103
" These mega-churches are springing up all over the country—especially in the suburbs of large cities. And they all follow the same formula: A charismatic, self-anointed pastor starts a church by holding services in a home, then in a school. He targets the young professionals, who make good salaries—although the poorer folks are welcome too, as long as they’re willing to pay their fair share. When there are enough members, the pastor proposes buying land, then buildings, then more buildings, asking the people to give sacrificially to do God’s work.The pastor uses outrageous gimmicks in the worship services to create a massive word-of-mouth campaign for the church. Everybody’s excited about going to the big show on Sundays. For the children and youth, church is like going to a theme park. And what kid wouldn’t want to do that?A local TV ministry is added. Then it goes national. Then global. Services are streamed live to the internet. A satellite campus is opened, then another, and so on. Ministries are established in foreign countries.But whose church is it? The pastor’s. Whose ministry is it? The pastor’s. What is everything built on? The pastor. It is his church. His ministry. His empire.-- Hal, the mega-church blogger "
106
" I know for a fact that I would be awful if I was built like Serena Williams or Jennifer Lopez... If I had a body remotely close to what they have, I would be a terror. My ass would cause me to do really inappropriate and rude things. I'd be so ridiculous that people would be able to pick my labia out of a lineup. I'd wear zero clothes any- and everywhere, every day. I'd show up at church rocking a denim thong and a cropped T-shirt and have the nerve to sit right next to the head usher and dare her to say anything to me. And if anyone did say something to me, I'd tell them, " Jesus blessed me in many ways, and I am just showing off His works. HALLELUJAH." People would be disgusted and appalled by me and I wouldn't care. All insults would bounce off my ample backside. To whom much is given, much is required, and I'd require that my much would be given nary an inch of fabric. I'd hire a band whose sole job would be to follow me around and play theme music for my yansh, based on the mood I was in... I might opt to walk backwards into any room I entered, because why not?... I might also declare my booty its own limited liability corporation, assigning myself as CEO and chairman of the Donk. My jeans would be tax-deductible business expenses, and I would add my ass to my LinkedIn profile's Skills section. Everyone would throw hate ration in my dancery, and I wouldn't even see it, protected as I would be by the throne I sat atop. "
107
" Simply raising the theme of animals in the Third Reich means that our narrative is no longer only an account of what human beings have done to one another, but also about our relations with the natural world. If,viewed against the magnitude and terror of historical events, our personal lives appear almost trivial, the lives of animals may seem more so, and even
to raise the subject can at first seem either insensitive or pedantic. At the
same time, this new dimension places the events in an even vaster perspective still, one in which even the greatest battles and horrendous
crimes can begin to fade into insignificance. This is the standpoint of evolutionary time, in which humankind itself may be no more than a
relatively brief episode. Perhaps the focus on animals may help us to find
a more harmonious balance between the personal, historic, and cosmic
levels, on which, simultaneously we conduct our lives. "
― Boria Sax
108
" Even if the powers destroy us," he said, " who are we, to condemn them? As well might a fleeting word judge the speaker that forms it. Perhaps they use us for their own high ends, use our strength and our weakness, our joy and our pain, in some theme inconceivable to us, and excellent." But I protested, " What theme could justify such waste, such futility? And how can we help judging; and how otherwise can we judge than by the light of our own hearts, by which we judge ourselves? It would be base to praise the Star Maker, knowing that he was too insensitive to care about the fate of his worlds." Bvalltu was silent in his mind for a moment. Then he looked up, searching among the smoke-clouds for a daytime star. And then he said to me in his mind, " If he saved all the worlds, but tormented just one man, would you forgive him? Or if he was a little harsh only to one stupid child? What has our pain to do with it, or our failure? Star Maker! It is a good word, though we can have no notion of its meaning. Oh, Star Maker, even if you destroy me, I must praise you. Even if you torture my dearest. Even if you torment and waste all your lovely worlds, the little figments of your imagination, yet I must praise you. For if you do so, it must be right. In me it would be wrong, but in you it must be right. "
110
" Besides,” said Mr Norrell, “I really have no desire to write reviews of other people's books. Modern publications upon magic are the most pernicious things in the world, full of misinformation and wrong opinions.”
“Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.”
“But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people's.”
“Ah, but, sir,” said Lascelles, “it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people's work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one's own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one's theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.”
