Eurocentric

I've been trying to stay busy this summer. One thing I've found time to do is get my DNA tested through Ancestry.com. I knew that I was Swedish, Irish, maybe Scottish, probably English. I even thought I was Norman French at one point. From the research I'd done on my paternal last name, Ballinger, I'd found that it had originated in Normandy under the rule of William the Conqueror. I was shocked when the results of my test came back to me. The largest percentage of my DNA turns up 44% percent German. As it turns out, Ballinger has its own German meaning and pronunciation. I have a map that goes with my results, showing the cities where I have DNA matches. A point of exit from Germany stemmed from Balingen, the town from which my ancestors took their surname before sailing to Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey in the early 1700s. Balingen is picture above. Seeing its Google images reminds me of the movie In Bruges, quaint and fairy tale-like. I'm sure it didn't seem this way for my ancestors, attempting to flee centuries of religious war and famine. From the 1700s, I have ancestral links to the cities of Hamburg, Hanover, Kassel, Dresden, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Heilbronn, just to name a few.



The most significant location is certainly Kassel, or Hesse-Kassel. Sometime just before the Revolutionary War, German mercenaries called Hessians were paid by the English to fight for them against the American colonists. Some of these Hessians, who were professional soldiers, were called this because of their roots in Hesse-Hanau and Hesse-Kassel in central Germany. During the mid-18th century, 1 in 4 people in Kassel was a soldier in its army, similar to ancient Sparta. They were a military state. Not only did my ancestors live in Kassel, but they departed to America from there as well. According to Ancestry.com, over 5,000 of the Hessians decided to stay in America following the war as an escape from military service. Some of these Hessians decided to make a new life in the mountains of Tennessee. Attempting to adjust to a new land, many were forced to fight for a living. My paternal grandparents were rural sharecroppers, which just shows how one struggling generation translated to the next.Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow romanticized the Hessian soldier, morphing him into the titular Headless Horseman. My ancestors from Heilbronn and Stuttgart were later hijacked on their way to Pennsylvania on the order of Virginia's Lieutenant Governor and forced to work as indentured servants in his iron and coal mines.

The second largest chunk of my DNA is 40% Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales). Those ancestors also started coming over in the early 1700s, from English cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Lichfield, Leichester, Wolverhampton, and Birmingham, Scottish cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Inverness, and Welsh cities like Ysbyty Ystwyth, Ystrad Meurig, and Ystrad Fflur. Though they speak English now, Wales maintains its Celtic roots in its city names. All the names are in Welsh, a language very similar to highly non-phonetic Gaelic. As for England, I now live in Birmingham, AL, a city created to mimic the steel city of Birmingham, England, where I have heavy ancestral roots. Most of the 40% is between England and Scotland. Scotland also shares with my 7% DNA reading of Ireland and Scotland - which tells that besides my DNA showing up in Dublin, most of that 7% percent is Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish, a Protestant mix of Irish and Scottish, departed from Belfast in Northern Ireland. My maternal grandmother's surname was McDonald. This is the Irish spelling (as opposed to the Scottish one, MacDonald), though I'm sure lots of the Scots-Irish had Irish surnames. She used to sing the lullabies "Danny Boy" and "Loch Loman," which are respectively Irish and Scottish ballads. It makes sense that she was Scots-Irish, seeing as how she fervently sang both. The picture above is the flag of Northern Ireland.

As for the Irish side, this is certainly from my maternal grandfather, whose surname was Kirven. The name originated in Kilkenny, west of Dublin. A Kirven, which means crow in Latin, married a McDonald from Ulster, or Northern Ireland, which is an interesting development. I have long been fascinated with "The Troubles," an ongoing conflict in the 20th century that pitted Northern Ireland against the Republic of Ireland in the south. The Catholic IRA (Irish Republican Army) was created to keep out the British from occupying Northern Ireland, whose residents were seen as loyalists to the British crown. The IRA fought countless skirmishes with the British army and UVA (Ulster Volunteer Forces). Their bloodshed cost many lives, including innocent people caught in the crossfire. I have several books on the conflict. My English and Irish ancestors came over long before the 20th century, but the southern and northern Irish roots in my bloodline make for an interesting development.

Here I am thinking I'm a descendant of Vikings (which I still may be). It turns out I'm only 6% Scandinavian (Sweden, Norway, Denmark). My Swedish roots, the ones I get from my maternal grandfather's side, are the ones I know the most about. My family tree consists of a slew of Bostroms, Samuelssons, Olofssons, Persdotters, and Svensdotters (dotter, meaning daughter). Unfortunately, not enough of my Swedish relatives have had their DNA tested. On my DNA map, Scandinavia is circled, though there are no cities highlighted to pinpoint my DNA activity. But apparently, my Swedish ancestors shared blood with Norwegians and Danish people, as the map shows all of Scandinavia, not just Sweden. My grandfather's grandfather, Otto Samuelsson Bostrom, immigrated from Backebo, Sweden to Virginia. Backebo is on the eastern coastline of the country, just under Stockholm and just a short distance across the Baltic Sea from Finland. My Scandinavian DNA map intersects with the west coast of Finland, which tells me some of my Swedish ancestors made their way to the Finnish city of Vaasa as well.

