April 9, 2017

2017.04.09
Lower, ever lower The world is falling back
Our life is but a demi-monde
And woman greets it on her back."
"Love striving for consummation
Dreams longing to become real
The world is falling back
So sweetheart, let's fall together.
from Karel Capek's: "The Insect Play"

One thing nearly every geek kid in the 80s learned was that the term "robot" came from a play "R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots" by Karel Čapek. ... the translation I read recently (which changes the name "Possum" to "Reason", interestingly enough surprised me with a reference to the church I grew up in, The Salvation Army:
Dear lady, we've had boat-loads of Messiahs and prophets visiting us here. Missionaries, anarchists, the Salvation Army – all society's flotsam. Amazing how many fanatics there are in the world.
(They used to be more of a cultural and religious meme; think like hare krishna jokes in the 70s and 80s or the mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door these days.)