The News from BardHaven

Bus stations at sunset can be difficult places.

Solitude

I hear the colors of solitude run down my bare arm. I close my hand and tear slender moons in my palm as old scars wax from white to red in the damp chill.

I hear the colors of solitude flow over the scratched glass. I lean against the metal spine, my heartbeat bitterly purple as the sky goes blacker than my pulse.

I hear the colors of solitude race through the empty square. I pace in the enclosure like a story without a moral, like a brush without a canvas, like a thorn without a rose.

I hear the colors of solitude, and wish they would speak to me.

There are numerous artists of the Victorian era represented in the halls of Three Graces, but perhaps none appears as much as Edward Burne-Jones. In fact, the only artist who appears in the master bedroom is Mr. Burne-Jones.

I have long respected his composition, sense of style, use of color and dramatic flare. Recently a creation of his came to my attention, The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon, which may be his crowning achievement. This work, usually found in Puerto Rico, recently came to England’s famed Tate Gallery for a showing, and it has become one of my dreams to someday see this painting in person. In honor of this exhibition, I have the honor of reposting a piece on the artist by the Tate’s Fiona McCarthy, a leading expert on Mr. Burne-Jones and his work

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Again, dangerous dreams…

The Feast

An abandoned feast was laid before me last night, in white and silver.

Damask supported marble pillars, wine sparkled in blue crystal, tables shifted and shook in the fading moonlight. So much seemed so familiar, so much seemed so strange. Gleaming trays heavy with delicacies adorned fine linen…unstained, untouched, unseen, unknown.

I stood alone on the wind-swept balcony, a figure apart, wrapped in silken draperies as I contemplated the empty chairs. Some were pulled out from the laden tables, others tilted forward against the linen, still others cast to the ground in shattered heaps. I did not seem to move, yet the tables did, rotating around a celestial prism, casting dark dancing light over the scene.

Through the wandering shadows I felt the empty chairs, each in their turn, like scars on my flesh. I could see the plaques on the place settings as they marched past me, each made of stone, inscribed with names I did not know, bearing apologies I did not understand.

A distant quartet played something which could have been Strauss as I leaned hard against the balcony arch, legs shaking, watching the forlorn tables cascade past as the scent of rotting fruit rose, filling me with regret. I ached for these lost guests, ached for the sounds of joy, ached for the scorned and betrayed, falling to my knees on the marble balcony.

An abandoned feast was laid before me last night, as the winter died away.

Sometimes an article is simply too hilarious tobe expected to be in good taste…and some things are simply too horrible not to laugh at them.

After all, the more we hold these people up to appropriate ridicule, the safer the world will be…or something like that. Anyway, enjoy this week’s Ask the Jihadist column from The New Yorker….and Happy Passover.

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It is a complex and difficult concept to be a Jew in Christian culture. Certainly a minority amongst the wasps, but a different sort of one then Blacks or Hispanics or Asians..an outsider insider really. There is so much that you tend to be excluded from automatically, much of it by choice. So many basic elements of society that seem somehow to be for others, not you. It brings with it a certain element of discomfort, of isolation, of vulnerability.

What people often see as a sort of hysterical fear of antisemitism, a touchiness or paranoia, stems more from historical realism and a sense that we never REALLY fit in, that we are always kept apart from the safety of inclusion. Too often we seem to be tolerated by polite, christian society, and anti-jewish or anti-israel sentiments seem to make it clear that we are forever the “other”, one false step away from exile. Many of these feelings come to a fore over Passover, the traditional celebration of freedom. I recently read an article by Leon Wieseltier that chronicles his own battle with a feeling of isolation far more effectively then I ever could.

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I have come to enjoy being exposed to different sorts of music of late, beyond my normal diet of adult alternative, rockabilly, darkwave and death metal. One that has been introduced to me by my own dear Kirawill has been traditional Mariachi.

Like so many things of that nature, Mariachi is not only a joy filled musical expression, but is also rich with cultural and historical significance. It is a perfect example of the way that music research and understanding can illuminate the beauty of a society. The following article looks at the history of Mariachi, and what it means to Mexican and Latin culture today.

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I always love a good historical mystery, or a question concerning art scholarship..and the following story features both. Few people who are not directly involved realize the twists and turns and dramas that are involved in art scholarship, especially when it involves matters of historical record or prestige.

On top of such dramas, the earliest days of photography are still somewhat enshrouded by uncertainty, as it took some time for it to be understood that beyond being a scientific experiment, or a novelty, a photograph could be fine art. Therefore, what we know of it’s earliest pioneers is somewhat sketchy or, dare I say it, out of focus. However, it appears we may be on the verge of learning more…

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When we think of love in the age of Victoria, we think of repressed passions, proper formal marriages of convenience, with the occasional extreme decadence in the shadows. However, very few of us have any practical knowledge of what romance was really like in the period. Was it so very different then such things today?

