#if you look closely there are very subtle references to ancient history and mythology

[pararennial-archived]

*‵ ･ comets & cicadas ･ ′

There is something chilling about Benjamin Banneker's poetic assessment of cicadas and their likeness to comets. Excerpts of the analogy flash occasionally in her mind, like sepia-toned memories playing beneath closed eyes.

"... but they, like the comets, make but a short stay with us..."

She is on the rooftop, knees tucked against her chest while her eyes scan the night sky. The soft purple of dusk clings to the edge of where land meets the heavens before surrendering to the inky dark of night's domain. Constellations are captured within cobalt depths, mapping out pieces of her history ⏤ transmission signals between past and present. The line of communication is not apparent, but it's there is dialogue in the form of thin wires suspended within the atmosphere, wavering to and fro like waves. Eventually these strings start to tighten, she feels it pull within her. She cannot stay where she is for long. Something calls.

"... their lives are short, they are merry. they begin to sing or make a noise from first they come out of the earth till they die..."

When a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, it is rebirth. It rises from the broken rind of its former life anew. From beneath, when gold emerges in the form of cracks along her skin, is this something new? Or something she forced herself to bury like some unknown precious mineral? Or something she lets sleep, dormant until it can't any longer and emerges out screaming?

She remembers how it burned when ichor overtakes blood ⏤ striking lightning, forming roots and branches out of gold ( is it no coincidence that they all look the same, as though Nature intended it? ). That was before it became as natural as a snake shedding its skin. She doesn't know what to make of it, and thus, she lets herself soar, as above, but tethered, so below.

"... the hindermost part rots off, but it does not appear to be any pain to them..."

Flowers, fungi, or bones. It's hard to determine on weathered marble bas-reliefs of women reverently holding the potential aforementioned aloft, bewitching many scholars alike. However, what still remains to be translated are the mysteries of which the ephemeral incessantly reoccurs, like a once-bare branch exalted in bloom in spring after winter. Perhaps incessant isn't quite the right world, but rather, inevitable.

Roxanne would have to guess that inevitability extends to cicadas having to dig their way past mulching petals, mycelium, and hollowed, splintered bone to breach the surface only for a short taste of freedom and merrimaking before they too, must return to the earth rotting away. She would also figure that it goes the same for comet tails pinching off and dissipating into the void of space when they return for their short, appointed hour in dramatic fashion. One would think borrowed time is a sad waste... a loss, but no, it's a small victory. At least to her it is. It doesn't hurt anymore.

"... for they continue on singing till they die..."

For now, she can celebrate what she leaves behind in the wake of the days she mourned what she thought she lost. She feels there is no sense of feeling the weight of being so disproportionate to the rest of the world, like an incorrect measurement of whatever this is. Bearing the burden of ancient ills on her shoulders and carrying out good will in the creases of her palms felt normal to her, at least now she thinks it should... while relieved, at times she wonders if such serenity in embracing this is as limited as the lives of comets and cicadas.

The soft cool of the summer evening and the chirping of crickets ground her again, edges of roof tiles softly digging into her legs to remind her that such familiarity is still to be found. Her neck starts to strain from her fervently staring past the Moon's pale face to the stars twinkling beyond. Message received. The wires run slack and she finds her way down with ease, pulling imaginary wavelengths close to her heart. This is something new.

[latenightcinephile]

#701, ‘Olympia’, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 1938.

This is a very, very difficult film to write about. It’s tempting to write it off as simple propaganda, or to examine its failings as a documentary, and there are many people who have taken this approach to Olympia in the past. It’s often cited as the first film of an Olympic Games (although it isn’t), as a glorification of Hitler (more on that later), and as a dull repetition of sporting events (it most assuredly is not that, either).

The thing is, I quite admire Olympia, both as a documentary and as a piece of art. I think that Riefenstahl’s artistic prowess is often denigrated because she is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the mouthpiece of the Nazi regime. But I’m inclined to agree with Taylor Downing’s argument that Olympia is not the result of a concerted propaganda effort. As Downing points out, if Riefenstahl had set out to make propaganda, a very different film would be the result. It’s hard to deny that Olympia is a colossal work of art, made in political circumstances that make it unsettling to admire. But I think admiration is the only appropriate response to the film.

(Most of my details come from Downing’s book on the film for the British Film Institute. If you’re interested in the processes involved in making Olympia, I highly recommend it. I’ll try not to steal too liberally from Downing’s ideas here.)

I’ll point out from the very start that just because Olympia wasn’t the result of a conscious attempt to propagandise, that doesn’t mean it isn’t propaganda by itself. Any film made under the rigours of the Nazi regime is going to reflect the values of that regime, both deliberately at the hands of various political actors and socially through the ideologies that Riefenstahl replicates uncritically. On a base level, the film shows no more footage of, or deference to, Adolf Hitler than any documentary about the Olympics would show to the leader of the host country. In fact, the film sets the record straight about some of Hitler’s rumoured excesses - he didn’t, as popular myth has it, use the opening ceremony to make a political or self-aggrandising speech, he just announced the games open, as was expected of him.

On a deeper level, though, the film is quite happy to ‘bread and circuses’ its way out of some of the worst types of propaganda. In Olympia, the 1936 Olympics are an opportunity to show a games unparalleled in history. These games, and the film about them, are only possible through the benevolent patronage of Hitler’s government. Riefenstahl was certainly talented at drawing further funds from the regime to make her films, and at dodging the restrictions imposed upon her by government factions that wanted her under their thumbs. But the people she made this film for were not stupid, and they were not blindly throwing money at her for no purpose. They knew the soft power a film like Olympia could have, and the kind of goodwill and mythology that it could foster.

Riefenstahl uses this kind of mythologising to represent the Berlin Games as the apotheosis of a long history. The first section of the film opens with the lighting of the Olympic flame, after some protracted and dignified shots of Greek ruins. Visiting the actual ceremony, Riefenstahl was somewhat distressed by the presence of the crowds ruining the profundity of the moment she had in mind. So she did what she would do frequently during the production of the film: she restaged it. The more grave footage she recorded for this event draws the lighting of the flame back into the depths of history, making the idea of a lineage from Berlin back to ancient Greece almost literal.

Riefenstahl has no qualms about restaging events throughout Olympia: she brings back the entire cast of the men’s pole vault finals to reshoot their contest the next day, and she films divers and marathon runners during training to get unusual angles and extra footage (in many of these shots, you can tell because the stands of the stadia are suddenly empty). At her request, the American athlete Glen Morris stayed several days after the games finished and helped her recreate events. Most directors these days would have some concern about using this type of footage - indeed, taking footage out of context is one of the main things we think of when considering the propaganda toolbox - but Riefenstahl was dedicated to creating a complete retelling of the Olympics and resorted to these measures when filming the original events was impossible. Beyond this she also wanted to create a film that was interesting on its own terms. Some of these restagings enabled her and her team of cinematographers to access viewpoints that would be impossible in actual competition, because the large cameras would actually impede the running of the events.

That said, there are some limits on what she was willing to do, and finding these limits tells us for sure that she was not interested in making direct propaganda at this point. Much has been made of Hitler’s refusal to congratulate Jesse Owens for his spectacular performances during the games, but Riefenstahl has no such compunctions. She’s fascinated with the movement of the athletes, the American champions especially, and doesn’t pay any less attention to Owens because of his race. (Side note: there’s a troubling undercurrent throughout Riefenstahl’s career of fetishising the black body, and it might be on display here. Either way, it’s interesting to note the love-hate relationships fascist regimes have with many different things.)

