tribute: Interesting Times

I have several psssages for Maskerade too, but after the time and effort
spent fixing up the ones already present for that book, they'll have to
wait until some other occasion.

dat/tribute

@@ -1063,25 +1063,151 @@ The Chair came down slowly, occasionally glancing fearfully up the stairs.
 #
 #
 #
-%title Interesting Times (2)
+%title Interesting Times (10)
+# p.1 (footnote)
 %passage 1
-Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate.
-People are always a little confused about this, as they are in
-the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death
-by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a
-miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of
-events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken 
-just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's 
+Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate.  People are
+always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles.
+When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of
+circumstances, they say that's a miracle.  But of course if someone is
+killed by a freak chain of events--the oil spilled just there, the safety
+fence broken just there--that must also be a miracle.  Just because it's
 not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.
 
   [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage
+# p. 18
 %passage 2
-"Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. 
-"Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
-"Well, we are wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle in 
-things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we 
-understood things we'd never get anything done."
+"Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back.  "Not
+that.  That's meddling with things you don't understand."
+
+"Well, we /are/ wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle with
+things we don't understand.  If we hung around waitin' till we understood
+things we'd never get anything done."
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 4
+%passage 3
+According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest
+abundance wherever order is being sought.  It always defeats order, because
+it is better organized.
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 14
+%passage 4
+Many things went on at Unseen University and, regretably, teaching had to
+be one of them.  The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had
+perfected various devices for avoiding it.  But this was perfectly all
+right because, to be fair, so had the students.
+
+The system worked quite well and, as happens in such cases, had taken on
+the status of a tradition.  Lectures clearly took place, because they
+were down there on the timetable in black and white.  The fact that no one
+attended was an irrelevant detail.  It was occasionally maintained that
+this meant that the lectures did not in fact happen at all, but no one ever
+attended them to find out if this was true.  Anyway, it was argued (by the
+Reader in Woolly Thinking(1)) that lectures had taken place /in essence/,
+so that was all right, too.
+
+And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old
+method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinty of a lot of books
+and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the
+actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns
+for exactly the same reason.
+
+(1) Which is like Fuzzy Logic, only less so.
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 20 (speaker is Archchancellor Ridcully; sad, hopless person is Rincewind)
+%passage 5
+"Wizzard?" he said.  "What kind of sad, hopeless person needs to write
+WIZZARD on their hat?"
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 113
+%passage 6
+Self-doubt was something not regularly entertained within the Cohen cranium.
+When you're trying to carry a struggling temple maiden and a sack of looted
+temple goods in one hand and fight off half a dozen angry priests with the
+other there is little time for reflection.  Natural selection saw to it
+that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves
+questions like "What is the purpose of life?" very quickly lacked both.
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 113 (same page as previous passage...)
+%passage 7
+Cohen's father had taken him to a mountain top, when he was no more than a
+lad, and explained to him the hero's creed and told him that there was no
+greater joy than to die in battle.
+
+Cohen had seen the flaw in this straight away, and a lifetime's experience
+had reinforced his belief that in fact a greater joy was to kill the /other/
+bugger in battle and end up sitting on a heap of gold higher than your
+horse.  It was an observation that had served him well.
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 144
+%passage 8
+"'Dang'?" he said.  "Wassat mean?  And what's this 'darn' and 'heck'?"
+
+"They are ... /civilised/ swearwords." said Mr. Saveloy.
+
+"Well, you can take 'em and--"
+
+"Ah?" said Mr. Saveloy, raising a cautionary finger.
+
+"You can shove them up--"
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"You can--"
+
+"An?"
+
+Truckle shut his eyes and clenched his fists.
+
+"Darn it all to heck!" he shouted.
+
+"Good," said Mr. Saveloy.  "That's much better."
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 219 (sic: "Dedd")
+%passage 9
+The taxman was warming to his new job.  He'd worked out that although the
+Horde, as individuals, had acquired mountains of cash in their careers as
+barbarian heroes they'd lost almost all of it engaging in the other
+activities (he mentally catalogued these as Public Relations) necessary to
+the profession, and therefore were entitled to quite a considerable rebate.
+
+The fact that they were registered with no revenue collecting authority
+/anywhere/(1) was entirely a secondary point.  It was the principle that
+counted.  And the interest, too, of course.
+
+(1) Except on posters with legends like "Wanted--Dedd".
+
+  [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 297
+%passage 10
+"What do we do now?" said Mr. Saveloy.  "Do we do a battle chant or
+something?"
+
+"We just wait," said Cohen.
+
+"There's a lot of waiting in warfare," said Boy Willie.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mr. Saveloy.  "I've heard people say that.  They say
+there's long periods of boredom followed by short periods of excitement."
+
+"Not really," said Cohen.  "It's more like short periods of waiting
+followed by long periods of being dead."
 
