Displaced

The Willful Child
"Once upon a time there was a child who was willful, and would not do what her mother wished.  For this reason God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill, and no doctor could do her any good, and in a short time she lay on her death-bed. When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her arm came out again, and stretched upwards, and when they had put it in and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again.  Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave, and strike the arm with a rod, and when she had done that, it was drawn in, and then at last the child had rest beneath the ground." Brothers Grimm

Hi! I’m Anabelle. I’m practicing my reading. Moma says reading is very important. Like my nails? I painted 'em myself, moma says it’s important to look pretty cuz that’s what being a lady is. You wana know what else moma says? Moma says when she was a little girl about my age her neighbors had a kid too and he was a BRAT!! He never would mind his moma or any other grown person. Moma says God doesn’t much care for bratty children and he turned his face away and let the boy get real sick. So sick no doctor could help and after he died, when they put him in the ground he was such a little brat that he popped his leg out. Well they’d push it down and push it down but the he wouldn’t even obey death, till finally his moma marched right on down to that cemetery and hit the leg with a switch! Too little too late moma says. You wana know what else? Everything moma says is true.

Mid-term presentations went very well. Thanks for making them fun and interesting!
I had a hard time with this assignment and admittedly my fairy tale was not very well displaced. I really wanted to tell a story a child might tell, so I could dress up and run around like a little kid.
On the subject of displaced fairy tales, one of my favorites is the movie Freeway starring Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Brooke Shields. If you haven't seen it check it out or wikki the plot, but I highly recommend this film.

Last semester I started a side project tracing the influence of mythology and literature in heavy metal music lyrics. Although the focus of my independent research is on heavy metal, I often come across gems like this one from other genres. There is a great video for this song on youtube. Enjoy!


Fairytale
Cinderella's on her bedroom floor
She's got a
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don't come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here
Sleeping Beauty's in a foul mood
For shame she says
None for you dear prince, I'm tired today
I'd rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming
[Chorus:]
'cause I don't care for your fairytales
You're so worried about the maiden though you know
She's only waiting on the next best thing
Snow White is doing dishes again cause
What else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and calls up a friend
Says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I'll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows
[Chorus]
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he's handsome in hindsight
But I don't want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls round me
Can't take no more of your fairytale love
[Chorus]
I don't care
I don't care
Worry bout the maiden though you know
She's only waiting spent the whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb
Appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
Cause I don't want the next best thing
No no I don't want the next best thing"
by Sara Bareilles

Further suggested listening: "White Rabbit" Jefferson Airplane
"A boy Named Sue" Johnny Cash (This not a fairy tale, but a great story song. Who doesn't love a great story song?)

