Tag Archives: hellenismos

Athene & the Elephant

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(This just sort of came to me a couple days or so ago, and so I wrote it down. As best as i can tell, I can’t connect it to ancient ideas and [dare I say?] beliefs, so take this as you will. Though, by sheer coincidence, just before posting this, I took a chance on a search for ‘elephant athena”, and found this –interesting, eh?)

Hermes watched carefully as Alexandros of Makedon followed his own gilded thread of fate into India, and just then, Athene peered over His shoulder.

“Ah, my sister, I was just watching, wondering if he was going to make it. It is better than a play, to me.”

“The Dread Sisters are never wrong, though. I hear that even if They ever are, They have ways of fixing it so that only the Protogonoi would know, and few Olympians would ever suspect.”

“It’s still fun to watch, when I haven’t anything better to do. It’s like the mortals with their mythology, telling Our stories, even the same way, and knowing how it’s going to end, well, watching it on stage is different from knowing the outline of the plot.”

“Fair enough, dear half-brother.” She took down Her helmet and adjusted a pin holding her hair together. “So, when Our people make contact with the Hindu people, they’re going to make some associations.”

“When will they learn that other gods are individuals?”

“They feel it’s complimentary, Hermes. ‘The Gods of Hellas are the Gods of civilisation,’ ergo, even civilised people outside of Hellas worship the same Gods, just with local names. Or so goes the logic, at least.”

“This political turn is starting to bore me. Which animals only previously know to the Hindu people do you want?”

Without hesitation, Athene pointed to the elephant.

“Oh, that’s not what I expected. I mean, the owl is stealthy and patient, and it hunts. That pachyderm is big and tramples the foliage, and all it eats is foliage. It was also relatively easy for them to tame.”

“This is all true, but it’s certainly the wisest creature on this continent, after mankind.”

“And you say so, because?”

“It’s tamed because it wanted to be. It’s big, but only violent when provoked beyond reason, because it knows that’s the only time it needs violence. In the wild, when it is allowed to behave naturally, it is the only beast that truly knows to honour the gift of life the gods have given all tribes of man and beasts –just look.”

Athene pointed Hermes to a small tribe of elephants in the jungle, carefully having laid a burial mound over their matriarch, now stood vigil. Infants of the pack wailed -like Greek women at a funeral. Each animal waited its turn to take a little water before returning to the three day vigil among the elephant burial grounds. She then pointed out another pack of elephants outside a small village in Africa, in a region of the continent yet unexplored by Hellenes; the village had just been visited by a fearsome storm, and a man and his dog who had been unshielded by a house, lay dead, and the elephants covered him with a burial, out of respect.

“It’s a simple form of religion,” the grey-eyed and unowned one pointed out, “but for a creature so far from man’s genetic material, they have been granted the wisdom to know the gods, and so not only do I favour them, but I believe our father will, as well.”

“But what gods do they honour?”

Athene thought for a moment, and then suggested, “they clearly honour the gods of the earth, and of intelligence. They cannot speak the names of these gods, so they could never ask the gods their names. They know only some basic vocabulary of any language of man, so formulating a question on paper or in the mind is outside their abilities. They therefore honour whatever gods will accept them. The Hindu people treat them with honour, so those amongst the Hindu honour Hindu gods. Those there, amongst the Maasai, if the elephant is tame, it worships the Maasai people’s gods. Why should they be any different from human beings? There are several species of elephant, with dozens of tribes, each.”

“You were able to see all that?”

“Of course. My vision is finely attuned to scouting out the wisest creatures, and the wisdom of these creatures is like the brilliance of the sun when compared to the twinkle of a star.”

“Stars are really whole galaxies, just as the humans see them from Gaia, you know?” Hermes pointed out.

Athene slapped the back of His head in that sisterly way, and said, “I know that. It’s the metaphor that’s important —and you know that, too,”

Demetre and the Palace of Kadmos

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When I C&P’d that section at the beginning of the first of my posts about Demetre, I was immediately reminded of my first post about Ares.

