Works Cited, The Sword in the Stone

Later in the afternoon a scouting ant wandered across the rush bridge which Merlyn had commanded him to make. It was an ant of exactly the same species, but it came from the other nest. It was met by one of the scavenging ants and murdered.

The broadcasts changed after this news had been reported—or rather, they changed as soon as it had been discovered by spies that the other nest had a good store of seeds.

Mammy—mammy—mammy gave place to Antland, Antland Over All, and the stream of orders were discontinued in favour of lectures about war, patriotism or the economic situation. The fruity voice said that their beloved Country was being encircled by a horde of filthy Other-nesters—at which the wireless chorus sang:

When Other blood spurts from the knife,
Then everything is fine.

It also explained that Ant the Father had ordained in his wisdom that Othernest pismires should always be the slaves of Thisnest ones. Their beloved country had only one feeding tray at present—a disgraceful state of affairs which would have to be remedied if the dear race were not to perish. A third statement was that the national property of Thisnest was being threatened. Their boundaries were to be violated, their domestic animals, the beetles, were to be kidnapped, and their communal stomach would be starved. The Wart listened to two of these broadcasts carefully, so that he would be able to remember them afterwards.

The first one was arranged as follows:

A. We are so numerous that we are starving.

B. Therefore we must encourage still larger families so as to become yet more numerous and starving.

C. When we are so numerous and starving as all that, obviously we shall have a right to take other people's stores of seed. Besides, we shall by then have a numerous and starving army.

It was only after this logical train of thought had been put into practice, and the output of the nurseries trebled—both nests meanwhile getting ample mash for all their needs from Merlyn—for it has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else—it was only then that the second type of lecture was begun.

This is how the second kind went:

A. We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash.

B. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash.

C. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one.

D. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one.

E. We must attack them in self-defence.

F. They are attacking us by defending themselves.

G. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow.

H. In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits.

After the second kind of address, the religious services began. These dated—the Wart discovered later—from a fabulous past so ancient that one could scarcely find a date for it—a past in which the emmets had not yet settled down to communism. They came from a time when ants were still like men, and very impressive some of the services were.

A psalm at one of them—beginning, if we allow for the difference of language, with the well-known words, "The earth is the Sword's and all that therein is, the compass of the bomber and they that bomb therefrom"—ended with the terrific conclusion: "Blow up your heads, O ye Gates, and be ye blown up, ye Everlasting Doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is the King of Glory? Even the Lord of Ghosts, He is the King of Glory."

T.H. White, The Sword in the Stone

Works Cited, Ragtime

Despite such experiences Houdini never developed what we think of as a political consciousness. He could not reason from his own hurt feelings. To the end he would be almost totally unaware of the design of his career, the great map of revolution laid out by his life. He was a Jew. His real name was Erich Weiss. He was passionately in love with his ancient mother whom he had installed in his brownstone home on West 113th Street. In fact Sigmund Freud had just arrived in America to give a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and so Houdini was destined to be, with Al Jolson, the last of the great shameless mother lovers, a nineteenth-century movement that included such men as Poe, John Brown, Lincoln and James McNeill Whistler. Of course Freud’s immediate reception in America was not auspicious. A few professional alienists understood his importance, but to most of the public he appeared as some kind of German sexologist, an exponent of free love who used big words to talk about dirty things. At least a decade would have to pass before Freud would have his revenge and see his ideas begin to destroy sex in America forever.

