The Angry Exile: Rage, rage against the lying of the lights.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Saturday, 19 June 2010

Rage, rage against the lying of the lights.

Apologies to Dylan Thomas fans for the title.

Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That? fame is on a speaking tour of these parts, and is blogging along the way. Wednesday saw him in Newcastle which, being a coal town, is the New South Wales version of, well, Newcastle. One recent blog entry (and do please go and read the whole thing) relates the amusing sight of a power wasting wind turbine.

We were a bit late getting there due to airplane scheduling snafus, and as we rushed from the airport at 6:15 pm we passed the coal loading terminal at Newcastle. There, as if there was some madcap attempt at sustainability, was one of those huge wind turbines like I’ve seen on the US plains. I attempted to get a photo, but my camera misfired with bad focus due to the car window, and I missed the shot.

The next morning, on the way to the airport again at 6AM, the windmill was still there, just like it was before. My driver (Anthony#2 of Team Anthony) gladly pulled over to allow me to get this shot as dawn crept in. I was incredulous that the shot hadn’t changed.

Ummm. I thought windmills were all about generating electricity, not using it. So why put torches on it that run all night? Want to bet the lighting power is coming from coal? While the turbine probably generates more power than it uses most nights, it sure seems odd.

Of course, maybe the people that run it really didn’t want a wind turbine in their coal town, and this torch lighting is their form of silent protest. Or, maybe they are proud of it and felt it needed to be illuminated all hours of the night. Maybe the lights are to warn off birds and small planes. Nobody seemed to know. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but be amused.

It would have been a lot funnier if they'd set up a giant fan to blow directly at it so that it could generate power all the time, but I feel there's another aspect to this. Obviously tall structures need lights and night as a warning for low flying aircraft, but does the way that turbine is lit remind you of anything at all?

Left, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. Right, Washington Monument, DC

St Peter's Basilica, Rome

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC

Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

The Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

Buddha, Wat Tum Sua, Thailand

I could go on, but my point is that objects that are lit up at night like that are frequently things that the viewer is expected to view with respect, veneration, or even adoration driven by religious fervour. Not exclusively so, but fairly often.

Now look again at the photo Anthony Watts took of the wind turbine.

See?

I suspect that at the very least it's lit that way to show how right-on and green they are round there despite all that coal, for verily it is the thought that counteth most when it comes down to it. A kind of a proud statement that they believe in the evils of warble gloaming and the redemption to be found in (al)mighty renewable power sources, just like others light up cathedrals and temples and statues. At worst - and here I reach for the tinfoil headgear - it's a mind game, an exercise in lighting up this white elephant in such a way as to suggest that viewers look on it that way, and maybe even buy a small one to stick on the roof in the same way a born again Christian might nail a fish to his car.

Whatever they had in mind I'm not joining their modern religion until they make a decent case for it, and they're not making any headway in that while they keep up this sort of hypocrisy, and stupid hypocrisy at that. I'm sure I don't need to explain exactly where they can shove this wind turbine, but leaving the lights on might be handy due to a distinct lack of sunshine there.

4 comments:

JuliaM said...: "I suspect that at the very least it's lit that way to show how right-on and green they are round there..."

I suspect you're right.; 19 June 2010 at 15:26
Chuckles said...: Or to remind the faithful that this is the one true way, and the retribution will be swift and terrible if they deviate.

Personally I think it's right up there with the solar powered garden lights and torches. And I suppose, even the nuclear power systems, when they go wrong, become self lighting...; 19 June 2010 at 17:41
Anonymous said...: I was a Novacastrian for twenty years and that Wind Thing is only an experiment.I doubt very much if it was ever connected to the grid.It is simply a feasibility study,done 15 years ago.Now quietly forgotten.

One experimental wind turbine doesn't make everyone a cretin,but to make it Govt.policy does.

From EU referendum I see that the UK Govt. is going to be Carbon free in twenty years,good luck on banning a fundamental Element.

George Orwell and Aldus Huxley gave us the future,and now we have to live it.; 19 June 2010 at 20:45
Angry Exile said...: Chuckles, agreed.

Anon, that's an interesting bit of additional info. If it's not even connected it's even dafter than I thought and even more a reason to think that lighting it is an act of greenworship (for the believers or the unconvinced doesn't matter, it'd still be ridiculous). And even if it is connected that it's experimental and has been there for 15 years or so... an older and probably less efficient design then. And would its efficiency degrade over time? Any way you look at it lighting the thing up makes no obvious practical sense.

Oh, and I didn't mean to imply that it makes everyone in Newcastle is a cretin. I wouldn't even say that wind turbines are completely useless since there's huge chunks of this country that are never going to be on the grid but might still need some 'leccy in the odd spot here and there. But I certainly agree with what you say about making it policy.; 19 June 2010 at 23:49