Springfield (Ill.) -- Fiction; Springfield (Ill.) -- In literature; Utopias in literature
Further and finally, I promise to eat the Blessed Bread of this Order of
the Strict Observance, according to the manner and at the times laid
down in the Book of Devotion, and to follow the discipline for body and
soul there prescribed and imposed for the good of the order and the
health and well-being of my city.
(Signed) Surto Hurdenburg.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this Second Day of June, 2018.
(Seal) John Boat
Notary Public.
I conclude that, in the light of Springfield life as I have seen it
these strange days, it will be easier for such as Surto Hurdenburg to
keep the more literal specifications of the pledge, such as the ban on
motion pictures, than to enter into the deep mazes of citizenship with
judgment. He will keep close to St. Friend and the order, who hate the
films, and thereby be able to let the films alone. Most photoplays
outside of the educational buildings or beyond the immediate
jurisdiction of the World’s Fair authorities are shown on the right or
left of the sauntering corridors opening on the Yellow Dance Halls on
the same floors. Here half-hour lengths of film are run through, when
the crowd sweeps in to rest. The merits of the exceedingly artistic
studio and theatre, called “The Egyptian Photoplay Association,” headed
by Gwendolyn Charles and Rabbi Terence Ezekiel remain unappreciated by
St. Friend and the members of the Order of the Strict Observance. This
in spite of the fact that the Photoplay Association in question now has
in charge most of those exquisite and unimpeachable film theatres of the
University World’s Fair and several other worth-while film-theatre
circuits in Central Illinois. “The Egyptian Photoplay Association” will
rent slightly worn films to Yellow Dance Halls, after first runs in
these others, and thereby make the films in the eyes of the Order of the
Strict Observance, mere devil’s nets for fish.
So, though the highly esteemed Rabbi Terence Ezekiel tries to act as
mediator, there is eternal war between the fiery Gwendolyn Charles and
this saint.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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