Recently a trove of books in the Cambridge University library has been properly sorted and studied that may provide us with a better view of such fascinating matters. It seems, despite legends that they were filled with Victorian pornography, they were all books of advice for the smitten..not in the bedroom, but the parlor. They did not give advice on how to get your young lady into a compromising position, but into the matrimony chapel…and therefore gives us yet another insight into Victorian life.

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Our society has tended to lionize men of science.  Inventors, thinker, innovators have risen enormously in our esteem from their lowly beginnings. To a secular world, these men are the prophets, the messiahs that will lead us to a better future. An amongst that pantheon of cerebral heroes, there are few names that loom as large as Sir Issac Newton.

The man who discovered gravity has become known to history as a jack of all trades, a genius of the first order, and a charming eccentric…but was that the case. Perhaps the man himself has changed in the progression from academic to legend. Perhaps this darling of the Victorian intelligentsia and modern schoolchildren was something altogether…else. To learn more, we must not consider only the man but the fertile ground he and so many other great minds sprang from..Cambridge University.

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Drama and the worlds online tend to go together like celery and peanut butter, and that seems to be doubly true here in Second Life. It seems that there is a need for controversy in many of us, a hunger for something to be righteously and earnestly upset about. This roiling discontent finds it’s expression in world, in chat rooms, on third parties, and of course, on the vast array of blogs which are written by and for SL residents.

The newest bugaboo to rise, inspired by yet more blind idiocy by Linden Labs, is making it’s presence known in an unusual fashion. Certainly it has inspired a great deal of talk both intelligent and inane, but now in an interesting twist, it has inspired silence in several normally noisy individuals. In short, some bloggers are on strike for a few days over the issue of LL and SL trademarks.

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A good chair is hard to find, and from the sound of it, this one is a pip. Furnishings, like anything I have found, tend to take on the feel and personality of their owners or frequent users. Therefore the possibility of purchasing the writing desk and chair of Charles Dickens is too amazing a chance for any writer to ignore.

I have always loved collecting minor pieces of art and relish the thrill of a good auction, but I fear this bidding will be a good deal richer then my blood. Still, perhaps all of Caledon can chip in and we can buy the set for Desmond’s rezday? The desk should be large enough to fit a nekogrrl under…God knows Dickens likely managed to.

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Several weeks ago I posted to these pages an introduction to the amazing work of a mad genius known as Sillof. In a nutshell, what he does is he takes typical, mundane “action figures” and somehow transforms them into personal visions of extreme coolness.

The work I featured previously depicted a Steampunk re-imagining of DC Comic’s famed Justice League. His (at least I think he is a he, but I really have no idea) awareness of the salient points and subtle traits of each character, coupled with his love of the genre and clear artistic ability made the figures truly magical. Now he has delved deeply into fanboy heaven again, and come back with a steampunk version of George Lucas’ famous Star Wars universe.

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A long, long weekend.

Invocation

I spoke the words, of love and loss and their oneness, just as she had written them down for me.

Just as she had bidden me to do in that last heedless, hurried talk.

I made the signs, traced the sigels in the air.

I threw the bones, counted the runes.

I marked the passage of stars in the sky, scrying in a crystal globe.

I measured the rumbles of giants in the earth, echoing through a tin ear.

I danced the dance in measured, precise steps.

I summoned the glamour, began the begine.

I lit the alchemical fires, yellow and teal and red, breathed in the fragrant smoke.

The audience watched, and listened, and waited for the air to split and the veil to tear.

I poured my very soul into the invocation, cast it like spilt wine before the spirits.

The words have failed.

The spirits have turned their faces from me, she has turned her face from me.

The magic is spent.

I was left with naught but wormwood and rue and the same sense of silent desperation.

Naught but wormwood and rue and failed words.

It has been a week for fascinating history…none, at least for me, more so than the following bit of pseudo history. A practice which I have long admired and enjoyed is Counterfactual History, the practice of taking a kernel of the past and seeing how it might have developed along different lines. This for me is not only intensely entertaining, but also brings some powerful insights into the true history, and the choices made along the road finally taken.

The most interesting example of this I have found in a long time was recently imagined and written by one of my favorite Middle East historians (along with Martin Gilbert and Bernard Lewis) Walter Laqueur. In the following amazing exercise in creativity, historical knowledge and insight, he postulates the following…what if Israel had been envisioned and founded 100 years earlier, by Benjamin Disraeli. The ramifications are far more extensive and world-changing then you would think at first.

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It is rare when I will risk straying to close to politics in these pages, working from the assumption that regularly wallowing in sex and religion is more then enough to keep the villagers with their pitchforks camped around my castle. However, every once and a while I come across an article that is so clear, interesting, well written and informative about politics, that I feel duty bound to share it with you.

Robert Kagan, one of the foremost essayists writing today, has put together a fantastic piece looking back into history to understand that those travails we find ourselves in currently, worldwide, are hardly as new and novel as some would say they are. In fact, they seem to be endlessly repeating…little surprise there. However, his take on the matter, and the historical and social significance of them, is truly remarkable and should be required reading for all literate adults, whether they agree with his views or no.

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