   [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage
@@ -1090,87 +1216,173 @@ understood things we'd never get anything done."
 #
 #
 %title Maskerade (4)
+# pp. 81-82, continued on pp. 87-89 (Harper Torch edition; apparently
+#       transcribed from some other edition based on quote marks used;
+#       a great number of very short paragraphs--it stretches a long way
+#       when using a blank line to separate one paragraph from another;
+#       one omitted bit is that after Granny suffles the deck of cards
+#       and deals two poker hands, Death swaps them, suggesting that
+#       he suspected her of cheating; initial transcription left off
+#       the most interesting bit, Death's wink at the end)
 %passage 1
-'Maybe you could... help us?'
+'Maybe you could ... help us?'
+
 'What's wrong?'
-'It's my boy...'
-Granny opened the door further and saw the womand standing behind Mr. Slot.
-One look at her face was enough. There was a bundle in her arms.   Granny
-stepped back. 'Bring him in and let me have a look at him.'   She took the
- baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair, and pulled back the
-blanket.   'Hmm,' said Granny, after a while.
-'There's a curse on this house, that's what it is,' said Slot. 'My best
-cow's been taken mortally sick, too.'   'Oh? You have a cowshed?' siad
- Granny. 'Very good place for a sick-room, a cowshed. It's the warmth. You
-better show me were it is.'   'You want to take the boy down there?'
+
+'It's my boy ...'
+
+Granny opened the door farther and saw the woman standing behind Mr. Slot.
+One look at her face was enough.  There was a bundle in her arms.
+
+Granny stepped back.  'Bring him in and let me have a look at him.'
+
+She took the baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair, and
+pulled back the blanket.  Nanny Ogg peered over her shoulder.
+
+'Hmm,' said Granny, after a while.  She glanced at Nanny, who gave an
+almost imperceptible shake of her head.
+
+'There's a curse on this house, that's what it is,' said Slot.  'My best
+cow's been taken mortally sick, too.'
+
+'Oh?  You have a cowshed?' said Granny.  'Very good place for a sickroom,
+a cowshed.  It's the warmth.  You better show me where it is.'
+
+'You want to take the boy down there?'
+
 'Right now.'
+
   [...]
+
 'How many have you come for?'
+
 ONE.
+
 'The cow?'
+
 Death shook his head.
-'It could be the cow.'
-NO. THAT WOULD BE CHANGING HISTORY.
+
+'It could /be/ the cow.'
+
+NO.  THAT WOULD BE CHANGING HISTORY.
+
 'History is about things changing.'
+
 NO.
+
 Granny sat back.
-'Then I challenge you to a game. That's traditional. That's /allowed/.'
+
+'Then I challenge you to a game.  That's traditional.  That's /allowed/.'
+
 Death was silent for a moment.
+
 THIS IS TRUE.
+
 'Good.'
-HOWEVER... YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO WIN ALL YOU MUST GAMBLE ALL?
-'Double or quits? Yes, I know.'
+
+CHALLENGING ME BY MEANS OF A GAME IS ALLOWABLE.
+
+"Yes."
+
+HOWEVER ... YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO WIN ALL YOU MUST GAMBLE ALL?
+
+'Double or quits?  Yes, I know.'
+
 BUT NOT CHESS.
+
 'Can't abide chess.'
-OR CRIPPLE MR ONION. I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES.
-'Very well. How about one hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws? Sudden
-death, as they say.'   Death thought about this, too.
+
+OR CRIPPLE MR. ONION.  I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES.
+
+'Very well.  How about one hand of poker?  Five cards each, no draws?
+Sudden death, as they say.'
+
+Death thought about this, too.
+
 YOU KNOW THIS FAMILY?
+
 'No.'
+
 THEN WHY?
+
 'Are we talking or are we playing?'
+
 OH, VERY WELL.
+
+  [...]
+
 Granny looked at her cards, and threw them down.
-FOUR QUEENS. HMM. THAT /IS/ VERY HIGH.
+
+FOUR QUEENS.  HMM.  THAT /IS/ VERY HIGH.
+
 Death looked down at his cards, and then up into Granny's steady, blue-eyed
-gaze.   Neither moved for some time.
+gaze.
+
+Neither moved for some time.
+
 Then Death laid the hand on the table.
-I LOSE. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES.
+
+I LOSE, he said.  ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES.
+
+He looked back into Granny's eyes for a moment.  There was a blue glow in
+the depth of his eye-sockets.  Maybe, for the merest fraction of a second,
+barely noticeable even to the closest observation, one winked off.
 
