Once Upon a Time in Vancouver

…Thousands of kids would get together to dance until the wee hours to the throbbing electro beats of the best DJs in the world.  But with age, tastes change, responsibilities increase, waists get wider and pants get narrower.

In September of 2008,  I logged on to ticketmaster.ca to see if anyone interesting was coming to town and almost wet my Depends when I spotted tickets on sale for Pendulum,  my favorite Drum and Bass band!  I had been promoting this band relentlessly since I’d first heard their phenomenal 2005 album, Hold Your Color.  Pendulum’s new album, In Silico, already a favourite, had a more guitar-driven, less electronic feel. The concert was described as a live act rather than a DJ show—instead of spinning records they’d be playing instruments!  Unfortunately, they were coming to Toronto, not Vancouver.  Luckily, my husband travels a lot for work and collects air miles.  I crossed my fingers and bought the tickets. 

 A Mini Vacation

 We arrived in Toronto on Friday October 3rd at around 6 p.m. EST, rented a car, and proceeded to the Hilton Hotel Toronto.  We went for dinner at a narrow little box called Lolita’s Lust.  Even at 9 p.m. it was packed, so we ordered martinis at the bar and soaked up the atmosphere.  Say what you want about Toronto, it does have its own fast, jagged vibe. About 45 minutes and two more martinis later, we stumbled to our table. By the time our entrées arrived, my husband and I were giddy and hungry enough to chow down on our fellow diners.

 Eat, shop, eat, barf!

We slept in until 1 p.m., and then went to a breakfast joint called Eggspectations. My husband believes that breakfast should be the first meal of the day, no matter what time it is when you wake up—and bacon is mandatory.

We spent the next several hours  shopping on Yonge Street, the longest street in the world. Normally, I can’t stand to shop for more than five minutes, but I needed an outfit for the show.  I picked up two pairs of cargo pants at Buffalo Jeans and we both found Hurley t-shirts at a skate store called the Boathouse.   My dog’s name is Hurley and yes, I am that cheesy!   I cannot resist the lure of books, so we went to a huge Indigo bookstore where I bought American Gods by Neil Gaiman to read on the flight back home.   Then we went to HMV to see if there were any new movies and TV series we could pick up. My husband threw up after eating at Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse—the wine did not agree with him. Possibly, it agreed a bit too much with me.  He had to lie down for a few hours.  Old age is hard.

 Rock Hard, but Don’t Break a Hip

 At around 11 p.m., we hailed a cab and asked the driver to take us to Koolhaus, the club where Pendulum was playing.  The driver nodded, and dropped us off at a completely different club. Thanks, dude!  Now $15 poorer and a lot grumpier, we took another cab to the club. 

Koolhaus was smaller than I expected, which is probably why it looked so full.  On one hand it was cool to see the diverse range of fans that Pendulum attracted. On the other— I had  phat pants older than some of these kids! There was a gaggle of goth kids dressed in white face paint and black eye make up with bullet holes drawn on their right temples.  I’ll take candy ravers any day.  At least they bring snacks.

Pendulum came out at 1:30 a.m. Unlike some bands (ahem, White Zombie) they were able to perfectly reproduce their album live. They had lots of energy and didn’t seem phased that the crowd was probably much smaller than they were used to.   Rob Swire’s voice sounded amazing and the sound was excellent.  It was a fast, tight set, drawn mostly from In Silico, but with a few key songs (Hold Your Colour, Streamline), from Hold Your Colour. I screamed myself hoarse belting out the tunes, though I was too short to really see the band over the crowd. We stuck to the back of the club with the other two Pendulum fans in our age group, where there was better ventilation and more room to dance.  In our twilight years, we can brag to our future children that we earned our bunions and bad backs busting a move to the best techno acts in the world.

 

So I’m sitting and waiting for the interview and the receptionist is coming over
‘Hello, they will be with you when they are ready’ she said
And quickly turned her head and walked and stalked back to her desk
It was funny coz it wAs only five feet away
What a strange corporate mix surrounded me
When they are ready was irritating me and I got up to leave
Just then a crimson tinged and over-fried leaf blew right pass me and landed on the receptionist’s head
It made me smile and so for intrigue alone I chose to stay a while
When the time had come over again she came with twisted fingers and gnarly clothes and spoke with long, gentle strokes of her magic tongue
‘They will see you now’, she purred.
When inside three bodies rested in gothic chairs and sparkled
I sat down as if I had found the sand bank on iwo jima
And they caressed my intelligence in order for it’s secrets to be revealed
And then I had this image of a dashboard telling the story of a car going nowhere
And the small goth noticed and growled
This was like a partial hell waiting for the bell to be tolled and the soul to be rolled into a small box with ten locks interlocked with ten other boxes and the keys held in the tomb of a hundred Levites who were scattered across land and sea
It was time to go
I don’t want this job
I don’t care about the three goths and the feline receptionist
I don’t see how the intricate and paramount tasks that you ask of me will really accomplish anything at all
I am just a ball rolling down a perpetual hill
Sitting here has dried my skin and made me ill
So thanks but no thanks
And I stood up to leave
I turned for the door and walked but inside I was running
‘Wait’ in unison they screamed
I turned and the three had become one beautiful precious stone holding the dreams and travels of every perfect soul
The dashboard was pulling me but the stone was dragging me
I lifted my hands to the sky (metaphorically through the roof)
And I just let go
I let go of the decision
I let go of the choice
I let go of the weight
Pulled and dragged
Rag and dull
Beauty and hag
Dragged and pulled
And then
In the place where quarks have moved into the palace and commanded time and matter to withdraw
In that sort of place
I became face to face with The Precious Stone.

fala galera do nosso querido blog, a banda The Goths de Campinas está procurando um novo guitarrista base, com pelo menos 5 anos de experiencia e que cante bem,  ja gravamos o CD, estamos apenas finalizando a capa para o lançamento, guitarristas interessados entrem em contato através do nosso Orkut – Banda The Goths, nosso site http://www.thegoths.com.br ou e-mail thegoths@thegoths.com.br

Contamos com sua resposta
Obs: Os dias para testes serão marcados pela banda o mais breve possível
Equipamentos do candidato: Amplificador de no mínimo 100W RMS e guitarra de marca boa

Abraços a Todos

Should Christians read, view, endorse the current vampire books/films?
(polls)

Stung by criticism that they should pick a target other than bogans, the writers of the popular blog “Things Bogans Like” have been working overtime on this new concept. To view the “Things Goths Hate” project and discover their hates, enter here. There are over 30 entries so far, with more to come.

Day 63 – Ken here
(DEF v.1, ch.14, pp.430-440)

The Goths are like the last siut you'll ever own - they appear again, and again, and again (Men in Black poster from film).

The Story

Historical Note on Sources, or Why Not to trust Comedians and Priests
Having survived using the dread Augustan Histories for the first 14 chapters or so of Gibbon (which were about as accurate as a National Lampoon series on Roman History), one would think that more reputable sources might be forthcoming. Unfortunately, as the Augustan Histories cease about the time of Constantine, we start getting more and more christian writers (sometimes writing centuries after the fact), which clouds issues even more.

It’s not their choice of religion, but their motives and (oftentimes) lack of a classical education that render them less than usable. Christian historians tend to use history as a means to proselytize, preach, encourage brethren in their faith, or muse on the motives and operations of divine justice, rather than attempt to report events. They are also absolutely hostile towards pagans, pagan emperors, and anyone who had ever persecuted the early christian church (see the previous post on the death of Galerius). So the mind-numbingly detailed sifting work – separating fact from emotional personal attacks, continues.

Valeria (Galeria Valeria) - wife of Galerius, daughter of Diocletian - given in an arranged marriage, she was killed with her mother in a political purge after wandering as fugitives for more than a year

After Galerius died (of the infestation of worms – see previous post), Maximin Daia demanded that Valeria marry him (to further cement his own hold on the throne in the East). Valeria refused, and Maximin confiscated her wealth and imprisoned her and her mother (Prisca) on false charges of adultery. Diocletian petitioned to allow them to live with him in his palace in Split (Salona), but was refused.

Upon Maximin Daia’s death, Licinius killed all living relatives of Galerius and Maximin Daia, prompting Valeria and Prisca to wander the empire for 15 months, fugitives from the law (the imperial law). They were apprehended in Thessalonica (in Constantine’s territory!) and immediately beheaded and their bodies thrown into the sea. A very sad, but very common story in the later Roman empire.