It’s also clear that Riefenstahl is enthusiastic about being able to tell an actual story, beyond simply relying on metaphor. Triumph of the Will is cinematically innovative, but it doesn’t have a story that she can draw on. The Olympic Games, however, have a set of narratives that Riefenstahl can refer back to: narratives of winning and losing, using a sporting contest as a representation of a wider cultural struggle, or the pastoral origins of ‘sport’. In this last regard, the openings of both halves of the film feature depictions of the classical ideal of sport: naked athletes performing aesthetically-pleasing activities in the open air, and a community spirit built around these activities.

Riefenstahl goes further, creating new narratives to activate otherwise boring events. Some of the running races, including Lovelock’s sub-four-minute mile and the British victory in the men’s relay, are shown in a single shot taken from the upper tiers of the stadium, letting the natural rhythms come forward. For the diving events, though, Riefenstahl abandons any sense of naturalism and breaks the events into components of an avant-garde mosaic, playing shots in reverse, cutting back and forth across the line of action so it appears divers are leaping towards each other, and filming so closely that there is no sense of where the ground is. Whatever Riefenstahl’s political leanings in making the film, she is clearly dedicated to making each element of the film as interesting as it can be,

The technical aspects of this film are truly admirable. During the process of filming, Riefenstahl’s team developed entirely new techniques of filming, dug pits next to tracks to get good shots of athletes’ faces during competition, relied on five different sizes of camera, strapped small cameras to runners, and devised a camera that could film above and below water. They borrowed an airship from the Luftwaffe. The rushes were reviewed each day, totalling about two hundred cans of film every day of the games. In addition, with the exception of Hitler’s opening speech, every single piece of sound in the film was dubbed in post-production. As Downing points, out, this would be a mammoth task with modern technology, but in 1936, every ten-minute reel of film had to be mixed in real time, from start to finish, and then processed for a day before you could even tell what the result would be like. The engineers invented several entirely new sets of audio filters to reduce ambient sound, and did this during post-production. The entire final mix took two months of twelve-hour days to complete. It practically invented the genre of the sports documentary. If this had been done under any other circumstances, it would be hailed as the greatest production in history. Instead, its reputation collapsed under the weight of history. Nobody wants to like a film made by the Nazis - no matter how innovative and interesting it is, it is permanently a smokescreen to put a happy face on an appalling and destructive regime.

I have been asked if a film like Olympia could be made today. I think the answer to that depends on whether you’re looking at the film as a sports documentary or a propaganda film. Pretty much every sports documentary since Olympia has used this toolbox, so in a very real sense, this film has been made today, many times, and has often claimed innovations that Olympia made as their own innovations. As far as propaganda goes, though, I don’t think you’d need to make this film. Olympia has a very subtle hand - its statements about the superiority of the Nazi regime are implicit rather than explicit. Contemporary regimes, though, have found that you can just say that kind of thing explicitly and it will often be accepted. I also think there are very few regimes that would bother to go to this kind of expense for a film.

Riefenstahl’s complicity with the Nazis has often been hotly debated, and I think the most likely explanation of her stance is this: she wanted to make films, and the Nazis wanted films made. That she was either unwilling or unable to deny their patronage, or that she actively embraced their beliefs, is perhaps the harshest truth. She was given the opportunity to be an innovative filmmaker. All she had to do was climb into the lion’s mouth, and her films would be remembered.

She climbed in. The lion made no promises about how or why she’d be memorable.

[kenjkats]

ES Endgame thoughts dump

By no means is this actually a theory post. Like I said I’m bad at those bc I’m too impulsive with my thoughts to go through detailed checking three times and so on. I warn you, this is A MESS. Take it as a thoughts dump of certain eye catching details in ES that are still loose ends, and a handful of different crack theories as an attempt to be a theory person lol.

So theory people please definitely add/correct me. Help me put the pieces together :D

So something that’s been bugging me since book one is this phrase and the idea of the Alpha and the Omega. It’s thrown in here and there in little details. Like  this. You see Rourke here mentioning it in the bonus scene at the end of the recent chapter. He wants to remake the world by messing with time and space. Wants to be a God. 

*I copy pasted the entire part of Revelation that’s cited in this wiki at the end of this post, for anybody who might want to draw parallels. It’s interesting.

An interesting thing to note is that the dossiers of the ES gang all have them with clearance level Epsilon, with Jake at Gamma, then Estela at Alpha (beginning) and MC at Omega (end). I have no idea what those directly translate to in terms of clearance, but the fact that they differ from the rest shows their importance/threat to Rourke.

Things to note about Estela: 

A lot of her history is blacked out. Even her first and middle names, which now gives me this idea that Estela might not even be her birth name.

In light of the Estela is Rourke’s daughter theory, maybe Olivia renamed her once she got Estela off the island.

The assessment focuses a lot on her determination and skills. Noting them as “exceptional”. Rourke remarks in the bonus scene that his daughter is “strong” and “worthy.”

The fact so much of her past here is blacked out leads me to think it’s PB letting themselves have wiggle room to fuck it up in the finale by revealing a twist. Maybe Rourke IS her last family. Maybe Nicolas is a close friend to Olivia and not really her uncle, and was tasked to protect Estela from Rourke who would want her as an asset. 

Things to note about MC:

Rourke doesn’t really KNOW about them. He remarks in Book 2 that it’s interesting they exist. And it’s implied that MC is something that could/could not exist at this point in time. 

The fact that Rourke does not know who MC is... hello giant WHO IS S/HE???, puts points into the “MC is not Rourke’s child” theory.

So what?

What catches my eye is their clearance levels. On one hand it could totally mean nothing. Crack theory, it’s a subtle foreshadowing of their roles.

The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Rourke references this idea twice in the recent bonus scene as he talks to Lundgren.

Estela and MC have always been connected somehow. They dream about each other. In book 1, MC sees Estela going after the crab, and Estela dreams about MC too. In all other instances of MC’s powers connecting with people, it’s usually just MC who experiences it (time resetting when they die, the idols their Endless version created). The others only share in MC’s experience during the Embers from Vaanu, but this may be because it’s from Vaanu and not something from MC. Point is, there’s something more to Estela given that she can experience weirdness on her own, not just take part in it.

@lovemesomesnark mentioned to me that in Book 2 when they go back through time to find the heart, that if MC messes up the timed choices, it’s Estela who fixes it. She did time voodoo. 

Conclusion: These two have an important role in the endgame. Either together or against each other.

Working crack theory: Estela is Rourke’s daughter, he plans to use her to help further Project Janus (could he program her like Mike somehow?) and therefore bringing about a new beginning (Alpha) in his crazy image. MC on the other hand could be the key to ending it (Omega) by helping Vaanu find the last piece. Which everyone thinks is MC. I’d buy it. Lots of angst.

This Janus nonsense:

Short thing about Janus in mythology: 

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (/ˈdʒeɪnəs/; Latin: IANVS (Iānus), pronounced [ˈjaː.nus]) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

Rourke tells Lundgren and IRIS that this is just the beginning and

Yeah he’s trying to remake the world to suit him, by messing with space and time. Smart plan, what could go wrong.

Uhh interesting thing, it seems like Rourke needs some sacrifice/missing piece to pull off this plan. Because IRIS says:

Cloning, having a subject sounds vital to the plan. So Aleister was the first draft, they had this second, new one in the works, but it looks like Rourke abandons both for his daughter (Estela?)

Crack theory time: I’m going to assume with all the time craziness on the island that this didn’t necessarily take place just before the wedding and Rourke appearing with a vortex above his head. This could be farther in the past as he plans to mess things up and go after the heart. I don’t know. I’m bad at this lol. 

But if it issss farther in the past, that second clone could either be 1. Yet another Aleister with new “Hostile DNA” as IRIS says, or 2. MC? A lot of the fandom sees the signs that MC was just an experiment or some other thing from the island because of their lack of memory of the past, and their file stating they were born on La Huerta. 

Probably overthinking but this crack theory exists because IRIS mentions that the second clone has Hostile DNA. Hostiles = the Vaanti? And MC has shown to share a lot of funky powers and similarities with the Vaanti that an old crack theory floating around was that MC is part Vaanti.

Maybe it’s this command to terminate this clone, or some other event we’ll soon see that results in Rourke succeeding or failing to destroy MC, is also why he comments to MC that “Oh, you exist.”

This time looping is not a new thing. It just happened in the last chapter, where we got to see the gang take the group selfie that led Rourke to go on this crazy mission in the first place.

Interesting thing if you’re a Final Fantasy nerd: this popped into my head when Rourke said “to be as we are now, forever”, when IRIS mentions disrupting spacetime when initiating Project Janus, and knowing that Janus is this god of time that is the duality of past and present, and travels through it. If you ever played Final Fantasy 8, this reminded me of that. The villain in that game basically tries to travel through time to make it into one single moment and live on forever, ruling it. What if Rourke wants to do something similar in his lust for power or to try to save his wife? 

Confused?

Told you I wouldn’t make sense lol. But yeah, take all of this with a grain of salt. It’s crack theory and jumping to conclusions. Just listing down loose ends with no effort to tie them together. Yall can try because I do not have the brain cells to lol. But to conclude, I basically think all of these details point to

1. Estela/MC as endgame. Things are gonna get angsty.

2. Rourke needs something from one or both of them to put his plans in motion.

3. His plans to be a god in a new world are crazy. It needs the heart and a subject to complete. Which used to be Aleister but now could be Estela. Or MC. Or Estela and MC as the Heart/Vaanu and Cloned Subject combo needed.

4. Whatever the hell it is the finale is going to be wild and I’m going to cry over something/someone.

-----

Here’s that passage from the Bible btw: (Revelations 21:6 - 22:13, New International Version):

Some interesting parallels over one read: 

1. The Alpha and Omega stuff as mentioned. Rourke wants to be a god, make a new world etc.

2. 12 apostles, 12 gates to the Holy City. 12 is recurring theme in ES. 12 Catalysts, idols, embers, zodiacs etc.

3. John and the Angel remind me of the Endless and Uqzhaal idk

Revelation 21

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

The New Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb

9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadiac in length, and as wide and high as it is long. 17 The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubitsd thick.e18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.f21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Revelation 22:

Eden Restored

1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

John and the Angel

6 The angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.”

7 “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.”

8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!”

10 Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near. 11 Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”

Epilogue: Invitation and Warning

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

[aion-rsa]

Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen

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How do you bring a comic book to life? It’s a question that studios have been struggling with since they first began making live-action superhero serials in the 1940s. Netflix’s newest comic book series adapts Image Comics’ metatext on the medium, Jupiter’s Legacy. Created by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, the story centers on two generations of heroes. In its quest to bring this story to life, Netflix has enlisted costume designer Lizz Wolf. Though she’s new to the superhero genre, she has plenty of experience with massive actioners—including Rambo, The Expendables, and Pacific Rim: Uprising–and she dived in head-first to create a unique and vibrant visual landscape which respected the comics while bringing the texture and depth needed to translate the archetypal heroes to the small screen. 

In an unusual series of events, Wolf was brought on very early in the production in order to allow her to build the sartorial universe of Jupiter’s Legacy from the ground up. It was a rare chance for the costume designer to truly create something immersive and all-encompassing. “This project was an opportunity that very few costume designers get,” Wolf says. “In order to conquer the Herculean task of bringing the vast universe that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely had created to life, I had to strap myself in for the ride of a lifetime.” 

Seeing that world come to life has been nothing short of a joy for artist and Jupiter’s Legacy co-creator Quitely. While the show does bring plenty of new layers to the costuming and characters, he was blown away by how much inspiration they took from the comics. Even when things were changed he feels it was for the better. 

“Where they have embellished things, it’s not so much that they’ve done their own thing,” Quitely says, “it’s that they’ve taken what we had in the comic, and they’ve added to it and translated it in a way that’s going to work better for television. It’s a very interesting process for me to see.”

So how did Wolf get started on translating such an epic series through the lens of costuming? 

“As this universe is literally littered with superheroes and villains with varying degrees of power, I created a doctrine based on the character depictions in the comic book,” she says. “A platform of their capabilities and back stories. This was the connective tissue to then assemble a visual language and start the design process. This design language was a culmination of the extensive research we did for each of the superheroes and their subgroups. I relied heavily on science and nature to guide me. I was inspired by everything from the natural world, architecture, black line tattoos, ancient symbols, alchemy, microbial photography, atomic ordering, complex life forms, and parametric equations.”

When it came to directly adapting the costumes from the comics, for Wolf it was a balance of respect and inspiration. 

“In the beginning, I focused on the story to inform the design,” she says. “In order to achieve a cinematic feel, we had to extrapolate what was intrinsic to telling the story through an emotional color palette, composition, function, and the capabilities of each member of the Union from the source material. Then, of course, we had to pump them into three-dimensional characters.” 

When Quitely visited the set, he got to explore those three-dimensional reimaginings of his art, something that he calls a privilege. While he visited each and every part of the production, and enjoyed it all, the costume department was something of a highlight for the creator. 

“They were very faithful to all the main costumes,” Quitely explains. “But because there are so many supporting characters, they had basically come up with a lot of costumes that were just inspired by what they’d already found in the comic. That was really great to see.”

Discovering the creators were fans of her designs early on was an unforgettable moment for Wolf. She was keen to talk about their impact on her, and what she called a seminal vision of superheroes. So when Millar, Quitely, and the showrunners came back with good things to say, it was “the catalyst of confidence” for her. “It was truly a professional high point to hear that Mark [Millar] had liked the designs and the direction we were going in.” Wolf says. “That acknowledgment was everything!”

Paying homage to the silhouettes and color schemes of the comics costumes was key to Wolf. But she wanted to amp up the technology and detail. With suits that have to exist over decades, it was vital to make sure that they had durability and that classic Golden Age vibe. “These suits had to travel the expanse of 100-plus years and hold up, as well as remain relevant and be able to inspire generations to come,” she says. “That was a challenge!” 

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Wolf battled through those challenges and found unexpected inspiration in the works of industrial 3D knitters. Diving deep into this new creative process gave Wolf a new insight, and what she called “single thread technology” led to the basis of what she describes as the show’s “suit mythology,” which also shaped the designs of the next generation’s suits. 

Taking inspiration from anatomical artists like George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis, Wolf crafted a musculature for the super suits that was exaggerated yet natural. And she even built the origin of their powers, imbued following an “event,” into the suits. “This muscular structure was a molecular reaction of this event integrated into the suit itself,” she says. 

