Wild Violet online literary magazine » Essays

The Strange Peasant, Invisible Authors, and Spiritual Music

Paris Flammonde — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:38:37 +0000

Eusapia Palladino during a seance

A chapter from The Mystics

The history of the occult contains a considerable gallery of materializations by mediums, and among the most discussed in all records of spiritualism was Eusapia Palladino, who was born January 21, 1854. The event occurred in the Italian town of Bari on the Adriatic, and her actual name was Minerverno Murgeo. As an infant, her mother died, and little more than ten years later her father was slain by bandits. Soon afterwards she was across the peninsula, on the opposite coast, in Naples.

It is said that she displayed one of her unusual talents, table tipping, early on and in semi-illuminated rooms. She married a conjuror, and later a man of more financial substance, but she had no prominence beyond the Neapolitan community until, at the age of thirty-six, she was observed by a visiting physician and criminologist, Cesare Lombroso. [1] He had come to the city to see her perform, assuming she was likely a medical hysteric, which he actually diagnosed her to be. According to the reports available, at the initial séance there were hard raps and ringing bells. He felt phantasmal fingers stroke his face, and the table levitated, despite the skeptic holding firmly onto the medium’s hands. On the occasion of the second sitting, which was being held in full light, he saw a small table slipping across the floor and witnessed a saucer of threshed flour invert without an iota spilling. He uncomfortably conceded: “I am bewildered and regretful that I opposed so persistently the possibility of the facts known as ‘spiritist;’ I say ‘fact’ because I am still opposed to the theory.” [2]

The medium quickly became a cause célèbre and was invited to all of the capitals of Europe, giving a dozen-and-a-half seances in Milan within a couple of years after her “discovery.” Major scientific figures assembled to see her exhibitions, including the French physiologist and subsequent Noble Prize winner Charles Robert Richet, [3] the world-famous astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, [4] and a host of others. One investigator, Signor H. Morselli, asserted that he was able to classify forty-two types of phenomena demonstrated by the teleplastic medium, she being of the rarest of all orders of sensitives.

As with all cases of mediumship, especially of the physical kind, hers was accused of deceptions at times. One instance cited by Sudre was the altering of the balance of a scale by use of a “hair.” That researcher contends that photographs [5] illustrate the alleged filament from her head was, in fact, an ectoplasmic thread.

Incidents of deliberate fraud in physical seances can be defended against by introducing extreme controls over the medium. Sometimes the examinations have been exhaustive, including the examination of the stripped medium, even to natural orifices. Garments for the sensitive are provided by the investigator, and the medium may be completely bound. Sometimes the arms, hands and feet are taped with phosphorescent tape.

However, Eusapia was rarely so constricted and, therefore, numerous doubts about her performances were raised. Oddly, some of the results, which were accepted by certain critics, involved the “appearance” of individuals who granted that they were fictitious, that they had never had a corporeal reality. In some cases they asserted they were basic “principles,” such as “life forces.”

As with virtually all teleplastic mediums [excepting Home], and many clairvoyant ones, Eusapia had a control or guide. His name was John, and whimsically, he was purported to be the father of Katie King, the control of medium Florence Cook. He was her advisor and protector and instrumental in producing the physical phenomena, such as strong, masculine hands, however, his thought processes and personality seemed little different from Eusapia’s. The description of these phenomena where the medium produced fragments of ectoplasmic anatomy on scores of occasions had one of the investigators, discussing her exhibition of apparitional extremities, writing that “these hands were different from Eusapia’s own.” When they were visible they were whitish in color and of indefinite contours. It sometimes happened that these hands were attached to what were called ‘supernumerary limbs,’ which were of a dark color and emerged from [various parts] of the telepast’s [6] [medium’s] body. [7] As was true of many other physical mediums, Eusapia rarely produced entire figures, nonetheless at various times she is said to have summoned up an ill-defined shape of a fairly substantial male, the form of a child, and two young girls.

Brought to New York by the English-born [8] American psychologist and psychical researcher, in the autumn of 1909 she submitted to two dozen monitored seances. Some of these, under very poor control conditions, were conducted at the physics department of Columbia University being observed by the zoologist Edmund Wilson. [9] In this instance he was deceived by an old parlor trick of mediums. When he attempted to grasp her wrist, on her left side, she rejected the gesture and simply placed a couple of fingers on the back of his hand. In the dark she drew her two hands, lying on the table, to a close proximity and subtlety replaced the left hand fingers on the back of his hand to ones of the now adjacent right hand [still held by the wrist by her right hand sitter]. At that point her left hand was free to be done with as she wished.