This from Wiki on Valeria: “When Galerius died, in 311, Licinius was entrusted with the care of Valeria and her mother Prisca. The two women, however, fled from Licinius to Maximinus Daia, whose daughter was betrothed to Candidianus. After a short time, Valeria refused the marriage proposal of Maximinus, who arrested and confined her in Syria and confiscated her properties. At the death of Maximinus, Licinius ordered the death of both women. Valeria fled, hiding for a year, until she was found in Thessaloniki. She was captured by the mob, beheaded in the central square of the city, and her body thrown in the sea. Canonized as christian saint with her mother.”

Saint Alexandra of Rome - also known as Prisca, wife of Diocletian - 19th century painting

Maximin Daia - a powerful, rough, and doomed young emperor

okay, i’m only a mere 14 year old girl and I have been gothic for more than a year. But everyone I know thinks that you have to be depressed. I tell them that you don’t but they won’t listen; even my friends who are emo and skater call me a poser sometimes! I read everything you said and you prove my point. But they still make fun of me and it has me worried. Am i a poser but I just dont know it? I mean I can have really fun and happy moments buts just because i have a life! What do you think?

Yes, you can and should be happy gothic. you dont have to be depressed just to justify that you are a goth.
 
people will always use stereotypes to label other people. i dont think that you should try and convince them that you are happy or act depressed just because they expect it from a gothic person.
 
The best thing to do it to live your life as you want to live it. dont care about what other people are saying about you and dont try to prove anything just live your gothic life in your own special way, and those who dont understand dont deserve to be your true friends.

A most enjoyable weekend down in Southampton, pubs and clubs for Steve’s birthday, pizza and streetfighter. Ended up in The Dungeon, a goth/metal club which plays rock/metal/goth tracks some of which I recognise, some of which I could name. The thing that got me was watching the people dancing. They don’t dance like normal people should dance; it’s all about posing and large personal space. People jerk around throwing limbs all over so that should you want to dance with someone you have to stay about 4 foot apart. It’s very much like a dance club where everyone drinks instead of taking ecstasy and people throw shapes but don’t hug.

What’s the point of dancing if you’re doing it by yourself and only allowing others to sit back and watch? Where’s the fun in that? What am I missing here?
This complaining from a man known to do the worm, not exactly a good move for more than one person…

I’ll post my record later when I’m not in a rush. College physics is wrecking shop and I gotta work today. Tough, right?

Bears (4-4)/ 49ers (3-5)- first, this is one of those stupid NFL network only, Thursday night games. Really? You mean I gotta eat roughly 45 chicken wings from Thursday to Monday? NFL Network is an aid to morbid obesity. Boycott. This game will be good to see who will implode first. I’m guessing Bears fall apart. 49ers, please don’t let me down.

Jaguars (4-4)/ Jets (4-4)- Kohl’s leather trench wearing murderer v. slobby dude with untucked and wrinkled Hagar button ups. You two make me ashamed to be a human. I’m siding murderer (Jags) since murder is so hot right now.

Lions (1-7)/ Vikings (7-1)- one shitty dome teams plays a good dome team part 1. Vikes.

Buccaneers (1-7)/ Dolphins (3-5)- Florida teams get outta here. These teams make my minds hurt. Dolphins. Save everyone the grief and just go to Epcott Center.

Broncos (6-2)/ Redskins (2-6)- you know, I would like to see a three game skid outta the Broncos but these ‘Skins ain’t shit right now.

Falcons (5-3)/ Panthers (3-5)- Panthers are such a non factor. Do they have fans besides people that receive aid from the Red Cross? Falcons….easy.

Bills (3-5)/ Titans (2-6)- all cutters are on board with Grim Vince and the Titans. True story; there is some girl in my college math class that was informing me about her bout with depression and more interestingly, celebrity cutters. Did you know Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp were both cutters? Allegedly John’s scars helped him land the job in Edward Scissorhands. This stupid fact brought to you by Goth Entertainment  Tonight is waay more interesting than this Titans win.

Saints (8-0)/ Rams (1-7)- one shitty dome team plays a good dome team, round 2. Saints.

Bengals (6-2)/ Steelers (6-2)- this one is for all the marbles in the division. Bengals can sew this up with a win that they will not get. Steelers secondary is alive and well. There’s gonna be a showdown in the steel city. Goddamn, I have to work…

Chiefs (1-7)/ Raiders (2-6)- there are days when I get down on humanity. I went to Ikea last weekend and people were crazed. I was really pissed off when I left due to people acting like heathens. Tons of out of touch suburbanites being out of touch, walking toward light fixtures like it was the light at the end of the tunnel without any regard toward people that might cross their paths. There were cripples everywhere. There were people who couldn’t control their crippled children. That place is like Lowes with a maze in it meets Dawn of the Dead. If I were 75, hopeless with nothing to do I would hang out and eat in the cafe all day and watch people act like animals. That hopelessness encompasses this game. Switch channels, there will be no highlites. Raiders.

Seahawks (3-5)/ Cardinals (5-3)- Seahawks are 0-3 on the road. Cards are 1-3 at home. Cards?

Eagles (5-3)/ Chargers (5-3)- two teams that can’t string together decent wins. I really don’t want to write about this. Eagles.

Cowboys (6-2)/ Packers (4-4)- people were stoked on the Pack for this season and they have been a let down. Cowboys are going to be all over them and their pourous offensive line.

Patriots (6-2)/ Colts (8-0)- best rivalry of the past 8 years or so. I’m glad this is the late game. I like the Colts in this but if there is anyone that can mess up a perfect season, it would be the Pats.

Ravens (4-4)/ Browns (1-7)- I’d be pretty pissed off if I were a Browns fan. My mom was smart and jumped ship when the original Browns moved to B-more. Ravens will look really good against the Browns but that’s like saying, which would you eat brains or dog shit?

Tout d’abord, t’inquiète pas, je suis vivant. Je ne dicte pas ce billet à l’aide de clignements de paupières.

Même si on va dire que j’aurais pu.

Message pour mes proches: je suis vivant et en bonne santé, mes bras et mes jambes sont toujours là, mon sens de l’humour aussi (désolé).

Ce soir, j’étais au concert des Ogres de Barback (je te raconterai, j’entame une semaine de concerts géniaux…), une fois terminé, je suis allé rejoindre des amis dans un bar rue St Denis (non pas la même que toi, parisien…). Quelques bières modérément consommées plus tard, je décide de prendre le bus pour rentrer chez moi. Inutile de te dire qu’il est tard et que les enfants sont couchés depuis un bout de temps.

Et bah figure toi que ce soir, j’ai fait une merveilleuse découverte. Il y a une espèce de grotte bar, qui s’appelle “Katacombes” sur le chemin du bus. J’avais jamais vu. Et j’aurais préféré pas voir en fait. Ce soir, il y avait comme un attroupement de clones de Tokyo Hotel en version pas content, chevelus et métallisés, hurlant à la mort comme si on leur avait piqué leur goûter à la récré, bière et autres à la main. Colliers et bracelets à pic, têtes d’Halloween de rigueur, fringues déchirées, yeux révulsés… On se serait cru dans Resident Evil. Moi, à ce moment là, je me demandais bien ce qui se passait.

Alors comme un con, je me suis approché. Tu me diras, j’avais pas le choix, j’étais obligé de passer par là pour prendre le bus. J’ai compris que quelque chose tournait pas rond quand 25 d’entre eux ont traversé la route en courant alors que le bonhomme était rouge – chose inconcevable en Québéquie, particulièrement dans ce quartier qui regorge de flics un peu tatillons sur le sujet-. Moi je traverse, en regardant le sol genre “j’existe pas et je veux pas vous piquer votre goûter“. Manque de bol ils ont décidé de traverser en même temps que moi. C’est simple, je me suis retrouvé au milieu d’une horde de cheveux gras déchainés qui courait vers je sais pas où. Ouai, visiblement ils étaient hyper énervés et tout ça mais pas moyen de savoir après qui ils en avaient.

