The Lord of the Rings: The Ride of the Rohirrim (Part 1)

The Tale

Merry is having a restless night, bivouacking with the Rohirrim army in the pine woods around Eilenach Beacon, a hill rising out of the Druadan Forest next to the great road in East Anorion. He cannot rest, though they have been on the road four days. All around him are the sighing of trees, the smell and shifting of horse, and a strange throbbing in the air that comes and goes.

The hobbit wonders why he is even there. He certainly didn’t have to come; in fact, King Theoden had positively ordered him not to come. Even so all the Riders ignore him as if he wasn’t there. There seems to be some arrangement between Dernhelm, his ride, and Elfhelm, the leader of this part of the army. Merry longs to have Pippin to talk to and wonders how his friend is faring alone in a city of stone, no doubt under siege.

The host is anxious, because they are only a day’s ride from Minas Tirith, and already the road is being held by enemy forces of men and orcs. Theoden and Eomer are holding council on how to proceed. And the strange throbbing drums seem to be moving nearer.

But suddenly he sees men moving vaguely in the dark, carrying covered lanterns. One trips over him, cursing, and he recognizes the voice of Elfhelm. He dares to ask the marshall what is going on, and is told that there are orders for the host to prepare to move out at a moment’s notice. Merry asks nervously if the enemy is moving, if it has anything to do with the strange drums in the hills.

No, he is told, the enemy is on the road, not in the hills. What he hears are the Woses, the Wild Men of the Wood. They are remnants of an older time, secretive and wary as beasts, using poison arrows rather than swords. But it seems they fear the Dark Years are coming again, and are willing to aid Theoden and his men. One of their leaders is being taken to Theoden for counsel even now. But Elfhelm must go and get his men ready. Merry should get ready to move, too.

Merry is quite ready for action; simply waiting is unbearable. He doesn’t like the sound of poison darts, but feels he must know more about what’s going on. He follows the last lantern to where the counsel is taking place.

He comes to an open space where Theoden’s tent has been set under a great tree. A lantern hangs, shedding light on a strange meeting. Theoden and Eomer are there, and before them sits a strange figure, ‘a squat shape of a man, gnarled as an old stone, and the hairs of his scanty beard straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss. He was short-legged and fat-armed, thick and stumpy, and clad only in grass about his waist.’ Merry thinks he has seen such a figure before, then remembers the old Pukel-men carved at Dunharrow. This could be one brought to life, or a distant descendant of the models for the statues.

Notes

The Woses sound like some kind of cavemen, but they are based on an old medieval story, the wood (wild, frenzied, crazy) wose (being, person) who lived in the wood. They were seen either to be creatures of their own race, like satyrs, covered with hair; or men who had run crazy out into the wild and gone au naturale, as it were.

The idea of hairy wild men goes back as far as Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh or Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. Sir Lancelot once went through a period where he went mad and lived as a Wild Man in the woods. The term woodwose survives in the modern English surname Wodehouse (as in P. G. Wodehouse).

The element of wood (in the sense of frenzied) may be related to Woden, who drove men mad in battle … and also into frenzies of poetic inspiration. But anyway, the term and idea of the woses were very popular in old heraldry and art, especially during the Renaissance.

The Bal des Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men), or the Bal des Sauvages (Ball of the Wild Men), was a masquerade ball held on 28 January 1393 in Paris, France, at which King Charles VI had a dance performance with five members of the French nobility. Four of the dancers were killed in a fire caused by a torch brought in by Louis I, Duke of Orléans, the king's brother. On the suggestion of Huguet de Guisay …  six young men, including Charles [the King], performed a dance in costume as wood savages. The costumes, which were sewn onto the men, were made of linen soaked with resin to which flax was attached "so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot". Masks made of the same materials covered the dancers' faces and hid their identities from the audience. “ – Wikipedia. The incident later inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, Hop Toad.

All of which is neither here nor there, but you can see how Woses have been an obscure but persistent motif in popular culture. Why, even ideas about Bigfoot might be connected.

In Faramir’s categorization of the Men of Middle-earth the Woses (Druedain = dru ‘wild’ + edain ‘Men’) would fall into the Wild or Men of Darkness. This has nothing to do with their morality, only their degree of enlightenment.

Eilianach was the second of the Beacon-hills from Gondor, so they are quite close. A tall, sharp peak, whose name was of unknown origin.

Tolkien fiddled around with the Woses quite a bit, developing their origins and backstory. Most of this can be seen in Unfinished Tales, Part 4, Section 1. Woodwoses are also mentioned in his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as they are there in the original poem.