Doctorow, E.L.. Ragtime (Modern Library 100 Best Novels) (pp. 24-25). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

Bartók never carried a gun or felt the shame of defeat on the field; but you should remember that Béla von Bartók was a Hungarian whose birthplace had been cut from its country like a side of beef from its carcass, and, by its political butchers, given to Romania to devour in 1920. In protest, he dressed like a Hungarian, however that would be. He vowed to speak only his native tongue. Hungarian isn’t easy for anybody, so if you know how to speak it, you tend to brag.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 369). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

But history can hold up for our inspection many different sorts of wars, and World War Two was made of nearly all of them: trade wars—tribal wars—civil wars—wars by peaceful means—wars of ideas—wars over oil—over opium—over living space—over access to the sea—whoopee, the war in the air—among feudal houses—raw raw siss-boom-bah—so many to choose from—holy wars—battles on ice floes between opposing ski patrols—by convoys under sub pack attacks—in the desert there might be a dry granular war fought between contesting tents, dump trucks, and tanks—or—one can always count on the perpetual war between social classes—such as—whom do you suppose? the Rich, the Well Off, the Sort Of, the So-So, and the Starving—or—the Smart, the Ordinary, and the Industriously Ignorant—or—the Reactionary and the Radical—not just the warmongers for war but those conflicts by pacifists who use war to reach peace—the many sorts of wars that old folks arrange, the middle-aged manage, and the young fight—oh, all of these, and sometimes simultaneously—not to neglect the wars of pigmentation: color against color, skin against skin, slant versus straight, the indigenous against immigrants, city slickers set at odds with village bumpkins, or in another formulation: factory workers taught to shake their fists at field hands (that’s hammer at sickle)—ah, yes—the relevant formula, familiar to you, I’m sure, is that scissors cut paper, sprawl eats space—Raum!—then in simpler eras, wars of succession—that is, wars to restore some king to his john or kill some kid in his cradle—wars between tribes kept going out of habit—wars to keep captured countries and people you have previously caged, caged—wars in search of the right death, often requiring suicide corps and much costly practice—wars, it seems, just for the fun of it, wars about symbols, wars of words—uns so weiter—wars to sustain the manufacture of munitions—bombs, ships, planes, rifles, cannons, pistols, gases, rockets, mines—wars against scapegoats to disguise the inadequacies of some ruling party—a few more wars—always a few more, wars fought to shorten the suffering, unfairness, and boredom of life.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 368-369). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

Koussevitzky was a faithful and genuine supporter of the music of his own time, an almost reckless thing to be, especially if you were the conductor of a significant American orchestra, because patrons were customarily twenty-five years off the clock and, like the busy noses of the bees, went for nectar and its sweetness, not newness however savory. For further information on the numbskullish nature of audiences and the even greater tin eardrum of critics, try to remember my earlier lectures. […​…] Das Lied von der Erde may have opened the door for Bartók and Schoenberg—it took some pushing and shoving to hear who would get through first—but it was melancholy—a downer, do you say? [… ya? …] We did “Das Lied” two weeks ago. Remember? “The Song of the Earth.” Maa … ler. He died of a sore throat. I find it interesting that Mahler, Bartók, and Schoenberg changed their religion, not quite the way we change clothes, but as the occasion dictated nevertheless.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 366-367). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

All right, class, we return to our sheep: who is—Koussevitzky—did I call him: commissioner? […​…] I call him the Commissioner because he suggested and funded compositions from contemporary composers: for instance he asked Maurice Ravel to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s piano suite “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Listeners have forgotten that it was originally scored for the piano. For most folks only the full orchestra version answers to the name. Ravel’s version is a wonderful piece to test your loudspeakers with. Sorry. It is a good piece with which to test your speakers. [… um …] As colorful as Joseph’s coat. [… um …] A few good musical jokes about Jews. Listeners have forgotten about them, too.

You have to drive these gentlemen—Mussorgsky—Ravel—Koussevitzky—into the same corral, get them used to the smell of one another. Koussevitzky, Ravel, Mussorgsky. Up hands! Come on, don’t you remember the Great Gate? Cymbal crash! […​…] Palms aplenty? Well, several. We are blessed. Mein Gott. 