J’ai quand même fini par arriver de l’autre côté de la route et là j’ai compris. Ils se foutaient sur la gueule avec une bande de skins un peu old-school, du genre 45 ans, uniformes en jean, rangers au mollets, rasés avec des têtes de pas contents non plus. Là je me suis dit qu’il fallait défintivement que je me casse parce que ça commençait à sentir le sapin. Re-manque de bol, je continuais d’avancer moi, et là je croise deux spécimen de vampires à la Twilight, genre pas contents et “pourquoi tu me regardes comme ça, tu veux me prendre mon gouter?”. La fraîcheur de leur état n’éyant d’égal que leur haleine, y’en a un des deux qui s’est cassé la gueule (le cocktail alcool-ecsta, ça doit paaaas être bien…). Alors là, occasion saisie, fuite en avant et rangeage derrière voiture de flic qui passait dans le coin. Voiture de flic opportune puisque derrière moi, ça commençait à sortir les chaines et les barres de fer.

Bref, faut que je trouve une alternative de trajet pour prendre le bus le vendredi soir, parce qu’il parait qu’il y a messe noire hebdomadaire.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my misadventures.  The last time was New Orleans.  I must make up for this.

Friday
I got off work as usual and headed towards the Amish market, the market they dared open up in my neighbourhood that is responsible equally for making me fat and making me eat better.  Making me fat because of their insane assortment of pies, cakes and other delectables.  Making me eat better because I’ve been gorging myself on their fresh fruit and vegetables and their impeccable cuts of meat.  I don’t shop anywhere else even though their prices are exorbitant.

Came home and then got the kid ready so we could go up the Chinese buffet.  That’s our thing on Friday evening, eat at the buffet and play a game of chess.  I like going up there because the food is good and it’s cheap as hell and I can eat as much as my stomach can handle.  I am trying to teach him the basics of chess, but he makes a poor opponent.  Not that I’m some Bobby Fischer chess champion, but I do want to give my brain a workout a little bit.  He fails to recognise my traps even though they are blatantly obvious and poorly planned.  But then again, I shouldn’t be too hard on the kid; he’s only been playing for two weeks.

After dinner, we went to Columbia mall.  I bought tickets for Michael Jackson’s This Is It. I was smart to arrive early.  Parking at Columbia is always a disaster.  I also wanted to take a turn around the mall just for window shopping sake, but I wound up having to cuss at him because he always acts out whenever he goes somewhere.  In the beginning, it was cute because he never been anywhere in his life, but now, it’s old.  Shitting on yourself every time you go to the mall is getting on my nerves.  No, he is not literally shitting on himself; it’s just something I say to indicate that someone is either in great shock or excitement.  He was embarrassed because I made him wear his school uniform as punishment for misbehaving.  I took away all his street clothes, so now he may only wear his school clothes if he wants to go somewhere.  If he doesn’t like it, then he can stay home.  He said he felt like everybody was staring at him and he doesn’t understand why I made him do that.  Well, I didn’t make him do that; he made himself do it when he decided to rough another boy up in the school bathroom over a cheap $5 watch.  Long story, and I don’t feel like getting into it.

He then acted like an asshole even more when we got to the movies.  He has this problem where he cannot stand for more than 3 minutes.  He has to lean on everything and I can’t stand it.  At home, he leans all over the walls.  There are handprints everywhere and I cannot take it.  Then he slouches with his hands in his pockets.  He has no idea how slovenly he looks.  He asks me all the time, “What’s wrong with that?”  You look like Bum Fights, that’s what.

Anyway, I refused to let him ruin Michael Jackson for me.  The “movie” was excellent.  It wasn’t a movie, per se, it was more like a small documentary of everything he was hoping to accomplish.  I feel really badly for Michael, that he could not live to realise his dream, but that’s what happens when you’re a crackhead.  I love MJ forever, but I am not blind to his faults and vices.  Who knows about the kiddie molestation?  Who knows about his father abusing him?  Who knows about anything?  All those drugs.  Whether they were prescribed or not, irrelavant, but look what has happened now.  Your one chance to redeem yourself, wasted.  Oh, MJ.  What am I gonna do without you?  Watching the concert outtakes, I was depressed because I saw for my own eyes how wonderful this concert was really gonna be.  I never got a chance to see him live, and he’s really the only artist I would consider plunking down large sums of money to see.  I wouldn’t spring $50 to go see Mariah Carey and she’s my second favourite artist, but I was willing to fly across the pond and spend thousands of dollars having a European adventure with my sister.

We had huge plans.  Fly to London and tour the UK.  Go see Wacko Jacko in concert, buy a whole bunch of lame ass souvenirs.  Then we were going to take the bullet across the Channel into Paris and have a French Escapade.  It was going to cost us almost $10,000, but it was so worth it.  I was already in the planning stages when he died.  I had contacted a travel agent and told her what I wanted.  She came back with a price tag of $9800.  Totally worth it.  We might still go, but it’s not going to be the same.

Saturday
I started Saturday off slowly because I knew I was going to be out all night for Hallowe’en festivities.  This weekend more than ever, I realise I need some friends.  Where to meet people these days?  I went to the mall…alone.  Tried on clothes but didn’t have a friend to tell me if I looked fat in the skanky sweater dress the Chinese lady persuaded me to buy.

I went up to Security because even though I hate the toilet that is Baltimore, those cheap ass skanky stores are good troves for goth fashion.  I saw this cute military style dress but I thought I looked just a little too fat in it.  Right when I was leaving, the woman was like, I have new dress.  You try.  I tried it.  I still felt fat, but I bought it anyway.  Thanks to eight layers of Spanx, I didn’t look half bad.  It was horrendously short, but I have great gams, so who cares.  I’m single and ready to mingle.  Too bad there’s not much to mingle with.

Fixed dinner for the kid and lounged on my couch watching Sense and Sensiblity until it was time for me to get ready.  I bought coloured hair weave at Security so now I have a new piece for club nights.  I might actually wear it to work.  Yeah, I’m in to that.  The kid liked it.  He said it was bizarre but nice.  Thanks.

I can tell the economy must be hitting us all hard because Hallowe’en on a Saturday at the goth club usually PACKS the place.  Last year I could hardly move but there was actually room to dance this time.  I guess cuz the weather was nice, most of the people loitered outside smoking their lives away.  The costumes were especially horrendous.

I should have taken pictures, but I was too lazy.  Some of us don’t actually dress up; we just put on extra special goth clothes.  That’s what I do.  I don’t wear a costume because I’m already goth.  Hallowe’en is everyday for me.  So there was this one chick in the typical goth girl outfit, very short miniskirt with latex panties and some type of bra top.  I guess she called herself a schoolgirl dominatrix.  Okay, so you know, if you are overweight, you’re overweight and you should wear clothes accordingly.  Nobody is saying that you should come out in a plastic bag, but if your skirt is the size of a bra top you should probably re think it.  Her ass wasn’t hanging out the BOTTOM of the skirt, it was hanging out the TOP.  Seriously.

There was the usual mix of half-dressed sluts.  Why is Hallowe’en the excuse for women to dress like the whores they’ve always wanted to be?  If you want to be skanky, be skanky on July 28 and April 3, not just October 31.  At any rate, they did the costume contest.  Some guy dressed up like Poison Ivy won.  He had presence so he deserved it.  Honourable mentions include Tinker Bell and these two people that came in that looked kind of like 19th century San Franciscans.  I don’t know how to explain.

I left early because I do not like being on the road with drunks.  Plus it was Daylight Savings and I wanted to use that extra hour to get more sleep.  The kid was wide awake and I was hungry so we rode up the street to the diner.  Came back home, bellies full and crashed out.

Sunday
The original plan was for me and Trysh to go see Chris Rock’s Good Hair but we never quite made it that far.  We planned to meet at Columbia Mall around 5 and take a turn around the mall before going to the show, but we didn’t get there until around 530.  We did stroll the mall until we were asked to leave because the mall was closing.  I know malls close early on Sundays, but 6 o’clock seemed extra early.  Oh well.  It’s funny how you find a lot of things to buy when you’re being rushed.  I already spent enough money so I guess it was just as well.

Because I was hungry, we decided to skip the movie and we went to Baltimore instead, to the diner and sat in there for hours on end talking about everything under the moon.  Of course, everywhere I go I have to be overly excessive.  My order to the waitress was convoluted because I wanted to order something I know was on the menu but even the people who had been working there for years on end didn’t believe was on the menu.  After much consultation, they found out that my item really did exist.

