the Mask of Sarnath

I just watched this-- "The Mask of Sarnath" -- a 20 minute long horror film out of Texas in 1981, directed by Neil Ruttenberg with an intense soundtrack by Throbbing Gristle.

Creepy. Wicked.

Fly Gemini

White acyrlic on black construction paper.

Paradise Lost

"God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;

Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:

Your fear itself of death removes the fear.

When then was this forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshipers; he knows that in the day

Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,

Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then

Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods,

Knowing both good and evil as they know.

That ye should be as gods, since I as man,

Internal man, is but proportion meet,

I of brute human, ye of human gods.

So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off

Human, to put on gods, death to be wished,

Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring."

-Satan, Milton's "Paradise Lost"

Book 9, Lines 700-715

Doll's Burial

Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Doll's Burial", opus 39 no.8

The Blacksmith's Wife of Yarrowfoot

THE BLACKSMITH'S WIFE OF YARROWFOOT.

SOME years back, the blacksmith of Yarrowfoot had for apprentices two brothers, both steady lads, and, when bound to him, fine healthy fellows. After a few months, however, the younger of the two began to grow pale and lean, lose his appetite, and show other marks of declining health. His brother, much concerned, of ten questioned him as to what ailed him, but to no purpose. At last, however, the poor lad burst into an agony of tears, and confessed that he was quite worn-out, and should soon be brought to the grave through the ill-usage of his mistress, who was in truth a witch, though none suspected it. "Every night," he sobbed out, "she comes to my bedside, puts a magic bridle on me, and changes me into a horse. Then, seated on my back, she urges me on for many a mile to the wild moors, where she and I know not what other vile creatures hold their hideous feasts. There she keeps me all night, and at early morning I carry her home. She takes off my bridle, and there I am, but so weary I can ill stand. And thus I pass my nights while you are soundly sleeping."
The elder brother at once declared he would take his chance of a night among the witches, so he put the younger one in his own place next the wall, and lay awake himself till the usual time of the witch-woman's arrival. She came, bridle in hand, and flinging it over the elder brother's head, up sprang a fine hunting horse. The lady leaped on his back, and started for the trysting-place, which on this occasion, as it chanced, was the cellar of a neighbouring laird.

While she and the rest of the vile crew were regaling themselves with claret and sack, the hunter, who was left in a spare stall of the stable, rubbed and rubbed his head against the wall till he loosened the bridle, and finally got it off, on which he recovered his human form. Holding the bridle firmly in his hand, he concealed himself at the back of the stall till his mistress came within reach, when in an instant he flung the magic bridle over her head, and, behold, a fine grey mare! He mounted her and dashed off, riding through hedge and ditch, till, looking down, he perceived she had lost a shoe from one of her forefeet. He took her to the first smithy that was open, had the shoe replaced, and a new one put on the other forefoot, and then rode her up and down a ploughed field till she was nearly worn out. At last he took her home, and pulled the bridle off just in time for her to creep into bed before her husband awoke, and got up for his day's work.

The honest blacksmith arose, little thinking what had been going on all night; but his wife complained of being very ill, almost dying, and begged him to send for a doctor. He accordingly aroused his apprentices; the elder one went out, and soon returned with one whom he had chanced to meet already abroad. The doctor wished to feel his patient's pulse, 'but she resolutely hid her hands, and refused to show them. The village Esculapius was perplexed; but the husband, impatient at her obstinacy, pulled off the bed-clothes, and found, to his horror, that horseshoes were tightly nailed to both hands! On further examination, her sides appeared galled with kicks, the same that the apprentice had given her during his ride up and down the ploughed field.
The brothers now came forward, and related all that had passed. On the following day the witch was tried by the magistrates of Selkirk, and condemned to be burned to death on a stone at the Bullsheugh, a sentence which was promptly carried into effect. It is added that the younger apprentice was at last restored to health by eating butter made from the milk of cows fed in kirkyards, a sovereign remedy for consumption brought on through being witch-ridden.

~~ "Folk-lore of the Northern Countries" by William Henderson, 1879

L'Inferno

The poet Virgil guides our hero Dante to the inner core of Hell and shows him the visage of the Devil.
................................

Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
This with the head, and that one with the soles;
Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.
.
When in advance so far we had proceeded,
That it my Master pleased to show to me
The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,
.
He from before me moved and made me stop,
Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place
Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."
.
How frozen I became and powerless then,
Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not,
Because all language would be insufficient.
.
I did not die, and I alive remained not;
Think for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit,
What I became, being of both deprived.
.
The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous
From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;
And better with a giant I compare
.
Than do the giants with those arms of his;
Consider now how great must be that whole,
Which unto such a part conforms itself.
.
Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
And lifted up his brow against his Maker,
Well may proceed from him all tribulation.
.
O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
When I beheld three faces on his head!
The one in front, and that vermilion was;
.
Two were the others, that were joined with this
Above the middle part of either shoulder,
And they were joined together at the crest;
.
And the right-hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow;
The left was such to look upon as those
Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.
.
Underneath each came forth two mighty wings,
Such as befitting were so great a bird;
Sails of the sea I never saw so large.
.
No feathers had they, but as of a bat
Their fashion was; and he was waving them,
So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.
.
Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.
With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins
Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.
.
At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he three of them tormented thus.
.
To him in front the biting was as naught
Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine
Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.
.
"That soul up there which has the greatest pain,"
The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot;
With head inside, he plies his legs without.
.
Of the two others, who head downward are,
The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.
.
And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.
But night is reascending, and 'tis time
That we depart, for we have seen the whole."
................................
~~ from Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy", Canto XXXIV (early 14th century)


These videos are from the 1911 silent film "L'Inferno"... believed to be the first feature-length Italian motion picture. In these clips, Dante and Virgil cross the Archeron, then meet Satan himself.

Lost

Sometimes I dream that I'm in a small rowboat... lost in a dark shifting sea. There's a drizzle which grows to a downpour, causing my panic to rise with the tide. The oars are wet and slippery to grasp; my feet are plunged into cold water as the belly of the dory fills with rain and spillover from the waves' caps. The clouds and their cargo obscure the sun and paint the sky with dark violent colors, which the surface of the water mirrors brokenly. The rain floods in sheets. My face is salty, flecked with seaspray and impossible to keep dry. I keep rowing though I know not which direction I head, not which direction is up even. Am I borne over the water? or under it? To try to breathe would be the test, but I am too panicked to attempt it. I cannot see any land beyond the veil of mist. My only connection to the land is the wood of which my oars were carved and the slimy thwart I crouch upon, and when I finally breathe, I smell the oil of the pitch holding the planks together. I dread that I will never smell something as foul as tar again, nor anything but brine. My lungs are sogging and my breath is weak. I am drowning in the wind...