The Commissioner badgered work from Ravel—a piano concerto, not just the aforementioned orchestration. He encouraged a couple of operas: Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe, and Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes; then squeezed from Copeland, let’s see, Symphony no. 3. Next, what? [… um …] He gave Olivier Messiaen’s T-S symphony a push into the light of day, as well as Bartók’s Concerto. […​…] No, it doesn’t mean what you gigglers think. […​…] TS to you, too. It stands for Turangalîla-Symphonie. I shall write the title on the board. It is not easily spelled. […​…] The news about Koussevitzky is not all positive. He led the Boston boys in one of the earlier recordings of Ravel’s Boléro. […​…] I’m disappointed none of you groaned.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 367). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

March 16, 1968. My Lai Massacre. Nearly five hundred people in the Vietnam villages of My Lai and My Khe were murdered by members of Charlie Company. The Americans demonstrated their skill in such matters (although for some it was their first time) by dropping many victims, like a line of cardboard targets at a carnival, into a handy drainage ditch. Babies were dispatched by gun and grenade, animals and women as well. There were no plants in pots or they’d have been shot. This riot of killing was observed by helicopters. The helicopters snitched.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 365). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

1639–1651. Cromwell’s army invaded Ireland to deny Royalists their farms and to put many of these properties in Protestant hands, at the same time preventing them from serving as a base for the return of the Crown to England. Colonization was indeed a British habit. When the French explored the New World they built outposts to facilitate trade; when the Spanish did so, after the initial slaughter, they settled in among the natives, often marrying them; but when the British arrived they drove the Indians away and built houses for themselves and handsome sideboards for their manners. This was not a new strategy but a successful one, except in Ireland’s case. Nazis were no doubt similarly inspired to repopulate Poland, as the Israelis to enlarge Zion. The Irish were encouraged to remain bitter by British behavior during the potato famine of 1845–49. The Brits outpaid the Irish for their own crop, vesseled the potatoes away, and left the people to starve. Stupid, stubborn, slippery: the British do not own these qualities, but in England’s case, they built an empire with them. The Irish moved to big-city America where they became cops. In their spare time, some rioted with German immigrants over saloon hours.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 359-360). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Bob Barker

 Today, I learned Bob Barker was a Sioux.

Works Cited, Middle C

The library doesn’t carry Jacques Barzun’s book on Hector Berlioz. In the winter, the damn steam radiators clang and clatter in the midst of my class listening to “Clair de Lune.” By the way, you don’t have David Oistrakh’s violin version. You never liked Schoenberg. I did so. At least two-thirds of me did. That’s more than most people.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 355-356). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.  

Works Cited, Middle C

Here, in this place, Schoenberg could not have begun the least measure of a career. Here, no one minds if you prefer Delius, a man who caught syphilis in Florida where he tried to grow oranges, and with whose work Thomas Beecham insisted on waxing the public ear. Once, when I pretended to be a fan, one of my colleagues, whose name I shall protect better than he will mine, followed me into this absurdity like an antelope fleeing danger with his flock, grateful to believe I had finally given up on Maestro Twelve Tones, because, had I maintained my interest, the copycat would have had to sustain his … an unpleasantly taxing fate. Was not my Delius period a generous gesture?

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 355). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Krono Kross

Need to get this off my chest.

When I was tennish, I was in the car with my dad, doing what I always did in the car: fooling with the radio. (We may be listening to a good song at the moment, but what if there's a great song on another station? Let's make sure.) 

All the sudden, the static cleared and began the pinnacle of 80s yacht rock: Sailing. And I was happy cause that was just my speed.

My dad turned to me, sagely nodded, and said, "Kris Kross." The we were silent, as those dreamy arpeggios took us to paradise, which wasn't far.

Now, let's go back in history: Kris Kross was a(n) American pre-teen hip hop duo, consisting of Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly and Chris "Daddy Mac" Smith, best known for their smash hit Jump in 1992. Which, when I was tennish, was rocking the middle school non-stop.

So I had two distinct and thunderous thoughts when my dad told me they were also responsible for the pinnacle of 80s yacht rock, Sailing.

One. My dad is hip! He knows who Kris Kross is, and apparently their catalog, and he can recognize it from a few seconds of airplay.

And two.

Damn! Kris Kross got range! Sailing is a very different song from their 1992 smash hit, Jump. Also, how long have they been around? I thought they were my age.

And for years, I accepted this. What're the chances there would be two musical acts with the exact same name?

So, in sum, there are times in my life I wish I had ventured a follow-up question.

Works Cited, Middle C

What he really wanted the world to see, were his lifelong ruse to be discovered, was the equivalent of Moses’s tablets before they got inscribed: a person pure, clean, undefiled, unspoiled by the terrible history of the earth. So he could rightly say to his accusers (and accused he would be): When you were destroying yourselves and your cities, I was not there; when you were debasing your noble principles, I was not there; when you were fattening on lies like pigs at a trough, I was not there; when you were squeezing life from all life like water from a sponge, I was not there. So see me now! Untarnished as a tea service! I’ve done nothing brave but nothing squalid, nothing farsighted but nothing blind, nothing to make me proud, yet never have I had to be ashamed.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 321). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

During his studies, Joseph had run across reproductions of Schoenberg’s paintings: there the great composer’s soul was, as it couldn’t be shown in music, naked as if flayed: furious, frightened, intense, unforgiving. If he honored you by doing your portrait, at the end, there he was, staring out of your eyes, glaring with every wild strand of hair, each vertical line like an asylum bar, each curl a coil, and Schoenberg himself behind the painted face just far enough not to notice his sitter’s terror and chagrin but certainly hoping for it. Even in his wife’s portrait, where she is surrounded by a swirling halo of hat or hair, his temperament reddens the lips of her almost soft mouth. But the painting that followed Skizzen from chair to bed like a guilty conscience was called The Red Gaze, because it was that formerly obscured face, with its bullet-eyed look, brought out into the open, as if the pulp of a fruit had taken the place of the rind.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 306). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

Germans also picked on Polish intellectuals and after killing both of them (the joke ran) turned their attention to washerwomen. The wounded are never counted as carefully as the dead, but it has often turned out that being wounded was the worse affliction.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 282-283). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

The crucial problem facing any parasite is the health of the host upon which it feeds, whose substance it steals, and whose balance it upsets, because on the day that the host becomes a husk, sucked dry as dust, the parasite must be prepared to live on small bites bitten from itself, something the tapeworm may not be prepared to do but which the human worm has practiced its entire span, gnawing on the sweet knuckles of its young, cutting into small squares many of the members of its presumptive community.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 282-283). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Works Cited, Middle C

In the alleged state of nature, Joseph would begin, it is said to be a war of all against all. I know you are teasing, Joey. No one can go against gardens. So let me be with my beauties, at peace with nature and all this world’s tossing and yearning. Despite a pledge to cease and desist, Joseph heard himself repeat to his mother how unnatural gardens were, how human-handed every rose was, how thoroughly the irises were trained, how the prizes plants won in their competitions were like those awarded after a proud parade of poodles, each clipped like a hedge. She should not ignore the size of the industry whose profits depended upon fashions in flowers and fads that were encouraged by the press or those ubiquitous catalogs which provoked fears of diseases, worms, and insects that could only be controlled by the poisons, hormones, and fertilizers they recommended. Nor should she make light of the myths extolling the harmless healthiness of gardening, even alleging its psychological superiority to every other avocation. She should notice how the seed companies’ bankrolls grew more rapidly than their marigolds, despite extensive artificial breeding; she should also admit the plants’ reputations were puffed and as pretentious as their adopted stage names—moonglow, for instance. The garden, he felt compelled to suggest, was like a fascist state: ruled like an orchestra, ordered as an army, eugenically ruthless and hateful to the handicapped, relentless in the pursuit of its enemies, jealous of its borders, favoring obedient masses in which every stem is inclined to appease its leader.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 271). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Works Cited, Middle C