My smallest percentage of DNA, 3 % to be exact, comes from Finland and Northwest Russia. On my DNA map, Finland and Russia intersect with the coast of northern Sweden. Though it is very close to Scandinavia, Finland is not a Scandinavian country. Finland, like Russia, is a Slavic country. It shares linguistic and alphabetical similarities with Russia. Interestingly enough, Sweden has a little-known history with Russia. In the 800s CE, Vikings from Norway and Denmark made their way toward England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Vikings of Sweden, or the Rus, on the other hand, sailed into Russia along the Volga River. There, they traded with the disorganized Slavic tribes who eventually asked the Rus and their chieftain, Rurik, to provide them leadership. The Rus established several cities in the area, including Kiev, in what is now Ukraine. The country of Russia and Belarus are named after the Rus. Scandinavia intersects on my DNA map with not only Finland, but northwest Russia and the Volga River. It makes me wonder, though I can't confirm it, if I'm descended from the Rus. Above is a fun, informational video that I show my students on the history of Russia. To the right is a statue of Rurik in Novgorod.

If I were to refer to myself as one particular ethnicity, it would be Germanic. Germans, Scandinavians, the Dutch (Netherlands), and the English are share cultural and linguistic similarities. Prior to the 1700s, which the DNA map does not account for, Germany, the Netherlands, and England were made up of barbarian tribes; respectively, the Goths (Visigoths and Ostrogoths) and the Anglo-Saxons. Scandinavia had its own tribes in the Norse. Latin gave birth to Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Old English, which was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons who occupied Britain, was a West Germanic language. It more resembled what the Goths of Germany spoke, which was actually closer to modern German than what the English now speak. The Goths and the Anglo-Saxons shared linguistic similarities, which makes those tribes Germanic. Below is a map that shows all of the areas inhabited by Germanic peoples, including Scandinavia. It's nearly a mirror image of my DNA map.

Drain the River

I just re-watched a movie I saw for the first time last year, Ryan Gosling's directorial debut, Lost River. The movie is not like many that have been made. It can be best described as a modern fairy tale, an urban fantasy in the midst of a lush, overgrown town that time forgot. Most of the characters go by nicknames, which are never clarified as being their nicknames. Most of the scenes are clad in lush, tall, green grass, with splashes of neon every here and there, just to remind us that it's Ryan Gosling, and that he's strong protege of Drive director, Nicholas Winding Refn.

The movie stars Bones, a late teen fighting desperately to help his mother, Billy (Christina Hendricks), keep their home. Most of the neighborhood is being demolished, with city officials flooding one town after another to use as water reservoirs. Bones used to try to buy parts for his car, but more importantly, he's trying to save his house for his mother and toddler brother, Frankie. He goes around stripping all the copper pipes from the numerous abandoned buildings throughout the area. The problem is, the pipes have already been spoken for by Bully, who basically runs the town like a sadistic mafia boss, shouting his maniacal decrees from a microphone in his throned car. He has a chauffeur driver name Face, whom he has disfigured for failing to follow commands. And he's given the moniker Face after the disfigurement.

Bones soon comes across his neighbor, Rat (Saoirse Ronan), a dreamy, sweetheart amateur musician who lives with her catatonic grandmother. The grandmother used to live in one of the now flooded towns, but all she does now is watch her wedding video over and again on a repeated cycle. Rat tells Bones that her grandmother is under the spell of a curse that came with the flooding over the town, and that their own town, Lost River, feels like it's already flooded, as everyone seems to be on the verge of despair. Rat reveals that the only way to break the spell is to dive down and bring up a piece of the flooded town.
Meanwhile, Billy is fighting her own battle. Her home is about to be foreclosed on by the bank with the mortgage having fallen behind, and the powers that be are about to make Lost River another reservoir. She pleads with the duplicitous bank manager, Dave, who turns her down, but offers her a job instead. She basically becomes his indentured servant, as she is introduced into a world of grotesque live performance show, where thrills come in the form of fake blood and gory scenes of morbid fantasy. Cat (Eva Mendes) is the seasoned pro in the show, who plays only a minor role in Billy's burgeoning nightmare.

While Billy does what she must and struggles through her own travails, Bones and Rat have to deal with Bully who is hot on their trail. He tries to get at Bones by taking horrific shots at Rat, and it's not until Bones starts to believe in the curse that he decides to do something about it. We're never told whether the curse is broken or not, but we're certainly left to assume so, with Bones standing his ground and retrieving the sunken relic from the submerged town over.

Bones and Billy finally stand up to their bullies in the end, making for an ambiguous but satisfying ending. Though Lost River was a critical bust, I really enjoyed Gosling's directorial debut. His style lends itself to Refn, which makes sense, seeing as how the two are best friends. They collaborated on Drive and Only God Forgives. Lost River surely shares some of the same DNA with those movie in its indie sensibilities, pulsing electronic soundtrack, and lush cinematography. The world of Lost River could almost exist in the real world, but not quite. This adds to the fairy tale aspect that sees looming spells broken by outstanding acts of heroism, the same plot schemes we see in the stories we were read as children. Billy upends Dave at roughly the same time that Bones stands up to Bully, which only goes to show that the spell/curse was indeed broken in the end. I look forward to more from the Canadian hearthrob Gosling, as his is a style I would love to see more of in Hollywood. 

The Living Buckley

I'm currently reading a biography called Posthumous Keats, which is basically about the death of John Keats and the legacy he left behind. Some of my favorite people in the world are dead and gone, having left their respective legacies behind for regular folk like me - Keats, Jeff Buckley, Heath Ledger. I adored the work of Jeff and Heath before they died, but most people will revere their legacies even more now that they're no longer here. It's the way of the world. Keats was a sickly, poor, unappreciated nobody in life, but a riveting, Romantic darling in death. Certain ideas and the people who put them forth often live ahead of their time. While it's cool to love the posthumous starving artist, it's quite a novel idea to admonish them while they're still with us.

