Patricia Crowther

This seems like a folksy sort of memoir about growing up in the old England—just at the end of what—although this is not an ideal name, for non-Americans, at least—I call the G.I. Generation, as the other name is rather credulous and silly, you know: anyway, she grew up in Sheffield, apparently, which is in England, I guess from looking it up it’s somewhat towards the north, although I don’t suppose I know as much about other countries in terms of the details of life, as well as my own country or region. It’s kinda like an English “Angela’s Ashes” sort of thing, you know—rather cute and everything. (Frank McCourt was born about three years later than Patricia.) And that’s not to claim “Angela’s Ashes” as this extravagant pagan thing, as people tend to do for almost anything when they get it in their head to be frightened or bored, you know—slightly nationalistic, slightly almost anything: therefore (imagine all caps) pagan! Yeah, it’s almost the other way around. It’s surprising that Anybody found their way to that path, given how…. fucking, normal, everything was, you know. For EVERYONE. lol.

…. It’s very ordinary, which on the one side, is good to have sometimes, and also to let people know that witches are not water-breathing goblins who live on the bottom of the lake, or whatever, some fucking thing. But it is quite boring, too, this book—conventional and not just ordinary; I do read a certain number of ordinary books, and even say, the Emily Henry I am reading is more meaningful than this…. But, like I said, it was the Angela’s Ashes Years, or whatever, and I suppose some people had to live through them, right….

…. It’s not terrible writing: it would just be better to read, somehow, if it weren’t about the Craft, you know—if she hadn’t created that expectation. Jazz Age northern England is sorta interesting, but I mean, that’s how assimilationist it is, you know…. It would be interesting maybe to read her history of the persecutions. She obviously isn’t going to be making death threats in it; it might get a little balance into her, though. Like, it’s curious about the coal miners or whoever stamping their drink glasses instead of clapping, but…. But I mean, who cares, right?

…. It isn’t entirely worthless, in that it’s an interesting look into Jazz Age Britain, and occasionally, gender in an ordinary life, perhaps: but it seems like a VERY mis-titled book, you know: a Very Solid Majority is All Jazz, Nothing Weird, you know…. And I’m not talking about witches not having private lives, and lives with ordinary aspects: I’m talking about NOTHING, you know: NORMAL.

And yeah: it’s funny, talk about the Jazz Age for long enough, it’s like…. These people were not ready for witchcraft, you know. I mean, it’s kinda like with MLK: people told him, take the laws requiring racism off the books? Yeah, good idea: wait until we’re dead; maybe wait until our kids are dead, too. In 100 years give it a go, 👌…. It’s like, do nothing now: in 100 years, you’ll be Just As Unready, lol…. But yeah, it’s like: these people, this society: they were not ready for the next stage of their evolution, right…. Christians and gossips and normal people—they were fucking Proud that their society wasn’t capable of flexibility and adaptation, you know! They were proud that they couldn’t make things better! We’ve been stuck in a rut, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay: hallelujah!…. It’s like: you can get a sense of it, certainly watching a movie from the 60s, right: but even much of the music, if perhaps not all of the music, right: although even some of the “rock” music doesn’t meet the “60s stereotype”, right…. Not if you look close…. And then in this memoir: it’s all the Jazz Age right; she isn’t really careful about dating things, right: but, we’re definitely into the 50s, and her social circle hasn’t even been challenged by the emergence of the rock era, you know…. And that’s certainly plausible: for many people, the Jazz Age does stretch well into the 60s, you know….

(shrugs) And I mean: it’s understandable, right. Every small, demonized culture produces some assimilationist stuff, right: some of it quite wild…. Do you remember when Billy Joel basically presented himself as ex-Catholic, because what the Gentiles want, right, ((Freud face) (thinking) what do Gentiles want?): it’s what they expect…. It’s like, can you fucking imagine: “on the kibbutz they start much too late; let’s die young, etc….” It would be like, Oh no, Jewie…. That’s not what “free love” means…. 😹

