On the cusp
Mar. 19th, 2005 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaEquinox on Monday, and not a moment too soon.
It's been so long since I wrote anything worthwhile here that I may have forgotten how. Lately, RL has gotten altogether too time-consuming, leaving very little space for visits to the Realm of the Fantastic--meaning, of course, the inside of my own head.
Had a huge quarrel at work; the day job is grating on my nerves bigtime these days. The teaching-on-the-side thing is fun but the commute is a pain. Am deeply embroiled in a worthy but time-consuming and ultimately dull project having to do with revising copyright law. Spring has not come soon enough; I am impatient for the little wee adorable effing crocuses to poke their fucking heads through the fucking snow already.
Crossing Central Park (blessedly de-Christoized back to a serene monochrome), I did see some snowdrops the other day--and about time, too. Because, in lieu of spring, I have been seeking to renew the old tissues and enliven the dead cells by spending money. It never works, but it feels good at the time--rather like heroine. Not that I would know. Yes, I've been browsing in the Cybersouk, visiting the Caravanserai of Silks and Spices, the Crossroad of All Crossroads--I mean, of course, Ebay.
Here is some of what I have purchased lately:
Antique microscope slides of whole insects
WW I-era glass prosthetic eyes, several of which are reddened with lack of sleep
A small religious medal with a fragment of fabric touched by the holy tongue of an unidentified saint
Several cobalt mirrors
A great deal of green glassware, including some mismatched epergne horns
Used lab glass: a vigreux condensor, an allihn condensor, a seperatory funnel, a viscometer, two flasks, and a pair of glass coils
No, I am not planning to reanimate the dead. At least, not in any literal sense. Guess again.
Yes, that's right: it's an art project. Well, what else does one do on the cusp of the equinox? One goes forth and alchemates. One waits for the new moon and then stays up into the short hours, stirring and stirring the old eye of newt and whatnot (I would have said tongue of frog, but the saint who licked the medal was Italian), and then packs all the eyedeas into the old athanor to ferment and distill and so forth, until presto change-o: out pops art.
At least, that is what is supposed to happen. But I must say that at present the athanor in the hearth is giving off an uncertain smell. It smells like cleverness and polish and smooth, slick shapes. It doesn't have that good earthy smell of bone and metal that a fully cooked work of art exudes. I shall have to keep baking it.
Stay tuned.
It's been so long since I wrote anything worthwhile here that I may have forgotten how. Lately, RL has gotten altogether too time-consuming, leaving very little space for visits to the Realm of the Fantastic--meaning, of course, the inside of my own head.
Had a huge quarrel at work; the day job is grating on my nerves bigtime these days. The teaching-on-the-side thing is fun but the commute is a pain. Am deeply embroiled in a worthy but time-consuming and ultimately dull project having to do with revising copyright law. Spring has not come soon enough; I am impatient for the little wee adorable effing crocuses to poke their fucking heads through the fucking snow already.
Crossing Central Park (blessedly de-Christoized back to a serene monochrome), I did see some snowdrops the other day--and about time, too. Because, in lieu of spring, I have been seeking to renew the old tissues and enliven the dead cells by spending money. It never works, but it feels good at the time--rather like heroine. Not that I would know. Yes, I've been browsing in the Cybersouk, visiting the Caravanserai of Silks and Spices, the Crossroad of All Crossroads--I mean, of course, Ebay.
Here is some of what I have purchased lately:
Antique microscope slides of whole insects
WW I-era glass prosthetic eyes, several of which are reddened with lack of sleep
A small religious medal with a fragment of fabric touched by the holy tongue of an unidentified saint
Several cobalt mirrors
A great deal of green glassware, including some mismatched epergne horns
Used lab glass: a vigreux condensor, an allihn condensor, a seperatory funnel, a viscometer, two flasks, and a pair of glass coils
No, I am not planning to reanimate the dead. At least, not in any literal sense. Guess again.
Yes, that's right: it's an art project. Well, what else does one do on the cusp of the equinox? One goes forth and alchemates. One waits for the new moon and then stays up into the short hours, stirring and stirring the old eye of newt and whatnot (I would have said tongue of frog, but the saint who licked the medal was Italian), and then packs all the eyedeas into the old athanor to ferment and distill and so forth, until presto change-o: out pops art.
At least, that is what is supposed to happen. But I must say that at present the athanor in the hearth is giving off an uncertain smell. It smells like cleverness and polish and smooth, slick shapes. It doesn't have that good earthy smell of bone and metal that a fully cooked work of art exudes. I shall have to keep baking it.
Stay tuned.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 08:59 am (UTC)thanks god!
Tongue of frog indeed... What do cobalt mirrors look like? All that lovely glass. I have a pair of WWI field glasses that belonged to my great uncle. And his compass. Tiny, but also with glass.
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Date: 2005-03-20 06:34 pm (UTC)Cobalt mirror was popular in the 1930s & is usually found in Deco furniture or old drugstore signage. It's just dark blue glass that has been mirrored. The best stuff is an intense ultramarine blue that reflects the world in eternal evening or Underworld--very magical, like the mirror of Galadriel, or the grandmother's mirror in The Princess and the Goblin (http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/youth/classic/ThePrincessandtheGoblin/chap22.html), or perhaps even the mirror of Erised.