Platypus of Truth

Who says you can't go home? Connecticut is called "The Land of Steady Habits" both by those that inhabit it and by their neighbors.  Going back, even after sixteen or seventeen years doesn't mean that you're going to find much in the way of change.  There may be a few new houses and a few new faces, but things mostly stay in their place -the trees grow taller.  Not all change is bad, however, and it's always a delight to pop back in to a place you know and love and find that its beauty has been carefully tended and enriched.  Below, is one of my favorite places : the old library.   The town I grew up in once had a Tiffany glass factory and that factory provided a beautiful set of stained glass windows(ok, it's not actually stained glass, but a modern technique [rolled glass?] that Tiffany pioneered) for the town library.  These turn-of-the-century windows were damaged long ago and moved to the musty recesses of the attic so that I never saw them while I...

Major Connecticut hero, minor video game character Places can become ways of seeing things, but things can also become ways of seeing places.  I discussed this in regard to books in the previous post , but today I'd like to take a moment and extend the concept to video games. Games can also be a way of seeing.  In fact, we should expect this since video and computer games are primarily a visual medium.  An abnormally frosty morning in North Houston can be transformed for a group of teenage boys just by playing the first notes of the Skyrim theme.  Eyes light up, slack faces crack into a smile, and immediately their imaginations begin to spin.  The chill frost and bleak landscape they were complaining about a minute ago is transformed into a wide world of adventure with a wilderness of dragons.  In my youth, games like Secret of Mana   and The Legend of Zelda   colored the way I saw my surroundings.  Exploring the woods, or canoeing, o...

A way of seeing Places are a way of seeing.  They are a prism, or a lens, through which we view reality.  The places that we live in shape us just as we shape them.  As an illustration of this principle, I've posted pictures from the area where I grew up with the first quotes that came to mind when I sat down to review them.  That's not to say that they're exactly how I picture Minas Tirith, or Camelot, or Rivendell, but that my vision of each literary location takes its color from the basic images of my youth.  Now this can be seen the other way round as well.  Books have colored my sense of place.  There's an extra layer of meaning to all the towns and hamlets of rural new England because they are so "Shire-like".  The Colt Arms factory, even now that its been renovated, will always appear to me through the screen of Osgiliath.  All the Victorian Gothic follies and monuments will forever be hallowed for me by the image of the king . ...

His house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.  Evil things did not come into that valley.   -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The door opened, but no one could be seen to open it. Pippin looked into a great hall. It was lit by deep windows in the wide aisles at either side, beyond the rows of tall pillars that upheld the roof. Monoliths of black marble, they rose to great capitals carved in many strange figures of beasts and leaves; and far above in shadow the wide vaulting gleamed with dull gold, inset with flowing traceries of many colours. No hangings nor storied webs, nor any things of woven stuff or of wood, were to be seen in that long solemn hall; but between the pillars there stood a silent company of tall images graven in cold stone. -J.R.R. Tolkien

On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many-towered Camelot; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, The island of Shalott. But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often through the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed; "I am half sick of shadows," said The Lady of Shalott. -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalot

And there was no gate like it under heaven. For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, The Lady of the Lake stood: all her dress Wept from her sides as water flowing away; But like the cross her great and goodly arms Stretched under the cornice and upheld: And drops of water fell from either hand; And down from one a sword was hung, from one A censer, either worn with wind and storm; And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish; And in the space to left of her, and right, Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, New things and old co-twisted, as if Time Were nothing, so inveterately, that men Were giddy gazing there; and over all High on the top were those three Queens, the friends Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King

For myself, I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens; not as a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. 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: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Even as Pippin gazed in wonder the walls passed from looming grey to white, blushing faintly in the dawn; and suddenly the sun climbed over the eastern shadow and sent forth a shaft that smote the face of the City. Then Pippin cried aloud, for the Tower of Ecthelion, standing high within the topmost walls' shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze' and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings