tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-319575012024-03-28T15:01:55.682-07:00little bit'a everything, whole lotta nuttinthrowing stuff at paperAedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-3742916340036238282024-02-19T15:54:00.000-08:002024-02-19T15:54:57.493-08:00cabrillo<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I meet the fellow on the way from here to then. I know it is best that he fails to recognize me, however it hurts a little when this occurs. The greatest shock is when a conversation starts between us two strangers. I don’t know who speaks first, but my haunted look probably initiates the pleasantries. Our uncanny kinship brings us both into deeper conversational waters than we can tread.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-53297b33-7fff-af57-45f3-c4e3ecf5405e"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I play to his ignorance, dancing in the fear of discovery. But soon my questions become a herd directed through the gates of time. Memory coalesces into answers he can’t give. He assembles words that frustrate him in their impotence. And I know this boy who pretends to be a man. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With a tremble he shares a broken tale. Expectation seizes him as he awaits my reply. And I break his heart when I give false praise. But for me it is a dead thing that haunts me in resurrection.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This child fears the wrong things in his beauty. I want to warn him of the real monsters. But he has to break in the proper hands. It is his hopes that crush me. The songs in his step are a pied piper. They prance him along cliffs and briar. He has stumbled often already but I can see his future abrasions. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lose the words of his voice as my mind wanders the years. My eyes watch the scarless hands weave a word. They cut the air in expression. And I forecast their toil. I find them incapacitated tomorrow. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then my mind wends selfish, and I wonder what he sees. Perhaps a prescience keeps him from inquiry. Does he know? I know this is not what he wants. I know it in my bones. But would he be proud to follow the phantom’s steps?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The question I can never ask breaks my mask: I excuse myself before my emotion unwraps itself before my stranger. I take hurried limping steps without looking back. I add a cut to him in the confusion of his fellowship. But I must flee.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find myself wandering in stilted steps. I am far afield. I fight the battle of this question. I pretend to know the lad but his answer scares me. I feel a promised shame in the mystery. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I remember the hope in his eyes. Battered and bruised, a smile slants his starboard. I hear his laugh in tears. I remember the dead stories reborn into new. I know the love crafted into him by the wind. Deserts ache with beauty that some struggle to see. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I realize his answer is mine.</span></p></span>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-20821328281886004492023-11-24T14:42:00.000-08:002023-11-24T14:42:25.006-08:00window<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The darkness of the here is warmed by the eternal distance. Boats of adventure and freedom are behind the closed portal. Enclosed above and before by green life, dark in its shadow. Friedrich longs for what is before. Sadness and hope entertwine. Beauty amidst shadow. Removal and distance, with a longing gentle air.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9963510f-7fff-78f8-2ac2-a7364599b2db"><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3lMZTgcijLFDkn9A4YzWuIfpwf5HLqSy22VqHrbpbPiYGo_vVjJEPD3CewUcisWdgVGTkRyVqKIL3eQT6FC-Zdzf5GA81SMiJKP7QcOc7C9id7zyD9mfrCCY2lK5_LNke1yROgjZDJfLyFrcqisFrNYwgiEFv1fnYhrzJlhVja92nRV5QiDK/s1800/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Geda%CC%88chtnisbild_fu%CC%88r_Johann_Emanuel_Bremer-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1357" data-original-width="1800" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3lMZTgcijLFDkn9A4YzWuIfpwf5HLqSy22VqHrbpbPiYGo_vVjJEPD3CewUcisWdgVGTkRyVqKIL3eQT6FC-Zdzf5GA81SMiJKP7QcOc7C9id7zyD9mfrCCY2lK5_LNke1yROgjZDJfLyFrcqisFrNYwgiEFv1fnYhrzJlhVja92nRV5QiDK/w400-h301/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Geda%CC%88chtnisbild_fu%CC%88r_Johann_Emanuel_Bremer-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The decay of day ushers our mind to eternity. Repose without peace. Man’s craft before God’s. Cycles unending. And the plight of a soul. Upon the border. Stuck in the portal. Limited expanse. Concealed glory. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwU7Cz5smoR4xxasZD_kqqDTlD4mEzU7fEJL6UN8P6JnW0KC98Rub5wCQIDsdYq5DZrj8A7aT7i_A3J-qQEJRDzL0aGd8tFplPilpfIagEP37g5aYbKw-kekmbXPXDk6xnVBGpehnfutP5frYZeu7VkZh4R18SrT-_0DUsX84nZpRu_FnU2Cw/s1036/800px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_011.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYwU7Cz5smoR4xxasZD_kqqDTlD4mEzU7fEJL6UN8P6JnW0KC98Rub5wCQIDsdYq5DZrj8A7aT7i_A3J-qQEJRDzL0aGd8tFplPilpfIagEP37g5aYbKw-kekmbXPXDk6xnVBGpehnfutP5frYZeu7VkZh4R18SrT-_0DUsX84nZpRu_FnU2Cw/w309-h400/800px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_011.jpg" width="309" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our gates to home. Ascending light as the artist wonders. Hide our wonder. In stone and mystery. Where do we tread? What is withheld? Do we bind the dead or are we bound from the height? Can the living understand the gateway? Walls shroud our sight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-5cXSqumaADD5HYz2V34uKRtuwrpCVnO6nmoZfD8Kr5zrlfdmzAYCM_8Q7jir2aBeoJxa_2Zc7O8ewagPda5CzfBQzoJCtEEY2ljS2HisdSu-hrOPvw3eKRLRARn-z6G41lvAYB1p4L6qkqplIB4SNrYdZKg2RH2dZrm57cREVsSIsxjfYEv/s1076/Caspar_David_Friedrich_053.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-5cXSqumaADD5HYz2V34uKRtuwrpCVnO6nmoZfD8Kr5zrlfdmzAYCM_8Q7jir2aBeoJxa_2Zc7O8ewagPda5CzfBQzoJCtEEY2ljS2HisdSu-hrOPvw3eKRLRARn-z6G41lvAYB1p4L6qkqplIB4SNrYdZKg2RH2dZrm57cREVsSIsxjfYEv/w298-h400/Caspar_David_Friedrich_053.jpg" width="298" /></a></div></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fear and wonder at play. A thrust down and a cast upward. The porthole to a golden dissolution. Our theater exhibited by three. Disdain, despair, and disport. Alien lands confound but concentrate our view. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YaTF6BytU4vyZax3wDJrRxDluK9Z64ynMIje88n74pdzr1w4P1xo3sl1yrXRXF69sNQ3X6rXtkmyDC4u1YosKMJvCE_6W-cmkYd2xlvcqRjWMfFJHaAvXAlHfmMGKI6Nnyh02TVMDF4bO3nCZ8eS9uANTgv9XHukhyphenhyphenK6NbgjcGue4rs9KZoy/s3257/Caspar_David_Friedrich's_Chalk_Cliffs_on_Ru%CC%88gen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3257" data-original-width="2587" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YaTF6BytU4vyZax3wDJrRxDluK9Z64ynMIje88n74pdzr1w4P1xo3sl1yrXRXF69sNQ3X6rXtkmyDC4u1YosKMJvCE_6W-cmkYd2xlvcqRjWMfFJHaAvXAlHfmMGKI6Nnyh02TVMDF4bO3nCZ8eS9uANTgv9XHukhyphenhyphenK6NbgjcGue4rs9KZoy/w318-h400/Caspar_David_Friedrich's_Chalk_Cliffs_on_Ru%CC%88gen.jpg" width="318" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Limits. Verdant but confined. We are given a promise with no result. Unless we fall in and find a barque of dreams. What are you looking for? What is through the door? Does she call her beloved, son or lover? Does her slant give motion? Contrapposto to the vessel. Escape? Does she travel the seas with her mind, trapped in a gown of allure. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-JrDxBsjItuVlIa2ujs0eD8Wdvv2k66ccDkNJPLquQ68ASh9RY9ugUh2xjpNLkZ7ewgOh_kWQ5MgddtqMN6nphYrQqny6yiqvosRuETKDXg6yzqnTkfpohXoSrNaFXKSVx5BS7H9Y46LH8K1EeRz_SurZXxC2aqW0mmRnKIhVBpwaL6fgHhp/s3692/Caspar_David_Friedrich_018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3692" data-original-width="2536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-JrDxBsjItuVlIa2ujs0eD8Wdvv2k66ccDkNJPLquQ68ASh9RY9ugUh2xjpNLkZ7ewgOh_kWQ5MgddtqMN6nphYrQqny6yiqvosRuETKDXg6yzqnTkfpohXoSrNaFXKSVx5BS7H9Y46LH8K1EeRz_SurZXxC2aqW0mmRnKIhVBpwaL6fgHhp/w275-h400/Caspar_David_Friedrich_018.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world without limits. Door ajar. Gates asplinter. Void. Black bands of fear. No ship transports our monk. Deathly rock, mystery before, God ascendant. The Expanse stretches Its arms. It smiles death. But He said, “Come.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDatgB7wK_NBflYUG3J8TV8v1pwh5FGE-a_86Na9-Qc0cuu2HPv2d7Ey08Oiu3WFznX0ufgKsxl1WeGyRzQ3H3HkyVEwnh7Y4XcFKbaUdWvzS3-_QYWro9StsSN8lj4H4ucpLKUqWkHR-uEX818pvVwvbE8BcI1zK_5pibE7Gf-IcJrYFJ0kg/s1280/1280px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Der_Mo%CC%88nch_am_Meer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="1280" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDatgB7wK_NBflYUG3J8TV8v1pwh5FGE-a_86Na9-Qc0cuu2HPv2d7Ey08Oiu3WFznX0ufgKsxl1WeGyRzQ3H3HkyVEwnh7Y4XcFKbaUdWvzS3-_QYWro9StsSN8lj4H4ucpLKUqWkHR-uEX818pvVwvbE8BcI1zK_5pibE7Gf-IcJrYFJ0kg/w400-h255/1280px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Der_Mo%CC%88nch_am_Meer_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><div><i>All paintings by Caspar David Friedrich</i></div>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-81355225394113458352023-11-08T09:01:00.003-08:002023-11-08T09:01:35.957-08:00volant<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">Severian</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUOSPj8e0v31ED23j5wvBdqGsLFetrRcp9RgnAlk3s29TRP1zZ3TZqxMbttZpz3y00qD4cFRkYkb8reqoW2tJVeev8jI0BYqdRmXj6deDa0hNWPKfWA75VQcm55MWxt3jDE6qWeYFvU1CecXczIIpH6IZY18tyKmTcXbBFsBE_qL4a1f5NBKY/s1000/51hMAv0is1L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="644" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUOSPj8e0v31ED23j5wvBdqGsLFetrRcp9RgnAlk3s29TRP1zZ3TZqxMbttZpz3y00qD4cFRkYkb8reqoW2tJVeev8jI0BYqdRmXj6deDa0hNWPKfWA75VQcm55MWxt3jDE6qWeYFvU1CecXczIIpH6IZY18tyKmTcXbBFsBE_qL4a1f5NBKY/w258-h400/51hMAv0is1L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-a5f209f8-7fff-57c7-4ab4-c334c8eb15c1"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“”Through the window and door I could look out unseen on all the bright life of tree and shrub and grass outside. The linnets and rabbits that fled when I approached could neither hear nor scent me there. I watched the storm crow build her nest and rear her young two cubits from my face. I saw the fox trot by with upraised brush; and once that giant fox, taller than all but the tallest hounds, that men call the maned wolf, loped by at dusk on some unguessable errand from the ruined quarters of the south. The caracara coursed vipers for me, and the hawk lifted his wings to the wind from the top of a pine. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A moment suffices to describe these things, for which I watched so long. The decades of a saros would not be long enough for me to write all they meant to the ragged apprentice boy I was. Two thoughts (that were nearly dreams) obsessed me and made them infinitely precious. The first was that at some not-distant time, time itself would stop . . . the colored days that had so long been drawn forth like a chain of conjuror’s scarves come to an end, the sullen sun wink out at last. The second was that there existed somewhere a miraculous light—which I sometimes conceived of as a candle, sometimes as a flambeau—that engendered life in whatever objects it fell upon, so that a leaf plucked from a bush grew slender legs and waving feelers, and a rough brown brush opened black eyes and scurried up a tree.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow of the Torturer</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Gene Wolfe</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once more we see life from the tomb. Even birth. From the home of ship, rose, and fount. If symbols live, our apprentice is declaring allegiance once more. The escutcheon of a procured nobility heralds the promise of his days. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But cast in the light and darkness of his visions. The End and Beginning. The expected demise with a rebirth to greater life. Our humble narrator of the neverforget is framing the quest with nary a wizard at hearth (nor sepulcher). Casting visions from the tomb, our lost boy, sees the conclusion but the hope.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New better life we know the Conciliator gifts through talons. Splinters. Promise. Dead raised. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Darkness closed over me, but out of the darkness came the face of a woman, as immense as the green face of the moon. It was not she who wept—I could hear the sobs still, and this face was untroubled, and indeed filled with that kind of beauty that hardly admits of expression. Her hands reached toward me, and I at once became a fledgling I had taken from its nest the year before in the hope of taming it to perch on my finger, for her hands were each as long as the coffins in which I sometimes rested in my secret mausoleum. They grasped me, pulled me up, then flung me down, away from her face and from the sound of sobbing, down into the blackness until at last I struck what I took to be the bottom mud and burst through it into a world of light rimmed with black.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> —</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow of the Torturer</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Gene Wolfe</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fenrir accounts the baptism an ejection from the underworld. Its Mother casting out the refuse. In death he hears the dead. Who keens? His lost matron? The coming one? Has time folded? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nenuphar crown the burial, and decorate the deceased. Life amongst the mire. In contrast to our torturers bloom. Yet both discourage and repel. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To what is our Jack Ketch reborn? To follow our Locksley? It seems this sunders his home. No longer at rest. He descends to burst forth. He fell through the underworld. There was no work of climbing nor willful aspiration. Our severian is swept along by bandits, symbols, stygian mothers. Visions promises his path. The coin his duty. The coat of arms his call. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guiltless? Worthless? But it is his tongue . . . carved by the wily wolf. </span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-50073687937620473872023-11-07T18:55:00.005-08:002023-11-07T18:55:59.669-08:00isengrim<p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">Resurrection and Death</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-0fb03c78-7fff-578c-9bef-07a458e81394"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfdVw7Gv3WEGyIJJXYK2hwW-EZU3-Rvvs_GBjj8tWbR1YYtGnGZNFC3uJkHsuw5LaLY7DpfXsiNXCf-u3Lz-u0l7jPIUQwljdOTfbYQGCO9fLgM24Y5aGlJ9MI_tD0ughOk4VsHDJWr7fXkDJ15i15fFIYJtEmJenrdhv7fkHCD7PHzwT0Y1UJ/s842/Pennington_Shadow_Cover_Spread.