I know surrender. I stop my rowing and drift where the sea would carry me.

Dream-Land

"Dream-land"
by Edgar Allen Poe
1844

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have reached these lands but newly

From an ultimate dim Thule --

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,

Out of SPACE -- out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,

With forms that no man can discover

For the dews that drip all over;

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Seas that restlessly aspire,

Surging, unto skies of fire;

Lakes that endlessly outspread

Their lone waters -- lone and dead, --

Their still waters -- still and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread

Their lone waters, lone and dead, --

Their sad waters, sad and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily, --

By the mountains -- near the river

Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, --

By the grey woods, -- by the swamp

Where the toad and the newt encamp, --

By the dismal tarns and pools

Where dwell the Ghouls, --

By each spot the most unholy --

In each nook most melancholy, --

There the traveller meets aghast

Sheeted Memories of the Past --

Shrouded forms that start and sigh

As they pass the wanderer by --

White-robed forms of friends long given,

In agony, to the Earth -- and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion

'Tis a peaceful, soothing region --

For the spirit that walks in shadow

'Tis -- oh 'tis an Eldorado!

But the traveller, travelling through it,

May not -- dare not openly view it;

Never its mysteries are exposed

To the weak human eye unclosed;

So wills its King, who hath forbid

The uplifting of the fringed lid;

And thus the sad Soul that here passes

Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have wandered home but newly

From this ultimate dim Thule.

The Sleeper

"The Sleeper"

by Edgar Allen Poe

1831

At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,

Exhales from out her golden rim,

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley.

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;

Wrapping the fog about its breast,

The ruin molders into rest;

Looking like Lethe, see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take,

And would not, for the world, awake.

All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies

Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-

This window open to the night?

The wanton airs, from the tree-top,

Laughingly through the lattice drop-

The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,

Flit through thy chamber in and out,

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully- so fearfully-

Above the closed and fringed lid

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,

That, o'er the floor and down the wall,

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?

Why and what art thou dreaming here?

Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,

A wonder to these garden trees!

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,

Strange, above all, thy length of tress,

And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,

Which is enduring, so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

This chamber changed for one more holy,

This bed for one more melancholy,

I pray to God that she may lie

For ever with unopened eye,

While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep

As it is lasting, so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep!

Far in the forest, dim and old,

For her may some tall vault unfold-

Some vault that oft has flung its black

And winged panels fluttering back,

Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,

Of her grand family funerals-

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,

Against whose portal she hath thrown,

In childhood, many an idle stone-

Some tomb from out whose sounding door

She ne'er shall force an echo more,

Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!

It was the dead who groaned within.

The Illustrated Man

... It's been said that Zack Snyder (director of Watchmen) will be remaking my favorite film from my favorite book, "The Illustrated Man". I applaud anyone attempting to film a Ray Bradbury story in the age of digital effects.

If you haven't seen the film, I highly suggest you watch it on youtube and then go purchase the novel. As far as I know it hasn't been released on DVD and I paid quite a hefty sum for a beat up VHS tape.

In the film, a runaway meets a cantankerous vagrant whose entire body was tattooed by a mysterious woman from another time. To the unwary viewer, his skin illustrations tell vivid tales from eras yet to come... Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom portray all of the main roles in the film and do an excellent job of it.

Scrying the Phantom Seas

I shared my River Styx dream and some similarly-themed artwork for the latest edition of the visionary art zine Emerging Visions.

This issue's theme was "Scrying the Phantom Seas"...

Häxan

"Häxan" was a 1922 Danish silent film from director Benjamin Christensen. Based on his reading of the Malleus Malificarum, "Häxan" shows how medieval superstitions led to the abuse and torture of women and the mentally ill during the European witch-hunts. Not surprisingly, the film was banned in the United States for scenes of violence and sexual perversion.

The Men Who Became Birds

THE MEN WHO BECAME BIRDS.

Once upon a time there was a lady who had twelve children... eleven boys and one girl. The poor lady died, and her husband married again. His second wife was a witch, who was very bad. In the daytime she changed the eleven boys into birds, and allowed them to take their human form only at night. As to the girl, she changed her into a negress. Her father did not know her anymore, and put her out of his house. The witch treated her husband's children in that way because she wanted him to leave his money to her own children.

When the poor girl was put out of her father's house, she went to see her brothers and told them what had happened to her. They said that the next morning they would take her to another country. They made a bed with leaves; and the next day, when they were birds again, each one took hold of theb ed in his beak, and they carried their sister far away into another country. They placed her in a forest, and built a pretty litle hut for her. One day an old witch passed by the hut, and when she saw the young girl she asked her what she was doing there. The poor girl related her story, and the witch told her she would tell her how to make her brothers remain men all the time. She must make a shirt for each one of her brothers, and not sew the shirts but weave them, and stay without speaking until the shirts were ready. It took her a loong time to do the work; and when she was nearly through,-- only one sleeve was missing to one shirt,-- her stepmother found out where she was and had her arrested as a witch. They were taking her in a cart to prison when her eleven brothers came flying around the cart. She immediately threw the shirts over them, and they became men again and rescued their sister.

As one of the sirts had only one sleeve, the brother who had received that shirt had all his life, instead of an arm, a bird's wing.

....................................................

~~ from LOUISIANA FOLK-TALES (1895), collected by Alcée Fortier, D. Lt.

The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men
~by T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II.
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III.
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V.
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Parrot

William Burroughs buys a parrot.

Exterminator Dreams

William Burroughs muses on dreams...
and explains the science of cut-ups.

Darkness

"Darkness"

by Lord George Gordon Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light;

And they did live by watchfires -and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings -the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gathered round their blazing homes

To look once more into each other's face;

Happy were those which dwelt within the eye

Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch;

A fearful hope was all the world contained;

Forests were set on fire -but hour by hour

They fell and faded -and the crackling trunks

Extinguished with a crash -and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them: some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled

And twined themselves among the multitude,

Hissing, but stingless -they were slain for food;

And War, which for a moment was no more,

Did glut himself again; -a meal was bought

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;

All earth was but one thought -and that was death,

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails -men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devoured,

Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,

Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead

Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answered not with a caress -he died.

The crowd was famished by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage: they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects -saw, and shrieked, and died -

Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless -

A lump of death -a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped

They slept on the abyss without a surge -

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perished! Darkness had no need

Of aid from them -She was the Universe!

