Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How happy we are here!" they cried to each other.
One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.
"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.
"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.
TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
PROSECUTED
He was a very selfish Giant.
The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. "How happy we were there," they said to each other.
Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round." The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we must ask the Hail on a visit." So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.
"I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming," said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; "I hope there will be a change in the weather."
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. "He is too selfish," she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.
One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. "I believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.
What did he see?
He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! little boy," said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.
And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was really very sorry for what he had done.
So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.
All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.
"But where is your little companion?" he said: "the boy I put into the tree." The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.
"We don't know," answered the children; "he has gone away."
"You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow," said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.
Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. "How I would like to see him!" he used to say.
Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all."
One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.
Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.
Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.
"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."
"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."
"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.
And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."
And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Charon, by Lord Dunsany
Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness.
It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.
If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.
It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed.
Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in Charon's arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.
"I am the last," he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep.
It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.
If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.
It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed.
Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.
Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.
And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in Charon's arms.
Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.
"I am the last," he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep.
Storytime Intro
So, I have decided that in an effort to at least keep posting SOMETHING regularly, I am going to post a story of some kind every week. Mostly other people's stories, actual good ones. Just thought I'd alert y'all before I started doing so.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Aye, We'll Go
Towards the end of the summer just past, I went to Irishfest in Milwaukee with the Gees. It was a day of enormous fun, filled with music and dancing and more high kicks and reels than you could throw a pint at. We saw Rising Gael, we saw Solas, was saw Monto, we saw Gaelic Storm--all fantastic groups. The company was excellent too--yes, including Bruce.
This was Sunday, the last day of Irishfest. It's been my experience that the last day of a festival tends to, well, suck. Things are winding down, people starting to turn their eyes toward home, even starting to pack up a bit. Not at Irishfest. People here were still raring, drinking, partying as though the outside world were a figment of the collective imagination.
Sunday night, once the last band has played, they have what they call the Scattering. Every musician remaining, every dancer too, gathers on a single stage to play a set of tunes. Every person remaining on the festival grounds gathers to hear them--one last hurrah, before we all go home.
Such a gathering might not work save for Irish musicians--that is, getting literally dozens of them onstage and expecting everyone to play the same thing--but the Irish musical tradition is such that there are literally hours' worth of tunes that any Irish musician most likely knows.
They did some reels, a few traditional songs, some more reels with some dancing. How those lads and lasses had room to dance on that crowded stage is beyond me, but they managed it with aplomb. Finally, the woman who was leading the pack announced, "We're going to do one last song that everybody knows--'Will ye Go, Lassie?'"
At this point, I thought, "Oh, great." I thought this meaning no disrespect to the venerable song; but every group who might be even remotely Irish has a version of this song, and in my experience they have largely sucked.
I should have known better. With that many great musicians onstage, I think it would have been possible to do a good version of "Strangers in the Night." Okay, maybe that's pushing it.
And as the band--the horde--began to play, I began to realize just why everybody does this song: it's a gorgeous song. With a lilting melody and simple lyrics, it recreates the feeling of a warm summer afternoon with nothing to do but rove the mountains and pick wild thyme.
And everybody knew the song, and everybody joined in on the chorus--and for those of us who didn't know, we learned it.
Will ye go, lassie, go?
And we'll all go together
To pick wild mountain thyme
All across the blooming heather...
And suddenly there was an explosion, and it was not our hearts thudding in our ears but the sound of fireworks, and they lit up the sky behind us, and we were enclosed in our own perfect little world, singing together in perfect unity. And, for just a moment, we seemed to float above the ground and the sound became not that of earth or any of her realms but of Faerie, of the undying lands that mortals can never know. And I thought that maybe this was just the barest splinter, the barest shiver of Heaven.
Then, the song ended, as all things must on this earth; and as all things must on this earth, the gathering broke and scattered, and we became people once again.
This was Sunday, the last day of Irishfest. It's been my experience that the last day of a festival tends to, well, suck. Things are winding down, people starting to turn their eyes toward home, even starting to pack up a bit. Not at Irishfest. People here were still raring, drinking, partying as though the outside world were a figment of the collective imagination.
Sunday night, once the last band has played, they have what they call the Scattering. Every musician remaining, every dancer too, gathers on a single stage to play a set of tunes. Every person remaining on the festival grounds gathers to hear them--one last hurrah, before we all go home.
Such a gathering might not work save for Irish musicians--that is, getting literally dozens of them onstage and expecting everyone to play the same thing--but the Irish musical tradition is such that there are literally hours' worth of tunes that any Irish musician most likely knows.
They did some reels, a few traditional songs, some more reels with some dancing. How those lads and lasses had room to dance on that crowded stage is beyond me, but they managed it with aplomb. Finally, the woman who was leading the pack announced, "We're going to do one last song that everybody knows--'Will ye Go, Lassie?'"
At this point, I thought, "Oh, great." I thought this meaning no disrespect to the venerable song; but every group who might be even remotely Irish has a version of this song, and in my experience they have largely sucked.
I should have known better. With that many great musicians onstage, I think it would have been possible to do a good version of "Strangers in the Night." Okay, maybe that's pushing it.
And as the band--the horde--began to play, I began to realize just why everybody does this song: it's a gorgeous song. With a lilting melody and simple lyrics, it recreates the feeling of a warm summer afternoon with nothing to do but rove the mountains and pick wild thyme.
And everybody knew the song, and everybody joined in on the chorus--and for those of us who didn't know, we learned it.
Will ye go, lassie, go?
And we'll all go together
To pick wild mountain thyme
All across the blooming heather...
And suddenly there was an explosion, and it was not our hearts thudding in our ears but the sound of fireworks, and they lit up the sky behind us, and we were enclosed in our own perfect little world, singing together in perfect unity. And, for just a moment, we seemed to float above the ground and the sound became not that of earth or any of her realms but of Faerie, of the undying lands that mortals can never know. And I thought that maybe this was just the barest splinter, the barest shiver of Heaven.
Then, the song ended, as all things must on this earth; and as all things must on this earth, the gathering broke and scattered, and we became people once again.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Alchemy Index
[Yes, I have become so pathetic that I am letting school essays double as blog posts. Although, this is something I've been meaning to write for a long time, and it was actually going to be a blog post before it found a home as my critical review for my Advanced Composition class. Like most of my blog posts, it's a first, mostly-unedited draft.]
“Tell me are you free?/ Tell me are you free?/ In word or thought or deed/ Tell me are you free?” So begins post-hardcore group Thrice’s opus, The Alchemy Index. This four-CD album, released in Spring 2007 and Fall 2008, is based on the four classical elements—Fire, Water, Earth and Air, with one EP-length CD devoted to each of them. This album was released to wide critical acclaim. Despite the fact that the sound on each volume is different—fire with its decidedly hardcore guitars and screaming vocals, water with its synth and whispered lyrics, air with its, well, airiness, and earth with its acoustic, unplugged sound—the songs hang together remarkably well. They interconnect and build on each other, yet each explores unique territory.