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="842" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfdVw7Gv3WEGyIJJXYK2hwW-EZU3-Rvvs_GBjj8tWbR1YYtGnGZNFC3uJkHsuw5LaLY7DpfXsiNXCf-u3Lz-u0l7jPIUQwljdOTfbYQGCO9fLgM24Y5aGlJ9MI_tD0ughOk4VsHDJWr7fXkDJ15i15fFIYJtEmJenrdhv7fkHCD7PHzwT0Y1UJ/w400-h285/Pennington_Shadow_Cover_Spread.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life—they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow of the Torturer</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Gene Wolfe</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We wait on the baptism of death and invert the process of life’s end, but the cunning Wolf decides this is the Moment. We are promised the water but we get the grave. Symbols transforming beyond knowledge. Our little apprentice is now a thing greater than himself. In his revivified corpse, he spies a corpse fly. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New life purchased by a purpose dimly held. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why? I suppose the cunning one elicits this. This or surrender. Mastery or tomfoolery? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But is our knowledge mystic? Are we seeking madness? Where do the words pivot? Idea to thing. Where’s the step? Or it is no idea lest it enact? We can discount the nonactive symbol as nothing at all? Is this Isengrim’s claim? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then there is the divide of the lupine and the severe. Which is whom? Which is more unreliable? </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. I understood the principal intuitively that night as I heard the last volunteer swing the gate closed behind us.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow of the Torturer</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Gene Wolfe</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What, in the gates closing, sparks the sensation? Locked to a grave, by darkness held: reality becomes the pockets of diffused light. Upon narrow bones he runs to night. Was it all fusing before his fear? And so our Locksley a beacon in the entwining morass? And fresh from rebirth phenomenon questioned. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These connect and invite but is the culprit caught? A parlor room accusation? Isengrim grins from his grave. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here we start. Where do we end? The throne of course. But of what substance?</span></p><div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-6041810436351451172023-05-07T15:47:00.000-07:002023-05-07T15:47:21.158-07:00erebus<p>The bedlam of the street gave me peace. I could not hold onto the voice for the crash of voices scurrying around me. Cascade of color a running tide ushered between market stalls as the breaking rocks. I let the current draw me, releasing my will to the throng. </p><p>After losing myself in the running stream of countless turns and eddies, I found the river drawn to a pool in an open court. The public space collected its particles of people around a stage that lifted a stone above the ground. The gravity was a pantomime of two boys with the down of manhood. They cantered and tumbled to music I could not find. I cast about to hear the timbrel but even the din of mob was stilled save for a voice. </p><p>As I began to listen, I found the troupe performed to the faceless words. This was their music and rhythm. The unseen speaker spoke as a gentle bird, in transcending simplicity. How his story could reach my ears seemed a miracle of wind, but bodiless it entranced us each. A love was proffered, in veil and faith. Words upon words, bricks upon mortar. </p><p>The disembodied voice told of court and castle, and hunt with danger. Familiar and common, I fought the fog of my malaise to understand the street's tale. The nameless knight of the stage began to coalesce as his misfortune mounted. Soon fear came to unbalance my confusion as the hapless hero sustained more descript wrongs. And before the narrator unveiled the knights colors, before the knight's actor impressed his wound, I knew the man.</p><p>"The Sanguine Knight." My heart clutched at the secret pronounced. The speaker continued to wend a mindless path through the mass while stacking the tragedies upon the hurts. An actor died in the arms of the red chevalier. Betrayal and flight, saw a leap from the stage. Hurried chase circled the audience, enclosing them in the intrigue. </p><p>My body felt the press of human water as they tightened around the story. A little boy clutched at me thinking me his father. In horror I trembled for fear of the child and broke from him. I fought the waves but they were an enraptured wall. </p><p>The tale never faltered. Soon the chivalry of our knight was questioned. His faith might be hollow. Perhaps his curse merited. His near drowning met with some exultant cheers. His madness leaving the believers doubting. </p><p>I surrendered my retreat. The tragic saga had me bound. Instead the whirl of the crowd began to pull. I clutched the pommel, hiding my sin. And my feet again took me in currents not my own. </p><p>As the story reached the forest keep, our Sanguine Knight, bereft of his name, crawled to the dais. And I nearly fell into the open. The moving hole of the narrator had found me. </p><p><i>"And sylvan king laughed a laugh</i></p><p><i>While rest upon his hippograff"</i></p><p>I fell upon my side in duress. The blade clattered upon the stone. </p><p><i>" 'Urchin, villein, and dastard son</i></p><p><i>You step upon feyéd doom' "</i></p><p>The speaker, with his ageless eyes, never broke his telling. But he stooped to offer aid.</p><p><i>" 'With naught but dirt to crown you</i></p><p><i>The final question, is she true?' "</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBM15u_31drnxCCFhJ5aIVPuCYAetbk7UokWLb7n-w4jHgKy1-_bYYQD5WFdFWlDndMKOAMwuouM749mJbxIuurS-qjTE4uOaITOu7OXhWfBk7nZhhyFsomt-MZwlB8GoAin9n3WmbJe559u8IUs1PuMWVAX5_1bF_iifJu97-mORoAsSKWA/s1120/10_1351.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1120" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBM15u_31drnxCCFhJ5aIVPuCYAetbk7UokWLb7n-w4jHgKy1-_bYYQD5WFdFWlDndMKOAMwuouM749mJbxIuurS-qjTE4uOaITOu7OXhWfBk7nZhhyFsomt-MZwlB8GoAin9n3WmbJe559u8IUs1PuMWVAX5_1bF_iifJu97-mORoAsSKWA/w286-h400/10_1351.jpg" width="286" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">Troilus and Criseyde Frontispiece</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-48745260687074420712023-04-10T17:07:00.003-07:002023-04-10T17:07:26.232-07:00cornstarch<p>The years had decomposed him. For a breathing thing it was strange to find him so transparent. I thought it curious but my attention so quickly passed through his gaps. It was like his molecules were lazy in their attraction and they spun a little uncertain. This new relation of matter would have shook the scientific world if anyone cared. </p><p>It is hard to recall our meeting. It might have been at university. Or a work function. He is a vapor in my thoughts. He is like a ghost that haunts the sparse memories of my dreams, and waking scatters his details. It is such a curious experience: a hole in the mind that sucks up any pursuit. I lose it all the more I quest for it. </p><p>But your question reassembled a few of his fragments. Why do you ask? Did you actually use his name? What was it? That... I've never heard that name before. But his specter haunts the edges of my mind. Perhaps, you could tell me why you are looking for him. What was his name? No. Perhaps.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQQSKfVn3kAfFQYIAxbznuGsNj2f2q1z1Fes-WiOmskIkfqbFy8hGJdqr_0oLQ4i6S_DwSTreHKkVEP261oZ7ER39VaDo4ekV_GamFPNedrEHVWhuIBGCDKJ_1ThCm_vXIJ_jpVKdHpHVOIcHLDIIu7Nwq6RHpL9jc0ERiSsy1_GPiyMGFA/s766/Screen-Shot-2019-03-13-at-4.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="766" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaQQSKfVn3kAfFQYIAxbznuGsNj2f2q1z1Fes-WiOmskIkfqbFy8hGJdqr_0oLQ4i6S_DwSTreHKkVEP261oZ7ER39VaDo4ekV_GamFPNedrEHVWhuIBGCDKJ_1ThCm_vXIJ_jpVKdHpHVOIcHLDIIu7Nwq6RHpL9jc0ERiSsy1_GPiyMGFA/w400-h289/Screen-Shot-2019-03-13-at-4.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-44660589772774611532023-03-31T09:54:00.003-07:002023-03-31T09:54:33.832-07:00arda<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLREepq9oeiw5NcfhxFOWSY9a5XooYFbySEe6bFs_NYfPhO0bePrvSHgIeMM_HkTxCTqziJc-0pv9hRG-IAfPfiOXwcWud1O3f85yK3p3sFgL4lNneO5rWEIu4AgBhwp2Qkp-s0tfcwJ2Ze-wDnrhcU2f1vTw7CxM8G_hB-h87ltBvyx3Fgg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="566" data-original-width="1221" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgLREepq9oeiw5NcfhxFOWSY9a5XooYFbySEe6bFs_NYfPhO0bePrvSHgIeMM_HkTxCTqziJc-0pv9hRG-IAfPfiOXwcWud1O3f85yK3p3sFgL4lNneO5rWEIu4AgBhwp2Qkp-s0tfcwJ2Ze-wDnrhcU2f1vTw7CxM8G_hB-h87ltBvyx3Fgg=w400-h185" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some bear the residuals of a child's arbitrary love, some are a speck that invited an epic in my mind, some are the tragedy, some the intrigue. A list of oddities, for certain. Many loves were lost to the limits of a number.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">30. Balin</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">29. Tulkas</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">28. Theoden</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">27. Yavanna</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">26. Maedhros</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">25. Gil-galad</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">24. Elrohir</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">23. Elladan</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">22. Denethor</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">21. Elendil</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">20. Maeglin</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">19. Oromë</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">18. Nienna</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">17. Huan</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">16. Túrin Turambar</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">15. Aulë</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">14. Aragorn</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">13. Peregrin</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">12. Melian</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">11. Beleg</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">10. Bard</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(85, 85, 85);"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"'Arrow!' said the bowman. 'Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain go now and speed well!'"</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">9. Eomer</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Stern now was Éomer's mood, and his mind clear again. He let blow the horns to rally all men to his <span style="color: black;">banner</span> that could come thither; for he thought to make a great shield-wall at the last, and stand, and fight there on foot till all fell, and do deeds of song on the fields of Pelennor, though no man should be left in the West to remember the last King of the Mark. So he rode to a green hillock and there set his banner, and the White Horse ran rippling in the wind."</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">8. Morwen</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><h1 class="quoteText" style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24); font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">“They sat beside the stone, and did not speak again; and when the sun went down Morwen sighed and clasped his hand, and was still; and Hurin knew that she died.He looked down at her in the twilight and it seemed to him that the lines of grief and cruel hardship were smoothed away.”</span></h1></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7. Frodo</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?”</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6. Finrod Felagund</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">"Lo! sudden there was rending sound</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">of chains that parted and unwound,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">of meshes broken. Forth there leaped</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">upon the wolvish thing that crept</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">in shadow faithful Felagund,</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(24, 24, 24);">careless of fang or mortal wound.” </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. Beregond</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">"</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am no captain. Neither office nor rank nor lordship have I, being but a plain man of arms of the Third Company of the Citadel.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">"</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. Gimli</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. Luthien</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">"<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;">Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world"</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. Húrin</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">"... <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;">and each time that he slew Hurin cried: ‘Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive...”