No one online presents the fascinating and sometimes disturbing art of fantasy quite like Lily Wight. Check out her Arcade of Automatons. The soul of objects and objects becoming ensouled have been part of the human dream in stories like Pygmalion, Pinocchio, and the recent movie, Hugo. Physical representations can be downright spooky. Ok, maybe not the lego automaton, but how about the skull and crossbones clock or the 16th century monk? Enjoy these great finds.
“We need magic and bliss, and power and myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.” – Jerry Garcia.
I was carried away in a rapture. And so i am a Deadhead now…” —Joseph Campbell
Jerry Garcia, 1966, by Zooomabooma, CC By-NC-SA 2.0
With all due respect to Don McLean, the music died on August 9, 1995, the day we lost Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist and most easily recognized member of the Grateful Dead. Between 1965 and 1995, the Dead played an average of 77 shows a year. Though volumes have been written about the experience, it is difficult to put into words. Joseph Campbell was friends with several members of the band. In a 1986 symposium with Garcia, drummer Micky Hart, and several Jungian analysts, Campbell said:
“The genius of these musicians- these three guitars and two wild drummers in the back… Listen, this is powerful stuff ! And what is it ? The first thing I thought of was the Dionysian festivals, of course…This is more than music. It turns something on in here (the heart?). And what it turns on is life energy. This is Dionysus talking through these kids. Now I’ ve seen similar manifestations, but nothing as innocent as what I saw with this bunch. This was sheer innocence…This is a wonderful fervent loss of self in the larger self of a homogeneous community. This is what it is all about!”
The Dead were always a touring band, and the shows were unique events that people loved or hated – I’ve never met anyone who was indifferent. When they played Sacramento or Oakland on weekdays, half of the people in my department at work – and we’re talking electrical and software engineers – would arrive in the morning in tie-dye and take the afternoon off to attend. The other half could not have cared less.
Campbell’s assessment reveals the “innocent joy” I felt after my first few shows, captured by the lyrics of “Scarlet Begonias:”
Strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hand,
Everybody’s playin in the Heart of Gold Band.
In reality, you don’t get that close to Dionysus without paying a price. Thirty years on the road took its toll on Garcia. In the summer of 1995, he checked himself into a rehab facility and died in his sleep of heart failure a week after his 53d birthday.
Jerry and the Dead left us a huge musical legacy, with at least one song, “Truckin,” designated as a National Treasure by the Library of Congress. Surviving members of the band continue to release the best concert tapes, and everything has just been remastered for iTunes. You can look at the collection here: Grateful Dead on iTunes.
In the end, maybe Joseph Campbell, with his eyes of innocence, saw it most clearly when he said, “It doesn’t matter what the name of the God is, or whether it’s a rock group or a clergy. It’s somehow hitting that chord of realization of the unity of God in you all, that’s a terrific thing and it just blows the rest away.”
Rest in peace, Jerry, and thanks for the ride!
I wasn’t even thinking of the Perseid meteor showers when I posted my review of Stardust, a movie in which a shooting star is central to the story. Since then I’vs spotted news articles which reminded me that the annual peak time to see shooting stars is upon us!
Nasa photo: public domain
Every August for the last 2000 years, we have been treated to meteor showers as the earth passes by remnants of the Swift-Tuttle comet. This year, because light from the waning crescent moon will be dim, the celestial light show should be especially dramatic.
The meteors will be visible from now through August 24, peaking this weekend, on the 11th and 12th. NASA estimates we could see as many as 80-100 shooting stars per hour on those nights. Best viewing will naturally be in places away from city lights, but in past years, I’ve seen the Perseids from the back yard, where there is plenty of ambient light.
This is really worth checking out if you get the chance. No matter how many other distractions we face, celestial events like this can stop us in our tracks, open our eyes of wonder, and remind us again of the things that really matter.
One day while Neil Gaiman was driving in England, he noticed a wall by the side of the road and imagined Faerie on the other side. He conceived the story of an American author visiting Britain who would discover the wall. Shortly after this, on the night he received a literary award, Gaiman saw a shooting star, and the idea for Stardust was born.
Stardust was first released as an illustrated series in 1997 and then as a novel in 1999, which won an award from the Mythopoetic Society. A movie version in 2007 received favorable reviews. After my recent review of Gaiman’s 2013 novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I realized I’d never seen the Stardust movie. It’s available for rent on iTunes, and I highly recommend it.
Stardust gives us the wall, a wonderful metaphor for much of human culture, erected to keep us out of Faerie, the realm of imagination, heightened emotion, wonders, terrors, true love, and our true selves.
Responsible citizens don’t cross the wall.
Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox), a young man who lives in the town of Wall, is a classic dummling. He’s a klutz who can’t keep a job and is infatuated with Victoria, a girl who won’t take him seriously and whose finance delights in tormenting him. Yet Tristan’s father, who has been over the wall, says that might be a good thing – most people who find it easy to fit in “lead unremarkable lives.” Then he tells Tristan the secret of his birth on the other side of the wall.
Tristan and Victoria see a shooting star fall into Faerie. Still infatuated, Tristan vows to bring the star back to win her hand in marriage. He forces his way through the wall to begin his search, but he is not the only one who saw the star.
The murderous sons of a dying king in the realm of Stormhold set off to find the star when their father vows that the one who finds it will be his heir. And Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), senior member of a trio of witches joins the hunt – when stars fall to earth, the witches cut out their hearts and eat them, a little at a time, to preserve their youth and beauty.
Tristan reaches Yvaine the star (Claire Daines) first. Still intent on winning the hand of Victoria back in Wall, he uses a Faire chain to compel her to follow him.
Yvaine and Tristan
At first they bicker constantly, but their time on the road and helping each other survive attempts on their lives creates a bond of friendship and finally love between them. Ever the dummling, Tristan is the last to realize this, but is helped when he finds a mentor. Robert De Niro, in a virtuoso role as Captain Shakespeare, the gay captain of a flying steampunk pirate ship, teaches Tristan to fight, Yvaine to dance, and with a parting gift of wisdom, whispers to Tristan, “She is your true love.”
Captain Shakespeare at the helm
As with any good dummling story, the ending of Stardust will leave you happy. Though rooted in the sensibility of a modern coming of age tale, with elements of character development that the old traditional stories lack, Stardust fits Tolkien’s paradigm of the classic fairytale – the wonders and terrors we mortals encounter when we venture into other worlds.
Faerie whispers to us in sunlight, in starlight, and in our dreams. Those intimations may be what make us most truly human. No wonder we have an endless appetite for wonder tales, and Stardust is one that thoroughly satisfies.
The month of August, named after Augustus Caesar, begins with Lammas Day, the start of traditional harvest time in Britain and the end of summer in the old Celtic way of reckoning. It feels like that in the northern hemisphere, doesn’t it?
Mid-Day Rest, Harvest, by William Frederick Witherington, British, ca. 1840. Public domain
There’s something slightly ominous about August. Back in college, I watched an eastern European apocalyptic film called, The End of August at the Hotel Ozone. It was about as cheery as the name, and when you try them out, you find that none of the other months work as well in the title. On the 4th day of August, in 1914, guns belched fire and World War I began. On the other hand, like any month, there have been good and bad times in history; the second world war came to an end on August 14.
I like August. I stand outside, watching the warm light of evening, and there is both beauty and poignancy, for you can’t help but notice the days getting shorter. Here it is in a poem by Dana Gioia, “California Hills in August.” He speaks to those who find the end-of-summer hills barren:
One who would hurry over the clinging
thistle, foxtail, golden poppy,
knowing everything was just a weed,
unable to conceive that these trees
and sparse brown bushes were alive.
And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion.
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.
And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain—
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water.
The end of summer evokes its own sort of romantic feelings too, and I think that goes along with the dying of the light. In earlier times, at the Lammas fairs, young people could enter a “trial marriage,” generally lasting 11 days. They were free to walk away if it didn’t work out. A bit more sparse than our hearts and cupids in February, but maybe more realistic.
And in that romantic spirit, I’ll end with a beautiful harvest song / love ballad by Fairport Convention, a marvelous group from across the water that is still going strong after 46 years.
I’ve loved fantasy since my earliest childhood days of hearing stories read aloud. Growing up I lived on The Wind in the Willows, Godzilla, Norse mythology, science fiction, Frankenstein and the folklore of many cultures. In college, I discovered Tolkien, The Odyssey, C.S. Lewis, as well as Jung and Campbell, who served as guides to the often trackless realms of the other worlds.
If you follow fantasy literature for any length of time, you notice that authors who bring forth new visions are often followed by scores of knockoffs by writers looking for bandwagons to ride. Neil Gaiman is an exception to that rule; he sows his unique personal visions across traditional genres in a manner that can’t be imitated.
How would you follow the Hugo and Nebula award winning American Gods, 2001, a dark, modern day Iliad that pits old gods like Mr. Wednesday (Odin) against new deities like Media, the goddess of television? A year later, Gaiman published Coraline, sometimes compared to Alice in Wonderland for its unflinching look at the terrors of childhood and winner of Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella.