Much has been written on the musical quality of The Alchemy Index; most of the “experts” seem to agree that it is musically rich, and a very unique and special composition. I, personally, am not terribly qualified to comment on the music, apart from my own personal opinion. I do, however, know a bit about literature and what makes good writing, and this is the aspect of The Alchemy Index I intend to examine.
Dustin Kensrue has long been Thrice’s song-writer, and has long been admired as a great lyricist. From uncomfortable guilt-ridden anthems like “Under A Killing Moon,” to the comforting yet still hardcore “Music Box,” he has shown great diversity as well. He is a Christian, and much of his work shows strong Biblical influence, but he is unafraid to draw from other sources as well. (The song “Of Dust and Nations” makes reference to Matthew 6, to the book Children of Dune, to a CS Lewis quote, and possibly to the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “Ozymandias.”) It should not be surprising, then, that he finds inspiration in a paradigm—the four classical elements—that has inspired many other great poets and songwriters through the years.
The opening words of Volume I: Fire, and indeed the opening song, “Firebreather,” set the tone for the rest of the Index, and introduce one of the major themes running through the album: that of freedom from oppression—not just physical freedom, but mental freedom. “When the gallows stand and bullets lance the bravest lungs/Will I fold my hands and hold my tongue/Or let the flames lick at my feet/ And breath in fire and know I’m free?”
“The Messenger” is one of several songs that take direct Biblical inspiration—this one a musical reformatting of Isaiah 6:
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
-Isaiah 6:6-8 (KJV)
How can I carry such a heavy burden?
How can I move when I am paralyzed?
I see a fire behind a heavy curtain.
I lean in closer and I close my eyes
and kiss the coals;
breathe in smoke,
and I say, "HERE I AM, SEND ME."
-Thrice, “The Messenger”
The rest of the Fire album deals with similar themes, themes of breaking free from oppression (“Burn the Fleet”), and of being a messenger to a people who will not hear (“The Arsonist”). The disc ends with “The Flame Deluge,” a sonnet set to music, in which fire itself speaks to mankind, lamenting man’s treatment of it: “I feel that I was meant for something more, /My curse, this awful power to unmake./ And ever since you found your taste for war,/ You've forced me onto those whose lives you'd take.” The song’s title is a reference to the book A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, a post-apocalyptic novel in which the world has been destroyed by what the characters call “the flame deluge”—presumably nuclear war of some kind.
Each volume of the Index ends with such a sonnet, with an element of nature berating mankind for one of its numerous faults. Kensrue is not playing with the form here, either, not writing lazy half-fulfilled sonnets in the name of “experimentation” or “fusion.” These are Elizabethan sonnets, written in strict iambic pentameter, with the classic format of four quatrains ending with a couplet. And they show the poetic quality and expression of a truly great lyricist.
The second volume, Water, is a decidedly different twist. This is evident not only in the softer tone of the music, but in the writing as well. Where Fire is very martial, sounding a call to action, Water is more like a lament.
The opening song, “Digital Sea,” is a lament and possibly even an elegy for man in a digital age. It is a song of existentialist despair. “I am drowning in a digital sea/ I am slipping beneath the sound/ Here my voice goes, to ones and zeroes/ I'm slipping beneath the sound.” It contains one of the most significant verses of the album: “And the ghost of Descartes/Screams again in the dark,/ ‘Oh, how could I have been so wrong?’/ But above the screams still the sirens sing their song.” It speaks elegantly of the disconnection man experiences in an age based on “Cogito Ergo Sum,” the ultimate damage a philosophy of pure reason engenders—and, despite this, the enticement that our age holds.
“Lost Continent” questions whether there was ever a golden time, a utopia of any kind (akin to the supposed golden age experienced by the lost continent of Atlantis), and concludes that there never was. “Open Water” contains the chorus, “I’m starting to believe the ocean’s much like you/ Because it gives and it takes away.” Kensrue implicitly compares the ocean to God (“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away), which sets up an interesting paradigm for the concluding sonnet “Kings Upon the Main.”
In this song, the ocean berates man for his foolish pride--“When kings upon the main have clung to pride, /And held themselves as masters of the sea, /I've held them down beneath the crushing tide/ Till they have learned that no one masters me.” Kensrue knows his Scripture, and this sounds like an angry God berating man for his pride—the Tower of Babel comes to mind, among others. If this is true, perhaps the concluding couplet is fitting: “But grace can still be found within the gales;/ With fear and reverence, raise your ragged sail.”
Air is in some ways the simplest, and in other ways the hardest Volume of the Index. It starts with the song “Broken Lungs,” which is an obvious (though poetic) call for new insight into the 9/11 tragedy. Kensrue doesn’t seem to accept the “official story” of what happened that day. Though it has obvious parallels to “Firebreather” and the societal concerns evident throughout the album, this is my least favorite song. It shows what happens when one is too wary of authority, too ready to accept anything but what the government says.
“A Song for Milly Michaelson” is worthy of note here, because it shows the broad range of Kensrue’s influences. This song is inspired by “The Boy Who Could Fly,” a 1986 movie written and directed by Nick Castle. It is about an autistic boy who, well, can fly. The song is written from the boy’s perspective, and uses simple language to create potent imagery—“There's a way where there's a will./ You know I got no need for stairs. /Step out on the window sill,/ Fall with me into the air… I love the night. /Flying o'er these city lights./ But I love you most of all.”
The song “Deadalus” retells the story of the Greek inventor who, reaching for the glory of flight, lost that thing which was most precious to him—his son. This song encapsulates many of the themes of the Index: man’s arrogance, his foolishness, his desire for glory tempered by his penchant for failure.
The final volume, Earth, is perhaps the most biblically-inspired of the entire Index. “Moving Mountains” is based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal…”) “Come All You Weary,” one of the most popular songs on the album, is based on Christ’s words in Matthew 11:28-30. “Digging My Own Grave,” while not directly Biblical, has the tone of a Psalm or a confession of sins, a prayer to God for help—“Lord, don’t I know, I’m just digging my own grave?/ Can someone please save myself from me?”
The final sonnet, “Child of Dust,” is perhaps the best of all the sonnets. The earth, calling itself mother, mourns the way its child (man) treats it. Yet she welcomes man back into her fold when he dies. The final couplet is buried, literally—the sound of earth being piled on top of the microphone muffles the final two lines: “Now safe beneath their wisdom and their feet,/ Here I will teach you truly how to sleep.” The Alchemy Index, a portrait of life, ends appropriately with death.
Not until this final volume do we see what The Alchemy Index ultimately is. It is not a story, it is not a clever conceit, it is not even primarily a cycle of interconnected songs. The Alchemy Index is a portrait, it is a mirror, poetically holding up the looking glass to show us who we are, where we are going, and what we need. It is both an elegy and a call to action. It accuses, it condemns, and it points the way to salvation. It reaches into the past to create a portrait of our modern age, and in creating this portrait, shows us man as he is through all of time.
