The Return of Nefertari in Portland

Yesterday, Mark and I went to the Portland Art Museum.  Mark wanted to revisit a exhibit of French painters from the 1890's (the Nabi Brotherhood) and I wanted to revisit the Nefertari exhibit.  Luckily, the weather cooperated and the drive was rainy and sunny instead of snowy and icy.

My impression that the Nefertari displays were oddly lit and poorly placed was reinforced during this second visit.  Several items were clearly meant to be seen from behind and were shoved against walls; coffin lids were placed next to each other so that one side was not accessable -- perhaps the museum's rectangular galleries constrained the displays, or maybe the curators wanted the best layout for minimizing COVID exposure.   

However, this time around there were fewer patrons thronging the halls, so I had more time to appreciate and photograph the New Kingdom artifacts.  Mark put it the best:  the exhibit is more more scholarly and archeological than it is artistic (sort of like one of those back study rooms at the MET); and reviewing my photos, many of them are studies in in form that I would refer to if I were designing graphics with Middle- and Late-Kingdom Egyptian motifs.  

Thinking back, my favorite pieces from the exhibit were the sculptures of Sekhmet, the lion goddess (Mark and I had a fun time looking at the ways the manes were different and how some Sekhmets looked happy while others looked fierce); the sculptures of the king between Amun and Mut; and a cat sculpture.  

Mark enjoyed the Nabi Brotherhood exhibit, especially some of the paintings of subjects interacting with their cats or dogs.  I will admit to being a philistine when it comes to paintings--very often I'll look at portraiture and it's either not speaking to me, or it's Yet Another Madonna and Child, or it doesn't have a strong narrative I can access, or it's Yet Another Crucifixion, or it just plain looks like an assortment of colored textures, or Look! It's Boobs!--but I did appreciate some black-and-white prints.  

Snow Wishes

More snow this morning--not a whole lot.  No moon or stars, only grey clouds making the snow a dusky pastel blue.  The forecast for today is a tug-of-war between snow and rain.  I expect the day to become darker as the rain washes away the snow.

Yesterday the sun came out and turned the snow brilliant.  The light bouncing off of everything lifts my spirit, and makes for some fun photography.

The cats are hopeful that the snow will go away, and seem dashed when we open the doors to that cold white stuff covering everything.   They spent most of yesterday on tables and chairs, in the sunlight, waiting for the snow to melt.

The dog loves it, though.  Mark has been making snowballs for her and filling some of them with dog treats.  

Snowy Third Day of Christmas

 

We've got about eight inches of snow, with some more on the way this evening.  The dog loves it; the cats hate it.  Oregon State University in Corvallis shut down; the University of Oregon was on a two-hour delay.  The city doesn't plow our street, so we're walking everywhere until driving conditions improve.

 

The sky has been so stormy the last few days that it was a real treat to see the waning crescent moon this morning.  I went out and took some pictures ere rosy fingered dawn appeared in the east.  I will have to take my tripod out with me next time I want to get some good moon photos; the majority of the ones I took were blurry.  

 

I had better luck photographing snow on branches--I can't put my finger on why snow on branches is pleasing:  is it the contrast of light and dark? or the ephemeral way the snow pressed down the branches? or is it the novelty of snow draping everything in white?  Some neighbors had left their holiday lights on, which made for some festive-looking photographs. 

 

I wanted to take some photos of snow flakes, but I think I've got the wrong kind of set-up.  When I tried to collect them on a plate yesterday, the plate was too warm and the snowflakes melted before I could really focus on them.  This morning's snow is dryer, but it's still clumping together, which makes it difficult to see the individual crystals.

 

Wrapping Up December 2021

  I envisioned myself blogging (and writing) much more this December than has actually happened.  Part of this is due to posting to social media more than actually blogging.  I suspect that I need to have add some time-keeping software to my apps to bring social media usage back into balance.    

To recap the last few weeks.   

Through a series of events, the Day Jobbe has expanded to full time.   It's mostly remote, and I drive in to work some days.  I am doing a combination of departmental intranet design and web site management.  It has been a reminder of how brutally insurance benefits are awarded (or not) to vested employees. 

 

Writing is going very slowly, which I find it tends to do this time of year.  

My extended family is doing mostly well and managing to stay healthy during the pandemic.  

