Quentin

Thanks to Cynthia at Muse Swings for inspiring a more chilling variety of narratives as the Autumn brings with it thoughts of the Great Pumpkin, candy corn, gory masks and, of course scary stories.

Once upon I time I attended an old boarding school in a small village in Southeastern New Hampshire. Yes, I know! That proved scary enough in itself, but I don't want you to be frightened yet... A friend and I decided to share a room on the first floor of an old dormitory which was built in the 1930's when the school was still all boys. The old building (seen in the bottom right) was built of brick and the interiors had beautiful wooden doors with stately -- albeit a bit shabby-- appointments and furnishings. In the autumn, the ivy on the side of the dormitory would turn a brilliant shade of red.

When we moved in some strange things started to happen. We would leave, locking the heavy door behind us and return to find things altered. At first it was a towel here, a shirt there, but after the first few days, we were greeted with increasing disarray.

Of course, we chalked this up to our imaginations and shared news of our funny third roommate with all our friends. We dubbed him Quentin. During the course of that winter of 1983-84, Quentin made quite a name for himself. We promptly enrolled him for an ambitious load of courses, and his name rang out all over campus as attendance was taken. When it came time for roll call at our dorm meetings, someone would inevitable include "Quentin" and someone else would stamp their foot or knock on a chair. Any unusual noise or creak was always a sure sign that our good friend Quentin was in for a visit.

By the time the late spring thaw arrived we had all quite forgotten about Quentin. Our thoughts inevitably turned towards the coming of warmth, and summer, and home. One day, as we returned from classes we met an older man who had come to tour the campus. He requested permission to see our room because he had lived there during his own school days when it was still a boys' dormitory. We quickly cleaned up, hiding our messy clothes, shoes and books in the closet and under beds and invited him in. As he came into our room he walked around smiling at first, then paused reflectively and cleared his throat. 

"You'll have to excuse me a moment, I have some pretty powerful memories being back here. I shared this room with a friend of mine, and he died that year. His name was Quentin."

Paul Newman

OK I finally found them. All I will say is that if I had seen this picture...

...before I took this picture

...and this picture

...perhaps I would not have survived the day with my dignity intact.

Akhtamar

(click image to enlarge)

Beside the laughing lake of Van  
A little hamlet lies;  
Each night into the waves a man  
Leaps under darkened skies.  

He cleaves the waves with mightly arm,  
Needing no raft or boat,  
And swims, disdaining risk and harm,  
Towards the isle remote.  

On the dark island burns so bright  
A piercing, luring ray:  
There's lit a beacon every night  
To guide him on his way.  

Upon the island is that fire  
Lit by Tamar the fair;  
Who waits, all burning with desire,  
Beneath the shelter there.  

The lover's heart-how doth it beat!  
How beat the roaring waves!  
But, bold and scorning to retreat,  
The elements he braves.  

And now Tamar the fair doth hear,  
With trembling heart aflame,  
The water splashing-oh, so near,  
And fire consumes her frame.  

All quiet is on the shore around,  
And, black,there looms a shade:  
The darkness utters not a sound,  
The swimmer finds the maid.  

The tide-waves ripple, lisp and splash  
And murmur, soft and low;  
They urge each other, mingle, clash,  
As, ebbing out, they go.  

Flutter and rustle the dark waves.  
And with them every star  
Whispers how sinfully behaves  
The shameless maid Tamar;  

Their whisper shakes her throbbing her  
This time, as was before!  
The youth into the waves doth dart,  
The maiden prays on shore.  

But certain villains, full of spite,  
Against them did conspire,  
And on a hellish, mirky night  
Put out the guiding fire.  

The luckless lover lost his way,  
And only from afar  
The wind is carrying in his sway  
The moans of:"Ah, Tamar!"  

And through the night his voice is heard  
Upon the craggy shores,  
And, though it's muffled and blurred  
By the waves' rapid roars,  

The words fly forward-faint they are-  
"Ah, Tamar!"  
And in the morn the splashing tide  
The hapless yough cast out,  

Who,battling with the waters, died  
In an unequal bout;  
Cold lips are clenched, two words they bar:  
"Ah, Tamar!"  
And ever since, both near and far,  
They call the island Akhtamar

Hovhannes Toumanian

1869-1923

Here's a link to a film with some beautiful shots of the church of the Holy Cross on Akhtamar. Armenia is the world's oldest Christian culture and the church architecture is sublime. The Europeans saw these buildings during the Crusades and it had an important influence on the development of gothic cathedrals. 