Istra

"They and it are all part of the same web, which is called Nature, or the Whole. That southwest wind came over a thousand miles of sea and land. The weather of the whole world would have to have been different from the beginning if that wind was not to blow. It's all one web; you can't pick threads out nor put them in (C.S. Lewis)."
About a week ago, I was tearing through my book shelves looking for my anthology of children's literature and I paused for a long moment when I came upon C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. I love this book and have read it a couple times. I always identified with the narrator, Orual, her isolation due to her lack of femininity and anger at the gods. A few days later, I was chatting with Oranda and she mentioned the book to me (I had lent it to her years ago, because I had loved it so) and that was my undoing. When one is on a quest it is dangerous to ignore signs such as these. I decided to read the novel again and upon entering my home I could here the book calling to me from deep within my stacks. I took it from its home on a high shelf and upon examining the cover realized there was much about this book that I had forgotten or possibly never noticed before. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is the full title and the back cover boasts: "this timeless tale of two princesses--one beautiful and one unattractive--and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is C.S. Lewis's reworking of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche."  The first few times I read the novel I had a very limited knowledge of mythology and the structure of romance. Excited to see how the story would read with my new eyes, I curled up with my kitty, and took to lovingly defacing the book with my trusty blue highlighter.
How does this story fit into the genre of romance? Does it belong there? Aside from Orual's anger at the gods this story reads like a fairy tale. Once there were two sisters, their mother died and their father was a cruel and violent king who purchased a Greek taken in battle to educate his future son. Because of his red hair the Greek was called the Fox and he taught the girls reason and philosophy while the King remarried in anticipation of a successor. (The Fox is Orual's most trusted companion and even though he is not literally an animal, he functions as a metaphorical animal companion for Orual.) The Kings second wife dies in childbirth, enraged by the sex of the child, the King bellows "Girls, girls, girls and now one girl more. Is there no end to it? Is there a plague of girls in heaven that the gods send me a flood of them? (Lewis, 16)" The child was named Istra, which translates to  Psyche in Greek and was "Prettier than Andromeda, prettier than Helen, prettier than Aphrodite herself (Lewis, 23)." With her mother dead and her father completely indifferent; she is an orphan. Orual takes to finding her a proper nurse and raising her as her own. Now there were three: Orual the ugly, Redival the pretty, and Psyche the beautiful. I think we find that three is a very important number in fairy tales.
Redival plays the role of the harlot and a young man she seduces is castrated for his attempt on her virginity. Orual and the Fox become Redival's jailers, warned by the King not to let Redival out of their sight for "if she  loses her maidenhead before I find her a husband, you will yell louder for it than she (Lewis, 26)". As Psyche grows her beauty remains beyond comparison and the King's people begin to worship her like a goddess, they even believe she can heal the sick. The meddling and jealous Redival informs the priest at the temple of Ungit, the principal goddess of the region, of Istra's growing reputation. When Psyche is unable to heal the sick, they turn on her and, with the growing drought and sickness, on the King.
In the land of Glome there are two great powers, the King and the Temple of Ungit. With the people positioned behind the house of Ungit the priest councils the King on what must be done to restore the land and satisfy the goddess. The people are convinced that the Accursed is among them. "We were overthrown long before your day by the King of Essur; and that was because there was a man in your grandfather's army who had lain with his sister and killed the child. He was the Accursed. We found him out and expiated his sin..for we all knew (and you may hold it for certain) that there will be no mending of our ills till the land is purged. Ungit will be avenged. It's not a bull or ram that will quiet her now...we must find the Accursed. And she (or he) must by the rite of the Great Offering (Lewis,46)."
"In the Great Offering, the victim must be perfect. For, in holy language, a man so offered is said to be Ungit's husband, and a woman so offered is said to be the bride of Ungit's son. And both are called the Brute's Supper. And when the Brute is Ungit it lies with the man, and when it is her son it lies with the woman. And either way there is a devouring...many different things are said...many great mysteries. Some say that loving and devouring are all the same thing. For in sacred language we say that a woman who lies with a man devours the man (Lewis, 49)."
"The lot fell on your youngest daughter, King. She is the Accursed. The Princess Istra must be the Great Offering (Lewis, 55)." As a result of Redival's meddling, Psyche must be sacrificed to the Brute at the Holy Tree the very next day. It is believed that the Brute tears apart the offering (sparagmos) and then eats it (omophagia). Orual visits Psyche in prison to comfort the child, but it is Orual that needs comforting. For as much as Orual believes that Psyche will be devoured by a monster, Psyche believes that she has been betrothed to a god. Psyche assures Orual that there is "little difference between dying and being married. To leave your home, to loose one's maidenhead, to bear a child--they are all deaths (Lewis, 73)." Despite Orual's best efforts, Psyche is taken and sacrificed at the Holy Tree. Believing her dead, Orual resolves to journey up the mountain to the tree and bury the lovely bones. She enlists the help of Bardia, a trusted soldier and rustic, to aid her in her journey.