The cats have crossed another threshold with the dog and are more likely to spend the night in the house (rather than the garage) with the dog.  The cold might have something to do with this.  They also seem more tolerant of the dog in general, and no longer zip out of a room whenever she appears.  

Smokey seems to have recovered from his earlier medical emergency.  He's still as fluffy as ever, but--whether through the medicine he's taking or through the touch of age--he is bonier than he used to be.  

On the design front:  last November I sat down and decided to see about reproducing an Islamic design I've always thought was an interesting interlocking of circles, triangles, and hexagons.  As is usual with these sorts of designs, one can make it tile infinitely.  Other design projects include designing this year's family calendar and paper projects.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Ancient Egyptian Magic

Last week was the last of my Zoom classes on ancient Egypt and Egyptian magic.  Since I justified it as writing research, here's my writer's take-away from the last few weeks.

Ancient Egyptians conceived of a natural force, called heka, which was created by Re before time as a resource for humans to use to ward off bad things.  I suppose in a way it's like static electricity, in that some objects will hold it, and a user of heka can direct it.   To speak a spell is to have heka in one's mouth. Powerful magical items hold and direct lots of heka; some things have more intrinsic heka than others: like the king, graveyards, books, gold, names, precious stones.  

Heka was also used to combat the forces of chaos -- the desert, storms, sickness, dangerous animals, and foreigners --  in order to uphold "maat," or truth and order.  (The imagery of foreigners in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, foot ware,  religious iconography, and in magical texts is the xenophobic elephant in the pyramid of Egyptian studies.)  Heka could form a protective shield encircling the magician, or could in turn encircle and bind the forces of chaos.   

Ancient Egyptian spells involve ritual actions or gestures, special or exotic focus objects, and written or spoken words -- especially names.   So if you're writing a magic scene set in ancient Egypt, your spell-caster is going to be waving around an ankh (at least) while using as many True Names as possible.   Spells to subdue an enemy might involve breaking pots with a person's name written on them, or melting wax images of them.   In some rituals, a magician/priest has the goddess Maat painted with white paint upon his tongue so that his words are true and pure. 

Colors had magical correspondences.  Green was associated with plants, and therefore flourishing growth.  Blue (like lapis) was associated with heavenly powers.  Black was a powerful color (maybe associated with the fertile black soil?).  Red was a color of power, but also chaos, associated with the chaotic god Seth.  Magical scrolls might have magical names or chaotic powers written in red ink (otherwise, they mostly used black).

Scholars like to spend a lot of time writing about the boundaries between ancient Egyptian religion, magic, and medicine.  This is because the boundaries between the three are blurred.   Ancient Egyptian (Early- and Middle-Kingdom, at least) spells tend to begin with a story about the gods as a kind of "this is the way the universe works" starting statement, and then has the spell caster identify with one of the god-protagonists in the story.  Also, magic spells were part of a non-exclusive toolkit -- along with prayers and mundane actions -- for healing or averting ill fortune.

Scholars also like to talk about how ancient Egyptian magic is different from the modern (-ish) western concept of sympathetic magic as put forward by Sir James Frazer.  I'm not sure there are that many differences, since ancient Egyptian magic operates with the Law of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, the Law of True Names, the the Law of Contagion.  On the other hand, I'm not sure how to classify a spell that requires one write write the spell onto one's body and then lick it off for it to work -- consuming or otherwise taking the spell into one's mouth was a way for illiterate folks to activate the potency of a spell.   

Simplifying things greatly, ancient Egyptian magicians came in three flavors:  the king as high-priest of the nation casting spells to uphold order (maat), a scribe-priest associated with a temple's scriptorium (or House of Life) who might cast healing spells or compile magical guidebooks for navigating the afterlife, and common folks who used charms, talismans, and magical gestures during times of crisis (like birth or death) to manipulate health and luck (and hippos and crocodiles) or avert the evil eye. 

Although there was a mention of foreign (Nubian) women and their terrible spells, most magicians in ancient Egypt were male priests working out of a temple.  There might be a sample bias here, as temple priests were more likely to leave a record of spell (or medical triage) books.  Being a priest was a part time  job, and when they were off of temple duty, they were typically doctors or scribes.  As time went on, the priesthood became hereditary.  So if you're going to write an ancient Egyptian magician, they're going to be part of a literate elite, or connected with the royal court.  