"My words are worth nothing until after I'm dead." The poignant quote comes from another famous but unrelated Buckley - Keith, from the Buffalo, New York-based hardcore troupe, Every Time I Die. Keith was and still is a true artist, who reveres mastering words over belting out guttural screams for the masses. The band has been going strong since their 2001 debut album, Last Night in Town. This is when they came to my attention. While the music was good, it was Keith's feral cries and visceral lyrics that stood out the most to me.

The University of Buffalo graduate proved himself a true wordsmith on their 2003 sophomore effort, Hot Damn. Keith created short stories, poems with his lyrics over heavy guitar chugs and harmonic squeals. On track one, "Romeo a Go-Go," Buckley creates the frenzied soundscape of a sickly poet, scorned by an unrequited love.

"Your hopeless romantic, now helplessly rheumatic,
Poets grinding teeth to powder,
All my vowels are getting lost in the gauze,
Misinterpret courting for the cursing of a drooling fool."

Keith goes to scorch a path for his hospital bed champion:

"There's a delicate long song in this,
Kicked out and dripping in verse,
Go get your gun because God won't show,
He sent a poet instead,
The Don Quixote of the ICU,
Quite impression for a cripple,
Munchhausen by proxy of a muse."

On "Off Broadway," Buckley meshes a sociopathic criminal with a Music Appreciation course he took in college:

"This isn't at all unpleasant,
I'm enchanted by the lavish ballet,
And I'll whistle a tune on the way to gallows
That I heard at the cabaret.
At the sheriff's signal, the orchestra moves the floor.
Don't it make you feel wonderful?
Body twisting, strictly ballroom,
Criminally elegant ideal postured Viennese waltzer.
I'm dressed to kill,
I'm weightless and well-rehearsed,
In my godless opera my character is canonized."

While the band was finishing the record, Keith was finishing up his English degree, taking courses on John Milton, John Donne, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. At the time, he was quoted as saying "If there is somebody out there that would actually put the time into reading hardcore lyrics, which I doubt there is, then there is a lot of Shakespeare images in there, just because that's what I was reading at the time." Keith doubted his lyrical genius was being recognized, which is certainly an artist's mentality. Keats felt the same way, openly criticized and told to return to his former medical pursuits. In other words, critics were telling him not to quite his day job. People generally fail to recognize genius until after it's gone. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

On "Godspeed us to Sea," we're given a tale of a maniacal mariner:

"Oh, captain, my captain,
You've been drinking, what happened? 
I've been blurring my cadences and blacking out when I stand,
I know about your son,
Who never did return from the war.

This is all an elaborate, scheme,
And it be cleared up when the governor beckons for me,
He'll clear my name.
It appears that the inmates have overrun the asylum,
There's a madman at the wheel.
We are not even remotely capable of keeping our heads about us,
We've abandoned all semblance of presence.
Dead bolted, buckled in,
Keeping our word to a sinking ship.
Let the rats orchestrate the new mutiny,
I'll meet you overboard."

Hot Damn is Keith's most poetic album, teeming with imagery and metaphors. At the time, I was beginning to write poetry myself. Keats and Keith Buckley were my two biggest influences, lines and lines of metaphorical prose that neighbored somewhere between lovelorn and cynical. I spoke to Keith online right around that time, and he was pleased that I represented a small portion of people who actually did read his lyrics, and he was humbly appreciative.

Some lyrically-rich efforts from ETID followed. On the band's third album, called an overall dud by Keith himself, he belts out on "Guitared and Feathered:"


"I haven't lived a day of my life apart from the one that everyone's read about.
I'll spark de-evolution,
I was specially bred for the cover page of your magazines.
I've been fattened up for the guillotines.
I've been drawn and quartered,
I've been twice picked over,
And it's sickening what you've come here today to celebrate."

He continued this imagery into The Big Dirty, and into the track "Pigs is Pigs:"

"Oh Lord, I am saved!
Judge says I am fit to swing.
'bout time I have prayed,
My woman just might wear my ring.
You know I'm no good,
You know I'm no good at court-ordered goodbyes.
When I'm gone you'll see I'll be a better man yet,
For the disposition, take it back into your arms,
Better keep me close to your heart.
The defiant had me cornered in a store,
And he let me walk out the front door
At the scene of the crime.
Hang 'em high,
Keep your vows brief,
Let him swing, make his swindle an art,
And if you still believe that man guilty of love can survive,
Then hang 'em high or not at all.

We are liberated by the hearts that imprison us,
We're taken hostage by the ones that we break.
Throw the book."

Keith likes to set up a scene, inserting a courtroom, a hospital room, a ballet, a ship. He then meshes a dark sense of urgency with metaphors for the sake of the modern world. This style of lyricism is highly unique, especially when it's surrounded by a chaotic frenzy of guitars and drums. He hardly looks like an educated wordsmith, with his rugged beard and lengthy hair, the plethora tattoos stretching down his arms and his chest. He's a modern poet, who is scorching a path by himself.

On 2009's New Junk Aesthetic, Keith spits an array of imagery on the "Roman Holiday," conjuring images of the arduous march of undead Roman legionaries, resurrected by a necromancer:

"We are the death of the party,
We are life of the funeral,
All of us, rag men.

We traded vows on the front line,
They ushered us through the stop sign,
All of them, witches.
We found our way in the blackout,
We are the ghosts in the lighthouse,
All of us, rag men.

