LYRICS

The applications are to blameAll the people do all dayIs stare into a phone (Placebo, Too Many people)

“Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!” (Chief Seattle)

When rock stars were myths (Sandi Thom, I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker)

Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time, Now that it's the opposite it's twice upon a time (Moondog)

Time is an illusion (Einstein)

Monday 15 July 2019

"Claimed" (part 1)


What is inchoate in reason has got to be the primeval serpent twisting between sun, moon and Earth, the dangerous serpent, the cosmic predator that animates Man’s imagination. The dark folklore of startled prey and circling predator that came out of the pulp writers like Gertrude Bennet and, of course, Weird Tales.

The chthonic romance that inhabits a large proportion of the tales lurks back to the fact that Orpheus was one of the early (legendary) Greek poets. Modern reason denies the chthonic aspect of the serpent, and instead allies it solely with the sun.

This denial of the physical reality is illusory but, as noted elsewhere, verifiable proofs are very convincing to acolytes. Not only that but, if the physical universe can be denied the physique can’t, and we have the ludicrous sight of Katie Bouman’s black hole (Hyborian Bridge 56).

Added to that is the compulsion for numbers and routines (see Grace Slick quote Hyborian bridge 62/1). So, even though Man is thinking in the head, he/she is actually in the physique which is actually part of the physical universe. So it is still a type of illusory reality.

The illusory world that isn’t physical cannot revive because revival is a product of decay. We’re back with active country pursuits, the hunt, Diana and her faithful hounds, carrion and crows. The animated, chthonic universe of Weird Tales. It’s a revival of dark folklore that dwells in sombre timelost places of potent mystery. Really, the mysteries of Samothrace or Delphi rather than the public display of the Parthenon.

In Gertrude Bennett’s (Francis Stevens) Claimed (1920), her description of the obsessive hoarder Jesse Robinson speaks for itself.

The old man, whose finger-nail slowly followed these characters, as if

by doing so he might trace their meaning, was as perfect in his way as

their draughtsmanship. He was a perfect specimen, that is, of the hawk

or predacious type in the genus homo. It was night, and the rays of a

hanging lamp brought out his face in bold lights and shadows.

 

In the chthonic universe, the presence of death is a given as is the predator. It is much like the classical universe of ancient tragedians. In Sophocles’ Antigone

Eteocles and Polynices, leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, died fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes and brother of the former Queen Jocasta, has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be in public shame. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures..

Carrion feeders exist in wilderness, which is just the Earth left to its own devices, outside the claw-like grip of Man. Wilderness is life and strength and primal rhythm.

This closeness of life and death is brought home in Claimed when the mysterious jade box summons a hallucinogenic sea-tide.

He recognized the thing well enough now. He had seen it flood

devouringly up and across smooth beaches where the gray-brown sand

gleamed wetly and the clean salt tang of its breath filled one's lungs

with life.

Life and death in the classical universe are two poles of the same reality. That reality contains the mysteries of Samothrace, and also the noble bearing of the Parthenin marbles (prev.)

The mysteries are to do with life and regeneration, revival out of chaos or disorder. The one-sided reality of pure order cannot exist in a balanced universe because out of decay springs life. The mysteries are a way of giving this a moral recognition.

It’s intriguing that Bennett’s story starts with a description of a ruined city, upthriust from the sea depths.

Near the center the rock has been flung up in ridges, forming

rectangular and other shapes, quaintly reminiscent of the ruins of old

buildings. Though, from some distance off, I observed that in several

cases the warm rain which has been falling intermittently had washed

the ash away from these ridges and that the rock so bared is uniformly

of the same brilliant metallic-red with which the chocolate-colored

formation near the shore is streaked.

 

From where we stood the illusion of ruins was nearly perfect, and

indeed--who knows?--we may to-day have looked upon the last surviving

trace of some ancient city, flung up from the abyss that engulfed it

ages before the brief history we have of the race of man began.

Where there is ruin there is revival; the two go together. This is really to do with line. A ruin has a quavering line. The ravages of weather and insects and rabbit droppings take their toll.


It’s the very height of irregularity; but by the same token, irregularity is a sign of life. Living things create irregularity. Irregularity is also a sign of classical art. If you take a Greek vase, the line is the product of two things; the technical knowledge of the potter, and their spontaneous skill with line. The two together make the expression.
  Diana slaying Actaeon
Where you have line you have recognition. No one anywhere on Earth could fail to recognize all the traits of a Greek vase. But, what is line? It’s not one thing, it’s a product of two things; technique (training) and spontaneity (flow).
The same goes for any living thing. We recognize a fish, an eel or seaweed because the line is irregular and spontaneous, and not simply technical. The same goes for vernacular architecture. It is the product of more than one thing. It is the expression of Man.
Above all, the same goes for the Parthenon. It might be – as Melina Mercouri says Hyborian Bridge 66 – a unique monument, but it still weathers and crumbles like all things on Earth.
That is their chthonic strength, their attachment to the underworld. In myth, Proserpine (Persephone, spring) spends six months of the year with Pluto, her spouse. The next six months she spends with Ceres, her mother (harvest).
This is the world of mystery; the physical world that connects life and death.