It was constructed by King Gagik as his palatine church in 921 AD.  The iconographical program on the sculpted exterior incorporates writhing beasties influenced by Sassanian (Persian) princely hunting motifs but a lot of the images show the influence of the medieval bestiary -- an amazing source of animal stories used as allegories for teaching the gospel to the illiterate Joe Sixpack Medieval guy. The film has some lovely shots of the vine scrolls which depict the labors of the months. The larger relief sculptures show Jonah and the whale and David and Goliath. You can also make out the Adam and Eve and the Naming of the Animals.

Here's a link to a beautiful slideshow that shows the lovely color of the stone. The is on my list of places I hope to visit before I die -- I figure I've got another 60 years. That and the 7-Eleven in Providence, RI. Oh, and I also want to attend the same party as Roberto Benigni and travel to India to get my hands hennaed. Am I asking too much?

The Audacity of Fiorra

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; ....

I can't be the only one with a serious case existential angst this election year. The more I see and hear about the contemporary political landscape the more I feel as though we are merely going through the motions with our representative democracy. One might expect that most governments evolve into plutocracies to some degree as the wealthy find ways of achieving greater power and influence. But now it seems to have achieved such a pitch and frenzy that our democracy has become dysfunctional and we are actually being governed by media conglomerates, oil companies and other powerful lobbying groups. 

Our presidential elections have far less to do with statesmanship or political platforms and everything to do with imaging and marketing. They've done their job well. A cheery voice told us in 2000, "You get all this: cowboy for president, a representative of American values, ardent opponent of nation-building, who is committed to the the environment for only 19.99. Act now, and you'll receive a portion of our nation's surplus. That's right, a real money check mailed right to your door, plus a set of Ginzu Knifes." In 2004, we heard the same thing, "If you ignore the war we entered by lying to you, the torture we allowed at Abu Graib, and fall into rank and file, then by jingo, we'll throw in the Imperial Oil Protectorate of Iraq. Act now and you'll receive an additional incentive check as a token of our gratitude." Now we're hearing the familiar refrain once again "Now, from the people who brought you hits like Iraq, Abu Graib and Katrina there's the War on Money. Call now, and we'll manage your economy for only 2,319.99!"

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity...

As I talk to people I really admire I find that some of the most brilliant and clear-minded people I know are the most disheartened right now. They are not staffing the phones for their candidates, but listening to the debates and thinking "There is barely any difference. These guys sound the same." Especially since they have both served as senators, McCain and Obama volley charges about the each other's voting records, like a pair of cranky schoolboys playing badminton. But we will never find our ideal candidate. I myself would rather have heard someone support South Ossetia's right to declare autonomy from Georgia. I feel sad that when asked if Russia under Putin is an evil empire, my guy failed to muster the correct response: "Hell no, I refuse to allow Reagan's late 20th century characterization of global politics define this era." It is just plain sad to see this mess and there's so much blame to go around. I still can't bring myself disengage from the process because my candidate isn't perfect.

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeah the news is just plain depressing, but come on Yeats, man! It's not that bad. I'll pass along a little snippet of HOPE that I gleaned from the debate. The mere fact that this question was asked brought me so much satisfaction because it moved the debate away from talking points and towards an issue of national character.

Brokaw: Sen. McCain, for you, we have our first question from the Internet tonight. A child of the Depression, 78-year-old Fiorra from Chicago:

"Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices -- sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?"

Fiorra, you rock! Thank you for giving the watching public one brief shining moment to remember that American life is about more than all the stuff you get.

Now I really must go, Blicky is actually being held in a little timeout downstairs since this whole Wall Street debacle. Bad Blicky! I think I hear him down there meowing "sell" into his Blackberry, so I've got to locate his recharger and pick up a few toiletries for him online.

Facebook Is Not a Waste of Time.

Here is some of the important information you might have missed:

[Insert name here] ...is making yogurt and using a yoga mat to turn her 2 yr. old into a mermaid.

...is only now realizing that the Jack Johnson Curious George song opens with the same percussive riff as Sympathy for the Devil.

...is wondering if loving your own cooking is like laughing at your own jokes.

...keeps checking http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com

If I didn't spend time on Facebook and find out about that last link, God only knows what might have happened. Don't worry, I click on this link every day just to be on the safe side.

Addendum to this Facebook post 10/9:

I just could resist adding this posted by a grade school friend Brendan.

Sara Palin: Master Rhetorician

As I watch the vice presidential debate tonight I'm slowly realizing that we deserve the leaders we get with our popular defiance of anything intelligent and substantive. It's taken me a while to grasp this because my attention span -- hey look something shiny -- has been affected by stultifying popular discourse -- wonder if there are any cookies upstairs, yummy cookies, cookies are really yummy, just like ice cream. Our leadership is a symptom of basic problems in our culture. We strive for excellence and quality in everything else; our cars, our airplanes, our factories and schools and then choose the worst possible option when it comes to our leadership. 