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. Faramir</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj11VR3AebK2OGa9x-l-9Yc1lzKt_14qnTynZ8FWn4jeBPaH-VIAzj7h6UnXX21OWRaZZyilL8GzRdJ34etxND5a3MUhdJmFEZzo0U5KYOS7Gx6qG3PusfmZ1HAB80Q1CVfWGeDJ9XHuC6WXW-gvvmkmTCUINJ1wIry-SSiWZocF3DMafxBVQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="816" data-original-width="583" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj11VR3AebK2OGa9x-l-9Yc1lzKt_14qnTynZ8FWn4jeBPaH-VIAzj7h6UnXX21OWRaZZyilL8GzRdJ34etxND5a3MUhdJmFEZzo0U5KYOS7Gx6qG3PusfmZ1HAB80Q1CVfWGeDJ9XHuC6WXW-gvvmkmTCUINJ1wIry-SSiWZocF3DMafxBVQ=w285-h400" width="285" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>All Art by Jian Guo<br /><br /></div><br /><br /></span></span></div>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-55254631086575295962023-02-26T07:42:00.000-08:002023-02-26T07:42:17.641-08:00adamantine<p>Grass grew between the stones, retaking its old friend. A tree had toppled yesterday's purpose, rupturing the wall. The long quiet lived upon the battlement and peered through a crenel. The swallows hallowed the forest keep as temple to their trees. A reverence toward the old dead gods that crafted the monument bred in them, their final worshipers. </p><p>Can you hear the echo of a child's laugh? It dashes through the halls, East to West, singing time in its lapse. It reflects and merges with the tears of mourning years, being of kind. Life has used these rocks. It has stood and fallen on sandstone land. Breathed in the dust and expelled the fear. </p><p>Remember its banners: proclaiming the joy of a family, they bent and danced in wind. Remember its fires: warmth crawled the rooms and light stood fast against a night. Remember the songs: merriment and lament, epic and ribald, life exerted. </p><p>Has the fastness died with its inhabitants? Or do its stories pump blood? Does the bulwark still hold off invasion in glorious verse? Is the high window still a view to the maid aloft? Are the outer courts still noisy with memory? Does the knight still ride out in errant adventure? </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighQsBtrmHBAkf2tN66FIAIHKne38Crvijk7n24z_Rp5avjSH0LDInVHSeXemFUQsZgyBscCExG5cQ1DIErhDla2Nk8A53QFzBy8VdQnwk6XkExZ_E4hsdUvW9alB6DImEU7pKjNGzRBdx1XcAT38uXItagtn6ZdgBBhnCcSGo8ftlOpDTTA/s1922/47df3124bfeb59304e1da7969391c10c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1386" data-original-width="1922" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighQsBtrmHBAkf2tN66FIAIHKne38Crvijk7n24z_Rp5avjSH0LDInVHSeXemFUQsZgyBscCExG5cQ1DIErhDla2Nk8A53QFzBy8VdQnwk6XkExZ_E4hsdUvW9alB6DImEU7pKjNGzRBdx1XcAT38uXItagtn6ZdgBBhnCcSGo8ftlOpDTTA/w400-h289/47df3124bfeb59304e1da7969391c10c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-51587902008551606142023-02-20T16:41:00.003-08:002023-02-20T16:45:06.780-08:00carmina<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnHoDFF4zXJ0DO8Fhz1Tp8DttRYnvu6UJT2MTEJoCOHFZV6opJOPkSI14tAu811wZ43w0yKb6wwmP2WGLfQhU1UYLVjp-Pb33olEqSBB6RQ7dcYt-kgBA5MU9F1kdbG_wwRNm6N1ArgSP4Jqbkn8NXPbDHkSh37g6hSK2Yb5gG7Q_ooD7Jg/s2250/20230218_071325.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1976" data-original-width="2250" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsnHoDFF4zXJ0DO8Fhz1Tp8DttRYnvu6UJT2MTEJoCOHFZV6opJOPkSI14tAu811wZ43w0yKb6wwmP2WGLfQhU1UYLVjp-Pb33olEqSBB6RQ7dcYt-kgBA5MU9F1kdbG_wwRNm6N1ArgSP4Jqbkn8NXPbDHkSh37g6hSK2Yb5gG7Q_ooD7Jg/s320/20230218_071325.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Thrush promised light </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-050d5b27-7fff-352d-486c-0c3983195371"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In musical clasp</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of mornings begun</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With still hidden sun</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A song of the fast</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In unharrowed flight.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it rang old </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And Badger was lost</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In canticle time</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cadence of careful</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Precision of hole</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Protective wall rhyme</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Against all threat frost</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it rang cold</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fox was a ballad</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of venturous try</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To win heart and fare</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fair and the hare</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With blood never dry</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was luck’s carefree lad</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The song long sold</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Mouse sang through tear</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of lost years and child</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dangers she dances</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Serpent entrances</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In song tilted mild</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She knows tender Fear</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Song not yet told.</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-35694550415424987712023-02-12T15:39:00.001-08:002023-02-12T15:39:09.094-08:00bridge<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A year’s walk through the pass led me to question time. How do you endure it? All of our effort to trod your spine and we never cross the bridge Tomorrow. We infest you like fleas and drain as much blood only we have no transport from the pinch. Our flat bodies invite the crush to readminister your blood upon the shore. We must be a wearying lot. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-79aa4116-7fff-7518-e91f-44779b318f1d"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you abide us with quiet estimation. Your duress is left at the door. And you take us along in the walk that never steps. I could use a word but I cannot hear. I could use a drink but your water is precious. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The effort is fatigue and comfort. The pain I know is certain. I would know arrival like a candle in the sun. All is the hot blast of light. And I step again. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock gives way. And earth it breaks. Hand to path. to keep me up. Breath is ragged. in the day. of endless light. I try a. whistle. of song unsung. But breath is fleet. ing And music. is not here. sung. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But a clock ticks. And a day dawns. Of another light.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I waited patiently for the LORD;</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> he inclined to me and heard my cry.”</span></p></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-3248805790331984382023-01-21T20:24:00.001-08:002023-01-21T20:30:26.746-08:00shrike<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">The step through The Door this time found my foot upon grass a color I could not speak. Fields of this verdant beauty stretched across gentle hills. Golden woods walked the low, dipping feet in dappled streams. A mountain crowned the horizon of this new land, the bridge of heavens.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As I stepped upon the sward, the blades bent in a kindly submission, but returned my touch with an embrace. And as if under lover’s touch, the field sighed and sang with the voice of leaf. It was the song of remembrance ushering me through a life I never lived. With a name I never had. Yet the memory lived in these hills. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Song recalled to me the time of wandering hunger, alone in these hills. A melody of their nurture, a chorus of their care. The high of the hunt and the low of the Queen’s knight. The wonderful loneliness shattered by the Chevalier of Two Lions and his cacophonous guile. But the Quest of the Mount and the encaged Shrike. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Verse of climb to spare the lark from armored lout came in joyous tale. The Three Beasts barred us two as did the River Sin. And the Beldam sent us storm and sun to wash and bake. My travail gave a road to dastard knight and with notes of tense triumph we ascended to the Fort of Folly and its seven riddles. Where I faltered, the felon’s cunning surpassed the wit of ancient cantrip and one gate of the hundred was open. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The years of striving were a lilting chant, a breeze, to these leaves of song. But the recalled fear was tangible to my gut, the pains recut. Until our race brought us to the cage of Beauty’s tomb. A sepulcher sculpted with sorrow for the bird of stolen voice. The key to unbound the jail was a simple thing, common. We all have it. I had to give her my Name.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The land silenced in its expectation. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Until music burst to tell of my gift and my curse. Bereft of name, I was cast to the unknown. I was lost to the land. I walked the gray halls of the Silence. To loose the chain, I was bound. Nameless and lost. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But I had returned.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I looked back to tell the Magus of my home we had found to find her changed. My guide, my friend, my protection was the Shrike of my Name. </p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-23917658041517881752022-10-10T21:26:00.006-07:002022-10-10T21:26:50.831-07:00yester<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">The mural of a library wall recalled brings with it the little boy expectant that every tome held a secret. And memory’s wind dances over to the scent of my home’s hills and the reel of unfinished tales of danger and dare. A lost song sings me the name of this child and his every dream. I rewalk overgrown paths and hear the day’s echo in the night’s chill.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Love and sadness accompanies the journey. The ruptured pipes leak the hoped things upon a hungry ground. And the lost things are lost. What was not but could be is not and perished with the seasons. Each blow that struck down a light is relived leaving its specter. The unlight that remains gives a shape to the new face. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But is it less lovely for the defeat? Is it cast out, though outcast? Perhaps the expiring hope but perspiring life is the beautiful song greater than the boydream. Might we see upside down what is upright? And to tilt my neck, to revisit my eyes foci, is a matter of lifetime and not a matter of standing on my head. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31RuEfmc5GigOd3ErOGjxgVEwmZTh-0zitXhzhHS-I3_fiidjdUQGyMgpxq_RKfj3MAl3rZYH0fGKMHVYPTx1-yS014NaWJHWw-q88_8I8czoB2YAknOoZwQ48_mcMcf7xNxElFscJFGA3sJ1rTWEoyjCcAOHQdAp8c376p6w5JBobmKLsA/s438/EB19990808REVIEWS08908080301AR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="438" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi31RuEfmc5GigOd3ErOGjxgVEwmZTh-0zitXhzhHS-I3_fiidjdUQGyMgpxq_RKfj3MAl3rZYH0fGKMHVYPTx1-yS014NaWJHWw-q88_8I8czoB2YAknOoZwQ48_mcMcf7xNxElFscJFGA3sJ1rTWEoyjCcAOHQdAp8c376p6w5JBobmKLsA/s320/EB19990808REVIEWS08908080301AR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px; text-align: center;">Final image of <i>The 400 Blows</i></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-47344405952878803982022-10-03T21:20:00.000-07:002022-10-03T21:20:14.028-07:00galahadMelted in duress, are we poured into iron molds of conspiring dreams? Do we stand in the accumulated legacy of hookéd hope? Install a little blush to suggest blood flows and walk the prescribed steps in the calendar of days. The words of shape slide down time like a hurried fear. <div><br /></div><div>But I hear another name called from the forest. A darkened cave of trees, buttressed by boles of scarred and ugly years, hides the voicer. Yet the mystery is a freedom; the darkness a fearful call to see another shape of things. </div><div><br /></div><div>Can I step the stranger steps? Can I utter the foreign tongue? Can I brave a dark of the neverland? Can I live a death?</div><div><br /></div><div>I have a frame about me spun by the love of strangers. Hemmed to a boundary of the components of words' wandering ways. And it is peace to them. </div><div><br /></div><div>But there is a fountain in that wood that whispers a name that might be mine. And this armor rings the trickle wrong. And I can't hear it. And their words drown the water's. But I know it is in the maze. And it might name me known. Rather than</div><div><br /></div><div>Galahad.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwzMdNg2YaxvaTX_o2GH7dvaYplcmVTJitR9d9HlQwO5PCrjCdvT7B7ZukkVmfOz8d-rMjdTEKw8LOk8gmbN-lzEyUNTYjHt5t9zXQ-7t4OxqWhlPrkMttD3YB3-oybaDXxPHp4zAKksJIfFDNr3x_xYDqJs2XY_v99dvUKi753iiqzK27A/s1000/d1006d_detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="686" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwzMdNg2YaxvaTX_o2GH7dvaYplcmVTJitR9d9HlQwO5PCrjCdvT7B7ZukkVmfOz8d-rMjdTEKw8LOk8gmbN-lzEyUNTYjHt5t9zXQ-7t4OxqWhlPrkMttD3YB3-oybaDXxPHp4zAKksJIfFDNr3x_xYDqJs2XY_v99dvUKi753iiqzK27A/w275-h400/d1006d_detail.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Art by James Jean</span></div>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-29358019754314073752022-07-02T11:58:00.000-07:002022-07-02T11:58:05.443-07:00paean<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">As the final silver leaf of the Teskegueros fell, in the night of the Fifth Hunt, Ashuwuan held the head of the Sparrow Knight in her lap as the Silent Walls of Guethiel burned around them. She looked a world away, wiping the blood and ash from his countenance, locks of night used as rag and tears as water. Bent and fastidious in her care, she looked not at the triumphant Kelzigah casting his sickly light upon the trench of Teskegueros’s root.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He laughed a quiet dagger laugh and mounted the Great Tree’s bole to wrest his Thorn from its heart. With gentle unhurried grace, the Fell One unhinged his poison from the Tree, exultant and sure. Securing the Thorn to its forearm sheath, the Aelf descended to interrupt Ashuwuan’s mourning. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Be still, silver one, I have rescued you from your grand folly.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A song began as if her hand on the fallen boy’s hair played a harp.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“I never took you prone to madness. And for the fate of a flea, no less.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And the song crept up and danced her fair face as a body took shape.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Fell granted her her broken wit as he took the thing his victory anthem, as the Grand Hall of Yrdas cracked and crashed into embers and flame behind them. He looked around at his silver dogs flitting across parapet and door, gnashing and thrashing anything once alive. He sucked the air of smoke in, savoring it. He had won.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Finally his gaze returned to the spoils. The song had built and words began to form. Kelzigah oriented himself to the language, thirsting for her grief. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And he found a boy, humble and gracious. Bold and gentle. Of peace and protection. A boy who braved slander and sword for the good of the ungrateful. He suffered fever and wound for the fame of a faithless. A boy who stopped a bridge for three days against a tide of terror. A boy who sailed the mystery to solve the Riddle. A boy of no regard. And all her songs. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Kelzigah waxed jealous seeing defeat on a field he could not besiege. Every victory burned as the walls of Guethiel burned about. And once more the Thorn was unsheathed. And doom hovered near.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the True Song was revealed, weaved in every note of Ashuwuan’s worship. A power born of the Years was at her lips and in her hands. A fear climbed with the music into the Fell One’s eye and throat, sealing the one open and the other shut. He felt invisible hands holding him, imprisoning his lean form. The Thorn fell from his hand, blackening the grass at his feet. He strived his greatest to scream protest through his tongue’s arrest, but no sound but the Song could live.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Song now lived outside of her and swam through the space of the courtyard. It pirouetted in grace and power touching the silver beasts of Nor into slumber. It rode the fires and danced the hallways. It ascended the tower of Excazod as It descended to the shore of Belt. It spread music to the mountain and even looked South. And then silence.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">She said, “But you will never find him.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And the heavens opened. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBC0AHqiLzEb2Q5Ev9RYjgnMNZ_Dy7X-6t6440as2w-6q24WCX-KJbHiNGQPPx1kXoVkbMksomP4-Uhc19LA7uVHjlKEJsZalxyDFNVfPNsGDimCcYMYNrxpzVXSjS6E5xWpchxByOrH7-t3mCccRDZ709ERtsKSIRkThcuFX7tkjFLCQNOQ/s1280/9BE93970-53DF-4259-ABCE-E7FC3BB85E0B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1280" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBC0AHqiLzEb2Q5Ev9RYjgnMNZ_Dy7X-6t6440as2w-6q24WCX-KJbHiNGQPPx1kXoVkbMksomP4-Uhc19LA7uVHjlKEJsZalxyDFNVfPNsGDimCcYMYNrxpzVXSjS6E5xWpchxByOrH7-t3mCccRDZ709ERtsKSIRkThcuFX7tkjFLCQNOQ/s320/9BE93970-53DF-4259-ABCE-E7FC3BB85E0B.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Art by Justin Gerard</div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-78464180464574998362022-06-18T18:48:00.000-07:002022-06-18T18:48:04.714-07:00dapple<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The three strangers unburdened themselves of a year’s journey.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A fire invited words cast to the crown of stars, as if the drifting phantoms behind would seize their year and lift it to the Hall as paean to its troop or drag it down to shadow land. A freedom in the fire to know no judgment or recognition. Burnt up. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">____________________________________</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The first knew hunger for a year. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Wrecked upon the Rock of the Chalice, he swam alone of his sword brothers to the Endless Shore and learned its name. Sieged by the sun, he fought the sand and barriers to nowhere. And in surrender he rejoined the waves. But the Headless found him a fish on their way to war. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Enslaved they feasted upon his strength, oars and ropes their teeth. They met a foe of fiercer mean in harbor to the Gate. Fire and blood foamed the water, as all alliances shattered for the hope of breath. And our weary storyteller, through deeds left in his hollow eyes, escaped carnage for another mighty swim. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In terror and near madness, he found a wood to rebuild himself. The promise of a wild beast of this yellow wood wandered the hills and met a few knights errant and hunters fell. His solace grew cracked with curious interlopers. Some met their end, some wandered below as he flew above, and some met a wild tale of myth to carry for their life. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Until she wandered the yellow wood and walked its dappled floor, fey on fey. And his madness met purpose. His life breaking on another Rock, he followed as his reason climbed out from the pit of his gut. But his first willed step drove the doe to flight. Her void brought the truth of his months lost. Lost found, he nearly shattered once more. Yet the shining fleeing one bound him to light. A straight and piercing light of cutting blade, but a healing laceration of diseased flesh. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Renamed, he left the yellow wood. Revisaged, he despised his purpose. New reason knew achievement would bring hate. So he went everywhere but where he longed. So he fought upon the walls of the Candled City. He led a party through the Pale Desert, losing them to their greed for the Seven Princes’ land. He relit the Peace Torch in the Maimed King’s palace. He hunted the Ever-Dying One and they traded eyes. But it did not take his Vision from him. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The first knew hunger for a year.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnw3u-H2DG6rbylWSEjUTJmJA2vEBDu_8o7xXuPJrn5k7rghZczAvqe0VenUps-Mq-ixzADSTUMtaQSuxnvJ76Fl0xApZ6D0xoHGRBsxykSwg7t0cKrBxqGotqSAd0qEmcoN431i7B5-qlsogzDKtSTDyzGceC9ghy2NwRyN7-5DiI3yYsg/s1799/8DCA0058-3FF7-4C59-B6C9-32FFD2BDE9E8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1799" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnw3u-H2DG6rbylWSEjUTJmJA2vEBDu_8o7xXuPJrn5k7rghZczAvqe0VenUps-Mq-ixzADSTUMtaQSuxnvJ76Fl0xApZ6D0xoHGRBsxykSwg7t0cKrBxqGotqSAd0qEmcoN431i7B5-qlsogzDKtSTDyzGceC9ghy2NwRyN7-5DiI3yYsg/w320-h400/8DCA0058-3FF7-4C59-B6C9-32FFD2BDE9E8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px; text-align: center;">by Justin Gerard</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(To be continued…?)</span></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-26427576160013470982022-06-11T17:37:00.003-07:002022-06-11T17:37:23.086-07:00percival <p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">Fey beast of metal and breath finds me in the forest. It rears ahigh with hoof and clatter. My mud hides me, a child; his shine, a mortal. I think Llŷr; he goblin. He utters; I silence.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My fear is love. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A tower that sieges my wooded fence. The double breathing dragon settles one another. The words of heaven begin to fall on my closed ears. And I weep for the blessing. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My fear is love.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Can I bear the glory of this marvel? I clutch the dirt to remember earth. And look once more upon this banner of God. Torn apart between the now and yet. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My fear is love.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">She had named the world lost. An absence beyond Calryc the Ancient Oak, sundered only by devil and ghast. Perhaps heaven had won back the lands of my father. Mayhap evil was in retreat. How not against this glorious light?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Home could no longer hold my heart.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMXzjNwomuY-IluJLGpa1NXKJ_WZ1M2-RdMxON63UvnKVn1tixC2SxfFcjZQqiOXQuaEzidpZz5Z0lZyOGO6EEP1mGS8dAkLv_0fgGLcTKCvZtSCoTaHjtPBBlShjwahOd_mLcHQtj-_LV0OPvmnX0FfjS7fAVpWAT8KYDS1ImEPi8xTpgg/s2004/4E3F7C9C-BCA3-422F-9390-29AE27977B0B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2004" data-original-width="1580" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMXzjNwomuY-IluJLGpa1NXKJ_WZ1M2-RdMxON63UvnKVn1tixC2SxfFcjZQqiOXQuaEzidpZz5Z0lZyOGO6EEP1mGS8dAkLv_0fgGLcTKCvZtSCoTaHjtPBBlShjwahOd_mLcHQtj-_LV0OPvmnX0FfjS7fAVpWAT8KYDS1ImEPi8xTpgg/w315-h400/4E3F7C9C-BCA3-422F-9390-29AE27977B0B.jpeg" width="315" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">By N. C. Wyeth</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-58759993576356400322022-01-01T20:36:00.003-08:002022-01-01T20:36:23.958-08:00tackman<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">“Jason laughs, ‘That’s camp. Did you know that?’ </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">You shrug, ruffling the pages under your thumb, thinking of reading, alone, in your room tonight.” </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">- The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">by Gene Wolfe</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_mMrbxzoz9u9KMRbEVPXoNLD88JJreJBY21mYhIjtKLYMF1EC3YDEHXhIZUpdig1ITiLnwf3iUXsPGVdEx_9K_vjaiv-AYUOV65WgwrJJpVf-KmGMHeZaguJs0QGZiVpq_84IuaudkW2iEcO4GhmVxzGM-C2rygZZTR7p2jo4VeT0AG0Rrg=s982" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="982" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_mMrbxzoz9u9KMRbEVPXoNLD88JJreJBY21mYhIjtKLYMF1EC3YDEHXhIZUpdig1ITiLnwf3iUXsPGVdEx_9K_vjaiv-AYUOV65WgwrJJpVf-KmGMHeZaguJs0QGZiVpq_84IuaudkW2iEcO4GhmVxzGM-C2rygZZTR7p2jo4VeT0AG0Rrg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You hear the smirk in the questions. It helps them love themselves, knowing you. “What about real stories?” And they don’t listen for your answer you cannot construct. The questions will return when the meter of nonsense rises in tide once more. It erodes your exterior and secures your resolve. The greater they fail to know you the more fortified you become in your labyrinth. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You know the minotaur a friend but they do not believe in its hooves and horns. You dance in languages they can never hear. You cry for ghosts and speak with kings. You’ve lost a hundred loves and died to a thousand fears. You are beckoned into the eternal Valhöll living. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But do you wander the Hall alone? Does one hear the voice you never speak? Is there one whose questions are answers?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.2px;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.2px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.2px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">“You put the open book facedown on the pillow and jump up, hugging yourself and skipping bare heels around the room. Marvelous! Wonderful! </span><span style="font-style: italic;">But no more reading tonight. Saves it, save it. Turn the light off, and in the delicious dark put the book reverently away under the bed, pushing aside pieces of the Tinker Toy set and the box with the filling station game cards. Tomorrow there will be more, and you can hardly wait for tomorrow.” </span><span style="font-style: italic;">- The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories </span>by Gene Wolfe</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-4905331049118572082021-12-24T21:07:00.007-08:002021-12-25T09:10:04.617-08:00disgrace<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">In the din of the world’s darkness we whisper Save us. And you answer Wait. Our enemies surround with sword and stones our homes of clay. Our clothes are rent by the claws of man and our bodies wracked by the poison of tongues. The tempest batters our harvest leaving us mud for a feast. And our light goes out. Wait.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Disgrace upon disgrace.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The awaited help? Just like us. Born in blood and tears. Our prince a pauper. We need might and you give us squalor. The light of the world bound to failing frail flesh. The very word of creation silenced by a baby’s tongue. A savior unsaved. Our lion a lamb. When he walks it is in trails of dust and disdain. Our mighty warrior hung by greed upon death’s tree. Dying in blood and tears. Just like us.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Disgrace upon grace.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the death of life sings a singular note. It pierces our cacophony. And salvation the song we could never compose. Our ransom paid in the flesh of light. The extinguish sparks fire. Igniting us as kindling but not consuming. And we surge an ocean of light. His light. To shore unknown. To height unfathomed. We burn with a life not ours. We sing a song not our own. We whisper Save us. And you answer I am.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Grace upon disgrace.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-small;"><i>“<span class="text John-1-9" id="en-ESV-26043" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white;"> </span><span class="text John-1-10" id="en-ESV-26044" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white;"> </span><span class="text John-1-11" id="en-ESV-26045" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white;"> </span><span class="text John-1-12" id="en-ESV-26046" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,<b> </b></span><span class="text John-1-13" id="en-ESV-26047" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”</span></i></span></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-10101740615448572282021-09-04T16:12:00.002-07:002021-09-04T16:23:46.230-07:00hypocriteWhy does venom accompany our love of art (or in my case, its lesser forms)? My deep appreciation of this film stirs malicious condemnation of its alternative. Your profound connection with that book calls its competitor objectively profane. Opinions and tastes are distributed as truth bludgeons upon the unsuspecting other-minded. Now much can be said of our poor pursuit and distribution of truth in other facets of life, but why does our entertainment become so clouded with verbal tourneys upon which our every drop of honor depends?<div><br /></div><div>Artistic resonance can prove so disparate between its victims that we would do as well to speak in contrary tongues as we argue the varying (dis)merits of an artifact. Which makes these sieges on our various loves so curious. For some the fight over nothing is the joke. For others their very own worth is on the line. For one truth must have its champion. Another just wants to see the world (or their combustible friend) burn. To many the fight is the fun. For myself, it is agony.</div><div><br /></div><div>As one so bonded to my narrative interests I suppose it should not surprise that I am as vulnerable as I am. And years of being diminished for them proves both a callous and a wound. A harmless barb thrown at a comic, the denigration of a genre, it all lands in one way or another. I’ve gotten the looks, I’ve gotten the laughs, I have gotten the dismissals, and while I will stubbornly not let it diminish my interests, it does sunder my communal capacity. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YmOWQ6Xl2UQ/YTP9F7leFmI/AAAAAAAABfo/PAQ_V1iLQr8jHKWykBDvPRoNwoDe3jgVACNcBGAsYHQ/s1210/6226DFF0-6D31-4ADB-83B5-918972E74B07.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="1210" height="173" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YmOWQ6Xl2UQ/YTP9F7leFmI/AAAAAAAABfo/PAQ_V1iLQr8jHKWykBDvPRoNwoDe3jgVACNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h173/6226DFF0-6D31-4ADB-83B5-918972E74B07.