“Tell me are you free?/ Tell me are you free?/ In word or thought or deed/ Tell me are you free?” So begins post-hardcore group Thrice’s opus, The Alchemy Index. This four-CD album, released in Spring 2007 and Fall 2008, is based on the four classical elements—Fire, Water, Earth and Air, with one EP-length CD devoted to each of them. This album was released to wide critical acclaim. Despite the fact that the sound on each volume is different—fire with its decidedly hardcore guitars and screaming vocals, water with its synth and whispered lyrics, air with its, well, airiness, and earth with its acoustic, unplugged sound—the songs hang together remarkably well. They interconnect and build on each other, yet each explores unique territory.
Much has been written on the musical quality of The Alchemy Index; most of the “experts” seem to agree that it is musically rich, and a very unique and special composition. I, personally, am not terribly qualified to comment on the music, apart from my own personal opinion. I do, however, know a bit about literature and what makes good writing, and this is the aspect of The Alchemy Index I intend to examine.
Dustin Kensrue has long been Thrice’s song-writer, and has long been admired as a great lyricist. From uncomfortable guilt-ridden anthems like “Under A Killing Moon,” to the comforting yet still hardcore “Music Box,” he has shown great diversity as well. He is a Christian, and much of his work shows strong Biblical influence, but he is unafraid to draw from other sources as well. (The song “Of Dust and Nations” makes reference to Matthew 6, to the book Children of Dune, to a CS Lewis quote, and possibly to the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “Ozymandias.”) It should not be surprising, then, that he finds inspiration in a paradigm—the four classical elements—that has inspired many other great poets and songwriters through the years.
The opening words of Volume I: Fire, and indeed the opening song, “Firebreather,” set the tone for the rest of the Index, and introduce one of the major themes running through the album: that of freedom from oppression—not just physical freedom, but mental freedom. “When the gallows stand and bullets lance the bravest lungs/Will I fold my hands and hold my tongue/Or let the flames lick at my feet/ And breath in fire and know I’m free?”
“The Messenger” is one of several songs that take direct Biblical inspiration—this one a musical reformatting of Isaiah 6:
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
-Isaiah 6:6-8 (KJV)
How can I carry such a heavy burden?
How can I move when I am paralyzed?
I see a fire behind a heavy curtain.
I lean in closer and I close my eyes
and kiss the coals;
breathe in smoke,
and I say, "HERE I AM, SEND ME."
-Thrice, “The Messenger”
The rest of the Fire album deals with similar themes, themes of breaking free from oppression (“Burn the Fleet”), and of being a messenger to a people who will not hear (“The Arsonist”). The disc ends with “The Flame Deluge,” a sonnet set to music, in which fire itself speaks to mankind, lamenting man’s treatment of it: “I feel that I was meant for something more, /My curse, this awful power to unmake./ And ever since you found your taste for war,/ You've forced me onto those whose lives you'd take.” The song’s title is a reference to the book A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, a post-apocalyptic novel in which the world has been destroyed by what the characters call “the flame deluge”—presumably nuclear war of some kind.
Each volume of the Index ends with such a sonnet, with an element of nature berating mankind for one of its numerous faults. Kensrue is not playing with the form here, either, not writing lazy half-fulfilled sonnets in the name of “experimentation” or “fusion.” These are Elizabethan sonnets, written in strict iambic pentameter, with the classic format of four quatrains ending with a couplet. And they show the poetic quality and expression of a truly great lyricist.
The second volume, Water, is a decidedly different twist. This is evident not only in the softer tone of the music, but in the writing as well. Where Fire is very martial, sounding a call to action, Water is more like a lament.
The opening song, “Digital Sea,” is a lament and possibly even an elegy for man in a digital age. It is a song of existentialist despair. “I am drowning in a digital sea/ I am slipping beneath the sound/ Here my voice goes, to ones and zeroes/ I'm slipping beneath the sound.” It contains one of the most significant verses of the album: “And the ghost of Descartes/Screams again in the dark,/ ‘Oh, how could I have been so wrong?’/ But above the screams still the sirens sing their song.” It speaks elegantly of the disconnection man experiences in an age based on “Cogito Ergo Sum,” the ultimate damage a philosophy of pure reason engenders—and, despite this, the enticement that our age holds.
“Lost Continent” questions whether there was ever a golden time, a utopia of any kind (akin to the supposed golden age experienced by the lost continent of Atlantis), and concludes that there never was. “Open Water” contains the chorus, “I’m starting to believe the ocean’s much like you/ Because it gives and it takes away.” Kensrue implicitly compares the ocean to God (“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away), which sets up an interesting paradigm for the concluding sonnet “Kings Upon the Main.”
In this song, the ocean berates man for his foolish pride--“When kings upon the main have clung to pride, /And held themselves as masters of the sea, /I've held them down beneath the crushing tide/ Till they have learned that no one masters me.” Kensrue knows his Scripture, and this sounds like an angry God berating man for his pride—the Tower of Babel comes to mind, among others. If this is true, perhaps the concluding couplet is fitting: “But grace can still be found within the gales;/ With fear and reverence, raise your ragged sail.”
Air is in some ways the simplest, and in other ways the hardest Volume of the Index. It starts with the song “Broken Lungs,” which is an obvious (though poetic) call for new insight into the 9/11 tragedy. Kensrue doesn’t seem to accept the “official story” of what happened that day. Though it has obvious parallels to “Firebreather” and the societal concerns evident throughout the album, this is my least favorite song. It shows what happens when one is too wary of authority, too ready to accept anything but what the government says.
“A Song for Milly Michaelson” is worthy of note here, because it shows the broad range of Kensrue’s influences. This song is inspired by “The Boy Who Could Fly,” a 1986 movie written and directed by Nick Castle. It is about an autistic boy who, well, can fly. The song is written from the boy’s perspective, and uses simple language to create potent imagery—“There's a way where there's a will./ You know I got no need for stairs. /Step out on the window sill,/ Fall with me into the air… I love the night. /Flying o'er these city lights./ But I love you most of all.”
The song “Deadalus” retells the story of the Greek inventor who, reaching for the glory of flight, lost that thing which was most precious to him—his son. This song encapsulates many of the themes of the Index: man’s arrogance, his foolishness, his desire for glory tempered by his penchant for failure.
The final volume, Earth, is perhaps the most biblically-inspired of the entire Index. “Moving Mountains” is based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal…”) “Come All You Weary,” one of the most popular songs on the album, is based on Christ’s words in Matthew 11:28-30. “Digging My Own Grave,” while not directly Biblical, has the tone of a Psalm or a confession of sins, a prayer to God for help—“Lord, don’t I know, I’m just digging my own grave?/ Can someone please save myself from me?”
The final sonnet, “Child of Dust,” is perhaps the best of all the sonnets. The earth, calling itself mother, mourns the way its child (man) treats it. Yet she welcomes man back into her fold when he dies. The final couplet is buried, literally—the sound of earth being piled on top of the microphone muffles the final two lines: “Now safe beneath their wisdom and their feet,/ Here I will teach you truly how to sleep.” The Alchemy Index, a portrait of life, ends appropriately with death.