 

2020 Diary: October Begins

10/1/2020: First day of October. Up about 5 PM. Prayers, Bible, then went on to implement that scheme of moving stuff between the drawers. Got all the action figures into the “bus” dresser and moved the Christmas figurines back behind the “bed” dresser. Strange to see the action figures and handle them; it’s been a while. Now 6:15 AM and on to my regular business.

Just a note. Yesterday and today, I’ve been wearing the old dragon T-shirts, and where before they were a bit of a squeeze, now they hang well enough.

So, I played DQ8 until I felt sleepy and laid down for a nap; the weather was perfect for it. I woke up at 1 PM when Kam called me to make him toast. That was good timing. There was a new Ignatius Press catalog arrived. I went in and made my lunch ramen. Looking at Facebook I saw that someone in Seguin had actually won the TX Lotto. Figures. The moment I lack a dollar to play, someone wins it, and someone from Seguin, at that. Probably they would have won whether I played or not, but at least I would have been in the game, as it were, and it wouldn’t have stung so much. Made more Wish List documents to help me organize the Main Wish List, so I don’t have to hunt and peck so much.

At 2:30 PM I did my King Korm page for the day, then a rosary at 3 PM. At 4 PM went in, fed pets, and started supper. Came back home at 5 PM, ate chili. About 5:30 PM Kam comes in to have me cut down large index cards into regular index cards, then stays in to finish his homework. Just after he leaves (about 7:30 PM) Andy comes in and changes that bulb for me, that blew out way long ago on Jan. 1^, which I wanted changed because Kameron would be doing his project in here. Posted 3 new Tolkien-related books for the Wish List. Prepared wish list post for tomorrow. Wrote my page on American Prometheus by about 10:10 PM. Nothing really to do until I hit the hay. Which I did about 11 PM.

 

10/2/2020: Up at 5 AM. Prayers and Bible. Posted apologetics Wish List items, then the last CSL books, then teachers and loved ones of CSL books on NOT. Then I got out the end table for Kam to work on, dusted, and swept. While dusting I noticed the little tin under the computer ‘antenna’, and on a growing realization, opened it. There were the missing memory cards for the PS2. I can now access all my old games. Neat! Shaved. Now 7 AM. Gathered Kid Lit pictures, took garbage out, then did my page of KK. Now 8 AM. By 8:30 AM I had finished my page of AP. Got my ramen and eggs at 9 AM. Found out my memory cards aren’t being accepted by the machine. Perhaps they are too old. Made more mini-lists and gathered covers. Did more straightening up, including sweeping the kitchen porch and wrangling the dog toys back into a pile. Jade almost caught a squirrel running around under a tree. It’s now 10:40 AM.

Well, Kameron came out at about 11 AM and waited about half an hour until his teacher called him. From that time until almost 2:30 PM he spent working on the project; almost an hour of that time was spent looking for something he could shellac onto his wood. After that it went pretty quickly. I had multiples of a Christmas card, and he used the picture of Santa. Almost immediately after that I had to start frying taters. I thank God I got all MY stuff out of the way already. I am exhausted. Trying to herd Kameron to do what he ought to is emotionally draining. So I finished and ate my supper at 5 PM. Said my rosary about 6:10 PM. Zonked out until 8:15 PM then went in and washed up. My goodness, my legs hurt.

 Went back and looked through all of NOT, and that took me quite a while. I don’t know, looking over the covers of what was, what is, and what yet may be gives me a strange thrill that just looking at the spines on shelves do not. Finished and to bed a little before midnight.

 

10/3/2020: Awake at 4 AM, then up at 4:20 AM when it became obvious that I wouldn’t sleep anymore. Prayers and Bible, then went straight into blogging. It’s now 6:30 AM, and I plan to continue until 7 AM, when I will make ramen.

Made and ate ramen and continued posting on NOT until 10:13 AM. Now I feel like I could sleep a bit again. Gathered covers for HPLovecraft, then lay down on the couch.

Slept until a little before noon. Ready to take up NOT again. Also, filled with the desire to clean out the attic. Worked on NOT, not only making more posts, but preparing lists and gathering covers. About 8 PM Andy came out and asked me to make some dip-dips, so I did. Came back out and explored a new book company, Forgotten Books, reprints of obscure volumes, very fascinating. Then played a bit of DQ8, then said my rosary at 9:30 PM, then wrote my page on KK, and now it’s 10:15 PM, and I shall try to write on AP now, even though I’m plagued with a desire for more re-arranging.

Done writing and listing at 11 AM. Time to settle down.

 

10/4/2020: Up about 5 AM, prayers and Bible, then put books from old World Book shelf onto the shelf by the lamp and other ‘rearranging’. My legs hurting and my ears ringing. Now almost 6 AM; time for YouTube mass.

Afterwards I blogged on NOT. Wrote on King Korm. Rearranged the drawers, sorting out the Xeroxes, clippings, maps, pamphlets, etc. Prayed the rosary. Swept under the fridge. It’s now almost 10:30 AM.

“Like many other things, he loved Summer most when it was dying.”

I went in a little after noon to get a ramen. Susan seemed a bit annoyed to see me. She and Andy worked on the yard most of the afternoon. I blogged, and rearranged, and cleaned. Switched the batteries between my clickers and changed the channel at last for the evening Fox animated shows. When I went in at 6:45 PM to get another ramen I also got some mushrooms she was going to throw away.

So watched some of the Fox animation (for what it was worth) [worth even less now], then spent the rest of the evening after 9 PM hunting first Chesterton covers, then (obsessively) covers for all the Wish List Items, finishing a little after 1 AM. The room looks and feels different, airier somehow, since my new arrangements. Time to try to sleep.

 

10/5/2020: Up at 6 AM, prayers and Bible, and went right into posting on NOT. At 9 AM started the wash, boiled eggs, made egg salad, and my breakfast ramen. Went right on posting on and off all day, until about 10 PM. About noon made cucumber salad. Went in at 4 PM to take care of pets and start supper; left at a little before 5 PM. Rosary about 6:30 PM. Didn’t have to go in to wash dishes; no couscous to cook today. But also, none to eat. Just had 2 more ramen and cucumber salad. Went through Chesterton, Sayers, Blaylock, and Powers, among others. Rounding the bend toward Tolkien. Considering doing posters and magazines after I’m done with books. ‘Wot larks!’ Did my page of KK about 10 PM; think I’ll just do 2 of AP tomorrow, maybe. We’ll see if my OCD will let me. My e-mails to John today:

“If my calculations are correct, you're out of Purgatory [work] at the moment and perhaps have decompressed enough to enjoy a day of 'regular life'. The weather is certainly nice enough.

I was able to keep up my 2 pages a day over the weekend. I'm really starting to be able to get into "King Korm" again. "American Prometheus" continues to stymie me, although I progress.

I'm also getting into the swing of "Niche of Time", putting out multiple posts a day. Sometimes it is hard to find the exact copy of a cover that I have; there were a couple of dozen for GKC's "Orthodoxy" alone, and none of them seemed to be mine! I was able to track it down at last, though. So far, the only one that has completely eluded me has been Dorothy L. Sayers' "The Mind of the Maker". An abundance of covers, just not mine. Sometimes I really miss having a scanner! But I found one close enough and made a note of it. I can see the end in sight. Today I am on Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock; when I am done with them that only leaves a couple of shelves worth of various and then Tolkien, whom I have saved for last. I hope to be done with my task before the end of October, this fatal month. And whither then? I cannot say. Perhaps loading my favorite music videos from YouTube. It is, after all, a celebration of my enthusiasms.

I realize (rather late now) that I should put a rating on the Items from the Wish List, indicating how much I desire them, from 'nice to have' to 'must have eet' to 'way too expensive to ever get', and probably some grades in between, like, 'I'd like to try that'. As I go along through all the books, I realize or remember new things I would 'wish' for, and new things come along at a fairly regular rate.

There are now rumors that there might be NUDITY in the new Middle Earth Second Age show. Please God that will never happen; it will indicate that the franchise has ran away from the creator. [Luckily that never happened]”

“With a little extra search, I WAS able to find a cover for my copy of "The Mind of the Maker". A little blurry, true, but quite recognizable.

With the arranging I've been doing, the house looks a bit airier than it did. I think that's because a) things are going a little taller, with the spice rack/display cabinet up on top of the shadowbox and my framed old drawing of Mom on top of the mirror under the attic door, b) not cramping the shelving so much, and c) Andy replacing that light bulb that's been blown out since New Year's.  And being able to have the house open again. All of which means nothing to anybody but me, of course, but I do feel somewhat easier.  And I'm having a blast further refining my organization.

It brings up tons of old memories and feelings too. I was rearranging the contents of a drawer into clippings, Xeroxes, and printed material, and my mind was just flooded with old enthusiasms and associations. Museum pamphlets and college speakers, Mom's old pregnancy care brochures, cut-out comic strips, the cardboard lid of the Enterprise model and the Indiana Jones fruit cart illustrated assembly instructions - weird, useless stuff I can't think about getting rid of. 