That level of detail was something that immediately stuck out to Quitely. He was particularly excited by the intricate detailing that Wolf and her team added. Though the costumes might look the same from a distance, up close Quitely found an impressive array of subtle details, including emblems and alien patterns built into the material itself. “They’ve put so much thought and love and enthusiasm into the way they’ve gone about recreating this world, making it bigger and fuller in a way that will work for television,” Quitely says. “It’s been fantastic.”

Wolf was equally as enamoured with the process, describing it as a highlight of her storied career. “Designing the superheroes was an incredible thrill! I’ve experienced nothing like it. I’d have to say overall that Jupiter’s Legacy is my favorite project that I have ever done!” 

Sacred Geometry

Lizz Wolf added a unique costume detail which created its own visual language, much of which was inspired by the concept of “Sacred Geometry.” The term references the idea of ascribing meaning and symbolism to certain geometric shapes and proportions. While usually used in religious buildings and art, Wolf strived to craft a superheroic Sacred Geometry for each of the six Union members using symbolic emblems and totems which were later integrated into their suits. “These were extractions or reflections of each character’s individual journey.” Wolf explains. 

While researching the look of Jupiter’s Legacy, the team discovered amateur micro photography of frozen ice crystals. This naturally occurring phenomenon developed into the overall language of the costumes. “We created a series of these lichen-like formations that represented expressions or glyphs based on an alphabet of sorts,” Wolf says. “It was used on each of the Union’s super suits as an adornment or to create declarations.”

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Jupiter’s Legacy: Josh Duhamel on Becoming The Utopian

By Ed Gross

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The Utopian signified a particular challenge as his plain white suit was simple yet iconic. But Wolf built on his archetypal comic book silhouette that she felt represented the mythology of the character. While she didn’t feel like he was particularly formidable at first, once they built in Sheldon’s own Sacred Geometry which was built from “extractions from conjured celestial maps that could have guided Sheldon in his calling” the costume designer reveals, “he emerged to be very intimidating.” 

Dressing Two Generations of Superheroes

Jupiter’s Legacy is a story about family, two generations of distinctly different heroes. The older and more archetypal group known as the Union are shaped by idealistic dreams and Golden Age comics. Then there’s the children of the Union, whose lives have been molded by their parents’ fame, privilege, and celebrity endorsement campaigns. When it comes to costuming, the differences are clear. The Union wear classic superhero suits, making them icons of hope and heroics. But their children rock civilian outfits, still just as recognizable but a clear rejection of the traditions of their family. 

The Utopian 

When it came to designing The Utopian, Quitely looked towards Superman and other classic Golden Age stories. But for costume designer Lizz Wolf, it was all about building only on what already existed in the comics. Keeping his white silhouette was key and Wolf “built on the mythology of the character,” giving him what she calls an “almost archaic, statuesque feel.” She adds that building that texture was key. “This is where the musculature was profound in exhibiting his mortal strength,” she explains. “This brought majesty to his suit, and then Josh Duhamel brought his god-like presence!” 

Skyfox 

One of the most significantly different costumes is that of Skyfox. Gone are his leotard/undies from the comics. Instead, Wolf crafted something with “a rugged sexiness.” The team retained his “iconic color scheme that is certainly a nod to royalty and his social status as George Hutchence.” But rather than drawing directly from the comics, they shifted tactics.

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“His inspiration was part gunslinger, part playboy, 100% badass,” Wolf says. “His equipment is intentionally worn low on hips to provoke that rock star, cowboy vibe. He also has what amounts to the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the Union embedded in his suit. The crowning element is his fractal-like Fox emblem. It’s like a talisman inspired by his fox-themed heirloom jewelry pieces from the 1920s.”

Brainwave 

Another slight shift was Brainwave. In the comics, his suit evolves in the modern age. But Wolf decided to keep his iconic early look for the entire series. “This allowed us to really make his suit beam and keep his natural swagger evident. I love his suit and his veining motif. He just lights up in it and it appears to be actively circulating.”

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Wolf reveals that a strange mistake ended up playing a vital part. “That fabrication was one of those divine accidents. During our R&D period, a run of printed fabric went in an unintentional direction. That material mysteriously became more radiant when stretched over his muscular structure. That mistake became the end result.”

The Union

For artist Frank Quitely and writer Mark Millar, the Union’s costumes were key, as were their influences.

“We went right back to Superman and Batman. The early Marvel and DC heroes. The heroes from the mid 1930s through the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s,” Quitely says. The older generation wear traditional suits making them easily identifiable as heroes. “We were looking at everything that had gone before. We were wanting things that were recognizable and reminiscent of classic superheroes, even for people that weren’t immersed in comic book culture. Most people have got a rough idea of what Superman and Spider-Man are about. We wanted to deal with archetypes and representations of superheroes that would still strike some kind of chord with people that only had a passing interest.”

The Next Generation 

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Growing up in Scotland shaped Quitely’s choice to make the younger generation’s uniforms their everyday outfits. “I read a lot of comics when I was younger. Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace, The Broons. The characters tend to wear the same clothes,” he explains. “It’s the same with your Saturday morning cartoons like Scooby-Doo. Their costumes are part of the aesthetic of each character. They wear the same clothes and colors all the time because it makes them more recognizable. To some extent we did that with the characters in Jupiter’s Legacy that didn’t have a superhero costume. Even if the clothes change, they have a recognizable style. And it’s important to try to stick with that because it helps build the character and it helps make the visual storytelling easy to follow.”

Jupiter’s Legacy premieres on Netflix on May 7. Read more about the series in our special edition magazine!

The post Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Artist Toyin Ojih Odutola on drawing intricate portraits of black life

Written by Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola is known for her rich, textural portraits of black life, layered through intricate ballpoint pen, charcoal and pastel.

Born in 1985, Ojih Odutola is fundamentally a storyteller, influenced by the narrative traditions of her childhood. Her 2017 show at the Whitney Museum, her first solo exhibition in New York, unfolded a dual, interconnected narrative about two fictional aristocratic families in Nigeria.

More recently, when the Barbican Centre in London closed due to Covid-19 restrictions in March, it was just days before her first UK exhibition, “A Countervailing Theory,” was set to open. Now, with the show postponed, Ojih Odutola has put together a virtual exhibition for New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery, “Tell Me a Story, I Don’t Care If It’s True,” made primarily of works created while the artist was at home over the past few months.

Ojih Odutola is exhibiting new work, made during lockdown, at a virtual show for New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery. Credit: Toyin Ojih Odutola

Her yet-to-be-seen Barbican show centers around myth-making and features 40 drawings based on an ancient legend, set in Nigeria, that the artist imagined herself. Her more intimate virtual show for Jack Shainman, meanwhile, focuses on solitary, free-flowing stories told through images and text.

Here, Ojih Odutola discusses both exhibitions, her rich exploration of black identity and how art can be a balm and a space for agency in a time of crisis.

Ojih Odutola’s 2017 show at the Whitney in New York helped raise her international profile. Credit: Beth Wilkinson/Toyin Ojih Odutola

CNN: Can you walk us through what your Barbican show will look like when it’s unveiled?

Toyin Ojih Odutola: Some pieces are seven feet tall and some are really, really small. It’s all based on a myth I wrote last year involving an ancient civilization and set in Plateau State in central Nigeria. For me, it was a need to delve into visual storytelling in a way that was engaging and different, and felt very present.

There are these striations throughout each drawing, and they may look like a decorative motif, but in fact, it’s the system at work. When you see a drawing fully populated with these lines, you’re seeing the system that is not spoken, not seen, but is everywhere in the world of these characters. It influences and affects them but they don’t acknowledge it. It’s just there. So of course it affects everything.

(The exhibition) deals with gender, power, hierarchies, oppression and imperialism in a way that I hope, once it’s unveiled, is very subtle and nuanced and talks about the insidious nature of systemic oppression.

The Barbican show gave Ojih Odutola the opportunity to work on an ambitious scale, mixing large-scale and intimate monochrome works based on an imagined ancient myth. Credit: Toyin Ojih Odutola/Barbican

How did your new virtual exhibition, “Tell Me a Story, I Don’t Care If It’s True,” come about?

The title of the show came to me in February before lockdown. It was something that felt right and applicable to the time. It’s a series of diptychs, standalone drawings and standalone text works. They’re stories that came to mind, which was quite new for me because I tend to plan things a lot. This show was much more introspective.

These stories are anecdotal; they’re isolated vignettes. There’s not too much context, but just enough information to understand. There’s a conversation happening between image and text. In one, you encounter a figure leaning against a couch, and you may have your ideas about what that figure is thinking — the interiority of that moment. And then you read the text, and go back and forth between the two, and form your own meaning.

Viewership is an activity. Take a moment, take a beat. I hope that it’s a way to question what you see and read.

Which oral or written traditions related to myths have influenced you?

I grew up in a household where the oratory was the means. Gathering around and hearing someone tell a tale is a huge part of Nigerian culture. I also grew up in a house with two amazingly funny parents who love to tell stories about anything. I’ve always treasured that. And it wasn’t until I got much older that I realized how precious it was to have that experience and to have access to that.

When I first started my career, I was just drawing figures and not really thinking about narrative. But there’s a wealth of knowledge that I already have in my own personal history and experience — and I can apply that to a visual narrative and really help people see the possibilities of figurative work.

Ojih Odutola is exhibiting new work, made during lockdown, at a virtual show for New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery. Credit: Toyin Ojih Odutola

I’m heavily influenced by comic books and animation. For the Barbican show, engaging with epic mythology was my way of being completely free and creating something from scratch. Unlike “Tell Me a Story, I Don’t Care If It’s True,” there’s no text (in the Barbican show) — there’s no reference for the audience, and everything is otherworldly and strange. But what I hope is that as they walk through that space, they start to acclimate themselves to my visual language.

You often explore the texture and meaning of skin in your work. How has this evolved with your practice?

Initially I wanted to figure out a way to visually translate what skin felt like. I use sinewy lines; it’s very layered, and I was mostly doing ballpoint pen ink works. And then I began including other drawing materials like charcoal and pastel, and now, most recently, colored pencil and graphite.

Ojih Odutola compares black skin to water, calling it “a mercurial surface, a terrain…a place where so much beauty and positivity proliferates.” Credit: Toyin Ojih Odutola/Barbican

When I think about the surface of skin I think about the work of multimedia artist Roni Horn, who uses water as a metaphor for a surface that’s ambiguous and ever-changing. I think about skin in a very similar light. Skin is a terrain. It’s a landscape that you project meanings onto. It has its own history.

When I look at black skin, I think of it as a mercurial surface — a terrain, a construct, a projection, but also a place where so much beauty and positivity proliferates. It includes so much and it holds so much.

Following the death of George Floyd, there’s been so much conversation about black trauma, depictions of black people in the media and how those images are circulated. How do you think art can play a role at this time?

There’s a lot of noise — images can be noisy. But with art, it’s just you and this work. You’re in dialogue with it, and there’s no right or wrong way to engage. Art provides the opportunity for people to be still, to think and digest this moment and try to understand it.

Ojih Odutola wants her art to provide a space through which viewers can reflect and arrive at their own interpretations. Credit: Toyin Ojih Odutola

I have made a pact with myself, as an image-maker, that if I am going to contribute images to the plethora of those available on the internet that I will not show black pain, deaths or trauma.

That’s my choice. And if you are an artist who does deal with those things, fine. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but for me it’s very important that I provide images and texts that give people something else to engage with because we already know that trauma and pain is a sad and unfortunate thing that connects black people globally.

Black people are catalysts. In every society we’ve been a part of, our culture has left an indelible mark. That is no accident. And so we shouldn’t always think that we’re coming from a place of lack, that we are powerless. I’m not saying that these aren’t realities. But it’s not how we should read ourselves as a community, as a collective (and) as a diverse, brilliant diaspora.

And as someone who’s a part of the diaspora, I want to give people space to engage with potential, to engage with our capabilities. Yes, they are afraid of us because they don’t know what we’re capable of. But we should not be afraid of what we are capable of.

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The Beautiful and the Terrible: Summary and Analysis of Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’

Good books, the kind that you enjoy, that you carry with you so as to pass time on the bus or train; that keep your mind occupied, but don’t do anything to change your perceptions of what literature can be, are common. Great books, the kind that you set aside time to read, that fill you with joy, and you recommend to your friends at every opportunity to do so, are rare … And then there are the scarce gems, the works of art that consume you, draw you in, keep you up at night, and leave an imprint in your mind that lasts years after you have finished them. “The Secret History,” by Donna Tartt, is such a book. It is a book both intimate and epic, and concerned with the beautiful and the terrible; a book that examines man’s relationship with the divine, as-well-as man’s relationship with one-another. It is on one level, a taught, brisk thriller, and on another, a meditation on the inherent fragility of youth and friendship.

The narrator is Richard Papen, who, at the age of twenty-eight looks back on a year he spent at Hampden College, a prestigious (and fictitious) liberal arts college in rural Vermont. The story begins in Richard’s hometown of Plano California. Of his upbringing, Richard says: “When I think about my real childhood I am unable to recall much about it at all except a sad jumble of objects: the sneakers I wore year-round; coloring books and comics from the supermarket: little of interest, less of beauty … my father was mean, our house ugly, and my mother didn’t pay much attention to me … and since all this had been true for as long as I could remember, I felt things would doubtless continue in this depressing vein as far as I could foresee. In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”

Richard’s mediocre existence is quietly interrupted one Christmas, when, while digging through his closet, he finds a brochure for Hampden. After several weeks of traveling back-and-forth for admissions interviews, and sneaking behind his parents’ backs, Richard successfully transfers to Hampden. During his first few days on campus, Richard has run-ins with an attractive and close-knit group of students: Henry Winter, a trust funder from the midwest and the group’s unofficial leader, Francis Abernathy, a closeted homosexual who dresses mostly in black, orphan Charles Macaulay and his beautiful twin sister Camilla, and Bunny Corcoran, socially repugnant scion of a Kennedyesque New England family, desperately trying to maintain a facade of wealth and privilege. Drawn in by the group’s mystique, Richard wiles his way into their elite Ancient Greek class, taught by the charismatic Julian Morrow.

For the Fall semester, Richard enjoys an idyllic academic life, filled with lively discussions about art, literature, and ancient philosophy, as-well-as cocktail parties, and croquet matches at Francis’s country house. Everything changes after the group return from winter break. After learning that Henry, Francis, Charles, and Camilla have purchased one-way tickets to South America, Richard confronts his friends and discovers that they have become murderers. During the fall, the group enacted a ritual to honor the god Dionysus, in-which they consumed hallucinogens and accidentally killed a local farmer. The group manages to cover up the murder until Bunny discovers their secret and begins extorting money from them. In a drunken state one evening, Bunny tells Richard about the murder (not realizing he already knows). Richard tells Henry, and the group decides their only option is to kill Bunny.