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>So how could I ever do this to another? Knowing what those actions cost me, how could I diminish another in the same fashion? Selfish, evil, and insecure are words that quickly climb the flagpole. I make conscious effort not to, and even when I have a dissenting opinion I attempt to couch those terms in the same way I would want to hear the opposing full and honest opinion, but I fail. More often than is excusable for one as affected as myself, I fail. The language quickly goes to arrogant dismissal and claims to authority. I repeat the things I hate. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div>An example, my relationship with the film adaptations of <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> is complicated. I saw <i>Fellowship </i>and was overjoyed to see a vision of this narrative deeply embedded in my person. What is more, I saw hordes of others getting a window into this beauty and I thought, “Yes, they finally see why this story is worthy.” Well, subsequent movies began to erode my opinion of their adaptive prowess and the audience’s comprehension. A number of contributing factors played into this: an evolving understanding of what I loved and would pursue in storytelling, a deepening appreciation of Tolkien each subsequent read, increasing frustration with choices of adaptation and poor payoff in their changes, a realization that just because I had an investment did not mean I had to blindly follow (<i>Attack of the Clones </i>played a part here), increasing frustration in directorial style, and more. Very soon I found myself on the outside once more. The fire behind this was fully ignited one day in a bookstore as I listened to a large group of people discuss how much better the films were than the books. And I continue to hear this opinion expressed whether verbatim or suggested.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7iBz4dXcWg/YTP9NDGwJfI/AAAAAAAABfs/wicFJ__PYMMHwayd3Rjn8HOHTRHgb7tzgCNcBGAsYHQ/s840/BD2B18D0-8EB0-4CF8-ADC8-5BF15817A399.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7iBz4dXcWg/YTP9NDGwJfI/AAAAAAAABfs/wicFJ__PYMMHwayd3Rjn8HOHTRHgb7tzgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/BD2B18D0-8EB0-4CF8-ADC8-5BF15817A399.jpeg" width="229" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>And so I began expressing myself. Sometimes I do it with charity. Sometimes I have the arrogance turned to 11 seeking to defend my little plot of land as if I am its final ordained paladin. It is ridiculous. It is foolish. But when a thing you deeply love is besmirched, you do stupid with vigor. </div><div><br /></div><div>Why have I been considering this? Well, this post went a little sideways on me, but I have been considering some of my aversion to all the adaptations of things I care about (<i>The Lord of the Rings, </i>various comic properties, <i>Dune</i>) into live action. Often I bemoan this cultural assumption that live action is story’s best form despite the common refrain that the book is better. People’s feet do the talking and if you listen, even their mouths. And it hurts me; I start turning to the arrogance of calling our society illiterate minions of sapped attention and just putting on the full curmudgeon. And I play the fool, dance and all. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, despite my protests and better-than-thou rubbish, why do I find myself opening a book from my childhood when a trailer hits this week? This is really where my questioning began. Why do I reread <i>The Eye of the World </i>by Robert Jordan? Why did a live-action portrayal of the Two Rivers and a Myrddraal get me cracking a book? Why am I marking November 19 in my head’s calendar as a night worthy of an event? Because I am a fool hypocrite. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are other components to this, meritorious reasons in fact, but by and large hypocrisy looms. All of my arrogance as a “read the book!” yeller laid bare. I am the little insecure child fighting for his little island of the Weird. The show may come out, and the “it was better when”s may all come along. But I am a child flung by the winds of my fancy. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh well.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F75UGq2Uqhs" width="320" youtube-src-id="F75UGq2Uqhs"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was </span><i style="text-align: left;">a </i><span style="text-align: left;">beginning.” </span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><i>The Eye of the World</i></div><div style="text-align: right;">by Robert Jordan</div>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-37125511481078472462021-03-23T03:11:00.000-07:002021-03-23T03:11:44.939-07:00obelisk <p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">There is a tower in the gardens of Yesterday’s Moon. It has no door nor discernible window. The tower stands nameless amongst the ocean of flora swelling against its walls. Birds adorn its height in season. Stone upon stone, the monument stands in wait for a day unwritten.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The history of this edifice is lost. Its dust carries no song of its manufacture nor its utility. The content of the walls lie undisturbed, collecting years like sand. It stands a silent reminder of mystery. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The historian posits it a herald of long dead kings. The philosopher uses it as model for a senseless argument. The poet pretends it another thing entirely. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the child knows it is shade for her resting.</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-39695230553996259382021-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:002021-02-25T19:35:04.049-08:00forgotten<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">She sings a song that the no-ones hear, that the granted and ready ones hear and softly dance to. But her eyes are for the deaf and dire ones, the myths and the magazines. She waits for the story of her mind to match the story of her feet. And she waits for everyone to hear it told. Percussing with tears the graves.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But a myth bows and calls her. It beckons her to storybook tales and princes of charm. It weaves a tapestry of the grand quest. Her feet so near the song of her heart, she runs. And falls. Into the trap of old tales. Into the prison of poetry. She falls cut by the harp-strings of every melody she sang, a child. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And the myths march on. Seeking new mulch for their fields. Leaving a little girl cold behind. Consumed by the wars of gods and the intrigue of devils she lies broken. And the little ones cry. The forgotten name is upheld by the nameless. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The urchin remembers the quiet bird singing its song to the moon.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mutterings on Suicide Squad #38</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Written by John Ostrander and Robert Greenberger</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Art by Luke McDonnell and Geof Isherwood</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lj7SrY3DeY8/YDhrsWN-1dI/AAAAAAAABbo/sAp9_vooHEobtyIq869LDwFqts6_JKtWACNcBGAsYHQ/s1974/C57CD251-291D-4BC9-88F8-EB3739B3AB03.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1974" data-original-width="1324" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lj7SrY3DeY8/YDhrsWN-1dI/AAAAAAAABbo/sAp9_vooHEobtyIq869LDwFqts6_JKtWACNcBGAsYHQ/w269-h400/C57CD251-291D-4BC9-88F8-EB3739B3AB03.jpeg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-44210427203541299002021-02-22T17:22:00.004-08:002021-02-22T17:24:13.639-08:00alerion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dyNo4L6x4WQ/YDRYuJuzNAI/AAAAAAAABbc/TLd2MEyAFEk3tJYqUfKp1Jy8r8RNTqUygCNcBGAsYHQ/s494/14B37681-DD15-4886-9995-C8909C80B5E3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="397" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dyNo4L6x4WQ/YDRYuJuzNAI/AAAAAAAABbc/TLd2MEyAFEk3tJYqUfKp1Jy8r8RNTqUygCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/14B37681-DD15-4886-9995-C8909C80B5E3.jpeg" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px;">A stranger shook the firmament. And everything below.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In stealth its tread spun crackéd crevasse </p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And broke the dam-held certainty</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of what is and was and what shall fall</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In twilit song of dirge.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Questions never known sprung life</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In halls stale with settled bird.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“We seek this thing of mystic night</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">That challenges us doom.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Is it in the fire that fen fulfills</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Or ‘neath oceans swell and spit</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Is it atop mount or dug away</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">P’raps zephy knows of it.”</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And the thing that answers everything</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The thing we cannot repeat</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The thing that is of no esteem</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The thing of which the sun it sings</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It ushers at my feet.</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-78790451319022736262020-08-17T22:14:00.010-07:002020-08-17T22:31:14.322-07:00eloi<p>The 1980s saw the X-Men franchise go from a recently revised rising star of the comic industry to the behemoth of the comic industry. By 1991, Marvel would see the release of a second ongoing X-Men title, the first issue became the best-selling comic of all time at about 8.2 million copies sold (it involved a multiple cover gimmick for sale purposes, but regardless everything was X-Men back then). For the purposes of our sewery adventures this evening we find ourselves about in the middle, 1986, as the little book that could was becoming a franchise. As both of the Big Two had tried their hands at the limited series event comic, the X-Men creative team came up with a crossover event between their titles. Thus began a yearly tradition that what would last through all of the golden years and well into the lean ones. Tonight we shall speak of the night New York’s Sewers burned, the night the Morlocks died. We shall speak of the <b>Mutant Massacre </b>(Hah, I have no idea why the melodrama poked out there)</p><p style="text-align: left;">Chris Claremont had been writing the X-Men for 11 years and you could tell he was really beginning to long for new waters. In the issues leading up to Mutant Massacre, Claremont had brought to a close many of his hanging plot threads: Magneto was reformed, Rachel was gutted and sent to the arms of Mojo, the threat of Nimrod was confronted if not defeated, Storm had retaken the leadership powerless though she was. In many ways, Mutant Massacre is a transition point into a new era of Claremont’s storytelling even as it was a transition in the editorial approach. (This would become a conflict and breaking point in later years as Jim Lee and Bob Harras wanted to play with the old toys and Claremont wanted keep moving toward the new.) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFH2XTL_xCo/Xzss7E8EW1I/AAAAAAAABXc/IOFUNkWJ6l0WjHCDQz-Jp-QKTk63BZhxgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/64C35CC9-FCAF-48DB-8E34-DC1F49788120.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1328" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZFH2XTL_xCo/Xzss7E8EW1I/AAAAAAAABXc/IOFUNkWJ6l0WjHCDQz-Jp-QKTk63BZhxgCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/64C35CC9-FCAF-48DB-8E34-DC1F49788120.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Overview:</b><br /><b>Mutant Massacre </b><br /><b>Cover Dates October 1986 to January 1987</b><br /><b>Issues: Uncanny X-Men #210-213, X-Factor #9-11, New Mutants #46, Thor #373-374, Power Pack #27, (a tie-in epilogue Daredevil #238)</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Earlier in Uncanny X-Men, Claremont had created the sewer dwelling Morlocks, named after the subterranean societal outcasts of H. G. Wells future nightmare in <i>The Time Machine. </i>They were the mutants that society could not bear to see, driven into the darkness. Well, apparently Claremont couldn’t abide seeing them anymore himself because as he describes he was tired of them and wanted to kill them off. According to Louise “Weezie” Simonson, his former editor and the present writer of Power Pack and X-Factor, she thought the slaughter sounded fun and wanted to join in. If true, this is how the first X-Men crossover event began.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The story begins with some wrap up of the conclusion to the past stories, but the thread of prologue follows mysterious shadows hunting a mutant across the country culminating in killing her at the “doorstep” of the Morlock tunnels. The narrative then whips over to X-Factor (I will explain them later) who, through a series of events and violence, find themselves in those same tunnels with many promises of death and doom. Finally, our mysterious shadows are revealed as The Marauders, a group of mutants (and a mutate if you are keeping score) whose mission is to slaughter everyone in the sewers. And they set to doing that with verve and vigor. By varying methods the children of Power Pack as well as the Avenger Thor find themselves in these same tunnels and each group battles various combinations of the dastard Marauders. Many minor characters are killed, major characters are left scarred and broken, and one hero is forever changed. </p><p style="text-align: left;">Our heroes are confronted with evil, black pitiless evil. The physical scars they wear are echoes of the spiritual. They are tested and tried in horrible ways and by the end, you are still uncertain if it made them stronger. We see innocence lost, goodness embittered, and despair awild. How do we choose the good in these moments? What <i>is</i> the good in contrast to this unrelenting evil?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyt6mfHfqe8/XztjQzJrXhI/AAAAAAAABYY/KPKZVY_w2XEZkbXR6ML95rLhhFA8_PIDACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/D7BDFB48-786D-48AC-A272-1F3CF1848992.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyt6mfHfqe8/XztjQzJrXhI/AAAAAAAABYY/KPKZVY_w2XEZkbXR6ML95rLhhFA8_PIDACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/D7BDFB48-786D-48AC-A272-1F3CF1848992.