He had once thought that the many terrible deeds of men might be understood by positing some underlying evil working away in the dirt of each life like the sod webworm. Perhaps there was an unrequited urge at the center of the species, a seed or genetic quirk, an impulse, bent for destruction, a type of trichinosis or a malignant imbecility that was forever ravenous. It might be just possible that we were killing off the weak to make the species strong. The young men can shoot one another. Those left standing can rape and murder the enemy’s mistresses, whores, and wives. Dead men cannot fertilize, or dead women bear. Then maybe our wars worked to keep our increasing numbers in check. But that hope turned out to be Heinrich Schenker’s doing, who had put these ideas in Skizzen’s head by insisting that for every harmonic composition there ought to be such a hidden center—a musical idea from which the notes that would be heard emerged, and were thereby governed, the way words issue from a mouth when the mouth moves on account of a consciousness that is formed, at least in part, by a nature as obdurate as an underground god at his forge hammering the white-hot blades of his weapons.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 268-269). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

Begetting was so inevitable, Joey thought, it was as routine as dying, consequently it could be safely left to nature, and otherwise ignored, the way Portho’s presence was ignored even when he slunk indoors, even when he scattered magazines donated by doctors’ offices on one of the polished tables, even when he dropped off, even when he snored. In due course people were born, in due course they managed to walk, they learned to talk, they attended school, they got a job, partied, married, had kids, sold stuff, bought more, overate, drank to be drunk, were relieved to be regular, labored in order to loaf, lived that way a spell—its passage sometimes stealing years—coasting down due’s course—while they lost their hair, sight, hearing, teeth, the use of limbs, the will to live, until, in due course and as their diseases desired, they took to bed; they laughed their last; they said good-bye to the ones they said were loved ones—they curled up in a fist of aches—said good-bye to the ones they said were closest to them—complained about their care—said good-bye to the ones who came to kiss them off, said good-bye to comfort themselves with the sight of another’s going, said good-bye while the designated goer complained, complained of neglect, complained of fear, complained of pain, and disinclined going, but would go, go over, cross Jordan, nevertheless. They uttered last words that no one could understand; they curled up like a drying worm; they cried to no avail because weeping begot only weeping, wailing was answered with wails; they repented to no one in particular; they died as someone whose loss was likely to be felt no farther than the idler’s door, and dying, quite often, in debt for a cemetery plot, the service of a funeral parlor, in the pursuit of a false ideal. Joey didn’t see much to interest him in any of this. It was what was done between times that fascinated him, when due course was interrupted by dream or discovery, murder or music, though wars were, he had to admit, due course to a faretheewell. And he thought, more and more, that death, assuredly dire, was also something due.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (p. 257). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Works Cited, Middle C

Yes, it is true, this music will be keyless, but there will be no lock that might miss it. Atonal music (as it got named despite Arnold Schoenberg’s objection) is not made of chaos like John Cage pretended his was; no art is more opposed to the laws of chance; that is why some seek to introduce accidents or happenstance into its rituals like schoolboys playing pranks. Such as hiccups. Miss Rudolph’s cough. No, this music is more orderly than anybody’s. It is more military than a militia. It is music that must pass through the mind before it reaches the ear. But you cannot be a true-blue American and value the mind that much. Americans have no traditions to steep themselves in like tea. They are born in the Los Angeles of Southern California, or in Cody, Wyoming, not Berlin or Vienna. They learn piano from burned-out old men or women who compose bird songs. Americans love drums. The drum is an intentionally stupid instrument. Americans play everything percussively on intentionally stupid instruments and strum their guitars like they are shooting guns. But I have allowed myself to be carried away into digression. Digressions are as pleasant as vacations, but one must return from them before tan turns to burn.

Gass, William H.. Middle C (Vintage International) (pp. 244-245). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.