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.