turning mother goose • (halloween suite)

three dames walk into a bar: a witch, a hag, and mother goose. 'aha!' cries the bartender -- 'it's the triplets!' am i the only one it took so long to figure this out?

the elements of cats, brooms, and good old age appear so often in illustrations of all three, that one becomes confused just trying to get it straight.

"The existence of demons and the efficacy of witchcraft were accepted facts throughout the world in 1692. The Puritans of Salem Village were certain of the devil's hand in every incident of evil they suffered, from petty misfortune to apalling tragedy. Witches and agents of 'the ould deluder' Satan delivered to the people of the commonwealth all manner of torments: deadly epidemics of smallpox; murderous raids by Indians; and ignorant children."

The Witches of Salem were hanged. This was less painful than the burning of witches in Europe. They thought the burning of a witch was the only way to release the evil, since the Devil would be forced to exit the melting body through the smoke.

Witchcraft in Massachusetts singled out:

• spinsters
• barren women
• the ugly
• the extremely successful
• the independent
• the reclusive
• the litigious
• the willful. 1

i can assure you, i am every single one of these (well, maybe not litigious), and i suppose i am also, now, old -- or at least to the degree these other women are. and while i have no goose, i do have a cat.

would you need more proof?

let's look at that list once more: every single item challenges authority (usually male). if one is any of these she must be punished or laughed at or belittled: silenced.

to live the quiet, solitary life, free and in constant communication with the birds and spiders and fish, and the cat, to tend the garden, read a book, answer to no one....

There was an old woman
tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times
as high as the moon;
Where she was going
I couldn't but ask it,
For in her hand
she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman,
old woman," quoth I,
"O whither, O whither,
O whither, so high?"
"To brush the cobwebs
off the sky!"
"Shall I go with thee?"
"Aye, by and by."
•

Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.

•

The words of the original Old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme can be interpreted to find a darker meaning to the identity of ' Mother Goose'! The title ' Mother Goose ' probably originates from the 1600's -- the time of the great witch hunts. Comparisons can be made between the Mother Goose in the above children's poem and the popular conception of a witch during this era!

• Witches were able to fly (the broomstick has been replaced by a goose).
• A witch was often portrayed as an old crone (with no man to defend her
against accusations of witchcraft).
• Witches are closely associated
with living alone.
• Witches were known to a have 'familiars,' most often cats but also owls. 2

so who am i now? from east or north? good witch, bad witch, in-between? & i know it doesn't matter. i'm a happy old woman, with cat, with garden, of modest means and expectations, will the iris open, will the spider catch the fly?

her parrot accomplice

MAY COLVEN

False Sir John a wooing came
To a Maid of beauty fair,
May Colven was
this Ladys name,
Her Fathers only Heir.

He woo'd her butt,
he woo'd her ben,
He woo'd her in the Ha';
Until he got
this Lady's consent,
To mount and ride awa'.

He went down to
her Father's bower,
Where all the Steeds
did stand;
And he's taken one of
the best Steeds,
That was in her Father's hand.

He's got on, and she's got on,
And fast as they could flee,
Untill they came to a lonesome part,
A Rock by the side of the Sea.

Loup off the Steed says false Sir John,
Your bridal bed you see;
For I have drowned Seven Young Ladies,
The Eight one you shall be.

Cast off, Cast off, my May Colven,
All and your silken Gown,
For it's o'er good, and o'er costly,
To rot in the Salt Sea foam.

Cast off, Cast off,
my May Colven,
All and your
embroider'd shoen,
For they are o'er good,
and o'er costly
To rot in the Salt Sea foam.

O turn you about
O false Sir John,
And look to the leaf
of the Tree;
For it never became
a Gentle Man,
A naked Woman to see.

He turnd himself straight round about,
To look to the leaf
of the Tree;
So swift as
May Colven was,
To throw him
in the Sea.

O help, O help my May Colven,
O help, or else
I'll drown;
I'll take you home to your Father's bower
And set you down safe and sound.

No help, no help you false Sir John,
No help nor pity thee;
Tho' seven Kings Daughters you
have drown'd
But the Eight
shall not be me.

So she went on her Fathers Steed,
As swift as
she could flee;
And she came home to her Father's bower
Before it was
break of day.

Up then spoke
the pretty Parrot,
May Colven where
have you been,
What has become of
false Sir John,
That woo'd you
so late the streen.

He woo'd you butt,
he woo'd you ben,
He woo'd you in the Ha',
Until he got your own consent
For to mount and gang awa'.

O hold your tongue my pretty Parrot,
Lay not the blame upon me,
Your Cup shall be of the flowered Gold,
Your Cage of the Root of the Tree.

Up then spake
the King himself,
In the Bed Chamber
where he lay,
What ails the Pretty Parrot,
That prattles so long or day.

There came a Cat
to my Cage Door
It almost a worried me,
And I was calling
on May Colven,
To take the Cat from me.