Not until this final volume do we see what The Alchemy Index ultimately is. It is not a story, it is not a clever conceit, it is not even primarily a cycle of interconnected songs. The Alchemy Index is a portrait, it is a mirror, poetically holding up the looking glass to show us who we are, where we are going, and what we need. It is both an elegy and a call to action. It accuses, it condemns, and it points the way to salvation. It reaches into the past to create a portrait of our modern age, and in creating this portrait, shows us man as he is through all of time.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Lies
[I wrote this last school year, because it wanted to be written. I don't know what I think of it, but I don't care about it enough to improve it any. I published the first part in The Inkwell, Bethany's literary magazine, where it got fourth place (out of 50-60 entries) in the semester. That won me a $10 gift card, so that if nothing else buys some affection for this piece.]
This is true.
My brother died at the age of 14, in a horrible car crash that probably wasn't his fault. We weren't in the car, so we can never know, but he obviously wasn't driving and the guy in the car that hit him was drunk so there's that. We attended his funeral and mom cried and dad never cries because that's not something men do or something, but he took off his hat and stared at the ground and there was this look in his eye like a piece of him had been destroyed, which in a sense I suppose it had. And I, of course, was terribly sad. I think I cried for about a day. Literally. If you added up all the time I spent crying, it would probably be at least twenty-four hours. My aunt too, who lives like an hour from here, cried a lot—she didn't have any kids and she always wanted a boy and my brother was a favorite of hers. But he was gone and there was nothing we could do about it.
This is also true.
My brother comes out of his room every day and eats and washes himself. He is fourteen, and his face is spotless, all the acne that used to spatter it having cured itself. He makes messes, and my mom yells at him to clean them up, and he grumbles and does. And she grumbles about what an awful little urchin he is, but then she smiles and there's this light in her eyes and you can tell she doesn't really mean it, not a word of it, that she loves this fourteen-year-old boy.
My brother has been fourteen for three years.
After his funeral, my mom was unbalanced for quite a while. Couldn't bear the grief, I suppose. She went from crying to not making any sound at all to not getting up in the mornings to getting up too early and not being able to sleep. The only thing she couldn't do was work, in any form, provide any sort of compensation for her existence to those around her. She was, essentially, a dysfunctional person. The doctors said something drastic had to happen.
So my dad went to this place. He had to seek it out, kind of, for while it was not an illegal establishment it was one which people would rather not think about. He put in a certain order, brought them certain documents and tissue samples, filled out myriads of personality test forms. Six weeks later he went there one last time and brought back my brother.
When my mom saw him, she screamed and cried, but it was a happy-sounding cry. Then she said, “He's...”
My dad looked her in the eye, waited until he knew he was holding her gaze, then shook his head. “It's best to just accept it.”
She nodded, and then she did. She was an English major in college; she appreciated the usefulness of stories in motivating people.
My mom's behavior I've described; after that day my dad simply ignored my brother, pretended he didn't exist. Ha. The government did that too; my brother no longer ate or consumed in any way, and he was frozen—he wasn't a legitimate tax claim, and he didn't use the school system.
My aunt came over one afternoon, and she caught sight of my brother and dropped whatever it was she was carrying, I've forgotten, and just screamed. Then she calmed down but she was still breathing fast and my dad and I appeared in the living room at the same time—my brother was still there, staring at her oddly—and she turned on my dad and her eyes were as cold as the sort of air that will freeze the snot in your nose, and she just said, “That is cruel.” My dad raised his hands, conciliatory, and started to explain. But she picked her stuff up, or maybe just left it, and turned around and left.
We've never heard from her since.
My friends and I saw this advertisement on this computer one evening; I think I got it over e-mail. It was for a place opening in the city, about half an hour from my house (the city that is, the actual place would be a bit farther). They called the place All Party All The Time! Because that's literally what it was, though it wasn't technically All The Time! because it didn't open until seven o'clock in the evening. It was a house, a big house, that from seven until seven in the morning was this giant party. Like, you could go into different rooms and there were different types of party going on—one room would have people dressed all metalhead and loud thumping music, and another room would have people dressed old-fashioned and swing-dancing, and another had people just chilling and playing pool, and another drinking hardcore. You could rent rooms and have birthday parties, or graduation parties or retirement parties or whatever you want. Each room was a different party, and for the twenty dollar cover charge you could go and go to one party or wander in and out of a bunch of parties.
That's what the advertisement said. We heard some inside scoop from other people. Apparently the way they kept these parties going was to hire people, a sort of “skeleton party crew,” to act like people ought to act in whatever setting the party was. They hired people to be metalheads, and skinheads, preppy, “typical” or nondescript kids, and so forth. Apparently they had an almost literal army of caterers, supply trucks coming and going all day and all night. They had a massive staff, and a massive budget. The amount of waste produced there rivaled that of some nuclear power plants, though it was somewhat less deadly.
After a couple weeks of speculation and hearing about it from other people, my friends and I finally went into town to go to the Party. (That's what we were calling it by then, just the Party, differentiated from other parties by the capital P.) The people going were me, my best girlfriend Justina, Ruby and her boyfriend Steph (short e), and Gloria and Peter, who were friends with all of us and pretended not to like each other and failed to fool anyone but each other.
The place was this Tudor-style house, but huge and with all its attributes exaggerated, and you could tell it was just honeycombed with rooms because there were so many windows all lined up next to each other. Light was spilling out all the windows, and you could just see all kinds of partying going on.
We went in the front door on the bottom floor and there was this big guy with a frown that looked permanent who took our money and gave us a map of the rooms and told us generally where the types of parties were—the clique parties, the hard core parties, the more genteel parties. Since we were all under 21 we had to wear red nametags that had our names on them and would also alert various bartenders to only serve us virgin drinks. Peter wrote Sir Lancelot on his and grinned as if he was clever.
We chose one of the more genteel parties to start off with, a cocktail party kind of thing with chips and dip and drinks and pool and ping-pong and people talking and flirting pleasantly. I got a Virgin Mary from the bar and settled on my stool, wondering if people would flirt with me. There seemed to be quite a mix, teenagers through middle-aged. I wondered which were the actors.
Ruby went off to the bathroom after a while and Steph went to the bar and ordered something. He was leaning against the bar still when a girl, woman, I don't know, she could have been anywhere from 18 to 25, anyway she was wearing a tight sequined red dress and she kind of slunk over to Steph and asked him what his name was.
“Steph,” he said, and as always there was that note of triumph in his voice, as if it were something special that his parents had decided to steal a stupid Russian name instead of using a stupid American one. (His real name, in case you hadn't guessed, was Stephan, still with the short e.)
“That's a cool name,” the lady in the red dress cooed at him.
“Ya think?” said Steph, grinning more broadly.
“Sure,” she said.
