Platypus of Truth

Our travels now are ended. These our pictures, As I foretold you, were all pixels and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this blog-p'st, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.   Summer travels 2013: Italy and New England  

Where did it all go?  I grew up on a lake.  I'd show it to you, but the developer has walled it off with houses and let the trees and scrub grow so tall it's hard to see.  Maybe that was wise of him.  People did go down there and make trouble.  Besides, land that isn't developed doesn't turn a profit.  It's a reality of this world that loving something doesn't make it yours, especially in one of the wealthiest states in the union .  But perhaps there's a world with a different reality where love is the very coin of the realm.  In that world, I will walk the hills and vales of Naugatuk in Autumn when the leaves burn like fire in the presence of the LORD. When these things are washed away The River will keep flowing Wei la lei And the daughters of the River God Will sing Qui Transtulit Sustinet

The Green.  At the heart of any New England village was the "common" or "village green."  Flanking the green would be a Congregational church at one end and an Episcopal church at the other.  Then there would be a burial ground and the most important homes and buildings.  This is my green, or simply The Green .  We drove past this little patch of grass multiple times each day.  I still don't know why it has a statue of an amazon smiting a lion, but I don't have to.  Humans lived for millennia without knowing why the sun rose.  Finding out would only add to the wonder.  The Congregational church, right where it should be.  My apologies for the power lines.  There are still places in the U.S. where modernity is tacked on as an afterthought. The Episcopal church sporting its new dome.  The original was gray from a fire that started when the sexton decided to shoot pigeons off the roof and his rifle wadding ignited cupola. ...

Church. We're all formed by the places we grew up in.  There's greater continuity between past and present in New England.  It's like Jackson's vision of Tolkien's Shire: things are made to endure ... passing down from one generation to the next.   I'd like to say that there's always been a Baggins at Bag End and there always will be ...  Moving back to the idea of continuity, the church is like the library: a Victorian original with a modern edition discretely added in a way that doesn't detract from the beauty of the older structure.  As with the building, so with the worship and theology.  Places form people and this place and this people formed me. It was a Thursday.  The pews were empty, but I knew the place and the place knew me.  On our way out, my wife spied a curious thing: a tiny clump of red leaves on a green tree.  I miss you too... Burning, burning, burning Tell me, are the leaves still burning; Can they teach me...

The summer is coming to a close (though the weather down here will be in the 80s and 90s until November).  That means it's time again for the Seven Heavens of Summer Reading awards.  These awards were created in honor of Michael Wards' groundbreaking book Planet Narnia which asserts that Lewis ordered his famous children's series around the seven planets of medieval cosmology.  Following this idea, I award seven books from my summer reading list that best exemplify the virtues of the seven planets.  Following the "summer reading" label at the bottom of this post will link you the lists of prior award winners.  Without further ado, let's get to it. Moon: This year's winner for the planet of change and madness has to be Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  Following the adventures of three board editors to create the ultimate conspiracy theory is enough to blur the boundaries of reality for anyone. Mercury: For the wordsmith's heaven, the award...

The library.  I had to ask directions to find it, but I got a cordial "welcome back" from the Walgreen's clerk.  As you can imagine, I spent a good deal of time here as a kid.  Walking the halls of old library, very little had changed (the reference section had been reordered to open up the reading room and create a Young Adult section).  All my favorite books were where I remembered them.  I even found the exact copy of The Talismans of Shannara that I read all those years ago.  This little building (and the new wing cleverly imbedded in the hill beneath it) represent all that's best in civic space: beautiful but restrained architecture filled with worthy things for the common good.  So let me take you on a little tour of one of my favorite places.  There are no ghosts that I know of, except me.  The Reading Room, sitting immediately under the curved roof on the left side of the building.  The clock in the corner dates from the...

View of the Housatonic River from Indian Wells State Park.  We're here. And as I pondered By the pilgrim path So many feet had trod, Far away, The daughters of the river god Still sang: Wei la lei Wei la lei I who have known Shepaug, and Pomperaug, Naugatuk, I catch the good pastor's tears, For his daughter's Gone To Kahnawake, To La Prairie, And will not return. Wei wei la Wei wei la la I knew the little mill town when the Robber baron smiled He tried to sway me Captain of industry But I was a good girl But I was a good girl Wei la la Wei la O daughters of the river, Tell me For you know And only the rumor Reaches me In Babylon In La Prarie: Are the leaves still burning, Burning,               Burning, Tell me, are the leaves still burning? Can they teach me how to burn?

After a renewed spate of reading, I am happy to be able to return to this series of posts with a review of Robert E. Howard's first Conan novella: The People of the Black Circle as found in the collection The Bloody Crown of Conan .  Those who are unfamiliar with this work and wish to keep its contents a surprise should not read on. *Begin Review* Conan the Cimmerian explodes back onto the page after a series of mediocre performances.  Following The Devil in Iron , we find our hero pushing ever further east beyond the Himelians and into Afguhlistan and the lands beyond.  This is Conan's first truly "oriental" adventure, and opens up new territory both geographic and literary.  As an "oriental adventure,"  The People of the Black Circle imports into Conan's world all the paraphernalia of the genre: mystics, mesmerism, dangerous hill men and plotting viziers. In literary terms, this was the longest Conan tale to date at the time of its composition....

What's left of Grampa's garden. My grandmother was packing up the family farm when went out to visit.  It's a wise move as she spends most of the year in Florida.  Those of us who could make it came over for pizza (and it was good pizza) and memories.  During a lull, I slipped out of the house to snap a few pictures and say my own goodbyes. Goodbye. I think I will go out today and stand upon the rock With the valley all below me Burning leaves of red and gold, Purple maple smoke I will go and see eternity The eschatological moment wrapped In a snow globe on the mantelpiece Or a postcard off the rack

What is home to you?  What is tree, water, house?  When you see the words, what picture comes to mind?  We're getting closer now. My wife had never been to Connecticut.  On trying to think what would give her the right picture, my family came up with Essex .  Essex is a venerable town on the banks of the Connecticut River still boasting streets of houses from the early nineteenth century.  Many of them are up for sale by Sotheby's and Chrisite's.  Essex is also home to the Griswold Inn , the oldest continually running tavern in the United States.  The bar of this rambling establishment is actually fashioned out of an old ship boiler.  We puttered around here for an afternoon taking in the sites and enjoying a particularly good little ice cream stand.  There were no issues with parking and no issues with traffic, just sails, and ships, and rows white-washed houses. Et en Arcadia Ego... Little brother, little br...