Tag: writing

Mescalito Meets Calligraphy Class

On By Chas S. Clifton4 Comments
Death is a whorl, he said.
Given my choice of text, what do you think that I had been reading back in my dorm room?

Cleaning out a stash of frames, mats, framed photos, some of Dad’s old watercolors, etc. today, I found this.

It is work from my beginning calligraphy class at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where the study of calligraphy shaped the visual identity from the 1940s–1980s in particular, and to a lesser extent today.

My teacher, the former monk Robert Palladino, was forced out in the 1980s, apparently by a cabal of humanities professors who felt that calligraphy was just pretty writing but not really intellectually serious.That is my take on it; in his interview Palladino says that his half-time job was sacrificed so the studio arts program (always an orphan) could hire a full-time sculptor. But I think that he was too nice a guy (and hampered by his half-time appointment) to be an active player in the game of faculty politics and to build alliances to fight for his program. (I saw something similar happen to two other professors, who had in common that they were female and foreign-born.)

The professors who sneered at calligraphy were wrong, of course. If you took Lloyd Reynolds’ or Palladino’s courses, you ended up getting a whole history of the Western tradition, since the study of calligraphy — like music  history — brought with it lineages of thinkers, rulers, and texts. And in everyone’s favorite anecdote, the fact that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sat it on one of Palladino’s classes influenced the screen fonts and graphics of Macintosh computers a decade later.

Since 2012, an effort has been made to bring back the formal study of calligraphy via “the Scriptorium.”

Me, I just took one semester’s worth. I was a little overawed by my roommate, who sucked down calligraphy like oxygen and went on to become a professional calligrapher and graphic designer in San Francisco. I was a toddler scribbling on the wall with a crayon compared to him.

Interview with Carl Weschcke’s Biographer

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment
Melanie Marquis (Voyage Denver).

I once stayed a couple of nights at Carl Weschcke’s house, when he lived out in Marine on St. Croix, and on the drive back and forth to the old Llewellyn Publications office in St. Paul I heard a lot of his stories — but I am sure there are more!

Colorado author Melanie Marquis has written several books for Llewellyn, but the one that I most want to see is Carl Llewellyn Weschcke: Pioneer & Publisher of Body, Mind & Spirit.

From the publisher’s description:

To the countless people he inspired, Carl Llewellyn Weschcke will forever be known as the Father of the New Age. This vivid and entertaining book tells Carl’s story, from a childhood influenced by his Spiritualist grandfather to his early days as a member and president of the Minnesota NAACP. Discover the fascinating account of how he transformed Llewellyn Publications from a small publisher of astrology pamphlets into the largest and most important publisher of body, mind, and spirit literature. Read about Carl’s relationships with the most influential thinkers and teachers of the counterculture, and his public Wiccan handfasting and enduring relationship with his wife, Sandra. Written by longtime friend Melanie Marquis?and including photos and contributions from authors, artists, family, friends, and collaborators?this is a book that looks back at the kindling of a movement while empowering fellow travelers on their journey forward.

When people talk about the history of Paganism, most of the emphasis is on the groups, leaders, and inspirational writers. Carl did some writing too, but I focus on his accomplishments as publisher and facilitator. He added Wiccan and then other Pagan titles to what had been an astrology-focused list. He threw parties. He published Gnostica, his “magalog” (magazine + catalog) with people like Isaac Bonewits (briefly editor) and Robert Anton Wilson writing for it. His Gnosticon festivals, along with the Church of Wicca’s Samhain Seminars (both of them hotel-based conventions) were among the first large Pagan gatherings where people actually met practitioners from other groups beyond their own.

Really, could you imagine North American Paganism without Llewellyn books, say what you will about some of them? No Buckland’s “Big Blue Book“? No Scott Cunningham? No Silver Ravenwolf? No Chas Clifton’s Witchcraft Today series?

According to Marquis, interviewed on the website Voyage Denver, Carl was “an absolutely fascinating man who took a small mail-order company of astrology pamphlets and built it into a multi-million dollar publishing house focused on New Age and occult literature. He was also a lifelong student of the occult sciences. and a dedicated activist and engaging speaker and outspoken leader during the civil rights era.”

Read the whole interview about her life and her writing here.

Margot Adler’s Old Radio Station Shuts Down

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments
Margot Adler, 1946–2014

Well-known Pagan writer Margot Adler worked for National Public Radio, but she also had a presence at  Pacifica’s WBAI in New York City, where she hosted a talk show called “Hour of the Wolf.”

The show continued after her death, but no more: WBAI has shut down. Apparently the “listener-supported” thing no longer worked for them. And their website links to articles about Margot no longer work either.

In the ’60s and ’70s, the station had been a platform for the counterculture, broadcasting everything from Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” to George Carlin’s “Filthy Words.”

More recently, it hit financial turbulence, laying off nearly two-thirds of its staff in August 2013. In November of that year, musicians including Pete Seeger staged a benefit concert for WBAI at the Cutting Room.

In March 2014, after falling $1.8 million behind on rent in the Empire State Building, the station received an emergency loan to prevent the building’s holding company from seizing its assets. It then relocated to 4 Times Square.

Pacifica said Monday it would relaunch WBAI once it’s able to create “a sustainable financial structure for the station.” Until then, it said WBAI’s signal would carry “a network source called Pacifica Across America.”

How Do You Write to a Pagan Author?

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments

I got this email last week from a publishing firm that I had never heard of. I did my due diligence — I looked at their website and read an article about them from Publishers Weekly. Apparently their nonfiction business model is to do deep data analysis and see what is trending, then commission books about those things.

Apparently one of those trending things is Paganism. Yeah, I know, surprise surprise.

So I got this letter, and I wonder who else got it too. I’m still chuckling at the first sentence:

I hope this finds you in a joyously supernatural or naturalistic environment. My name is [redacted] and I help manage acquisitions for  [name of company], a nonfiction book publisher that is the fastest growing in the world. Given your incredible passion for all that encompasses the pagan realm, with a strong background as a Pagan writer as well, I thought you would be interested in potentially authoring a new book we seek to publish.

I am still trying to sort that out. If I were in a “supernatural environment,” would I be reading email? Wouldn’t I be feasting with the Fairie Queen or something? As for “naturalistic,” that usually a term in art criticism: “closely resembling the object imitated.”[1]“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Maybe she meant that I was sitting with my Power Book under the pine trees— a nice image, but not how I work.

Let’s leave aside my “incredible passion” (sweetie, you don’t know me that well) and the inconsistent capitalization of Pagan/pagan. Also, “fastest growing” should be hyphenated. Anyhow, I bet she sent out a batch of these, don’t you?

Thank you, [name redacted], for brightening my week. But I have too much on my plate to write another “Paganism 101” book.

Notes

Notes
↑1 “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

All the Books Set in Glastonbury

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments
Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, destroyed at the orders of Henry VIII
Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, destroyed at the orders of Henry VIII (Wikimedia Commons).

From  Vicki Steward’s  blog Normal For Glastonbury: Life in the Oddest Town in England, a list of all the novels set in Glastonbury.

There some Phil Rickman titles there that I had missed, possibly because they were categorized as YA and published under a different name.

Marion Zimmer Bradley, of course, Faye Weldon, and lots of others. And the heavyweight, John Cowper Powys’ A Glastonbury Romance. Unlike Vicki Steward, I  have read it. It is odd and complex, but so was he.

New Issue of The Pomegranate Published

On By Chas S. Clifton

Issue 20.2 (2018) table of contents
Articles
On the Agony of Czech Slavic Paganism and the Representation of One’s Own Funeral among Contemporary Czech Pagans
Giuseppe Maiello

An Esbat among the Quads: An Episode of Witchcraft at Oxford University in the 1920s
Graham John Wheeler

Pagan and Indigenous Communities in Interreligious Contexts: Interrogating Identity, Power, and Authenticity
Lee Gilmore

Claiming Europe: Celticity in Russian Pagan and Nativist Movement (1990s–2010s)
Dmitry Galtsin

The Hunt for Lost Identity: Native Faith Paganism in Contemporary Lithuania
Dalia Senvaityte

Book Reviews-open access
W. Michael Ashcraft, A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements
Carole M. Cusack

Anthony Ephirim-Donkor, African Personality and Spirituality: The Role of Abosom and Human Essence
Douglas Ficek

Jefferson F. Calico, Being Viking: Heathenry in Contemporary America
Galina Krasskova

Driven to Drink by Editing

On By Chas S. Clifton3 Comments
Yes, that is coffee and wine together. And a candle.

This is my world this week, as I wrap up a tardy issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies — as soon as a certain person OK’s my copyediting job on her article and I can send it to the layout editor with the rest. Articles in this issue come from Russia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic,[1]Are we supposed to say “Czechia” now?Britain, and the United States.

Then will come layout for the Bulletin for the Study of Religion and, oh yes, another Pomegranate to get us back on schedule.

Always at hand (to the left of the wine glass), the Chicago Manual of Style. Learn it, people—or at least bookmark the important shortcuts. (Actually, CMS is for editors; academic writers can get by with A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations  for considerably less money.)

On the right, Kaarina Aitamurto and Scott Simpson’s edited collection, Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe — the article that I was editing referenced it quite a bit. And of course a back issue of The Pomegranate for those “How did I do X last time?” questions.

Male evening grosbeak (Cornell University).

But there are advantages to working at home, like being pestered by dogs, particularly Wendy the foster dog, an excitable German wirehaired pointer.[2]She has been living here since March, but now that her owner is out of the hospital and feeling better, he hopes to pick her up next month.

She clatters into my study: “Come quick! come quick!” then rushes through the open door onto the veranda.”Look! Birds! Birds! We must act!”

“No, Wendy,” I say, “those are evening grosbeaks. We are not hunting them.”

“Ha!” she says, and the next morning on dog walk,she dashes into the brush and comes out with a very very dead grosbeak, which she carries proudly into the house.

Retrieving birds is what she does — can’t punish her for that! And she knows it.

Notes

Notes
↑1 Are we supposed to say “Czechia” now?
↑2 She has been living here since March, but now that her owner is out of the hospital and feeling better, he hopes to pick her up next month.

I Can Quit Collecting at Any Time; In Fact, I Have

On By Chas S. Clifton5 Comments
1940s technology to the rescue.

But I still get a twinge when reading about this typewriter repairman-restoration specialist in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. One of three in the state, it turns out.

“Talk QWERTY to me: A vintage typewriter shop in Glenwood Springs gets analog hearts racing.”

Typewriters are lined up on floor-to-ceiling shelves. They are tucked away in rows of sturdy carrying cases. They squat, solid and reliable, on every surface. In the basement, there are typewriter towers and canyons. Typewriter belts, washers, feet, springs and other bits fill bins and boxes — so many, there are “parts for parts,” owner Darwin Raymond observed wryly.

Typewriters are lined up on floor-to-ceiling shelves. They are tucked away in rows of sturdy carrying cases. They squat, solid and reliable, on every surface. In the basement, there are typewriter towers and canyons. Typewriter belts, washers, feet, springs and other bits fill bins and boxes — so many, there are “parts for parts,” owner Darwin Raymond observed wryly.

One of these days, my travels will bring me to Glenwood Springs again.

Megaliths Started in France, Say Archaeologists

On By Chas S. Clifton5 Comments

ROCK ON Huge stone structures found throughout Europe spread out in three waves starting as early as 6,800 years ago, a new study finds. This stone grave on Sardinia in Italy dates to around 5,000 years ago.(Credit: Sciencenews.org).

I read this article, and all I could think about was the potential for historical-fantasy novels on the line of Jean Auel or Michael and Kathleen Gear: The Megalith Mission. Or something like that!

The earliest megaliths were built in what’s now northwestern France as early as around 6,800 years ago, says archaeologist Bettina Schulz Paulsson of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Knowledge of these stone constructions then spread by sea to societies along Europe’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, she contends in a study posted online the week of February 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“European megaliths were products of mobile, long-distance sea travelers,” Schulz Paulsson says.

Around 35,000 megalithic graves, standing stones, stone circles and stone buildings or temples still exist, many located near coastlines. Radiocarbon dating has suggested that these structures were built between roughly 6,500 and 4,500 years ago.

Scholars a century ago thought that megaliths originated in the Near East or the Mediterranean area and spread elsewhere via sea trading or land migrations by believers in a megalithic religion. But as absolute dates for archaeological sites began to emerge in the 1970s, several researchers argued that megaliths emerged independently among a handful of European farming communities.

Publishing Thoughts after AAR-SBL 2018

On By Chas S. Clifton
Nothing gladdens an editor’s heart like seeing an author with his new book. Here Jefferson Calico talks about Being Viking: Heathenisn in Contemporary America with Giovanna Parmigiani, who also presented a paper in a Contemporary Pagan Studies session.

I got so busy with the “Season of the Witch(crap)” series that I wrote nothing about last month’s joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.[1]The SBL is actually the parent of the AAR, but the child organization is now much bigger and broader.

The meeting this year was in Denver for the first time since 2001. Although I live in Colorado, I visit Denver only once or twice a year, and when I do, I feel like a country mouse in the urban canyons. There was a time when I sold print advertising up there once or twice a month and was pretty familiar with the central areas, but so much has changed, that my memories are palimpsests, and I have to learn its geography all over again. That restaurant that I remember as moderately priced is now more expensive, and they don’t have any tables available.

That said, if you are a meeting planner, Denver’s convention center is easy to navigate, is withing about four blocks of thousands of hotel rooms, and also within a short walk from many restaurants, so that 10,000 hungry intellectuals discharged into the city center can find places to eat lunch.

And you can take an Amtrak train (or a commuter train from the airport) into the city center and then ride a free shuttle bus into the hotel district. M. and I drove, however, handing our mud-splattered Jeep over to the hotel parking valet for the duration.

But enough boosterism. I was there with a light heart: I am no longer co-chair of the AAR’s Contemporary Pagan Studies Unit, and I had no obligations to anyone about anything, not to mention no obligation to attend the 7:15 a.m. chairs’ breakfast (yawn) or the tense negotiations of the steering committees’ reception, where, drink in hand and shouting in someone’s ear, you attempt to arrange joint sessions for the following year.

Thank you, term limits!

Instead, I went to sessions and talked to authors, coming away with a possible two books for the Equinox series in Contemporary and Historical Paganism and a contribution to an editing collection that is in progress. I will not name these, because I do not wish to jinx them.  The series, I should say, has published more than one book as it has moved from publisher to publisher, but after a merger and a de-merger, we had to re-set the meter to zero. Long story.

I also came away with plans for a guest-edited issue of The Pomegranate  on
Traditionalism and Paganism. I had always though of Traditionalism as concerned mainly with esoteric approaches to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but there is also Pagan or Pagan-friendly version, largely traceable back to the French philosopher Alain de Benoist.

And then we get into some very tricky territory. Here there be dragons.

Soon I will post all the “calls for papers” for three special issues of The Pomegranate, each with a well-qualified editor, and if you are working in any one those areas, I hope that you will get in touch.

Notes

Notes
↑1 The SBL is actually the parent of the AAR, but the child organization is now much bigger and broader.