when you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go
I wonder if the idea for Data and his unreliable, imperfect predecessors (Lore and B4) all created in Noonien Soong's image came from the Twilight Zone episode "In His Image." Because wow. Holy similarities, Batman. I'd be less than surprised if that were the case.
And now for something I should have posted yesterday, but didn't because I got sidetracked (or maybe sideswiped) by the hundreds of family phone-calls and the utter lack of Halloween-ness from the melting snow.
'"Night and day. Summer and winter, boys. Seedtime and harvest. Life and death. That's what Halloween is, all rolled up in one. Noon and midnight. Being born, boys. Rollins over, playing dead like dogs, lads. And getting up again, barking, racing through thousands of years of death each day and each night Halloween, boys, every night, every single night dark and fearful until at last you made it and hid in cities and towns and had some rest and could get your breath.
And you began to live longer and have more time, and space out the deaths, and put away fear, and at last have only special days in each year when you thought of night and dawn and spring and autumn and being born and being dead.
And it all adds up. Four thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, this year, one place or another, but the celelbraions all the same..."
And Ghost and Mummy and Skeleton and Witch and all the rest were back at their own homes, on their own porches, and each turned to look at the town and remember this special night they would never in all their lives ever forget and they looked across the town at one another's porches but especially on and over across the ravine to that great House where at the very top Mr. Moundshroud stood on his spike-railinged roof...
And with each slam, one more pumpkin and then another and another and another on the huge Halloween Tree snuffed out. By dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, doors banged, pumpkins went blind, snuffed candles smoked delicious smokes...
And a last thought from Tom:
O Mr. Moundshroud, will we EVER stop being afraid of nights and death?
And the thought returned:
When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'
The wind came by. It rocked all the dark smoking pumpkins on the vast and beautiful Halloween Tree. The wind seized a thousand dark leaves and blew them away up over the sky and down over the earth toward the sun that must surely rise.
Like the town, the Tree turned off its embered smiles and slept.'
--Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree
And now for something I should have posted yesterday, but didn't because I got sidetracked (or maybe sideswiped) by the hundreds of family phone-calls and the utter lack of Halloween-ness from the melting snow.
'"Night and day. Summer and winter, boys. Seedtime and harvest. Life and death. That's what Halloween is, all rolled up in one. Noon and midnight. Being born, boys. Rollins over, playing dead like dogs, lads. And getting up again, barking, racing through thousands of years of death each day and each night Halloween, boys, every night, every single night dark and fearful until at last you made it and hid in cities and towns and had some rest and could get your breath.
And you began to live longer and have more time, and space out the deaths, and put away fear, and at last have only special days in each year when you thought of night and dawn and spring and autumn and being born and being dead.
And it all adds up. Four thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, this year, one place or another, but the celelbraions all the same..."
And Ghost and Mummy and Skeleton and Witch and all the rest were back at their own homes, on their own porches, and each turned to look at the town and remember this special night they would never in all their lives ever forget and they looked across the town at one another's porches but especially on and over across the ravine to that great House where at the very top Mr. Moundshroud stood on his spike-railinged roof...
And with each slam, one more pumpkin and then another and another and another on the huge Halloween Tree snuffed out. By dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, doors banged, pumpkins went blind, snuffed candles smoked delicious smokes...
And a last thought from Tom:
O Mr. Moundshroud, will we EVER stop being afraid of nights and death?
And the thought returned:
When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die...'
The wind came by. It rocked all the dark smoking pumpkins on the vast and beautiful Halloween Tree. The wind seized a thousand dark leaves and blew them away up over the sky and down over the earth toward the sun that must surely rise.
Like the town, the Tree turned off its embered smiles and slept.'
--Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree