New Hampshire Green Leaves Blog

Rewriting myths

While working on my novel, which involves ancient gods manifesting themselves here on Earth in modern times, I’ve had occasion to rewrite some of the ancient myths which lie behind many of these gods. This is to help the divinities to make more sense to modern readers.

There have been other books which place the old gods in more modern settings. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is a good example. The gods are given contemporary garb and are in competition with newer gods. For younger readers there is the Percy Jackson series. I choose to keep the gods in their traditional roles but have their legends reflect modern discoveries. For example Ouranos (better known to snickering teens everywhere as Uranus) is an ancient Titan Who is millions of years old but in the story has already Transcended so He’s not seen in the novel, only mentioned.

Rewrites of myths are nothing new. In ancient times, such stories were originally told orally and would be altered to suit the audience listening to the tales. There was no centralized religious doctrine which would have standardized the legends.This is why you often see more than one origin for a god. Dionysus is most commonly portrayed as the son of Zeus by a mortal woman called Semele. But other stories have Him as the son of Persephone by Zeus, an origin which no doubt raised a few eyebrows as Persephone was the daughter of Zeus by Demeter Who happens to be a sister of Zeus.

Dionysus riding leopard — The God Dionysus

Athena no longer springs full grown from the head of Zeus. Instead she is the daughter of Metis who was an earlier wife of Zeus. As a young goddess, She watches Her parents quarrel and become estranged over the War with the Titans, which Metis advised against. After Metis’s warnings are borne out by the massive disruption of global ecosystems and human societies which was the end of the Ice Age, She quits Her throne in disgust and Transcends which is when Hera becomes the new consort of Zeus.

Minor tales come in for a rewrite as well. The Graeae sisters were originally portrayed as immortal beings sharing one tooth and one eye between Them. This odd characteristic is thought by some to indicate that the single eye and tooth may have been a source of oracular powers. Since the stories have long since become detached from the cultures they were a part of, these details have lost whatever meaning they had. I rewrote the story in the following manner.

The Graeae were daughters of Ceto and Phorcys Who were sea gods. When They were born, the Graeae had Their teeth but possessed no eyes, only empty sockets. Their mother Ceto went to the god Hephaestus, asking the Master Craftsman of the gods if He would create eyes for Her children so They could see. Hephaestus crafted a set of eyes for each of the sisters and all was well for a while. But the sisters got careless with Their eyes, playfully swapping them around or juggling them. This eventually resulted in the eyes being lost or broken one by one until the Sisters had only the one eye left. When Ceto returned to Hephaestus for replacement eyes, He was infuriated over how carelessly His creations had been handled and refused to make new ones. So, to this day, the Graeae must make do with the one eye.

The gorgons have a similar jumble of tales. In one, only Medusa has the power to turn Her victims to stone, the result of having violated the sanctity of one of Athena’s temples by having sex with Poseidon, which angered Athena, Who changed the once beautiful woman into a hideous monster. Other tales have three gorgons, Stheno, Euryale and Medusa, all born hideous with snakes for hair. Of the trio, only Medusa is mortal and can be killed, though no explanation of why she was mortal was given. I amended this by writing all three were immortal, but Perseus was given the great Harpe sword by his father Zeus. The Harpe sword is portrayed as a divine weapon, able to slay divinities as well as mortals and it was this he used to destroy Medusa.

Lastly comes Odin. Legends portray Him and His brothers as having killed Ymir, a primeval androgenous being, said to be the first giant. The divine siblings then dismember Ymir and create the world with His body parts. This has been rewritten as Ymir still being an ancient giant but living in already existing world. One of His roles was leader of the Wild Hunt. When He finally Transcended, He turned over control of the Wild Hunt to Odin, Who’s been conducting it ever since. And what exactly is the Wild Hunt? Well, it’s not what you might think.

But that’s all for now. See you next month.

ISINGLASS AND OTHER FOODSTUFFS

The local recycling station as well as the local food coop both have shelves dedicated for books people can drop off or pick up if they want. It’s a good way to acquire a book free of charge to add to your collection or return to the discard shelf if it doesn’t pass muster. I have gotten a pretty good number of free books to add to my collection in this way. The latest one I picked up is titled The Curiosities Of Food or The Dainties and Delicacies of Different Nations Obtained from the Animal Kingdom by Peter Lund Simmonds. As can probably be surmised from the long title, this was a reprint of a book originally published in 1850.