Ancient Egyptians made heavy use of amulets, like the ankh (for life); others include the djed pillar (for stability), the shen (for protection), the scarab (for regeneration), and the wedjat eye (for wholeness and protection).  Amulets could be as simple as a knotted thread, or a magical word or symbol written onto a piece of cloth and put into a small bag, or even a tattoo.  

Finally, ancient Egyptian magic was concerned with helping folks attain a good afterlife.  Afterworld spells can be attested throughout the Egyptian kingdoms, starting with the Pyramid Texts (~2353 BCE, and which were reserved for the king),  to the Coffin Texts (~2100 BCE), to the Book of Gates (~1500 BCE) , The Book of Going Forth By Day (~1550 BCE, available to the upper classes), The Book of the Hidden Chamber, The Book of Adoring Re in the West (~1425), and other Netherworld Texts.  These contained spells and rituals a person would need to recite in order to navigate the perils of the netherworld or Duat and unite their ka (or spirit) with their ba (or soul) -- much in the same way Re the sun god was thought to unite with Osiris the mummiform god of the underworld.  The  Book of the Heavenly Cow (~1341) appears to be a collection of stories featuring gods and sorcerers.  

Once we get to around 300 BCE, Egyptian magic starts to look more familiar.  For one thing, it seems to be more about curses and bindings and less about protection, healing, and the afterlife.  The gods become more syncretic.  The spells begin to become more abbreviated and cryptic.  During this time we start to see gods like Abraxius, and magical anagram-like words, like abracadabra make their appearance.  

I suppose if I were going to write about an ancient Egyptian magician, I'd do an alternate history magician.  They would need to be able to read and write.  They'd need to have good observational skills in order to detect and move heka.  They'd need to be versed in the creation myths of their society in order to make use of the Law of Macro-and-Microcosm.  They'd be a boy-scout type concerned keeping the system running orderly.  I'm split on what gender to make them, although writing a non-traditional / non-male would be give them a social hurdle to get over.   Or maybe I'd make them a foreign magician trying to work within their adopted land's system (more opportunities for conflict there) -- maybe they could be a lover or spouse of a native.   I'd probably make my magician a mystery solver -- so I guess a police procedural or Brother Cadfael type of character.   

. . . or . . . 

 maybe I could make them a kind of shabti figure (a kind of Egyptian golem). . . doing work for a magician. . . 

. . . or . . . 

maybe this school-teacher / anthropologist is digging in modern Egypt, and she finds this box from the time of Queen Hatshepsut, and inside the box is an amulet of Isis, and....

Purple Bat'leth

We join the dream in progress. . .

I was Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The recall is fuzzy, but I was replaying or in a re-boot of the first time Worf meets his mate, K'Ehleyr.  There was a lot of running down stairs, and the Enterprise was more like a dorm or a camping lodge than a star cruiser.  And my bat'leth was bright purple.  

Through dream transitions, I was out of Micheal Dorn's body and in my regular one, setting up chairs on a large, second-story meeting room.  There was a large picture window taking up most of wall on one end.  I think I was sweeping or buffing a hardwood floor, and setting up chairs in front of a speaking area.  The area had the feel of the set-ups I used to do in the 1980's at church.

There was a forty-something priest there; he was the main speaker.  Clean-shaven, curly hair, tall-ish; he wore a black, long-sleeved shirt and priest's collar and dark slacks.  I'm not sure if he was going to give a sermon or just a talk.  I still had my bright purple bat'leth, only in waking life it seems to have become more boomerang like, or even like a purple version of the curved magic wands the ancient Egyptians carved out of hippopotamus tusks.  

He thanked me for helping to set the room up, admired my bat'leth for a moment, and then he looked at me with a priestly, wide-eyed, and earnest gaze and asked, "Why are you here?"

"I've lost my way," I said.  

There may have been more to the dream -- something about a small town in central Oregon called Bear.  I woke up soon after feeling like this was a significant dream.  Of course, it made me introspective, and I've had an early 1990's Styx song, "Show Me The Way," stuck in my head.  

Maybe tonight's lunar eclipse primed me for a significant dream.

I think it's been the early 1990's since I dreamed a Star Trek:TNG dream; usually William Riker featured in them.  I suppose I'll have to dig up old dream journals to confirm.  

Bear, Oregon doesn't exist; but I have a feeling it's somehow related to the dream-North-side-of-Ridgewood-hill, which frequently features bears.  