When Orual finds Psyche alive, everything becomes dream-like and reality is split. There is no indication as to whose version of reality is correct--Orual or Psyche. This section of the novel mainly consists of the details of the Eros and Psyche myth. Later when Psyche agrees to Orual's demand that she shine a light on her phantom lover she tells Orual "it is like looking into a deep pit..to take my love for you...and make of it a tool, a weapon, a thing of policy and mastery, and instrument of torcher (Lewis,165)." Once the details of the myth have played out the god appears to Orual, "You also shall be Psyche" is his prophecy. This is the reinforcement of a doubling or mirroring that had been touched upon earlier in the novel when the hot tempered King made Orual look at herself in a large mirror.
The story continues and Bardia trains Orual to fight; they eventually become brothers in battle (as Orual kills what little femininity she possess). It is around this time that Orual veils herself and begins her metamorphosis into the Queen. Behind her veil she is a ghastly and mysterious creature, set to the task of suffocating Orual. The abusive King dies and Orual's first act as Queen is to fight to the death and win. "Yet I felt of a sudden very weak and my legs were shaking; and I felt myself change too, as if something had been taken from me. I have often wondered if women feel like that when they lose their virginity (Lewis, 220)." The Queen/Orual remains a virgin throughout the tale but metaphorically loses her virginity and is metaphorically with child. On a later journey she stumbles upon a temple to a young goddess named Istra, when the priest tells her the story of the goddess (the myth of Eros and Psyche) she becomes enraged at her portrayal in the tale. "It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child (Lewis, 247)."
For those who have not been keeping track, the peripheral elements of romance evident in this tale are: violence, oracles, Eros, exposed infant/adoption, rustics, pastoral setting, doubling/mirrors, actual death, incest, sparagmos/omophagia, harlot, animal companions, and castration. There is both literal and metaphorical castration at work in this novel; there is the literal castration of Tarin and the Kings inability to produce a male heir can be seen as a metaphorical castration or a form of impotence. Even though I have not discussed it the seasonal cycle is a recurring theme in the novel. As far as required elements there is an apparent death and a quest; both the blanket quest of her complaint against the gods and several mini-quests.
Orual's remembrance/revelation comes when she removes her veil. At this point she is an old woman and Tarin sneaks back into the story and informs her of Redival's extreme hurt of being abandoned by Orual for the Fox and Psyche. "She used to say, 'First Orual loved me much, then came the Fox and she loved me little; then the baby came and sh loved me not at all' (Lewis, 255)." She realizes that she had cast Redival aside and herself devoured Psyche with her selfish love. This brings about a fall in which everything Orual had accepted as fact comes into question. In her dreams and visions Orual is tortured by hidden truths as she falls (she is told she is Ungit); she digs a pit and is told by her father's ghost to throw herself in. Then she must dig another pit and descend further and further until she reaches the below world; where the truth is revealed to her through a series of paintings. What is a great romance without a painting? While we are on the subject; what is a great romance without music? (There are several instances where either the situation or a person is compared to song.) All becomes clear; the gods plan for Psyche, the effect of Orual's actions on others, and the answer to the riddle You also shall be Psyche. As Orual watched Psyche complete her tasks so that she might be reunited with her husband it occurred to her that "she was all but unscathed. She was almost happy." Her guide informed her that this was true because "another bore nearly all the anguish (Lewis, 300)." She was also Psyche and she was also Ungit; it's all one web.
Happy ending? This is debatable but I believe it is a happy ending. Orual dies while feverishly trying to right the conclusion to the amendment to her book. She is a very old woman and knows she is dying; she dies at the end of writing her book which is a metaphorical death in itself. It is necessary that she die. Furthermore, the general feel of the book, especially towards the end, is that Death is no different from the lesser deaths (marriage, childbirth), it merely signifies a change. In addition, the really real end of the book is a note from the  man that discovered her corpse pleading for anyone that should read it and be heading to Greece to carry it there, "for that is what she seems mostly to have desired (Lewis, 309)." Perhaps my most important argument that this is a happy ending is that every time I have read this book I close it with a light heart and clear head.
Reading this novel in my naivety was a joy and with my new consciousness it was a pleasure. I believe this little side track has brought me a step further on my own personal quest, one I've been on for quite some time now. My quest, in the words of Maynard Keenan, is "to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human." I am convinced the only way to accomplish this is through literature, art, and music.