The Modern Prometheus

Mary Godwin Shelley was only 18 years old when she gave birth two months prematurely. The child was a girl whose life span lasted only days. Acute depression set in, as the melancholy Mary began to have nightmares... dark visions of her dead daughter, pangs of guilt for not being able to protect her. One night, Mary experienced a frightening dream of warming her dead child above a fire as she roughly massaged it back to life. This was her mind replaying the scenario of the birth, looking for some way in which she could have revived the baby. It was maddening to Shelley, and so she grew an obsession of the premise of cheating death and the dream of creating life.

The grandfather of her husband Percy died and bequeathed a great fortune to the couple, and Percy saw that it was an excellent time to take his wife on holiday and away from her ghosts. They travelled to Torquay, then to Bishopsgate (where Mary would birth a son), and afterward to Geneva to visit their friend Lord Byron. Byron's estate was always lavish in mid-year, but the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora halfway across the world had plunged Europe into a deadly ashen winter and frigid summer. Unable to enjoy themselves in the world outside, the party of writers retired indoors and read a book of German ghost stories over wine (perhaps even hearing the local graverobbing legends of Johann Dippel, an alchemist who had once lived at the nearby Burg Frankenstein in Darmstadt) . That evening, at the challenge of Lord Byron, Mary set out to write her own ghost story, and a vision came unto her which was a mix of the alchemical fringe sciences of the day and the raw sorrow, guilt and hope that had plagued her dreams.

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

She called this work "The Modern Prometheus" after a line from an Immanuel Kant pamphlet about Ben Franklin's experiments with galvanism. In short time it would be published under the title "Frankenstein." It was unfavorably criticized for being "a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity", yet it was a rapid financial and literary success.