Kadmos and the Ismenian Dragon.

In that first segment, it seems that legend has it that Kadmos’ legendary palace became Thebes’ first temple to Demetre, which suggests that —assuming Thebans did, in fact, habitually syncretise Demetre with Erinys Telphousia— that while Kadmos’ task earned Ares’ wrath, it was still within the will of Demetre. This also solidifies my thoughts on Demetre as a Great Mother of Civilisation and sustainable urban planning. It also speaks to the kind of mother She truly is: While She certainly has Her loving and nurturing aspects (as should be obvious), She’s also pragmatic and realises that sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good, and sometimes what She has begotten is standing in the way of progress and must be eliminated.

While Her rural associations are impossible to escape, so too are Her urban aspects, as I noted before. Likewise, just as much as She values tradition, She also wills progress.

I’m now reminded of a bit from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, suggesting that while every other deity in the Hellenic pantheon was borderline useless to Man, it was Dionysos and Demetre, agricultural deities, who stood alone in being beneficial. As problematic as Hamilton’s dismissal of other deities is, I can certainly see some similarities between the two, especially in Their domains of “opposing” values somehow united in harmony through Their guidance.

This comes back around to Kadmos, who (modern scholars argue) was initially a unique Boeotian cult hero, and later was syncritised with a Phoenician adventurer. From that story, the still-later symbolic mythology arose of Kadmos inventing the alphabet and introducing people to agriculture (further linking Kadmos and Demetre), and also becoming wedded to Harmonia, which is argued to symbolise the union of an “Eastern” love of learning with a “Western” love of beauty. How Kadmos’ mythology truly developed is lost to time, but the symbols clearly reiterate a union of apparent opposites, and also closely associate the hero with Demetre. Considering this, it therefore makes perfect sense that his palas was soon converted to a grand temple to Demetre.

Now, the archaeology only debatably confirms some of the folk beliefs about Kadmos, including the origin of the alphabet coinciding with the founding of Thebes. The Phoenecian alphabet wasn’t introduced to Hellas until after the estimated date for the Trojan War. While the modern Hellenic alphabet is clearly descended of Phoenecian script, a far older text, called “Linear B” amongst those who study these things, is on tablets that have been found in a disproportionate abundance in and around Thebes, and so this may coincide with Herodotus’ relaying of Kadmos’ founding of Thebes, and bringing his knowledge with him, as significantly pre-dating the Trojan War. Unfortunately, few symbols of Linear B, at best, resemble any form of the Hellenic alphabet known today, but clearly the Linear B writing system was widespread throughout Thebes.

Considering that this became widespread in Thebes from a most-direct origin of the palace of Kadmos, again, this seems to symbolically reiterate the associations of Demetre with Civilisation and urban development —no civilisation in Earth’s history, living or extinct, has ever developed cities without a system of writing. By this, we can infer that writing is also sacred to Demetre; oral tradition is too easily manipulated and can be problematic in its attempts to learn history. After all, the Cyrenaic school was on to something in pointing out that the only true source of potential knowledge we can have is experience, but they were also sceptical of this knowledge in that we cannot truly know the experiences of everything that led up to what we experience; thus oral history seems especially superficial. To gain a better understanding, if not true knowledge, of history, we can learn from the paper trails (and, in this modern era, other recordings) of what happened; this experience is, too, superficial, but has greater potential for understanding than oral traditions alone. Again, we see Demetre as a Goddess of balancing Tradition and Progress in a harmonious and sustainable whole.

I conclude that Kadmos was, thus, most likely a unique Theban hero later syncretised, and that this Theban hero, in all the feats attributed to him, was doing Demetre’s Work on Gaia’s face. Though the alphabet he introduced did not stand the tests of time, we cannot blame because a slightly younger script managed to flourish and Theban pride attributed it to him, anyway; the exacts become less important when the intention still manages to flourish.