They made small talk for a while. I got bored and so I drowned out the specifics, but it seemed to go along with her cooing and him getting all full of himself—he seemed to really enjoy flirting with her. After a while there was a pause, and I looked over to see him regarding her with narrowed eyes. She was looking back at him, a mysterious indefatigable smile splayed across her features.
“You're one of them, aren't you?” he said.
“One of who, darling?” she said, and there was laughter in her voice.
“Them, the actors this place hires to keep us entertained. You thought I looked bored, so you came over here to make me feel good about myself so I'd come back here and tell my friends what a great place this is.”
“Would I do that?” she said, and oh she was very prettily offended. She gestured to encompass the entire building. “Look at this place. Do you think the owners here really need the business of you personally?”
He continued to look at her with narrowed eyes.
She sighed. “Look, suppose I am. Have I said anything about you that you don't already believe? Also, didn't you get a thrill out of flirting with me? There's nothing fake about that, is there?”
He continued to watch her, and she grinned again and batted her eyes.
“Or maybe I really am an actor, but I'm actually taken by you. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did, actually. But how can I know?”
She smiled, and batted her eyes again and now she was really pouring it on thick. “Well, ask me to get out of here and find a quieter place with you.” Her smile widened, and it was almost a predator's grin. “A paid actress wouldn't do that, would she?”
Just then Ruby got out of the bathroom. Steph saw her walking towards him. “One minute,” he said to the lady in red. He took Ruby by the arm, and found the rest of us and announced they were ready to try another room.
Look around you. They're everywhere.
Your history is riddled with them.
Your country's history,
Your personal history,
Your world's history.
No matter what religion you subscribe to (even atheism), there's somebody out there lying about it.
Your job requires a lot of it,
And especially any school you might happen to be attending.
Your nights,
Your days,
Your resumes,
Your life.
And yes, this is one of them.
This is true.
My brother died at the age of 14, in a horrible car crash that probably wasn't his fault. We weren't in the car, so we can never know, but he obviously wasn't driving and the guy in the car that hit him was drunk so there's that. We attended his funeral and mom cried and dad never cries because that's not something men do or something, but he took off his hat and stared at the ground and there was this look in his eye like a piece of him had been destroyed, which in a sense I suppose it had. And I, of course, was terribly sad. I think I cried for about a day. Literally. If you added up all the time I spent crying, it would probably be at least twenty-four hours. My aunt too, who lives like an hour from here, cried a lot—she didn't have any kids and she always wanted a boy and my brother was a favorite of hers. But he was gone and there was nothing we could do about it.
This is also true.
My brother comes out of his room every day and eats and washes himself. He is fourteen, and his face is spotless, all the acne that used to spatter it having cured itself. He makes messes, and my mom yells at him to clean them up, and he grumbles and does. And she grumbles about what an awful little urchin he is, but then she smiles and there's this light in her eyes and you can tell she doesn't really mean it, not a word of it, that she loves this fourteen-year-old boy.
My brother has been fourteen for three years.
After his funeral, my mom was unbalanced for quite a while. Couldn't bear the grief, I suppose. She went from crying to not making any sound at all to not getting up in the mornings to getting up too early and not being able to sleep. The only thing she couldn't do was work, in any form, provide any sort of compensation for her existence to those around her. She was, essentially, a dysfunctional person. The doctors said something drastic had to happen.
So my dad went to this place. He had to seek it out, kind of, for while it was not an illegal establishment it was one which people would rather not think about. He put in a certain order, brought them certain documents and tissue samples, filled out myriads of personality test forms. Six weeks later he went there one last time and brought back my brother.
When my mom saw him, she screamed and cried, but it was a happy-sounding cry. Then she said, “He's...”
My dad looked her in the eye, waited until he knew he was holding her gaze, then shook his head. “It's best to just accept it.”
She nodded, and then she did. She was an English major in college; she appreciated the usefulness of stories in motivating people.
My mom's behavior I've described; after that day my dad simply ignored my brother, pretended he didn't exist. Ha. The government did that too; my brother no longer ate or consumed in any way, and he was frozen—he wasn't a legitimate tax claim, and he didn't use the school system.
My aunt came over one afternoon, and she caught sight of my brother and dropped whatever it was she was carrying, I've forgotten, and just screamed. Then she calmed down but she was still breathing fast and my dad and I appeared in the living room at the same time—my brother was still there, staring at her oddly—and she turned on my dad and her eyes were as cold as the sort of air that will freeze the snot in your nose, and she just said, “That is cruel.” My dad raised his hands, conciliatory, and started to explain. But she picked her stuff up, or maybe just left it, and turned around and left.
We've never heard from her since.
My friends and I saw this advertisement on this computer one evening; I think I got it over e-mail. It was for a place opening in the city, about half an hour from my house (the city that is, the actual place would be a bit farther). They called the place All Party All The Time! Because that's literally what it was, though it wasn't technically All The Time! because it didn't open until seven o'clock in the evening. It was a house, a big house, that from seven until seven in the morning was this giant party. Like, you could go into different rooms and there were different types of party going on—one room would have people dressed all metalhead and loud thumping music, and another room would have people dressed old-fashioned and swing-dancing, and another had people just chilling and playing pool, and another drinking hardcore. You could rent rooms and have birthday parties, or graduation parties or retirement parties or whatever you want. Each room was a different party, and for the twenty dollar cover charge you could go and go to one party or wander in and out of a bunch of parties.
That's what the advertisement said. We heard some inside scoop from other people. Apparently the way they kept these parties going was to hire people, a sort of “skeleton party crew,” to act like people ought to act in whatever setting the party was. They hired people to be metalheads, and skinheads, preppy, “typical” or nondescript kids, and so forth. Apparently they had an almost literal army of caterers, supply trucks coming and going all day and all night. They had a massive staff, and a massive budget. The amount of waste produced there rivaled that of some nuclear power plants, though it was somewhat less deadly.
After a couple weeks of speculation and hearing about it from other people, my friends and I finally went into town to go to the Party. (That's what we were calling it by then, just the Party, differentiated from other parties by the capital P.) The people going were me, my best girlfriend Justina, Ruby and her boyfriend Steph (short e), and Gloria and Peter, who were friends with all of us and pretended not to like each other and failed to fool anyone but each other.
The place was this Tudor-style house, but huge and with all its attributes exaggerated, and you could tell it was just honeycombed with rooms because there were so many windows all lined up next to each other. Light was spilling out all the windows, and you could just see all kinds of partying going on.
We went in the front door on the bottom floor and there was this big guy with a frown that looked permanent who took our money and gave us a map of the rooms and told us generally where the types of parties were—the clique parties, the hard core parties, the more genteel parties. Since we were all under 21 we had to wear red nametags that had our names on them and would also alert various bartenders to only serve us virgin drinks. Peter wrote Sir Lancelot on his and grinned as if he was clever.
We chose one of the more genteel parties to start off with, a cocktail party kind of thing with chips and dip and drinks and pool and ping-pong and people talking and flirting pleasantly. I got a Virgin Mary from the bar and settled on my stool, wondering if people would flirt with me. There seemed to be quite a mix, teenagers through middle-aged. I wondered which were the actors.