Anyway, getting everything into order is just one of those autumnal impulses, I guess, as is nostalgia. Almost a compulsion. I made about 12 new posts today! If only I could figure out some way to make it pay or be of some use.”

I did squeeze my page of AP (and one more blog post) in just before midnight, and hopped into bed right at 12 AM.

 

10/6/2020: Woke up exactly at 6 AM (after the usual ups and downs of the night). Prayers and Bible, and now at 6:25 AM ready to resume NOT (my new preferred abbreviation for ‘Niche of Time’). Except for breaks for breakfast and lunch I pretty much charged hard at finding covers and making posts. A little before 2 PM John called, and we talked for about fifty minutes about books and October and times being what they were. Now almost 3:50 PM and making supper looms. Oh. The weather was kind of overcast and foggy this morning, with a bunch of – seagulls? – crying out. Now it’s clearer. I think I can squeeze some more NOT business in before I have to start cooking. Kind of a persistent wheezing cough plaguing me. I hope it’s mold or something.

I made supper (fish cakes and couscous), and Kameron some sandwiches, then came back about 5 PM. Made my ramen and couscous. Some DQ8. Rosary about 6:30 PM, then went in a little after 8 PM to clean up. Afterward made a note in preparation to start Tolkien books, then did some sweeping up of a few books for NOT. Wrote my pages by 11:10 PM. Nothing to do now but meander around until bed. Played a bit of DQ8 to unwind (I think I’m finally getting a little full of it) then hit the hay a little after midnight.

 

10/7/2020: Up at 5 AM, after the usual intermittent night, complicated by wheeziness and phlegm (seasonal allergies exacerbated by cool air?). Prayers, Bible. Ready to start Tolkien books on NOT.

Searched for covers and posted all day, even putting up a link on Facebook. Breakfast at 9 AM, wrote my KK&AP pages early, and lunch at 1 PM. Made tea, the first time for days. Went in at 3:30 PM to start supper (sausage, cabbage, and taters, displaced from Tuesday) then came back and ate at 5 PM. Rosary at 7:30 PM. Making new lists, breaking the Tolkien books into categories. Washed up at 8:20 PM. Got an extra sausage! Re-arranged the papers into the bridge drawers. Now 9:15 PM, and what I do now is up to me. Hopefully the tea won’t make me jazzed all night.

Went searching for my Tolkien posters and realized they weren’t where I thought they should be; behind the desk. They must be on the other side, behind the recliner and the shelf. Too late to undertake the quest tonight, but tomorrow … 10:20 PM right now, and I know this will haunt me. I did get a good look at the other posters, though, which had some old movie posters from Blockbuster (including Harry Potter), SNL, some music posters (Pink Floyd, for one), Don Quixote in his study, Sherlock Holmes Strand (from Yen’s friend). An interesting examination anyway, and I was able to neaten them up. Perry Mason on now.  Bed a little after midnight.

 

NOTES

Rather mechanical entries. I was falling impulsively into a rhythm, with little opportunity for contemplation. At one time I had about 200 items on my Amazon Wish List, which was whittled down over time by acquisitions and discards of stuff I realized wasn’t really necessary. I’m wheezy again now, so I guess it probably was something seasonal in the air; one can notice these patterns more easily with a Diary. It was quite a while before I catalogued all the magazines, just lately in fact. I still want to go through the ‘attic’ for cataloguing purposes, but I’m beginning to fear that will be a post-mortem project for somebody else. Everything else is pretty much organized, so much so that I only reluctantly disturb ‘the stacks.’ Contemplation of the Hoard without physical manipulation is one of the benefits of the Niche.

I regularly go through 'ponderings' of what my past self would say about the present Hoard; there is much that would merely puzzle, say, my middle school self; much that would amaze and intrigue my senior-year self; and even stuff that would astound the merely five-year-ago me.

I wish I had been better organized when I started the Niche. It would have kept me from some redundancies.

Gnitpicking

I don’t know why this washed up on the shores of my mind today, but here it is. Back when I was in middle school I was just starting to learn how to draw, mainly by tracing Pauline Baynes illustrations or trying to copy the folds of cloaks from Brothers Hildebrandt paintings. That was for my fancier productions. But for just doodling, for fun, I came up with something only slightly better than a stick figure. This was a ‘Gnit.’

A gnit (pronounced ‘GUH – nit’) was basically a sort of a puffball, resembling a tribble. But unlike a tribble its body (which was also its head) sported eyes, a mouth, antennae, and stick figure arms and legs. There were, in fact, many gnits, scrambling over every page in every position, wielding weapons, flying planes, waving, grinning, grimacing, doing dozens of cartoony actions. A single page might be overdrawn in spare or dull moments in class. Not great art, but great fun.