I want the open wound,
I want dark street,
I want the virgin blood,
I want the wet heat."

He seems to make a sequel of sorts to "Roman Holiday" with 2012's "Underwater Bimbos from Outer Space" from the Ex Lives album.

"I want to be dead with my friends,
I want to be dead with my friends,
Wide-eyed, brilliant, tie them in rags,
I want to be dead with my friends,
When the iron sharpens the iron.

Let boredom cease the beating of our purple hearts,
Against this, even gods fight violently in vain.
What chance could we have stood?
We're the last of the lost,
But now we're the first of the fashionably late.

Loved ones decompose,
You'll dance around their bones.
Most of us are holy ghosts,
All of us are holy ghosts. 

We made the scene when we made a scene,
And though it was brief, it meant everything.
Oh what a pity, now they're bound to make us saints.
Oh what a pity, now they're bound to make us saints.

Even though most of the ETID fan base probably has no idea what Keith is talking about, he's true to himself anyway, writing lyrics that make sense to him. They certainly aren't life-changing, but they stand out for a hardcore band, in a genre with boring songs about girls and putrid death. There are few true artists I follow at this point in my life, but Keith is certainly one of them. While on the road, he even completed a semi-autobiographical novel called Scale. I tried to buy it at the last ETID I attended, but the band's card reader couldn't read mine for some reason. It's still a little too expensive on Amazon, so I wait on. If Keith continues his writing career after the band calls it quits, I am certainly with him. I look forward to more novels, and whatever else he decides to write while he still occupies the planet.

Primal

I follow a site on Facebook called Ancient Origins. While I haven't been on Facebook in ages, and while her story is not really ancient at all, Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval led a fascinating life that leaves a lot of space for the imagination. Though I left it for other projects, I started a novel about her cruel and unusual banishment to the Isle of Demons, somewhere between Newfoundland and New France. She was marooned on the island with her unnamed lover and her handmaiden, Damienne, in the year 1542, and while the other two died off, Marguerite survived. Here, I give a proposed account of how that might have turned out for her after being stranded by her jealous cousin, Jean-Francois de Roberval.

PRIMAL

Memoirs Recounted from March, 1544

I perhaps would have concentrated more upon the silence, the unsettling stillness, had the otherworldly orchestra of the untamed wilderness not been setting my ears ablaze. It had indeed been far worse upon my initial arrival to the island, and day by day, I favored the thought of becoming more at one with the beasts and the elements with which I had acquainted myself in the two years previous.

            I stalked the wilderness like a prowling cat of prey. The demon had been watching me. Of that, I was certain. I felt its eyes upon me. I had seen its hideous gaze before, leering at me from the encompassing darkness – so torrid, so tormenting, so horrifically capable. I felt their eyes upon me – the muskrats, the Arctic hares, the Canada lynxes, and the feral wolves. I felt upon me the insidious eyes of the great man-killer itself.

            I listened steadily as the gargantuan echoes of the beast chased the icy wind through the forest. I heard its cries of sorrow, its howls for retribution, its guttural growls for the reckoning to come. Yes, as it were, we were the most dominate of species upon that desolate land mass, the Île des Démons, and only one of us would be retreating from the field of battle that day.

The dismal canvas of the sky was painted with brushstrokes of a dreadfully grayish gloom. The scents of the wilderness were conflicting. I smelled the salty lilt from the Atlantic Ocean, or perhaps it was the Labrador Sea, as I knew only that I was residing within the northernmost Hell that the Earth had to offer. I smelled the sap from the red pines and the conifers, both plentiful in the thickened forest. I smelled the carcass of the caribou, the dung of the red fox, and perhaps even that of the Northern long-eared bat, as the scent had become as much a part of me as my own flesh.

I stalked my way through the hollow corpses of the fallen trees. Their limbs were like skeletal fingers, making their attempts to ensnare me as I labored on. The muck coated my soles, and the morning dew soaked through my boots, the ones I had so brazenly constructed from the pelts of my enemies. My chemise and corset had been tattered and torn by all the dastardly facets of that godforsaken place, and by the brutality of the passing winters. My frilly, lace stockings were ripped, holey, and threadbare, forcing me to concede to the cold far more often than I could rightfully bear.

I wore around my neck an assortment of teeth – some of which were still coated in bits of blood and flesh – upon a necklace made from the sinews of a slain wolf. The teeth were collected from the predators that had underestimated my resolve, and I was proud to count their canines and incisors as trophies, or better yet, notches, to signify their feeble attempts upon my life.

My blood, and the blood of my enemies, coated my chemise with contrasting hues of crimson. It was of course also grayed by the merging of mud and snowfall, evidence that I preferred to wear the Earth in the stead of succumbing to it. My brunette locks were coated in dried mud, twisted into knots. They were woven with the shells I had collected from the water’s edge, and with the talons of the carnivorous bird I had devoured for breakfast. I wore draped upon my shoulders the conjoined hides of a feral wolf pack, weaved together by the tendons of their hind legs. My leather belt, lacquered and worn and weathered, was riddled with a wheel lock pistol, a hatchet, and the assortment of knives Jean-Francois had left with us upon our banishment. I had used the knife with the buck horn handle to carve a tip as pointed as the blade of a rapier at one end of my walking staff, forging from it a spear I could easily maneuver, and just as easily kill.