So there.

And then, of course, I needed it to be all special.  The lady was like, “You are so difficult.”  Oh, you don’t even know the half of it.  At any rate, we got our food and we sat there for like two, almost three hours talking about stuff.  Deployments, boyfriends, friends who really aren’t friends, careers, travelling, interracial relationships, being a dissenter and all kinds of crap. 

Naturally, she asked me what was going on between me and a certain person.  You know, it’s not really anything.  I don’t have anything against her, it’s just that we probably should have never been friends in the first place.  We’re worlds apart and that crap about opposites attract only works in the movies.  So, that’s it in a nutshell.  When you’re a mover and shaker and the other one is floating in her own vomit, well, not exactly a match made in heaven.

After dinner, I headed home, watched a little TV and had a restless night trying to sleep.

St Mary's churchyard, Whitby

<For quick links on where we went in Whitby, scoot to the bottom. For general ramblings read on!>

Now, what with Halloween approaching and suchlike, it seemed like a good idea to trot off to Whitby, on the North East coast of the UK. It’s famous for quite a few things, but fish & chips and being the setting for large parts of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ are probably the main ones. With that in mind, Diceman, the Bear and The Director anticipated much spookiness as we headed over the moors.

In summer, the journey over to Whitby is glorious. Yorkshire’s moors are almost unfairly beautiful, splashed with purple and broken up by amusingly suicidal sheep lining up to laugh at the Hole of Horcum (Diceman is definitely too old to find this name amusing. Definitely). In the autumn it’s a different, more dramatic story – low skies, blasts of rain, the occasional rainbow and giant black clouds rolling towards the cliffs like an avalanche. Your first glimpse of Whitby is the silhouette of the abbey, skeletal against the sky, before you come down from the heather and into the town. Goth-tastic.

After that, however, it’s not a scary place at all, apart from the monstrous 60s office block a bunch of boneheaded town planners dropped into the middle of things. Instead it’s a jumbled mass of red-roofed buildings mingling with crumbling (but still wistfully glamorous) hotels, a snug harbour where a replica of James Cook’s ‘Endeavour’ reminds visitors of the town’s other famous name, and a slew of fish & chip shops, hippy boutiques and the odd arcade plonked towards the end of the pier. Whitby’s got a cobbled, tea-room charm but doesn’t want you to forget that it’s also a working fishing town – chippies boast ‘best in town according to the locals’ signs and the Whitby Gazette is everywhere to remind you that life goes on regardless of your holiday. It’s fair enough – a town doesn’t stare down the barrel of the North Sea for its entire life, getting raided by Vikings, shot at by German battleships and invaded every year by hordes of Goths, without developing a certain kind of weatherbeaten welcome.

But there’s definitely a welcome here, however different. The grizzled chap in the pub who recommended a type of unpronounceable whisky to me, or the long-suffering barman he’d been chewing the ear of, for example; or the blustering cake shop lady cheerily bellowing about the daftness of these ‘wheat intolerant ones’ as she gloated over something fabulously unsuitable for them; all were splendid.

But what of the spookiness? Well, staying in the kitschest, cutest, four-poster-beddest little boutique room didn’t swoop a cloak of dread over things for starters, and nor did the pretty little courtyard it overlooked, complete with trailing plants, fuchsias and quaint little wholefood shop attached to it (more of that anon). In fact, there are only the faintest of nods to the Count in town – a Dracula exhibition promising Christopher Lee’s cape, a sinister looking sweet shop and a couple of sexually ambiguous goths were all we spotted. It changes when you climb the 199 steps to St Mary’s church and the Abbey, though.

Is it spooky up there because I’ve read Dracula, or is Dracula spooky because it so perfectly evokes what it’s like up there? Hard to tell. But there’s definitely something more mournful than your average churchyard about it – perhaps it’s the obdurate stockiness of the church itself, with the gutted remains of the Abbey frowning down on it; it could be the sheer number of crooked tombstones, all pocked and ravaged by the elements; or it could be the location, teetering over the North Sea – from up there, it swirls like mercury around the rocks, thick and freezing cold.

Maybe it’s all of that, but really for Diceman it’s the church itself, which is very strange indeed. Its proportions are somehow wrong and ungainly, and inside there’s none of the comfortable serenity that even Diceman, a bit of a heathen, can feel in churches. Instead it feels like a lifeboat: a thing that exists only to save you from terror, that can offer no more reassurance than that it might – and only might – deliver you from the tempest. It’s a place built to honour the God of the edges of the world, a maker of oceans and undertows and storms, a place for people to shelter from higher powers. Inside, the pews are boxed in and high sided, the congregation cattled in to face each other as if in dinghys after a wreck, crammed together in whatever order would fit, with the pulpit haphazardly aloft in the centre. Some of the box-pews are labelled ‘Strangers’; above everything a hanging mezzanine helps stuff in more of the shipwrecked. You don’t go here to seek comfort from God: you go because you’re afraid of him. Little wonder Dracula’s arrival and subsequent lurking around this fearful place was so chilling.

The Abbey, on the other hand, is stirring and atmospheric, but certainly not as forbidding. Unless you count the territorial duck that shouted at us and made The Director scream. What’s remarkable is how it endures, despite centuries of pummeling by wind and sea, plundering by greedy kings and gentry, and battering by artillery (the German battleship actually hit it with a shell). The only thing not damaging it are geese: there are none here, and none ever fly over it, apparently. It seems that one had the temerity to ‘bomb’ an Abbess many centuries back; the outraged lady cursed all geese to fall dead if they ever approached the abbey. ‘Love they neighbour’ obviously doesn’t apply to winged things…

Whitby-ness!

The Shepherd’s Purse B&B

Very cute, VERY pink, and very charming – we arrived to find our cosy little room all warm and lit with fairy lights. There were suitably battered old copies of Edgar Allen Poe by the bed, loads of Rajasthani blankets to ward off the October chill and very friendly owners. However, someone should remind them that if you call yourself a Bed and Breakfast, people are going to want feeding in the morning. They don’t do breakfast. Doh! Instead, slightly bemused staff in the wholefood store that makes up the other half of the Purse empire will look at each other and say ‘it’s funny, everyone who stays here always wants to know where they can get breakfast.’ Happily, they knew just the place…

Java

Just up the winding hill from the harbourside, this little diner has got the retro thing right: high stools, long counters, neon colours and shiny metal, plus a lively atmosphere – but more importantly absolutely gigantic breakfast sandwiches. Diceman got thick slices of bacon and three huge slabs of excellent black pudding between toasted bread, all cooked perfectly without a trace of a greasy spoon. The coffee was great, too, and there was even a nutter talking to himself the whole time to add some colour. They squeeze their juice fresh, as well.

Marie Antoinette’s patisserie, 139 Church St

The only place Diceman has ever been where they add waffles to the top of cheesecake, just in case it wasn’t already decadent enough. Like everywhere on Church street it’s about as big as a phone box, but has loads of character. Upstairs there’s a creaky old gramophone amongst black and white Parisienne furniture and old pictures; downstairs the till is a push-button affair from the days before t’electric came. Every now and then they open the door to the baking room and smells of absurd deliciousness waft out.

Moutrey’s Italian Restaurant, 9 Grape Lane

‘How fresh is the seafood on your pizzas?’ quoth Diceman. It duly arrived stacked with prawns, squid, mussels and one whole little octopus in the middle, all fresh that day. Outstanding. The Director, a vegan, was less impressed; just as well I didn’t make them do the ‘Under the Sea’ song from Disney’s Little Mermaid, then…

Mr Chip’s fish & chips, Church St

Voted best in town by the locals according to the Whitby Gazette, this place isn’t as good as the Magpie Cafe, but is still very good indeed. You get the option of fish from sustainable species, instead of cod and haddock; Diceman had the sweet and flaky Panga, which I’m assured is a real fish, and was mightily impressed.