The group follows Bunny on his Sunday walk in the woods, where they push him into a ravine. That night, an unseasonable snowstorm hits the college hiding Bunny’s body for ten days. A manhunt is launched, drawing in the FBI. The group manages (with great difficulty) to dodge accusations made against them until Bunny’s death is ruled an accident. After attending Bunny’s funeral, the group returns to Hampden, where tensions between them fester. Richard learns that Camilla is in love with Henry.  After Richard tells him about this, Charles, who has had an intimate, incestuous relationship with his twin, becomes violently jealous and goes on a drinking binge that sends him to the hospital. Richard and Francis take him to the country house to recover. Shortly after that, Julian discovers a letter from Bunny about the farmer’s murder and  flees Hampden in horror. Charles escapes from the country house and returns to Hampden with a gun. After shooting Richard in the stomach, Charles has the gun taken from him by Henry, who shoots himself in the head.

After the incident, the group scatters, with all the surviving members dropping out of school except for Richard, who goes on to graduate school. Francis’s grandfather forces him to marry a woman he doesn’t like; Julian is out of the country, Charles moves to California with an older woman, and Camilla finds herself stuck caring for her ailing grandmother.

From the very beginning, “The Secret History” makes a concerted effort to blend classical mythology and philosophy with contemporary fiction. Richard’s first line of narration after the prolog “Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of life, exist outside literature?” pays tribute to the majesty of the ancient world and elegantly sets the tone for the novel. The ‘fatal flaw’ dates to the work of Aristotle and refers to an imperfection in a protagonist’s personality that causes them to commit some error in the arc of their story. In classical literature, these errors are often made in complete ignorance of the consequences that will inevitably follow them. It is here, in this lack of regard for any moral retribution, that Richard can find a kind of forgiveness for his crimes and those of his friends. Richard never expresses any guilt about the things he has done, not because he believes they were morally justified, but because they were meant to happen. Richard talks about himself and his friends as characters in a work of fiction, with the events surrounding them being part of an already written plot, and themselves powerless to change them. He recounts these events with a casual lucidity, and describes the “fatal flaw” of his story, which is, in his words, “A morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”  

“‘We don’t like to admit it,’ said Julian ‘but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than anything. All truly civilized people - the ancients no less than us - have civilized themselves through the willful repression of the old animal self … And it’s a temptation for any intelligent person, and especially for perfectionists such as the ancients and ourselves to try to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self. But this is a mistake … The more cultivated a person is … then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he’s worked so hard to subdue … It’s a very Greek idea … Beauty is terror … and what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks and to our own, than to lose control completely.’”

Not only do Richard’s friends share his longing for the picturesque, but they find it augmented by the speech from their professor. And if this desire is intrinsic to the characters’ true natures, as Julian suggests, then it was inevitable that they would abandon the trappings of civilization and immerse themselves in the sublime beauty of their own raw, animalistic nature. What’s more, any damage to outside parties - such as the murdered farmer - is negligible, as it is merely the residue of contriving to achieve a higher level of being. And just so we are sure that the characters’ immorality is not just a mere lapse in judgment, Tartt shows us the group’s decadent behavior transcend their academic and spiritual pursuits, and bleed into their personal lives. Tartt maintains the integrity of this depraved atmosphere by never judging any of her characters. While we read about the group drinking excessively, snorting cocaine, engaging in incest, and plotting the murder of one of their friends, the novel never takes the time to remind the audience that what the protagonists are doing is wrong. Rather, it assumes we already know we are watching people do things they shouldn’t be. Instead of forcing us to learn a lesson about restraint and prudence, the book asks us to simply observe.   This lack of condescension in storytelling is one of the qualities which I feel marks Donna Tartt as a great writer, with another being her ability to compress grandiose moral and philosophical themes into such a small setting.

All the major scenes in “The Secret History” take place indoors, and rarely involve anyone outside the six main characters. In the first half of the novel - before Bunny is murdered - this creates an atmosphere of intimacy. The characters’ discussions have all the weight of history behind them: Homer, Aristotle, Virgil, and Dante guide them on epic journeys through life, death, and human nature, without ever leaving the comfort of their tobacco smoke-filled dorm rooms. With the murders and their subsequent investigations, this intimacy turns to claustrophobia, and the cozy confines of Hampden and Francis’s country house become less of a comfort and more of a trap. As rumors of the group’s bizarre behavior around Bunny’s murder begin to surface, and they become a target of the investigation, we feel every bit of pressure they are under. And even after they are ruled out as suspects, things only become worse, as their close-knit relationships turn from a blanket of protection into a crucible of frustration and anger, causing them to turn on one another, and ending in the self-imposed exile of their mentor and the suicide of another one of their own. This landslide of tragedies proves just how fragile the bubble Richard and his friends had built around themselves was. Hampden and Julian’s class was the substantiating force in their lives, and with the former ruined and the latter taken away from them, the members of the group become lost in the world. This exchange between Richard and Charles exemplifies this:    

         “‘I wish we didn’t have to go back to Hampden tomorrow,’ (Charles) said.”

“‘I wish we never had to go back,’ I said. ‘I wish we lived here.’”

“‘Well, maybe we can.’”

“‘What’”

“‘I don’t mean now. But maybe we could. After school.’”

“‘How’s that?’”

“He shrugged. ‘Well, Francis’s aunt won’t sell the house because she wants to keep it in the family. Francis could get it from her for next to nothing … I mean, all Henry wants to do when he finishes school, if he finishes school, is to find some place where he can write his books and study the twelve great cultures.’”

“‘What do you mean, if he finishes.’”

“‘I mean, he may not want to … There’s no reason he’s got to be here, and he’s surely never going to have a job.’”

“‘You think not?’ I said, curious; I had always pictured Henry teaching Greek, in some forlorn but excellent college out in the Midwest.”

“Charles snorted. ‘Certainly not. Why should he? He doesn’t need the money, and he’d make a terrible teacher. And Francis has never worked in his life … He’d like it better here. Julian wouldn’t be far away either.”’

We see that the members of the group can picture no way of living differently from the one in which they are currently engaged. This is an attitude shared by most people in college. The first four or five years of one’s adulthood have a lasting transformative effect on the rest of their life. It is for this reason that college can be both a blessing and a curse, as it provides a safe environment for us to experiment with different ways of looking at the world, and cultivate new tastes and attitudes about how we wish to conduct ourselves in the future. The flip-side of this is that the environment can be too safe, a bubble of semi-adulthood in which we get only a taste of the real world, with few chances to experience the full range of consequences that come with our mistakes. A person can become so used to this, that when the time comes to enter into real adulthood, they feel overwhelmed. Tartt’s novel not only captures this feeling but magnifies it to mythic proportions. From the very beginning, Richard makes clear his dissatisfaction with his upbringing and desire to live a greater life - a life defined by beauty.  He believes Campden will be the gateway to such a life, and devotes so much energy to cultivating an image of the college as a perfect haven of beauty and intellectualism, that even long after the image has shattered and he has left Campden, it remains an integral part of his life, saying: “I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

“The Secret History” may not be to everyone’s taste, but those who are susceptible to its charms will find themselves fully enraptured in a novel unlike any other, one that blends style with substance, and makes you believe that true beauty comes with pain.