   [Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage
+# p. 67 (Harper Torch edition; as above, transcribed from some other edition)
 %passage 2
-Ahahahahaha!
-Ahahahaha!
-Aahahaha!
-BEWARE!!!!!
-Yrs sincerely,
-The Opera Ghost
-'What sort of person,' said Salzella, 'sits down and /writes/ a maniacal
-laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of
-someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man.'
+The letter inside was on a sheet of the Opera House's own note paper.
+In neat, copperplate writing, it said:
+
+  Ahahahahaha!  Ahahahaha!  Aahahaha!
+            BEWARE!!!!!
+
+          Yrs sincerely
+              The Opera Ghost
+
+'What sort of person,' said Salzella patiently, 'sits down and /writes/ a
+maniacal laugh?  And all those exclamation marks, you notice?  Five?  A
+sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.  Opera can do
+that to a man.'
 
      [Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage
+# pp. 30-31 (Harper Torch edition)
 %passage 3
 Agnes had woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd
-been saddled with a lovely personality. It was the lack of choice that
-rankled. No one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a
-lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say, a miserable personality
-but a body that could take size 9 in dresses. Instead, people would take
-pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell
-for an attractive pair of kidneys. 
+been saddled with a lovely personality.  It was as simple as that.  Oh,
+and very good hair.
+
+It wasn't so much the personality, it was the "but" people always added
+when they talked about it.  /But she's got a lovely personality/, they
+said.  It was the lack of choice that rankled.  No one had asked her,
+before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether
+she'd prefer, say, a miserable personality but a body that could take
+size nine in dresses.  Instead, people would take pains to tell her that
+beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair
+of kidneys.
 
   [Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage
+# p. 258
 %passage 4
 'And what can I get you, officers?' she said.
-'Officers? Us? What makes you think we're watchment?'
-'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out.
-'Milit'ry chic,' Nobby said. 'It's just a fashion accessory. Actually, we
-are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do with the City Watch
-whatsoever.'   'Well, /gentlemen/, would you like some wine?'
-'Not while we on duty, t'anks', said the troll.
+
+'Officers?  Us?' said the Count de Nobbes.  'What makes you think we're
+watchmen?'
+
+'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out.  'Also, he's got his badge
+pinned to his coat.'
+
+'I /told/ you to put it away!' Nobby hissed.  He looked at Nanny and
+smiled uneasily.  'Milit'ry chic,' he said.  'It's just a fashion
+accessory.  Actually, we are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do
+with the city Watch whatsoever.'
+
+'Well, /gentlemen/, would you like some wine?'
+
+'Not while we on duty, t'anks,' said the troll.
 
   [Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
 %e passage