Neil Gaiman, 2009, by Kyle Cassidy. CC-BY-SA-3.0
In June, Gaiman released The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which he called “the most serious, dark, weird and personal thing I’ve ever written” in an interview called “The Illusionist” in the June 24, 2013, issue of Time.
Illusionist is the only possible title for the creator of Ocean, which began as a short story and grew. You reach the end of a nail biting ride with a man recalling a summer of terror and beauty that happened (or probably happened) when he was seven, and you realize that although you have been in his head and his heart for 180 pages, you don’t even know his name. You know the name of Lettie Hempstock, who lives at the end of the lane, an 11 year old girl who claims that her duck pond is really an ocean. You know Lettie’s name, but you don’t know what she is, and when you ask how long she has been 11, she gives you a smile but no answer.
Like Dr. Who’s TARDIS (Gaiman wrote an episode this year), Lettie’s ocean is bigger inside than it appears from without. When he ventures in, Gaiman’s protagonist says, “I saw the world I had walked from my birth and I understood how fragile it was, that the reality I knew was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger. I saw the world from above and below. I saw that there were patterns and gates and paths beyond the real. I saw all these things and understood them and they filled me, just as the waters of the ocean filled me.”
One of Gaiman’s numerous strengths is his ability to remember “extremes of horror and ecstasy that children experience.” He read books as a child and realized the adult writers had forgotten. He vowed not to, and The Ocean at the End of Lane proves that he has not.
Gaiman resists “fantasy” as a label, but for convenience I will use it to say this is one of the finest fantasies I have ever read. In the Time interview he also said, “I’m now more famous than I’m comfortable being.” Though I understand his concern, I have to say, “Dude, you brought it on yourself – learn to deal with it.”
Meet Lidia the Seal. She stands as tall as I can reach, in a vacant lot in Bandon, Oregon, the creation of artists and volunteers of the Washed Ashore Project.
The group’s goal is to turn plastic and other ocean garbage into art that illustrates the harm to marine life and the entire food chain resulting from careless dumping. So far, 1000 volunteers have collected three and a half tons of marine debris along 20 miles of coastline and used it to create 18 giant sculptures.
Detail of Henry the Fish, showing the kinds of objects used to make the sculptures. Henry is 15’x9’x8′
Plaques beside the sculptures explain a little about the dangers of the degrading petrochemicals in plastics in the ocean, as well as the process of collecting, washing, sorting, and recycling what the volunteers collect.
One of the plaques affirms that, “Every action you make in your life has an impact. Even small actions make a positive difference. People working together CAN create results. This project proves it!”
I wish you could have been there to share the delight of rounding a corner to find Lidia and Henry, but for the next best thing, please visit the project website: washedashore.org. There are many more photos and descriptions illustrating the process of turning these castoff items into art, as well as information on exhibits in other locations.
Maybe one day soon, one of these washed ashore creatures will visit a spot near you! Meanwhile, enjoy these, and perhaps, as one of the plaques says, you will be moved to see art where others see garbage, right where you are today!
From this perspective, it’s easy to see how Face Rock, got it’s name. Legend says that long ago, Chief Siskiyou from the mountains came to the sea to trade with the four tribes that lived in this region. Warriors stood on the bluffs above the ocean fearing that the evil sea-spirit, Seatka might cause trouble.
Siskiyou’s daugher, Princess Ewauna, was not afraid of the spirit, and one night, when the moon was full, she slipped away from camp with her faithful dog and a basket with her cat and kittens nestled inside. She went swimming, farther and farther from shore, ignoring the warning barks of her dog. Seatka captured the princess.
Carrying the basket of cats, the dog swam out to Ewauna and bit the evil Seatka. Howling, he shook off the dog and threw the cats into the sea. Seatka tried to make Ewauna look into his eyes, but she refused and kept her gaze on the moon. The dog ran on the beach howling, but in time, he, the cats, and Ewauna, still gazing up at the moon, were frozen into stone where they remain to this very day.
I first passed through Bandon, Oregon back in college days, and it’s one of those places that has drawn me back ever since. I took the current blog header photo two years ago at a spot about half a mile up the beach overlook trail.
With the wind off the sea and afternoon fog, it is downright chilly. I had almost forgotten what chilly is like, but I remembered this afternoon, rolling into town in cutoffs and t-shirt. It’s hard to pack for cold weather when it’s 100+ degrees outside, so tomorrow will likely involve shopping for a sweatshirt.
This will probably be a quiet week on thefirstgates, as we wander the shore, listen to the ocean, and eat cranberry oatmeal cookies.
Photo by Casey Fleser, CC-by-3.0
See you then, with more stories and photographs.
The First Gates 