Ruby went off to the bathroom after a while and Steph went to the bar and ordered something. He was leaning against the bar still when a girl, woman, I don't know, she could have been anywhere from 18 to 25, anyway she was wearing a tight sequined red dress and she kind of slunk over to Steph and asked him what his name was.
“Steph,” he said, and as always there was that note of triumph in his voice, as if it were something special that his parents had decided to steal a stupid Russian name instead of using a stupid American one. (His real name, in case you hadn't guessed, was Stephan, still with the short e.)
“That's a cool name,” the lady in the red dress cooed at him.
“Ya think?” said Steph, grinning more broadly.
“Sure,” she said.
They made small talk for a while. I got bored and so I drowned out the specifics, but it seemed to go along with her cooing and him getting all full of himself—he seemed to really enjoy flirting with her. After a while there was a pause, and I looked over to see him regarding her with narrowed eyes. She was looking back at him, a mysterious indefatigable smile splayed across her features.
“You're one of them, aren't you?” he said.
“One of who, darling?” she said, and there was laughter in her voice.
“Them, the actors this place hires to keep us entertained. You thought I looked bored, so you came over here to make me feel good about myself so I'd come back here and tell my friends what a great place this is.”
“Would I do that?” she said, and oh she was very prettily offended. She gestured to encompass the entire building. “Look at this place. Do you think the owners here really need the business of you personally?”
He continued to look at her with narrowed eyes.
She sighed. “Look, suppose I am. Have I said anything about you that you don't already believe? Also, didn't you get a thrill out of flirting with me? There's nothing fake about that, is there?”
He continued to watch her, and she grinned again and batted her eyes.
“Or maybe I really am an actor, but I'm actually taken by you. Did you ever think of that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did, actually. But how can I know?”
She smiled, and batted her eyes again and now she was really pouring it on thick. “Well, ask me to get out of here and find a quieter place with you.” Her smile widened, and it was almost a predator's grin. “A paid actress wouldn't do that, would she?”
Just then Ruby got out of the bathroom. Steph saw her walking towards him. “One minute,” he said to the lady in red. He took Ruby by the arm, and found the rest of us and announced they were ready to try another room.
Look around you. They're everywhere.
Your history is riddled with them.
Your country's history,
Your personal history,
Your world's history.
No matter what religion you subscribe to (even atheism), there's somebody out there lying about it.
Your job requires a lot of it,
And especially any school you might happen to be attending.
Your nights,
Your days,
Your resumes,
Your life.
And yes, this is one of them.
Vehement Apathy
It's what happens when you really, really, really don't care.
I experienced it a lot working at Target.
More on that, possibly, to come.
I experienced it a lot working at Target.
More on that, possibly, to come.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Two Thoughts, Based On Recent Experiences
1. The Dylan version of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" is infinitely superior to the Guns 'N Roses version.
2. Though I've read critics who say that it's one of Fitzgerald's "immature" novels, This Side of Paradise is one of the best books I've ever read.
2. Though I've read critics who say that it's one of Fitzgerald's "immature" novels, This Side of Paradise is one of the best books I've ever read.
Monday, August 11, 2008
100 Posts
Yes, I know a 100-posts post is trite, and cliche, and all those other things we try to avoid being. However, I need a post, and I can find nothing better to write about at the moment. So.
If you went back and counted my published posts--well, you would be either very pathetic or very bored or both. You would not, however, find 100 posts. Blogger, when I sign in, tells me how many posts I have, but it includes those that I start and do not publish and for one reason or another (usually forgetfulness or negligence) do not get rid of. So, and I reiterate, I have nothing better to write about, I have decided to tour through these unpublished posts, starting with the oldest, and see what there is to see.
The oldest post that for some reason never saw light (I don't know why, it seems to have been finished) is called ""Literature."" (There are quotes in the title but I was quoting the title.) It contains my reviews of two works, Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love-Chase, which is a Gothic-esque thriller she wrote that remained unpublished until about ten years ago, and The Song of Roland, an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne (dated the High Middle Ages, if I remember right). It is very nearly the only viable piece of literature to come out of France.
Instead of recapitulating the whole thing, I will give the short versions: the ostensible editor of A Long Fatal Love-Chase rejected it because it was "Too long and too sensational." I read it and found it too long and, well, too sensational. The Song of Roland is boring until you get to the fighting, then it's worth the boredom.
Next we have two posts that I think I didn't publish because I realized they were stupid. Then we have the Master List of Good Fantasy, which was my project last summer, which I abandoned because between the formatting and the project itself, the bloody thing became too unwieldy. (I still have a Master List of Good Fantasy, but it's mostly in my head now.)
The next unpublished bit is called "College Tour," and is my attempt at a summary of the college tour Aaron and Heidi and I did back in ancient history, near the end of our senior year of high school. I didn't published it because through some glitch large sections of the summary were erased, and I didn't want to spend the time recreating them and then I forgot about it. I will send it to interested parties, but be warned, the experience of reading it is like watching a movie that randomly skips several scenes forward.
Next are two posts entitled "Stormfield Goes to College," dated 9/3 and 10/8, and a post called "Stormfield's Return From Blogatory" which I think was meant to be the same idea. The first is blank, and the second contains the perfunctory statement "Here it is, the off-to-college post I should have written a month ago." The third says the same and also mentions my intention to do NaNoWriMo. (I managed it, despite being in college; not sure how.)
A month or so later, we have a somewhat emo-ish rant, which I didn't publish because I don't read emo-ish rants and in fact find them embarrassing. Then there is "Rebuilding Civilization," a short post I don't know why I didn't published, reproduced below:
And, really, that's the pinnacle. So, there you are (wherever you go). 100 posts, 0 coherent points.
If you went back and counted my published posts--well, you would be either very pathetic or very bored or both. You would not, however, find 100 posts. Blogger, when I sign in, tells me how many posts I have, but it includes those that I start and do not publish and for one reason or another (usually forgetfulness or negligence) do not get rid of. So, and I reiterate, I have nothing better to write about, I have decided to tour through these unpublished posts, starting with the oldest, and see what there is to see.
The oldest post that for some reason never saw light (I don't know why, it seems to have been finished) is called ""Literature."" (There are quotes in the title but I was quoting the title.) It contains my reviews of two works, Louisa May Alcott's A Long Fatal Love-Chase, which is a Gothic-esque thriller she wrote that remained unpublished until about ten years ago, and The Song of Roland, an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne (dated the High Middle Ages, if I remember right). It is very nearly the only viable piece of literature to come out of France.
Instead of recapitulating the whole thing, I will give the short versions: the ostensible editor of A Long Fatal Love-Chase rejected it because it was "Too long and too sensational." I read it and found it too long and, well, too sensational. The Song of Roland is boring until you get to the fighting, then it's worth the boredom.
