Platypus of Truth

 In 1989, our family moved to Southern Connecticut so I could begin receiving cancer treatment. The house wasn't haunted, but for a brief time I was. The Warrens lived in the next town over. We were Protestants. We prayed. It stopped. The Haunting in Connecticut is a merely competent horror movie. It deserves the two stars Ebert & Roper gave it. It also deserves the praise they gave to the core actors. While the movie is wildly beyond anything I ever experienced (and isn't even shot in CT), the texture of non-paranormal elements is jarringly real. In some sense, it's validating: cathartic. There are only so many people who have lived in Connecticut. Far fewer are childhood cancer survivors from the 80s-90s. I'd be willing to wager even fewer have been haunted. It's such a small, small segment to base a pop movie on. Honestly, I have a hard time connecting with others. I've just accepted that I'll always be a sort of platypus. But people watched this movi...

This year marks the completion of Houston Grand Opera's staging of the complete Ring Cycle  by Richard Wagner. My wife and I have been able to attend all four operas and have witnessed Wagner's retelling of the creation and destruction of the Nordic World. I haven't seen anything like it. The La Fura Dels Baus  staging HGO used seemed to swirl the Volsungsaga  with The Orestiea , Final Fantasy , Mad Max: Fury Road ,  The Wasteland , The Dry Salvages and The Abolition of Man . It was a heady cocktail that appeared to leave those over forty cold while it made the twenty-somethings I know weep with rapture. So you know where I fit in, I bought the boxed set on DVD. Wagner's work is a paean to the power of Nature and a warning to those who would use power over Nature to gain power over others. It's a timely message for the city of Houston, a place that worships unbridled wealth, revels in the wholesale destruction of the natural world, builds its low-cost of living...

Sunny Day The Sunny Days have returned (You can have them) Soon, no one will want them. Heat and humidity will send Us all in doors and things will go unseen as so much of the World Does that can’t be Viewed from a screen. I think Hell is full of screens Where we watch anything but what we should be watching. You, Stranger, who pass Through this day with me, Stop a moment with me to regard the things That need regarding.

Proclamation, December 2017 I Do Proclaim: That this is my hour. I take as my demesne All things that you reject: Rainy days, Cold, crisp Autumn, The glistening thickets of Winter, Old churches, Graveyards. And the moss about the foot of trees. I will be kind to postmen, And those who prepare my food. Praise God for tobacco, and The fellowship of working men Smoking cigarettes on the porch. I will thank God for immigrants Who cut grass, Domestics, All who do the work my Irish ancestors did. Praise the Almighty for every man Who calls himself a stranger in his home, Chronically reduces his boil to a simmer. I will not forget you either, If you have what you love Taken from you Yet remain unbowed. You are my teacher. I welcome All From the boarders of my kingdom In the particular- A shake of hands Or a nod Between potentates.

On Rainy Days On Rainy Days like this one I feel Gettysburg in my bones- or maybe Plymouth- seeing puffs of smoke in the wet air when no one else is out. You happy people who will not face the Rain, you Insiders, who never looked in through lighted Windows and wished to God that you belonged: What do you know of Astor or of woodsmoke- who never had the larger fellowship that comes with being Alone.

Well, I've done it: I've finally finished Robert E. Howard's entire Conan oeuvre. The journey has been several years long, and I've also taken side trips to cover Howard creations Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn, but I have finally reached the finish. What do I say now that I have reached the end? When I began this journey, one of my friends quipped that Conan should be known as "the venerially diseased" instead of "the barbarian". Others told me that they had simply given up along the way -the racism and misogyny were too much. I did give up on Howard's younger contemporary, Fritz Leiber, for about that reason. Having read to the end, I can confidently say that these criticisms are true: Conan is not a good man, and Robert E. Howard was a cynical nihilist out to earn a buck -but that's not the whole story. Conan and his creator also reflect the realities of the Great Depression and a life on America's not-so-tamed former frontier...

H.P. Lovecraft was noted for his racist antipathy for the Quebecois, Irish, and Italian immigrants that flooded into a depopulated New England in the early 20th century. These people, my great-grandparents, form a constant backdrop to the anglo-patrician Lovecraft's tales of horror and degeneration. In one of his final stories, however, as the author slowly succumbed to untreated colon cancer in his mid-forties, he seems to have attempted a final rapprochement with my ancestors who would inherit his beloved New England. The Haunter of the Dark  presents the New England Patrician Robert Harrison Blake as powerless in the face of an avatar of the dreaded Nyarlathotep. It is the Irish and Italian immigrants who in the end have both the courage and the knowledge to restrain the creature. In the final scene of the tale, they surround the desecrated church where the Haunter in Darkness lurks with a wall of candles that can be seen clear across town as the anglo Blake dies in horror. For ...