(there are many versions of this, all anonymous)

on the first day

first, yes. i know this is the same song as yesterday. but it's the version i wanted off this very wonderful tribute to joseph spence cd that i have called "out on the rolling sea." since it's all music from the bahamas, i thought the singers were from there too. uh, nope. blue murder.

second-- i and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of folks here in berkeley followed our annual new year's day ritual: we went shopping for calendars at the pegasus bookstore annual calendar sale: 3 for $10! what a great lot of calendars i found there yesterday. now this one from the carl larsson calendar -- what is that pink thing??! in front of the lamp.

i also found one of 'impressionist photographers'! this gertrude kasebier is hanging on my wall at this moment, and if i lean my head just a little to the left i see her there.

while i was poking around in the piles and piles of calendars, i started talking with a woman about design. turns out her father did this, among numerous other WPA posters! one of my favorites! wouldn't it be cool if our obama puts artists to work as part of new deal redux?

now, a couple of days ago, you know, the one with the crescent moons, i had an image i was going to use till i suddenly remembered it was new, as opposed to the 100 years old that it looks.

his name is john martinez.

these are both images from a long series he did about operas.

look how amazingly he manages to meld jugendstil, art nouveau and other japonisme styles.

only the wind comes

I INVITE THE ANGEL GABRIEL,
BUT ONLY THE WIND COMES

The wind again, this time wheeling
down from the northwest
and dumping rain, the wind-chimes in the yard
banging like hammers
and the gates slamming on their hinges.
And then it has passed
and it‘s time to go outside and
walk in the winter grass, the color now
of old celery and cardboard.
The yard is littered with tangerines,
hard and green.
Now it’s time to advance and gather them up. I am
not the chosen one to whom the Angel speaks.
I don’t mind. I don’t
believe I could bear up under that kind of pressure.
I don’t mind
speaking to the Magnificence,
night after night, without an answer.

Something was loose in the yard, that’s clear — something that asks
for a new way of speaking, which I haven’t figured out yet. Here
is a shingle gloved in moss and here is a branch in white fracture
recalling a human bone, and here is the sun breaking the cumulous
tower and here is the heart I abandon more or less regularly, lying in
a nest of wet leaves. I don’t mind. I pick them all up. I carry them.
I say a few words, but only in the eternal space in my head. It’s fine.
The sun keeps shouldering through, the crows are finding their wires,
the sparrows are eternal. The air is charged with incongrous smells,
clean linen, for instance, and sharp oxygen, and wet earth. I am
a presence among the scoured ruins. It’s time to stoop and collect.
It’s time to be quiet again, and poke and prod. It’s time to find
baskets for all this smitten fruit, round and perfect and shining.

Frank X. Gaspar


THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN
PLENTY AND THANKFULNESS

Today when I framed
two crows
in the notch of the ash tree,

I thought of order.
Rain
was in the forecast

and presto, rain. Then
three crows
in the field tilted the world

as if imbalance were
a blessing
dropped in the cup I keep

for blessings. Then
four crows
in the grass, five

on the wire, my plate
heaped up
with six crows.

And to give thanks,
to tell God
six crows were enough,

I lit prayer papers
in the garden—
their orange slippers,

their black, abstract
petals like
anti-confetti, like

hopeful ash, like
a thousand crows.
Then, a thousand crows.

Keith Ratzlaff



Colorado Review Volume XXX, Number 2 Summer 2003

sinbad the buddha

i am not a hokusai expert, so i am still vulnerable to the wonder encountering a new area of his talents fosters. so when moon river mentioned a site with books illustrated by him, i went to check it out.

my first reaction was that these were different from any hokusai i remembered seeing; they were more narrative, with more depth to the characters. two books are offered. one is a collection of limerick-type poems (humorous, perhaps a bit ribald), none of which could i find a translation for. though the women featured look neither ribald not humorous, they do look more like real women than one usually finds in ukiyo-e.

my second impression, though, was that the illustrations in the other book(s), the life story of the buddha, reminded me of the illustrations from the era called the golden age of illustration.

when i first saw this one i immediately thought of s. clay wilson's 'the checkered demon.' but as i paged through the illustrations from edmond (or edmund--he changed it) dulac, i began to feel that the similarities were even more striking.

hmmmm, i thought... could dulac have seen them? "Dulac was born in Toulouse, France, 22 October 1882, the son of a commercial traveller. He began drawing and painting at a very early age, and his holidays were spent copying Japanese prints." 1

discussing another artist, bpib says, "Goble [was] well-versed in watercolor techniques and very influenced by the same Japanese techniques that fascinated Dulac." (though they don't mention this in dulac's bio).

according to wikipedia, "The Jātaka Tales [the books hokusai was illustrating] refer to a voluminous [547] body of folklore-like literature concerning the previous births (jāti) of the Buddha."

hmmmm, i wondered... could there be any actual relationship between these stories and the sinbad ones? or was the similarity of the illustrations merely coincidence, or perhaps inspiration?





"I have now followed the Western history of the Buddhist Book of Birth Stories along two channels only. Space would fail me, and the reader's patience perhaps too, if I attempted to do more. But I may mention that the inquiry is not by any means exhausted. A learned Italian has proved that a good many of the stories of the hero known throughout Europe as Sinbad the Sailor are derived from the same inexhaustible treasury of stories witty and wise." wrote thomas william rhys davids in 1880. 2

"These 'Jakata stories' about the Buddha were translated into Persian, Greek, Latin and Hebrew and formed the basis of some of the most famous story sequences of the Common Era - Sinbad, the Arabian Nights and Aesop's Fables - the latter being compiled by a monk in 14th century Byzantium."3

as has been mentioned here before, dulac was certainly not the only illustrator of his time to be influenced by the japanese prints. to mention only two others here by no means excludes anyone. in fact one would be hard pressed to find one who wasn't.

as dulac, along with arthur rackham and harry clarke and countless others demonstrate with their numbers, the phenomenon of japonisme was deeper and more labyrinthine than we have even begun to discuss.