Valentinos (Betelgeuce): The Valentine’s Day star

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In the grand tradition of re-purposing mythology, I give you this offering, Hedone, who offers us all the simple gift of delight and joy, which can be quite base as much as quite profound.

Valentinos was a keeper at the temple of Orion’s hero cult in Tanagra, Boiotia —at Hyria. He was intelligent, but many saw him as aimless, for after his daily chores of cleaning, fetching and boiling new water, changing clothing and jewellery on the statues that needed it, and collecting the offerings at the timely intervals in order to make room for new ones. After his work was over, he’d go out with his equally youthful friends and take in the delights that the city could offer them, both imported and domestic wines, plays, usually by some Thespian company or another, but often enough with treats from Athens or Cyrene, and on the way home to their apartments over the city’s baths, they’d stop by the old and crooked gentleman who’d park his donkey and cart outside a restaurant that had closed for the evening, selling second-hand and otherwise cheap book — few of the titles were great literature, but every so often, you’d find a second-generation scribe from Pindar’s work, or an illustrated scroll of The Askran Curmudgeon, and every now and again, the boxes of loose racy illustrations of gods and mortals —always four for a small coin— would have some beautifully worked picutres than managed to convey the bliss or an orgasm or the accuracy of how tiring some of those India-influenced positions could be; they’d stop by this cart, browse earnestly, and almost never walk away with more than one good read and a two or three good pictures for each and pair up, either with each-other or the “Akolouthi” women, the free-status versions of the pornai, and so deserved better pay, for they often had earned the skills to earn every last bit of coin nomisma.

Then one evening, Valentinos had become separated from his friends in talking to a girl. He told them to go ahead when he saw her, and then, from no-where, the former pimp from a young-ish girl Valentinos had laid with in the last week spied him turn a dark corner and took the opportunity to stab the youth in the back, slashing his insides, for he’d heard that it was the temple boys buying books and scrolls and pornographos from his former girl’s father that led to her debt repaid, and her freedom won. It was intolerable because she was popular, and perhaps causing despair would work to the old pimp’s favour?

As Valentinos lay bleeding out, he asked his feminine companion if she was alright.

“Oh, Valentinos, that vile creature could not see me. He sees only the children of Eris.”

“Ah,” he said with a cough that expelled a little blood, “he ignored you.”

“No, it’s that he cannot. You see goodness and delight in everything around you, so of course Hedone would show you Her human form.”

“She does, now?” Valentinos asked slyly, as he started to feel himself fade.

“I knew something awful was going to happen to you tonight, but in your heart is the purest feelings of delight. Your family believes you lack ambitions, but what better aims you have for yourself is to be more joyous than they were. They are rich but miserable people, and you take only as much of their money as you need—”

“Well, it’s all they offer. They expect I’ll want more, at which time [coughs hard] they expect me to learn ambition.”

“But you have other desires.”

“I do. I just want to delight in the world around me. I would love to visit Thebes, or Cyrene, or even Athens and Alexandria, but if that’s to be, it will be. All the delights in the world I could want for the moment are here in Tanagra [coughs, sputters]. If that changes, I’ll find a way to seek other delights.”

“And you know this so purely, my friend. You are one of the most natural and pure followers of delight there is in this world today, so I’m here to reward you. What has been your greatest delight, my friend?”

“Today? I changed the cape over the bones of Orion. It’s the softest red wool from Phrygia, and when I affixed it back to the wall…,” Valentinos coughed and wheezed, then spat blood from talking to fast to get his words out with his last breaths.

“Take your time… you have a little more than you may think.”

“After I affixed it back onto the wall over the case of bones, the sun hit it just the right way that it seemed to glitter, even though there wasn’t a bit of gold thread in the wool. I thought to myself, ‘it shall never again look this beautiful, and I have this lovely town and the greatest Boeotian Gods and Heroes to thank’.”

“I know, and so I will affix you to Orion’s cape in the stars, you shall hold it all together, and so Alpha Orionis shall now glow red and pulse like a heart with joy.”