Fun I shared with my friend Steve Jones (memorialized here on the Niche in Brother Silas). Anybody could draw a gnit and soon we were sharing productions where we mocked our ‘enemies’, played out corny jokes and situations, and scribbled up great battles. Steve’s dad was in the Air Force, and it was Steve who provided the slightly better-drawn planes that some gnits would tool around in. I seem to recall vague thoughts that their simple design would be easy to produce as a cheap toy, something not unlike the troll doll. Steve and I vied with each other to produce the most awful wordplay, where any -it word would be replaced by gnit. Real groaner, juvenile stuff.

Well. I still have one or two pages surviving from that time. I never made any scans of them in the old days, and ‘twere tedious to dig them out now. I suppose I could easily draw a reproduction of one, but somehow that seems to be cheating. It would lack that fine, first, carefree crudity of an original gnit. Worst of all, it would not have the ‘spirit’ of the thing, laden as it would be with the burden of decades. So I will just record the memory of it here, and of the two gnitwits whom they amused.

What Was I Thinking?

At this time yesterday, I had only the vaguest idea of what Episode 2 of The Wizard, the Prince, the Warrior and His Son (provisional title) would be about. I only knew that it would involve a girl recruit and that she was poor. I had barely even thought of Episode 1 since I had finished the first draft. I wasn’t even sure if it was Episode 2 or perhaps Part Two of the Pilot, as it would introduce a final member of the Crew and the major Antagonist of the series. Then I thought of a name for her, and she just drew the whole story after.

I started writing the Notes a little after 7 PM and when I looked up at 2:30 AM, the story, for all essentials was done. I was a little dazed and amazed. I pondered if I had come up with the tale in just those hours, or if I had been turning it over in my head for the ten days while things were lying fallow, or if, in a sense, I had been putting the whole thing together for sixty years. Ideas presented to me in the last two days, from Chill Dude Explains and Scott Adams, joined ideas presented by Colin Wilson and Madeleine L’Engle in past years, stirred up into a sort of ‘existential goulash.’ The question seems to be not so much what I was thinking, but how was I thinking, and was the I that was thinking the me who thinks he is thinking, and ‘oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.’ Anyway, here are the AI generated summations of those ideas:

Chill Dude Explains: The idea that the brain makes a decision "seven seconds" before a person becomes consciously aware of it comes from a significant 2008 neuroscientific study led by John-Dylan Haynes. This finding expands on earlier work that first suggested an unconscious component to decision-making, sparking renewed debate over the concept of free will. The study demonstrated that the unconscious mind is already at work preparing for a decision for several seconds before a person experiences the feeling of a "conscious choice". This suggests that our subjective experience of making a deliberate choice may, in part, be an illusion or an afterthought. While the findings are compelling, they don't provide the final word on free will and have been met with various critiques and interpretations.

Scott Adams' concept "the body is the brain" is likely a misremembering of the core idea in his book Reframe Your Brain, where he suggests that the "mind includes the brain, body, and physical environment" as parts of a whole system. This perspective argues for a broader definition of the mind beyond just the brain, incorporating the body and external surroundings into a unified system that influences one's overall experience and perspective. Adams promotes a holistic understanding of the mind, extending it to encompass the physical body and the surrounding environment. This view emphasizes the interconnectedness of the brain, body, and environment, suggesting they all play a role in thought processes and mental states.

 For Colin Wilson, the "higher self" is the potential for heightened consciousness and peak experiences, which can be cultivated through self-awareness and a willingness to seek challenges that promote mental and emotional growth. Wilson's philosophy, particularly his concept of the "Ladder of Selves," suggests that individuals are not fixed but can choose to ascend to higher states of being by developing positive emotions, imagination, and a sense of connection to the wider universe. He believed that by recognizing and embracing moments of clarity and fulfillment, one could achieve a more profound quality of life.   Wilson saw the self as a ladder with different "steps," where lower steps represent reactive, low-awareness states, and higher steps represent more complex and elevated aspects of personality.

Madeleine L'Engle used the metaphor of seeing through glasses to explain that one's body and brain are tools for perception, but the true self—the soul—is the conscious entity doing the actual "seeing" and thinking. She developed this analogy during an argument with a neurologist who asserted that a person is nothing more than their brain. L'Engle's analogy emerged from a conversation with a neurologist who claimed that humans are solely their cerebral cortex. As someone who is nearsighted, L'Engle used the example of needing glasses to see stars and faces. She argued that while glasses are necessary for clear vision, they are not the entity doing the seeing; she, as a conscious being, is seeing through them. Similarly, she proposed that the brain is an instrument for thinking, but it is the individual consciousness or soul that is the true thinker, thinking through the brain. 

