Pay sir? The Bachelors From Prague sir?
Why - have they brought the bird?
That is the only reason I would pay sir -
to acquire the bird and bank it.

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Tell me the bird is unreal sir? It's
my Desire. I have held the bird sir
for just moments. Encrusted
with diamonds from beak to claw.
I held it against my chest. I felt it.
Tell me, Real or Imaginary? It
was real to me sir!

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To have the bird
is to bank sir.
And I mean to have the bird sir,
and bank it.
I don't mind telling you sir
once I get my pinkies on the bird sir
I won't give a fig for Lacan I can tell you

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The bird sir, the bird is all sir.
Real? or Imaginary?
As Lacan's Mother used to say sir,
and I quote to you exactly,
"Jacques, Jacques, as long as you are happy!"
I will be happy when I have the bird sir.

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Think? About anything else sir?
Sir, my mind is a sort of permanent aviary sir
an empty cage for the bird. I change the water daily
I fill the cage with furniture and I move it around.
For the bird sir. Cheap furniture and avian toys sir,
for I mean to make a profit.

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Tell me it is a little bit of my displaced ego sir
and I will tell you you are a fool. I have seen that bird sir
used as a club in the hands of desperate men in gambling
rooms in Cairo
and later in Budapest and Madrid.
I have seen it thrown from a four storey building
and crash through the roof of a moving train below sir.
You say the bird is the site of inexpressible ideas
that crowd around me at night. I tell you,
there are no ideas that are inexpressible. All ideas
are expresssible by the bird sir. I have a picture of
the bird sir
that I picked from the pocket of a dead man in
Istanbul. But you think I am content
with that? It is the bird that I want sir.

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Fort Da is neither here nor there sir - to me.
He threw his cotton reel too often from the cot sir
too often entirely. If he had a cotton reel sir
he had it. If he threw it, he threw it. If I had
the bird sir
I would not throw it away, I would put it on the counter
and say bank that.
No sir - throw it away? - I don't like that sir,
don't like that at all.

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Sadly, sir - though I tell you, I do not care! -
the Law comes between me sir, and my desire
for the bird.

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Yes, sir. I eat duck and chicken sir,
geese, all manner of fowl sir -
to develop an affinity with the bird. Sir,
one must make oneself attractive to the bird sir.
The bird is wealth sir, and as one must trade
one's way out of debt sir, so in this way I become
more like the bird sir. And happy to do it.

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Have you any conception of the worth
of the bird sir?

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Sometimes I think sir
I am the bird. But I take a walk,
and sing.
"Just a closer walk with thee."
and I look around - I am alone. I am
not the bird.

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Lacan takes the mirror image as the model
of the ego.
The 'I' can shift and change places sir
just as the bird can change places. They tell me
I confuse the bird with myself sir. The bird
and I are different, different entirely! I cannot
bank myself sir
but I can bank the bird!
I am 292 pounds
and six feet two inches high sir. The bird is two foot high
and encrusted with diamonds. I ask you sir are these
subtle differences? They are not subtle to me sir.
I will have it, I will have the bird!

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Frankly, I want that bird.

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The meanings and legends that surround the bird
sir are a means to the bird a nimbus that
hover about it. When I gain the bird
I will say "Lights out" sir, and come morning
I will be at the door of a bank in Switzerland.
With the bird sir.

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Assuredly the bird is not I sir -
although it is shifty.

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Have you any conception
of the worth of that bird sir?
Sir, a sight of that bird is something
one gives a lifetime to see.

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And I have given a whole lifetime.
And I mean to see it again sir

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See it, grab it, and bank it!

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We take the bird sir to be the mirror and
the repository of my object and my desire sir.
Sir, the bird mirrors nothing! It is encrusted
with diamonds and made of gold sir and sheathed in lead.
It is a valuable object. Which I mean to bank.

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Lacan's Human Subject sir is not a divided self
that in a different society could be made whole sir,
but a self which is only
actually and necessarily created
within a split! a being that can only conceptualize itself
when it is mirrored back in the desire of another.
Do you think sir that I imagine the bird desires me!
Poppycock.
Unfortunately, the bird gives not a fig. I have been
in many different societies sir - Melanesian, Europe,
the Near East, the sub continent, northern and tropical
Africa. And in each of these I desired the bird.

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The 'I' is a shifter
& I mean to shift the bird, shift to where it is mine.

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'Mediated by language'? But as Gertrude Stein
once said to me sir, "Bird is
the word." And I agree with her entirely.
My word.

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Assuredly the bird is not I sir -
although it is shifty.

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I admire a man who can talk frankly about the bird sir.

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Do you imagine
the bird desires me? Entirely
not. The bird is indifferent.
The bird is a bird sir. And
I mean to have it.

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Do you imagine that I confuse
the desire of others with
my desire for the bird?
Not for a moment sir, not
a bit of it.

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I do not mean to be enjoined with the subject sir,
or the object - I mean to bank it. The Other
appears to hold the truth of the subject sir
and the power to make good its loss. While it is true
I have incurred certain losses in my search
for the bird sir, they will be more than adequately
compensated when I have the bird.

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Do you for a moment imagine, sir, tell me,
that I confuse the desire of others for the bird
for my desire for the bird? Not for a minute sir
I do not desire that they desire the bird sir
For if they desire the bird they might find the bird!
There is only one bird sir, and I mean to have it.

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Identity and wholeness remain at the level
of fantasy sir. Do they imagine sir
that were I to bank the bird I would bank the Other,
that I would somehow be complete, so expanded

as to include within myself sir, encompass, all
that I can imagine? We shall stop the circulation of
language
when we have the bird sir and we shall certainly stop the
circulation
of the bird!

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