The book makes for surprisingly droll reading. The author compiles an exhaustive list of all the different types of food; birds, reptiles, mammals, fish, mollusks and even insects from all over the world (as it was in his time) along with how they are cooked (or not). With a certain amount of dry humor he describes the preparation of certain dishes by locals and leaves it to you to decide if it’s actually something you want to try or not.

One anecdote he collected from someone who had gone to China described the unusual presentation of a covered dish, unusual because dishes were usually served uncovered at Chinese meals. The dish, when the lid was quickly removed, proved to contain dozens and dozens of live baby crabs which proceeded to make their escape while guests snatched them up and devoured them. The visiting gentleman was game enough to grab a few, pronouncing them ‘soft and gelatinous’ (but didn’t indicate if they tasted any good) but stopped when he got a painful claw pinch on his lip from the third. I’ll pass.

After coming across such disconcerting entries as how delicious Passenger Pigeons are and that South Africans occasionally dined on quagga steaks, I moved onto the section covering fish and came across a reference to isinglass. While I had heard the word before, I had just assumed it was some sort of glassware. Turns out, it’s actually a product made from fish.

Isinglass is a substance created from the dried swim bladders of fish. A form of collagen, it can be used as glue, but also as a clarifying agent in wine and beer. Once processed, it has no fishy flavor (which is why your beer doesn’t taste fishy) and has been used for thousands of years. In Roman times, it was used as an ingredient in patching up head wounds and street magicians would coat their feet with it before doing their fire-walking tricks. In the Middle Ages, it was used to help gold dust adhere to manuscripts being illuminated.

Vegans may wail about dried swim bladders from fish in their beer but there are alternatives, of course. Whether they are a tasty substitute or not, I’m not able to judge as I don’t drink. But that’s just a personal choice which has nothing to do with obsessing about possible animal bits in any of my food. In fact, if you read some of the information online, there’s actually not much of anything that’s totally free of insect contamination, especially with the vast amount of food processing done by agribusinesses. Read too much of this stuff and you’re likely to wind up not eating much of anything. Ignorance really is bliss in this case.

Still after reading Mr. Simmonds book, it’s apparent humans will eat pretty much anything that doesn’t eat them first. No matter what we pop into our mouths, adding extra flavor to our cuisine is important. Salt, herbs, spices, sauces, gravies get added in varying amounts to perk up a meal. In ancient Rome and around the Mediterranean, the flavoring of choice was something called garum. This is a fermented sauce made from fish parts. The production of the sauce was a reeky process, causing its makers to be banished to the edges of cities but once the sauce finished its fermentation process, its flavor became subtle and mild (and presumably not as reeky). Enthusiatically embraced by most Romans, it occupied much the same place in cookery that garlic does today.

Frankly I think I’ll pass on both but I’m probably just being fussy.

A condiment that my mother’s father was fond of was horseradish. He grew it himself and ground it up to serve as a little side dish for himself at dinnertime (no one else was willing to touch the stuff apparently). This turned out to be a recipe for disaster (of a minor sort). My grandmother was in the habit of serving mashed potatoes in a side dish as well instead of directly on the plate. One fine day my grandfather was lecturing the kids about something and eating mashed potato while he did so. My mother says at one point he mistakenly took a heaping spoonful of horseradish instead of potato. The kids all watched in fascination while he did this, no one shouting a warning to poor old Granddad. Of course, there was the inevitable explosion (*@#&, Why didn’t somebody say something?). I smell payback here somewhere, I think.

That’s all for this month. Bon Appetit!

More Pencil Drawings

One of the challenges of artwork is illustrating the human face. One can always draw cartoons or caricatures but a natural looking face is much more challenging.

The above sketch by me, based on a drawing from a tutorial book, is an example of chiaroscuro, a method of using contrast between light and dark to produce an image. It involves the use of shadows to create a realistic image, giving a two-dimensional face the illusion of depth. It’s not as easy as you might think. It took multiple tries before I got a drawing I was satisfied with.

What if you want to draw portraits? Especially recognizable ones? That’s definitely tricky. You need to have a good working knowledge of facial proportions. Many people think they know what a face looks like but when they try translating their ‘knowledge’ into an art work, they usually wind up creating something like this.

Not a bad drawing really, but how many people do you know who actually look like that? Carrie Stuart Parks in her excellent book The Secrets Of Drawing Realistic Faces points out that people often try drawing what they think they see, rather than what is actually there. A forensic artist doing composite drawings for police departments for identifying criminals, it’s important for her as an artist to produce an accurate image. She writes that people often try to draw what they think faces look like which doesn’t really match the image of the person they have in mind. To get a realistic portrait, you need to understand what the proportions of the face are and how to set it down on paper. Once you’ve mastered the basics then you can proceed on to the details.

Rendering parts of the face such as eyes, nose and mouth are where chiaroscuro comes in. In the drawing immediately above, the facial features are drawn in as lines but that not how a person’s face actually looks. Rather, what we do see is a combination of light and shadow. So, the above nose which looks like the letter U with two little knobs attached, winds up looking like this.

The only lines I drew were for the nostril holes and the edges of the nostrils on either side. All else (except for the eyes) is shading. Here is where the blending stump and tortillons come into their own. By using the graphite from the nostrils, I used the stump to create the shadow of the nose itself as well as the shading on the tip of the nose. Still not quite perfect but a much more accurate rendition of a human nose. If you need extra graphite or charcoal, just take a piece of scrap paper and using a 4B or 6B pencil put down a layer to rub the blender or tortillon into for extra shading material.

The same with the mouth. A simple line with ‘commas’ making a smile become this.

The only line I drew was the mouth itself where the lips meet. All else is shading. Again, not perfect as I made the upper lip darker than I intended but far more realistic.

Finally, the eye.

This is the trickiest one as you have to be careful not to overdo the eyelashes and make your model look like he’s wearing heavy duty mascara. The edges of the eyelids framing the eye are shaded in rather than drawn. The iris and pupil are drawn but you have to be careful to keep the upper and lower parts hidden so the eye doesn’t look like it’s popping in horror. Use a kneaded eraser to create the highlight in the pupil and iris to give the eye a more life-like appearance.

There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube for achieving realistic faces. So, grab your pencils, eraser and blending stumps and play around with it a bit. See you next month!

Pencil Drawings

With winter weather closing in, limiting outdoor activities (at least for me), indoor activities make their appearance. After pushing away the giant stacks of jigsaw puzzles accumulated over the past year and a half, I’ve pulled out my drawing tools. Every artist who is serious about drawing acquires a monster stash of art supplies; graphite, charcoal and colored pencils, markers, crayons, art pens, erasers, blending stumps, rulers (yes, it’s okay to use rulers), sharpeners as well as boxes to store all this material in.

I play around with coloring books, but when it comes to serious sketching, I do my own artwork. I’m currently using graphite and charcoal pencils. I’m planning on branching out into colored pencil as well as pastel drawing and watercolor, but I think I’ll always be partial to graphite and charcoal.

I have always drawn free-hand ever since I developed enough coordination to pick up a crayon and apply it to paper. It’s something that’s always come naturally to me. Attempts to use the grids recommended by some artists feels too cramping for me. Other artists advise against this method as it can make you too dependent on the grid for getting your drawing’s proportions correct. I’m inclined to agree and the following sketches are all free-hand.

A good book, if you are interested in drawing accurate birds is The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds by John Muir Laws. It provides instructions for getting not only the basic anatomy of the bird itself but the pattern of feathers, how they are distributed on the body and accurate looking feet. Following his directions, I was able to draw a cardinal.

A common complaint I see on reviews for art books is that the artist doesn’t give enough step-by-step instructions for illustrating a subject. While this may be true for some books, it’s important to realize it’s not the writer’s job to frog walk you, a budding artist, through every single step of a drawing. They are only showing you how they achieve their results. This is why you buy dozens of practice sketch books (I get the cheapie ones from Walmart) and draw over and over and over again to achieve the results you’re looking for. Like the old joke about getting to Carnegie Hall, you just have to practice a lot. It took several tries to get an recognizable bird of prey.

Or accurate looking shore birds.

But again, it’s simply a matter of practice.

When including birds in your art work, it will not be necessary to draw in every single feather or leg scale but knowing how everything is placed can help in rendering more accurate images which please the eye and don’t look cartoonish. Once you get the basics down, then, if you want, you can graduate to using colored pencils, watercolors or pastels to make your artwork really pop.

Happy drawing!

October Observations

The first full month of Fall has come and is nearly gone with Halloween just around the corner. Blink and you’ll miss it. Why time insists on whizzing by so fast these days is uncertain but may involve the fact that the older you get, the more time seems to speed up. Science data suggests that as we age, our ability to process images and experiences decreases even though time is actually moving at the same pace it always does. That may very well be, but one reason I almost never watch television anymore is the increasingly frantic pace of cutting from one scene to the next as well as the endless barrage of truncated ‘sound bites’ which convey little information that’s of any use. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this and like others I find it obnoxious.

Maybe that’s because I’m getting to be an old fuddy-duddy now or maybe my tolerance for baloney has permanently tanked. In any case, I’ve changed to walking more, paying more attention to reality and taking my entertainment in bite size chunks of my own choosing, rather than having it spoon fed to me by faceless corporations out to make a profit at my expense.

On the morning of October 10, about 11:30 AM, many people in southern New Hampshire, as well as parts of Maine and Massachusetts reported hearing a loud boom. Curiously neither of my brothers who both live in the southern part of the state heard anything out of the ordinary or if they did, attributed it to nearby noisemakers and thought nothing more of it. Scientists say there was no earthquake and the FAA says there was no military plane activity in the area. Most likely explanation is a bolide coming in from space exploding in the upper atmosphere. So unless the Air Force fesses up and admits one of their boys was hotdogging, the meteor explanation will have to suffice.

The Covid panic proceeds apace with no signs of letting up. There’s been a minor surge in the past few weeks here in New Hampshire, no doubt largely due to the influx of germ laden tourists during fall foliage season. It will no doubt subside in the coming weeks and resurface with the holiday seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Let’s face it, folks. Covid is here to stay and become another one of the ailments we have to chronically deal with, like influenza or norovirus.

The tree foliage here in Northern New Hampshire has peaked and leaves are now being shed with increasing speed, piling up at the side of the road, on top of lawns or spinning around madly in the backwash left by speeding cars. Colors were good but are quickly fading away from bright yellows and reds to less flamboyant yellow ochers and bronze shades. I’m trying to stay on top of the raking by going out in good weather (with hopefully no wind) and using an actual rake that I hold in my hands and scratch the ground with. Yes, people still use those things! Much quieter than a leaf blower plus you get a good aerobics workout.

Birds have begun migrating through, with the bulk of them being robins, sparrows and juncos. I’ve heard both flickers and pileated woodpeckers in the woods with their loud characteristic calls. Crows and blue jays are flying back and forth, probably checking out their digs for the winter and calling out anybody who tried to invade their territory. Squirrels and chipmunks are packing away the bonanza of acorns to help them tide over winter and mice are trying weasel their way into the woodwork of the house looking for a warm place to shack up in for the winter.

Chipmunks are especially amusing to watch as they cram seeds and acorns into pockets they have in their cheeks until they look like they have a dreadful case of the mumps. Very industrious, they don’t hibernate but do stock food away for the winter so they have something to feed on while the weather is foul and they have to lay low. These energetic little ground squirrels are surprisingly territorial, calling out their ownership with loud piercing bird-like chirps and pounding on any chippie who crosses the line, trying to invade. People get fooled by their cute appearance, thinking they’re sweet little animals. Don’t you believe it! These guys are little scrappers and are not above trying to bite off their opponent’s tail to assert dominance. It’s a rough and tumble world if you’re a chipmunk.

On a somber note, I recently witnessed the funeral procession of a local fireman who passed away suddenly. A twenty four year veteran, he had just retired, but sadly never got a chance to enjoy it. I watched the procession begin just after the services at the local Catholic church. Dozens of firemen from around the north country attended, in full dress uniforms with white gloves, standing at attention and saluting the flag draped coffin as it emerged from the church. The coffin was then loaded into the back of a fire engine for one last ride down Main Street past the local fire station where a huge American flag had been hung over the road.

American flag salute for fireman's funeral

Though I didn’t know the fireman personally, it was still a moving ceremony to watch, a recognition of his years of service and the respect he was held in.

Lastly is the weather. While we are experiencing fall like conditions now, it wasn’t until this past week that the first light frost hit some of the plants in my garden. This is extremely unusual as the first light frosts usually occur in mid to late September and a hard freeze usually by mid-October. While I’m not sure if this is a record for this area, the local weather reporter for WMUR did state this is the latest frosts have made their appearance in many years. While some may dispute global warming, I have seen too much evidence of it in recent years to doubt its existence.

Well, that’s all for this month. Have a peaceful Autumn, everybody.

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