Next we have two posts that I think I didn't publish because I realized they were stupid. Then we have the Master List of Good Fantasy, which was my project last summer, which I abandoned because between the formatting and the project itself, the bloody thing became too unwieldy. (I still have a Master List of Good Fantasy, but it's mostly in my head now.)
The next unpublished bit is called "College Tour," and is my attempt at a summary of the college tour Aaron and Heidi and I did back in ancient history, near the end of our senior year of high school. I didn't published it because through some glitch large sections of the summary were erased, and I didn't want to spend the time recreating them and then I forgot about it. I will send it to interested parties, but be warned, the experience of reading it is like watching a movie that randomly skips several scenes forward.
Next are two posts entitled "Stormfield Goes to College," dated 9/3 and 10/8, and a post called "Stormfield's Return From Blogatory" which I think was meant to be the same idea. The first is blank, and the second contains the perfunctory statement "Here it is, the off-to-college post I should have written a month ago." The third says the same and also mentions my intention to do NaNoWriMo. (I managed it, despite being in college; not sure how.)
A month or so later, we have a somewhat emo-ish rant, which I didn't publish because I don't read emo-ish rants and in fact find them embarrassing. Then there is "Rebuilding Civilization," a short post I don't know why I didn't published, reproduced below:
So a while ago I posted a question on Facebook: If civilization as we know it were ending, and you could choose one book to preserve for those who would have to build society back again from the rubble, what book would it be?
My choice would be The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. One might say, Why such a confusing novel? Why not something along the lines of Common Sense? Well, despite some of the fairly spectacular things about our current governmental system, the fact is that the world is a mess, always has been a mess, and always will be a mess. Once human beings got back on their feet after whatever theoretical catastrophe did them in, I'm sure we'd have no problem recreating said mess.
However, if Mr. Shandy's book were to be the only thing saved, surely it would also be closely studied, and perhaps even understood. It is my opinion that if more people today understood this book (granted, it's a cursedly hard thing to do), there would be exponentially greater happiness in the world. If a whole civilization grew up understanding it... well, it would be a sight to see.
And, really, that's the pinnacle. So, there you are (wherever you go). 100 posts, 0 coherent points.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
A Tribute to Fedoras
[I am posting this because I need another post but I am too lazy to write something new. Also, my brother threatened to post it for me if I didn't. It was my "Special Occasion/After Dinner Speech" for speech class last semester. It was a manuscript speech, meaning I had the whole thing (rather than merely an outline) on the podium before me. My speech prof said embarrassingly complimentary things about it.]
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
This is the last thing Humphrey Bogart says at the end of the classic movie Casablanca. But what is the last thing we see? The camera rises and fades backward, and we see Rick and Louis from behind. All we can see of Rick--Bogart's character--is his trench coat, his slouch--and his hat. Bogart was almost never onscreen without his hat. The image of him, with his trench coat tied shut, hands in his pockets, slouched over with a cigarette dangling from his upper lip, is incomplete without the hat, without the fedora.
Cary Grant, who might be described as the quintessential ladies' man, was also rarely without a fedora. At the end of The Philadelphia Story, when his character marries Katherine Hepburn's for the second time, he takes it off--but only reluctantly.
Think of It's a Wonderful Life. Towards the beginning of that movie, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey is visiting the woman he will eventually marry. They get into a sort of lover's tiff, and he storms out of her house. He returns with the excuse, "I forgot my hat." That hat? A fedora.
And for modern fedora-wearers there is, of course, the one and only Indiana Jones. Indy's fedora is unique--made of a little sterner stuff, the better to take the desert heat and the jungle mist, to survive falling into pits and falling out of planes, and snakes. I hate snakes. The brim of Indy's hat is a little funny too--turned down in the back, atypical. But it doesn't matter. It is a fedora, and whether rolling beneath a stone gate to escape hostile natives, fleeing Nazis on horseback, or jumping from truck to speeding truck--he never loses it.
Now, I am no Indiana Jones, no Jimmy Stewart, no Cary Grant and certainly no Bogart. At least not yet. But I and many of my friends habitually wear fedoras as well. What is it about this hat, this quintessence of felt and ribbon, that so excites us, that inspires such loyalty and admiration?
Well, half of it is practical, but only half. The fedora really is a well-designed hat. It sits securely on your head, but it does not sit strictly--the only people who feel constricted by a fedora are those with big heads wearing small sizes. Because of this, and because of the sweat band on the inside of the hat, strenuous activity doesn't upset the fedora--it keeps a stiff upper lip and plods along, right with you. It's an easy-going hat, and versatile. You can wear it in the rain, and it will keep you dry; you can wear it in the heat, and its long brim will shield your face and the back of your neck. If you're bored, you can talk to it, and it will at least pretend to listen. I don't recommend this last in public, though.
A fedora is durable, as well. A fedora belonging to a friend of mine blew off his head on a windy day. It blew straight into the path of an oncoming car, which ran it over. My friend picked it up, popped it back into position, and it was good as new.
There is another half to the fedora's attraction, and this is the side that is difficult to put into words. There's a sort of metaphysical, spiritual bond between a fedora and its owner. A fedora looks, if you'll pardon the much-overused colloquialism, cool. There's something about walking in the rain, with your head down and the fedora shielding your face and taking the rain so you don't have to--it's like being in trouble and having a friend, uncomplaining, who takes the rap for you. You feel more like yourself, in a fedora. As though your best features are exaggerated, and your worst ones, hidden away.
Whether saying goodbye to the love of your life, escaping angry Nazis, or just going to class every day, the fedora adds some dash, some panache, some whiplash to an outfit. It makes life more interesting, cool, and ultimately more enjoyable.
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
This is the last thing Humphrey Bogart says at the end of the classic movie Casablanca. But what is the last thing we see? The camera rises and fades backward, and we see Rick and Louis from behind. All we can see of Rick--Bogart's character--is his trench coat, his slouch--and his hat. Bogart was almost never onscreen without his hat. The image of him, with his trench coat tied shut, hands in his pockets, slouched over with a cigarette dangling from his upper lip, is incomplete without the hat, without the fedora.
Cary Grant, who might be described as the quintessential ladies' man, was also rarely without a fedora. At the end of The Philadelphia Story, when his character marries Katherine Hepburn's for the second time, he takes it off--but only reluctantly.
Think of It's a Wonderful Life. Towards the beginning of that movie, Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey is visiting the woman he will eventually marry. They get into a sort of lover's tiff, and he storms out of her house. He returns with the excuse, "I forgot my hat." That hat? A fedora.
And for modern fedora-wearers there is, of course, the one and only Indiana Jones. Indy's fedora is unique--made of a little sterner stuff, the better to take the desert heat and the jungle mist, to survive falling into pits and falling out of planes, and snakes. I hate snakes. The brim of Indy's hat is a little funny too--turned down in the back, atypical. But it doesn't matter. It is a fedora, and whether rolling beneath a stone gate to escape hostile natives, fleeing Nazis on horseback, or jumping from truck to speeding truck--he never loses it.