Based on the bright purple color, I've got a feeling by the end of the dream, the bat'leth was "more than just a cigar" -- but the boomerang aspect and/or Egyptian wand aspect (which is reminiscent of vulvas and has strong associations with birth protection magic) is puzzling. 

The priest seemed to be a generic priest. It's possible he was based on a childhood priest, but the only because he had curly hair.  While I've dreamed I was a priest, I don't usually dream of priests, youngish or otherwise.  

Crows and Hawk

The other day I was in the backyard when I heard the frenzied caws of a murder of crows coming from the street.   I sprinted through the house, grabbed my camera, and stood out on the front porch.  Sure enough, there were eight or so crows, with more winging in from various directions, gathered in the branches of the neighbor's maple tree across the street.   When I looked more closely, I found what I was pretty sure would be there:  a red-tailed hawk.  

Crows will mob a hawk or other raptor, buzzing it while cawing at the top of their lungs.  The hawk typically looks resigned and eventually flies away.  If they wanted to do something about the crows, they could, but I guess it's not worth the trouble.  Crows are interesting, and I'll confess to indulging in the fantasy of making friends with them and having them bring me shiny junk; but it was difficult not to see them as bullying middle-schoolers in that moment. 

I took photos with wild abandon.  There was a frantic moment where I was re-adjusting the ISO to so I could get a quicker shutter speed and then another moment when I was looking for things to lean against to compensate for using high-powered zoom without a tripod.   I got one well-composed shot of both the hawk and a crow.  I tried to repeat the shot by managing to look at the hawk with one eye for a wide-angle view of what was going one and at the scene super-zoomed up on my camera's screen--somehow I did not get sick, but my lucky shot didn't repeat.  

Eventually, I had to go back into the house because Aoife had been left behind in the backyard when I ran off, and, according to Mark, she was going to crash her way through the patio door in a theatrically desperate (and yammeringly operatic) attempt to discover my location and status among the quick or the dead.  

Nefertari in Portland

Over the weekend Mark and I drove up to the Portland Art Museum to see an exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts from the time of Queen Nefertari, wife of Rameses II.  The artifacts were (most recently) from the Museum of Turin.

I'd say we've been spoiled by the MET.  I did wish the PAM could have turned up the lights some, although I understand that low lighting is needed for conservation purposes--but it made it difficult to see the minute details on some of the items (and I had to crank up my camera's ISO to the max to get any kind of photo).  I would have had a few of the items pulled away from the walls, turned ninety degrees, or installed in front of a mirror to make it easier to see the back.  I always want translations of what I'm looking at, and if I had been curator I would have had a augmented reality or video display of the artifacts with the hieroglyphs highlighted, along with transliterations and translations (the MET sort of does this sometimes when they shine projections onto the Temple of Dendur).

The artifacts were interesting early Late Kingdom items--but there was nothing of fabulously spectacular craftsmanship fashioned out of gold and inlayed with precious stones.  This wasn't too surprising, as the majority of the objects were every day things from a stonemason's village.  And, to be fair, the show wasn't trying to be a second King Tut exhibit.  There were a number of stelae, pointy-ended jars, little wooden or stone votive statues, and tons of shabti.  The curators did seem awfully fond of a pair of ladies' size nine palm flip-flops.  I'd say my favorite pieces were a bronze cat, an eyeliner case, a carving of the Two Ladies (a cobra and vulture representing Upper and Lower Egypt) with cool detail payed to the two neb baskets, and an early 1900's architectural model of Queen Nefertari's tomb.  

There were only one or two instances of the htp-di-nsw offering formula, so I was challenged to be able to read the writing, but I did on occasion manage to pick out someone's name or phrases like "forever" and "eternity."  To me it seems like New Kingdom era hieroglyphs are the ancient Egyptian equivalent of Helvetica.  It was cool to see some actual papyrus scrolls of The Negative Confession and what I think was Chapter Eleven from the Book of Gates, where Apep the Chaos Serpent is bound--even if they did have a line-drawing feel instead of a luscious carving feel.

I think I'd revisit the exhibit, especially on a weekday when it would be less likely to be crowded.  While I felt like I didn't learn anything new--and Mark said that he thought the exhibit was more of a display of ancient things than a teaching moment--there were enough there that was interesting to warrant a return visit.

