#The City In The Sea

[weirdlookindog]

"While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down"- Edgar Allan Poe

Frederick Simpson Coburn (1871–1960) - The City in the Sea, 1901

[poetsmatter]

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently— Gleams up the pinnacles far and free— Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls— Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls— Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers— Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye— Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass— No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea— No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave—there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide— As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glow— The hours are breathing faint and low— And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones  Shall do it reverence.

The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

[darkness-and-books]

Reading Edgar Allan Poe while listening to Iron Maiden goes hard

[barbarian15]

The City in the Sea

by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy Heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently—

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—

Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—

Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—

Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathed friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol’s diamond eye—

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass—

No swellings tell that winds may be

Upon some far-off happier sea—

No heavings hint that winds have been

On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave—there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide—

As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.

The waves have now a redder glow—

The hours are breathing faint and low—

And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

Shall do it reverence.

[oakendesk]

book cover - The City In The Sea - 1952

Edmund Emshwiller

[ngh-studios]

The City in the Sea (fan-made concept for an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation)

Stories that may be featured below:

[rahafmah]

🚨URGENT DISTRESS CALL

I am a mother of 5 children from Gaza. I lost my husband, my home, and everything I own in the war. I am writing to you with full pain and hope that you will heed my call and save my family.📍🍉🍉💔😭😭

This is my family of 6 people and we now live in a tent💔💔🍉

This is our house that was destroyed by the occupation😭😭😭💔💔🍉

This is our source of livelihood, but the occupation burned and destroyed it and we became without income😭😭💔🍉📍

This tent we live in is not fit for human habitation.🍉🍉📍💔💔😭

“Help me survive and go home 🏠💔”

My campaign is protected on gofundme for a year 🍉🍉📍📍🚨

The situation is very difficult, and with my family who needs support to survive in these harsh conditions. Every donation, no matter how small, may be the difference that helps us provide food and shelter💔💔😭😭🍉📍

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[zonaperdida]

"Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours."

Edgar Allan Poe, The City in the Sea.

🖌️ Julius Dietz, Jugend #3, 1910.

[zman80]

Miami Postcard

[seaslugdisco]

I WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THE GLOBAL STRIKE ON FRIDAY 10TH OF MAY. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL TOO.

IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE:

DO NOT ATTEND WORK OR SCHOOL

DO NOT PURCHASE GOODS OR SERVICES OF ANY KIND

DO NOT MAKE ANY TRANSACTIONS ON YOUR DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD

SPREAD THE MESSAGE ON ALL PLATFORMS YOU CAN, WITH A PHOTO OR VIDEO IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE

ISREALI FORCES ARE ENTERING RAFAH. ANY PEOPLE, EVEN THOSE WITH PERMISSION TO LEAVE FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO GET OUT.

RAFAH IS TRAPPED.

WE MUST CALL FOR AN IMMIDIATE CEASEFIRE. RISE FOR RAFAH.

[chillyfeetsteak]

I first became fascinated with it a few years ago when I noticed it out an airplane window on a flight from Texas to Southern California. In an expanse of endless desert, suddenly, a vast body of water. When I got home, I immediately looked it up on a map. The Salton Sea.

It’s the largest landlocked body of water in California. It sits right on top of the San Andreas Fault at over 200 feet below sea level. It is more than twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean. It is completely toxic. And I had never heard of it before then.

(photo essay under the cut)

In the early 1900s the Colorado River was diverted through a series of irrigation canals in order to provide water for the farmlands of Imperial Valley. One of the head-gates broke during a flood, and the desert basin filled with water for 2 years before it was fixed. The unexpected lake soon became a popular vacation destination; it was stocked with fish, and resorts and hotels popped up along its shores. It became known as a great place for sport fishing, waterskiing, and yacht parties. Big name celebrities visited. At one point, it had more annual visitors than Yosemite.

Salton Sea has no outlet, and is only filled via agricultural runoff. As the water evaporated in the hot desert sun, the lake became more and more saline. Chemicals began to build up from the run off causing toxic algae blooms, and mass die-offs of fish and birds started in the 80s. By the 90s, the beaches were littered with fish gills and bird bones and the resorts were abandoned. The lake began to dry up as irrigation run-off was diverted away. The exposed lake bed is also toxic, and the high desert winds kick up the dust, making the air poisonous. 

Despite the unpleasant odor, the noxious air and the summer temperatures regularly reaching 120°, a renaissance of sorts began in the early 2010s. Artist and nomad colonies began to spring up around Salton Sea. Bombay Beach, once a popular resort destination, is now mostly a ghost town, but the folks who remain have turned the ruins on the shores into an outdoor art installation gallery where the found-art sculptures are cyclically destroyed by the elements and then replaced with new ones. Many of the houses and RVs in town are themselves art pieces.

In nearby Slab City, a settlement of off-the-grid lifestylers, you can find even more folk art. Salvation Mountain is a manmade hill painted with bright colors and bible verses and maintained by a community of volunteers. East Jesus is a sculpture garden and art installation. 

This past weekend my partner and I finally made the pilgrimage to the Sea. California has the benefit of being home to a huge array of biomes. In just a couple of hours you can travel from snowy mountain peaks to lush oases to endless sand dunes. Driving the hour or so south from Palm Springs towards Salton Sea is like driving towards the end of the world.

Bombay Beach especially enamored me. The beach is crusted with salt and millions of tiny shells and bones. It smells awful, like sewage and chemicals and low-tide and rotting fish. You drive out onto the beach and park anywhere amongst the sculptures and deteriorating resort ruins. The art feels raw in a way I haven’t experienced before. It reminds me of seeing paleolithic cave art. Humans made this, with no motivation other than to create something intriguing or beautiful or sad. Not much can live out here, but what you find fills me with a great adoration for humanity. Despite the asphyxiation of the natural world, the human spirit persists.