¹ Lombroso (1836-1909) was very famous, even then. He later was Professor of Anthropology at Turin. His thesis that there was a discernible “criminal type” determinable by an evaluation of heredity, atavism, and innate degeneracy, held sway in many quarters long after his death and still has its adherents today. Back to text

² Parapsychology. p. 42. From Cesare Lombroso. Ricerche sui fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici. Turin, Italy. Back to text

³ (1850-1935). Researcher in serum therapy and discoverer of anaphylaxis (method of testing for bodily rejection). His prize was awarded for physiology and medicine. Very prominent investigator of psychic phenomena. Back to text

⁴ Italian. (1835-1910). Director of Milan Observatory (1862-1910), discovered asteroid Hesperia, that meteors swarm in cometary orbits, and noted many double stars. His observation of “canals” on Mars was taken to mean actual constructions. Back to text

⁵ Taken by the investigators Ochorowicz and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Back to text

⁶ Tēle- (Gk.) = at a distance + plastos (Gk.) = molded. Back to text

⁷ Parapsychology. René Sudre. The Citadel Press, New York. 1960. P.270. Back to text

⁸ Jersey, the Channel Islands 1880- ??, came to U. S. at the age of nineteen. Author of almost a dozen volumes on the paranormal. Back to text

⁹ (1856-1939), specialist in cytology (the structure of cells), embryology (development of living organisms), and experimental morphology (forms and structures of living organisms). Not to be confused with noted author and critic of that name. Back to text

My Calderon Years, Part 2

Dean Borok — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:19:42 +0000

[In part one, Dean Borok found employment at Calderon Bags and Belts as an assistant designer, over the heated objections of the company sales manager. In this installment, he retells his experience putting together an unusual fashion show. This installment previously appeared on Hackwriters.com.]

I became an expert leather cutter, which is a very desirable thing to know. I developed into as good a cutter as the workers who had been working for the company for 20 years. I learned to operate the splitter, which reduces the thickness of the leather, and the paring machine for thinning the edges for turning. Between Louie and Morris, I was becoming a one-man show, and once I had that, there would be no stopping me.

I was not a particularly sympathetic child. I never paid any attention to the authority of adults, who gave every indication of being imbecilic and slow-witted (oh, how right I was!). In their turn, adults loathed me for discounting their authority. What’s the point of being a responsible representative of authority and a pillar of the community if you are being mocked, ridiculed and ignored by children?

I got beat up a lot, not by other kids but by adults — teachers, camp counselors, boarding school deans and family relations — because I had so much fun jerking them around. How could it be otherwise? They were paper tigers, and I had a visceral repugnance to the hypocrisy that was the glue that cemented the social order. The dysfunction eventually led to a total breakdown in relations between myself and authority, myself and society. I went my own separate way. Catch me if you can!

On the way out the door, I received one last verbal kick in the ass, a malediction that was absolutely society’s word of judgment to me regarding its complete and unanimous verdict of condemnation of me, consigning me to the lumpenproletariat underclass of untouchable trailer trash. This lady told me, with implacable and unyielding certitude, “You will end up working with your hands.”

That woman was right about my hands, but she would have been dismayed to see how far they took me, to places she could never even imagine. Trained hands are what built our material world. It’s all very well to have an agile and analytical mind, but if you can’t construct an edifice or manufacture a product, what are you? A tank of hot gas, polluting the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. Sorry, but that’s my opinion. My hands got me far in life, and they would have gotten me even farther if globalization had not destroyed American manufacturing.

I believe that manual dexterity and the use of tools is what got us out of the trees, as well as actuating the part of the brain that stimulates language comprehension. That is why human evolution is moving forward with the astonishing velocity of science fiction, practically on a daily basis, instead of remaining static for hundreds of millions of years like ants or crocodiles.

I believe that my styling talent and mechanical aptitudes make me far superior to most New York writers, who are useless parasites, only good for wasting your time. And the fact that I am Saul Bellow’s nephew and portrayed in his most celebrated novel, The Adventures of Augie March, propels me so far into the stratosphere of world literature that the other writers of New York are as apes in the trees by comparison.

This year, Viking Press is publishing a collection of Saul Bellow’s correspondence, including correspondence to me of a very intimate nature. At the same time, a British professor is publishing a biography of Bellow commissioned by the Guggenheim Foundation, including his relation to me. These references to me will be enough to stimulate an interest in me by future generations, and that is the reason I have begun to create my memoirs, to leave my footprint on human civilization for future generations.

Needless to say, I consider it to be my prerogative as an artist to use my pen as a weapon of attack or ridicule, to settle old scores against persons or parties whom I feel have wronged me or unnecessarily stood in my way for no other reasons than self interest or envy. Bellow himself, who wrote in a letter to me, urging me to “forgive all those who have sinned against” me, would probably liked to have been forgiven as well but, alas, that is not in my nature. I feel that my only obligation as a writer is to be entertaining. I don’t have to be accurate or truthful (although I can document everything in this memoir). Whatever works! If Oprah decides to invite me on her show to scream at me, I will just bray at her like a jackass. [Editor's note: This piece was accepted for publication while Oprah's show was still on the air.]

Kino Otok – Isola Cinema Festival

Radmila Djurica — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:16:14 +0000

Isola

Will Slovenian Cinematography Survive?

To understand the film industry of a country, it requires defining certain concepts of nation and statehood, and placing them in a context which is historical, political, and geographical. It also requires knowledge of history and cinema history in much wider sense. For the last ten years, film critics from Slovenia have announced a genuine crises their small domestic filmmaking industry.

For years, there have been rumors about the bad quality of Slovenian film, about the fading of Slovenian cinematography. Nevertheless, this small former Yugoslavian film industry still has potential; the pulse might be weak, but it still beats.

Proof came in the form of the annual International Film Festival in Isola (a.k.a the Kino Otok — Isola Cinema Festival) on the coast of Slovenia. As film lovers and filmmakers converged on the city, even a post-civil-war climate of political malaise, with war criminals being arrested and an economic crises threatening, it seems that Slovenian film may not be in such a bad shape and even may, with a little help, weather the storm in the Balkans. From innovative European films to big-budget movies, there were films to suit different tastes. Evening screenings took place in a charming little square in Isola’s Old Town, with various tracks focusing on unknown and unexplored cinematography with new aesthetics — in other words, the poetics of film — focusing on African, Asian and Latin American films.

The Kino Otok — Isola Cinema Festival was founded in 2004 with the help of the IFFI International Film Festival in Innsbruck, Austria, which sends student volunteers from the University of Innsbrook to assist. Helmut Groschup, the director of the Innsbrook Film Festival, serves on the festival board, along with Slovenian film director Vlado Škafal and other notable members of the Balkan film community. Škafal’s latest film, Father, is not a classic feature film but discusses, according to Škafal, the material of reality. Father has screened at several European film festivals.

Jan Cvitkovic

Another Slovenian filmmaker who was important both to this festival and to Slovenian cinematography is, without any doubt, Jan Cvitkovic. Just think of this: what is art in a post-socialism society but the art of crisis, entropy, provocation and cynicism? All of these can be found in the work of Jan Cvitkovic (especially if we talk about provocation and cynicism on film). To the American public, this archeologist-become-filmmaker is best known for his 2005 film Gravehopping (Odgrobadogroba), which screened at multiple U.S. film festivals and won some international awards, so it is just possible that you have seen it somewhere. Gravehopping deals with a deaf-mute woman, S&amp;amp;M sex, brass music, a bizarre death, and the oddness of local funerals in a story truly inspired by the collective unconsciousness of Slav cinematography. The film is a commentary on auto-destruction, told through the narrative poetry of a gallery of characters worthy of Federico Fellini. It is very similar to the old Yugoslavian films of so-called black wave of the ‘70s, made during the communist period. Black wave films in former Yugoslavia were films prohibited by the communist government, due to the content of films which railed against the communist dogma.

Cvitković is currently shooting a new film called Arheo.

Isola Film Festival Today

From June 8 to 12, the Kino Otok – Isola Cinema featured a wide selection of films along with educational programs. Cinephiles could celebrate film at the seaside in this international festival of African, Asian, Latin American and Eastern European cinema. Films were screened at the Odeon Art Cinema, Culture Hall and, of course, the cinema under the stars: the Otok Open-air Cinema at Manzioli Square. Every evening, the screenings took place under the starry sky, accompanied by the lively program Video on the Beach, which presented the works of non-yet-established and Slovenian filmmakers.

The official film programs included the Harvest (competition program of the festival, shown in the open air cinema on the Manzioli square), Masters (selection of the latest films by established masters of cinematography of “four continents”), Friends (film choices of the international program committee members), Special Occasion (complementary program of the competition section) and New Shores (retrospectives of national or continental cinematography in the cooperation of Slovenian Cinematography.) One of the most attractive part of the festival was the Lighthouse Cinema, which took place on a beautiful Izola beach next to the town’s lighthouse, offering night projections in an unofficial program. At night participants could visit Night Beach for festival clubbing with an open program, a perfect gathering point at the end of the day.

Passion Contents

Perceptions of New York

John F. Joyce — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:52:35 +0000

Like it or not, New York is in our ether. Many songs, plays, books, and films perpetuate the allure of New York. I recently visited Manhattan to explore its mystique and not spend too much on accommodation.

Before travelling I decided it would be wise to know which of the three airports I was going to arrive at: John F. Kennedy, La Guardia, or Newark Liberty International. I landed at Newark and took a bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It also helps to know the street grid system; I stayed at 59 West 46 Street, which is off Times Square.

“An Englishman in New York,” by Sting, is one of my favourite songs, since it entices the British part of me to compare New York with London. Times Square reminded me of Piccadilly Circus with people shooting photographs and sitting on steps. Piccadilly Circus has a memorial fountain and statue of an archer, popularly known as Eros, and Times Square has a statue of George M. Cohan, the composer. Both places are renowned for digital advertisements and the theatre world.

From the Visitor Centre at Times Square you can buy discount theatre tickets and start a walking tour. I suppose one could arrange a rendezvous there, but not at the Virgin Megastore, since it no longer exists. The Port Authority Bus Terminal or Grand Central Terminal would be better places to meet, though, since there are fewer people.

I couldn’t imagine driving in New York, even though many people do. I couldn’t imagine cycling in New York either, even though some people do, like David Byrne of Talking Heads. I walked a lot and used buses and trains but not the A-Train.

While going about, I spied many interesting things. In particular, I was curious about the distinctive water towers I saw perched on the tops of buildings. I later learnt they were built up there, because it was once difficult to generate the necessary water pressure for the uppermost floors.

There were people everywhere, often quite fashionably dressed, going about their business with confidence and poise. Some smoked while huddled around the entrances of the buildings, the windows of which don’t open. Others merely stood in the centre of the street, hailing yellow taxis.

New York seemed to have no distinctive smell, unlike other cities. In London, for example, one can smell the River Thames from almost any location.

The city is, of course, noisy, but not excessively so. It takes trams to really increase the soundscape. Maybe I should have listened to John Cage’s silence 4’33” while I was there?

It wasn’t long before I was in a quandary about New York. Why would anyone want to live in such a crowded city? A city where no one can open windows! It doesn’t have the history that most European cities do, nor the character of London. The ostentation of the rich and famous ascends with the acquiring of an apartment on 5th Avenue or somewhere overlooking Central Park. Why? I found my answer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At the Met I spoke with a woman whose sketching group was doing justice to Bernini’s Statuette of Saint Agnes. The latter was looted from some Italian villa by Napoleon’s boys and somehow escaped J. Paul Getty’s Associate Director for Collections. Any day now I’m expecting to read an Italian court seizure notice on this artifact. She said, “New York is all about people. So many beautiful places in the world are boring, but New York has interesting people. It’s the people that create its energy.” Well, I figured, since I was in New York, I would deem myself to be one of these “interesting people,” and from then on I began to truly enjoy its many allurements.

One of them was the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on 5th Ave, where I soaked in a Kandinsky exhibition and ignored the notion that this building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was actually more interesting than any of its exhibitions. I also visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where there is a sculpture of a New York Water Tower by the British artist Rachel Whitehead. Coincidence?

My Brother, Cyril

Arthur C. Ford Sr. — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:41:28 +0000

(1951-1981)

In the early part of an evening of our lives, my brother and I felt like we were trapped in a net made of glue. New Orleans humidity was the same as the temperature: ninety. After we drank some cheap wine, I noticed he had drifted off to sleep with ashes hanging from fifty percent of his cigarette. The breeze coming from the window was cool; he sneezed. I went to cover him with a blanket, and of course, put the cigarette out, but the ashes fell to the floor and dissipated at the wind’s command. I threw the blanket over him, put what was left of his ashed cigarette in the ashtray, then went to sleep.