“But why me, Goddess? Surely there are others greater, who’ve given not just delight to themselves, but to others?”

“In relative measure, you’ve given more joy to others than you believe you have. The old man you buy books and scrolls and pictures from used to be a gambler, and sold all four of his daughters for the loan to pay his debtors. Between you and your friends combined, one-by-one, his daughters’ freedom has been bought back, indeed, one of his older daughters is your favourite Akolouthi girl, and the younger such woman you laid with days ago—”

“The one who thanked me queerly? She was his youngest! Oh, Goddess, tell them they don’t have to thank me, ever. Their joy was a pleasure to give, and I give it with no expectations.”

When Valentinos didn’t return to work, one of his friends began looking all over the city, and soon found him in the dark alleyway; his body still there, scraps taken from it by the odd dog for the alleyway was a seldom-used stairway to the city’s Adonis Gardens on the rooftops for the women of the apartments. Valentinos’ friend carried the body toward the direction of his family’s home, and passed the old man with the books and pictures. Soon the old man’s daughters, all now free, caught the sight, and came over to their father to watch with him. When Valentinos’ friend took his body around a corner and out of their lines of sight, the youngest daughter, Phile, looked up at the sky.

She told her sisters and father to look up at the sky. “Don’t you see?”

“Don’t we see what, my dove?” her father asked.

“Orion is higher up in the sky tonight than usual. He must be holding out his arms for His fairest neokoros.”

Her sister Naia, Valentinos’ favourite, then noticed: “And the pin on the Great Hero’s cloak seems sort of pinkish, or a light red, like the sun bleaches his hair in the depths of summer.”

Then their father spoke up: “This is glorious, my girls! The hero of Boeotia sees this youth was of a pure heart, and to take that from this world is worthy of honour. So we shall keep the twenty-first day of Hermaios sacred to the joys and delights that Orion sees this youth has given.”

This year, 21 Hermaios is in 14 February. You may feel free to celebrate Hedone’s gift of the colour of Belelgeuse, a very large pulsating star which, along with the rest of Orion’s constellatiuon, is closest to the midpoint of the southern horizon around early February. And no, I did not make up this nickname for Betelgeuse:

Why “Queer”, but not “Pagan”?

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I love etymology, and this leads me to often thinking of the words I use very carefully before using them. I don’t call heterosexual “straight” by default, because “straight” in this use does not simply mean heterosexual: It means “normal”, “not a criminal”, “sober”, and it evolved from criminal and drug subcultures. As homosexuality is no longer criminalised in the First World, to call heterosexuals “straight” is to reinforce homophobia, I dare say it is even an act of homophobia.

…but I digress.

First off, while I dislike the term “pagan” based on a loaded etymology, and I absolutely do not feel like it is the best word to describe my religion, I do occasionally resign to it out of convenience and knowing full well that even though it may be one of those instances where it’s simply easier than going on a long discussion I don’t want to be in (or I would have made that discussion happen and not said “I’m pagan”), I do so with the knowledge that I’m inviting in all of these assumptions people are going to make about me that are, by and large, not an accurate way to describe me or my religion at all.

While there is certainly a reinforcing etymology to these assumptions of others’, the major reason for these assumptions is the self-reinforcing stereotyping that runs rampant in the community of self-identified pagans. The fact of the matter is, the “mainstream” idea that pagans are nature-worshipping hippies dancing barefoot in the woods is because an overwhelming majority of self-identified pagans fit that description, and tend to be a bit less-than-accepting of anybody under the “pagan umbrella” who doesn’t fit that description. This is the primary reason for such a rift between the pagan community and polytheists of the recon method: A majority of “recons” are urban or at least non-rural in that they neither naturally feel nor feel any desire to need an especial spiritual connection with the rustic or even wild lands to properly practise their religion, whose who may identify as urban tend to have an especially spiritual connection to cities. A lot of “recons” are centrist, conservative, or are urban liberals who recognise that sustainable living is that of either the farm or the metropolis, the suburbs where many self-identified “pagans” actually live being an abomination.

