241 lines
7.2 KiB
HTML
241 lines
7.2 KiB
HTML
<!doctype html>
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Zk | monkey-and-bear</title>
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<body>
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<main>
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<header>
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<h1>Zk | monkey-and-bear</h1>
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</header>
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<article class="content">
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<p>Story following Monkey and Bear:</p>
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<div class="verse">Track 2 On
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Ys
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View Tracklist
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Monkey & Bear
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Joanna Newsom
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Through two anthropomorphic characters, Newsom tells an origin story of the constellation Ursa Major, or “Great Bear”.
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Produced by
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Van Dyke Parks & Joanna Newsom
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Release Date
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November 6, 2006
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View All Credits
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1
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32.9K
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35
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5
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Down in the green hay
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Where monkey and bear usually lay
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They woke from a stable-boy’s cry
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He said: “someone come quick —
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The horses got loose, got grass-sick —
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They’ll founder! Fain, they’ll die.”
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What is now known by the sorrel and the roan?
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By the chestnut, and the bay, and the gelding grey?
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It is: stay by the gate you are given
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Remain in your place, for your season
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O, had the overfed dead but listened
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To that high-fence, horse-sense, wisdom…
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But
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“Did you hear that, Bear?” said
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Monkey, “we’ll get out of here, fair and square
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They’ve left the gate open wide!
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“So, my bride
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“Here is my hand. Where is your paw?
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Try and understand my plan, Ursula
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My heart is a furnace
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Full of love that is just, and earnest
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Now you know that we must unlearn this
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Allegiance to a life of service
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And no longer answer to that heartless
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Hay-monger, nor be his accomplice —
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(that charlatan, with artless hustling!)
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But Ursula, we’ve got to eat something
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And earn our keep, while still within
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The borders of the land that man has girded
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(all double-bolted and tightfisted!)
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Until we reach the open country
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A-steeped in milk and honey
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Will you keep your fancy clothes on, for me?
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Can you bear a little longer to wear that leash?
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“My love, I swear by the air I breathe:
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Sooner or later, you’ll bare your teeth
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“But for now, just dance, darling
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C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
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Darling, there’s a place for us;
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Can we go, before I turn to dust?
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Darling there’s a place for us
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“Darling. C’mon will you dance
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My darling?
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The hills are groaning with excess
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Like a table ceaselessly being set
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O my darling, we will get there yet”
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They trooped past the guards
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Past the coops, and the fields, and the
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Farmyards, all night, till finally
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The space they gained
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Grew much farther than
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The stone that Bear threw
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To mark where they’d stop for tea
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But
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“Walk a little faster
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Don’t look backwards —
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“your feast is to the East, which lies a little past the pasture
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“When the blackbirds hear tea whistling they rise and clap
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Their applause caws the kettle black
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And we can’t have none of that!
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Move along, Bear; there, there; that’s that.”
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(Though cast in plaster
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Our Ursala’s heart beat faster
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Than monkey’s ever will.)
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But still
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They have got to pay the bills
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Hadn’t they?
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That is what the monkey would say
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So, with the courage of a clown, or a cur
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Or a kite, jerking tight at its tether
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In her dun-brown gown of fur
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And her jerkin of
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Swansdown and leather
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Bear would sway on her hind legs;
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The organ would grind dregs of song
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For the pleasure
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Of the children who’d shriek
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Throwing coins at her feet
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Then recoiling in terror
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Sing, “dance, darling
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C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
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Darling, there’s a place for us;
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Can we go, before I turn to dust?
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Oh, my darling there’s a place for us
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“Darling
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C’mon, will you dance, my darling?
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Keep your eyes fixed on the highest hill
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Where you’ll ever-after eat your fill
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O my darling…dear…mine…if you dance
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Dance, darling: and I’ll love you still.”
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Deep in the night
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Shone a weak and miserly light
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Where the monkey shouldered his lamp
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Someone had told him the
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Bear’d been wandering a fair piece away
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From where they were camped
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Someone had told him
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The bear had been sneaking away
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To the seaside caverns, to bathe;
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And the thought troubled the monkey
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For he was afraid of spelunking
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Down in those caves
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And also afraid what the
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Village people would say
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If they saw the bear in that state —
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Lolling and splashing obscenely
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Well, it seemed irrational, really
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Washing that face;
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Washing that matted and flea-bit pelt
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In some sea-spit-shine —
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Old kelp dripping with brine
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But monkey just laughed, and he muttered
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“When she comes back, Ursula will be bursting with pride —
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Till I jump up!
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Saying, ‘You’ve been rolling in muck!
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Saying, ‘You smell of garbage and grime!’”
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But far out, far out
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By now, by now —
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Far out, by now, Bear ploughed
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Because she would not drown:
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First the outside-legs of the bear
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Up and fell down, in the water, like knobby garters
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Then the outside-arms of the bear
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Fell off, as easy as if sloughed
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From boiled tomatoes
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Low’red in a genteel curtsy
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Bear shed the mantle of her
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Diluvian shoulders;
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And, with a sigh
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She allowed the burden of belly to drop
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Like an apron full of boulders
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If you could hold up her
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Threadbare coat to the light
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Where it’s worn translucent in places
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You’d see spots where
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Almost every night of the year
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Bear had been mending
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Suspending that baseness
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Now her coat drags through the water
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Bagging, with a life’s-worth of hunger
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Limitless minnows;
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In the magnetic embrace
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Balletic and glacial
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Of bear’s insatiable shadow —
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Left there! Left there!
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When bear left bear;
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Left there, left there
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When bear stepped clear of bear
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(Sooner or later you’ll bury your teeth)</div>
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<h1 id="outline">Outline</h1>
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<p>Neutral-ish narrator</p>
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<ul>
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<li class="done0"> Presented with an escape<ul>
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<li class="done0"> Ursula (bear, silent) and Sim (ferret, talkative) work in crime</li>
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<li class="done0"> Sim gets a car and tries to set up a road adventure, promising going straight</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Becomes increasingly clear that Sim is emotionally abusive<ul>
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<li class="done0"> Increasingly clear that Sim still expects Ursula to be the muscle for his crime</li>
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<li class="done0"> Always just one more job, and Sim is a dick about it</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Ursula goes with it<ul>
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<li class="done0"> Told with a sense of distance so it’s not quite clear how much she’s planning</li>
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<li class="done0"> Sim seems pleased</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li class="done0"> Once she can claim her own escape, she takes it, unclear how literal it is<ul>
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<li class="done0"> Is she escaping on her own word adventure? Is she still alive? Who even knows~</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h1 id="story">Story</h1>
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<p>Some folks, they’re just built to jump.</p>
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<p>Sim was quick to jump on any opportunity, you see, because when Sim sees an opportunity, there was no other possible steps for him to take</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-06-08</p>
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