Ian Duhig

     
Ian Duhig has written five books of poetry. The last two of these, The Lammas Hireling and The Speed of Dark (both from Picador) were PBS Choices. His last published short story appeared in Comma’s The New Uncanny, which won the Shirley Jackson Best Anthology Award for 2008, while his most recent musical collaboration, a contrafacta with the Clerks called ‘After the Mass’, appears on their CD Don’t Talk – Just Listen, from Signum Classics, 2009. His next book of poetry is forthcoming from Picador, with the working title of Jericho Shanty.
    
    
goths
Ian Duhig
   
I love them. They bring a little antilife and uncolour
to the Corn Exchange on city centre shopping days
as if they had all just crawled out of that Ringu well,
so many Sadakos in monochrome horrow, dripping
silver jewellery down flea-market undead fashions.
They are the black that is always the new black,
their perfume lingers, freshly-turned-grave sweet.
    
Black sheep, they pilgrimage twice a year to Whitby,
through our landscape of dissolved monastery and pit,
which they will toast in cider’n'blackcurrant, vegan blood.
They danse macabre at gigs like the Dracula Spectacula.
Next day, lovebitten and wincing in the light, they take
photographs of each other, hoping they won’t develop.
    
   
Previously published in Stand.
   
Read more about Ian at Contemporary Writers, the Poetry Archive and PIW.

One of the great things about today’s society is that we are not all hemmed into feeling like we have to follow one trend. There is room for self expression and pretty much anything goes. In fact, the more you can make yourself look different the more widely you will be admired. This is in total contrast to the experience of many young people while I was growing up.

You don’t have to go far back when looking at fashions and trends to get to a time when literally everybody in particular age groups looked identical. They all wore the same style of clothing and they all thought that anyone that didn’t was odd. They would be ridiculed and made to feel odd, which was always unfair if your parents couldn’t afford the height of fashion.

Of course, there were always the fringe elements of society that would indulge in some way out stuff but they were few and far between and were seen as something of a social outcast. That has all changed now. There are kids in tracksuits, kids in goth clothing, punks, emos and those who like to follow your average high street fashion. However, all are accepted as normal forms of expression.

The goth clothing scene in particular has really taken a hold in the last few years. It is by no means new though. As far back as 1910 it can be said that a certain actress by the name of Theda Bara had her own sense of style and was a forerunner in goth clothing styles. Famous for her dark eye make-up and smouldering on screen appearance, she pretty much epitomises everything that Goths now stand for.

Although considered quite controversial at that time with her slightly vampire looking ways, Goths today have taken the goth clothing fashion to the next level. They have embraced the Victorian look that oozed sex appeal with the tight corsets for women and both sexes have a penchant for the contrast of harsh leather and spikes with the softer, more sensual aspects of lace, velvet and silks.

These elements bring a slightly romantic touch to goth clothing and shows that the image of Goths having some sort of death wish are undeserved. Many of them do have a fascination for the darker side of life. They often experience feelings of alienation from general society but the goth scene is a heady mix of eroticism, vampires, other worldliness, sexuality and alienation.

For those who feel this way, there is now an outlet and this exact outlet also brings with it a sense of belonging. They now have a much broader group of people with similar feelings and who express this in a similar way and as such, this brings that sense of belonging.

The goth culture has room for different types of self expressionism but a typical goth can be seen often with pale faces, either natural or made up and wearing black as a base. The hair is dyed in the extreme – either black of luminous pinks, reds or greens. They also favour extreme black make up and black nail polish.

Clothing that accentuates such as corsets or tight trousers are commonplace as are fabrics such as leather and lace. Attention is often drawn to themselves with piercings that look like spikes and frequently from the less than usual orifice!

Whatever the choice that a person makes in their fashion statement it is a good move that anything goes.

First off, props to “cheezburger” for the subtle yet heady commentary.  Keep ‘em coming, buddy.

Now, for today’s questions.  I’d like to try something a little different.  For the first part of our assignment, we will watch a short video.

OK, got that, everyone?  Now, I think we can all agree that this is the single greatest pop single of the 80’s — and possibly of all time.  Today’s questions have to do with the song’s content.

I don’t know when to start or when to stop
My luck’s like a button
I can’t stop pushing it
My head feels light
But I’m still in the dark
Seems like without tenderness there’s something missing
Tenderness
Where is the
Tenderness
Where is it?

I don’t know where I am but I know I don’t like it
I open my mouth and out pops something spiteful
Words are so cheap, but they can turn out expensive
Words like conviction can turn into a sentence

I held your hands
Rings but none on that finger
We danced and danced
But I was scared to go much further with it
Just half a chance
Make sure that one night you’re here,
But next night you’re not
It always leaves me searching for a little

Tenderness
Where is the
Tenderness
Where is the
Tenderness?

Whistling in the graveyard
Calling up your girlfriend
Just trying to make her understand
You’re squeezing the telephone like it was her hand
No question (so many questions)
She’s going to catch you out boy
It all seems so underhand
Now she’s the only thing that ever made you feel like a man, man
Madman, madman

Tenderness
Where is the
Tenderness
Tenderness
Tenderness
Where is it?

I held your hands
Rings but none on that finger
We danced and danced
But I was scared to go much further with it
Just half a chance
Make sure that one night you’re here,
But next night you’re not
It always leaves me searching for a little

Tenderness
Where is the
Tenderness?

I’m just sick to death of second best, pet
Why should the morning always find you unimpressed?
Is your love like a button?
You can’t stop pushing it?
Oh this all night longing can be such a long time

What is this song about?  Is this a guy who’s thinking about cheating on his lady friend?  Let me know.  Because if that’s what we think it’s about, I should probably change my Facebook profile, right?

You’ve heard the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together” right? The very old proverb that has been in use since the 16^th century, it’s a pretty simple concept; people with similarities, whether likes, dislikes or common interests, always seem to associate with each other.

What is it that makes us want to hang out with people who are like us; it seems so monotonous doesn’t it? Maybe even a little bit safe, or comfortable.

In my realm of living and breathing, I see this all the time. It’s kind of funny to watch people and the discomfort they seem to feel when someone who is different comes into the circle. It’s like they go from being completely normal too totally inept.

How do I talk to them? What do they like? Will they think I’m weird? They look mean…etc.

I’m sure we’ve all had moments like this. It’s not easy stepping outside your comfort zone, into a world of people you may not know how to interact with. I know there are times when I don’t like it. I automatically put someone in a box and don’t give myself a chance to get to know them. I assume they are a certain way, and then I assume I won’t like it and then I just continue on with my life.

Funny thing is this. Whenever I actually decide that I’m not really all that great, and go ahead and talk to somebody that I ordinarily wouldn’t…I find I really enjoy it! I like hearing about things I don’t normally hear about, or learning things from other people, or having a friend who is totally not what anyone would expect!

It all starts when we are very young. We are taught to put people into groups and to make sure we know which ones not to be around and which ones are okay. In schools you have the Goths, Preps, Tomboys, Nerds, Jocks, Cheerleaders, Losers, Bullies and everyone else in between. What would happen if people  past the façade of humanity, and what we’ve been taught, and looked a little deeper before jumping to conclusions about someone based on race, gender, religion, ethnicity or appearance? Would it be so bad to reach out a hand of kindness to someone who doesn’t fit into your version of the world?

“I can relate to anyone. I can hang out with stoners, skaters, surfers, stockbrokers, lawyers, athletes, rappers. I feel I can hang out with any group of people and find common ground to talk with them.”  - Barry Zito 

You may not need any new friends, or want any new “birds” in your flock, but someone else may need you. It’s not always about what we want, or what works for us, but about breaking barriers and doing something for someone else. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

Thanks for reading!

Bored riff

There’s a turf war in indie rock. Wavves vs. Black Lips. The scantly attended Wavves show at Emo’s last Saturday suggests Austin is a Black Lips town. All apologies.

It’s embarrasing to say and everything but Trent Reznor makes me weak at the knees. God Damn.Even the Henry-Rollins goth/bodybuilder flex he’s been on recently only registers as buff buff buff in my head.

This song sounds like a 90s Ace of Spades, don’tcha think?

Do you remember a time when all alternative music videos looked like the world was decaying? It was gloomy and it was great. I don’t actually remember it that well of course because i was only a nipper, but I wish I did. I think i’d fit much better into a world that seemed to be covered in a desaturated filter – like this:

Mannnn how much did you love THE CROW when you were 15. ALOT, that’s how much!
Someone commented on the video above:
‘maybe it’s because i saw this when i was still so young, but this movie, and the particular scene that features this song will forever remain in my consciousness, standing as THE unequivocal standard for emotional transfiguration and rebirth.’