[northgazaupdates]

Tahseen owned and operated a school for training new drivers in Tal al-Hawa, Gaza City. He made a good life for himself, providing for his wife, their three small children, and Tahseen’s parents. Unfortunately, everything was lost. His home and his business were destroyed by IOF bombing, and he and his family were displaced.

Since then, they have been forced to flee multiple places of shelter. Currently Tahseen and his entire family are crammed into a tiny apartment with multiple other families. They have no electricity, no running water, and no food. Right now, the only way to survive famine in north Gaza is to pay outrageously high prices for the limited available food.

Tahseen is asking for your support so that he can find food and basic necessities for his family. Please support Tahseen’s campaign, reblog this post, repost the link (https://gofund.me/ac834bda) to the campaign, and share it across all your social media accounts.

Thank you

Tahseen’s case is verified by northgazaupdates

[honourablejester]

I’m realising as I browse around that I really love lore when it comes to ttrpgs, games and game worlds. And by that I don’t mean I like to obsessively learn lists of dates and wars, and the names of leaders of factions, I mean …

I like learning weird, juicy details about the worlds of games. I like finding little nuggets that say things about the set-up and culture and assumptions of the world. I like finding fragments of ideas to hang whole story and character concepts off.

I love that in D&D 5e’s Spelljammer, the Astral Sea is full of the corpses of dead gods that you can fully sail up to in your ship. Just. Floating out there. Waiting for you to rock up to them.

I love that in Sunless Sea, the king of the drowned is the way he is because he fell in love with an eldritch sea urchin from space, and successfully married it. His niece is an angry sentient floating mountain whose mother is a goddess-mountain and whose father is a face-stealing humanoid abomination. This is fine and normal.

I love that in Starfinder, there are mysterious bubble cities in the surface of the sun that the church of the sun goddess discovered and cheerfully occupied despite having no idea who the hell built them or for what purpose.

I love that in Dishonored, the entire industrial revolution that has built the empire we’re in the midst of saving or destroying was built on the properties of whale oil harvested from eldritch tentacled whales that live half in the oceans and half in an eldritch void personified in the form of a weird-ass black-eyed shit-stirrer of a deity who was formed from a murdered and sacrificed child. And this is largely a background detail.

I love in the Elder Scrolls that the dwarves up and fucking vanished, as a race, at some point in history and absolutely nobody has any clue what happened to them or where they went, but their technology is so insane that ideas like ‘they time-travelled’ or ‘they erased themselves from existence’ are absolutely on the table.

I love that in Numenera, so many incredibly advanced civilisations have risen and fallen on this world that it’s absolutely littered with bonkers science fiction artefacts that have caused the current medieval-esque society built over top of them to develop in bizarre ways, and also you can find a mysterious artefact that absolutely baffles and delights your character, but that you the player will fully recognise as a slightly-more-advanced thermos flask.

I love that in Fallout, an irradiated post-nuclear apolocalypic hellscape, there’s a cult that worships the god of radiation as they have come to understand it, and they are mysteriously immune to radiation with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. They’re not ghouls, the usual result of fatally irradiated humans with some resistance, they’re perfectly normal humans who can somehow just tank rads all damn day. It could be a mutation, but Lovecraftian gods apparently do also fully exist in this setting, so it’s also possible that maybe they were on to something with this Atom thing.

I love that in Heart The City Beneath, there’s a mass transit train system that they tried to hook up to the eldritch beating god-thing buried under the city so that they could metaphysically chain the stations together more easily, which went horrifically and metaphysically wrong in entirely predictable fashion, and now there’s a whole order of train-knights who have to keep people safe from the extradimensional weirdness magnet the network has become.

That, and all the fantastic little details you can stumble across. There’s a biotech augmentation in Starfinder called an angler’s light that gives you a little angler-fish bioluminescent antenna on your forehead, and it was developed by asteroid miners who needed light but also both hands free for work. In Dishonored there’s a festival that everyone pretends is outside of time so nothing you do during it can be held against you. There’s a god of snuffed candles mentioned in a single line from Heart The City Beneath who has pacifist cannibal priests, and that is literally all the information you get on him.

While things like the history and geography and timeline of a world do also fascinate me, I’m not really here to memorise stuff like that. I’m here to find weird little nuggets of information and worldbuilding and delight in them. Give me funerary customs and weird myths and oddly specific circumstances and baffling little objects and absolutely bonkers cosmological implications. Give me the corpses of dead gods, and aesthetic movements with highly specific backstories, and bureaucratic fuck-ups of titanic scale, and mysterious things that seem to break all other rules of your setting with absolutely no explanation because people in-universe have no fucking clue how they work either. Why are the Children of Atom immune to radiation without ghoulifying? Not a clue, but Confessor Cromwell has been cheerfully standing in that irradiated pond that kills the player character with about 10 minutes of exposure for the last year and he’s still absolutely fine.

I just. I really love lore. I like my settings to have some meat in them, some juicy details to dig into, some inexplicable elements to have fun trying to explain. Particularly that last bit. I feel like a lot of people when building worlds feel like the rules have to be absolute and everything has to have an explanation, but nah. Putting some weird shit in makes everything immediately feel bigger, more real, because we don’t have even half an idea of how our world truly works, there’s always something we just don’t fully understand yet, and you can put that in a fictional world too. Some mysteries, some contradictions, some randomness, some weirdness. There’s a line, obviously, this depends on execution, but a little bit of mystery really does help.

Lore is awesome. And weird lore is even more so. Heh.

[justheblueberry]

there are those for whom we weep, the young, the bright, the fair