[viking-mjod]

Apothecary mead – legends of Sherwood brought back to life

As we look back through history, women have been the driving force behind the brewing industry. In fact, the very term ‘Brewster’ was used to denote a female brewer. In the annals of old, we frequently find references to brewing ale (and assumedly then, Mead) and it was very much considered a woman’s job. (Let’s face it, we men would just end up drinking the must before it ever got a chance to ferment)

This was the common standard up till monks started brewing as a source of income, and where the church held power, men soon ended up taking over what was previously a woman’s domain. For centuries, where Christianity ruled, the number of women has at large been left out of this wondrous craft, with only a few women crafting in secrecy.

But this story is focused on mead, and as mead is on the rise yet again, we are thrilled to see that women are easily regaining positions as crafters, artisans, and experts.

Today  I am fortunate enough to talk with Alison Heath of Apothecary Mead, a brand new meadery located in scenic Nottinghamshire. Set in the heart of the ancient Sherwood forest, a stone’s throw from the Major Oak and Viking meeting ground, Thynghowe. The meadery is nestled in the fabled Greenwood among the stories of Robin Hood, The Knights of the old, and the very center of English legends. Hear ye, hear ye –  Apothecary is poised to make their name … legendary.

Mead to make Robin Hoods merry men even merrier

With mead as an artisan drink on the rise, it has never been more important for meaderies to be unique in their own way. In this, it is natural to ask what makes Apothecary mead so special.

–We really want to take advantage of the fantastic resources we have just outside the door. Sherwood offers so much in terms of experiences, in terms of resources, and of course – in terms of history. Mead is mentioned in many historical literary texts ranging from the ancient works of Plato, Virgil, and the welsh Rig-Veda. It is mentioned in old welsh poems dating back to 550ce, called “Kanu y med” or ‘Song of Mead’. Also; we find it countless times throughout the ages with mentions in works by Chaucer, Shakespeare. In many Norse and Greek Legends, it is very much a drink of magic and atmosphere. Steeped in folklore and mystery mead is a natural choice to turn to when trying to breathe new life into traditions of old. So where better to do that than within Robin Hood’s own Sherwood?

Apothecary Mead has their Meadery on the Historic Welbeck Estate.  The estate itself is even mentioned in the Domesday book from 1140a.d, and was founded as a monastery in 1153. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the Cavendish family bought the estate and it has been a family seat ever since. The commercial side of the estate has been active over the last decade, described by locals as a ‘foodie hub’. Among these, we find Welbeck Abbey craft beer, Ottar chocolatier, raw milk dairy, Stichelton creamery, Saffron spices, Karkli snacks, and a school for artisan food. With such a collection of great foodies, the Meadery is surely a great fit.

– Between myself and my partner, we have a passion for locally sourced produce. There is an ethos of environmentally focused practice being the core of everything we do. As trained beekeepers it is important to us to support British Beekeepers and bee farms; we raise awareness of issues affecting Bee colonies. We support bees by growing our own herbs and making conscious commercial choices, and by supporting local artists and businesses in setting up our company. It gives us immense satisfaction to know that what we do, our passion, is done in a locally supportive way, and with sustainable development in mind.

The Apothecary shows the way

With that in mind we get into talking about the Apothecary Mead itself, and what makes it so unique :

– We have a very close, almost intimate relationship to nature; and our mead certainly reflects upon this.  Our honey is sourced very locally. We primarily use honey from hives on site within Wellbeck. If this source runs out, we carefully select from other county and regional apiaries. I would go as far as to say the quality control is literally on our tongues. We taste all honey and analyze it with the finest tools we have – our senses. Color, scent, viscosity and of course – flavor. Many people do not realize that just as with the finest wines, Mead can also be typified by varietals of honey. For example, forest honey which will feature pine or woody notes, field or blossom honey which is often lighter and floral based. Then we have fruit blossom honey, and single source honey, which is rarer. Among these, there are flavors such as lavender, eucalyptus, and orange blossom.

For the mead itself, there are Pyments, melomels, metheglyns, bochets, hydromels, and many more. Only the honey that passes our demands for perfection gets the honor of becoming mead. I believe we owe it to history, to our craft, and of course – our customers. As we produce small batches only, its extremely important that every batch has that uniqueness one expects from limited, exclusive production.

Into the heart of mead

Alison shows me the heart of the production – the fermentation room. Its filled with 5-litre demi-johns shelves – and shelves of them, reminiscent of a medieval laboratory or Apothecary room. – We have about 900 5-liter demijohns we use for our brews. I’m quite sure that to industry professionals it will seem totally insane to brew such small batches. However; it allows us detailed control of every single batch, ease of transfer of stock if I am working alone, and should something go awry then we only lose one demijohn of stock. Having this vast amount of Demijohns to brew micro batches also allow us to brew truly exclusive batches. Oh, and let’s not forget the sight and sound of the yeast as its doing its magic; is like nothing else I’ve encountered in any other brewery. We affectionately call it “bloopage“.

The newly started Meadery has already made headway on the social media scene. A healthy online presence is gathering a community of supporters, eagerly awaiting news of the release.  At the time of launch, Apothecary will be offering 5 flavors, each with its own distinct character, and seasonal limited editions.

We asked Alison to give us an intro to the different flavors:

Circe

Apothecary’s basic Mead; a smooth and light Mead with a medium viscosity. This allows for a silky mouthfeel with no residue, yet with notes of light citrus and vanilla bean. The name Circe was chosen, as she -for the meadery- epitomises the Goddess of Mead. Greek mythology speaks of Circe’s knowledge of hidden and sacred arts. Arts which allowed her to procure the finest honey, and create a magical blend which was presented to menfolk as a draught. This would render them ill fit to fight and transforming them into magical beasts. With such clear links to antiquity, it seems perfect to name Apothecary’s signature brew “Circe”, from which all others will come.

Nevermore

This mead is one to talk about. It is a definite nod to the love of folk horror and poetry. The label carries the logo Raven, hailing from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe: “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Nevermore is a spiced Metheglyn Mead made with Black Tea, Chai spices, and Maple Syrup. Aged in Bourbon Oak. It is dark, luxurious, and perfect for sampling around a fire. Do NOT miss out on this for your next camping, where horror stories are to be told around the bonfire during those dark midnight hours.

   Black Phillip

This is Alison’s personal favorite and currently kicking up a storm amongst Apothecary ‘s mead-tasting panel. Black Phillip is quite simply “delicious”. From the action of uncapping the bottle, you are presented with a deeply burnt oak-colored liquid. As you take your first whiff, you get the scent of clover. The aromas of caramelized toffee and cinnamon reach the nose as you sip. The flavor is best described as “Bonfire Toffee in a glass”. Apothecary uses the finest Adriatic figs, and grade A bourbon vanilla bean in their primary. This gives a viscous yet creamy base to the burnt honey. Again, the brew finds it’s namesake in a favorite folk horror film; This is Apothecary ‘s respectful nod to a cult classic.

Morrigan

The Morrigan is a sorceress, a queen, a goddess, and a witch associated with war and battle. The Raven is an integral imagery or symbolism Apothecary use within their brand.

– It was important, Alison explains, to have a mead dedicated to The Morrigan. Mythology tells of The Morrigan being a tragic figure possessed of the ability to turn herself into a flight of Ravens/Crows. Gifted with precognition she sees the fate of her true love and tries to save him. Yet – unable to she is cursed to forever roam the earth in the guise of the raven, appearing as a portent of doom, on the eve of war. The Morrigan blend is created as a blood red fruit-based mead, spiced with star anise. The feedback from tasters and customer alike is that it is reminiscent of Cherry Ouzo. Tart red cherries, vanilla for balance and star anise to lift.