The only conclusion I can draw? "There must be something inside."

Early for Halloween

 

Probably the earliest you could really talk about Halloween with any grace would be October the First, but there has been stuff in stores for almost two weeks now. It's getting to be (if it already isn't) one of those situations where if you don't strike early, the best stuff will be gone before you know it. I know I've got MY Pumpkin Delights. And in anticipation of the season, I'm already keeping my eyes open for eggnog (which I'd drink all 'round the year if I could). Anyway, I selected items for this post that are only directly about the Halloween Season, not just because they're about ghosts, monsters, or witches. Lots of Great Pumpkin stuff, because...

I Wanna Eat Everything!

But the champion of animated food these days is in anime, especially the movies of Studio Ghibli, which have become almost legendary for their tempting portrayals of meals. Whether a fancy feast or simple dishes of ramen, bacon and eggs, or fresh vegetables, their appeal is usually enhanced by the sharing with comrades, the simple ritual of eating, and the obvious gusto of the eaters. Hiyao Miyazaki also suffered through the deprivations of WWII; perhaps that honed his appreciation for a good meal.

Of course, Ghibli isn't the only place to find food porn. I remember Black Butler being paused at least once an episode to linger lovingly over some dish or dessert the demon had whipped up for his master's delectation. And in any of the Dragon Ball incarntions, whenever a Saiyan sits down to feast, you can expect a gorging of epic proportions.

In The Mood for Cartoon Food

Seeing that Popeye ‘steak’ and the bowls of potatoes and desserts being poured down his throat reminded me of just how much ‘food porn’ there was in the old theatrical cartoons and hence in my childhood viewing. These cartoons weren’t particularly made for kids; they had a lot of mid-level appeal in their time. And one thing people wanted to dream and drool about throughout the Great Depression and World War II food rationing was abundant and beautiful food, a hunger that carried over into the more prosperous Fifties with the emphasis transferring onto a prime floppy slab of beef or a well-spread table.

Such food was never easily available to all economic levels. You might be eating beans and dreaming about steak. Fruit was a treat, ‘nature’s candy’, and a pineapple more exotic than you’d think these days, with some pleasures like watermelon a seasonal delight. And butcher cuts were not glued together from meat scraps and fruits not so embalmed with chemicals to keep them fresh and naturally low in flavor. A generous picnic basket could be a treasure chest of delights and a well-roasted juicy turkey leg a convenient hand-meat.

An animated piece of food could be as appealing as a pretty girl to any man with a healthy appetite and would at least make one subconsciously attracted to the animation studio’s product. At my own economically straitened level during childhood the appeal of ‘food porn’ carried over from war-rationing into our inflation-feuled scramble for sustenance, where food was always adequate but seldom fancy or bountiful. Even subsistence food like spaghetti, if drawn and painted adequately, would arouse my appetite.

Would, and will. With my tastebuds dulled (by age? Covid? Ozempic?) I still find myself yearning with remembered appetite for the flesh-pots of animated food. It reminds me of the Greek Underworld punishment of Phlegyas (not as popular or well-known as Sisyphus and his stone). Phlegyas is shown to be in Tartarus entombed in a rock by one of the Furies and starved in front of an eternal feast.

Friday Fiction: Technically a Poem

BLUE TEARS FALLING IN A CRYSTAL SKY

 

Lost stars tossing on an endless ocean;

Wild waves breaking on an empty shore;

West wind blowing through a ruined tower,

In dusty hallways and forgotten doors.

Every winter there's a new spring coming.

Summer's a myth and we don't know why.

Every winter there's old beauty dying,

And blue tears falling in a crystal sky.

 

A witch is weeping in the misty highlands;

A druid's dreaming in an endless wood;

A saint is sleeping under the altar;

They'd come here to help us; I wish they would.

This summer is seeming, but winter is with us.

Autumn is on you when things start to die.

When spring comes again, will it find we've been faithful?

There are blue tears falling from a crystal sky.

 

Weary and restless, it's too far we've wandered.

It seems such a long way to turn back home.

But we've walked round the earth, and come back full circle,

So now home is ahead, and we'll no more roam.

Every winter there's a new spring coming;

It's there for the winning if we'll only try.

Every spring there's new beauty birthing,

And laughter ringing in the crystal sky.