One thing that Palin shares with Bush is the way she wears her ignorance like a badge of honor. This allows her to parry any kind of challenge or complex idea with a wink and a cute smile that drives straight through our flaccid Joe Sixpack cerebral cortexes and right into our limbic systems. Oooo...Sarah pretty...shiny...we're good...America always right....and shiny. I think Blicky's latest plan with Rove is to engineer a way for the information to travel to the motor cortex directly and wait there until we're in the voting booth.

Every time Palin utters the names Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il I feel like somewhere there's a social studies book inexplicably bursting into flames. It's as if she might start drifting off and talking about Padhkavilijad the Princess of Hungary and Shuskamucharad the Emperor of Scotland and hope we don't look it up. If we do, she'd wink at us and say "Joe, may I call you Joe...Sixpack?" Oooo..so pretty...so shiny.

In the current intellectual climate, Lincoln would have lost to a Bush or Palin because real wisdom and substance gets vilified as elitist within the present system. Here's how the debate with Lincoln and Palin would play out.

Lincoln: To allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he deems it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade [Iraq] to prevent [al Quaida] from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, — "I see no probability of [ al Quaida working with Saddam Hussein, or the existence of WMD]"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."

To provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood. (Letter, while US Congressman, to his friend and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War,15 February 1848)

Palin: (Smiles) Can I call you Abe? Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that's for sure. And it's not what our nation needs to be able to count on. We'll know when we're finished in Iraq when the Iraqi government can govern its people and when the Iraqi security forces can secure its people. And our commanders on the ground will tell us when those conditions have been met. [And Grand Pasha Hestashabawedacon of the Kingdom of France and the Sumerian Emperor Meshanipada] also is working with us are knowing again that we are getting closer and closer to that point, that victory that's within sight. John McCain knows how to win a war. He knows what evil is. You betcha. My Amygdala responds: Fear! Fear!...not good...terrorists will get ice cream.

It's time that a normal Joe Six Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice-presidency. I think that has kind of taken some people off guard, and they're out of sorts, and they're ticked off about it." (Pasted together from debate and pre-debate quotes) Mmmm sixpack...yummy...make me forget fear.... 

In the Mist of a Memory You Wander Back to Me

Inspired by McSweeney’s Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond with a shout-out to PoetiKat

Dear Donny,

I’ve been meaning to write this for quite some time. The last letter I wrote to you was in 1977. Remember? I told you that hilariously funny joke about how you always wore purple socks. That was so funny. I was hoping you’d be so intrigued that you’d want to meet me and invite me onto the Donny & Marie Show, but I guess it didn’t work out. I know how busy you were back then. You had legions of fans and here I was, an eight-year-old girl.

I had the whole thing planned out though; I even had my outfit picked out. I knew I definitely wouldn’t wear one of those long sequined dresses like Marie and all your other guests. Instead, I would’ve have worn my best jeans, a purple turtleneck, a preppy ribbon belt with purple flowers and, of course, matching purple socks. Of course you would have been struck by my casual beauty, but my dance performance would have really revealed my special, poetic soul. The lights would fade slowly as the music started: “When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls, And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky…” I had a carefully planned dance routine with leg kicks, axles, gymnastics and pretty arm flourishes that I had learned in ballet. I practiced every night in my room with the 45. It was a little embarrassing when my brother walked in, but I was determined to impress you with how graceful I was.

I suppose our relationship would’ve been brief. I hadn’t really thought through how it would work, but I had a vague idea that we would kiss and maybe move our heads around just the way they did on the Love Boat and Fantasy Island…

Anyway, a lot of the other girls at school started liking Eric Estrada, the boy from Eight is Enough and Rick Springfield, but I remained true to us. Dr. Blakely told me that I had to let go, but I never did. My love was so strong that I had to go away for a little while, but I’m much better now. I live in a small house in northern Utah now and I work from home. I have my own taxidermy studio in a cabin out back and I spend a lot of time in front of the computer or out finding small animals. So you still live in Salt Lake City? I get into the big city every so often now that I have discovered freganism. There are some great dumpsters between East South Temple and University Boulevard.

Anyway, I never got married. I know, huh? I heard you married Debbie of course. By the way, she threw out a perfectly good loaf of wheat bread last week. There were only two green pieces! It’s too bad about your cat being missing. I read the notices your grandchildren made and it looked like Mittens’ pelt was really soft. So maybe we could get together sometime. Isn’t it OK for Mormons to marry other people? If not, maybe we could just dance or hold hands and sing or something. I’ll be on University Boulevard next Tuesday morning. Remember, “In the mist of a memory you wander back to me, Breathing my name with a sigh…”

Love,

Lorna Baker

Willow Creek Health Center

Logan, Utah