Halloween 2021

This year's Halloween was not exactly a fulfillment of all my spooky cross-quarter hopes, dreams, wishes and desires.   There was no costumed ritual with mist and fire; there was no mystic visions or portents from Tarot cards.  There were no masks blurring boundaries between self and not-self.  

Mark and I did hike up to the top of Spencer's Butte with Aoife and had a token snack at the top -- it wasn't a dawn salutation to the sun, and I spilled hot tea on myself -- but the slanting sunlight through the clouds and river fog was picturesque.

Then it was off to Trader Joe's for party supplies.  

I had hauled the decorations from out of the attic about a week before -- this involved a lot of stooping, a head flashlight, and smacking into at least one roof beam.  

I'm thinking we need to re-arrange our front room a bit because right now it's in a COVID configuration that is too cluttered for anything but frat-house decor (this is mostly my fault, as Mark is our resident Marie Kondo) .   I am grateful that the lava lamps are out for a while, and at least this year we got the Trick-o-Treating cats out long enough to enjoy them.  

While shopping, I forgot to get Mark some Toblerone and earned the epitaph of Bad Husband.  To atone, I set out to the local Rite Aide for some Toblerone (and Almond Roca), which almost always involves standing in a line for way longer than one would imagine or wish for.  

We did have a tea party of sorts, but for various reasons -- I prepped the food too late, I was the only one into it, nobody on the very small guest list showed up -- it was particularly anemic.  Mark made some yummy cheese dollars.  I brewed a carafe of tea over a tea candle, and made cucumber savories.   I cut an apple laterally to make slices with stars at their centers.  Then I binged on Almond Roca and poured the extra tea into a thermos to save for later so I wouldn't over-caffeinate on a school-night.   

The little mini-pumpkins we bought this year had thick, hard rinds; this made it hard to carve them --  and while they came out adequately, I ended up with a broken mellon-ball spoon (a useful tool for carving eyes) and sore hands.  Eventually, they were hung on stakes in front of the house.   

The Child opted to spend all of ten seconds carving the pumpkin I'd saved for him by whacking it with a hammer to give it two dented eyes and a crack for a mouth.  

I did manage to carve a pumpkin and managed to get a Witch-King of Agmar vibe from it, so there was that.  And the jack-o-lanterns and candles were quickened with flames ignited by the focused rays of October 31st.

By five o'clock all the candles were lit, all the little treat bags Mark had decorated were ready, and the Trick-or-Treaters had yet to show up.  I figured it was time to thrown on the black and purple cloak, strap on the RollerBlades and wrist-guards, and glide up and down the street a few times.  I surprised one neighbor as I veered around a corner, and after her startled "oh!" we wished each other a Happy Halloween.

Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre played in my head as I swooped around.

It was enough.

Hectic Weeks

Things have been hectic over the last week or so.  Weird dreams.  Odd hours.  Some projects have picked up at The Day Jobbe, with the result that I've been working a little later into the evening and then inclined to relax and wind down later in the night instead of writing or other creative endeavors. 

Then our older cat, Smokey, had some medical distress, that, after some back-and-forth, has been diagnosed as saddle thrombosis.  For a few days, we thought we might have to put him down.  Luckily, while he's not running around like a kitten, he's made a miraculous recovery and is walking after a fashion.   Cicero continues to be a punk barncat.  

I've continued with some introductory Egyptian hieroglyphs classes, and I'm winding up attending a series of Zoom lectures on ancient Egyptian Magic.  This is Official Writing Research -- the most surprising facet of ancient Egyptian Magic is that it's supposedly outside of the Frazerian concept of sympathetic magic.   I'm not sure I understand how this could be so, but I expect this will be addressed a few lectures down the road.  My challenge will be to write a magic-using character in an Egyptian-like scenario.  

Timelines

I've discovered a new timeline tool.

And I wonder how well it will play with this blog.

Halloween Tea Party

I was scrolling through old blog posts and came across a reference to a Halloween Tea Party.  And now, of course, I want to hold one at the end of this month.  Something with bat-shaped cookies, and black tea, and clever little snacks.  I'm not sure how to make it work, however.  

First, there's COVID-19 and social distancing considerations to take into account.  That means an outdoor event.  An outdoor event means making some sort of provision for rain.  And possibly getting an outdoor heat source, like a fire-pit (heavily regulated by the city) or a natural gas outdoor heater (utilitarian and ugly, or atmospheric and impractical?).  