Now, I am no Indiana Jones, no Jimmy Stewart, no Cary Grant and certainly no Bogart. At least not yet. But I and many of my friends habitually wear fedoras as well. What is it about this hat, this quintessence of felt and ribbon, that so excites us, that inspires such loyalty and admiration?
Well, half of it is practical, but only half. The fedora really is a well-designed hat. It sits securely on your head, but it does not sit strictly--the only people who feel constricted by a fedora are those with big heads wearing small sizes. Because of this, and because of the sweat band on the inside of the hat, strenuous activity doesn't upset the fedora--it keeps a stiff upper lip and plods along, right with you. It's an easy-going hat, and versatile. You can wear it in the rain, and it will keep you dry; you can wear it in the heat, and its long brim will shield your face and the back of your neck. If you're bored, you can talk to it, and it will at least pretend to listen. I don't recommend this last in public, though.
A fedora is durable, as well. A fedora belonging to a friend of mine blew off his head on a windy day. It blew straight into the path of an oncoming car, which ran it over. My friend picked it up, popped it back into position, and it was good as new.
There is another half to the fedora's attraction, and this is the side that is difficult to put into words. There's a sort of metaphysical, spiritual bond between a fedora and its owner. A fedora looks, if you'll pardon the much-overused colloquialism, cool. There's something about walking in the rain, with your head down and the fedora shielding your face and taking the rain so you don't have to--it's like being in trouble and having a friend, uncomplaining, who takes the rap for you. You feel more like yourself, in a fedora. As though your best features are exaggerated, and your worst ones, hidden away.
Whether saying goodbye to the love of your life, escaping angry Nazis, or just going to class every day, the fedora adds some dash, some panache, some whiplash to an outfit. It makes life more interesting, cool, and ultimately more enjoyable.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Crossroads
I was out running this morning (It's true! you people stop gasping, and you stop snickering). I turned down the bike trail that cuts through the center of town because it's a cool, wooded place that serves to conceal me from a large number of those likely to point and laugh.
Except then, I came to the Bridge. It's an old wooden bridge--describing it as an old railroad bridge with the train tracks taken out and slabs laid down so real people could travel across it would be exactly accurate. (The bike trail used to be a railroad line.) If I were in a more romantic mood, I would spend a couple of paragraphs describing said bridge in mythological terms. It's old, and worn down in the middle were probably hundreds of thousands of feet and bike wheels and snowmobiles have traversed it. It has a tendency to bounce and buckle when you cross it, just a bit, just enough to make you nervous.
Anyway, I stood in the middle of it and looked out in four directions, and realized it was sort of a four-dimensional crossroads. Before and behind me, running underneath the bridge, was Main Street in the place where it widens in preparation for becoming The Highway. To the north, it ran through the newly developed portions of town to said Highway, out past warehouses bearing the name of a grocery store and Walgreens and the Library, past the golf course where what pathetic Rich and Elite this town has hobnob with each other. Thus the new side of town.
About-face, and you see trees that were old when my father was young, buildings with gabled roofs hidden from the public by grandiose false fronts. Entire blocks of buildings squashed together in what, come to think of it, is probably an incredible firetrap. Old, roomy houses with honest-to-god towers built into them. The graveyard, neglected, its headstones crumbling into a dust comparable to that of their graves' inhabitants. And trolls. I can find no way to romanticize trolls. Thus, Old Town.
The other two directions were back and forward (relative to me) along the bike trail. Behind me lay Civilization--Kwik Trip, the investment office and antique shops and other businesses that make their homes here in town. Before me lay (at least, what looked like) The Wild. Trees of a rich green grew up and leaned out over the trail to form an arch under which the brown of the gravel trail ran, and it was a somehow richer brown for associating with all that Nature. The road beckoned to me with all the overblown symbolic virility of a womb symbol, or the Hero's Call to Adventure.
I wandered toward Nature, down that (as it were) Hero's Road, until I realized with regret that there were other things I wanted to do this day, and I went home.
(Now, there probably is some symbolic meaning I could draw forth from the above--that is, more than I have already hinted at. And by probably and some, I actually mean definitely and a ton. However, to go into it would be cruel to my readers, probably make them want to hurt me, and might actually lead to me wanting to hurt myself. So, in the interests of self-preservation and altruism, I will end here.)
Except then, I came to the Bridge. It's an old wooden bridge--describing it as an old railroad bridge with the train tracks taken out and slabs laid down so real people could travel across it would be exactly accurate. (The bike trail used to be a railroad line.) If I were in a more romantic mood, I would spend a couple of paragraphs describing said bridge in mythological terms. It's old, and worn down in the middle were probably hundreds of thousands of feet and bike wheels and snowmobiles have traversed it. It has a tendency to bounce and buckle when you cross it, just a bit, just enough to make you nervous.
Anyway, I stood in the middle of it and looked out in four directions, and realized it was sort of a four-dimensional crossroads. Before and behind me, running underneath the bridge, was Main Street in the place where it widens in preparation for becoming The Highway. To the north, it ran through the newly developed portions of town to said Highway, out past warehouses bearing the name of a grocery store and Walgreens and the Library, past the golf course where what pathetic Rich and Elite this town has hobnob with each other. Thus the new side of town.
About-face, and you see trees that were old when my father was young, buildings with gabled roofs hidden from the public by grandiose false fronts. Entire blocks of buildings squashed together in what, come to think of it, is probably an incredible firetrap. Old, roomy houses with honest-to-god towers built into them. The graveyard, neglected, its headstones crumbling into a dust comparable to that of their graves' inhabitants. And trolls. I can find no way to romanticize trolls. Thus, Old Town.
The other two directions were back and forward (relative to me) along the bike trail. Behind me lay Civilization--Kwik Trip, the investment office and antique shops and other businesses that make their homes here in town. Before me lay (at least, what looked like) The Wild. Trees of a rich green grew up and leaned out over the trail to form an arch under which the brown of the gravel trail ran, and it was a somehow richer brown for associating with all that Nature. The road beckoned to me with all the overblown symbolic virility of a womb symbol, or the Hero's Call to Adventure.
I wandered toward Nature, down that (as it were) Hero's Road, until I realized with regret that there were other things I wanted to do this day, and I went home.
(Now, there probably is some symbolic meaning I could draw forth from the above--that is, more than I have already hinted at. And by probably and some, I actually mean definitely and a ton. However, to go into it would be cruel to my readers, probably make them want to hurt me, and might actually lead to me wanting to hurt myself. So, in the interests of self-preservation and altruism, I will end here.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Jackanapes, Blackguards and Knaves, Oh My!
Here, from yourdictionary.com, is an excellent piece which laments the fall of the English insult, and suggests some classic alternatives to our modern mishmash of misconstructed malapropisms. (You know what? Alliteration is sometimes like falling in a hole. You get in to it, and you can't get back out.)
Anyway, read the above, and clean up your language!
(Exit, pursued by a blackguard)
Anyway, read the above, and clean up your language!
(Exit, pursued by a blackguard)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)