…. Early Wiccans are curious people, but it would obviously be credulous to be naive about them, right. It’s like, something back far enough away that there could be a documentary about them: people are supposed to get credulous…. I try not to reach for Wounded-Horror as the reaction, you know. I’m not the youngest generation anymore: I’m well on my way to becoming Merlin, lol. TV Merlin…. But yeah: sometimes you read about this generation/era of Wicca, and it’s like—were they afraid they had nothing to say; were they not ready…. You know, people tend to be reticent to admit to being ‘different’, even when that’s the theme—you know, especially back then: Christian society prided itself that people felt almost ill admitting to being unlike their neighbors, and it was a point of pride that people weren’t ready to make a change, right…. You never get away from possessive-boyfriend Jesus, right; he doesn’t give you the skills you need to move on…. But yeah: in our day, people experience fear as anger, you know: generalized, incredibly unproductive anger, right—but even in the incredibly bullshit “Wicca” of “Charmed” in the 90s, right~ people were always least willing to be that which was most “objectionable”, right…. Actually the generalized anger today is still superficial and occasional, and the permafrost fear is still there, under the surface….

(shrugs) But yeah, it’s almost like they weren’t ready, right. I wonder how that could be…. (watches random Frank Capra movie)….

You know: you start where you are, with what you have, who you have…. Yeah, but some people definitely weren’t ready, omg.

…. (History Channel historical artifact auction show meme)

“I want people to know that it’s okay to believe the Nature is sacred and the Goddess and God are friendly.”

The Guy: Best I can do is to let them know I have a vague interest in astrology, and am vegetarian.

…. And he’s good with a joke or a light of your smoke, but he’s not really much of a witch.

…. (girl being tortured) Ah please, sir: do stop this at once! I am just a poor, stupid, worthless girl—be good, at let me go home to my nagging mother, where I belong! (pain) Please, sir, I beg of you! There is no way a poor, stupid, worthless girl like me, could ever unseat the Great Beast who is Master of All Flesh, whose number is 333! This is, unnecessary! And quite un-British!
(torturer stops) Hmm…. So you’re saying that your religion is basically just a dietary choice?
—There’s a good chap! Yes, my religion is just the dietary choice of a poor, stupid, worthless British girl. Thank you, Master! I mean, Thank you, Inquisitor!
—Hmm…. But that shouldn’t be allowed. (tortures)

(after she’s dead, he takes off the bloody apron) What the world needs now, is a Christian rap song by a white male Christian rapper about burning witches who like Frank Sinatra….

~Yeah: I have a lot less patience for Christianity than I once did, you know: especially in the abstract…. I don’t know why Jesus came to earth or what all that accomplished and everything, and I don’t pretend to; but I have a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t so that I could jealously guard his reputation like an abused and under-fed pit bull, right…. And so I could kiss his—well, anyway.

…. And where DOES one go for respect, in this society? Do doctors respect people? Doctors wish they were doctoring robots, you know—or at least somebody who mattered, like another doctor!…. Do actors, singers, gossips?…. “Dad, when I grow up, I think I’m going to be respected, because this is America! The last person who insulted an American and got away with it was King George, because George Washington never invaded England!” (ruffles hair) “There’s a good tiger….”…. You know: and people spontaneously treating each other with disrespect instead of waiting for Frank Capra to do it, right, is like: terminal cultural decline. (Some classical music stiffs really do trot out phrases like that, right.) It’s like…. No, you’re just stupid, maybe?…. “But I’m trying to disrespect the population! People aren’t supposed to disrespect each other: that shows too much agency! They’re supposedly patiently wait, while the czarist police builds a case…. And then strikes, like thunder in the night!” You really need to get out more, kid. “My girlfriend used to tell me that, before I called her fat and weak. Now she leaves me alone when she’s not feeding me, and we don’t have to go out…. Peace attends the flight of the dove, and—and, oh, I forget how it ends.”

I really didn’t want to hear how it ended, kid.

…. But yeah: it’s like, I am a green-skinned witch, you know: and while I may not want you to find that out about me…. I also don’t want you to forget it, right. 😉 😎

And yeah: one day I’ll do something great, some great thing—and I’ll really disprove all these jackasses who couldn’t give a damn either way, right…. lol…. “I’d take the fucker out: but not if I were low on ammo.” ~Society….

