Platypus of Truth

The Getty Iris has an interesting post discussing the Grecco-Roman custom of depicting mythological heroes in their funerary architecture.  Here's the link .

Several years ago, I had the pleasure to look at the first draft of a novel by a friend of mine.  I shared my thoughts along with a few spurious doodles and that was that.  Imagine my delight when I saw the book for sale on Amazon.  That book is A Circle of Salt  by E.J. Weaver and I am pleased to say that it was worth every cent of the 12 dollars I paid to get a hard copy. A Circle of Salt  is not like any fantasy novel I have read.  The core of the book is a series of Russian fairy tales that have been reworked by Weaver to tell the story of Vasilissa, a fey from the Summer Realm who is exiled for her pride.  Over the course of her exile, Vasilissa crosses wits with Russian fairy tale villains Koschei the Deathless and the Baba Yaga who attempt to use Vasilissa's blood to enter the Realm and unleash the Dragon.  While this might sound like Shannon Hale meets Mike Mignola, Weaver's understated and deeply realist story-telling gives A Circle of ...

The final curtain falls over a neo-classical funerary urn worthy of Eteocles. The Sheltons, as befitted one of the first families of a Connecticut hill town, produced numerous "doctors of physik" over the years.  With epidemic disease being a common place, many of these doctors' ends were less than enviable. This is the modestly-ornate grave of Doctor William Shelton (1767-1819).  Dr. Shelton graduated from Yale, a mere morning's ride away from home, in 1788 and took up the scalpel in 1790.  The official doctorate didn't come until 1817, two years before he was cut down by the typhus fever of 1819 at the age of 52.  An inscription at the base tells us that the stone was commissioned by his surviving children "to the memory of the best of fathers".  With a Yale degree, I am sure that there were other places William Shelton might have gone.  Instead, he chose a life of service to the community he was raised in and died as he lived.  That's worthy...

The Grave of Agur and Abigail Shelton This is the grave of Agur and Abigail Shelton.  It can be found near the downtown area of the town that shares their family name.  This is, I believe, the oldest burial ground in the community and the bones of Lieutenant Daniel Shelton are laid to rest nearby.  Agur is a generation or two removed from Daniel as his death date testifies: June 24, 1845.  The style of Agur and Abigail's tomb, marble rather than slate with a weeping willow and urn instead of the winged death's head, show not only a change in date but a change in culture.  Gone is the stark Puritan reminder that death comes for us all and a more euphemistic Neo-Classicism has taken its place.  Along with added wealth and sophistication comes a few little flourishes that mark tomb stones from the early and mid-nineteenth century.  Abigail's inscription is enriched by the note that she was "the daughter of the late Rev. Mr. Newton" and that she "died ...

I've been posting quite a bit about graves and their tenants this past month.  For those who are interested in looking at the broader context of human interaction with the dead, there is an interesting article over at the Getty Iris on this topic, "Are Westerners Weird About Death".  Here is the link .

Aunt Mary's Grave We all look for role models.  Sometimes we find them in a parent.  Other times it's an uncle or an aunt.  Jane DeForest Shelton, author of The Saltbox House , found her's in Marietta Smith, "Aunt Mary" for short. Aunt Mary's mother, the beautiful and vivacious Glory-Anah Shelton, had been the talk of the town in her day.  She'd made a good, if belated, match in merchant James Smith.  Smith's connections brought Glory-Anah a stone house across the water in Derby and an imported China tea-set that was a nine-day wonder.  A sick mother brought both the Smiths back to the old Saltbox house in the White Hills of Huntington and Glory-Anah never really wanted to move back.  Her husband died and there she sat and aged with only her daughter, Marietta, to care for her.  Marietta, or "Aunt Mary", had one chance to get out that came in the form or a certain Southern gentleman.  The prospects for a happy marriage were strong, bu...

This is a map I made in college for an RPG campaign.  We only ran a few sessions in the world of Ventia, but I had fun developing the distinct cultures of Ventia, Annuvn, Prydain, Frisia and their histories.