And then there's the dog, who might have to be boarded elsewhere to keep her from channelling her inner Cerberus and eating someone. 

After a quick check of the 'net... it might be too late to book a city park structure....

Ugh.  I guess this will have to be a Zoom event with tele-snacking... Well, humph. 

I yearn to make up for not having a gathering on last year's Full Moon Saturday Night Halloween, but it looks like that's not going to happen this year.  I will have to think of something else:  perhaps a dawn processional hike of Spencer Butte with top-side ritual-lite tea (and umbrellas) is in order.

Halloween Idea from the Past

 This is a note to me from my past self (11/15/2020)

This year for Halloween, make a Witch-King of Angmar style jack-o-lantern, with a high crown by giving it a narrow-toothed, jagged rim and then turn it stem-side down.  You might even try cutting a second lid for a multi-tiered affect.  Think of that one Ace of Swords tarot trump with a crown surmounting a sword. 

Wildlife and Writing

I'm writing outside today.  A hummingbird, amethyst cuirass around its throat, has just buzzed me to see if I am going to get up and chase it.  Satisfied I'm not going to move,  it zipped over to the fountain and danced in the air in front of it as if it were a Venus Flytrap that eats hummingbirds.  Eventually, it settled on the fountain's basalt column and took furtive sips.

I'm hoping to get some writing done; right now it's overcast and not too hot out on the deck (the sunlight bouncing between the deck and the sliding glass patio doors spikes the heat around the time the sun passes through the meridian).  I'm going back and forth between typing out a draft (which feels more productive) or writing longhand in a Newly Minted Book of Art (which can be a good starting point when inspiration runs dry--as long as I don't devolve into channeling Atlantian Glyphs)).  With any luck, the Lycanthropic Tea Time Ritual Children will not come out to shriek their incantations.   

Now a pileated woodpecker is examining our cherry tree and occasionally peering at me from behind a trunk.

Yesterday, Mark cleaned out the garden shed.  It had succumbed to entropy and most of the contents were in a disorganized clutter.  He also confirmed that rodents -- either small rats or large mice -- had taken up residence in the shed.  He cleaned out the shredded insulation and shopping bag they'd used to make a nest and swept the shed's floor.  To Aoife's great excitement.  

I'm pretty sure she spent a solid three hours running into the shed, out of the shed, behind the shed, and back into it, all the while sniffing wildly and whining.  Based on how they would scamper toward him, Mark was of the opinion that the varmints weren't very bright, but somehow they managed to evade the dog.

A different, plainer hummingbird has arrived, and is sampling the rosemary for any early autumnal blooms.  

I spent most of the day persuing the Visual Arts:  practicing construction of pentagons and practicing the construction of Middle Kingdom Egyptian Heiroglyphs.  Later, I did some homework for my Egyptian class, translating simple phrases involving gendered singular, dual, and multiple possessives.   With any luck (and effort), this will allow me to read inscriptions of some New Kingdom artifacts that will arrive in the Portland Art Museum next month.  

Now a squirrel has dislodged an apple from the branch it was on, causing the branch to spring upward and launch the squirrel into a kind of frantic pole dance as it tries to hang on, which has released some more apples.  Thudding apples provided uneven rhythm.   This is probably a message from the universe about story submissions and rejection letters and a reminder that blogging isn't writing speculative fiction (much).

Autumnal Equinox 2021

Happy Equinox!  

Earlier today I focused the sun's light onto a candle so we'll have Equinox Fire! in the evening.   I may even burn some frankincense and myrrh outside so Mark doesn't smell it.

My current Book of Art is full, and today feels like a good day to start a new one.  

It's pleasant out:  the sky is mostly clear, the sun's not too hot, and there's a slight breeze.  We're still benefiting from the weekend's heavy rains in that the ground and air aren't so desiccated and various doors have become easier to open and close.   

Raptors & Artistic Legacy

The other day I visited the Cascades Raptor Center with my camera.  A rain front was looming, and it would be the last day of the hot and dry weather.  I figured if I waited to go, I'd be flitting from aviary to aviary, hunched over my camera while trying to take photographs of raptors huddled away against the rain.  

Some of the residents have afternoon walks or at least sessions where they are brought out.  Taking pictures of them is always easier when this is so because I don't have to contend with the mesh of their enclosures.  If a resident is mewed up and I get close to the mesh and the resident is on the other side of their aviary, it's possible to blur out the bars, but there's always some kind of interference pattern superimposed over the raptor I'm photographing.