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">Mutant Massacre is obviously a dark book: 1986 saw a few dark books. While the art and narrative is tempered by the Comic Code Authority, Claremont and the Simonsons take advantage of the loosening restrictions. However mostly the darkness is reflected in idea and concept over what it is to which you are visually exposed.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>X-Factor Explanation</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">To explain our other players, X-Factor was a new team devised as book to reunite the original team of X-Men: Cyclops, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Beast, Angel, and Iceman. However the original conceit behind the book is a terrible idea and the book suffered for it. X-Factor is posing as mutant hunters that will “take care” of those scary mutants for you. Think Ghostbusters. Except what they will actually do is rescue and train the feared mutant. For some reason they are shocked to find their idea stirs up the mutant persecution.. Bob Layton, the book’s original writer did not survive six issues, handing the reins to Louise Simonson who came in to attempt a salvage job. She would eventually succeed, but at the time of Mutant Massacre, the book was still in the the healing pains.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gYu8ibXbsw4/Xzth4P-VukI/AAAAAAAABXs/2YpAhk0SPIwMkvtQ6mzIfe0WPr7KXQrRwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1FEF8AB0-7BFC-490C-BB84-62A631BE7276.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1323" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gYu8ibXbsw4/Xzth4P-VukI/AAAAAAAABXs/2YpAhk0SPIwMkvtQ6mzIfe0WPr7KXQrRwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/1FEF8AB0-7BFC-490C-BB84-62A631BE7276.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Power Pack Explanation</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">On the other hand, Power Pack was a Weezie creation at inception. The Power Pack is a group of four child siblings gifted powers by an alien; the Powers family gets into various adventures and explores many corners of the Marvel Universe. In some of their adventures they had befriended members of the Morlock community spawning ongoing relationships with a number of the outcasts. Likewise they have had a few encounters with the X-Men, giving them an unexpected purpose in a rather dark story.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Thor Explanation</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">I will not here explain who Thor from Marvel Comics is but instead why he is found in the first X-Men crossover event. So I have mentioned Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson as writers. A fellow by the name of Walt Simonson was reaching the end of his seminal span of Thor comics. That would be the husband of Louise. He would also be the artist of X-Factor starting with issue #10 and moving forward. Thus Walt Simonson got into this deal through gross nepotism, heh. Clearly he wanted to play in the gory smelly mess, too.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LuQxo2EP_lI/XztiOKeWRqI/AAAAAAAABX0/TppnDvf-9e8ntjVVKkiaOPPELF2tACRQwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1500/1A7F0681-A166-4484-8151-67D93801993D.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1025" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LuQxo2EP_lI/XztiOKeWRqI/AAAAAAAABX0/TppnDvf-9e8ntjVVKkiaOPPELF2tACRQwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/1A7F0681-A166-4484-8151-67D93801993D.jpeg" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>New Mutants Explanation</b></p><p>They end up having a minor part in this event, acting more as an ancillary story behind the scenes than the main events, but the New Mutants are the young new class of mutants at Xavier’s school. They are the X-Men-in-training to over-simplify things. This book is written by Chris Claremont and is more of a support to the X-Men book than the other titles.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jyl8dgigfLY/Xztil8bTn0I/AAAAAAAABYA/XbU1cTsI9i4gGufmAQBSDkQhWNrv9RqUwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1523/E3996087-03A0-4800-B845-FE49E8813745.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1523" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jyl8dgigfLY/Xztil8bTn0I/AAAAAAAABYA/XbU1cTsI9i4gGufmAQBSDkQhWNrv9RqUwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/E3996087-03A0-4800-B845-FE49E8813745.jpeg" /></a></div><p><b>Review</b></p><p>Crossing over comic titles was not a new thing. What made Mutant Massacre different was the scope. This being a first of its kind shows up in some uneven execution. You can tell a conscious effort was made to protect readers who were only reading one of these titles. While they are a piece of the grander narrative, each effectively told their own story. There are instances where characters meet between books and some characters transfer from one book to another, but by and large the books remain self-contained. The effect of this in collected form today is a rubber band effect as you whip back and forth and events are retold from a different perspective. This can be an obstacle today, though I do not know that it itself is a fair criticism as it hinges on the change of medium between monthly released issues and now a collection of compiled stories. Crossovers will continue to play with format and it is for the best that there is no one way to do this, but this first big attempt is not a flawless landing. Just look at the advertising diagram which is supposed to lead you through the event: in what order would you read the books based on that diagram?</p><p>What is more, these books are uneven in another regard. Specifically X-Factor is still suffering growing pains as a series. As previously said, Weezie would make something good of the mess that was X-Factor, but at this stage she was really leaning on the soap opera melodrama of the original X-Men. It is intrusive and painful. I enjoy her Power Pack though I think they might distract the casual reader. As for Thor, it is really hard for his part not to feel strange. Now believe me, I love Walt’s time on Thor. It is up there as one of my very favorite creator runs. And he makes the most of his time here in New York’s sewers, but along with everything else being thrown at the reader, Thor might seem the most alien. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5lBbZXo8A60/Xzti8jIqhJI/AAAAAAAABYM/9DGrinzjgqok_w6MfEJanRRs-FJRV6-fwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/F3E67724-473B-44DE-99D1-A2EE656C04C3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1545" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5lBbZXo8A60/Xzti8jIqhJI/AAAAAAAABYM/9DGrinzjgqok_w6MfEJanRRs-FJRV6-fwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/F3E67724-473B-44DE-99D1-A2EE656C04C3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Another weakness in Mutant Massacre is while the Marauders are by and large memorable (minus Prism... I always forget about Prism), the lack of revealed motivation hampers the story. I believe this stems from the origin of Claremont’s idea: he wants to kill off Morlocks. He essentially punts on why the Marauders are there. There is an offhand mention of doing their master’s bidding, and the name drop of the unseen Mister Sinister. But mostly, the Marauders say the only good mutant is a dead one... except for they themselves. Now, in truth massacres often have little to no motivations. There is an unfortunate truth in this. And the effects of this evil are an ongoing influence on X-Men characters today. Perhaps the lack of motivation is accidentally inspired. However, I think it lessens the quality of antagonist. There would be a variety of later explanations that never seem to truly satisfy why the evil occurs.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3510FLvrbo/XztjbqJ_LiI/AAAAAAAABYg/Wu-7CKwu_IYtlev8gfFlgZMTuhh-xK3JACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/32D5950A-EE38-4A94-B29B-D1BCF662BD9F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a3510FLvrbo/XztjbqJ_LiI/AAAAAAAABYg/Wu-7CKwu_IYtlev8gfFlgZMTuhh-xK3JACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/32D5950A-EE38-4A94-B29B-D1BCF662BD9F.jpeg" /></a></div><p>Yet I love this event. I think I enjoy it more every time I come to it. There are so many moving pieces, characters abound, new characters, old characters, reimagined characters integrated, Apocalypse is gathering his Horsemen in the background, Artie Maddicks and Leech meet for the first time which means nothing to you but means a lot to me, more of the foundation for the Excalibur comic is put down, Psylocke, Sabretooth’s brought into X-Men comics, Mister Sinister’s first mention, and we begin to see the transition to new roads for both of main X-books. And Angel. His road starts here.</p><p>I have seen younger comic readers complain of the art in this book, which honestly saddens me. Obviously I have a very different palette than those who read chiefly contemporary comics, but the lineup of John Romita Jr, Rick Leonardi, Walt Simonson, Bret Blevins, Jon Bogdanove (in a good period), and Alan Davis is a fantastic cast. Unfortunately Terry Shoemaker and Sal Buscema stand out as the lesser, though I believe Sal at least gets a bad reputation because of bad timing and his incredible speed of output. You may not like the art, but those are all-star artists even if you cannot recognize it. I cannot tell you how fitting it is that Alan Davis pencils the story where Psylocke gets her moment. I will say many of the reproductions in trades struggle to recover the inking.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gjVxTdLmVtY/XztiXJkoI-I/AAAAAAAABX4/-Y1HAEevdKgPsQCZW6xTCJOccKTRAVT8QCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/C21F0560-3BB3-4C11-8031-34B53307D40B.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1332" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gjVxTdLmVtY/XztiXJkoI-I/AAAAAAAABX4/-Y1HAEevdKgPsQCZW6xTCJOccKTRAVT8QCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/C21F0560-3BB3-4C11-8031-34B53307D40B.jpeg" /></a></div><p><b>Pros:</b></p><p>- A very important moment in X-Men continuity. Books today still mine this event for content.</p><p>- Important transition point in the path towards the Australian Outback X-Men (you heard that right); I consider this the beginning of a new period of Claremont’s 17-year era on X-Men. </p><p>- Psylocke ushered into X-Men books (she actually crossed the sea in New Mutants first), Sabretooth the same. Introduction of the Marauder villains. The beginning of Angel’s most important story.</p><p>- Artie and Leech.</p><p>- The testing of the X-Men. I appreciate some of the internal struggles the team goes through individually and collectively.</p><p>- Art and I don’t care what you say, heh.</p><p>- The villains are dangerous.</p><p>- There are some decent moments exploring mutant persecution themes.</p><p><b>Cons:</b></p><p>- These are older comics. I have seen many newer readers complain of the overwrought prose. It is a different era that is not always palatable to new readers.</p><p>- Uneven interconnectivity between the books. It might be hard to get into yet another book you haven’t read before.</p><p>- The truckload of characters and circumstances may be too steep a climb for someone unfamiliar, while I think you are introduced sufficiently to the things presented, it may be too high a quantity.</p><p>- Uncomplicated villains. They kill because they like it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXs6Yqxwxfc/XztjIOwogpI/AAAAAAAABYQ/nPhABhbZL3wG_1YI7q36x1AKDlIcOsr9QCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/7107A8EA-23CE-47C2-A64E-8907F6348655.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1321" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mXs6Yqxwxfc/XztjIOwogpI/AAAAAAAABYQ/nPhABhbZL3wG_1YI7q36x1AKDlIcOsr9QCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/7107A8EA-23CE-47C2-A64E-8907F6348655.jpeg" /></a></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p><b>Final Rating (-5/+5): +2</b></p><p><b>Should you read Mutant Massacre:</b></p><p>It depends on what you want. If you care about X-Men continuity, yes. At least at some point. I don’t know that I would choose it as someone’s starting point for X-Men. However if you want to have a sense of history, this is a fairly important read. Even if you do not enjoy it, I believe the knowledge will pay dividends. Though if you are like me, despite its cumbersome bulk, it grows on me more and more. </p><p><b>Availability:</b></p><p>Marvel Unlimited has each issue.</p><p><b>Master Event List:</b></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/08/krona.html">1) Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) +3</a></b></span></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>2) Mutant Massacre (1986) +2</b></span></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/08/crow.html">3) Secret Wars II (1985) +1</a> </b>(I still feel sheepish rating this as even positive)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/zsaji.html">4<span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68);">)</span><span face=""><span> Secret Wars (1984) +1</span></span></a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/olympics.html">5<span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68);">)</span><span face=""> Contest of Champions (1982)</span><span face=""><span> -3</span></span></a></span></p><p><b>Next Event: </b>DC Comics event Legends. I have never read the main event only a couple tie-in issues. I am curious as I know very little about it. Actually I face some controversy for my next Marvel crossover. Kraven’s Last Hunt is on some list of Crossover Events. I don’t believe it fits the event criteria by a taste test. Let me know if you want me to review it, though I would likely asterisk it on my master list.</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-67555896849133704912020-08-14T15:07:00.001-07:002020-08-18T08:49:36.058-07:00crow<p style="text-align: left;">To understand my surprise it will be important to start from the beginning: I first encountered Secret Wars II as tie-in issues in my old black and white Essentials of X-Men comics as I wended my way through Claremont’s era. For a long while, this was about the end of what I could access sequentially in the annals of Uncanny X-Men and the seeming muddle of it left a poor taste in my mouth. Truth be told, it would be a long while before I would in fact read the limited series event comic itself. Prior to this, I would again encounter tie-in issues in diverse books and I would always remember my original protest of The Beyonder’s return.