age. A shrinking number of the planet’s biggest businesses—AOL Time Warner, Shell, Nike, Microsoft, McDonald’s—are the money behind presidents, the power that drives global trade rules, the voice of authority on how we live and the way we think. Corporations have all the rights of we, the people, but thousands of times more money to make the system work for them. We call this system “democracy.” But today it looks a lot like corporate rule. … The flags snapping in the wind are raising sparks. You just don’t mess with America’s Old Glory. But many would say it’s been a corporate doormat for years. And today, the question is global. What counts as “independence”? And when will we win it back?’

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Updated 8-Feb-05_:

‘We are waking up to political reality. Even diehard Republicans now admit that corporations govern their lives. A small group of neocons has hijacked the good name of America and swapped it for dreams of empire. Opinion round the world is ranged against us. Americans of all political stripes are asking, “Is this my America anymore?”’

Good question.

Tired of living in loser countries that want to round you up in concentration camps and stone you to death based on fictional 5,000-year-old Jewish scrolls?

Well then! « The Gay Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands » just might be for you!

‘Alone, unaided, neither seeking nor requiring help the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom rose in self defence, so long as gay & lesbian people cherish freedom & equality, so long as small states strive for the dignity of existence, the exploits of the gay & lesbian activists who first settled these islands in 2004 will be told from one gay generation to another with the deepest pride. The Australian Parliament introduced anti gay marriage & adoption legislation and we have sort to have it condemned and the gay government resent it, and the religious right who are behind these moves with all our might. By declaring our nation independent, never have freedom, equality, justice, gay national interest and international morality been so rightly protected. It may seem the Gay & Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands stands alone against numerous homophobic nations and religious organisations, but we have faith in our declaration of independence, and in the underlying forces in gay history which have so often given the finally victory to spirit over matter, to inner truth over mere quantity. We believe in the vigilance of history, which has guarded our steps, the guardian of the gay & lesbian kingdom neither slumbers nor sleeps.’

Sounds like a gay James Bond film.

But hurry! « You too can become a citizen with a passport and everything »

‘The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands offers a policy of automatic citizenship to gays and lesbians, similar to Israel’s right of return, subject to application and verification. The Chief Justice of the High Court of the Gay Kingdom is authorized by the Goverment of the Gay Kingdom to immediately establish legal methods for members of the gay tribe, wherever dispersed in the world, to secure such documents, passports and other things by which the crown may identify it’s subjects with security and confidence.’

How very … something or other.

Fascinating stories about ‘33-’45 still crop up even today. This time, it’s from a « former Nuremberg trial guard who says he helped Goering escape hangman »

‘A former guard at the Nuremberg trials has come forward to say he believes he provided the poison that Nazi Hermann Goering used to commit suicide hours before his scheduled execution for war crimes, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Herbert Lee Stivers, now 78, was a 19-year-old Army private when he took notes and a capsule hidden inside a fountain pen to Goering at the request of two men who said the notorious Nazi general was “a very sick man” who needed medicine, the newspaper said. Stivers said he is now convinced the “medicine” was the cyanide that killed Goering on Oct. 15, 1946, the night before he was to be executed. The commander of the German air force had been convicted at the Nuremberg trials the previous month. “I felt very bad after his suicide. I had a funny feeling; I didn’t think there was any way he could have hidden it on his body,” Stivers said.’

Interesting story.

‘Stivers had agreed to pass on the items after being introduced to the men, who called themselves Erich and Mathias. ”(Erich) said it was medication, and that if it worked and Goering felt better, they’d send him some more,” Stivers said. “I wasn’t thinking of suicide when I took it to Goering. He was never in a bad frame of mind.”’
It’s certainly true that Hermann was never in a bad frame of mind. He dominated the trial with his insolence and his personality and his sheer bulk. That he cheated the Allies’ hangman was his last laugh.

The book, Hitler’s Lieutenants, has a thoroughly fascinating portrait of Goering, as well as the others of the inner circle. It’s an absorbing read and valuable addition to the library.

Cafe Ambrosia was Cafe Hungry Like the Wolf this afternoon. The guys behind the counter were apparently (from what I could gather) striking back at the pretense of a « rockist » critic from earlier in the day by playing what sounded like « Decade » (nothing after 1988 was on the disc, which was just as well) from beginning to end — much to the grim, seething, teeth-gritting silence of many of the customers in the joint (although a couple of customers did come up and chucklingly congratulate them on their unusual selection). The fellas behind the counter laughed and grooved along with “Rio” and “Save a Prayer” and “Union of the Snake” and “Wild Boys,” but it seems they hit their limit after “Notorious.” They cut the CD in the middle of the next song and quickly threw on a Morphine CD, much more in keeping with the usual Ambrosia (and usual hipster cafe) ethic. You could feel the rockist tension ease into a saxophone-induced reverie.