I've become enough of a regular over the last few years -- between my long hair and long-lensed camera apparently I stand out -- and I was chatting with one of the handlers and he asked, "What do you do with all the pictures you take?"  

The question gave me a little pause.  "Oh, I said, mostly I store them on Google Photos."  I thought a little more.  "I like to tell myself that I will use them as resources for drawing birds, but I'm pretty awful when it comes to illustrating them.  I am interested in seeing how they inspire the shapes for Middle Kingdom Egyptian Hieroglyphs; if you look at their legs --" 

"--their pantaloons?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "and also how their wingtips and tail feathers come together."  And then the conversation veered onto hieroglyphs.  

Later, at home, the subject of photographs came up.  Mark said, "You know, honey, nobody is going to look at those photographs -- especially after you die.  So if you want people to see them, you'd better start arranging a funeral slideshow now."

"Why wait for a funeral?" I asked.  "Once COVID is under control (fingers crossed on that one), we can have people over for a little salon and we can have wine and cheese and set up three projectors in rotation and people can wander in little groups between the screens."  

"Honey, that's called 'a home slide show,' and people hated them back in the 1950's."

"Yes," I said, "I believe I've heard that referenced as 'The Bore Wars.'"  (And I do remember my folks having little get-togethers and bringing out Slide Carousels of Their Adventures Overseas.)

The question about that I ultimately do with the photos has lingered, especially as I uploaded them to various social media sites.  I enjoy taking pictures of the raptors for the same reason I enjoy taking pictures of MET artifacts or the Moon or other astronomical phenomenon:  the thrill of collecting.  It's more than just collection, though, it's also marking a particular time or space -- akin to the attitude behind the phrase, "what is remembered, lives."  Additionally, there are cathartic elements of being a participant-observer of something outside of oneself.   But these answer the question of why I take the photos, not what I do with them afterward.

I suppose what I do with them doesn't matter so much -- except that if that were true, I'd go through my photo collections and erase everything.  So keeping them is important; but my feeling is that they're more than just mementos validating my duration.  I suspect that this is a manifestation of the Art versus Craft question -- once you've made something creative or artistic, what are you going to Do with it?  

I think this is the point where I go an find a copy of the "Art For Art's Sake" manifesto.... 

Moon and Antares

The other night I went out and photographed the Moon near Antares.  As usual with photos taken of the sky when the Moon is much more than five days old, the moon is over-exposed in order to get Antares to show at all.   

It turned out that while the Moon was near its North Ascending Node, it was still below the ecliptic and low enough in the sky that I had to go into the street to capture it with my camera.

Since Antares is one of the so-called Royal Stars, I decided that I could us the position of the Moon on Portable Stonehenge to mark Antares' position on the Wheel of the Year.  Thousands of years ago, Antares would have been near the sun during the northern hemisphere's autumnal equinox  but the procession of the seasons has shifted things around and now it's closer (relatively speaking) to the sun during the winter solstice.

And yes, the song "Beyond Antares" is playing in my head now.

Writing Difficulties

I'm finding it difficult to write.  The problem has been going on for at least a year.  It might not have started with COVID lock-downs and the coincidental advent of a new job in Spring of 2020, but those events may have laid the groundwork.   

I noticed that I was stuck writing political revenge fantasies, mostly involving either angels or cybernetic beings carrying out judgements and exiling The Evil Ones to Pluto (or else a thousand years of stasis).  Occasionally, I imagined a Romanesque march of the wicked as a warning to children and delinquents.   Then I would worry that I was some kind of monster or fanatic... and I'd hear Gandalf the Grey saying, "Yes, that's how it would begin."   

When I did manage to break away from the revenge fantasies, the stories I did write were focused on an idea or the setting, but were light on actual plot.  

My mother's sister died suddenly (not from COVID, but from complications of MS).  

Then, last year we got hit by the forest fires' smoke; the Mordor-level of air quality kept us all indoors.  I couldn't go out to exercise, and we all got a bought of cabin fever.   When the smoke finally cleared after about two weeks, the rains came and there were extended periods of grey.  And I got sad and tired and listless.  