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Well this was my second time reading the limited series Secret Wars II itself. And the first time including all of the tie-ins available read within the sequence I could best assemble. I am quick to complain about Jim Shooter’s return to writing and its invasion upon every book at the time. As I began this read, I joked to a friend as it being a form of self-immolation. After the first issue of the 9-issue mini-series, everything I hated about Secret Wars II was thriving. However, as the saga wore on, I found myself begrudgingly admitting its strengths and courage, even amidst its greed. All of this to end ultimately at believing I enjoy Secret Wars II more than the original... Which leaves me dumbstruck.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Dumbstruck? Oh sorry, to get your hopes up. No, I still have things to say.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6iNB95pS1A/XzcCct6zaDI/AAAAAAAABWk/x2qnCg7HZ6ofuIJVRdCnBmb1up0S0SjqQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/0098C0C3-58FF-4830-AAC4-3FFD8AAC203B.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1328" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6iNB95pS1A/XzcCct6zaDI/AAAAAAAABWk/x2qnCg7HZ6ofuIJVRdCnBmb1up0S0SjqQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/0098C0C3-58FF-4830-AAC4-3FFD8AAC203B.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Overview:</b><br /><b>Secret Wars II</b><br /><b>9-issue Limited Series</b><br /><b>Cover Dates July 1985 to March 1986</b><br /><b>Tie-in Issues ≈33</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">After the success of their original event comic, Marvel was sure to attempt it again, and thus Secret Wars II was born a year later. Only this time, instead of the most popular heroes being whisked away by the mysterious Beyonder, said cosmic entity comes knocking on Earth’s door, and Marvel’s heroes (and villains) have to deal with Mr Nigh-Omnipotent on their home turf. With this as their premise, Marvel exercised an intertwining structure of madness wherein an issue of Secret Wars would release and then the story would continue in whichever ongoing series you found listed as tie-in. A triangle in the top right would likewise alert the savvy consumer that the book would contain the continuing enlightenment of The Beyonder.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The story goes as such, after the events of Secret Wars, The Beyonder rather than sating his curiosity on the absconded earthlings found it enflamed. Thus stoked, The Beyonder takes his godshow on the road and decides to witness these humans in their natural habitat. The Beyonder, sometimes known as Frank, proceeds to try all the various forms of humanity, seeking the satisfaction that learning of something other than himself has called his heart to long for. The series becomes an exploration of human desire and the role of death’s importance to the human life. He tests love, pleasure, power, service, evil, and is always left hollow. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lxJxlO66lI0/XzcFGEoK-bI/AAAAAAAABWw/qRa1NTFvIZ8Sl7dlQsZdrTO5E_94sYrJQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1948/09DF2A99-256F-4958-8BCB-0ABE6F29D44D.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1948" data-original-width="1261" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lxJxlO66lI0/XzcFGEoK-bI/AAAAAAAABWw/qRa1NTFvIZ8Sl7dlQsZdrTO5E_94sYrJQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/09DF2A99-256F-4958-8BCB-0ABE6F29D44D.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Either in the main book or the tie-in issues, the Beyonder’s quest for fulfillment is used as contrast and compliment to the characters of the Marvel Universe. Rachel Summers of the X-Men burgeoning Phoenix power becomes an interest to the cosmically curious. Daredevil is gifted sight as a Faustian deal as The Beyonder tests the limits of human desire. The limits of Spider-Man’s heroism is put to a Jobian test. Etcetera etcetera. Though most often, The Beyonder’s attempts to aid our heroes serves more harm as the naive godling wrecks havoc in his wake. </p><p style="text-align: left;">Whether this sounds interesting, ridiculous, or overwhelming the actual execution is still not being communicated. Jim Shooter, in the 9-issue limited series, executes a satiric at times screwball tone to his narrative. The first issue involves The Beyonder instilling profound potency in a disgruntled animation executive who takes on the mantle of Thunder Sword as he proceeds to express his wrath on the Hollywood landscape. It is intentionally absurd and deconstructive. All of this to Al Milgrom’s pencilling, which many might say is bad, but really it is suited more for the comedy book, even the pages of super hero satire. Which of course fits Shooter’s wandering tone, but not an overarching event book that is being tied to every other book on the shelf. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-anaHms9GXJ0/XzcFz1YHhHI/AAAAAAAABXA/-iQ7pwXGw-oyFikGB93smxOHlAm7-bq6QCNcBGAsYHQ/s1938/D764C007-66D9-4D83-B8C5-65B209CA1481.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1938" data-original-width="1265" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-anaHms9GXJ0/XzcFz1YHhHI/AAAAAAAABXA/-iQ7pwXGw-oyFikGB93smxOHlAm7-bq6QCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/D764C007-66D9-4D83-B8C5-65B209CA1481.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">So why am I saying that at the end of this all, I came away liking Secret Wars sequel more than its progenitor? My answer is mostly twofold.</p><p style="text-align: left;">First, this actually feels like a personal work of Jim Shooter’s. As The Beyonder wanders the substance of the life of a mortal human, I believe you are hearing Shooter’s voice and questions and delving in philosophy. Even in its bizarre tone, there is a creative courage absent in most of the original event. This feels like Jim Shooter is telling the story he wants even in the midst of the collaboration. Of course, he is Editor-in-Chief, so his way goes, but still the reader attains the headspace of Shooter. There is creative bravery here that I respect even when it fails. Far too often the original Secret Wars was senseless battle after battle, with a few of these human-to-god concepts juggled at the end. Here, you hear Shooter’s heart and I believe his true narrative language unfettered by a toy commercial. I respect that.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lGmhmKLZhas/XzcFOW3frgI/AAAAAAAABW0/Z42bsSlstnAyWWeNlxmrgwyIkDpktVkMwCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/CC8341AC-D12A-4440-B1BF-F13D6731AE3D.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1325" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lGmhmKLZhas/XzcFOW3frgI/AAAAAAAABW0/Z42bsSlstnAyWWeNlxmrgwyIkDpktVkMwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/CC8341AC-D12A-4440-B1BF-F13D6731AE3D.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Second, this is a double-edged sword and already cited as one of my original hates of the event, but the tie-ins have more substance and heart than the effects of the original Secret Wars. Now, first I must say that not every tie-in is created equal. Some are a lie (Fantastic Four #282), some essential; some are interesting side-notes, some interruptions. But what is a boon here, the writers living with the various books get to write how their characters interact with the threat of The Beyonder. We see Nightcrawler’s faith in God shaken in the pages of X-Men. We see Matt Murdock live a day with sight restored in the pages of Daredevil. The Beyonder plays the part of the Ghost of Christmas Past to Johnny Storm in a tear-jerker Fantastic Four story. Some good writers make the most of the opportunity, using the circumstances they find themselves in to deepen their characters adeptly. Again, not every tie-in is created equal. There were also misplays such as Secret Wars II stealing the end of an ongoing story in Fantastic Four confusing the ongoing’s reader. Yet, ultimately, it allowed these characters to experience these events as themselves, rather than the plague of mis-characterization in the first Secret Wars. </p><p style="text-align: left;">(Regarding my feelings toward the Uncanny X-Men tie-ins fore-mentioned, at this point of rereading, the muddle is less and it stirs more notes of powerful nostalgia than it does frustration. Truly, it feels like I come home when I read any stage of Claremont’s run, and this particular stretch has grown and grown on me. As for the handling of Rachel... Her scheme to battle The Beyonder by destroying the universe is still just batty, but there is some meaty content. And now what felt like Rachel’s (somewhat literal) character assassination, I now see in light of her time in Excalibur.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGayxQNopOM/XzcGg_Rw6aI/AAAAAAAABXM/NPmsLM_2xVcvjG8MCRW8Jukq5MUD538MQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/ED3A9F2A-9F53-4E91-8D03-D51D222EEE2A.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1331" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OGayxQNopOM/XzcGg_Rw6aI/AAAAAAAABXM/NPmsLM_2xVcvjG8MCRW8Jukq5MUD538MQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/ED3A9F2A-9F53-4E91-8D03-D51D222EEE2A.jpeg" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Pros:</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">- Jim Shooter digs deeper into his consistent waters of humanity alongside limitless power, but here better fishes out themes of humanity’s desire, mortality, etc. It is artistically bold if mistargeted, but with moments of poignancy.</p><p style="text-align: left;">- A smorgasbord of a great era of Marvel Comics. Claremont X-Men, Stern Avengers, Byrne Fantastic Four, Claremont New Mutants, Simonson Thor, Mantlo Hulk: it may not be the best of their respective books, but these are all some of the best, if not the single best, writers for each of those books. </p><p style="text-align: left;">- Boom Boom! (... or Time Bomb... or Meltdown... or... ) Tabitha Smith makes an odd but memorable first appearance here. She competes with Layla Miller as best little blonde girl introduced as a side character in an event book. It’s a steep competition (it isn’t).</p><p style="text-align: left;">- Molecule Man has an interesting turn here. Read Avengers #266 as an epilogue to finish his story.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Cons:</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">- The limited series has a strange tone for a line-wide event book. The art further frustrates expectations. Satire and absurdity abound.</p><p style="text-align: left;">- Reliance on tie-ins makes the read potentially overwhelming. It is not precisely self-contained.</p><p style="text-align: left;">- But if you read every tie-in you get a very mixed bag both in quality and relevance. Probably not worth the length.</p><p style="text-align: left;">- While it explores themes of humanity, as per usual for fantasies it struggles to express omnipotence and more so omniscience. While I would argue that everything is a work of theology, this fails to really conceive of true omni-isms.</p><p style="text-align: left;">- They make sure you know this happened in the 80s...</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Final Rating (-5/+5 scale): +1</b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Should you read Secret Wars II:</b></p><p style="text-align: left;">No. While I am admitting to liking this more than the first, please hear the relativity in that statement. I used to revile this thing and it has taken me time to see it in even a degree of favor. If you were to read only one, the original is probably still the smarter read for historical purposes and even then, I still do not truly recommend Secret Wars unless you are doing a wide swath of continuity. I would propose a similar approach here. If you are reading through a book that encompasses this era, perhaps you can include the mini-series in your read. But you will be able to stumble by regardless.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Availability: </b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Marvel Unlimited has the series along with every tie-in except those they for which they lost the license: Rom and Micronauts.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Master Event List:</b></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/08/krona.html">1) Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) +3</a></b></span></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>2) Secret Wars II (1985) +1 (I still can’t believe it... Everything I know is wrong)</b></span></p><p><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/zsaji.html"><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">3)</span><span face="" style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> Secret Wars (1984) +1</span></span></a></p><p><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/olympics.html"><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">4)</span><span face="" style="color: #4d469c; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> Contest of Champions (1982)</span><span face="" style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> -3</span></span></a></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Next Event: </b>The X-Men’s first crossover event Mutant Massacre just beats out DC’s Legends by a month if my information is correct.</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31957501.post-59085137241832111432020-08-07T21:22:00.001-07:002020-08-07T21:22:18.325-07:00krona<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BBuN1nqGvmo/Xy4lxc01YkI/AAAAAAAABVI/1scyM5V0mPIRevVwDM92sfkUypUtlWFywCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92323A35-70CB-4E53-B393-F1E41C4340F6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BBuN1nqGvmo/Xy4lxc01YkI/AAAAAAAABVI/1scyM5V0mPIRevVwDM92sfkUypUtlWFywCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/92323A35-70CB-4E53-B393-F1E41C4340F6.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>When I entered the super hero comic world, Marvel Comics was my chief gate. Most of my DC exposure was a few library comics, some wandering words, and the animated series. Later, I would collect a few of the bigger continuity independent stories of fame but the DC world as a larger whole was empty to me at least in any way that resembled my Marvel knowledge. A roommate who stood on the other side of that epistemic fence would put the limited series <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) </i>in my hand. Thus would begin my journey into the grander realm of DC continuity. </p><p>Writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez began a new phase of DC Comics in 1980 when they would revitalize the previously unremarkable team of sidekicks the Teen Titans in their series... the New Teen Titans. Infusing the book with some of the more dynamic serialism of Marvel, Wolfman and Pérez gave life to a company and an industry that was floundering. Many view this iteration of the Teen Titans as DC’s answer to Claremont’s X-Men, some going so far as to accuse the two of copying Marvel’s Merry Mutants (which is oversimplifying the book at best). Banking on the popularity of this creative team, DC announced their limited series event, <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i>... in 1981. It would take until 1985 for them to truly be prepared to rewrite the history of their multiverse.