Eros Lives!!!!!!!!

Today we honor Eros and let us not forget to tip our hats to Dionysus , for he too has his part in these matters. I really like the simple naive tales we've been reading because I believe in this stuff. I don't know if it was too much T.V., too many fairy tales, folktales, cartoons, or Motown music growing up but I believe in love; improbable possibilities, dreams, happy endings, chastity, and desire. The whole sappy mess. My happy ending will be the day that Eros fixes his arrow upon me.
An interpretation of the myth of Eros and Psyche is to trust in love. Psych did not trust her heart or her lover and she let herself be swayed by her sisters. She betrayed her lover and lost him.
Since today we celebrate Eros I invite you all to trust in love. For those of you that Eros has found, praise him and his gift. For those of you that he has not found, praise him and fear not, he is on his way.
Suggest holiday listening: "Hotel Yorba" The White Stripes

Screaming convulsing my eyes are bleeding

Obsession/Possession. I am truly afflicted. I read. I listen. In the last year due to my study of literature and Sam Dunn documentaries I have been studying lyrics and lit in my off time. It has also come to my attention that for the better part of my life I have been possessed by Dionysus, I have been doing a lot of research to try and explain this unconscious obsession.
As Dr. Sexson already knows, I am obsessed with music especially the band Acid Bath. The combination of Sammy Duet's music and Dax Riggs' lyrics has consumed me for a many years. It is through music, which I am very familiar with, that I organize concepts and ideas. I was able to categorize and understand mythology by putting it in terms of music and found Acid Bath to be highly mythological. In order to fully understand new material I often have to internalize it and relate it to my existing knowledge base. As a result I live in a world where art, music, and literature collide; in this place these mediums are unified and form my understanding and knowledge. By embracing my obsessions and obsessive tendencies I've found that everything else simply falls into place.
In James' blog he wrote:  "I cannot help but find the tendrils of romance in every existing story I see." Similarly I cannot help but see mythology and romance in everything I hear, read, and see. I think that once we realize that literature is not just about books and poems, but the interweaving of music, mythology, psychology, and art (just to name a few), we finally begin to understand literature, especially romance, as well as ourselves both individually and culturally.
There are two gods we will not escape: Eros and Hades. Even though there is no actual death in romance the connection between Love and Death and Sex and Death weaves itself in and out of romance. On the topic of love, sex, and death my go to guy is again the lyrics of Dax Riggs:

Jezebel
Her throat is soft
Her lips are red
Her thighs are white
Her heart is dead
Jezebel
Red rope
Burns around her wrists
Her blood is cold..like a serpents kiss
Do you love your whore?
I like to hear you beg
She crouched down in the corner with her head between her legs
Jezebel
Broken glass and dirty needles
Soul erosion truth
Electric god
Our superman found dead in a telephone booth
Shards of teeth
Ice pick abortions
Orgasmic death so warm
Lets die screamin'
Black goat semen
I can't hear you whisper "conform"
Hearts will stop and brain cells pop
Apocalyptic high
She screams bloody murder as they chop off her fingers
So this is how it feels to die
But it's ok
Yeah everything's ok
She was screaming about conspiracy
Talkin' about taking sides
I was masturbating, just contimplating
The cold love of suicide
Hearts will stop and brain cells pop
Apocalyptic high
She was screaming bloody murder as they chop off her fingers...
So this is how it feels to die

When it comes to Acid Bath the lyrics are only a portion of the experience. The music ranges from some of the heaviest fastest metal riffs you can imagine to soft acoustic ballads that at times have moved me to tears. Throughout it all Dax uses his voice as an instrument. His juxtaposition of beautiful melody and guttural screams blended with Sammy Duet's unmistakable nightmarish growl takes the initiate into the underworld, the above world, and all streams of consciousness in between. 

The Bones of Baby Dolls

Flower girls play lover

Grave games in the courtyard

I heard her screaming like a radio

Mary lou left marks on you

She just screams at the moon

The kite string pops

I'm swallowed whole by the sky

We smoke the bones of baby dolls

Techno-liquid screaming meat

Heaven's cold beneath my feet

Cyber love the anti-man we make love... because we can

Virgins play where the bayou's blue

Barefoot (and bloody) eatin' mushroom stew

Work for pay and pay for freedom

Fuck 'em all, we don't need 'em

We smoke the bones of baby dolls

 Love, sex, death, blood, the mother, the cycle, the virgin, the whore, the rapist, the goat, the hero, mythology; it's all there along with modern cynicism. At times Dax's lyrics seem anti-romantic, in this I see the same disdain that many of my classmates have expressed toward the genre of romance and the simplistic tales we are reading. I find the supposed condemnation of love (in the lyrics) to really be a celebration of romance. The clear connections between love, sex, and death move these images beyond the mythological and into the realm of the fantastic; the realm of romance.

Venus Blue
Creeping like frost
As slow as grave moss
Like drowning in dry oceans of bone dust
I taste the wreckage of crumbling faces
I know the pale thing in the darkest of places
I remember blood from the thighs of the mother
As everything is eaten by another
How much more must we bleed her
I cut their throats while they slept
I wept
I peel back my skull for you
Yes I do
Slow desolation like a funeral procession
The lovely one screams like she's caught between stations
I eat the razor, a mouthful of God's flesh
Sweating this blackness,
I am shitting this cold death
Love is rotting on the vine
Crumbling in God's sunshine
I am dying all the time
Point me at the sky... sky
How much more must we bleed her
I cut their throats while they slept
I wept
I peel back my skull for you
Yes I do
DEAD VENUS BLUE
I taste the wreckage of crumbling faces
I know the pale thing in the darkest of places


Mythology, folktales, fairy tales and archetypal imagery. I believe that Dax Riggs understood more about literature in his early twenties than many college graduates ever will and certainly more than I ever will. Even though in his later works, post-Acid Bath, Dax failed as a poet (in my opinion); it is the imagery of this poet and his band the continues to deepen my understanding of literature and myself.


New Corpse
The pagan flames burn through the night
Everything's mine
Blackness my whore I bleed the light
Everything's mine
I know my time is coming soon
Everything's mine
Miles of bone lay on the ground
It's all mine
In remembrance of warmth would you shit on me?
I am the new corpse paling beneath the shade tree
You can't give me what I need
Picking at scabs with ambition to bleed
You're mine
The war machine moves forward lifeless
Everything's mine
We feed larvae with the blood of our martyrs
Everything's mine
We burn the flames of the funeral carnival
Everything's mine
I am death walking up in a coffin
It's all mine
I eat the eyes and pray to see
the emptiness inside of me
I eat the brain and pray to know
anarchy of fallen angels
I want to be the enemy
The hero is dead
I put the newest hole in his head
I want to be the enemy
The hero is dead
I put the newest hole in his head
Bleed for me, we were born dead
Falling chunks of flesh
Ejaculating sickness
Everything's mine
Your new corpse is beauty
Dying on the inside

The ocean, the sea, and the dead shore are all recurring themes in Acid Bath lyrics. It occurs to me that I threw myself into 'an ocean of alien mystery' when I was a teenager and it is only now that I approach 30 that I am beginning to understand what that means.
Yesterday I read a chapter and a half of Frye. In addition I read James, Oranda, Jennifer, and Aaron's blogs. These are all great blogs and those of you who haven't read them I courage you to do so. While getting my long awaited Acid Bath tattoo (not my first band tattoo, I already have TOOL and Megadeth), I read most of Grimm, parts of Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, and thumbed through my anthology of children's literature feverishly trying to find a story to displace (and thanks to my tattoo artist find myself on track with that assignment).  As I lay there reading and periodically discussing what I was reading, music, art, and life with my artist and others in the shop, I found myself in that place--where worlds collide and bleed into one another--and very much at peace.
The tattoo is a reworking of an old Acid Bath t-shirt logo for a song called Dr. Suess is Dead, it features a rather frightening depiction of a Grinch-like figure holding the skull of the Cat in the Hat by the spinal cord in one hand and the flower seen above in the other. It was all just so damn perfect I had to write about it, because....

"The dream sea has been poisoned

Stoplight flashes me red

Innocence sufficated in it's sleep

Dr. Suess is dead"

The Art of Manipulation: Time as a Weapon

"The Kiss" by Cam de Leon

This is my favorite image of Daphnis and Chloe. "When the lovers saw each other, they almost collapsed to the ground, but finding the strength to stand upright, they greeted and kissed each other, which is what supported them and kept them from falling down (pg. 176)." Once Daphnis and Chloe realize they are in love they continually kiss each other. Before they are married and Chloe is bedded, kissing is the physical manifestation of their love. In their innocence they kiss and kiss and kiss. This painting, by Cam de Leon, does not show up on an image search for Daphnis and Chloe, but to me it is Daphnis and Chloe; two lovers stripped down to their basic human structure become one in a kiss.

"The heroine of romance is supposed to carry out her tactics in low profile, that is, behave with due modesty (Frye, 79)." In order for the heroine of romance to arrange the plot she must often be manipulative. I find that manipulation by a woman of either the hero or the events is present in the peripheral aspects of romance and when manipulating, time is everything. Women in romance often use time as a weapon, whether it is waiting til the right time to act or planting seeds at the right moment, I say women because it is not always the heroine that employs time as weapon. Sometimes it is another female character employing manipulation and time as a weapon to either join the hero with the heroine or keep them apart.

"The hero goes through various adventures about which there is a good deal of mystery, with a female fluttering in and out of his quarters. Eventually this proves to be Rose Bradwardine, arranging the plot in typical heroine fashion, until the hero is ready to know which woman he ought to be marrying (Frye, 84)." Since women are expected to be chaste their power is limited, the promise of a fine time later on is not enough to ensure that she will accomplish her goals. Manipulating people and situations by using an innate knowledge of time (when to act, when and how to plant thoughts, how to change the situation subtly and undetected) is the female's best weapon. The skilled manipulation of female characters allows the plot to move forward and allows the female to remain modest by subtly controlling the action. 

In Daphnis and Chloe Lycaenion, through her selfish manipulation of Daphnis, not only continues the action of the narrative, she inadvertently preserves Chloe's modesty. By tricking Daphnis into learning the art of love making she fulfills her agenda and contributes to the happy ending of Daphnis and Chloe. Her warning to Daphnis about the difference between married women and virgins serves as a plausible reason for Chloe to remain a virgin until the two are wed. 

I can think of countless examples of women and heroines in literature using the art of manipulation and time as a weapon. Whether it be utilizing 'perfect timing' or exercising extreme patience. 

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The award for the archetype of pastoral innocence goes to...Betty White's character Rose on the Golden Girls. Even though the Golden Girls is a comedy, the character Rose is a romantic archetype. She is naive, simple, from a rural farm community, and was a virgin until marriage. She is forever telling wonderful and bizarre stories about her hometown that is so very pastoral it's often hard to tell where the animals end and the  people begin. 

Sass Christian

Hieronymus Bosch

"At the center of the length and breadth of the garden was a temple and altar of Dionysus,the altar wreathed in ivy, the temple in shoots of vine. Inside the temple were paintings of Dionysus and of stories involving him: Semele giving birth, Ariadne sleeping, Lycurgus in chains, Pentheus being torn apart. There were Indians in defeat and Tyrrhenians being turned into dolphins and Satyrs treading everywhere and bacchants dancing. Nor was Pan forgotten, but he, too, sat there on a rock, playing his pipes, as if he were providing the music for the treading and the dancing." Daphnis and Chloe, 192

Jasmine Becket-Griffith

I love this passage. Art, music, and literature having an orgy on page 192.  Before the written word there was oral tradition, music, and painting. Of these three mediums, painting is the most closely linked to literature and romance. Daphnis and Chloe begins with painting that is so moving it must be repainted in words. And in book 4 of D&C more paintings and music and mythology; stories upon stories within stories about stories.  Art, music, and literature weaving in and out of each other. I know a lot about music and have a working knowledge of great painters but I became curious about more contemporary painters.
 In music greatness is generally measured by relevancy. Is this music, band, or song still relevant or contain elements that are continually reused and built upon? Both Frye and D&C explore the relationship between painting and literature so I felt the need to explore painting to see if literature was still present and vice versa. Since I don't know much about painters I went to the tattoo shop to do some research.  I asked all the artists to name some of their favorite painters. First they asked 'why' and I refused to tell them until the list was compiled. After I had my list I told them why and one of the artists remarked that he didn't think most of the painters listed would be very helpful since he couldn't see any connection between their paintings and romance. I assured him the list would most likely be helpful and it was. I found art and literature fornicating in books, on walls, and all over the internet; their bastard children dancing on canvas. I really like Bosch (The Bosch painting shown is very light and dream-like, almost fairy tale. It reminds me of Daphnis and Chloe. Most Bosch is very dark and contains strange creatures) so I was excited to find Jasmine Becket-Griffith's Alice and the Bosch monsters.
When I started thinking about all of this I had a few ideas, then I started researching contemporary painters and even more ideas joined the mix. As I'm writing I realize that their are so many ideas and so much communication between these mediums that I'm really not sure where to begin. With so much to be said would it ever end?
There are as many stories in these paintings as there are in the passage I quoted above. Perhaps the best thing is to let the paintings tell their own stories.

Todd Schorr

Mark Ryden