My Eternal Champion
May 7, 2008
I remember the books which first began my fascination with writing and reading, and these were the Elric novels of Michael Moorcock. These books, dark and melodic and strangely romantic, opened up a vast world to me when I was still in Junior High, and remained with me from then on, to the point that I spent years enduring the slings and arrows of high school with “Blood and Souls for my Lord Arioch!!” scrawled across my binders. From the adventures of the albino kinslayer, his tragic love, his demon sword and his loyal companion Moonglum, I soon found my way to Corum, and Hawkmoon, and Cornelius, and all the other embodiments of the Eternal Champion, a concept which still excites my imagination like few others.
Certain authors have the power to forever influence your voice, your dreams, your pen. For me, Michael Moorcock was one of those literary giants. I am forever in debt to his imagination and amazing prolificness, and therefore, I am pleased to report the fact he was recently named the 25th Grandmaster appointed by the SFWA at this year’s Nebula awards.
The March of Technology
May 6, 2008
Technology has always been extremely important to most Caledonians. In fact, the technology of society is often viewed in Caledon as infinitely more interesting then the people that technology serves.
Just such an attitude is not unique to Caledon, in fact, it may be essential for the development of technology itself. It certainly was prevalent in the ages of the “Great Inventor”. By modern standards, could anyone say that Edison or Tesla were “people persons”? Would we feel that they “had a life”? How did that single-mindedness and eccentricity create the world we have come to know?
An Ancient Digression
May 6, 2008
Long silent bus rides can be good times to reflect….or not.
Ancient
The mirrors of the ancients set the legendary sky ablaze.
Their quill traced the heavens, their compass revealed the earth and parceled their souls into chests of midnight fire.
The bear, the ram, the hunter, the hare, each foretold their fates.
Delicate frescos detailed all that had been, celestial filigree showed all that would be.
A star for life, a star for love, one for fury, one for fool, one for you and one for me.
Each star told a story, each star held a key.
Rising and falling, flaring and fading as the seasons turned and turned.
The ancients are long dead now, all I have are half-cast charts stolen from dark visions, smuggled through waking dreams.
I scrawl imperfect wisdom until the need is past, I am both quill and compass, bear and ram, hunter and hare, fury and fool. Perhaps I am both you and me.
I have no more chests of midnight fire, each has been traded away and lost. Yet I need no art to know my past, I need no craft to see my future.
I need no stars to feel the dance in my bones, to taste the bitter dust of summer, hear the trilling song of spring.
We each tell a story, we each hold a key.
Rise and fall, flare and fade…as the seasons turn and turn.
Let Down Your Hair
May 1, 2008
Everyone loves a good fairy tale…especially when it concerns a gorgeous blond, who defeats the witch to gain the heart of her stalwart hero, who also happens to be a totally rad free climber.
However, there is a lot more to the story of Rapunzel then being the poor relation of such better known fairy tale babes as Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. In fact, it may be that the primal lessons to be found in the story of the girl with the really long hair are even more relevant to us today then they were when the story was first crafted. After all, don’t we all just long to let our hair down sometimes?
Warlord of Mars
May 1, 2008
MARS! Just the word is filled with amazing possibilities, and perhaps more then any other heavenly body it is dear to the hearts of Steampunks everywhere. So near, and yet so far. Our closest planetary neighbor, as unlike the rest of the solar system as our own Earth is. Our desert sister.
Yet how did we first become fascinated with the wonders and horrors of the Red Planet. Long before Mr Welles ignited the modern age of infotainment with his famous radio invasion, Mars was being popularized by a scientist who has been largely forgotten by we non-academics…Percival Lowell.
A Man in Hell
May 1, 2008
By way of commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day today, I would like to ask you all to consider for a moment another of my heroes and one of my favorite authors, the Italian chemist and writer and survivor, Primo Levi.
I have never encountered a writer who so simply and powerfully helps us comprehend the incomprehensible. With the calm, measured words of the scientist, he walks the reader into the heart of hell, and shows him the sad human truths that await there. By not focusing on the lives and motives of the Nazi’s, but on those of their victims, he illuminates and brings dignity to a dark corner of our shared history.
Sophie - A Follow-up
May 1, 2008
Long time readers may remember some time ago, I posted the tragic story of Sophie Lancaster, brutally murdered for being Goth while defending her boyfriend, who had been beaten near to death by the same thugs.
The story has progressed and the teenage culprits have been tried, convicted and sentenced. Cold comfort, this is true…but sometimes Cold Comfort is all we get. Again, my prayers go out to Sophie’s family and to Robert Maltby.
A Monday Night Digression
April 28, 2008
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.
Artist of Legend
April 27, 2008
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
Digression on the Balcony
April 27, 2008
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.
Laughing Past the Graveyard
April 23, 2008
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.
Crossing Sinai
April 23, 2008
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.
South of the Border
April 23, 2008
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.
Worth a Thousand Words
April 17, 2008
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…
The Young and the Corseted
April 16, 2008
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.