And then the elections picked up and I spent a lot of time doom-scrolling.  I was relieved when Biden won the presidency.  And then my father's elderly sister died (after a fall).  And then the insurrection happened.  More doom-scrolling.  The problem with doom-scrolling is that it tunes the mind to 150 character vignettes--this would be fine if I were composing (or reading) haiku, but most social media posts are variations of "Hey! I'm over here!" or "Intruder Alert!"

I thought writing would be easier once May First and the obvious return of light occurred... and I could start stories, but they stalled.  Maybe not all stories, but a lot.  At least I could smile when I saw a meme captioned, "Tell me the truth; I can take it. / World building isn't enough--you have to actually write a plot with characters who make choices and act."  

I did write some flash pieces.  They made the rounds through critique and have gone out to various markets.  And... I feel like I should be writing more, but I've got all these dead-end story starts piling up and sometimes it feels like all I do is write enough of something to get stuck after about 1500 words.   

Sometimes I think I get stuck because I'm trying to work from an outline of plot tokens based on a particular market's research--I'm trying to tell a magazine's story and not my own.  Other times it feels like I'm not connected to something I want to say--the story's heart--and I can't envision it clearly enough to be able to communicate it.  Or maybe I've passed some geriatric milepost and my mental capacity for story has diminished.  

On bad days, trying to write is like being in a sad Annie Lennox song.  On worse days, I feel nothing and write nothing.  On okay days, I blog, or read old favorites (partially for fun, partially to look at how the words are put together).  On not enough days I submit manuscripts.  I think if I can get back into the swing of things, I'll be okay.  

On The Brink of Autumn

Writing outside this morning, I have to wear a sweater.  The mug of tea when I hold it melts back the dampness in my hands.  Low grey clouds hide the mid-morning sun.  Last week, I noticed the change in light when we got back from New York.  While the perception that the morning light creeps over the hills at a later moment is slight, there is no missing how much earlier dusk became night. 

The plants seem tired.  This is the time of year when weeks of heat and no rain have us anticipating autumnal rains -- when will they come?  Before the equinox?  By the next full moon?  Will they wait seven more weeks until Halloween?   The neighbor's apple tree hangs heavy with fruit; it's not yellowing yet, but other trees in the neighborhood are.  The grapes, the sunflowers, the cosmos, are tinged yellow along some leaves.  Acorns and maple-wings are accumulating along the dusty sidewalks. 

The sun's broken free from the clouds and is tinting the yard yellow-orange.  I can't decide if the overcast is regular clouds or if there's some smoke from the nearest forest fire in it.  It's still early enough that the arbor vita cast fingers of light and shadow across the dried and patchy grass.  I've swung the deck's umbrella eastward to shade my eyes from the glare; my left forearm, bathed in light, feels like it's wrapped in a heating pad.  The breeze is still chilly, though -- and when a curdling of cloud gets in front of the sun, I'm glad for the sweater.  This afternoon will get into the seventies, and I'm sure I'll be able to ditch the sweater (and lap blanket).  

Kunstkammer

I was reading "Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe," which is an exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I came across the term "kunstkammer," or collections of oddities / marvels / wonders.  It turns out kunstkammer can be made up of naturalia, artificia, scientifica, exotica, memorabilia, and sacralia.  It looks like they left out things like erotica.  

Various 16th C through late 19th C rulers and princes became collectors of curiosities.  Other folks might assemble mere curiosity cabinets; the powerful put together rooms or whole houses.  It was propaganda:  who had the most magnificent toys?  Rulers would even ransack rival princes' collections in times of war.  

There was a practical side, a kunstkammer could have an alchemical lab or machine shop connected to it for a ruler's scholars to pursue ore and glass production, for the production of artillery calculators and clocks, or for the renaissance equivalent of the 3D printer, the rose lathe (which supposedly honed one's mental and ruling capacities).  

As I paged through the book, I recognized many of the items (I don't spend all my time at the MET in the Egyptian Wing, it just seems like it).  It appears that all these years of going to the MET and photographing brass, silver, and gold mechanical objects has been a subconscios attempt to build my own, virtual kunstkammer.  

And, in fact, considering the sorts of of knick-knacks I keep wanting to display on my shelves (along with the books books books books books!) I can only conclude that in some past life I must have been a curator.  

What I see now is that I need to have little niches for naturalia, artificia, scientifica, exotica, memorabilia, and sacralia.   Perhaps things could rotate.  That might mollify Mark's anti-clutter instincts.