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     Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 597 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Chris Hayden 2,170 words 3502 Palm Pl. St. Louis, MO 63107-2519 314-533-0525 belsidus2000@yahoo.com The Song of the Eloi (Triphopmanifesto) By The Time Traveler's Chronicler August 7, 1896--My report of the Time Traveller's story was first published serially in The National Observer and then collected into the volume titled The Time Machine. That version purported to be a complete representation of his adventures in the Year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One. Let me assert with utmost vigor that this is an important document, as it warns of the catastrophic fate that awaits the human race should we maintain our present inequitable caste system between the upper and lower economic classes. It therefore pains me to confess that it was incomplete. You have only my word, devalued thing that it may be now in light of this revelation of my earlier misfeasance, that my omissions sprang in no way from a conscious design to conceal or withhold any portion of his tale. s. My derelictions were due to the inadequacy of pen and ink and my own inadequacy to express its quality. Indeed an imperfect and incomplete transmission of that history was inevitable when you consider the circumstances and events that attended the telling and the hearing of it; The Time Traveller's sudden and startling appearance, like a thunderclap, seemingly from nowhere, on that Thursday night in Richmond; his parlous and bedraggled state; the breathless narration he made that evening after he had lived eight days in the far future such as no human of our time had ever lived before, and his subsequent mysterious disappearance-- to God only knows what fate-- from the face of the earth. Consider also that much of his wild story was beyond the ken of the understanding of any person living in our present era; at times I would not or could not believe the evidence of my own ears; henceforth at the recollection of some parts of it I concluded that I must have misheard or been otherwise misled by some trick of an overexcited imagination. It occurred that one Friday at the Linnaean, shortly after the publication of the book I chanced upon the Medical Man, who inquired as to why certain facts and events and statements he remembered from the story had not been included. Some were unimportant, but he was adamant in insisting on the publication of that portion, which appears below, here titled “The Song of the Eloi". Subsequently I called on The Psychologist, the Editor, Blank, a certain journalist (the shy, quiet unnamed man with a beard who was also there I have been unable, despite the utmost exertions, to locate) and I have verified that, concerning it and some other details that will be added to future versions of The Time Machine, my ears did not deceive me, unless we were victims of a mass delusion such as those that madden crowds. "The Song of the Eloi has been difficult to set down-- and you will see why; only after repeated sessions, sometimes angry and tumultuous, with my fellows, have I been able to produce the following version. It is one of the most fantastic parts of a fantastic tale—so fantastic that at first I concluded that the Time Traveller had dreamed it in the grip of hysteria or in some fit of extreme nervous fatigue or agitation. At first impression it appears to be gibberish, ravings, Shakespeare's tale told by an idiot--but slowly, from the kaleidoscopic swirl of sound, foreign words and words known to us but used in manners and combinations that defy translation, you will discover that it is and not merely sound and fury, signifying nothing. Know that the spellings punctuations and line breaks are my feeble attempts to reproduce the way Time Traveller told it. Know also that it has passed in manuscript form before the eyes of the learned gentlemen of the British Natural History Museum. They all—and particularly Professor George Edward Challenger of that august institution, who discerned that certain words bore a resemblance to the names of some members of the pantheon of deities worshipped by the Yoruba tribes of West Africa, and Professor Joseph Cavour an independent researcher, who spotted the resemblance of other words to the names of characters found in North American Negro folklore, have rendered invaluable aid. Though they suggested that I adopt the spellings of those names until it be proved that the original, nameless composers of the piece intended otherwise, both of these august gentlemen were at a loss to explain how they could have come to have been recorded together in a tale told Eight hundred thousand years in the future. I confess without shame that though I am the transcriber of this strange epic, it is to me as obscure as Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Oh, that within my lifetime someone will unlock the secrets and fathom the message of these weird strophes! Perhaps you hold, in your mind the Rosetta Stone. To introduce it we turn to the original account: after narrowly escaping a horrible death in the forest fire which took the lives of his Morlock pursuers and poor little Weena, the Time Traveller at about eight or nine in the morning had come to the same seat of yellow metal from which he had viewed the world of the Future upon the evening of his arrival. We pick up the narrative where he was contemplating the scene: "The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and tither among the trees," he said. " Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena, and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain. As I sat, by ones and twos, some of them approached me and I was soon surrounded by about a dozen of the creatures, males and females. And then, clapping their hands in unison, they began to give voice, sometimes also in unison, some time in couples, trios or groups, sometimes calling, other times responding, sometimes varying the pitch of their voices, other times the volume and intensity. Eventually I recognized a pattern to their vocalizations and finally realized that they were chanting or performing a song or poem. Whether it was to alleviate my cares and sorrows or whether this was some ritual they regularly performed at this place and time of day I do not know. I was astounded to recognize many of the words as English, but I apprehended that they had