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S2_y3bQoQro/Xy4l9Dl_IDI/AAAAAAAABVM/G30m5W94Q7o8dvAA5NC-fKmPHHqKYRZAQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/9F576C8E-E508-4BE7-97F5-B516C34B5FB7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S2_y3bQoQro/Xy4l9Dl_IDI/AAAAAAAABVM/G30m5W94Q7o8dvAA5NC-fKmPHHqKYRZAQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/9F576C8E-E508-4BE7-97F5-B516C34B5FB7.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>DC’s continuity was an after-thought throughout the Golden Age of Comics of the 1940s and 50s. Editor Julie Schwartz is generally honored as being the continuity champion when the page turned to the Silver Age of Comics. New characters were reinvented with old names, reigniting imaginations that had long surrendered super heroes to war, horror, western, and monster comics. Maintaining previous truths of their fictional world had always been unimportant in the olden days, but now Schwartz saw a profit in sustaining a consistency between their stories. Even risking recombining their various books into a Justice League in mimicry of their previous Justice Society venture. </p><p>Well it all proved a success, but then those who loved the Golden Age characters longed for and began writing them back into comics. And thus the multiverse was born. Earth-1 would house these new heroes and their adventures and Earth-2 would be home to the fore-mentioned Justice Society and its constituents. They would even split tales of their heroes who never saw an end to their publishing history: now there were two Supermen, two Batmen, the Wonder Women were dual. It became a yearly “Crisis” event where Justice League would meet their counterparts and divulge in some interdimensional shenanigans. And the universes exploded from there. DC began to buy out other publishing companies and each adding a new earth to their repertoire. All of this to say, if you were not in the know, good luck finding the road to enlightenment. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IA2a2YesC7A/Xy4nIiM-ZrI/AAAAAAAABV0/MGcA1G04DV8RFOeRB5IGzPWU7UQe0Z2BQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1549/628197F0-2CAD-46E4-A160-117BBF028237.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1549" data-original-width="1015" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IA2a2YesC7A/Xy4nIiM-ZrI/AAAAAAAABV0/MGcA1G04DV8RFOeRB5IGzPWU7UQe0Z2BQCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/628197F0-2CAD-46E4-A160-117BBF028237.jpeg" /></a></div><p>Wolfman proposed his event idea as a means to simplify the burgeoning continuity. And so the research began. And years passed. And finally in January of 1985 ,DC’s first event would hit the stands. And the world would never be the same. (That is a very relative term, an ant “changes” the world) They promised that “Worlds will live, worlds will die, and the universe will never be the same.” Perhaps the falsest claim is that worlds plural would live... but we will get to that.</p><p>How do you describe Crisis? It is big. This is as epic as super hero epic gets. Wolfman’s research delved into most every realm of the company’s publishing history. Now, we aren’t seeing the romance comics or every one-off story told, but a large landscape of characters and worlds are covered (If anyone sees a Suicide Squad reference, let me know). The book opens with watching universes die. Earths are being consumed by waves of immutable energy. Worlds will die.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zavbLPUMJAk/Xy4nCszvonI/AAAAAAAABVw/jfxeJ4IFv7QO1rj1sOAiwqYhw64oKTUIgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1530/A9F9CC7E-A2BA-487A-92CA-C688DBE3FCB4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1530" data-original-width="978" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zavbLPUMJAk/Xy4nCszvonI/AAAAAAAABVw/jfxeJ4IFv7QO1rj1sOAiwqYhw64oKTUIgCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/A9F9CC7E-A2BA-487A-92CA-C688DBE3FCB4.jpeg" /></a></div><p>The answer to this crisis is The Monitor, a long running tease throughout DC’s comic line. The Monitor’s original plan was as a villain, but Wolfman makes a sudden course correction. Here The Monitor is all that stands against the consuming waves of antimatter. He sends the new character, Harbinger, to assemble an odd assortment of powered beings from diverse time and place. Villains and heroes shoulder to shoulder begin the struggle for reality’s continuing existence. </p><p>And the series continues to drift further and further down the DC rabbit hole, as new phases of the struggle include new faces and places. New characters enter the pages, many die. The true villain is revealed and the stakes are put on display. In order to save everything, it must be unified. And here is the genius of <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths </i>as reboot and retcon events go. The reboot is not an accidental and circuitous consequence of the narrative but it is intimately intertwined. The objective of the heroes becomes the editorial decision though they don’t know its full impact on their lives. Often the reboots and retcons can be forced and senseless, leaving the reader painfully cognizant of the editor’s hand.</p><p>Ultimately, <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths </i>is a success at the things it sets out to do. Primarily, it successfully entertains. Where <i>Contest of Champions</i> and to a lesser extent <i>Secret Wars</i> is built on the assumption that mashing a smorgasbord of characters together will itself be the selling point, <i>Crisis</i> makes certain the story itself is the reason to read. When you begin with a captivating story, the characters matter exponentially more. I care about their conflicts, confusions, and fears. I turn the page because I am engrossed in the stakes and expansive plotting. When they mourn, you mourn. When they suffer, you suffer. When they endure, you are lifted. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEwJ4QrPqPk/Xy4niaUm5_I/AAAAAAAABWE/W2UyrHACi1A8CPS9bkkiKOhVA7OFD56kACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/DA58FA3F-F186-44C0-BBF1-0DF994EA2F44.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1059" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEwJ4QrPqPk/Xy4niaUm5_I/AAAAAAAABWE/W2UyrHACi1A8CPS9bkkiKOhVA7OFD56kACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/DA58FA3F-F186-44C0-BBF1-0DF994EA2F44.jpeg" /></a></div><p>Now, the book is a super hero book. We are not talking about a comic that transcends its genre trappings. Wolfman is not informed by the Moore deconstruction of Swamp Thing or Miracleman. This is Wolfman writing at another level, but one bound up in everything super hero. While he makes his characters more than their powers, they express themselves with the overexpression of a comic. We are not dealing with a work of subtlety. Or perhaps the subtlety is in a different realm than we consider. If anything, the literary quality of <i>Crisis </i>would be in its application of myth. It interplays mythic and religious tropes against the human. We have Pandora’s Box, self-sacrificing godbeings slain by a judas, taoistic duality, sun gods, nether gods: <i>Crisis </i>wears its mythic pedigree upon its crown. </p><p>Pérez’s pencils are perfect for <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths.</i> He can pack more on a page than most any artist I know. He is the master of the long panel. He stretches his panels long and slender, allowing him to get far more on a page. But he is the master because they are his best panels, choosing what best conveys the story both through action and atmosphere. He is an artist best experienced in sequence, as a single image is not likely to impress especially to today’s reader. However his characters are emotive actors, portraying their experience before their dialogue. Pérez has a style that honors the Silver Age but is able to take on some of the changes in the medium. He is not as dynamic as the artists to come, but for the purposes of this story, especially as a retrospective, Pérez perfectly answers the call. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LgCOPoBL810/Xy4mabD-tDI/AAAAAAAABVc/VgYdCCzWg9gCbkd8mPdIKZtjzAOQ3iTxwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/99FF18A6-BE4B-4C8E-975B-76CF14E8F39D.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1600" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LgCOPoBL810/Xy4mabD-tDI/AAAAAAAABVc/VgYdCCzWg9gCbkd8mPdIKZtjzAOQ3iTxwCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/99FF18A6-BE4B-4C8E-975B-76CF14E8F39D.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p><b>Tie-In Comics:</b></p><p>As <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths </i>unfolded over the year of 1985, many of the ongoing comics at the time brought in the effects of <i>Crisis</i>. In a way not seen in <i>Secret Wars, </i>some titles would have their own story that accompanies the events of the event altering their fictional world. These tie-in comics were an experiment in serial storytelling as writers and editors sought how to engage an audience who may or may not be reading the limited series. I would put forward the tie-in endeavor was a success in that the book of <i>Crisis </i>could be read alone and isolated from the rest of the ongoing titles.</p><p>The best way to read <i>Crisis, </i>in my opinion, is to read the 12-issue limited series. As for the tie-ins, read them if you are reading the accompanying series as you will then best enjoy how that character experiences the crisis in the midst of their present circumstances. The possible exceptions to this rule are DC Comics Presents #87 which introduces a character that shows up in the pages of <i>Crisis </i>and it feels like there is more. It is not a high quality origin account, but it helps explain a character that I actually think makes little sense in the context of the event. The second exception would be the Green Lantern story in issues #194-198. While <i>Crisis </i>is not a Green Lantern story, a significant portion of its roots in continuity involve Green Lantern mythos. Because of this the story told here, best compliments the event limited series.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6cJsk5s-QlI/Xy4n2RpWPtI/AAAAAAAABWQ/A92OvVBaFUYNJB9Wm0_5TMN28_MohcMVACNcBGAsYHQ/s2541/0185D82F-DB5E-4A12-B9AB-D2E6A9B7412E.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="2541" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6cJsk5s-QlI/Xy4n2RpWPtI/AAAAAAAABWQ/A92OvVBaFUYNJB9Wm0_5TMN28_MohcMVACNcBGAsYHQ/s640/0185D82F-DB5E-4A12-B9AB-D2E6A9B7412E.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p><b>Pros:</b></p><p>- This is a wonderful gateway into the greater DC continuity even today. The shear volume of content gives readers the taste of the who and whats of DC. They continue to mine the events of <i>Crisis </i>today.</p><p>- Introductions of characters and concepts to the pages of DC.</p><p>- It is great. Epic often skews toward spectacle, but Wolfman and Pérez keep the narrative grounded in emotion and consequence. While it is a large tome, it deserves its pages.</p><p>- Characters. I understand that I have already listed this twice, but characters are why I open these silly things and I am well rewarded here.</p><p>- Unifying a complex multiverse.</p><p><b>Cons:</b></p><p>- The deep dive may be too much pressure for some. </p><p>- The writing and art may be dated to some.</p><p>- The villain uprising feels like a plot with little payoff.</p><p>- Some of the effects of unifying these worlds caused lasting harm. The Justice Society was long troubled to find its new place. The Legion of Super Heroes has never rediscovered its pre-crisis glory. </p><p><b>Final Rating (-5/+5 scale): +3</b></p><p><b>Should You Read <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i>?</b></p><p>Yes. </p><p>Okay, maybe the better question is who should read <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i>? I do not think I would start anyone’s journey into super hero sillies with <i>Crisis</i>, though for the right person it could be a great hook. If someone told me they wanted to explore DC’s continuity, I would start them here. Honestly, if they wanted to read any DC events, they should begin here. Too many things are spawned here, you will be greatly missing context without understanding Monitors and Multiverses and why the heck is there someone who looks like (oh wait and is also named) Uncle Sam? </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-md7JJsORzsI/Xy4oGPCuGuI/AAAAAAAABWY/mdRsd99m1vcv1eBxKMQq6IOJ_54vrLPcgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1334E726-63FA-4BDB-A408-A01BEDC7759F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1061" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-md7JJsORzsI/Xy4oGPCuGuI/AAAAAAAABWY/mdRsd99m1vcv1eBxKMQq6IOJ_54vrLPcgCNcBGAsYHQ/s640/1334E726-63FA-4BDB-A408-A01BEDC7759F.jpeg" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>Availability:</b></p><p>Hoopla, DC Universe both have it. </p><p><b>What Else Might You Read:</b></p><p>If you want a somewhat more modern take on retrospective of DC’s printing history but with an internal continuity, Darwyn Cooke’s <i>New Frontier </i>is one of my very favorite comics. It is Cooke’s love letter to the DC Silver Age.</p><p>If you want a modern take on the Crisis idea that leans more into the inherent metatextual nature of the project, Grant Morrison’s <i>Multiplicity </i>is one of the few good things to come of <i>The New 52. </i></p><p>A unique thing that came from <i>Crisis </i>was the space to tell endings in a genre that is afraid of endings. Alan Moore was given the project to tell a final story for Superman prior to his reboot. Some consider it the best Superman story of all time, <i>Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow</i>. (For my money that award is <i>All Star Superman</i>’s to lose)</p><p>There’s also <i>Infinite Crisis </i>and direct rebootive sequels to <i>Crisis</i>, but we will get to those.</p><p><b>The Events Master List:</b></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>1) Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) +3</b></span></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>2)</b></span><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/zsaji.html" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> Secret Wars (1984) +1</a></p><p><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); color: #444444; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>3)</b></span><a href="https://aedontor.blogspot.com/2020/07/olympics.html" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #4d469c;"> Contest of Champions (1982)</span> -3</a></p><p><b>Next Event: </b><i>Secret Wars II (1986)</i>... someone save me.</p>AedonTorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03294616386098983188noreply@blogger.com0