Hahahaha. What a dolt. I totally thought that too when i was 14. What a twat I was.

I still think that My life with the thrill kill kult are awesome.

They were a bunch of satanists who wrote disco songs called shit like ‘I live for drugs’ ‘a daisy chain for satan’ and ‘do you fear for your children’…yeah, they did that song on the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack. Corny but cool. They sound like a musical version of the devil bumping and grinding in sweaty leather crotchless pants.

Someone should sample the ‘Ccccc come onnn come onnn baby’ bit. Seriously that’s a good tip, take it and run with it I won’t be mad if you steal my idea.

Marilyn Manson probably owes alot to the thrill kill kult.

Finally, noone should ever forget how fucking awesome Marilyn Manson is.

…and he gets some serious babes. Killer.

Goth out.

Day 30 – Ken here

We plow on into Chaper 11…

Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, the loss of Dacia, and Goth/Alemanni plundering

But first, something completely different, the Augustan Histories (again)
It’s all extremely murky. You can almost feel Gibbon inching through the dark, light-less years (without good primary sources) trying to create a coherent thread of historical narrative out of frivolous and contradictory accounts (phrases like “we may presume p.301, it should seem some unexpected emergency required… p.308 etc).

Gallienus Killed under Suspicious Circumstances ( Mar 20, 268)
“Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started from his silken couch, and, without allowing himself time either to put on his armour, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on horseback, and rode full speed toward the supposed place of the attack. Encompassed by his declared or conceealed enemies, he soon, amdist the nocturnal tumult, recieved a mortad dart from an uncertain hand. Before he expired… (he desired the empire) be delivered to Claudius.” (DEF xi, p.296)

Claudius II (Claudius Gothicus) (268 - 270)

Claudius (later Claudius Gothicus) emperor
Claudius reigns for only 2 years, gains a victory and dies. Which is maybe why he is considered one of the “good” emperors – no time to irritate the Senate or the Army with pesky “reforms”.

Goths Invade (Again) the Empire (Oct 269)
During Claudius’ reign, Gibbon relates the next naval siege of the civilized world. They attack and lay siege to Thessalonica under Mount Athos. Claudius races to meet them. The paucity of sources make it difficult to reconstruct the exact sequence of events (a frustration to Gibbon), but in general:

3 Battle Areas (269 – 270)
1. Naissus – complete Roman Victory
2. Protracted war over all Measia, Thrace, Macedonia (Bulgaria through the Balkans)
3. Destruction of the Gothic Fleet

Claudius dies of Plague (270) (see previous post on Great Plague (late 200’s)
Claudius (one of the “good” emperors – which usually means someone who pleased the elite writers of Antiquity, and usually someone of noble birth – although Claudius apparently was not) is one of the huge numbers of victims of the Plague years of the later 200’s (250-280 or so).

Claudius names Aurelian to succeed him. Claudius himself had been named by Gallienus as his successor before Gallienus died – this is the 2nd time in a row an emperor has named his successor before he dies. A sign of stability? Or is this story a later fabrication to bolster Aurelian’s claim to the throne in place of Claudius’ brother Quintilius?.

Quintilius, brother of Claudius Gothicus - Coin

Quintilius
The (April, 270) (brother of Claudius), Quinitilius, assumed purple in Aquileia, ruled 17 days, took his own life or died of disease. In any case, his death paved the way for Aurelian’s succession.

Aurelian - He re-united the empire, was detested by the Senate, eventually killed by his own generals

Aurelian
Aurelian was from Pannonia (the frontier, a part of modern day Slovenia, Hungary, Austria), a peasant who took his name from his landlord of the area, Aurelius, rose up in the military ranks, and was taken under the wing of rich Senator Ulpius Crinitus where he got the wealth and influence to advance into upper management in the empire.

His reign lasted 4 years 9 months – but was very eventful. He took back (re-conquered) the sub-empires of Gaul/Britain/Spain and Egypt/Syria/Palmyra, was known for his severe military discipline (his severity meriting a half page in Gibbon (p.304), concluded a treaty with the Goths, giving up Trajan’s Dacia province (the strange knob of a province poking into the northern barbarian’s lands) entirely to the Goths. He was eventually hated by the Senate and the army for his reforms (and probably (in the Senate) for his low birth.

Gibbon has much to say about the end of Dacia (DEF xi, p. 305-306), seeing it as a positive move, and the creation of a buffer state which ended future incursions from the North through that territory, and still encouraged “romanization” of the Goths through trade and exchange of noble Goth captives to be educated in Rome.

Gibbons Note on philosophy of Empire – a brief explanation of the British in India?
“A sense of interest attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent interest very frequently ripens into sincere and useful friendship”. (DEF xi, p.306).Gibbon remarks that the client kingdom/decentralized authority model of maintaining an empire might be (in the long run) a more efficient means of control over subject peoples, and subtly allows the infiltration of cultural values over long periods of time. Interesting that this is an upper-class Brit writing at the beginnings of the British Empire.

On the Road System of the Roman Empire
You’ll notice the next set of battles take place all over northern Italy. Gibbon casually mentions that the Alemanni are using the Via Flaminia to move down from the Adriatic to besiege Rome. The incredible efficiency of the road system was a huge detriment once the barbarians were within the empire, they allowed them to quickly move from one place to the other, carrying their plunder and household goods easily alone well-maintained roadways.

The U.S. would be in the same situation were a foe to use our own Interstate Highway System (a system conceived and driven in the Eisenhower administration as a means to move our own men and materials quickly across our own country). Internal transportation efficiency is a 2-edged sword, without breach-less borders.

Roads of the Roman Empire - the Via Flaminia is the one the heads northeast out of Rome over the Apennines towards the Adriatic

Aurelian fights the Alemanni Wars (Sep 270 – 271) (Successfully!)
3 battles
1. Placentia Romans lost (270) In the middle of Lomardy!
2. Fano Fighting now on the east coast (the Adriatic)!
3. Pavia Fighting now in central Po valley again!

Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov - Second foundation book cover

Trantor and Rome
This whole period keeps on reminding me of descriptions of Trantor in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series – an incredibly rich city in the (as yet) stable and rich central lands of a vast empire. A doomed and fragile economy, if the inhabitants only knew. Except in Rome’s case, a new Stalin (Diocletian) is going to take the helm and with his iron grip transform the fading economy and empire into a life-support system for the empire’s military (talk about a military-industrial complex!).

for more on Aurelius see you tomorrow – same bat time same bat channel

Nobody has ever heard of Napoleon Savescu. Of course! He’s not exactly a nobody, but he is close enough. He is of some interest for me not because he’s a moron, but because his naivete causes a lot of harm to Romania. How is that?

Napoleon Savescu is a Romanian physician who left Romania in 1977 and immigrated in the United States. He throve there as a doctor and a businessman, but also discovered his “violon d’Ingres” – an alternative theory of Romanian origins. The “official” scientific point of view, currently accepted, says that Romanians developed, as a people and a language, between III and XI A.C., in a vast area that belongs now to Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova; they were not the masters of their lands, they were subjects of greater powers in the area (Goths, Gepids, Bulgars, Kipceaks, Huns, Byzantines, and finally Hungarians and Tatars), until the 13^th century, when they established their first kingdom (Walachia), and 14^th (Moldavia). In respect of language, their ancestry is Dacian (5%), Latin (45%), Slavic (30%), Turanic (15%), and unknown (5%). In “turanic” are gathered Mongolic, Turkic, Hungarian and old Bulgar influences.

Napoleon Savescu has a different opinion. He genuinely believes (and loudly claims) that Romanians existed in Romania “from the dawn of time”; that they are at least 6.000 years old (!); that they founded Rome; that Romanian is the first European language and all Europeans now speak “dialects” of old Romanian! Does it sound mad to you? But wait, there’s more!

Romanians, says Napoleon Savescu, invented the first writing system in the world; their science was so advanced, that they were teachers of Greeks, who vaguely remember them (the Romanians, their teachers!) as “pelasgians”, the wise and powerful people from the north, or (for other classical Greek authors), the first inhabitants of Greece (and what can those “first inhabitants” be if not Romanians?, asks Napoleon Savescu); if Atlantis was the first civilization across the Atlantic ocean, if Egypt was the first civilization in Africa, if Sumerians, Dravidians and Chinese were the first in Asia, then, says Savescu, it is crystal clear that their European counterpart were old Romanians! Of course, these marvelous “old Romanians” were Dacians, and that’s it!

