[extropy-chat] Atheist Hymn Book

[Damien Broderick]

At 01:15 PM 11/22/2006 +1030, Emlyn wrote:

>btw Damien, this is a reason that you should try your hand at it ;-)

Well, in THE WHITE ABACUS, my gormless gayboy character Doony has a 
musical adventure:

=======

Doony is dragged away on a whirlwind tour of the updeep, flailing in 
the air like a fish with legs.

           `The runs,' cries one bravo. Shouts of approval.

           Grinning, understanding nothing, Doony nods as well. A 
strong hand tightens on his shoulder, and a mouth bites his. He is delirious.

           `The runs!' he yells.

           They come upon a series of tunnels meshed with 
grille-work. High above them fly angels. Doony stares, heart stopping 
with a jolt, starting with another. The angels are glorious, wings 
two meters long from each vastly muscled shoulder, faces ruined and 
beautiful. All the angels are male, provocatively so. All the angels 
are singing.

           Doony watches them, listens, shaking his head.

           A score, two score of angels gather to perch in a massed 
choir. Music swells, and their voices are deeply resonant. They sing 
the famous blasphemous oratorio, `Seven Last Words From the Cross', 
and everyone stands pent and voiceless as their melody lifts through the run.

           `Bugger, bugger, bugger. Bugger, bugger! *Bugger.* SHIT!'

           The final soprano lingers like a palace of glass breaking, 
and when his voice has died away the run bursts into applause and 
hilarious jeering. The angels rise, driven upward upon their mighty 
wings, soar into the glimmering darkness, are gone.

=================

And there's always the tender and sensitive lyric I wrote when I was 
first studying English poesy (as one does, or did):

I know that Yeats
and all his mates
Have seen
what madmen mean,
When they cry out:
"Oy! Up yer spout!
"The world is God's Latrine!"

Damien