 

I wish I had dated this poem. As it is I can only guess I wrote it in the late ‘90’s; at the time I was listening to a lot of Van Morrison and The Call and (I think) Loreena McKennitt and U2 and Bob Dylan in his more enigmatic vein. It is mainly a handful of fantastic images and a kind of struggling optimism; it includes the conceit (used both in Chesterton’s Manalive and C. S. Lewis’ The Pilgrim’s Regress) of coming back to a happy beginning by taking the long way round. It is the journey that restores or enhances returning ‘home.’ Is the ‘crystal sky’ supposed to be Heaven or merely a ‘return to the innocence’? I probably couldn’t have told you then and I certainly couldn’t tell you now. It seems to me mainly a kind of tinkling, vaguely portentous verbiage in the form of a pop song. My friend Alan Peschke has since set it to music and published it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGTgrFlaDoY&list=RDwGTgrFlaDoY&start_radio=1

I sing it to a different tune in my head.

 

Binned, Not Banned

As you may recall, Susan had promised that she would get me four bins sometime during this week. As it turned out she was able to give me three on Saturday; she did not have to go to the storehouse but was cleaning up a storeroom right here on the property and freed out some extra storage. So, I spent the next few days re-arranging my shelves. I thought if I needed that fourth bin, we could get it later.

As it was, I didn’t even fill up one bin. I had, as usual, overestimated what I needed. The shelves are breathing easier and so am I. The ‘extra’ books are binned, not banned, i.e., sold or given away. No, they are ‘salted’ away until such time as I want them. I did make a list of what was put away, and to help me keep track of the list, I’m putting a copy here on the Niche.

 

BINNED BOOKS

The Time/Life Book of Christmas (3 volumes)

The Troll Book

The Sorcerer’s Scrapbook

Dreamquests: The Art of Don Maitz

The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo

Life on the Mississippi

In Cold Blood

Preface to the Past … Cabell

Myth, Magic, and Mystery (Illustration)

Brad Strickland ‘John Bellairs’ books (10)

The Book of Ballads and Sagas

The Children’s Homer

The Fellowship (Frank Lloyd Wright)

The Essential Tales of Chekhov

Life with Father

The Thurber Carnival

Scoop (Waugh)

Big Fish

Music for Chameleons

Travels with Charley

The Yearling

The Obesity Code

Mother of Mercy (by Fr. Stan)

The T. Roosevelt Biography Trilogy

 

I noticed that a goodly amount of them are classics from the library bookstore; good books, but ‘washed up on the shore,’ as it were, not exactly chosen. I intend to get to them more fully. Others were selected that I don’t look at very much anymore but would miss if they were gone. I don’t know what would ever prompt me to read the Brad Strickland continuations of Bellairs’ work again; I do know that their absence would nag at the completist in me.

The bin (and the two other unused ones) now rests on the left side of my bed, under the air conditioner. I give these coordinates to perhaps help my mischancy memory later. And so, the decks are cleared for Autumn and my squirrel-soul is satisfied, for the moment. Ready to fill those spaces up again. And maybe those extra bins. 

Wideo Wednesday: Well, Blow Me Down

“These cartoons are products of their time and may depict ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today; the cartoons are presented as originally created to avoid claiming these prejudices never existed.”

So yesterday I was looking at my YouTube shuffle and saw that this came up, Top 10 Darkest and Adult Popeye Episodes That Aren’t Just For Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCpcYQ7qcY

I don’t know that they were particularly ‘adult’; they seemed more in poor taste, and certainly racially offensive, full of once-popular stereotypes and World War II propaganda.  Perhaps they meant only adult minds could deal with them without being tainted, and that impressionable children should not be exposed to them without someone to put them in context.

It certainly reminded me of two Popeye cartoons I hadn’t seen for at least 50 years.  They were Pop-Pie a la Mode and Popeye’s Pappy. I don’t remember them as awakening or feeding any prejudices.

What I remembered mostly from Pop-Pie a la Mode (1945) was food being poured down Popeye’s throat (I've always been a sucker for animated food), a bathtub being pulled apart to reveal a huge stewpot, and being somewhat tempted by the enormous floppy steak Popeye was flattened into. It didn’t move me to prejudice, just mild cannibalism.

What I remembered from the 1958 Popeye’s Pappy (a remake of the 1938 Goonland) was stuff about Popeye’s family: his mother, his Pappy with a black beard, and Popeye as a baby. The makers of this cartoon, set on a tropical island, seemed to assume all ‘natives’ were cannibals, and vaguely black. They were a menace, but not evil, even attractive. The real ‘villain’ was ‘King’ Pappy, who was hedonistic and unfeeling at first, and something of a tyrant before his family affection reawakens.