"The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

~~~ Victor Frankenstein moments after witnessing his revolting creation.

La Prisonnière

A schizoid nightmare sequence from Clouzot's "La Prisonnière" in which the shy, married bourgeois Josée dreams of the violent and humiliating art of Stanislas and his gallery. At the mercy of her own fantasies, she will meet the violent sexual urges she tries so hard to repress.

As Dr. Brulov put it in Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" ...

"The secrets of who you are and what has made you run away from yourself -- all these secrets are buried in your brain -- but you don't want to look at them. The human being very often doesn't want to know the truth about himself because he thinks it will make him sick. So, he makes himself sicker trying to forget. . . . Now, here is where dreams come in. They tell you what you are trying to hide. But they tell it to you all mixed up, like pieces of a puzzle that don't fit. The problem of the analyst is to examine this puzzle, and put the pieces together in the right place, and find out what the devil you are trying to say to yourself."

On the Precipice

In my spare time, I'm working on building the framework for a trans-religious, self-replicating viral art servitor that any artist or living being can call on as a muse in time of need. One day, it will all come together and I'll release her into the world, at which point she will clone herself to infinity...

.

.

In other news, I lost a sliver of my thumb to a very malcontent razor.

The Juniper Tree

The Juniper Tree
as recorded by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Long ago, at least two thousand years, there was a rich man who had a beautiful and pious wife, and they loved each other dearly. However, they had no children, though they wished very much to have some, and the woman prayed for them day and night, but they didn't get any, and they didn't get any.
In front of their house there was a courtyard where there stood a juniper tree. One day in winter the woman was standing beneath it, peeling herself an apple, and while she was thus peeling the apple, she cut her finger, and the blood fell into the snow.
"Oh," said the woman. She sighed heavily, looked at the blood before her, and was most unhappy. "If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow." And as she said that, she became quite contented, and felt sure that it was going to happen.
Then she went into the house, and a month went by, and the snow was gone. And two months, and everything was green. And three months, and all the flowers came out of the earth. And four months, and all the trees in the woods grew thicker, and the green branches were all entwined in one another, and the birds sang until the woods resounded and the blossoms fell from the trees. Then the fifth month passed, and she stood beneath the juniper tree, which smelled so sweet that her heart jumped for joy, and she fell on her knees and was beside herself. And when the sixth month was over, the fruit was thick and large, and then she was quite still. And after the seventh month she picked the juniper berries and ate them greedily. Then she grew sick and sorrowful. Then the eighth month passed, and she called her husband to her, and cried, and said, "If I die, then bury me beneath the juniper tree." Then she was quite comforted and happy until the next month was over, and then she had a child as white as snow and as red as blood, and when she saw it, she was so happy that she died.
Her husband buried her beneath the juniper tree, and he began to cry bitterly. After some time he was more at ease, and although he still cried, he could bear it. And some time later he took another wife.
He had a daughter by the second wife, but the first wife's child was a little son, and he was as red as blood and as white as snow. When the woman looked at her daughter, she loved her very much, but then she looked at the little boy, and it pierced her heart, for she thought that he would always stand in her way, and she was always thinking how she could get the entire inheritance for her daughter. And the Evil One filled her mind with this until she grew very angry with the little boy, and she pushed him from one corner to the other and slapped him here and cuffed him there, until the poor child was always afraid, for when he came home from school there was nowhere he could find any peace.

One day the woman had gone upstairs to her room, when her little daughter came up too, and said, "Mother, give me an apple."
"Yes, my child," said the woman, and gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest. The chest had a large heavy lid with a large sharp iron lock.
"Mother," said the little daughter, "is brother not to have one too?"
This made the woman angry, but she said, "Yes, when he comes home from school."
When from the window she saw him coming, it was as though the Evil One came over her, and she grabbed the apple and took it away from her daughter, saying, "You shall not have one before your brother."
She threw the apple into the chest, and shut it. Then the little boy came in the door, and the Evil One made her say to him kindly, "My son, do you want an apple?" And she looked at him fiercely.
"Mother," said the little boy, "how angry you look. Yes, give me an apple."
Then it seemed to her as if she had to persuade him. "Come with me," she said, opening the lid of the chest. "Take out an apple for yourself." And while the little boy was leaning over, the Evil One prompted her, and crash! she slammed down the lid, and his head flew off, falling among the red apples.
Then fear overcame her, and she thought, "Maybe I can get out of this." So she went upstairs to her room to her chest of drawers, and took a white scarf out of the top drawer, and set the head on the neck again, tying the scarf around it so that nothing could be seen. Then she set him on a chair in front of the door and put the apple in his hand.
After this Marlene came into the kitchen to her mother, who was standing by the fire with a pot of hot water before her which she was stirring around and around.
"Mother," said Marlene, "brother is sitting at the door, and he looks totally white and has an apple in his hand. I asked him to give me the apple, but he did not answer me, and I was very frightened."
"Go back to him," said her mother, "and if he will not answer you, then box his ears."
So Marlene went to him and said, "Brother, give me the apple." But he was silent, so she gave him one on the ear, and his head fell off. Marlene was terrified, and began crying and screaming, and ran to her mother, and said, "Oh, mother, I have knocked my brother's head off," and she cried and cried and could not be comforted.
"Marlene," said the mother, "what have you done? Be quiet and don't let anyone know about it. It cannot be helped now. We will cook him into stew."
Then the mother took the little boy and chopped him in pieces, put him into the pot, and cooked him into stew. But Marlene stood by crying and crying, and all her tears fell into the pot, and they did not need any salt.
Then the father came home, and sat down at the table and said, "Where is my son?" And the mother served up a large, large dish of stew, and Marlene cried and could not stop.
Then the father said again, "Where is my son?"
"Oh," said the mother, "he has gone across the country to his mother's great uncle. He will stay there awhile."
"What is he doing there? He did not even say good-bye to me."
"Oh, he wanted to go, and asked me if he could stay six weeks. He will be well taken care of there."
"Oh," said the man, "I am unhappy. It isn't right. He should have said good-bye to me." With that he began to eat, saying, "Marlene, why are you crying? Your brother will certainly come back."
Then he said, "Wife, this food is delicious. Give me some more." And the more he ate the more he wanted, and he said, "Give me some more. You two shall have none of it. It seems to me as if it were all mine." And he ate and ate, throwing all the bones under the table, until he had finished it all.
Marlene went to her chest of drawers, took her best silk scarf from the bottom drawer, and gathered all the bones from beneath the table and tied them up in her silk scarf, then carried them outside the door, crying tears of blood.
She laid them down beneath the juniper tree on the green grass, and after she had put them there, she suddenly felt better and did not cry anymore.
Then the juniper tree began to move. The branches moved apart, then moved together again, just as if someone were rejoicing and clapping his hands. At the same time a mist seemed to rise from the tree, and in the center of this mist it burned like a fire, and a beautiful bird flew out of the fire singing magnificently, and it flew high into the air, and when it was gone, the juniper tree was just as it had been before, and the cloth with the bones was no longer there. Marlene, however, was as happy and contented as if her brother were still alive. And she went merrily into the house, sat down at the table, and ate.
Then the bird flew away and lit on a goldsmith's house, and began to sing:
My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
The goldsmith was sitting in his workshop making a golden chain, when he heard the bird sitting on his roof and singing. The song seemed very beautiful to him. He stood up, but as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. However, he went right up the middle of the street with only one slipper and one sock on. He had his leather apron on, and in one hand he had a golden chain and in the other his tongs. The sun was shining brightly on the street.
He walked onward, then stood still and said to the bird, "Bird," he said, "how beautifully you can sing. Sing that piece again for me."
"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me the golden chain, and then I will sing it again for you."
The goldsmith said, "Here is the golden chain for you. Now sing that song again for me." Then the bird came and took the golden chain in his right claw, and went and sat in front of the goldsmith, and sang:
My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then the bird flew away to a shoemaker, and lit on his roof and sang:
My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
Hearing this, the shoemaker ran out of doors in his shirtsleeves, and looked up at his roof, and had to hold his hand in front of his eyes to keep the sun from blinding him. "Bird," said he, "how beautifully you can sing."
Then he called in at his door, "Wife, come outside. There is a bird here. Look at this bird. He certainly can sing." Then he called his daughter and her children, and the journeyman, and the apprentice, and the maid, and they all came out into the street and looked at the bird and saw how beautiful he was, and what fine red and green feathers he had, and how his neck was like pure gold, and how his eyes shone like stars in his head.
"Bird," said the shoemaker, "now sing that song again for me."
"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. You must give me something."
"Wife," said the man, "go into the shop. There is a pair of red shoes on the top shelf. Bring them down." Then the wife went and brought the shoes.