I definitely see an emerging “post-reconstructionism” movement in the polytheist community, wherein people realise that the reconstructionist method, when applied strictly, can be limiting and allow for little (if anything) in the way of spirituality in tune with modern realities, but that does not necessarily mean that the community of self-identified “pagans” is necessarily going to be the best place for such people, especially those of us who neither have nor want nor need to have a deep spiritual void filled with the kind of minor (or major) woo that can only be found tilling the land of a homestead farm or deep in the woods and miles from civilisation.

Personally? I’ve had times where I’ve tried to get that, but I’m physically, emotionally, and spiritually allergic to the woods. One cannot make that connection happen if it’s not meant to, no matter how much one tries, no matter how much one has to fill oneself with antihistamine just to be clear-headed enough to not only be perceptive of that connection, if it’s to come, but make sure it’s meaningful. I mean, who knows? For all I know, maybe all that Zyrtec and Zatador drops and nasal sprays and various creams block that connection —but if being without all that antihistamine makes it hard to breathe in a rural place, then maybe I’m just not meant to have that sort of connection to nature? Maybe I really am better off without it, and the Theoi are just fine with that?

…but some-one recently asked me why I liberally self-aply the term “Queer”, but not pagan —after all, these two words both have virtually the same histories! Well, except that they don’t.

No, really. They don’t.

The word “queer” comes from German (versus “paganus” coming from Latin), meaning “oblique, off-centre” and has a possible relation to “quer”, meaning “odd”. The first recorded use of “queer” relating to homosexuality only dates to 1922 after the word “queer” was introduced to English around 1500, when “paganus” was first adopted as a slur against non-Christians during the Holy Roman empire!

Then there’s the fact that, based on etymology alone, I’m very Queer. Even amongst the subcultures I’ve found myself at home in, I’ve never epitomised any of them: Too dark for most Mods, too polished and classic for most Goths, too erudite for most punks, and too modern and urban for the overwhelming majority of pagans and polytheists. Even as a gay man, well, I’m of TS history, which makes me the sort of potential sexual partner many other gay men want nothing to do with. As a man of TS hostory, I’m enough of an effete that most of them will still call me “ma’am”, even after told that’s inappropriate. How any of this makes me unstrange, unqueer, seems rather, well, queer to me. If any-one has a right to re-claim “queer” from a status of slur (and a relatively new one —the term was rather benign prior to it’s GBLT associations), I think I can objectively say that I sure as hell do.

On the other hand, what right do I have to “pagan”? If this is a term that evolved from the Latin equivalent of “redneck” or “hillbilly” and now possesses a baggage that includes a highly implict and (very easily argued) enforced community meaning of “nature-worshipping”, then no, it doesn’t fit me in the slightest. A Google Image search for “pagan” or a perusal of Wikipedia’s article on Neopaganism and its contemporary photos reveals how deeply “nature religion” is synonymous with the contemporary pagan community, to the point that “urban paganism” is such a tiny niche market that only three books have ever been published on the suvject —one currently out-of-print (Patricia Telesco’s The Urban Pagan), and one is so lousy with a strong and unapologetic rural bias that, as I know my own spiritual realities, it’s riddled with fallacious misinformation (pretty much the entire Introduction to R. Kaldera & T. Schwartzstein’s The Urban Primitive is a biased screed hailing the woodlands and damning the urban lands as a bringer of doom and ailments both physical and spiritual, though it gets a little better, it’s not by much). I don’t even think the pagan community thinks they’re being as unwelcoming and prejudiced as, in practise, they really are, but when the reality of this not merely ostensible, but blatant and celebrated bias is something that one must deal with at every venture into the “pagan community”, hoping to touch based with co-religionists, other devotees of one’s patron, and those walking an otherwise similar spiritual path, then not only is it apparent that one’s spirituality is regarded as “queer and perverse” in the pre1922 sense, but also one that’s regarded as lesser and hollow, false and silly, then yes, I think I can say that I don’t have any incentive to try and rationalise any claim to the term “pagan”, as it’s being made abundantly clear that I only barely qualify —like the cisgender gay man who likes to make it perfectly clear that he’s normal, and not one of those icky fem gays or trannies, that he was in a fraternity in uni and captain of the gridiron team, and his name is Cleancut McNormaldude and just happens to be somehow “queer”. R~i~g~h~t…..