A word or two remains to be said about the Reverend Jedidiah Mills , the "first and faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ at Ripton".  My earlier post neglected to pieces of local lore about the good Reverend (who in an ironic twist was often called "the priest" while his Anglican opposite, the Rev. Newton, was called "parson") noted by Ripton's great historian, Jane de Forest Shelton in her master-work  The Saltbox House . The first anecdote about Reverend Mills concerns the French and Indian War.  Apparently, when news of the British Victory came by errand-rider to the village green, the Reverend was in the middle of a baptism.  The ceremony paused for a moment of general celebration, but when the elderly Reverend went back to the baptism his mind was slow to follow: he accidentally christened the baby "Victory".  The name stuck, and was even passed on to a younger cousin. The second anecdote has an odd personal connection.  When ...

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 ...

This is the grave of Reverend Jedidiah Mills and his wife, Abigail. Revered Mills served for 32 years as "the first and faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ at Ripton" until his death at the age of 79 in the year 1776.  Though the graveyard Reverend Mills and his wife are buried in is now adjacent to Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Mills was a Congregationalist and served at the Puritan church that once occupied the spot where the gas station now stands until it was removed to the Victorian Gothic structure across the Green.  Mrs. Mills' epitaph as "the amiable consort" of her husband is darkened by the addition that she died "a lingering and painful death".  Though the final portion of the stone is obscured by weeds, it gives assurance to the reader that the "happy pair" are now united in heaven. I helped lead a group of seniors on a trip to Italy a few years back and we visited one of the catacombs in Rome.  We were with two o...

Things are made to endure in the Shire, passing from one generation to the next.  There has always been a Baggins at Bag End and there always will be. This is a memorial plaque dedicated to the Bulkley Family.  It stands in the same cemetery as the graves of Lewis, Minerva, and Nancy Shelton and Annie J. Hinman.  The Bulkleys and the Sheltons intertwined at numerous points of their respective family trees and the name "Nancy Shelton" recurs several times (though none of them are Lewis and Minerva's daughter).  The plaque is an testimony to the aristocracy or "old bloods" of New England.  These are the sorts of lineages that mics like my family and other new arrivals were measured against.  This is what it means to have "roots" in the community.  What can drifters like us throw in the balance against almost 400 years on this side of the Atlantic and another 800 on the other side?  We may be descended from Brian Boru, but isn't every Irish-Ameri...

There are many beautiful places in the world.  I've stood in San Marcos in Venice, Saint Peter's in Rome, Saint Patrick's and Trinity in New York, Westminster Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral, and heard Easter service in London's Saint Paul's.  If you asked me, however, where I've felt the sublime, it would be as the evening sunlight is falling over the farms of White Hills.  This little baptist church is tucked away there on a small side road.  It hasn't been in use for a hundred years.  The burial ground is still active, however, and an association of families keeps the church in good repair and allows it to be used for weddings and other special occasions.  It's rather unremarkable, and one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I suppose a Baptist church didn't stand much chance in a town like Shelton.  The first Sheltons were staunch members of the Church of England and Patriarch of the Family, Lieutenant Daniel Shelton, was a loyalist during...

 If there is fear in a handful of dust, then there is truth in tombstones.  Dust and tombstones are both considered unsightly in modern America.  In California, that most cosmetic state, the Lawn Cemetery is king, with its rows of unobtrusive, ground level stones hiding the unpleasant reality of Man's mortality from all but the most curious of eyes.  But the stones are still there, and with them the truth that they tell. When I was a child, adults always spoke to me as if certain things were my right by simple virtue of being human.  They didn't say "if you get married," they said "when."  They didn't say "if you have children," they said "when."  We were to "live our dreams" and remember that  we could "do anything we wanted" because we were "special."  To cap it all off, it was an unquestioned assumption that we'd have some seventy to eighty years to do it all in.  Tombstones tell a different st...

Across the grey Atlantic, Across Saint Brendan’s sea, Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth And all the serfs are free. Across the grey Atlantic, Across the spume and foam, Lies the land of the Imram ’ s  castles Where a Gael can find a home. In the green fields of Elysium, Every blade of grass is a sword To pierce the feet of trespassers In the Garden of the Lord. Just so the Emerald Isle, Though e nslaved and conquered be, Will never lack for weapons To set her people free. But wars go on forever And the killing's never done Though the smoke rise up to heaven And strike from the sky the Sun. So many Gaels went wandering Across the Earth’s expanse, To find fair fields in foreign lands Where peaceful feet could dance. They flooded into Boston, Found safe harbor in New York, And others flew to southern climes As surely as the stork. They raked the bogs for cranberries While old Thoreau explained That if ...

Patriots in Exile The real world has no room for an Aeneas, And perhaps that is a good thing. Troy burned and Troy rebuilt As much as seven-gated Thebes Or Hiroshima and Dresden –even Roman Carthage- though the Goths Sacked that one. There are no more seas to sail, No new worlds to discover. I’ve been from one coast To another And believe me, The World is round. On the other side is Russia And that’s right back to where You came from; Whether Irish or Algonquin. So we’ll drink another round In a bar in Massachusetts And we’ll raise a toast to Foxwoods As a Wonder of the World. I met an old Oneida in the land Of broken promise And he spoke of David Brainard And a little of John Eliot. Here we were across the world Far from both our lands and fathers And I’d bless him by Saint Patrick If I were still a papist. Homes are tricky things And a heritage’s a burden Whether it’s one that you can’t get to Or it’s lost as su...

George MacDonald begins his enigmatic Science Fiction novel, Lilith , with a quote from Henry David Thoreau's essay Walking .  Thoreau's haunting, yet ultimately satirical and political description of a trip down an abandoned wagon road in rural Massachusetts is transformed by MacDonald's imagination into a statement on how thin the barrier is that separates our world from other realms. The text below gives the quote from Thoreau as it appears in Lilith , which can be found in it entirety for free here . I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,—to whom the sun was servant,— who had not gone into society in the village,—who had not been called on. I...

 The Wooster monument at Oak Cliff Cemetery Derby, Connecticut.  Many of the graves in this cemetery are arranged in family plots with a central monument that lists the names and dates of those buried there.  Small stones with initials mark the actual burial site of individual family members.  I have written about another family plot in this cemetery here . Buried along with the Woosters in a place of honor is Harry N. Thomas, their African-American servant.  I'm in the middle of teaching The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass  and Up From Slavery  to my seniors.  We've had some hard conversations and will be having a few more.  One goal of those conversations is to help them see that slavery may have ended in 1865, but the effects of slavery continue on in all manner of forms down to the present day. W.E.B. Du Bois begins his magnum opus The Souls of Black Folk  by saying that there is one question he continual...

The Church on the Green There are two churches on Huntington Green.  I passed them nearly every day.  Neither of them are particularly grand -at least not by the standards of other churches on other greens.  I never attended either of them, but I love them each in their own special way.  I've already shown you two gems from the Episcopal church pictured above.  Let me show you the rest.  The sky blue vault represents heaven.  The lamps you see would originally have burned whale oil but have been converted for electricity.  All these pictures were taken in natural light at about 10:30 in the morning.  The church is not laid out in a cruciform pattern, but follows the simple "salt box" colonial architecture.  In this, as in its general austerity, Congregationalist influence is evident.  To add a little Episcopal twist, the rectangular sanctuary has been divided (by the columns that support the balcony) into three pa...

Lieutenant Daniel Shelton, the first of his family to settle in the town that now bears their name.  The lichen grows thick on his stone, but careful observers can still make out the name. On my father's side of the family, the Irish and Italian, we're recent immigrants; solidly 20th century.  The Rileys and Kennedys on my mother's side go back to the potato famine. The Quebecois stretch back to the 1600s, but that side also migrated to the states in the 20th century.  Much of my family's world began in the mill towns of Northern Massachusetts.  The Italians fared better opening up a diner in Hartford that was a stop-off for musicians in the Jazz Age. Our roots were shallow and therefore easy to pull up.  The family tree has fared well in new soil from California to North Carolina.  We've done well, but my heart still belongs to the little Connecticut hill town where the bones of the founding families lie thicker than glacial rock in the fields.  S...

When I began The Platypus Travels thread, I never thought that I would reach fifty-one posts.  The Platypus of Truth was originally conceived as a sort of daily journal share-able thoughts.  Around 2007-2008, it evolved into a literary blog with The Platypus Reads taking the lion's share of each year's posts.  The share-able thoughts and the book reviews have remained, but I'm pleased to see that The Platypus of Truth as grown over the past years to include poems, academic reflections, classic gaming reviews, and now travel blogging.  If one thread doesn't appeal to you, hopefully another will. From a small seed, this blog has grown into a vast tree and every branch and leaf is dear to me. Today's post, then, is a short follow-up to this discussion of Victorian stained glass .  Specifically, I want to show you the companion piece on the west side of the church.  This window is in a more traditional style and features the Agnus Dei, or "Lamb of God". ...