I was sixteen. He was two years less but more curious. He was the one who found a way to get into our house without a key, camouflage Mrs. Katy’s lemon pies until they “disappeared,” and find someone old enough to purchase wine for us. But on the other hand, I soon proved to be a partner in his mischief. I mastered all his antics.

He was good in biology, being the first to explain to me the process of photosynthesis. I was a wiz in mathematics, mentally computing what our change should be before the grocer added it up on the cash register. We supplemented each other perfectly. My brother and I did practically everything together. We went to school, church, parties, fishing, swimming. We played ball together, and to secure our togetherness even more, we dated sisters.

Years later, in the latest part of an evening of my life, I sat staring across the room, after drinking a bottle of Don Pernignon champagne. I noticed that the breeze had become wild and colder, but this time it did not interfere with my brother or his ashes, for they both were resting well in the hermetically sealed urn on my altar.

Passion Contents

Down Home: Earl’s Barbershop

John L. Brazell — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:02:26 +0000

I went strolling down memory lane recently, sopping up memories like a warm biscuit in pot liquor. This part of the lane is in the town where I grew up, a small southern town near Dallas, not unlike Mayberry, North Carolina.

I suspect there were a few housewives — though I didn’t know any — who washed their fine china and cleaned the parlor wearing pearls and starched aprons. It was peer pressure from June Cleaver at its prettiest. Most of the locals were Southern Baptist, who, at the time of his unleashing, thought Elvis was the antichrist. There were realists like Pop who just thought he had ants in his pants.

If anyone was more famous in north Texas than Big Tex at the state fair, or Doak Walker, the Heisman Trophy winner at SMU, it was the entire squad of Kilgore Rangerettes. Kilgore was a little oil town, a hundred miles east of Dallas . The locals got tired of counting money and decided to “doll up” the town, literally.

They opened up a junior college, spent a fortune on short skirts, cowgirl hats and boots, and put together the best high-kicking dance and drill team ever known to mankind, at least southern mankind. It was also the first. Girls from the South didn’t aspire to be a Rockette; they aspired to be a Rangerette. If you had a face like Rita Hayworth and legs like Betty Grable, you had a chance. If you couldn’t stand and kick your hat off with your boot, nothing else mattered.

Over between where the Western Auto used to be and the Big State Drug Store still stands, was Earl’s Barbershop, where I had my first bought haircut and first paying job. It’s also where I almost witnessed a homicide.

Back then a barber shop was an inner sanctum for the male gender — a place to exchange powder and perfume for male bonding, though we didn’t call it that. I don’t remember a “no girls allowed” sign, but everyone knew. It was a place to catch up on football, tools and raunchy jokes while awaiting a turn in the barber chair. On Saturday, we did a lot of catching up, since the wait was a millennium, maybe two. Earl seemed to enjoy talking and joking more than cuttin’ hair.

My job opportunity came when Earl, in the presence of my father and me, mentioned the loss of yet another shoe-shine boy. I nudged Pop and whispered, “I can do that.” With those four words I found myself gainfully employed — after school and all day Saturday. I was twelve, happy, away from girls, and no longer on the dole. It lasted less than two months.

One slow afternoon Earl was both “lowering” and “filling” the ears of a newcomer to the shop. I was sweeping up hair and paying little attention to what was said, a condition of employment. The middle-aged patron occasionally grunted a response.

A few minutes into the haircut, the postman arrived and handed Earl the day’s ration of bills and junk mail, and a new wall calendar. Earl put aside his scissors and looked at the calendar, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye and a lascivious thought in his mind. Featured prominently on the front was the gorgeous, high-kicking captain of the Kilgore Rangerettes.

Unable to restrain himself, Earl slipped the calendar under the nose of the quiet man in his barber chair and began, “Isn’t she gorgeous? Look at those long legs. Wow. Wouldn’t you …?” With Earl in mid-sentence, the man interrupted and said calmly, “Yes, that’s my daughter.” Earl turned pale, teetered, stammered and fell silent.