And yeah: you could put a lot of labels on me, from aspiring rich traitor to the Great Socialist Class Struggle led By Snowball and Napoleon, right, to…. Well, that’s what I like to think about, right: it makes me happy; (and people do NOT think like that, right: compare with the attitude of Society, above), but yeah…. I mean, you do what you’re “supposed to do”, the “right thing”, so that people don’t have to help you out as much, so you can take the smaller help without guilt, because now you’ve done the Right Thing!—“although really you haven’t helped me out hardly at all! The chemistry we have to do for you because chemistry is all we can ever, ever trust, is more expensive than the very blood in your veins, right!” “Hmm…. Maybe because chemistry is the Only Valuable Thing, The One True Thing, The One Thing Worthy Of Trust…. Maybe because of that, chemists end up getting overpaid, because of their precious little monopoly on…. Worth? 🤔 ~How naive! My word! Without chemistry, there would only be…. Physics, I dare say! Mr. Phipps, would you please show our guest the door. “This is the door.” Oh, yes, very nice door….~…. But yeah, then you do better, and they’re like: Hmm, things are going better for you: I wish things were going better for me…. This kid has a lot to be envious of…. (cartoon villain thinking)

But yeah—
The once-born: I’ll kill you. But only if I’m not running low on ammo.
The Christians: I’ll kill you—full stop! It’s my duty: to Jesus! To (political wing-appropriate platitudes)!
Also the Christians: I’ll kill you; it’s my duty…. (I’m a little low on ammo, run to the left and hide in the empty warehouse; I won’t follow you….)

I don’t respect that. Do you?…. It’s actually a lot easier to get attacked by people you don’t respect, you know. “You’re a worthless witch. Please die!” “You say that, because you’re a sad little bitch of a man!” “Oh wow…. I feel understood! Thank you!” ~(clicking sound of approval)

If people attack you and you respect them: you lose it, right…. (Or if you don’t respect THEM, but you think: oh yeah, respect, that’s what happens: after all, this is hoomi-ville, in hoomi-ville, people get treated…. Oh hang on; wait a minute….)

But yeah: and I realize that most people only rebel if and in the way that they see people their age rebelling, but early 20th century witches be all like….

(major cable news interviewer) Tell me: how do you make, such, changes in the world, while still keeping up your inimitable Downton Abbey Air, right.
~(lowers voice conspiratorially) A little deception is all it takes…. (leans back) And you have to wrap up magic in time for tea, no? (they laugh, but then the dream ends)

And I’m NOT saying that antagonizing people is an end in itself, right; because it isn’t…. It’s hard to talk about things in the abstract, you know…. But some people wouldn’t antagonize their dying bigoted mother or father, right, everything has to be kept hush hush so that the children don’t see granny pull out that tubes and take out her concealed pistol and go to work bringing the family to heel, right….

Which isn’t to say it takes talent to be born in one century rather than another. Obviously it doesn’t.

…. But yeah: people have no vision, you know. None at all. It’s like, No, we don’t need your help changing this place and making it a better store: the thing to do is not to make a better store, but to make a store like all other stores, only in this location, so that when the Great Stupid Beast comes looking for a store like all other stores, in this location, he doesn’t walk in and feel afraid, and then wreck the place, in confusion and rage, right…. (shrugs) Place only needs to pay my pension. After that, it can go to shit. [If they’re even planning for Their Whole Life, lol—probably it’s: this week (average person); 4-5 years of the world being exactly like today, only trends continue (“management”, right).]

Yeah: it’s like, male capitalism is like a competition, alright: a competition to create the ugliest, most unresponsive, indifferent brand, because men are ugly, and dirty, and they don’t care about you, right…. And they know how to make money…. 😉 Would I lie to you, right….

Most stores are ugly, you know: ugly to be in. Even for the customer, you know, it’s an affliction of convenience. That’s almost part of the business model, you know—give us your money and leave….

But yeah: I’ll do something, I’ll be big: and THAT, is, MAGICK.

And if you have a problem with that…. Well, everyone has problems in their life, right? But problems can be overcome, lol.

…. And I realize that it isn’t the sort of situation that tends to be terribly obvious to people, right. People chug along, tending to the machine: it doesn’t occur to them to say, Gee, I wonder if I have vision? ~right?