"There, bird," said the man, "now sing that piece again for me." Then the bird came and took the shoes in his left claw, and flew back to the roof, and sang:
My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
When he had finished his song he flew away. In his right claw he had the chain and in his left one the shoes. He flew far away to a mill, and the mill went clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. In the mill sat twenty miller's apprentices cutting a stone, and chiseling chip-chop, chip-chop, chip-chop. And the mill went clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
Then the bird went and sat on a linden tree which stood in front of the mill, and sang:
My mother, she killed me,
Then one of them stopped working.
My father, he ate me,
Then two more stopped working and listened,
My sister Marlene,
Then four more stopped,
Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,
Now only eight only were chiseling,
Laid them beneath
Now only five,
the juniper tree,
Now only one,
Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then the last one stopped also, and heard the last words. "Bird," said he, "how beautifully you sing. Let me hear that too. Sing it once more for me."
"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me the millstone, and then I will sing it again."
"Yes," he said, "if it belonged only to me, you should have it."
"Yes," said the others, "if he sings again he can have it."
Then the bird came down, and the twenty millers took a beam and lifted the stone up. Yo-heave-ho! Yo-heave-ho! Yo-heave-ho!
The bird stuck his neck through the hole and put the stone on as if it were a collar, then flew to the tree again, and sang:
My mother, she killed me,My father, he ate me,My sister Marlene,Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
When he was finished singing, he spread his wings, and in his right claw he had the chain, and in his left one the shoes, and around his neck the millstone. He flew far away to his father's house.
In the room the father, the mother, and Marlene were sitting at the table.
The father said, "I feel so contented. I am so happy."
"Not I," said the mother, "I feel uneasy, just as if a bad storm were coming."
But Marlene just sat and cried and cried.
Then the bird flew up, and as it seated itself on the roof, the father said, "Oh, I feel so truly happy, and the sun is shining so beautifully outside. I feel as if I were about to see some old acquaintance again."
"Not I," said the woman, "I am so afraid that my teeth are chattering, and I feel like I have fire in my veins." And she tore open her bodice even more. Marlene sat in a corner crying. She held a handkerchief before her eyes and cried until it was wet clear through.
Then the bird seated itself on the juniper tree, and sang:
My mother, she killed me,
The mother stopped her ears and shut her eyes, not wanting to see or hear, but there was a roaring in her ears like the fiercest storm, and her eyes burned and flashed like lightning.
My father, he ate me,
"Oh, mother," said the man, "that is a beautiful bird. He is singing so splendidly, and the sun is shining so warmly, and it smells like pure cinnamon."
My sister Marlene,
Then Marlene laid her head on her knees and cried and cried, but the man said, "I am going out. I must see the bird up close."
"Oh, don't go," said the woman, "I feel as if the whole house were shaking and on fire."
But the man went out and looked at the bird.
Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
With this the bird dropped the golden chain, and it fell right around the man's neck, so exactly around it that it fit beautifully. Then the man went in and said, "Just look what a beautiful bird that is, and what a beautiful golden chain he has given me, and how nice it looks."
But the woman was terrified. She fell down on the floor in the room, and her cap fell off her head. Then the bird sang once more:
My mother killed me.
"I wish I were a thousand fathoms beneath the earth, so I would not have to hear that!"
My father, he ate me,
Then the woman fell down as if she were dead.
My sister Marlene,
"Oh," said Marlene, "I too will go out and see if the bird will give me something." Then she went out.
Gathered all my bones,Tied them in a silken scarf,
He threw the shoes down to her.
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.
Then she was contented and happy. She put on the new red shoes and danced and leaped into the house. "Oh," she said, "I was so sad when I went out and now I am so contented. That is a splendid bird, he has given me a pair of red shoes."
"No," said the woman, jumping to her feet and with her hair standing up like flames of fire, "I feel as if the world were coming to an end. I too, will go out and see if it makes me feel better."
And as she went out the door, crash! the bird threw the millstone on her head, and it crushed her to death.
The father and Marlene heard it and went out. Smoke, flames, and fire were rising from the place, and when that was over, the little brother was standing there, and he took his father and Marlene by the hand, and all three were very happy, and they went into the house, sat down at the table, and ate.

Chalupacabra

... Acrylic and colored pencil on photograph...

Dobrynya versus the Dragon

Old Bugs

how bout a little Lovecraft tonight?
..................................................................

An Extemporaneous Sob Story by Marcus Lollius, Proconsul of Gaul

Sheehan's Pool Room, which adorns one of the lesser alleys in the heart of Chicago's stockyard district, is not a nice place. Its air, freighted with a thousand odours such as Coleridge may have found at Cologne, too seldom knows the purifying rays of the sun; but fights for space with the acrid fumes of unnumbered cheap cigars and cigarettes which dangle from the coarse lips of unnumbered human animals that haunt the place day and night. But the popularity of Sheehan's remains unimpaired; and for this there is a reason -- a reason obvious to anyone who will take the trouble to analyse the mixed stenches prevailing there. Over and above the fumes and sickening closeness rises an aroma once familiar throughout the land, but now happily banished to the back streets of life by the edict of a benevolent government -- the aroma of strong, wicked whiskey -- a precious kind of forbidden fruit indeed in this year of grace 1950.
Sheehan's is the acknowledged centre to Chicago's subterranean traffic in liquor and narcotics, and as such has a certain dignity which extends even to the unkempt attaches of the place; but there was until lately one who lay outside the pale of that dignity -- one who shared the squalor and filth, but not the importance, of Sheehan's. He was called "Old Bugs", and was the most disreputable object in a disreputable environment. What he had once been, many tried to guess; for his language and mode of utterance when intoxicated to a certain degree were such as to excite wonderment; but what he was, presented less difficulty -- for "Old Bugs", in superlative degree, epitomised the pathetic species known as the "bum" or the "down-and-outer". Whence he had come, no one could tell. One night he had burst wildly into Sheehan's, foaming at the mouth and screaming for whiskey and hasheesh; and having been supplied in exchange for a promise to perform odd jobs, had hung about ever since, mopping floors, cleaning cuspidors and glasses, and attending to an hundred similar menial duties in exchange for the drink and drugs which were necessary to keep him alive and sane.

He talked but little, and usually in the common jargon of the underworld; but occasionally, when inflamed by an unusually generous dose of crude whiskey, would burst forth into strings of incomprehensible polysyllables and snatches of sonorous prose and verse which led certain habitués to conjecture that he had seen better days. One steady patron -- a bank defaulter under cover -- came to converse with him quite regularly, and from the tone of his discourse ventured the opinion that he had been a writer or professor in his day. But the only tangible clue to Old Bugs' past was a faded photograph which he constantly carried about with him -- the photograph of a young woman of noble and beautiful features. This he would sometimes draw from his tattered pocket, carefully unwrap from its covering of tissue paper, and gaze upon for hours with an expression of ineffable sadness and tenderness. It was not the portrait of one whom an underworld denizen would be likely to know, but of a lady of breeding and quality, garbed in the quaint attire of thirty years before. Old Bugs himself seemed also to belong to the past, for his nondescript clothing bore every hallmark of antiquity. He was a man of immense height, probably more than six feet, though his stooping shoulders sometimes belied this fact. His hair, a dirty white and falling out in patches, was never combed; and over his lean face grew a mangy stubble of coarse beard which seemed always to remain at the bristling stage -- never shaven -- yet never long enough to form a respectable set of whiskers. His features had perhaps been noble once, but were now seamed with the ghastly effects of terrible dissipation. At one time -- probably in middle life -- he had evidently been grossly fat; but now he was horribly lean, the purple flesh hanging in loose pouches under his bleary eyes and upon his cheeks. Altogether, Old Bugs was not pleasing to look upon.
The disposition of Old Bugs was as odd as his aspect. Ordinarily he was true to the derelict type -- ready to do anything for a nickel or a dose of whiskey or hasheesh -- but at rare intervals he shewed the traits which earned him his name. Then he would try to straighten up, and a certain fire would creep into the sunken eyes. His demeanour would assume an unwonted grace and even dignity; and the sodden creatures around him would sense something of superiority -- something which made them less ready to give the usual kicks and cuffs to the poor butt and drudge. At these times he would shew a sardonic humour and make remarks which the folk of Sheehan's deemed foolish and irrational. But the spells would soon pass, and once more Old Bugs would resume his eternal floor-scrubbing and cuspidor-cleaning. But for one thing Old Bugs would have been an ideal slave to the establishment -- and that one thing was his conduct when young men were introduced for their first drink. The old man would then rise from the floor in anger and excitement, muttering threats and warnings, and seeking to dissuade the novices from embarking upon their course of "seeing life as it is." He would sputter and fume, exploding into sesquipedalian admonitions and strange oaths, and animated by a frightful earnestness which brought a shudder to more than one drug-racked mind in the crowded room. But after a time his alcohol-enfeebled brain would wander from the subject, and with a foolish grin he would turn once more to his mop or cleaning-rag.