 An equal blending of blood and mud were speared upon my face. The combination of the two formed a sort of camouflage, a formidable war paint. The demon was far more elusive than the great man-killer, but it too would soon find the blood-stained tip of my spear. I was set upon bathing in their liquid life force, both of the monstrosities, for the sake of all that I had endured, and all I had lost in the process.

I had first attempted to lure the man-killer to my place of dwelling. I slaughtered ermines, otters, and the meadow voles, smearing their blood, and my blood, upon the trees and ground. I urinated upon the assorted array of shrubbery, all along the path from its nest to mine, in an effort to draw the man-killer to me.

The beast had proven itself far more cunning than I initially gave it the credit for, as it refused to succumb to my summons. It was almost as if it knew of my thirst for retribution. It knew as well as I that one of us would not exit that epic battle with breath remaining in our lungs. It was almost as if it knew that I sought to drape its massive hide upon my back for the coming winter, and that I sought to devour its soul in the process, as if I were one of the native savages occupying New France.

The roars of the great man-killer grew louder as I drew closer, and much closer still. The great cries at once sent a chill down my spine, and I could not so easily decipher whether the reaction was a result of fear, or of anticipation. The twigs snapped beneath my unwavering steps, confirming to the beast that I indeed approached. It had never been hunted before, that much was for certain. It was not accustomed to being stalked in its own den.

The breeze pushed from the West and whistled through the trees, which seemed to soften the blow of the blistering cold. I had ritualistically consumed the blood of the game bird, which, with much surprise, seemed to add a warming glow to my limbs, so that they may not betray me when the moment of battle had come. I would be without the traps and snares I had constructed surrounding my own camp site. The man-killer drew me from whatever comfort zone I possessed, or thought I at one time possessed. The moment drew nearer for us, as the beast ascended into my view, just behind the cluster of primordial pine trees.

Around its insatiable jaws, it had worked up a lather of saliva the color of the blood moon. Its fangs were tinged with the blood and flesh of its latest victim. Surely, the man-killer meant to frighten me into submission. It roared at me, long and guttural, compelling me to cease in my steps. From some fifteen yards away, I could feel, smell its breath, torrid and rancid and scathing. I closed my eyes, breathed it in, counting it an asset to my cause, as I had become one with the uninviting landscape and every living creature that thus spewed forth from it.

I at once tightened the grip upon my spear, until my fingers began to ache and my knuckles began to flush white. The man-killer growled again, and I then returned the gesture, unleashing a sort of savage, bloodcurdling bellow of my own. I knew that I had reached the point of no return. I knew that I could no longer turn and run, that I would once again find myself amidst a scrap for my life.

I began to circle the beast, and it, me. Our eyes locked in heated exchange, we treaded meticulously, sure-footedly, upon the barren plain of its den.

And as I prepare to further unfold the details of such a harrowing affair, I now begin to question the staging point of my saga. Perhaps I have begun with the most distressing, the most horrific of all events that transpired there in that land God had surely forgotten. Perhaps I should withdraw my accounts during the early Spring of 1544, when I broached warfare with the great beast, that great king of the island – at least until I have properly clarified how our encounter came to transpire. Many days, and many incidents had come to pass before that fateful day, and I must be afforded the proper time, the proper sanity, to reach deep within myself and unfold them from the recesses of my muddled mind. Bear with me, gentle friends, for it shall be a torrid endeavor.

I.

Memoirs Recounted from June, 1542

            My name is Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval, and the year is now 1560, though both my name and the year of my account must be deemed far less significant than the events that have paved the way for their relevance. I begin my tale at the end of what I supposed would be the end of my life, itself privileged and brimming with much promise. I had been the proprietor of lands in Languedoc and Périgord, and a prominent seigneuress of Pontpoint in the Oise district of my most beloved France. I had owned much to my name, before the events of the passage and the scorns of familial jealously thus swiftly snatched me from them.

            I write not because I was isolated, or because I was filled with such an indescribable fear, or because I now seek to paint a hideous portrait of Jean-Francois de Roberval, or even because I now wish to leave behind some sort of legacy to my name, but because such a traumatic experience as this should be chronicled alongside all other great massacres and pestilences throughout the histories of mankind. Something, perhaps deep inside of my person, has compelled me to recall such horrid events as the ones I experienced upon my exile, and to script them now simply to seek some form of solace from the invisible scars that remain.

            Since my fortunate return to France, my story has been fictionalized by Queen Marguerite de Navarre in The Heptameron, though her account cannot solely stand as the final word on my life and times. While I yet draw breath into my lungs, such a tumultuous account must be recorded by none other than I. Her most fictionalized chronicles owe their successes to the actual events they were based upon, and The Heptameron, while renowned, is nothing but an adaptation, failing to identify all names and events that breathed human life into the dreaded Isle of Demons.

We were stranded there upon the Île des Démons, located somewhere uncharted between Newfoundland and New France – a stretch of the Earth that quite exceeded my knowledge. Neither Guillaume nor Damienne seemed to be familiar with the whereabouts of the island, and the treacherous rogue Jean-Francois certainly refrained from indulging us to such details.

            The early Summer season of that place seemed much more comparable to an unpleasant Winter in Pontpoint. The wind swirled and howled like a scorned banshee, and it carried from the surface of the sea to leave one perpetually ill at ease. If that was indeed the month of June, I could not so easily fathom the brutality of the coming Winter. Jerkin jacket and leather gloves would scarcely provide the protection we sought there in such an immeasurable purgatory. Jean-Francois surely expected that would not outlive the year.