…. I mean, a lot of people ARE just cogs in the machine, despite appearances, right: they’re just very large, important, well-oiled and polished cogs, right. It’s kinda sad, you know. And people think that they’re the Illuminati, or whatever: THAT, is just…. Yeah. 😕

…. ~~And yeah: by the time she got to things that DEFINITELY trigger people’s Pagan/Occult trip wires, you know—tarot decks and spell books: it’s like the book was OVER, almost. I’m starting my sprint-to-finish-the-book-in-X-readings, you know: or, almost to the middle of that stage, maybe, I don’t know: but NOW she starts in with new topics and things that should have been…. I mean, there’s a lot to life; it’s not all technical knowledge, in a memoir, right. But it’s like: if you have a conversation and you toss the brave-vulnerable thing in at the end, and then Run, right—“Oh, and I’m also a witch, bye! (And maybe I’ll start sleeping with other men! Oh, but this is work calling: I have to go!!)….” It’s like, I mean, do you call that brave. It’s like counterfeit-brave, you know: billed as brave, and containing goods otherwise known as cowardice, you know.

…. Not to knock the idea of wisdom—I often talk (to myself) about Information as though it were a being, a god, right…. I’m not in a good mood now, or I’d give you examples: but yeah….—and although Wicca certainly contains ideas, and explains the world…. Ideas that might seem very strange and unaccountable to many people, you know: they wouldn’t quite describe it as “not understanding”, lol, but it’s like: they just wouldn’t GET that people really…. ~But yeah, maybe they should call it the Craft of the Brave, lol…. It’s not a Craft for retiring into your shell of societal ideas, and just…. Do I talk about Frank Capra too much? LOL….

…. It’s like her greatest ambition was to be a British person who practiced radical religious dissident in the traditional way: the goal was to keep both society and her own tradition the same as it had “always been”, you know. 🤕 😜

…. And you know something I realized today: it’s okay to get angry at people or curse at shit, right. (Fuck this shit!) Right? I mean, as wonderful as it is to lie down in peace with all men and be ruthlessly pursued by all women—or whatever it is they used to say, right?…. I mean, you don’t want chronic and incessant hostility and resentment, at all times even when things could have been good—and you know, those swamis who live in constant bliss have to live on mountaintops, and swear off many of the plain, ordinary pleasures of living and certain kinds of even relatively benign thinking and exploration, right: anything too earthy—but yeah, if you’re never not being sapped and distorted by hate, right—then address that. But of course deep down you know that people get called “bitter” and “rude” and so on for being women not happily enslaved, and men stupid enough to be controlled by religion and goodness, and sometimes prestige, you know…. Like, fucking bullshit happens, fucking nonsense, right: part of you is in pain and in danger, some part of your life, for some part of your life, and your psyche doesn’t want to be in pain or danger, you know: it wants to get riled up and protect you, you know—so fuck this shit! God damn! ~You know, a lot of the time it’s an inanimate object, or whatever, right: it’s not the chess-playing mind that curses people, (although very calm chess players could probably plan a murder if they really wanted to, right), and it doesn’t make you look calm and dignified and a paragon of social control and morality, but…. You know, fuck that, okay…. You don’t want to be in pain and danger, for fuck’s sake! If you get into denial and ratiocination and judgment, you’ll just amplify it…. And you know, with all my years of toleration and meditation, I don’t know if I ever really accepted that sometimes people can just get fucking angry you know—like, fuck this Goddamn toilet for overflowing and wetting my gloves, you know! Fuck this shit! ~Right?…..

You know, and if the Downton Abbey Witch tells you, I can’t tell you anything about witchcraft: except that you’re doing it wrong…. (sniggers) And you know: it Would be positively Impractical, for someone in Your situation, to do things, the Right Way….

~It’s like don’t curse her so that she dies: but if she gets in your face, tell that bitch to fuck off, you know!

—Oh, my dear. The blood-sucking leeches who keep society polite, Do Not, ~ever~, Admit, to hostility. We just snub people at parties: the way that Jesus would. You know, Jesus was one of us, you know: he was one of the blood-sucking leeches~polite, you know. (weird laugh) To think he would ever Admit to hostility. (serious) Cover it up, go straight to heaven. Disobey the rules of politeness~straight to Hell, I dare say.
—But I thought you were a Witch.
—(the polite person has been defeated) Oh my….

