Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

30 Art

30.500

“As regards the question why it became the custom among them to assemble, often in considerable groups, in these theaters of theirs, it was in my opinion because these contemporary theaters of theirs and all that goes on in them happen to correspond very well to the abnormally formed common presences of most of these contemporary three-brained beings, in whom there had been already finally lost the need, proper to three-brained beings, to actualize their own initiative in everything, and who exist only according to chance shocks from outside or to the promptings of the consequences crystallized in them of one or other of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

30.500-1

“From the very beginning of the arising of those theaters of theirs, they assembled and now assemble in them for the purpose of watching and studying the reproductions of their contemporary ‘actors’; no… they assemble only for the satisfaction of one of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, a consequence which had been readily crystallized in the common presences of the majority of them, and called ‘Oornel,’ which the contemporary beings now call ‘swaggering.’

30.501

“You must know that thanks to the mentioned consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke the expression in others of the being-impulse called ‘astonishment’ regarding themselves, or even simply to notice it on the faces of those around.

30.501

“The strangeness of this need of theirs is that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others regarding their appearance, which exactly conforms with the demands of what are called ‘fashions,’ that is to say with just that maleficent custom of theirs, which began there since the Tikliamishian civilization and which has now become one of those being-factors which automatically gives them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality.

30.501

“This maleficent custom for them is that they periodically change the external form of what is called ‘the-covering-of-their-nullity.’

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“Here, by the way, it is interesting to note that it has gradually become the rule in the general process of the ordinary existence of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy that the changes of the appearance of the mentioned covering are governed by such beings there of both sexes as have already ‘become worthy’ to become candidates for Hasnamuss-individuals.

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“In this respect, the contemporary theaters turned out to be corresponding for your favorites, because it is very convenient and easy for them to show off, as they like to say, their ‘chic coiffures’ or the ‘specially-tied-knot-of-their-cravat,’ or the daringly bared, what is called ‘Kupaitarian-part-of-their-body,’ and so on and so forth, while at the same time they can look at the new manifestations of the ‘fashions’ already actualized according to the up-to-date indications of those same candidates for ‘Hasnamuss-individuals.’