"A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL
What?
THE HOBGOBLIN
(his jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs)" (U15.2150)
ALL
What?
THE HOBGOBLIN
(his jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs)" (U15.2150)
"Il vient! C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigène! (He whirls round and round with dervish howls.)" (U15.2159)
"Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches juggling." (U15.2161)
"Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.)" (U15.2161)
"Les jeux sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien va plus!" (U15.2162)
"(The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into vacuum.)
FLORRY
(Sinking into torpor, crosses herself secretly.) The end of the world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her." (U15.2163)
FLORRY
(Sinking into torpor, crosses herself secretly.) The end of the world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her." (U15.2163)
"Nebulous obscurity occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.)" (15.2167)
"THE GRAMOPHONE
Jerusalem!
Open your gates and sing
Hosanna..." (U15.2170)
Jerusalem!
Open your gates and sing
Hosanna..." (U15.2170)
"(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah." (U15.2174)
On May 19th 1910, the Earth was (accurately) predicted to pass through the tail of Halley's Comet, the most intimate contact between Earth and a comet in recorded history. As the poisonous gas cyanogen had been recently detected in Moorehouse's comet (1908), there was widespread panic, and dire predictions that the end of the world was coming.
On May 19th 1910, the Earth was (accurately) predicted to pass through the tail of Halley's Comet, the most intimate contact between Earth and a comet in recorded history. As the poisonous gas cyanogen had been recently detected in Moorehouse's comet (1908), there was widespread panic, and dire predictions that the end of the world was coming.
"Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the World," (U15.2176)
"a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the Three Legs of Man.)
THE END OF THE WORLD
(With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row?" (U15.2177)
THE END OF THE WORLD
(With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row?" (U15.2177)
"(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)" (U15.2183)
"ELIJAH
No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line." (U15.2188)
No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line." (U15.2188)
"Boys, do it now. God's time is 12.25. Tellmother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? " (U15.2191)
"If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense that cosmic force." (U15.2194)
"Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator." (U15.2197)