“Hmm,” said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, “you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place. "
― Susanna Clarke , Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
111
" -Now the paperwork – -What if I don’t want to do the Ultimate, right away? Maybe I want to ease into this thing gently.-No you don’t.-I might. I might just want to ease into the activity, the idea of it.-it’ll be fine, said Rebecca.-you will be fine, and no regrets, honestly. Jillian took me over to the desk.-No possible regrets, said Rebecca, just sign this, she handed me a sheaf of forms.-Jesus I don’t want to buy the place, I scanned the pages – 45 pages.-just fill in page 25 through28 and sign.-Pages 25 through 28, what is this?Rebecca took the pages of forms from my hand – look its simple stuff, here we’ll read it through. Jillian looked over her shoulder at the pages-weight?-what?- Say 110, Jillian said.-Height?-5’ 8’’, Jillian again.-Hair length?-What? Why?-Long, Jillian again.-Cup size?- O come on.- say C-how about say nothing, I was getting angry-Shaved or bikini or natural?-Fuck offRebecca ticked a box anyway – well she was at the waxing too. Why ask in fact?-Last menstrual cycle?- enough, enough, give me those papers-Yes ignore that, said Rebecca taking the pages away from my grasping hand-Tested? she said this to Jillian-Tested? What tested? What do you mean tested?-Yes, said Jillian, I forwarded a blood sample from the main island-You what!-You were sleeping.-Great now sign here, Rebecca handed me a page and a pen-Who has blood samples for a theme park?-Everyone-especially the staff, can’t have mi’lady getting STDsI took a breath-This is getting a bit weird guys are you sure? I mean, well this is a bit, weird.-We’re 100 and a million per cent sure, said Jillian- 100 million per cent, said Rebecca "
112
" The male staff all wore gorgeous colored loin cloths that always seem to be about to fall off they’re wonderful hips. Their upper bodies were tanned sculpted and naked.The female staff wore short shorts and silky flowing tops that almost but didn’t expose their young easy breasts. I noticed we only ever encountered male staff, and the men walking through the lobby were always greeted by the female staff. Very ingenious, as Rebecca said later - if we had ticked Lesbians on the form I wonder what would have happened? -There was a place to tick for Lesbians, I said ? -Sexual Persuasion- it was on all the forms -Really. And, how many options were there? -You’re getting the picture, said Jillian.This was not your basic check in procedure as at say a Best Western. Our Doormen/Security Guards , held out our chairs for us to let us sit at the elegant ornate table. Then they poured us tea, and placed before each of us a small bowl of tropical fruit, cut into bite size pieces. Wonderful!Almost immediately a check in person came and sat opposite us at the desk. Again a wonderful example of Island Male talent. (in my mind anyway)We signed some papers, and were each handed an immense wallet of information passes, electronic keys, electronic ID’s we would wear to allow us to move through the park and its ‘worlds’ and a small flash driveI looked at it as he handed it to me, and given the mindset of the Hotel and the murals and the whole ambiance of the place, I was thinking it might be a very small dildo for, some exotic move I was unaware of. -What’s this? I asked him -Your Hotel and Theme Park GuideI looked at it again, huh, so not a dildo. "
113
" Well this wasn’t Vegas, and this wasn’t Disneyland, this was ‘Erotica- The Theme Park – featuring Femdom World, Slave World, Bondage World, Spanking World – and so much more!’ -according to the brochure Jillian and Rebecca handed me with great fanfare the next day. -This is a beautiful brochure, I said – very- -Glossy , said Rebecca. -Right, I studied it some more – so is this…I mean – legal? I mean, is it for real? -O yes, they said. -Well. Wow, I guess. -Wow is right, they said.Jillian had been on some trip with one of her many very rich and very ugly men friends, and they had shown her the place. (no she didn’t say to what extent she was ’shown’ the place. She was very tight lipped about it, -wanted everything to be a surprise, she said)To be aware of Erotica-The Theme Park, and its Hotel Ecstasy you need money, connections, and more. In fact you need at least a 100 ft yacht to dock at its private Marina.And no I can’t tell you where it is, otherwise they will revoke my membership pass and kill my first born. But let’s say - it’s on an island, with warm water ,pure white sand beaches, it’s for the very rich, and it’s not far , by private helicopter from certain well known islands in let’s say, the Caribbean. "
114
" I've thought about that often since. I mean, about the word nice. Perhaps I mean good. Of course they mean nothing, when you start to think about them. A good man, one says; a good woman; a nice man, a nice woman. Only in talk of course, these are not words you'd use in a novel. I'd be careful not to use them.
Yet of that group, I will say simply, without further analysis, that George was a good person, and that Willi was not. That Maryrose and Jimmy and Ted and Johnnie the pianist were good people, and that Paul and Stanley Lett were not. And furthermore, I'd bet that ten people picked at random off the street to meet them, or invited to sit in that party under the eucalyptus trees that night, would instantly agree with this classification-would, if I used the word good, simply like that, know what I meant.
And thinking about this, which I have done so much, I discover that I come around, by a back door, to another of the things that obsess me. I mean, of course, this question of 'personality.' Heaven knows we are never allowed to forget that the 'personality' doesn't exist any more. It's the theme of half the novels written, the theme of the sociologists and all the other -ologists. We're told so often that human personality has disintegrated into nothing under pressure of all our knowledge that I've even been believing it. Yet when I look back to that group under the trees, and re-create them in my memory,suddenly I know it's nonsense. Suppose I were to meet Maryrose now, all these years later,she'd make some gesture, or turn her eyes in such a way, and there she'd be, Maryrose, and indestructible. Or suppose she 'broke down,' or became mad. She would break down into her components, and the gesture, the movement of the eyes would remain, even though some connection had gone. And so all this talk, this antihumanist bullying, about the evaporation of the personality becomes meaningless for me at that point when I manufacture enough emotional energy inside myself to create in memory some human being I've known. I sit down, and remember the smell of the dust and the moonlight, and see Ted handing a glass of wine to George, and George's over-grateful response to the gesture. Or I see, as in a slow-motion film, Maryrose turn her head, with her terrifyingly patient smile... I've written the word film. Yes. The moments I remember all have the absolute assurance of a smile, a look, a gesture, in a painting or a film. Am I saying then that the certainty I'm clinging to belongs to the visual arts, and not to the novel, not to the novel at all, which has been claimed by the disintegration and the collapse? What business has a novelist to cling to the memory of a smile or a look, knowing I so well the complexities behind them? Yet if I did not, I'd never be able to set a word down on paper; just as I used to keep myself from going crazy in this cold northern city by deliberately making myself remember the quality of hot sunlight on my skin.
And so I'll write again that George was a good man. "
― Doris Lessing , The Golden Notebook