I do not think that many of Sheehan's regular patrons will ever forget the day that young Alfred Trever came. He was rather a "find" -- a rich and high-spirited youth who would "go the limit" in anything he undertook -- at least, that was the verdict of Pete Schultz, Sheehan's "runner", who had come across the boy at Lawrence College, in the small town of Appleton, Wisconsin. Trever was the son of prominent parents in Appleton. His father, Karl Trever, was an attorney and citizen of distinction, whilst his mother had made an enviable reputation as a poetess under her maiden name of Eleanor Wing. Alfred was himself a scholar and poet of distinction, though cursed with a certain childish irresponsibility which made him an ideal prey for Sheehan's runner. He was blond, handsome, and spoiled; vivacious and eager to taste the several forms of dissipation about which he had read and heard. At Lawrence he had been prominent in the mock-fraternity of "Tappa Tappa Keg", where he was the wildest and merriest of the wild and merry young roysterers; but this immature, collegiate frivolity did not satisfy him. He knew deeper vices through books, and he now longed to know them at first hand. Perhaps this tendency toward wildness had been stimulated somewhat by the repression to which he had been subjected at home; for Mrs. Trever had particular reason for training her only child with rigid severity. She had, in her own youth, been deeply and permanently impressed with the horror of dissipation by the case of one to whom she had for a time been engaged.
Young Galpin, the fiancé in question, had been one of Appleton's most remarkable sons. Attaining distinction as a boy through his wonderful mentality, he won vast fame at the University of Wisconsin, and at the age of twenty-three returned to Appleton to take up a professorship at Lawrence and to slip a diamond upon the finger of Appleton's fairest and most brilliant daughter. For a season all went happily, till without warning the storm burst. Evil habits, dating from a first drink taken years before in woodland seclusion, made themselves manifest in the young professor; and only by a hurried resignation did he escape a nasty prosecution for injury to the habits and morals of the pupils under his charge. His engagement broken, Galpin moved east to begin life anew; but before long, Appletonians heard of his dismissal in disgrace from New York University, where he had obtained an instructorship in English. Galpin now devoted his time to the library and lecture platform, preparing volumes and speeches on various subjects connected with belles lettres, and always shewing a genius so remarkable that it seemed as if the public must sometime pardon him for his past mistakes. His impassioned lectures in defence of Villon, Poe, Verlaine, and Oscar Wilde were applied to himself as well, and in the short Indian summer of his glory there was talk of a renewed engagement at a certain cultured home on Park Avenue. But then the blow fell. A final disgrace, compared to which the others had been as nothing, shattered the illusions of those who had come to believe in Galpin's reform; and the young man abandoned his name and disappeared from public view. Rumour now and then associated him with a certain "Consul Hasting" whose work for the stage and for motionpicture companies attracted a certain degree of attention because of its scholarly breadth and depth; but Hasting soon disappeared from the public eye, and Galpin became only a name for parents to quote in warning accents. Eleanor Wing soon celebrated her marriage to Karl Trever, a rising young lawyer, and of her former admirer retained only enough memory to dictate the naming of her only son, and the moral guidance of that handsome and headstrong youth. Now, in spite of all that guidance, Alfred Trever was at Sheehan's and about to take his first drink.

"Boss," cried Schultz, as he entered the vile-smelling room with his young victim, "meet my friend Al Trever, bes' li'1' sport up at Lawrence -- thas"n Appleton, Wis., y' know. Some swell guy, too -- 's father's a big corp'ration lawyer up in his burg, 'n' 's mother's some fiery genius. He wants to see life as she is -- wants to know what the real lightnin' juice tastes like -- so jus'remember he's me friend an' treat 'im right."
As the names Trever, Lawrence, and Appleton fell on the air, the loafers seemed to sense something unusual. Perhaps it was only some sound connected with the clicking balls of the pool tables or the rattling glasses that were brought from the cryptic regions in the rear -- perhaps only that, plus some strange rustling of the dirty draperies at the one dingy window-but many thought that someone in the room had gritted his teeth and drawn a very sharp breath.
"Glad to know you, Sheehan," said Trever in a quiet, well-bred tone.
"This is my first experience in a place like this, but I am a student of life, and don't want to miss any experience. There's poetry in this sort of thing, you know -- or perhaps you don't know, but it's all the same.
"Young feller," responded the proprietor, "ya come tuh th' right place tuh see life. We got all kinds here -- reel life an' a good time. The damn' government can try tuh make folks good of it wants tuh, but it can't stop a feller from hittin"er up when he feels like it. Whaddya want, feller -- booze, coke, or some other sorta dope? Yuh can't ask for nothin' we ain't got."
Habitués say that it was at this point they noticed a cessation in the regular, monotonous strokes of the mop.
"I want whiskey -- good old-fashioned rye!" exclaimed Trever enthusiastically. "I'll tell you, I'm good and tired of water after reading of the merry bouts fellows used to have in the old days. I can't read an Anacreontic without watering at the mouth -- and it's something a lot stronger than water that my mouth waters for!"
"Anacreontic -- what'n hell's that?" several hangers-on looked up as the young man went slightly beyond their depth. But the bank defaulter under cover explained to them that Anacreon was a gay old dog who lived many years ago and wrote about the fun he had when all the world was just like Sheehan's.
"Let me see, Trever," continued the defaulter, "didn't Schultz say your mother is a literary person, too?"
"Yes, damn it," replied Trever, "but nothing like the old Teian! She's one of those dull, eternal moralisers that try to take all the joy out of life. Namby-pamby sort -- ever heard of her? She writes under her maiden name of Eleanor Wing."
Here it was that Old Bugs dropped his mop.
"Well, here's yer stuff," announced Sheehan jovially as a tray of bottles and glasses was wheeled into the room. "Good old rye, an' as fiery as ya kin find anyw'eres in Chi."
The youth's eyes glistened and his nostrils curled at the fumes of the brownish fluid which an attendant was pouring out for him. It repelled him horribly, and revolted all his inherited delicacy; but his determination to taste life to the full remained with him, and he maintained a bold front. But before his resolution was put to the test, the unexpected intervened. Old Bugs, springing up from the crouching position in which he had hitherto been, leaped at the youth and dashed from his hands the uplifted glass, almost simultaneously attacking the tray of bottles and glasses with his mop, and scattering the contents upon the floor in a confusion of odoriferous fluid and broken bottles and tumblers. Numbers of men, or things which had been men, dropped to the floor and began lapping at the puddles of spilled liquor, but most remained immovable, watching the unprecedented actions of the barroom drudge and derelict. Old Bugs straightened up before the astonished Trever, and in a mild and cultivated voice said, "Do not do this thing. I was like you once, and I did it. Now I am like -- this."
"What do you mean, you damned old fool?" shouted Trever. "What do you mean by interfering with a gentleman in his pleasures?" Sheehan, now recovering from his astonishment, advanced and laid a heavy hand on the old waif's shoulder.
"This is the last time far you, old bird!" he exclaimed furiously. "When a gen'l'man wants tuh take a drink here, by God, he shall, without you interferin'. Now get th' hell outa here afore I kick hell outa ya."
But Sheehan had reckoned without scientific knowledge of abnormal psychology and the effects of nervous stimulus. Old Bugs, obtaining a firmer hold on his mop, began to wield it like the javelin of a Macedonian hoplite, and soon cleared a considerable space around himself, meanwhile shouting various disconnected bits of quotation, among which was prominently repeated, " . . . the sons of Belial, blown with insolence and wine."
The room became pandemonium, and men screamed and howled in fright at the sinister being they had aroused. Trever seemed dazed in the confusion, and shrank to the wall as the strife thickened. "He shall not drink! He shall not drink!" Thus roared Old Bugs as he seemed to run out of -- or rise above -- quotations. Policemen appeared at the door, attracted by the noise, but for a time they made no move to intervene. Trever, now thoroughly terrified and cured forever of his desire to see life via the vice route, edged closer to the blue-coated newcomers. Could he but escape and catch a train for Appleton, he reflected, he would consider his education in dissipation quite complete.
Then suddenly Old Bugs ceased to wield his javelin and stopped still -- drawing himself up more erectly than any denizen of the place had ever seen him before. "Ave, Caesar, moriturus te saluto!" he shouted, and dropped to the whiskey-reeking floor, never to rise again.
Subsequent impressions will never leave the mind of young Trever. The picture is blurred, but ineradicable. Policemen ploughed a way through the crowd, questioning everyone closely both about the incident and about the dead figure on the floor. Sheehan especially did they ply with inquiries, yet without eliciting any information of value concerning Old Bugs. Then the bank defaulter remembered the picture, and suggested that it be viewed and filed for identification at police headquarters. An officer bent reluctantly over the loathsome glassyeyed form and found the tissue-wrapped cardboard, which he passed around among the others.
"Some chicken!" leered a drunken man as he viewed the beautiful face, but those who were sober did not leer, looking with respect and abashment at the delicate and spiritual features. No one seemed able to place the subject, and all wondered that the drug-degraded derelict should have such a portrait in his possession -- that is, all but the bank defaulter, who was meanwhile eyeing the intruding bluecoats rather uneasily. He had seen a little deeper beneath Old Bugs' mask of utter degradation.
Then the picture was passed to Trever, and a change came over the youth. After the first start, he replaced the tissue wrapping around the portrait, as if to shield it from the sordidness of the place. Then he gazed long and searchingly at the figure on the floor, noting its great height, and the aristocratic cast of features which seemed to appear now that the wretched flame of life had flickered out. No, he said hastily, as the question was put to him, he did not know the subject of the picture. It was so old, he added, that no one now could be expected to recognise it.
But Alfred Trever did not speak the truth, as many guessed when he offered to take charge of the body and secure its interment in Appleton. Over the library mantel in his home hung the exact replica of that picture, and all his life he had known and loved its original.
For the gentle and noble features were those of his own mother.