            In speaking of protection, my cousin, sheltered by a profitable kinship with King Francis, left us little in the way of provisions and weaponry. I had never used one myself, a weapon, that is. We were to rely upon the brawn of Guillaume, merely a poet in his own right, to forage for food, and to keep the carnivorous natives at bay. Our provisions there upon the island were as follows; one flintlock musket, one wheel lock pistol, ten ball bearings, three small pouches of gun powder, three knives of assorted sizes for skinning, two hatchets for the chopping of kindling, four flint stones, five bundles of pressed, dried meat, and five water skins.

Jean-Francois caustically informed us that we would have to ration the water between us, at least until the first snowfall. When I harkened to him how three full-sized adults could survive on five water skins for five to six months, he, with much contempt, suggested that we use our creativity.

While I, and Damienne, due to her guilt by association, was first persecuted by my cousin and his belittling crew, Guillaume decided to brand himself the martyr. He dramatically dove from the side of the ship as it sailed away, so that he might waste away the same, banished at my side. Though noble, his gesture served as little consolation to the penance I was to endure.

Though dripping in the soaking sins of a lonely sea, Guillaume attempted to provide my comfort. I was blind to his affections in the woeful wallowing of my toils, as if I were the only one to experience them. I sunk to my knees into the muddy banks of the island, disregarding the dress I had had custom made by Madame Dupuis. The wind bounced, scourged from the water’s surface to blister my cheeks as I disparately watched the Lechefraye sail into the forlorn horizon, along with whatever future I might possess back in PontPoint, or even New France.

As I wasted into initial disparity, I pounded my breast and raked my exposed chest with my nails, probably like something I had once read from the Roman annals, Plutarch or Cassius Dio’s descriptions of Cleopatra Ptolemy at the hour of Antony’s demise. I had quite a propensity for dramatics, and giving the dire situation, I maintain that I might have been afforded such opportunities. Alas, I was counted villainess in the wake of my affair with Guillaume, and though I was an unmarried young woman, merely sowing my wild oats with the God-given free will which I had been justly reward, I had offended the Calvinistic sensibilities of the ill-tempered, brutish Jean-Francois de la Rocque de Roberval.

The three of us, Damienne and Giullaume and I, were then encompassed by a sea of rocks, mud, and an endless wilderness, filled to the brim with many unknown, ungodly beasts. But what was it that brought me there, us there, so far from home and far from anything I had ever experienced or would ever experience so long as I should live? I forge ahead of myself in the retelling of such an event that might perchance span copious volumes besides my own feeble memoirs.

I must recall that I immediately felt a broiling sickness to stomach, and I could not then, nor even now, surmise whether it was due to such an indelicate marooning on the Isle of Demons, or the fact that I was secretly with child.

II.

Memoirs Recounted from April, 1542

            I stepped hastily from the coach onto the cobblestone thoroughfare of the Champs-Elysees, as eager and pretentious as a debutante. From the vantage of the street, I could see well the candle-lit chandeliers pouring from the other side of the leaded windows of the Marquis de Seville’s Parisian townhome.

The Marquis owned claim to a lavish residency, though I was not sure how long it could endure in the midst of the Protestant and Catholic skirmishes for an altogether better way in which to worship the same God. I was young, but I knew well that the Kingdom of Heaven resided within the depths of the mortal being, not within the pews or the prayer books of the church itself. Works, nor a more direct route to the ears of the Messiah, should allow one a more gilded halo in the afterlife, if there even was one. If there were, Calvinists and Catholics would only continue to splatter one another blood onto the Pearly Gates! Calvin made a compelling case, though Jean-Francois’ zealous fervor in the name of Calvin only made me less eager to count myself among the true believers.

Resigned to the thoughts of such a fruitless campaign, the sole of my silk damask thumped against the cobblestone to enter the dual lion-protected stoop of the Marquis’ domicile. His cryptic invitation had beckoned the House of de la Rocque, of which I was surely a member, though his more intended guest was surely Jean-Francois, the newly-appointed Lieutenant General of New France. That night, the Marquis was to feature a man called Jacques Cartier and his new trinket, some nautical device or other that would assist ours and future generations in the exploration of uncharted lands. I was interested in the device, the astrolabe, as I was interested in the possibilities of New France, in the marsh lands of this particular stretch or the timber-heavy tundra of that particular stretch.

            The day was brimming with much promise. All buds in which the vast oceans had to offer would bloom for me in that, my first journey beyond the lands of France. I woke to the sounds of Damienne mousing about my vanity, afraid to make a sound, afraid to breathe, as was her usual Montmartre way.

            I stretched and arched my back like a Cheshire cat, purring with all the pleasantries of such a lush life.

Art Imitates Life

Somewhere around 2004, there was some astronomical culmination of factors that led me like a kid in a candy shop into the world of art, poetry, and to European history. I have to thank my instructors at junior college for teaching me what I was apparently ready to soak up like a sponge.

I guess it probably started with Art History. I don't think my professor liked me very much, as she indirectly accused me of plagiarism on a paper comparing and contrasting pieces of art depicting Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great. The Napoleon piece was by French master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, painted after Napoleon had crowned himself consul of France in the ancient Roman style. Napoleon, born with Italian name Napoleone Buonaparte was from Corsica, an island off the coast of Italy with a very unique feature - residents are genetically Italian, but speak French. Napoleon looked to reconnect with his Italian heritage by donning himself in the dress and in the style of the old Roman generals he admired. This painting by Ingres perfectly displays the concept.