He supports his opinions with excerpts from true historians’ works: Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Nicolae Iorga, Constantin Giurescu, Grigore Tocilescu, Vasile Parvan, Teohari Antonescu, but also he credits amateurs: Cezar Bolliac, Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Densusianu, Mircea Eliade, Nicolae Portocala, Alexandru Bratescu-Voinesti, Nicolae Ceausescu, Iosif Constantin Dragan. All of them, says Napoleon Savescu, shared my point of view. Could they ALL be wrong?!

Why is this clown so harmful to Romania? Because Romania and Hungary have a long and very bitter argument about Transylvania: who were the first settlers of Transylvania, Hungarians (since the tenth century), or Romanians (since a few centuries before)? The Hungarian thesis is very carefully build, and their point of view is quite convincing, as it lets out the inconvenient facts (and there are a lot of them). The Romanian thesis is equally well made, even it has a major drawback: the almost complete absence of written sources, for more than a thousand years!

Things got worse only when “patriots” like Napoleon Savescu step in: who can credit with any sympathy a nation who esteems a “scholar” like him?!

Day 29 Ken here

Still plowing through Chapter 10 -

Goths

Temple of Diana Ephesus - miniature reconstruction in a Turkish park

The Goths burn the Temple of Diana (Artemis) at Ephesus. Gibbon gives an entire page to describing it (and comparing it ’s great size to the even greater size of Saint Paul’s cathedral in London).
This from Wiki:
“Dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis, it took 120 years to build. Herostratus burned it down to achieve lasting fame (356 BCE). Rebuilt by Alexander the Great only to be destroyed again by the Goths (262CE). It was rebuilt once again after, only to be closed in 391 and destroyed by a mob led by St John Chrysostom in 401 CE.”

Artemis (Diana) of Ephesus - Efes Museum

It’s touching how much the Goth’s destruction of Antique civilization shocks him. You kind of get the point after awhile. Where did Antiquity go? It was broken, burned, pulled down, melted, and put onto boats and shipped back to the Crimea. That’s where it went. Oh yeah, and to Persia.

Persia
Valerian and Sapor

Sapor, son of Artaxerxes, begins his utter subjugation and plunder of the provinces of the old Persian empire (3rd cent BCE) held now by Rome in the 3rd century CE. He does this, not to reclaim the people and land, but just to sack it and leaved wasteland behind to enrich Persia, and weaken Rome. He takes over Armenia (a sometime Roman province/client kingdom), and then takes the famous border towns of Nisibis and Carrhae (2 cities near each other in southeastern Turkey). Both towns were taken and retaken over and over again by the Persians and Romans in the endless frontier wars of the next 4 centuries.

Sapor (Shapuri) Persian coin ~260

Nisibis in Turkey

Sapor went on to attack Antioch in Syria and sacked town after town in Cappadocia – areas of the Middle East on the Mediterranean – all definitely well into Roman territory and peaceful provinces for the last 300 years. Valerian decides at his advanced age to personally lead an army into Persia, leaving his son Gallienus to rule in Rome. He is defeated, taken prisoner, and never is seen or heard from in the Roman world again.

There is something amazed and helpless about the Romans at this time, at least in Gibbon’s telling of it. If ever there were an Armageddon (with a polite nod to Nostradamus, 1200 years in the future), it was NOW. 260 A.D. Whole cities were being destroyed, the population of entire provinces were dying and being enslaved. No wonder the 3rd century is a century of hyperinflation and drastic economic decline. The world as they knew it had ended for the peoples huddled about the Mediterranean basin relying on Rome for protection for their families and property.

Valerian
There is a romance, mystery and tragedy of Valerian, a capable man faced with insurmountable tasks crushed in old age by the cruel fate of being the emperor of Rome at a time when the empire was dissolving before his very eyes. In the last century, a huge cliff sculpture of 2 Romans and a Persian king with AhuraMazda was identified as Valerian and ? before Sapor. How small the Romans look. How strange to see them kneeling after seeing all the monuments (like Trajan’s column in Rome) with Romans victorious, returning with triumph and spoils from their foreign wars.

Valerian humbled before Shapur - he was never heard from again in the West

The Romance of Valerian the Emperor Captive - Hans Holbein imagining the scene in Renaissance Germany

Odenathus of Palmyra
Gibbon relates 2 more “episodes”. The first: a senator from Palmyra (remember that place), mounts a series of harrying guerrilla attacks on Sapor’s flanks, forcing the Great King to recross the Euphrates. Gibbon takes almost a page to relate that.

The Era of the Sub-Empires: Palmyra/Egypt, Gaul/Spain, and Italy/Africa

The second: the “Thirty Tyrants”, and here were are again at the mercy of the Augustan Histories. Gibbon lists 19 tyrants (DEF x, p.288), of those at least 4 are unknown to modern history (i.e. probably perfect fakes – typical Augustan History humor). But after spending only a few paragraphs on the Tyrants he moves on, camouflaging the real importance. He’s describing (without knowing it exactly) the total break-up of the Roman Empire for a period of 20 – 30 years of so in the middle 200’s.

Divided Empire 3rd cent ~271 CE

More on this later with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra.

and, I’m off to bed -

Day 27 – Ken here

Unfortunately, I think I’m coming down with something – at least it just got a lot harder to think – but then it’s past midnight too…

We continue in Chapter 10. Gibbon’s plan is to take the long series of disasters and approach them in a kind of ethnic order – chaos by race:

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

1. The Franks (or Free-men, in other words the (distant) ancestors of the modern French),
2. The Alemanni (a confederation of Germans from Lower Germany – All-Men),
3. The Goths, and
4. the Persians.

Franks

The Franks, or Free-men, were a confederacy something like the loosely-bound Swiss cantons. The same, but different as Gibbon explains: “An inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard to the most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.” (DEF x, p.270).

During Gallienus reign alone (253-268) during 12 years the Franks crossed the Rhine, devastated Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees, and plundered Spain (a country untouched by war for 300 years or more) (actually, for most of the empire, the last 300 years had been pretty peaceful, except for civil wars). Tarragona the capital was sacked and destroyed, and the province thoroughly plundered to the point that Orosius (writing in the late 300’s, early 400’s – that is 150 years later) found only “wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities” (DEF x p.271).

My question – where was Gallienus during these 12 years of war?

`http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allemanni

Alemanni
The Alemanni, an agglomeration of tribes from Upper Germany, headed by the Suevi (an extremely fierce tribe of Germans) soon after the disastrous battle of Decius in 251, crossed the Alps and entered Lombardy as far as Ravenna. Valerian was in the East (in Persia), Gallienus on the Rhine, so the city of Rome itself sent out an army which caused a retreat (without battle) by the Alemanni back across the Rhine.

The Alemanni crossed again later, but were stopped (supposedly) (we are still relatively source-less during these troubled times) by the marriage of Gallienus with the daughter of a Suebian king of the Marcomanni – Pipa (a marriage apparently not recognized by Rome itself as she was referred to as his concubine).

Again, is this all Gallienus could do?

Goths
Again, we hit the Goths, and this time they mean business. The amazingly, move out of southern Sweden, down the Dneiper, take the Crimea and the Kingdom of the Bosporus for themselves (this was the limit of Roman influence into Russia, the Bosporus had been a province briefly, then a client kingdom for the last 250 years or so). In a way, this (with Dacia) were the 1st Roman pieces of territory to be irrevocably lost.

In quick succession, in the last part of Gallienus reign (262-267) the Goths launched 3 naval expeditions out of the Crimea. In an amazing turn of event, they systematically looted 1st the east coast of the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) down to Trebizond, the next year the west coast down to the Propontis, the next year (with 15,000 men) they ravaged all Greece, and threatened Rome itself (were they to come up through Illyria. Gallienus stopped them by recognizing Naulobatus, chief of the Herule as a consul – the majority of the horde fought its way overland back to the Black Sea, a small number took their boats back up.

Things were falling apart for Gallienus.

And the worst is yet to come.

Gallienus

So what is there to learn from all of this?

