A childhood friend of mine spent a year each in Baghdad and Tehran during junior high school because her father, who headed the journalism department at UC Berkeley, went over there to teach (this was a couple of years after the Free Speech Movement took place at the Berkeley campus). Around the same time, the Jewish family I babysat for named their tortoise-shell cat Ferdowsi, after a renowned tenth century poet who wrote the great national epic of the Persian people. There was a spirit in the air back then of limitless possibility and opportunity, as if the Great War was behind us and the best of the world’s cultural traditions were melding together to usher in a new, global Golden Age.

Then it all turned dark, as Vietnam consumed increasing amounts of attention and resources and differing factions of our society brought the war onto home turf. We descended into an abyss from which I think we’ve yet to fully emerge. Exhibit A, for me, is the Iraq war: if Americans had learned the lessons of Vietnam, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would never have gotten away with what they did.

There’s a revolution currently underway in Iran, although if you rely on the mainstream media for news these days you could be forgiven for thinking that the only interesting thing going on there is whether or not the bogeyman du jour is going to get its hands on the material to make nuclear weapons that might threaten our sanctified way of life. But President Obama did something truly groundbreaking a handful of months ago, in a speech in Cairo, when he openly acknowledged the history of America’s dirty dealings in Iran’s internal affairs. It took the election of the first African American president for our country to formally begin redressing the age-old American penchant for shadow projection. Read more…

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing the renowned artist John Howe for many years, through our mutual involvement with the world of J.R.R. Tolkien. Earlier this year, I had the honor of posting a guest newsletter on his web site. It was a delightful opportunity to contemplate famliar themes through a broader lens.

MAGICAL BORDERS

In July of 2008, as the historic presidential election was hitting fever pitch, I traveled to Washington DC to visit my son, who was there as a summer intern with the Democratic National Committee. On the Fourth, before heading to the Mall for the spectacular nighttime fireworks display, we crossed the Potomac River into Virginia to spend the afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery. It was the first visit for both of us, and we stopped at the Visitor Center near the entrance to get a map and information on where a family member was buried.

We began our tour by following the crowds flocking to John F. Kennedy’s grave. Then, amidst a smaller group of fellow tourists, we headed up the hill to Arlington House, the beautiful residence with a sweeping panorama of the city that Robert E. Lee abandoned on the eve of the Civil War, never to return to again.

From there, we were on our own. We stopped in the rose garden outside Arlington House to map out the way to our relative’s grave. The path that on paper looked to be the shortest route immediately plunged steeply downhill. Given the amount of terrain we had to cover, it didn’t take long to realize we would be better off conserving our energy and keeping to the heights toward the back of the cemetery. So, we retraced our steps and headed out another way.

No-one was up there save for a few birds hopping from grave stone to grave stone. The road led through an old burial ground from the Civil War. Read more…

A handful of years ago I was immersed in work on the script for a musical stage version of The Lord of the Rings that was being developed in London’s West End. The underlying premise of the adaptation was that we would be telling the ancient stories of Middle-earth in a new way. Keeping the actions, motivations and relationships of the characters true to what was known of them from the books would give the creative freedom needed to tell the main story in a fashion that drew on the strengths of the musical theatre form.

We were having difficulty developing the character of Arwen; I was annoyed that her dialogue kept making her sound like a whiny doormat for Aragorn. I scoured The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s other writings for source material that might help to flesh her out, but I came up with little other than the fact that, as an Elvish woman who would bear children with a mortal man, she would become the agent through which seeds of magic would carry over into the Age of the Dominion of Men. That helped to fill in her back story, but it wasn’t enough to address the problem of her portrayal in the narrative.

Casting further afield, it occurred to me that tracing the roots of the phrase “the horns of Elfland” might yield up something useful about Elvish culture that could offer clues to her persona.Tolkien used the phrase towards the end of his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, referring to some key tenets of the realm of Faërie. It’s also a central motif in Lord Dunsany’s enchanting novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter. It originates in an 1847 poem by Tennyson called The Princess, and I was lucky enough to find a copy at the Berkeley Public Library. The book had been published in 1900 and hadn’t seen the light of day in many a year. I blew the dust off the cover and brought it along on my next trip to London, hoping I might find a treasure trove of lore on Elves, their habitat and customs.

To my surprise, the Lord of the Rings character who emerged from the pages was Éowyn, the warrior maid of Rohan, not Arwen. Read more…

Through brute nature upward rising,
Seed up-striving to the light,
Revelations still surprising,
My inwardness is grown insight.
Still I slight not those first stages,
Dark but God-directed Ages;
In my nature leonine
Labored & learned a Soul divine;
Put forth an aspect Chaste, Serene,
Of nature virgin mother queen;
Assumes at last the destined wings,
Earth & heaven together brings;
While its own form the riddle tells
That baffled all the wizard spells
Drawn from intellectual wells,
Cold waters where truth never dwells:
—It was fable told you so—
Seek her in common daylight’s glow.

– Margaret Fuller, (1810-1850)