I of course compared the Napoleon depiction with an Alexander the Great piece by Italian painter Paolo Veronese. Both rulers were revered conquerors in their day, going down in history as two of the greatest military generals to ever put on the uniform. While Napoleon was depicted as a Roman emperor, Alexander was adorned in a stark red Renaissance fashion - a proposed vision had the Macedonian king had been born in different century altogether. He is depicted standing over the family of his defeated nemesis, King Darius, granting them amnesty as he overtook Persia. In the paper, I discussed their generalship, the way they viewed themselves as empirical generals, and the stark details of their respective red wardrobes. In a nutshell, these two paintings were the catalysts that fueled my love of Western art.

In the same vein as Ingres was Jacques Louis David, whose depiction of Napoleon I came across when I was studying the one above that I covered in the paper. David's painting is a heroic one, one Napoleon might have commissioned himself. It's called Napoleon Crossing the Alps, which is a very heroic thing for a military man to do. Just look at Hannibal Barca. His sneak attack on Rome during the second Punic War is legendary, if not brilliantly insane. I discovered David's work in a time when I was also learning more about the French Revolution. David had been a friend of the revolution, of more specifically, of Jean-Paul Marat and the Jacobians. When Marat was assassinated by loyalist Charlotte Corday, David commemorated the event in probably his most famous outing, one of the unsuspecting Marat dying a martyr in his own bathtub.

On the other side of French Revolution was Eugene Delacroix, who iconic work Liberty Leading the People was partisan to the 99%, the Bastille stormers and the bread marchers. In the American Revolution, the colonial army received financial and military aid from France, which essentially, alongside with a bad harvest, led to poor economic conditions. The common people felt the sting, as the monarchy, the inept Louis XVI and his Austrian bride, Marie Antoinette, continued business as usual with lush parties and excessive spending. Delacroix painted this work to capture the people in the midst of their coupe against the aristocracy
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Delacroix was also a fan of literature, and allusions to ancient Assyrian kings the same. The first actual work of his I saw was The Death of Sardanapalus. The scene is a chaotic slaughter, but Delacroix's Sardanapalus simply reclines and accepts his fate at the onset of his impending doom. He remains calm in the eye of the storm, which is quite striking, as he takes in all the vignettes of death surrounding him. Another Delacroix delight is a Baroque depiction of Dante Alighieri in the midst of his Divine Comedy, taking all the horrors of Hell in The Barque of Dante. I have never read The Divine Comedy, but all the dastardly and misunderstood historical figures Dante deemed worthy of Hell (Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Chronos, Achilles, King David) are fascinating to me.

From there, my interest was drawn to the Pre-Raphaelites. I took an English literature class where studied Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti was Italian by heritage but English by birth, named after none other than Dante Alighieri. Rossetti was a poet, but he was more known for the paintings he did while he was part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The group was a small brood of Mannerist painters who essentially created a movement only to watch it burgeon in later decades.
The image below is Annunciation by Rossetti. It portrays the archangel Michael descending from heaven to tell the virgin Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. Rossetti's sister, Christina, served as the model for Mary. In 1874, Rossetti painted Proserpine, which featured his most frequently-painted model and muse, Jane Morris.
One of the most famous of the Pre-Raphaelites, John Waterhouse, was not even really a Pre-Raphaelite, but more deeply inspired by the style. One of his most well-known pieces is below in Boreas.

Waterhouse also gave us an enduring look at his version of Cleopatra, an image I previously used in my blog about her legendary mystique.




From the Pre-Raphaelites and Mannerism, I discovered wonderful world of Gustav Klimt. His pieces are truly unique, oil colors melded with actual gold leaf material to give the art an exquisite sheen.
Much like Rossetti, Klimt loved his female models, and often painted them representing little-known historical figures, such as Judith and Holofernes. Judith in this painting is smiling pompously and touting the head of Holofernes, the Assyrian general under the command of King Nebuchadnezzar. This subject matter had been broached before, with Renaissance maestro Caravaggio's portrayal even more Baroque, and more explicit. Klimt had a flair for powerful women, and for recreating Classical events and characters.


Next was the wonderfully bizarre world of Spanish master Salvador Dali. His paintings were mind-bending and earth-shattering, Dali a forerunner in the Surrealist movement. His paintings were abstract, like living in a perpetual dreamworld where time melts and ants march dutifully like soldiers. He would create living shapes and landscapes and then recreate them with abstract objects, all for the critics to either applaud or puzzle over. Dali's thing was that he didn't care. His paintings were as strange as he was, a true eccentric in a time when they were all but vanished from the art world.


When I entered college at the University of Wyoming in 2008, I was really into the Classics. I had a historical blog called Ad Hoc, and on that blog, my homepage picture was the painting to the right. The painting itself, A Roman Emperor, was done by my favorite painter of all time, the grounded Classicist Lawrence Alma-Tadema. He painted immaculate scenes of Greek and Roman daily life, as well as infamous historical events such as the death of the tyrannical emperor, Caligula.

He also gave us Pyrrhic Dance, based on the famed Greek general Pyrrhus, for whom the phrase Pyrrhic victory in named. A Pyrrhic victory is essentially a victory, but one that victor was forced to lose everything in the process, which is not really a victory at all. Alma-Tadema also seemed to be fascinated by the tyrannical Roman emperor, Caracalla. The mad emperor infamously had his brother assassinated in front of his own mother, the Empress Julia Domna, who became injured in the process. Alma-Tadema painted a snapshot of the brothers when both were jointly ruling the Empire, called Caracalla and Geta. He followed that one up of Caracalla as sole emperor in the aptly-titled Caracalla.