arrived at such a state of degradation that they did not know the meaning of this lyric themselves. What I did finally understand, by means of physical gestures and explanation they made in their own language, was that it represented a poetic farewell, left to their ancestors, by other earthborn humans, who had long ago in some manner now unknown, left the earth for the stars. Triphopmanifesto YO ALL Y'ALL FOR REAL PEOPLES Spacejumpers and Time creepers Wideawake and Fever dreamers Terraformers Afronauts and planet movers Earthbirth’d extra terrestrials and humans all too human Blessed Be Measure gauge carefully and correct (to the micron angstrom and parsec) my Word O elect Sip annual this mapblueprintchizmatrix through quantum fingertips an instructional manual for the correct construction of Triphop fictions Grok zis schematic listin’ meatworld AI’s and peeps with veins of wire and aortic hearts pumpin' oil and coolant Dig how the language be dancin and zoomin’ Jivin and rappin and singin this songpanegyric to the Body Electric, This Billion year SagaSpree of planetrock character theme setting and plot let mind, Cosmic Slop pen, stylus typewriter, and word processorcomputer jimmy jam and boogie download from the top perpetual motion that don't stop O human meteorites and new jack monstermagnets Fear not the Coming of the Black Planet Ingest with goofer dust this Prime Directive and dream O cerebroanimators of ficciones speculative Pound plenty Make it New Make it New lay it in layers slipstream of consciousness with equal parts Theory of Relativity and Jes Grew use Encyclopedia Thesaurus, Dictionary and Google too moan them lawdy lawdy Vampyre Blues merge rhyme meter digital art with onomatopoeia comp mind and memories of generations of Artists D'arque Be What Ye See Feel Smell Touch Taste Read and Eat See like Sankofa Bird both ways conjure snacks and demons from Milliways alliterate cut & paste extrapolate write 1,000 words a day Cut you a quadrant of Purple Haze sashay around the world in 80 Daze Call Me the Wolf peer equally at atom and Universe stamp a cloven hoof steal from the classics mimic the secrets of Life and Death from Frankenstein's book. Grow guppy Gills and glow in watery depths—Give Last Women and Men First Life and Breath Bumrush the Stars Go android huntin' brainwave seekin’ Ultimate Nullifier clockin' toe to toe with The Gods rappin interplanetary just so stories tellin’ it’s a brand new dance we doin' dat crazy Trip Hop Manifesto Alpha Tango Billions, trillions quadrillions of microscopic dancers move and groove Billions trillions and quadrillions of macrocosmic feet Consider the intricate wonder of a device mundane a common household gadget of steel plastic and porcelain pipe and tube recycle water and waste to the river and sea where it evaporates in the air and comes in the rain back to thee Have you guessed it yet? BEHOLD your ordinary flush toilet BE SERENDIPITOUS SYNTHESIZERS SYNCRETIC SYNERGIZERS OF SYNTHENAESIA AND STRAIGHT UP SCANDALOUS!!! This ain't Kansas Toto nor Sunday School You ain’t Normal Bean but Da Pangalactic Gargleblastin Fool Swing it Jazz it Rip it up tear it up Black it up Lay it on thick from Pyramids of Mars to Golden Kush Then Consider Time as a Helix of Precious Stones Consider Future Zothique and Ancient Rome Consider cities floating in the sky Consider they might house giants Consider the sparrow Consider Original Sin Consider the Straight and Narrow Consider the writers as realist consider the Artist as Ultimate Illusionist Spin round the rings of Saturn dish Neptunian Dirt Bust Hoodoo Blessings and Holy Curse In real Science time Get widdit man Consider a Kaiju Emperor of Japan— THEN ALL THE FOR REAL PEOPLES Stopped telling tales huntin the Great White Whale totin bales and just tryin to make that paper And saw Heaven and Hell limned in fiery hail and comets tails And commenced to preachin'—Just full as they wannabe bustin wide open and slain in the spirits of Afrofuturism and Sci Fi Noir--First to the gnats and the musketeers—and then where two or three were gathered (Bless my soul!) and then seeing the multitudes shouted from the mountaintops (Do ya grok what I'm talking about tonight) Of how the Ibonuerosurgeons of the Moon fused the human brain, spinal chord and nervous system with nanobots—(My Lord) And the Sons and Daughters of Man and Woman mastered the Great Double Consciousness Techniques( Say it again) I said the Great Double Consciousness Techniques (Replicate) and they was Cold Chillin on Mercury (True Dat!) and they rose from Digital Gangstas to CyBeRtHuGs and ShowBiz Hoes to CyBeRmEsSiAhS—(Preach!) and they mentally calculated in billions trillions and quadrillions faster than the Muthabox and with their figgering did not even need paper or pencil (You got that right) –and they served HITEK the Digitalization of Life the Universe and Everything for Ever and ever after (Different keystrokes for Different Folks)—And Ultimately they became possessors of Quantum Consciousness and professors of the Electro College and as such had eradicated, defeated, and emulsified the Crabs in the Barrels Syndrome (Gimme a Hell yeah) I said the Crabs in the Barrel Syndrome was no more—Oh Glory, and Orgiastic Orgasmics and Red Kamasutra Flowers for all They was Big WebBloggin, they had got PayBak and was Waitin on the Machine Waitin on tha Machine Waitin' On Tha Machine No Mo They Was the Last Hot Thang in Big Word (Distill Dat Data Dis Be Da Crunk) And They Knew All Power Equations—DaFaith—Da Tradition—And they was One Nation And Shango and Ogun with Eshu Produced the Great Computation Oya, Ochun Orinmila and Obatala joined hands with Marie Leveau, Big Sixteen, John Henry, Brer Rabbit and Bad Man Stackolee and this pantheon from both sides of the Big Water, this Intercontinental Double God Consciousness brought forth their children, Time Bomb and L'il Kween Bee Space is the Place they said—then they fled—on a Kasavubu Electromagnetic Anti Gravity Field to Obatala Lo they raised the fuck up out of here singin Atomic rant and electronic epistle Nexus in Outer space and neuron pistol Tectonic knife and nuclear bullet train Ruby eyeballs Diamond teardrops and eternal flame Hallowed and Cyclopean be thy name Don't wanna blues ya but now I'm gonna lose ya Ain't gonna see ya wouldn't wanna be ya Keep your pimp hand strong your money hand long May you wake up Jet Black in the morning AND ALL THE FOR REAL PEOPLES Wuz gone Copyright Chris Hayden 2004 |