In fact, I roll my eyes at Cleancut McNormaldude attempting to claim he’s “queer” rather than “gay“, if not “homosexual” or “bisexual” are words he feels suit him, because that’s not a word that gives any accurate nuances that describe him outside of only one of the implied meanings, at best, that he’s practically watered-down the meaning of “queer” to strip it of all nuance and render it nothing more than a meaningless synonym.

When one truly loves vocabulary, it becomes apparent that even words that seem synonymous have these nuances that make their meanings truly different, even if in seemingly minor ways. These numances are important, as any Paganism & Witchcraft 101 book worth the paper they’re printed on have said before me. To say “crone” when “hag” is best can render a ritual or spell useless or change it completely, so why call myself “pagan” when it carries with it not only an etymology but a common, every-day use that implies so many things that I am not and only one thing that I am (polytheist, practising a pre-Christian religion)? Why should I not use Queer when it can easily cover all sorts of nuances about my personality and character in addition to my sexual predilections?

If you’re going to say anything at all, say it the best way that you can.

Hearts, the Baby Virus, and Butts

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Silphion was an herb popular in the ancient Mediterranean for both its flavour and its medicinal qualities, aiding in ailments such as cough, sore throat, indigestion, warts, and (argueably most popularly) as either a contraceptive or an abortificant (likely the latter). The exact species is unknown to modern people because it was said to have been virtually extinct by the time of Nero, with Pliny reporting that one of the last stalks was given to the Emperor as a curiosity. Some anthropologists with a speciality in related fields suspect that silphion was of the genus Ferula, possibly a relation to “giant fennel” (not a true fennel) or wild carrot. According to some legends, it was a gift of Apollon.

Silphion was important to the economy of Cyrene, in Libya, so much so that a stylised silphion seed-pod was minted onto Cyrene’s coins at one time. The extinction of Silphion was said to have been a major component in the decline of Cyrene, for clearly even the gifts of the Gods must be used wisely, in moderation and under the assumption that no matter how abundant at any one time, immoderate exploitation of these divine gifts will render its amount finite.

Despite the clear record that suggests the classic “heart shape” dates as far back as Cyreniac coins depicting a stylised silphion seed-pod, the Catholic church is very insistent of otherwise, stating that the symbol of two arching curves joined at the underside in a symmetrical down-facing point originated with Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque’s vision of “the sacred heart of Jesus, depicting such a symbol encircled in thorns and with a flame spurting up from its cleavage. Unfortunately, Marguerite Marie Alacoque didn’t exist until the 17th Century, and there is a clear record of this symbol dating long prior.

The implications of the stylised silphion seed-pod / classic “heart shape” being associated with romantic love and sexual desire is that with its use as an abortificant, it promoted the notion of sex for pleasure and and expression of intimate longings. Personally, I also find it no small coincidence that siliphion was an economical staple of Cyrene, the philosophical seat of the school of Aristippus of Cyrene, or Cyreniac Hedonism —Hedonism being named for Hedone, the Goddess of pleasure and delight, and as a mythological daughter of Eros, Her pleasures are most often seen as the sensual1 delights. This shape thus belongs to Erote Apollon Anteros —or perhaps, considering the fate of siliphion, Apollon Anteros-Dysdaimon?

…but people, being either ignorant of older associations with the symbol, or simply unsatisfied with it as an explanation, have suggested alternate origins for the symbol for centuries:

To the het men and Sapphic women who read this blog, onsider this my Secular Valentine's Gift to you; I'm not likely to post random full-frontal female nudity again.

It’s the cleavage of breasts.