Somehow he managed to get through the haircut, took the man’s three bucks, and said, “Here, take the calendar.” He left the shop, I assumed to get a change of underwear. Three or four more ill-advised words, and he might have had a close shave with his own straight razor.

Shortly after the incident, I decided to settle back into a less stressful environment and quit. I was on the dole again.

It wasn’t all wasted time at Earl’s. I learned a lot of useful things: like saddle soap wasn’t just for washing saddles, and a good shine-rag was easy to pop. A “spit shine” was really a spit shine, and Shinola was a brand of shoe polish.

But there was a greater life lesson learned.

Should you get lucky enough to receive a calendar with a pretty girl on the cover and have the urge to express your innermost thoughts and feelings to a stranger, don’t. If you can’t restrain yourself, stay away from confined areas where sharp objects and glass bottles are within easy reach.

Passion Contents

Out of Kentucky

Mattie Louise — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:32:54 +0000

My grandmother raised five kids herself.

My mother is the little girl on the left, and she is the only one left living from this photo. My grandmother is the one seated in the chair. The little girl on the right is my aunt, who passed away a few years ago. The little boy is my uncle, who was killed by a train many years ago. My mother says the little bows in their hair were made from bread ties. The little outfits were hand sewn by my grandmother.

To me, this is a most beautiful photo. It captures a proud mother who was also poor.

It captures innocence. It captures simplicity. It captures time and love.

My grandmother, the lady you see seated on the chair, worked for many years as a school janitor until her death. She did not have a car; she walked to the school house every day. She carried water to her home every day. She washed clothes in a tub. She went to the bathroom in an outhouse.

She never accepted welfare. She never got any government assistance.

I wanted her remembered and the heart of Kentucky remembered this way.

Proud and beautiful.

This photo was recently discovered and seen by my mother. She had never seen it before. I had recently connected with lost family members who live in Washington State. They were kind enough to send me photos that we had never seen before. We do not know who took the photo; we just know whoever it is should be recognized for capturing the spirit and beauty of the south so many years ago.

What made me take an interest in the historical information concerning my family was the increasing numbers of people who no longer have jobs, who do not know how to survive in lower paying positions. It made me think of those who lived before us and how they survived, how they managed to make do with what they had.

That curiosity is leading me into many different directions. One of the most important directions for me? I want to educate those who have material items they “could not do without.” I want to find a way to provide better education and opportunities for the poor. Poverty is not unlike a prison. The iron shackles of poverty bind the dreams and intelligence of those who would have been and could have been something greater. I’m proud of what my family endured for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself or my situation, no matter how harsh the circumstances, because I know I can survive, as did the generations before me.

Heat Wave Contents

The Palm Tree Goddess

Tala Bar — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:30:24 +0000

The Palm Tree Goddess is a name I have given to what is known from antiquities as the Ephesian Artemis. Copies of this image show a standing goddess, well-dressed and adorned, with the peculiar characteristic of what is called multiple breasts: i.e., a quantity of oval objects hanging around the upper part of her body, as if she has not two but many breasts. The fact that each of these objects do not look particularly like a breast, and having no nipples, did not disturb the initiator of this appellation.

Other scholars must have noticed this discrepancy and decided to call these objects not breasts but bull’s “eggs”, i.e., testicles. They also were not disturbed by the ridiculous idea of hanging a male’s paraphernalia on a female’s neck.

Both, in my opinion, are wrong. Since the first time I saw the statue of this goddess at the Vatican museum in Rome, I knew these hanging objects were neither breasts nor testicles but dates. Not only do they have the shape of dates, as I eat them every day of my life and as I saw them hanging from the upper part of the trunk of a date palm every day of my childhood and youth, but also they identify this particular goddess as one to whom the date palm was sacred.

The World Mythology (s. ref), p. 155, says: “Tradition relates that the amazons built a temple at Ephesus to house a primitive image of a goddess (later identified with Artemis), probably made of a palm trunk.” Modern scholars have denied the statue is that of Artemis, claiming that the Greeks tended to haphazardly identify foreign deities with their own. My aim in this article is to show this particular identification is completely justified.