~~~ OLD BUGS by H.P. Lovecraft, 1919

My painting has nothing to do with the story. It just reminded me of Lovecraft's title.

NO REGRETS!

and no remorse...

Tomorrow I'm starting a full backpiece of the 1960's Batman tv show... and then a monkey with a ghost girl opening Pandora's box. Sunday, I'm taking it easy, slowing it down and getting a few of these sleeves drawn up... and then Sunday night, I'm catching Watchmen at the Paradiso. That one comic warped my mind worse than any other as a teenager. Completely destroyed the heroic ideal for me, and introduced me to the concept of the depressive narrative. It was an early taste of realism, and believe me that for ten years after, I was frightened for the future.

Sometimes, I wish I could travel back and meet myself as a teenager and explain how truly great everything turns out. But would I stop myself from letting Rocky tattoo that shitty Pearl Jam stickman on my arm? ... maybe in the past.
but now?...

NO REGRETS, homie!

From Ray Dennis Steckler's 1964 film, "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies".

Lazy, ne'er-do-well Jerry attends the carnival and decides to see Madame Estrella to have his fortune told, unaware of her plans to hypnotize him into becoming her murderous zombie. In this dream sequence, Jerry subconscious taunts his memory with the horrible acts of violence he has perpetrated.

Metamorphosis of the Vampire

Meanwhile, from her red mouth the woman, in husky tones,

Twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones

And straining her white breasts from their imprisonment,

Let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:

"My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way

To keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.

All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make

Old men laugh happily as children for my sake.

For him who sees me naked in my tresses,

I Replace the sun, the moon, and all the stars of the sky!

Believe me, learned sir, I am so deeply skilled

That when I wind a lover in my soft arms, and yield

My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring-both

Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath-

Upon his bed that groans and sighs luxuriously

Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!"

When she drained me of my very marrow, and cold

And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss-behold,

There at my side was nothing but a hideous

Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.

I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned till day:

Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own,

The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeleton

Wagged up and down in a new posture where she had lain;

Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervane

Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right

Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.

~~~ Charles Baudelaire, 1857

Death and the Maiden

A classic European tale. Found in Gypsy Folk Tales as "Death the Sweetheart", its origins are in the Greek legend of Hades and Persephone, changed to fit the amorous ideals of the Romantic era. The story goes thus:

At the edge of a village lived a comely young maiden utterly alone. She had no husband and all of her kinsolk had died. Because of her misfortune, she was considered cursed by death and because of this the other villagers kept great distance from her. They avoided her, and she in turn avoided them.

One dark rainy night, there was a rapping at her door, and she answered. There stood a weary man. "I am a wanderer, and I have been far in the world. Here will I rest. No further can I go." The maiden was relieved to have company, and told him, "Stay here. I will give thee a mattress to sleep on and victuals and drink too." The wanderer accepted and, when he had finished eating, lay upon the mattress. "Now once again I sleep. It is long since last I slept."

"How long?" asked the maiden.

"Dear maiden, I sleep but one week in every thousand years," he explained.

"Thou jestest, surely. Thou art a roguish fellow," she laughed, but her guest was already asleep.

The next morning he arose and he said, "Thou art a pretty young girl. If thou wilt, I will tarry here the whole week." And she quickly agreed, for she already had grown feelings for the goodly wanderer. He stayed a few nights with the maiden sleeping beside him. Then one night she did rouse him. "Dear man! I dreamt such an evil dream! I dreamt thou hadst grown cold and white, and we drove in a beautiful carriage, drawn by six white doves. Thou didst blow on a mighty horn; then dead folk rose up and went with us... and thou wert their king!"

"That was an evil dream," answered the wanderer. "My beloved, I must go, for not a soul has died this long while in all the world. It is time. I must leave, and you must let me go."

But the girl wept. "Go not away! Bide with me."

"I must go," he answered. "God keep thee."

"If you must leave me, dear man, then tell me... Who art thou?"

"Who knows that secret dies" he said. "Thous askest vainly. I tell thee not who I am."

The maiden wept at his sleeve. "I will suffer everything," she cried. "Only do tell me who thou truly art!"

"Good. Then thou will comest with me," he said. "I am Death."

The maiden shuddered and died.

Зеркало

Above image done in Artrage 2.5

This is one of the bost beautiful moments in cinema history. A dream sequence from Tarkovsky's 1975 film 'Зеркало' or 'ZERKALO'... released in the US as 'The Mirror'. In this dream, Margarita Terekhova gazes into the mirror and sees her own reflection frighteningly aged... (played by the director's own mother).

Mirrors in dreams are rarely a good thing... A sign that you've ignored the clues fate sets before you, leaving your subconscious no other choice than to coerce your gaze onto your own reflection. When we see ourselves, our minds must interpret and evaluate our own image in a perceptive reality and find those faults or fears within that otherwise manifest without.

The Riddle

Tonight I'm reading 'Gypsy Folk Tales (1899)' by Francis Hindes Groome, so that's exactly what you're getting. This particular tale struck my fancy, maybe because I identify with the hero... This tale is called 'THE RIDDLE'...

In those days there was a rich man. He had an only son, and the mother and the father loved him dearly., He went to school; all that there is in the world, he learned it. One day he arose; took four, five purses of money. Here, there he squandered it. Early next morning he arose again and went to his father. 'Give me more money.' He got more money, arose, went; by night he had spent it. Little by little he spent all the money.
And early once more he arose, and says to his father and mother, 'I want some money.'
'My child, there is no money left. Would you like the stew-pans? take them, go, sell them, and eat.'
He took and sold them: in a day or two he had spent it.
'I want some money.'
My son, we have no money. Take the clothes, go, sell them.'
In a day or two he had spent that money. He arose, and went to his father, 'I want some money.'
'My son, there is no money left us. If you like, sell the house.'
The lad took and sold the house. In a month he had spent the money; no money remained. 'Father I want some money.'
'My son, no riches remain to us, no house remains to us. If you like, take us to the slave-market, sell us.'
The lad took and sold them. His mother and his father said, 'Come this way, that we may see you.' The king bought the mother and father.
With the money for his mother the lad bought himself clothes, and with the money for his father got a horse.
One day, two days the father, the mother looked for the son that comes not; they fell a-weeping. The king's servants saw them weeping; they went, told it to the king. 'Those whom you bought weep loudly.'
'Call them to me.' The king called them. 'Why are you weeping.'
'We had a son; for him it is we weep.'
'Who are you, then? ' asked the king.
'We were not thus, my king; we had a son. He sold us, and we were weeping at his not coming to see us.'
Just as they were talking with the king, the lad arrived. The king set-to, wrote a letter, gave it him into his hand. 'Carry this letter to such and such a place.' In it the king wrote, 'The lad bearing this letter, cut his throat the minute you get it.'
The lad put on his new clothes, mounted his horse, put the letter in his bosom, took the road. He rode a long way; he was dying of thirst; and he sees a well. 'How am I to get water to drink? I will fasten this letter, and lower it into the well, and moisten my mouth a bit.' He lowered it, drew it up, squeezed it into his mouth.
'Let's see what this letter contains.'
See what it contains--'The minute he delivers the letter, cut his throat.' The lad stood there fair mesmerised.

In a certain place there was a king's daughter. They go to propound a riddle to her. If she guesses it, she will cut off his head; and if she cannot, he will marry the maiden.
The lad arose, went to the king's palace.
'What are you come for, my lad?'
'I would speak with the king's daughter.'
'Speak with her you shall. If she guesses your riddle,
she will cut off your head; and if she cannot, you will get the maiden.'
'That's what I'm come for.'
He sat down in front of the maiden. The maiden said, 'Tell your riddle.'
The lad said, 'My mother I wore her, my father I rode him, from my death I drank water.'
The maiden looked in her book, could not find it. 'Grant me a three days' respite.'
'I grant it you,' said the lad. The lad arose, went to an inn, goes to sleep there.
The maiden saw she cannot find it out. The maiden set-to, had an underground passage made to the place where the lad lies sleeping. At midnight the maid arose, went to him, took the lad in her arms.
'I am thine, thou art mine, only tell me the riddle.'
'Not likely I should tell you. Strip yourself,' said the lad to the maiden. The maiden stripped herself.
'Tell me it.' Then he told her.
The maiden clapped her hands; her servants came, took the maiden, and let her go. The maiden was wearing the lad's sark, and the lad was wearing the maiden's.
Day broke. They summoned the lad. The lad mounted his horse, and rides to the palace. The people see the lad. '’Tis a pity; they'll kill him.'
He went up, and stood face to face with the king.
'My daughter has guessed your riddle,' said the king.
'How did she guess it, my king? At night when I was asleep, there came a bird to my breast. I caught it, I killed it, I cooked it. Just as I was going to eat it, it flew away.'
The king says, 'Kill him; he's wandering.'
'I am not wandering, my king. I told your daughter the riddle. Your daughter had an underground passage made, and she came to where I was sleeping, came to my arms. I caught her, I stripped her, I took her to my bosom, I told her the riddle. She clapped her hands; her servants came and took her. And if you don't believe, I am wearing her sark, and she is wearing mine.'
The king saw it was true.
Forty days, forty nights they made a marriage. He took the maiden, went, bought back his father, his mother.

~~ entry number 3 in Francis Hinde Groome's GYPSY FOLK TALES 1899

4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Acrylic on canvas.

Sold for $200.

Blood and Roses

Dream sequence from the 1960 French vampire film "Blood and Roses"... the vampiric spirit of Carmilla's ancient ancestor Mircalla possesses her body and visits the dream of her rival lover Georgia.

Grandma wears the Mask

Made with charcoal and acrylic.

The snowstorm outside has stopped and everything is covered in a blanket of white. The sun reflecting off the snow set a dazzling light through the window very early, to where it was impossible for me to sleep any longer.

I have quite alot of tattoo work before me today. I'm going to plan it all out over a very quiet bowl of cereal and milk.