It’s a stylised vulva.

It’s the pubic mons.

It’s the stylised buttocks of Aphrodite.

Or, simply: It’s a borked-up drawing of the heart organ of the human body, nothing more.

These are great explanations, and some of them have more prominent fans than others (feminist writer Gloria Steinem seems a fan of the vulva/public mons hypothesis, and included it in an introduction she one wrote to The Vagina Monologues; the writers on ABC sit-com The Big Bang Theory seem fond of the “stylised buttocks” idea, and inserted it as semi-random trivia spouted by the character Sheldon Cooper). That’s the great thing about symbolism, it doesn’t need an historical basis to ring true for a person, if you feel with your soul that it represents a thing, and this thing can connote these meanings, then it does, and no-one can tell you differently, except perhaps if the discussion steps outside the personal and steps more into the context of cultural and historical facts.

It’s still a powerful symbol, and like many symbols in our lives, far more ancient than most people are aware of.

1: Not necessarily sexual, but this is often the implication.

Marc Almond: Non-Stop Erotic Divo

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Marc Almond is one of those singers that I’m amazed that I didn’t get into his work earlier, but upon reflecting, I probably did at the perfect time in my life to. Probably best-known this side of the Atlantic for his work with Soft Cell, which is best known this side of the Atlantic for their cover version of Motown artist (and common-law wife of Marc Bolan) Gloria Jones’ song “Tainted Love”, Marc Almond has a career spanning nearly thirty-five years —and I’ve been told that I kinda sing like him, since my balls dropped (meaning yes, this is probably not the most- representative example of my modal singing voice —assuming, of course, my friends are telling the truth, and honestly, most of my friends who’ve heard me sing on a good day have no reason to lie to me).

Marc Almond has been openly gay for most of his career, but dislikes being labelled a “gay artist”, as he feels that opens the door for pigeon-holing and creating the false impression that his work is somehow only important and relevant to the gay community, which it is not, though some of his songs and music videos do engage a clear homo-eroticism, while others simply portray a blatant eroticism. Marc Almond has also been “out” about being a member of the Church of Satan, founded by Anton LaVey; in the last ten years, I’ve occasionally heard that he’s since quietly distanced himself from that organisation, and I’ve yet no confirmation from the Webmistress of his official site (the most relevant contact e-mail I found on his site). While this may just be fan speculation since his accident in 2004 (much like the persistent yet completely falsified story of Charles Darwin’s “deathbed conversion”), I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were true: For every one of the “Ooh, I’m spooky! Hail thyself!” songs of Almond’s, there are at least two or three that display a clear, often urban-based spirituality; while this is technically not completely contrary to the writings of Anton LaVey, the Church of Satan understands the spiritual world to be a manifestation of the human experience, something that only exists within human reality —that is not reality as I understand it, but if that’s what works for another, then more power to them, and all the better if they can understand that this is one of those aspects of reality where understanding and acceptance is any one interpretation of it or another is subject to human experience. I cannot make an Atheist understand and accept reality as I know it any more than he can make me understand and accept theirs as a reality that is not only compatible with my experience but also one that empowers myself.

….but enough about that.

Marc Almond is one of those musicians who wears his influences on his sleeve and manages to do so without being a complete rip-off of those artists. If I had a nickel for every Goth band that or Mod Revival outfit that clearly couldn’t make something that sounded like anything but “Christian Death, only not” or “The Jam, only not” or “Bauhaus, only not” or “The Pretty Things, only not”, I could deposit those nickels into a Cayman Islands account and live comfortably, though not lavishly, off the interest. Marc Almond doesn’t do that, and he’s kind of a Dieselpunk dream singer. His personal style, as shown in his solo career, is clearly in a New Wave / Synthpop idiom, but heavily steeped in a love of Edith Píaf, Jacqués Brel, early Amerikan Jazz and Blues, British music hall, French cabaret, and with the introspective qualities of Rozz Williams and Gitane DeMone with the bite of Siouxsie Sioux and Andi Sexgang. His first solo recrd, Vermin In Ermine practically invented the “dark cabaret” sub-genre about three or four years before Rozz Williams’ Ashes line-up of Christian Death turned up the darkness and threw in a heaping helping of Dada. Yet he’s more than that, he’s one of England’s national treasures.