Summerisle

Finally,  Apothecary Mead’s lightest blend; a Lemon, Bay, and Cardamom Mead. Tasting more buttery lemon curd than tart sour limoncello, Summerisle is an easy drinking, crisp and satisfying mead, which speaks of summer meadows, citrus blossom, and warm breezes. Honey is definitely the key flavor here with the lemon adding a lovely undertone. Bay provides a subtle cinnamon background and cardamom punches through with a deliciously floral bouquet. Summerisle again is drawn from the love of cult horror.

  It is easy to see Apothecary Mead’s overall image being distinctly placed within the folk/cult genre, with references to astrology, alchemy, and mythology. Where mead is concerned, the Norse angle is most definitely covered, with some excellent representation hailing from these very shores. Alison explains she wanted something of herself in this brand:

“I love history, the hidden, the forbidden and the dark. I wanted Apothecary to be borne of this love of literature and fantasy, in a respectful way.  Themed brands can all too often fall into parody or caricature, I wanted it more as a nod for those in the know.”

  Scrying into the future

With that said, we go back to Alison’s background and interest in mead.

I’m passionate about this beverage, informing the public and raising the profile of this once forgotten tradition. I founded a Facebook community called Mead Maidens which celebrates women within the industry and we have some prominent and incredibly knowledgeable ladies acting as our admins. Together with two other Meaderies within the UK, it is our aim to follow in the footsteps of our European and American counterparts in being at the forefront of this revival and bringing to the public a knowledge about the traditions of the craft and definitions regarding its production.

We think Apothecary has a great future ahead of itself. With this much knowledge, enthusiasm and … 900 demijohns – we expect great things to come.

  The post Apothecary mead – legends of Sherwood brought back to life appeared first on Vikingmjød.

from Vikingmjød http://viking-mjod.no/apothecary-mead-legends-of-sherwood/

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Star Wars myths and musing: May the Fourth be with You.

May the Fourth be with You! Now is the time to discuss and celebrate all things Star Wars.

EPISODE I

So it begins…

… the drunken, though somewhat coherent and now revised, scribbles of someone who read too much mythology and watched too much science fiction.

Trying to uncover the mythologies that could lead to the histories of Snoke, Rey and Finn is an arduous dig. To be honest, the myths that influence Star Wars are far ranging from Hinduism to Celtic mythic story cycles and there is a much dispensationalism. A little from here. A little from there and that’s what you got. There are also glancing references to certain religions and philosophies that are never really expanded upon and there are overlapping narratives that are shared by most base myths/stories.

The base of the base is as most know is the Hero’sJourney found from Perseus to King Arthur.  That, however, doesn’t help reveal the past of the characters but does inform their roles. So, let us break down some overt influences besides other science fiction like Frank Herbert’s Dune, which pops on salvation through divine actors and sandy, sandy worlds. We will get to speculation on who or what Rey, Snoke and Finn are but first the groundwork and a random Jawa.

One should remember that very specific stories can be parsed into discrete elements and these elements then can be used to generate whole concepts that do not perfectly reflect the original. And, you can take specific characters, or very formalized ideas, and expand them to make new narrative devices.

Hinduism is the starting point for me on this though because of the numerous name references dropped throughout the movies. Trimurti is a cosmological concept in Hinduism with Brahma being the creator, Vishnu the maintainer/preserver/protector and Shiva the destroyer/transformer. Of course this is an oversimplification, but in terms of narrative development, the frame work holds to Brahma being The Force, The Dark Side being Shiva and Vishnu being The Light Side. Why?

First, let’s think of Anakin Skywalker and him being an avatar/incarnation of The Light Side and therefore Vishnu. His mother is named Shmi. Lakshmi is a Hindu goddess of prosperity and the Shakti (energy) of Vishnu. Yes, she is also Vishnu’s consort which makes it creepy but many myths are creepy. Just think of Oedipus. Then, Padme is Anakin’s wife. Padma is the lotus flower. It is held by Vishnu in one of his hands in many representations and symbolizes purity and beauty. Padmavarti is also one of Vishnu’s wives in one his avatars. [Note: avatars are incarnations of beings/gods in the cycle of life to fulfil certain goals. Also notice that Shakti is an actual Jedi Master’s name and a fun character in the Expanded Universe].  

I did want to think that Arjuna and Anakin where related but no. Krishna is the avatar of Vishnu in that epic Hindu tale called the Mahabharata. BTW, another reference to Hinduism is the Rishi Maze. A rishi is a seer or sage/poet. Also, Siddha (could be the precursor for Sith) is a Sanskrit term used for a “perfected one”. This person has achieved an almost inhuman level of physical and spiritual perfection as well as powers. But then again, the Sith could be derived from the Sidhe (sounds the same) from Celtic lore.  You know, fairies/fey and such. The Fey do play a role in another mythology to be expounded upon momentarily. But not yet.

Or Anakin could simply refer to Animism an ancient idea where all things have a life force and he could simply be the personification. I digress. Sorry.     

Next, Darth Sidious or Sheev Palpatine. Notice Sheev is awfully close to being Shiva. What does ol’Sheev do? He transforms and destroys.

 Bring balance to the Force.

Now, one must understand that good and evil are not attributed to these forces. Vishnu and Shiva act to move time forward and reflect the cycles of nature.

Balance in the Force is not the absence of evil but the equal ebb and flow of both. Without one, the other cannot exist and therefore the whole cannot endure.  So if we establish that avatars/agents or incarnations (in-carnate= to put into flesh) of the Light and Dark are vital to the narrative, then if we look at the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the great epics that depict Vishnu and Shiva’s exploits, we might be able to discern elements of the latest avatars/agents are: Rey and Snoke. But, I could not. The only character that jumped out at me was Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, who was a devotee of Shiva in the Ramayana and considered a great scholar. His quest was to control the devas, the male gods. But, his tale revolves around revenge by kidnapping the wife of Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu. Then a battle of superweapons and magical beings begins and Ravana is defeated. [The whole “save the wife” and superweapon thing did feel a little Revenge of the Sith-y and then extended to the Death Stars, but the chronology seemed off for inspiration purposes.]

This did get me thinking though. The subtle or not so subtle changes to names can reveal much. Take Snoke. The first thing that comes to mind is snake. How do snakes relate to these myths? There are Nagas.

Nagas are snakes that may take human form and are nature spirits that relate to water: lakes, wells, rivers. They also can carry the elixir of life and immortality, something Sith seem to be obsessed with in the Expanded Universe, which still influences the cannon stories in Star Wars.  In the Mahabharta epic, nagas are not featured in a positive light, meaning they are malevolent. So, did this lead me to a particular story involving a naga that might shed light on who Snoke is? Nope. I know, not helpful but I never said this was going to explain everything. Insights did come though as the twisting mind followed the road signs.

The more I searched eastern mythology, the more I was convinced that George Lucas just used the Trimurti as a foundation for the divine aspects and underlying “forces” that moved the Star Wars universe but the Indian epics really did not direct his character and narrative directions/developments. But hey, maybe the Bendu and Brahma have somethings in common.

As such, we move onto the other set of myths that hail from the islands miles away once held by the Celts. We move to Britain and Ireland next. This is where the character traits and arcs seem to have been extracted. In the next musing, we will explore who Rey, Finn and Snoke might be or at least their derivations.   

To be continued...

In EPISODE II, we will discuss and muse upon who Snoke, Rey, and Finn are and how we've seen the stories before.