BE ch 5 nerd wars

[David Morris]

“*The Man has a branch office in each of our brains, his corporate
emblem is a white albatross*”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner

*The Rime of the Ancient, **Samuel Taylor Coleridge
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge>, *1798. considered
a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic
literature <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_literature>.

The mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite
initial good fortune, the ship is driven south by a storm and eventually
reaches the icy waters of the Antarctic
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica>. An albatross
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross> appears and leads the ship out
of the ice jam where it is stuck, but even as the albatross is fed and
praised by the ship's crew, the mariner shoots the bird:

[...] With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.     lines 81–82

The crew is angry with the mariner, believing the albatross brought the
south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change
their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears:

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.[3]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner#cite_note-STC_1869-3>
— lines 101–102

They soon find that they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime, as
it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of
mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially blown them north now
sends the ship into uncharted waters near the equator, where it is becalmed
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/becalmed>:

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The sailors change their minds again and blame the mariner for the torment
of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead
albatross about his neck:

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.[3]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner#cite_note-STC_1869-3>
— lines 139–142

After a "weary time", the ship encounters a ghostly hulk. On board are Death
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(personification)> (a skeleton) and
the "Night-mare Life-in-Death", a deathly pale woman, who are playing dice
for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of
the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the mariner, a prize she
considers more valuable. Her name is a clue to the mariner's fate: he will
endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the
albatross. One by one, all of the crew members die, but the mariner lives
on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's
corpses.

Finally the mariner wakes from his trance and comes in sight of his
homeland, but is initially uncertain as to whether or not he is
hallucinating:

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.[3]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner#cite_note-STC_1869-3>
— lines 464–471

As penance for shooting the albatross, the mariner, driven by the agony of
his guilt, is now forced to wander the earth, telling his story over and
over, and teaching a lesson to those he meets:

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.[3]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner#cite_note-STC_1869-3>
— lines 614–617

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 10:16 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> A remark I like from a favorite prophet-studier, Abraham Joshua Heschel:
>
> "We may not all be guilty, but we are all responsible"....


“The Man has a branch office in each of our brains, his corporate
> emblem is a white albatross, each local rep has a cover known as the Ego,
> and their mission in this world is Bad Shit. We do know what's going on,
> and we let it go on. As long as we can see them, stare at them, those
> massively moneyed, once in a while. As long as they allow us a glimpse,
> however rarely. We need that. And how they know it-“
>
>