The date palm grows naturally and has been widely cultivated since ancient times in my homeland of Israel, which is ancient Canaan. What is typical of a nurturing and protecting mother, is also typical of the date palm. In the Jewish commentary on the Bible, called Talmud, it is said about the date palm, called in the feminine form Tmara, from the Hebrew name of the date – Tamar (which is the name of some very important women in the Old Testament, including the Canaanite ancestress of the royal house of David): “Look at this date palm, there is no waste in it. It has dates for eating, hearts for prayer, fronds for covering the roof, fiber for ropes, scales for sieves, and plenty of beams for the house ceiling.” This is how the date palm is like a mother, both for nourishment and for protection.

It is no wonder, then, that “in the oases of the Arabian dessert it (the date palm) was their Mother Goddess.” Mother goddesses were usually concerned with all aspects of life and death, and particularly with fertility.

Wikipedia describes the geographical spread of the palm tree in its site by the name of Phoenix (plant): “Phoenix is a genus of 13 species of palms, native from the Canary Islands east across northern and central Africa, the extreme southeast of Europe (Crete), and southern Asia from Turkey east to southern China and Malaysia. The diverse habitats they occupy include swamps, deserts, and mangrove sea coasts. Most Phoenix species originate in semiarid regions but usually occur near high groundwater levels, rivers or springs. The genus is unique among members of the subfamily Coryphoideae, being the only one with pinnate, rather than palmate leaves.[2] The name derives from a New Latin form of φοῖνιξ, the Greek word for ‘date palm’, probably referring to the Phoenicians who brought the palm with them in their travels or maybe from φοινός, ‘red-colored’, referring to the color of their dates.”

It may be noted that the list sites Turkey, where Ephesus was situated, but not Greece, where the goddess Artemis was worshipped. These facts are going to be explained below.

Sardinian Sunshine: The Most Undiscovered Part of Italy

Linda Oatman High — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:27:38 +0000

Omu Axiu

I’m at the Convent of San Giuseppe, devouring a sinfully delicious meal, candlelight flickering upon castle-like marble and stone and beams. This is Sardinia, Italy, and today is my 50th birthday. It’s a luminous starry night in late April, and smells of simmering seafood, fresh bread, wine, garlic, and juniper mingle as a woman outside the open convent door twists dough into traditional ceremonial ornaments before an open fire. The Convent was constructed on the site of a Roman settlement, and the ghosts of those who’ve gone before seem to linger in the air.

The meal is wickedly divine, and I’m thinking that it just doesn’t get any better than this, but then the waiter brings a surprise: tall candles sparkling on a fresh-from-the-oven pear cake. I make a wish (as if it hasn’t already come true!) and blow out all of the candles with one big puff.

I eat every bite of the cake and then polish off the meal with limoncello: a lemon liqueur made right here in Sardinia. Not a bad way to celebrate half a hundred years of life: in Italy, in Sardinia, in the ancient capital city of Cagliari.

One of Italy’s best secrets, the island of Sardinia has not yet been discovered by the hordes of tourists swarming Rome. A superb side trip or a delightful destination, this magical place is one of peace and purity. An easy flight (Meridiana is one of several budget airlines that can get you there) from Rome, travelers can choose to land either at the south’s Cagliari-Elmas Airport or the Olbia-Costa Smeralda Airport of the north.

The most known part of Sardinia (Sardegna to the Italians) is Costa Smeralda: the Emerald Coast of the island’s northeast. Glittering with lavish luxury yachts and opulent private villas, Costa Smeralda is one of the most renowned high-end destinations of the world. This Mediterranean mystique has drawn international jet-setters and celebrities like Rob Lowe, Courtney Cox, and Bruce Willis.

“Putin even has a house here,” a local cheese maker stated.

In Costa Smeralda, there is not only the enchantment of white sand and gleaming green sea, jagged rocks and cliffs and archaeological sites and pink flamingos, but there is also Pevero: considered to be one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world. Surrounded by rocks, lakes, and trees of juniper and myrtle, Pevero is not only a golf course; it’s an experience.

Another wonderful experience to be had in Costa Smeralda is that of polo. And here, this prestigious sport isn’t just for rich people. Families and other travelers can enter the grandstands at the Costa Smeralda Polo Club and watch the match free-of-charge.

I’m sitting in the Sardinian sunshine, watching gorgeous horses gallop across the greenest of fields.

“Is this Paradise?” asks a visitor sitting beside me.

It is.

Sardinia, one of the most culturally diverse areas in Italy, is home to a unique music. Launeddas, a type of three-reed cane that has achieved international attention, originated and are still played in Sardinia. Here, too, can be found the art of polyphonic singing: a guttural form that dates back thousands of years. I don’t know how they do it, but I do know that it’s a sound that goes straight to the soul and stirs up the heart.

I’m sitting in the bleachers at the Sant’Efisio parade: a celebration that takes place each year on May 1. For three and a half centuries, this Festival of Cagliari has been happening with great fanfare. Of religious and folklore origin, the festival’s highlight is a colorful parade. More than 5,000 costumed villagers join the procession of ox-drawn wooden carts decorated with flowers, fruits, vegetables, and wheat. Bells ring and marchers play the three-reed launeddas as rose petals cover the streets. Bystanders munch on torrone, an Italian nougat candy concoction of honey, whipped egg whites, vanilla, and almonds or walnuts.

I chew on the ancient sweet, wave at the paraders, inhale deeply of the rose petals. All is well with the world… Or at least, with Sardegna.

Two Islands: England and Eel Pie Island

John F. Joyce — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:18:05 +0000

London in the early sixties; a backdrop of rhythm and blues music on a small island in the River Thames; some forgotten insights into those days.

Anglers have fished along the banks of the River Thames since time immemorial.

“Did yer catch anything?” is a common greeting to these surly folk.

“Naw, not today. Had a few bites.”

Nothing has changed with them ― neither their keep nets, fishing rods, Thermos flask of tea, gruff speech patterns nor the fish they seek: dace, perch, roach and eel. They dislike the latter because it tangles fishing line. For most anglers the coming and passing of the Beatles was of no consequence; fathers fished with their sons in harmony, undisturbed by the new generation of music. I was an exception.

Located about 16 kilometres from central London, Eel Pie Island in the River Thames, Twickenham, was a nascent centre for British rhythm and blues in the 1960s. In the summer of 1963, I frequented Eel Pie Island Hotel to listen to the Rolling Stones. They had made a 45 single called “Come On,” a Chuck Berry song that was played on the crackling 208, Radio Luxembourg. For a young person living in South London, it was a rite of passage to walk across the footbridge and visit the dimly lit Eel Pie Island Hotel’s dance hall with its beaming floorboards.

I now reside in Vancouver, Canada, but often return to towpaths of the Thames, encompassing Richmond, Twickenham, Teddington, Kingston, Hampton Court and East Molesey; the swans, deer in the neighbouring parks, trains and train stations have not changed since my youth. No, 1963 and ’64 were not idyllic years. I was just a teenager growing up in postwar Britain with little in common with my parents. I had ceased fishing ― but what is amazing is how regularly I am reminded of those days by way of the era’s music and its now aging mega-star personalities.

You could buy fish and chips and eat them out of newspapers, paying with only a half crown. Many young men of the time wore Italian suits and pointed shoes but not on Eel Pie Island. Cords, jumpers and college/university scarves were the norm. Girls were gypsy-like; it was an era before the mini skirt. Only a few people owned transistor radios and only certain young people had a telephone at home, or as it was said in those days, were “on the phone.”

I recall one summer Sunday evening sitting on the grass outside the Eel Pie Hotel, drinking cider and staring at the River Thames. We thought we were hip, drinking amongst a pseudo-student crowd. Just youth. Licensing laws were strict, but the drinking age was vague. There were no drunk driving laws, but back then we didn’t drive. You had to be twenty-one to vote, but you could be drafted and killed at eighteen in a foreign war. Of course, if you lived in Northern Ireland, you might be twenty-one but still not have a vote. The word Empire was not dated, and England was proud of the Commonwealth ― although restricted immigration was in place due to some 1962 act of Parliament. But we were not sure if that meant anything. Then, people lived in England, not the U.K., and England was not part of the Common Market and unconvinced it should be. The first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health was issued in 1964 and made the front pages of newspapers, but people still smoked everywhere. What didn’t make the headlines then were the 1963 findings of a few scientists of carbon dioxide emissions. We didn’t know anything about skin cancer; and we thought “the more sun the better.”

Our counterparts in Berlin and on the Left Bank in Paris were discussing serious topics. But the Eel Pie patrons were like soccer fans, except we spoke of groups and venues and not players or teams. We all knew of someone who was in a musical group band or who was going to start a band. Was the music we were listening to any good? Well, yes, but so was the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, of which we were unaware.