The only place I could find these cartoons in full form were as reviews on Brandon Reacts TV on YouTube. I can’t say he is the most informative commentator, but he did allow me to satisfy my curiosity about these elderly memories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsEqvjrtObA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABlAFguPIl8

I can see why they are not rerun broadcast for general consumption.

The Lord of the Rings: The Siege of Gondor (Part 12 and Last)

The Tale

‘Ever since the middle of the night the great assault had gone on. The drums roll.’ Company after company crowd the walls on all sides. Mumakil of the Hard pull assault towers and siege engines through the flames. The Witch King, their Captain, doesn’t care or direct what they do; their purpose is only to test the defenses and keep the defenders busy in many places. He is concentrating on the Gate. Strong as it is, made of steel and guarded with towers of stone, still it is the key, the weakest part in the walls of Gondor.

To that end they bring up Grond, a great battering ram a hundred feet in length, with a head forged in black steel in the shape of a voracious wolf, surrounded by great engines, swinging in chains, drawn by great beasts, with mountain trolls to wield it. It has been wound with ‘spells of ruin’. ‘Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old.’

But at the Gate the resisitance is strong, strengthened with the knights of Dol Amroth and the best of the garrison, and the wreck and slaughter of the invading forces choke either side of the Gate. But driven by madness more and more come up. Grond crawls irresistibly forward, unfazed by fire or the ruin of the orc troops caused by its maddened beasts.

The Witch King finally comes riding over the hills of the slain, ‘a horseman, tall hooded, cloaked in black.’ He comes forward, ignoring every arrow or dart. He stops and lifts a long pale sword. A fearful silence falls on defenders and foes alike, and for a moment all is still.  Then Grond reaches the Gate in a sudden rush and is swung, hurled forward by huge hands. The stroke lands, rumbling like thunder through the City. But the Gate holds.

‘Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.’

Three times he cries, and three times Grond booms against the Gate. And on the third the Gate of Gondor bursts asunder in a flash of searing lightning and the doors lie in fragments on the ground. And the Lord of the Nazgul rides in through the archway that no enemy had ever passed.

All flee before him except one. There, silent and as immoveable as a statue, is Gandalf, upon Shadowfax, who ‘alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror.’ The wizard alone denies him entrance, sternly bidding him back to the abyss prepared for him, to ‘fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master! Go!’

The Black Rider throws back his hood and reveals that he is wearing a kingly crown. But it is on no visible head; you can see the fires behind him, flickering between his crown and shoulders. From his invisible mouth comes deadly laughter.

‘Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!’ He raises his sword high and flames run down the blade. Gandalf does not flinch.

 ‘And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

‘And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.’

NOTES

Wow. Only two pages, but they are so packed. I think even my ‘summation’ might be longer than the original material, and of course nowhere as skillfully managed for dramatic effect. It is a moment that, even years later, could still set Tolkien’s spirit thrilling.  You can feel its power even in the animated Rankin/Bass 1980 The Return of the King, and faint vibes in the Peter Jackson botched version of the scene.

Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, was later revealed in The Silmarillion to be the personal weapon of Morgoth, the original Dark Lord, with which he most famously fought and slew the Elf-lord Fingolfin.

The ‘spells of ruin’ and ‘forgotten words of power and terror’ add to the supernatural dread of the approach of Grond, whose assault is more than merely a great engine of destruction, forged of steel and swung by mountain trolls. It is there to ‘rend both heart and stone.’

Could Gandalf have defeated the Lord of the Nazgul at this moment? The Nazgul seems to think so. It was not, as it were, in Gandalf’s mission statement to oppose power with power, only to aid the peoples of Middle-earth when their own efforts were not sufficient. The Wraith Lord’s power was greatly enhanced by Sauron’s waxing power; he was no longer the creature that could be balked at Weathertop or the Ford of Bruinen. Gandalf had died fighting the Balrog; could he die again? As it is, he halts the Nazgul long enough for things to be taken care of by more human resources.

The cock crow has long been held to be of supernatural significance. It heralds the dawn, and at its sound all ghosts and the Undead must flee. The Witch-King flees, but it is more the coincidence (?) of the arrival of Rohan than any supernatural power inherent in the rooster. But the cock crow asserts the natural order of things in defiance of the terrors of the shadows.

There has long been a metaphysical argument that evil is nothing, a diminution of the good until it fades away into non-being. The Lord of the Nazgul’s ‘invisible sinews’ and unseen head argue, as C. S. Lewis puts it, that ‘Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why.’ It is the final abyss that awaits the end of evil, like a sucking black hole that, when entered fully into, cannot be escaped.