When I was learning about some of these 19th century painters, I came across the concept of the Byronic Hero. He is typically described as being quiet, brooding, and capable only of an impossible love. This was certainly me at this particular juncture in my life, and I immediately latched onto the concept. Movie characters such as Johnny Depp's Abberline in From Hell and the late Heath Ledger's Sin Eater in The Order influenced this persona, as did the poetry I was writing and weekly performing at the time. When I came across Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by German painter Caspar David Friedrich, the Byronic hero, or the Neo-Romantic, was given an official image. I feel an affinity with this painting. I used to have it as my school computer backdrop, and students repeatedly asked if it was me in the picture. I always think no, but that it could have been had I been born in a different century. For a time, I was a reserved, brooding, lonely soul, and this painting allowed me to feel as if someone at some time felt the same thing I did. It's probably my favorite painting of all time.

The last painting to leave its impression on me was Green Muse by Frenchman Albert Maignan. It portrays a lowly 19th century poet succumbing to the sinister charms of the Green Fairy, or absinthe embodied. For awhile, I dabbled with the drink, and when coupled with the poems I was writing, this painting fit well the nightly struggles and the whimsical pleasantries I was facing. From the glass of absinthe to the scattered papers to the clothing style of the doomed poet, I could identify with this piece for its turn-of-the-century stylings applied to my modern world. The Green Fairy is a temptress, an enchantress, seen here as a dastardly divine entity that charms the unwittingly soul into a luxurious demise.

Through the years, art has intrigued and inspired me. I tried my hand at painting, but Iultimately decided I was better with words than with a paintbrush. I love the art I've referenced here for their depictions of another time and place, for their allusions to the Classical and to the abstract alike, and for their real-world applications to me at a time when I was on my way to becoming who I am today.

Hell Hath No Fury

My wife and I were just recently talking about Gothic horror movies set in the Victorian era. While there are several that I love, including Bram Stoker's Dracula, my personal favorite just barely missed my top 10 historical movies of all time (though I may be forced to reconsider). I decided to review here for that exact reason.

From Hell is my favorite Johnny Depp vehicle. As real-life Jack the Rippper-case detective Frederick Abberline, Depp is likable, dark, tormented, flawed, and incredibly anti-Victorian in his forward-thinking tendencies toward police work. I know the title of the movie sounds pretty ominous, but it's named after one of the infamous Jack the Ripper letters that was mailed to Scotland Yard (London police) in 1888. I saw the movie in the theater when it first came out, and later bought the DVD. As a former Ripper enthusiast, I owned several books and spent countless hours searching the web for the most plausible suspects in the centuries old cold case.

Abberline has a gift. He almost has a second sight, where he can see visions of events before they happen, but only in choppy increments that he has to piece together. Abberline is a Scotland Yard detective, but a highly-unusual one, as he spends his extra time chasing the dragon (smoking opium) and drinking absinthe laced with laudanum (another opiate). Sure, this makes him a flawed character, but it probably has something to do with his wife dying in childbirth, and the fact that he has never quite gotten over it.

Abberline is very Holmsian in his approach to detective work, employing the tactics of deductive reasoning to track down the killer. Jack the Ripper also likes his absinthe, but he drinks it alongside his blood rare steaks and the carved-up kidneys of his victims. Abberline and his partner, Shakespeare-quoting detective Peter Godley, find each of the corpses of the Ripper victims after he has struck. Throughout the process, we are introduced to one suspect after another to keep us, and Detective Abberline, guessing.


The movie is dark and dreadful, Gothic horror at its finest. Johnny Depp pulls off an excellent East End London accent for the part, as do the Ripper victims themselves, five lowly prostitutes who are being picked off one by one. In real Ripper lore, the murders were unrelated. In From Hell, based on the graphic novel by the same name, all the prostitutes know each other, and have bore witness to an event that renders them all liabilities. Abberline just happens to fall for one of them, the Irish immigrant, Mary Kelly (Heather Graham).

I think that From Hell didn't make my top 10 historical list because I've seen it so many times. When I went through a phase of obsession towards the Ripper case, and towards absinthe for that matter, I watched the film frequently, picking up new tidbits here and there with every viewing. The Ripper turns out to be someone you would never imagine, and his reasoning is even more of an elaborate shocker. Of course, the murders involve a conspiracy, which even involves Scotland Yard itself. Abberline must go rogue in order to upend the crooked cops, and he must dig a little deeper in order to find the identity of the Ripper before finally confronting the serial killer.

Strangely enough, the chosen directors for the movie were brothers Allen and Albert Hughes (Menace II Society, Dead Presidents). They are know more for their vivid, predominately African-American portrayals, but in this case, decided to give 19th-century London a shot. They do an excellent job of creating a lurid, menacing atmosphere, and keeping the actors to that East End accent that Abberline and the five Ripper victims own so well.

Johnny Depp's Abberline was a major inspiration for one of my own novel characters, Cameron Dupree. Both have a second sight sort of gift, both are very solitary figures, and both are wholly addicted to absinthe. Abberline is a great character, something between Sherlock Holmes and Romantic poet. He's like Holmes with his meticulous attention to detail and his deductive reasoning. He's likened to a Romantic in his clothing style, his substance abuse, and his pushing death to its upmost limit. He's haunted by the past, and by the future, which probably explains his massive opiate addiction. In any case, this role is just another feather in Depp's cap as a character actor, a far more serious version of his Icabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. This movie is a lot of fun if you tolerate the morbidity, the gore, and the overall sense of bleakness that the film conveys.