An American Deity
Young he was and sound ‘in wind and limb’, Fit and tanned, bareheaded, toothy, slim, Rich he was of vocabulary and purse, Bore away he be in a wagon, not a hearse, Draped in a flag his form, of garish stripes and stars Followed slowly by lesser men in motor cars. It all began they say, in a killing frost, A cold replicated later when he was lost, Abbreviated poesy marked the spot On which commenced the reign of Camelot, Where a bogus royalty came into view As desideratum, thus embraced as true. …
Continue Reading →“Leitmotifs Through the Aether”
A Tribschen idyll...Wagner with Eva
May 22, Happy 203rd birthday to Maestro Richard Wagner! On the evening of 19 May 2016, the Richard Wagner Society of SA hosted ABC broadcaster and programmer Simon Healy to give the annual Brian Coghlan Lecture on Leitmotifs Through the Aether:Wagner’s Operas in Broadcasting History. In a highly detailed and fascinating talk, Simon spoke (in his classic, Classic FM voice) of the technological advances through the last couple of centuries, referring first to the ancients and their perception of the ‘aether’ as the fifth element, onward and upward to the telegraph, which really paved the way for mass communication since….
Continue Reading →Dürer Was Weird & Wonderful
Albrecht Dürer was born on 21 May (1471) and we have written of his work and life before, in “I Shall Freeze After the Sun” so let us gaze at his weird and wonderful works, such as the uncanny, post-modern Adoration of the Magi, and one of his strange, ambivalent self-portraits: He didn’t stay long (who did then?) and now he lies here in Nuremburg:
Continue Reading →Theatre of the World
The map-maker, by Rubens
May 20, 1570: cartographer Abraham Ortelius published the world’s first known atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (or “Theatre of the World”). There had been maps before of course, and bundles of maps, but only Ortelius thought to bundle them all in a logically-ordered compendium, paving the way for all atlases to come, till the time of Google. There is nothing lovelier than a good map. They are art. And there is no better way to study the development of geography, and indeed the course of geopolitics, than look over a few centuries’ worth of them. Ortelius pushed back the territories known as Here…
Continue Reading →The Other Boleyn Girl
The other, other Boleyn girl (Anne, 1501-1536)
(Dir. Justin Chadwick) (2008) Anne Boleyn died on 19th May, 1536, in the Tower of London. We remember her and her lost head, and refer you to our account of a visit to Henry’s and her happy home at Hampton Court. We also recall this film (adapted from Philippa Gregory’s novel) about her, her younger sister Mary, and King Henry VIII. A Reformation Days of Our Lives, the inevitable expository dialogue, hey nonny nonny nonsense and sumptuous set pieces cloy early, and while the acting is earnest and worthy, these are historical manikins. Historians generally agree that Mary was not…
Continue Reading →