VLVL2(3): Who Was Saved?

[Dave Monroe]

   "The dope cop permitted himself an Eastwood-style
mouth-muscle nuance.  'Don't be disingenuous, I know
you still believe in all that shit.  All o' you are
still children inside, livin your real life back then.
 Still waitin for that magic payoff.  But no prob, I
can live with that ... and it ain't like you're lazy
or afraid to work, either ... impossible to tell with
you, Zoyd.  Never could figure out how innocent you
thought you were.  Sometimes you looked just like a
hippie bum musician, for months at a shot, as if you
never turned a buck any other way.  Rill puzzlin.'"
(p. 28)
   "'Hector!  Bite yer tongue!  You tellin' me I--I
wasn't innocent, me behavin' like a saint through it
all?'
   "'You behaved about like everybody else, pardner,
sorry.'
   "'That bad.'
   "I won't aks you to grow up, but just sometime,
please, aks yourself, OK, 'Who was saved?'  That's
all, rill easy, 'Who was saved?'" (VL, Ch. 3, pp.
38-9)


"Eastwood-style"

http://www.clinteastwood.net/

http://www.imdb.com/Name?Eastwood,+Clint


"innocent"

   The formula included self-realization, freedom from
inhibition, communal ecstasy, expanded awareness,
cleansed perception, essential rather than superficial
religion, and a new spiritual order in which Blake's
"mind-forged manacles" would be broken and our oneness
with the universe recognized. Hippies were expected to
withdraw from the economy of conspicuous consumption
and competitive emulation to live in holy poverty,
scorning money, property, and upward mobility. Like
the Huichols, they would return through psychedelic
drugs to a lost state of innocence, a time before time
began when the creation was fresh and the earth a
paradise. They would turn away from the empty
democratic political forms of industrial society and
organize themselves into "tribes," imitating the
organic community of preliterate hunters and
gatherers. On the one hand they were young men and
ladies of leisure, scornful aristocrats rejecting the
vulgarity and hypocrisy of mass culture; on the other,
they were self-made noble savages, or serene and
compassionate yogis. Their festivals, and indeed their
lives, were supposed to combine play and prayer and
make the two indistinguishable. The hairstyles, dress,
manners, and language were partly a mark of
indifference to the established conventions, partly a
deliberate mockery and challenge. Instead of measuring
out their lives with coffee spoons, they proposed
self-abandonment and sensual indulgence; in place of
secular humanism and political rationalism
(revolutionary or conservative), they preferred a
farrago of mystical and prophetic apolitical
religions—Zen, Sufism, yoga, Tantra, shamanism,
Gnosticism.

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/grinspoo.htm


"Who was saved?"

And with him they crucify two robbers; one on his
right hand, and one on his left. And the scripture was
fulfilled, which saith, And he was reckoned with
transgressors. (Mark 15:27-8)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/mark-asv.html

Then are there crucified with him two robbers, one on
the right hand and one on the left. (Matthew 27:39)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/matthew-asv.html

And there were also two others, malefactors, led with
him to be put to death.  And when they came unto the
place which is called The skull, there they crucified
him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and
the other on the left.  And Jesus said, Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do. And
parting his garments among them, they cast lots.  And
the people stood beholding. And the rulers also
scoffed at him, saying, He saved others; let him save
himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen.  
And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him,
offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou art the King
of the Jews, save thyself. And there was also a
superscription over him, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
And one of the malefactors that were hanged railed on
him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and
us. But the other answered, and rebuking him said,
Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the
same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we
receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath
done nothing amiss. And he said, Jesus, remember me
when thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said unto him,
Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me
in Paradise.  (Luke 23:32-43)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/luke-asv.html

... they crucified him, and with him two others, on
either side one, and Jesus in the midst.  (John 19:18)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/john-asv.html

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

VLADIMIR: Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you remember the
story? 
ESTRAGON: No. 
VLADIMIR: Shall I tell it to you? 
ESTRAGON: No. 
VLADIMIR: It'll pass the time. (Pause.) Two thieves,
crucified at the same time as our Saviour. One– 
ESTRAGON: Our what? 
VLADIMIR: Our Saviour. Two thieves. One is supposed to
have been saved and the other . . . (he searches for
the contrary of saved) . . . damned. 
ESTRAGON: Saved from what? 
VLADIMIR: Hell. 
ESTRAGON: I'm going. 
He does not move. 
VLADIMIR: And yet . . . (pause) . . . how is it —this
is not boring you I hope— how is it that of the four
Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved.
The four of them were there —or thereabouts— and only
one speaks of a thief being saved. (Pause.) Come on,
Didi, return the ball, can't you, once in a while? 
ESTRAGON: (with exaggerated enthusiasm). I find this
really most extraordinarily interesting. 
VLADIMIR: One out of four. Of the other three two
don't mention any thieves at all and the third says
that both of them abused him. 
ESTRAGON: Who? 
VLADIMIR: What? 
ESTRAGON: What's all this about? Abused who? 
VLADIMIR: The Saviour. 
ESTRAGON: Why? 
VLADIMIR: Because he wouldn't save them. 
ESTRAGON: From hell? 
VLADIMIR: Imbecile! From death. 
ESTRAGON: I thought you said hell. 
VLADIMIR: From death, from death. 
ESTRAGON: Well what of it? 
VLADIMIR: Then the two of them must have been damned. 
ESTRAGON: And why not? 
VLADIMIR: But one of the four says that one of the two
was saved. 
ESTRAGON: Well? They don't agree and that's all there
is to it. 
VLADIMIR: But all four were there. And only one speaks
of a thief being saved. Why believe him rather than
the others? 
ESTRAGON: Who believes him? 
VLADIMIR: Everybody. It's the only version they know. 
ESTRAGON: People are bloody ignorant apes.

http://samuel-beckett.net/Waiting_for_Godot_Part1.html

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~boozer/existentialism/waiting_for_godot_1.html

And note Hector's accent, "aks," "rill" ...

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