From: PatR Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:11:20 +0000 (-0700) Subject: tribute: Soul Music X-Git-Tag: NetHack-3.6.0_RC01~222 X-Git-Url: https://granicus.if.org/sourcecode?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4ebe3978b6de9670f8807fdddc404ec6202ac589;p=nethack tribute: Soul Music --- diff --git a/dat/tribute b/dat/tribute index 1d40d662b..cca9e4fdb 100644 --- a/dat/tribute +++ b/dat/tribute @@ -840,15 +840,222 @@ Willie the Vampire masks in order, he said, to take him out of himself. # # # -%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