Global Warming
The world was a different place in the 260’s than it was just a hundred years earlier. Actually a case could be made that the unusual calm in the world of barbarians from say 100 BCE through the 160’s CE was extraordinary. It was like an inter-glacial period between 2 Ice Ages – a period when growth could occur unmolested, but unfortunately, not a “normal” state of affairs between the fluid North and the settled South.

At some point, like that point when an inter-glacial starts to shut down and the ice-caps begin to grow again, the North began to move, and enormous waves of people were thrown into motion. It had to happen at some point. So perhaps, it wasn’t the Romans fault at all.

Degeneracy
How could this have happened? Gibbon makes the (predictable) complaint that it was degeneracy and laziness and lack of civic spirit which killed the pagan empire in the 200’s. Well, all well and good, but how would the modern citizens of St Louis deal with an assault by a hundred thousand armed and violent eskimos (not that eskimos would do that sort of thing)?

The basic engine that drives a society has to change between the frontier and the “inner” empire, between times when a society is young and expanding, and times when it is mature and stable. What works in an entreprenuerial start-up wreaks havoc in a well-established, large company. Small entities are about risk-taking and quick changes, large entities are about coordination and protection of resources/assets.

Perhaps (and this is personally what I think happened), Augustus’ decision to limit the extent of the empire and stop the growth, began (unwittingly) to change the very economic/social engines of the empire into a very different kind of engine. A kind of engine the world hadn’t seen before – a stable, western empire. The Romans were in the process of developing institutions to truly become a Roman “nation”, just when the barbarian invasions brought everything to a screaming halt.

The response was the military empire and evenutally the Dominate. Which, under Diocletian (285-305), became essentially a Stalinist state which assumed total control over its citizens and resources, and designed a rigid class structure created solely to combat the barbarians and ensure the survival of the state. It worked. Diocletian was right. But perhaps, if the Migration Period of the Northern people’s hadn’t begun quite so soon, the empire would’ve assumed a very different form and possibly have survived.

Gibbon had his own views of why Rome fell, and his were just as ethno-centric as mine. Both of us are talking about Rome, but thinking of Great Britain or the United States.

more tomorrow…

Day 26 – Ken here

I couldv’e SWORN Mark snuck a paragraph into my Gibbon – this is EXACTLY the way he writes and thinks:
“The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with navigable rivers, which from either side, discharge themselves into the Borysthenes (Dneiper?); and interspersed with large and lofty forests of oaks. The plenty of game and fish , the innumerable bee-hives (BEE HIVES?), deposited in the hollow of old trees, and in the cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable branch of commerce, the size of cattle, the temperature of the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and the luxuriancy of the vegetation , all displayed the liberality of Nature, and tempted the industry of man. But the Goths withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of idleness, of poverty, and of rapine.” (DEF x, p.260).

Gibbon notes in a footnote that he got this description from a Mr. Bell Genealogical History of the Tartars who “traversed the Ukraine in his journey from Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is a just representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the Cossacks, it still remains in a state of nature.” (DEF x, p260 fn.28).

Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed THAT morning, I’m imagining… I’d hate to have been on the business-end of Gibbon’s razor sharp wit in a public place.

A Cornucopia of Emperors (and its just going to get worse)
I warned you about the faster and faster spins of the Imperial Wheel of Fortune – in 10 pages we got through more than 7 men.

Decius, hardworking, but slaughtered by Goths, body never found

Decius(249-251)
Gibbon remarks on his worthy personality and capable administration. Decius dies in a bloodbath (Dec 251) at Forum Terebronii in Measia (Razgard, Bulgaria) at the hands of the Goths, after almost entirely destroying them (the Goths go on in 150 years to pillage Italy, Rome, and Spain, ending the empire in the West).  Its fascinating that Gibbon mentions ABSOLUTELY NOT A WHISPER about the famous Decius christian persecutions of 250.  A forewarning of his attitude towards christians in the late empire.

Gallus - bribed Goths to leave, was killed by legions 18 months later

Gallus (and Hostilianus-Decius’ son )(251-253) Decius is succeeded by his son Hostilianus, but power given to Gallus, an older, more experienced man. Gallus proceeded to buy off the Goths with gold and promises of an annual payment. They agree, but this sets off a hornets nest of barbarian attacks on the apparently vulnerable empire. With the death of Decius’ son Hostilianus in 252, and dissatisfaction in the army with the payments of tribute rather than fighting, the governor of Pannonia and Maesia, Aemilianus revolts and marches on Italy, meeting Gallus and his son Volusianus at Spoleto and defeating/killing them (May 253).

Aemilianus - emperor 3 months

Aemilianus (May253 – Aug253) (and here)
Aemilianus ascended the throne with promises to put the Goths back in their place. He is a capable general, and is on the dirty Bulgarian front lines fighting. He seems sincere, and honorable, and willing to work hard for the good of the state. He never has a chance. He had a very, very short time (Valerian was approaching with an army during his whole reign). He was described by the historian Eutropius in this way: “Aemilianus came from an extremely insignificant family, his reign was even more insignificant, and he was slain in the third month.” (Wiki). Aemilianus is in turn defeated by Decius’ old friend (and general in Gaul and Germany), Valerian.

Valerian (friend,co-executor with Decius at the end) (253-260)

Valerian and Gallienus rule for 15 years (253-268).  Valerian is much the older (60 at the time of his accession), and rules 7 or so years, with Gallienus ruling the final 8 or so alone.  A horrible fate awaits the just and honorable Valerian.

Valerian-aureas gold coin (much debased), a serious honorable man who died a horrible death

Gallienus, capable, effeminate?(Gibbon), with his spiritual, upward looking gaze

Gallienus (Valerian’s son) (253-268)

Gallienus presides over some of the most difficult times of the empire – for example the loss of Gaul – and his reputation suffers for it. The next 10pages or so deal with more of the disasters in detail, so I’ll save those for the next posts.  Although I will say Gibbon’s description of him is a little sharp – “a youth whose effiminate vices had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private station.” (DEF x, p.268).

Wiki has this to say about him: “His record in dealing with those crises is mixed, as he won a number of military victories but was unable to keep much of his realm from seceding.”  And also: “In portraying himself with the attributes of the gods on his coinage, Gallienus began the final separation of the Emperor from his subjects. A late bust of Gallienus (see below) shows him of largely blank face and gazing heavenward as we see on the famous stone head of Constantine I. One of the last rulers of Rome to be theoretically called “Princeps” or First Citizen, Gallienus’ shrewd self-promotion assisted in paving the way for those who would be addressed with the words “Dominus et Deus” (Lord and God).” (Wiki).

Sources
Ammianus Marcellinus
Writing in middle 300’s, Ammianus is a soldier and a Greek (and a pagan in a christian empire). He served in the household guard under Constantinus II. He served in many Persian campaigns, lastly under Julian(the Apostate – last pagan emperor 350’s). The surviving portions of his work are mostly Julian’s time – an emperor for whom he was wildly enthusiastic. This from Wiki: “Ammianus Marcellinus (325/330-after 391) was a fourth-century Roman historian. His is the second-to-last major historical account written during Antiquity (the last was written by Procopius). His work chronicled in Latin the history of Rome from 96 to 378, although only the sections covering the period 353 – 378 are extant.” I’ve read some of Ammianus – he is definitely a brisk soldier-writer and a tireless pagan in a nation of first/second generation christians. A very interesting man.

Jornandes
Jordanes (also Jordanis or even Iornandes), was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, and a Goth, was also a secretary in Justinian’s administration in Constantinople. He was asked to write a summary ofCassiodorus History of the Goths, and so wrote Getica which has become one of the only primary sources to have survived of Gothic history. A fascinating history by a minority person writing within the majority culture about his natal culture.

Interesting Note on Women and coins

Wives of Emperors
Even an emperor as short-lived as Aemilianus (3 months) had coins issued with his wife’s face on it. Here are some coins from this period – note how the face changes but the outside of the coin stays the same (esp Aemilianus and Decius – on this page). With emperors coming and going, the imperial mint had to change dies A LOT.

Decius (249-251)

Aemilianus (May 253- Aug 253) - almost IDENTICAL to Decius - face, inscription changed

Cornelia Supera - wife of Aemilinaus - her own coin! for the 3 months- I wonder what happened to her afterwards...

Mariniana - wife of Valerian, mother of Gallienus (what a musical name)

goodnight and sweet dreams -