There’s also a highly Eroic quality to Marc Almond’s life’s work. By “big-E-Erotic”, I don’t necessarily just mean “sexy” (which, of course, it is, but that’s going to be a given —I mean, just look at him), but also hope to imply connotations of that which conveys qualities of Eros and His various epithets: Kallistos, Anikatos, Skhetlios, Eleutherios, Abros, and more. He’s one of the few true music artists, and one of the few who consistently displays a passionate joie de vivre et joi de vie. I can’t help but see, hear, taste Eros when Marc Almond’s music comes on; every single word reveals the folly of Democritus (“Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions,”).

Of course, to be fair, Marc Almond is of a similar school of songwriting as Prince, where any song that comes into his head is clearly good enough to record, even if this means recording the occasional song that just can’t hold a candle to the rest, suggesting perhaps there is a great folly to following one’s passions, but I know better, for I know that there is greatness even in what at first seems the most trite —from Vermin In Ermine‘s “Ugly Head” to “Money” from the Soft Cell demos, he manages to give light to certain truths, often of a personal yet shared nature, saying things that many have felt and wanted to articulate as something worth saying.

If I were casting an opera based on Hellenic mythology, hands down, no questions asked, my first and only choice for Eros would be Marc Almond; I don’t care that he’s fifty, that sort of thing just would not otherwise work — anyway, he looks very good for his age, and most opera are not cast with singers appropriate to the age of the role, if only cos there’s the art of theatrical make-up to take care of that. His voice doesn’t have the range that Apollon would need, and his emotive qualities as a singer are just “disconnected” enough that the passion for this art shows through, but just emotive enough that one simply cannot help but relate. The Moisai would have to be superb yet subtle emotive singers, as would Apollon, Dionysos would have to master dramatic emotions, as would Hermes and Aphrodite, but despite Eros’ purveyance over emotions, or perhaps because of it, to portray the God even in the throes of emotion, there needs to be a clear and dramatic knowledge and understanding of emotion, but a subtler feeling of it, and as a singer, Almond does that. Eros takes this knowledge and understanding and translates it into passion, which can neither be learnt nor understood, but like anything else one can feel, others can recognise when sensed, and what others want to know and understand when it can manifest as a thing of beauty. Marc Almond is nothing if not a passionate singer, and that is nothing if not a gift of Eros.

Start your week off right: A Round-Up

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I’m going to try and start doing one of these every Sunday, just to see how easily I can keep to a very loose structure here. If I don’t feel I have a sufficient number of links for one week, what I’ve decided to share will get bumped to the next Sunday —after all, I’m calling it “Start Your Week Off Right”— but I’m defining “a sufficient number” here as just low enough to avoid making a habit of skipping weeks.

Let’s start here:
A Modern Ritual of Adoration for Aphrodite and Eros —I don’t think I got to this the when it was first posted in November, and for that I apologise. :-(

DieselPunks.org is a site and forum I discovered this past week, and I’m in love. Apparently Dieselpunk is based on the era between WWI and the Atomic Age, and has considerably fewer watch parts all over it than Steampunk. Apparently, therte’s also a derivative, Decopunk, which some fans of Nick Ottens’ webzine, The Gatehouse, refer to as “Ottensian”.

These Art Deco computer cases have been on my “Wish Fantasy List” for some time now. I will choke a baby for Decomatic; I will choke two if you can also get me the speakers and portrait (tall) monitor.

Oh, and here’s a bunch of Erté illustrations. I’ve loved Erté since I was twelve.

Dancing for the Gods doesn’t have a whole lot up just yet, but yes, it did inspire my Isadora love from yesterday. Definitely on the blogroll now.