tribute: Soul Music

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2015-07-17 02:11:20 -07:00
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@@ -840,15 +840,222 @@ Willie the Vampire masks in order, he said, to take him out of himself.
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%title Soul Music (2)
%title Soul Music (11)
%passage 1
But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt
like music
But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt
like music.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
%passage 2
"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."
"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p.2 (Harper Torch edition)
%passage 3
But if it is true that the act of observing changes the thing which is
observed,(1) it's even more true that it changes the observer.
(1) Because of Quantum.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p.8
%passage 4
It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the
equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company
written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# pp. 63-64
%passage 5
Then the skull said: "Kids today, eh?"
"I blame education," said the raven.
"A lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing," said the skull. "A lot more
dangerous than just a little. I always used to say that, when I was
alive."
"When was that, exactly?"
"Can't remember. I think I was pretty knowledgeable. Probably a teacher
or philosopher, something of that kidney. And now I'm on a bench with a
bird crapping on my head."
"Very allegorical," said the raven.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p. 87 (Stabbing: "in the" both capitalized; "and" not so)
%passage 6
The Mended Drum had traditionally gone in for, well, traditional pub games,
such as dominoes, darts, and Stabbing People In The Back and Taking All
Their Money. The new owner had decided to go up-market. This was the
only available direction.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# pp. 125-126 ("him"==Librarian;
# Leonard of Quirm==Discworld analog of Leonardo da Vinci)
%passage 7
The Library didn't only contain magical books, the ones which are chained
to their shelves and are very dangerous. It also contained perfectly
ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be
a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading
them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did
the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the
reader's brain.
For example, the big volume open in front of him contained some of the
collected drawings of Leonard of Quirm, skilled artist and certified
genious, with a mind that wandered so much it came back with souvenirs.
Leonard's books were full of sketches--of kittens, of the way water flows,
of the wives of influential Ankh-Morporkian merchants whose portraits had
provided his means of making a living. But Leonard had been a genius and
was deeply sensitive to the wonders of the world, so the margins were full
of detailed doodles of whatever was on this mind at the moment--vast
water-powered engines for bringing down city walls on the heads of the
enemy, new types of siege guns for pumping flaming oil over the enemy,
gunpowder rockets that showered the enemy with burning phosphorous, and
other manufactures of the Age of Reason.
And there had been something else. The Librarian had noticed it in
passing once before, and had been slightly puzzled by it. It seemed out
of place.(1)
(1) And didn't appear to do anything to the enemy /at all/.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p. 152 (much of the story concerns "Music With Rocks In")
%passage 8
Some religions say that the universe was started with a word, a song,
a dance, a piece of music. The Listening Monks of the Ramtops have
trained their hearing until they can tell the value of a playing card by
listening to it, and have made it their task to listen intently to the
subtle sounds of the universe to piece together, from the fossile echoes,
the very first noises.
There was certainly, they say, a very strange noise at the beginning of
everything.
But the keenest ears (the ones who win most at poker), who listen to the
frozen echoes in the ammonites and amber, swear they can detect some tiny
sounds before that.
It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could make
out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
When they asked him what it was, he said: "It sounds like One, Two."
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p. 227
%passage 9
The Death of Rats put his nose in his paws. It was a lot easier with
rats.(1)
(1) Rats had featured largely in the history of Ankh-Morpork. Shortly
before the Patrician came to power there was a terrible plague of rats.
The city council countered it by offering twenty pence for every rat
tail. This did, for a week or two, reduce the number of rats--and then
people were suddenly queueing up with tails, the city treasury was being
drained, and no one seemed to be doing much work. And there /still/
seemed to be a lot of rats around. Lord Vetenari had listened carefully
while the problem was explained, and had solved the thing with one
memorable phrase which said a lot about him, about the folly of bounty
offers, and about the natural instinct of Ankh-Morporkians in any
situtation involving money: "Tax the rat farms."
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# pp. 313-314 (Drongo and Big Mad Adrian are students)
%passage 10
The Archchancellor polished this staff as he walked along. It was a
particularly good one, six feet long and quite magical. Not that he used
magic very much. In his experience, anything that couldn't be disposed of
with a couple of whacks from six feet of oak was probably immune to magic
as well.
"Don't you think we should have brought the senior wizards, sir?" said
Ponder, struggling to keep up.
"I'm afraid that taking them along in their present state of mind would
only make what happens"--Ridcully sought for a useful phrase, and settled
for--"happen worse. I've insisted they stay in college."
"How about Drongo and the others?" said Ponder hopefully.
"Would they be any good in the event of a thaumaturgical dimension rip of
enormous proportions?" said Ridcully. "I remember poor Mr. Hong. One
minute he was dishing up an order of double cod and mushy peas, the
next ..."
"Kaboom?" said Ponder.
"Kaboom?" said Ridcully, forcing his way up the crowded street. "Not
that I heard tell. More like 'Aaaaerrrr-scream-gristle- gristle-gristle-
crack' and a shower of fried food. Big Mad Adrian and his friends any
good when the chips are down?"
"Um. Probably not, Archchancellor."
"Correct. People shout and run about. That never did any good. A pocket
full of decent spells and a well-charged staff will get you out of trouble
nine times out of ten."
"Nine times out of ten?"
"Correct."
"How many times have you had to rely on them, sir?"
"Well ... there was Mr. Hong ... that business with the thing in the
Bursar's wardrobe ... that dragon, you remember ..." Ridcully's lips
moved silently as he counted on his fingers. "Nine times, so far."
"It worked every time, sir?"
"Absolutely! So there's no need to worry. Gangway! Wizard comin'
through."
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# p. 339
%passage 11
The wizards went rigid as the howl rang through the building. It was
slightly animal but also mineral, metallic, edged like a saw.
Eventually the Lecturer in Recent Runes said, "Of course, just because
we've heard a spine-chilling blood-curdling scream of the sort to make
your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's
anything wrong."
The wizards looked out into the corridor.
"It came from downstairs somewhere," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies,
heading for the staircase.
"So why are you going /upstairs/?"
"Because I'm not daft!"
"But it might be some terrible emanation!"
"You don't say?" said the Chair, still accelerating.
"All right, please yourself. That's the students floor up there."
"Ah, Er--"
The Chair came down slowly, occasionally glancing fearfully up the stairs.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
@@ -1584,7 +1791,7 @@ If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.
# Used for interaction with Death.
#
%section Death
%title Death Quotes (3)
%title Death Quotes (4)
%passage 1
WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE.
%e passage
@@ -1595,5 +1802,9 @@ I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. *I* TURN UP ONLY ONCE.
%passage 3
THINK OF IT MORE AS BEING ... DIMESIONALLY DISADVANTAGED.
%e passage
# Soul Music, p. 146 (Harper Torch edition; we omit "said Death," after comma)
%passage 4
I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
%e passage
%e title
%e section