…. (The Child Hermes) “Fuck this shit!”~ that’s, ~Information~. (nods)

…. It is kinda like the situation with the precious liberal, you know: who doesn’t like people being called “bitches”, even men: it’s like, go fuck yourself, you know—take your leave, my good friend, and spare yourself; live in Dignity-Realm, meiner Herr…. You know: like, both men and women should be allowed to experience a little bit of the levity with which society has treated women—this idea of the “man” that society has~ you know, the Marble Man, the Granite Statue of History Man: he was just like us, only…. Unlike us, he had ~value~, right…. People don’t have value, anymore…. Like, the way that society views men is profoundly irrational and ultimately does men every bit as much harm, by and by, as women, you know. Eventually—what was it that Sting said? ~I look and behold the walls I made, but soon I must stop my step for fear on walking on the mines I laid….

Like sometimes, ~everyone~ is a little bitch, you know. Ultimately no one is a “man”, and no one is a “mother”—you know, people are just little bitches, you know. It just shouldn’t be as…. Weird, as it was, when this thing that was like—well, you’re a ~woman~, right: ooo…. 👻

You know: and people aren’t “sinners”, either. They’re a lot of things, but they aren’t “sinners”…. They’re not precious, either, but: gimme a fucking break, right. God could defend himself against me, if push came to shove. Try to get a fucking grip, right….

…. But yeah: quick with a joke, or a light of your smoke…. And they sit at the bar, and put bread in my jar, and say, Man, what are you doing here?

~Hanging out with people who hate themselves, I guess….

…. Which isn’t to say that (to make the superficially odd jump from a bar to bureaucracy: through the discussion of Downton Abbey consciousness, which isn’t too far from the slightly submerged popular conception of bureaucracy; but the trad rich folk who seem vaguely bureaucratic, also probably owned bars and beer brands, and tried to get people to drink ‘politely’, or whatever, and acted as a foil for bar culture, in all sorts of ways, even if they too drank…. Nothing is ever disconnected, really….) it is anything but a delusion to imagine that all or any particular functionary is responsible for the weirdness of the System, right: and occasionally the system even merely restricts you, out of its own, you know: that’s what it is; that’s what it does, but not out of malice, and not even to crush you, then, right. And then to go past limitation is our task, those of us who do not desire it: and then by and by even the system can change—as it perceives the good, rather than not perceiving there is infinity beyond limitation, you know; which today, it simply cannot perceive or know, right.

It is also curious how in say the Neptune Social Security they have that art thing they’ve always had of the three flags, right: the three examples of the national flag nested together; it’s always made me think of three generations, but I see beyond that it’s like: they can’t really use a non-national symbol, really, being the government and of these times, when people perceive each other to be…. You know: they can’t announce seeing us as different, or symbolized by different things; but they’re trying to highlight that they see us as not just crystallizations of the nation, identical copies, but like…. Nested together, but non-copies, you know. It’s funny, I am an Aquarius by the sign of my ruler Uranus, and also by Saturn the trad ruler: it’s the same, Capricorn; I’m very opposed to my ruler, (and not in the good way, right)—I’m obviously not alone in that, but I must have a lot of baggage from part lives, I feel like I have a lot of opposing tendencies: but yeah—kinda embracing “Aquarius”, like I “should”: ironically, right…. I am not a crystallization of any collective, and I don’t want to be, right.

But yeah: everything in moderation, including mere propriety, right…. But I’m not the stereotypical TV-foil-character rebel that people say that they’re always worried about right…. Who knows what people are worried about: probably themselves, no….

Anyway.

…. But yeah: “sad” backwards is “das”: and “das”, no good.

I don’t know what that means: but it feels right. 👍

…. But yeah, I don’t know. What else is there to say, right.

It’s good. Ok.

I don’t know; some of them, I wish they really would use a bad pun sometimes, you know. “And das no good.” I feel like that would be honest, right; that’s the level, right.

But yeah. Ok.

…. It is funny how G.I. Generation is like, an American name, right: but “Greatest Generation”, aside from being precious, right—it’s the “greatest” because 1945 is when America got its empire, basically. World War Two is what nuked the British Empire, you know. 1945 is like Year I of the American Empire; it’s like the B.E./A.E. transition, right: British Empire/American Empire. lol.… (meer)