Ratliff watched Snopes pass through the gate and go on across the lot, toward the barn. Then something black blew in him, a suffocation, a sickness, nausea. They should have told me! he cried to himself. Somebody should have told me! Then remembering: Why, he did! Bookright did tell me. He said Another one. It was because I have been sick, was slowed up, that I didn't -- He was back beside the desk now. He believed he could hear the dragging block long before he knew it was possible, though presently he did hear it as Snopes entered and turned, moving aside, the block thumping against the wooden step and the sill, the hulking figure in the bursting overalls blotting the door, still looking back over its shoulder, entering, the block thumping and scraping across the floor until it caught and lodged behind the counter leg where a three-year-old child would have stooped and lifted it clear though the idiot himself merely stood jerking fruitlessly at the string and beginning a wet whimpering moaning at once pettish and concerned and terrified and amazed until Snopes kicked the block free with his toe. They came on to the desk where Ratliff stood -- the mowing and bobbing head, the eyes which at some instant, some second once, had opened upon, been vouchsafed a glimpse of, the Gorgon-face of that primal injustice which man was not intended to look at face to face and had been blasted empty and clean forever of any thought, the slobbering mouth in its mist of soft gold hair. "Say what your name is," Snopes said. The creature looked at Ratliff, bobbing steadily, drooling. "Say it," Snopes said, quite patiently. "Your name."

"Ike H-mope," the idiot said hoarsely.

"Say it again."

"Ike H-mope." Then he began to laugh, though almost at once it stopped being laughing and Ratliff knew that it had never been laughing, cachinant, sobbing, already beyond the creature's power to stop it, galloping headlong and dragging breath behind it like something still alive at the galloping heels of a cossack holiday, the eyes above the round mouth fixed and sightless.

"Hush," Snopes said. "Hush." At last he took the idiot by the shoulder, shaking him until the sound began to fall bubbling and gurgling away...

-- William Faulkner, The Hamlet

NB: Later in The Hamlet, Faulkner spends about 45 pages exploring the love affair between Ike H-mope and a cow.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE IKE-HMOPE MAX/MSP/JITTER PATCHES
by Adam Kendall

This page contains Max/MSP/Jitter programming I've done or been involved with.

ike.dialog (ike_dialog.zip)
Replaces Max's Dialog object, which exhibits problems in WinMax 4.5.x., and adds extra functionality, such as trapping for the user canceling the operation.

ike.gain~ (ike_gain.zip)
A simple audio gain abstraction that includes settable defaults and a line~ object for ramping gain changes.

ike.two_state_gate (ike_two_state_gate.zip)
A routing abstraction that forces incoming messages in one of two directions. Never shuts off the incoming messages. Provides an optional label to keep parent patches neat.

ike.xfade_auto (ike_mix_xfade_auto.zip)
Executes a smooth crossfade between two Jitter streams.

ike.xfade_auto_dualstate (ike_mix_xfade_auto.zip)
Executes a smooth "hard-left" or "hard-right" crossfade between two Jitter streams. Essentially acts as a smooth on/off switch.

ike.toggle_xfade (ike_toggle_xfade.zip)
Make ike.xfade_auto_dualstate a gate to incorporate or bypass a target video filter.

ike.mix_xfade (ike_mix_xfade.zip)
Interface to automate ike.xfade_auto.

ike.mix_op_smooth (ike_mix_op_smooth.zip)
Creates smooth transitions between jit.op modes; maintains operating efficiency by turning off unused jit.op; handles restriction that the "left" jit.op/movie stream must always be running to produce output.

Dervish with the Ike H-mope State-Saving Patches (dervish_ikehmope.sit)
Josh Goldberg's Dervish, in which I implement my home-made system of Max/MSP/Jitter state-saving. Read the README file. Only tested on Mac OS9. Non-standalone version only.

Ike H-mope Envelope Follower (ike_envelope_follower.zip)
An audio-based envelope-follower/ducker. Works, but has flaws and anomalies. Not a bad example if you've never done it before. Undocumented.

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