The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

“First Fig”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

Halloween:

Some juicy pulp fiction horror.

-The Voice before the Void

“The Plant-Thing”

R.G. Macready

H.P. Lovecraft’s Birthday:

Herald now the autumnal season of death, darkness, and Halloween.

-The Voice before the Void

“Despair”

H.P. Lovecraft

O’er the midnight moorlands crying,

Thro’ the cypress forests sighing,

In the night-wind madly flying,

Hellish forms with streaming hair;

In the barren branches creaking,

By the stagnant swamp-pools speaking,

Past the shore-cliffs ever shrieking,

Damn’d demons of despair.

Once, I think I half remember,

Ere the grey skies of November

Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,

Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;

Skies that now are dark were beaming,

Bold and azure, splendid seeming

Till I learn’d it all was dreaming —

Deadly drowsiness of Dis.

But the stream of Time, swift flowing,

Brings the torment of half-knowing —

Dimly rushing, blindly going

Past the never-trodden lea;

And the voyager, repining,

Sees the wicked death-fires shining,

Hears the wicked petrel’s whining

As he helpless drifts to sea.

Evil wings in ether beating;

Vultures at the spirit eating;

Things unseen forever fleeting

Black against the leering sky.

Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,

Clawing fiends of future sadness,

Mingle in a cloud of madness

Ever on the soul to lie.

Thus the living, lone and sobbing,

In the throes of anguish throbbing,

With the loathsome Furies robbing

Night and noon of peace and rest.

But beyond the groans and grating

Of abhorrent Life, is waiting

Sweet Oblivion, culminating

All the years of fruitless quest.

Mysteries are interesting.

Also, aliens.

-The Voice before the Void

“Pag Triangle”

Wikipedia

Pag Triangle (Croatian: Paški trokut) is a land formation in the shape of an isosceles triangle located near Novalja, a small town on the Croatian island Pag. The triangle has one side measuring approximately 32 metres (105 ft) and two sides both measuring 22 metres (72 ft). It differs from the surrounding area in the fact that the rocks inside the triangle are of different structure than rocks outside the triangle. Croatian ufologist Stjepan Zvonarić believes it was the site of a UFO landing which heated the rocks to extreme temperatures in the past. This property is unique to the Pag Triangle rocks, and is not found in rocks in the surrounding area.

Since its discovery in 1999, it is estimated that the Pag Triangle has been visited by over 500,000 tourists. It is a protected area of the Town of Novalja. Croatian ufologists have linked the existence of the triangle to a series of UFO sightings in late 20th century over the island of Pag, while some perceive the triangle as a sign of Holy Trinity, sometimes associated with Catholic priest Zlatko Sudac receiving his stigmata during a conversation about the triangle. In early 2009, a road was built connecting the triangle to the nearby village Caska and thus making it more accessible to visitors.

Paški trokut

Wikipedija

Paški trokut ime je za megalitski otisak u obliku jednakokračnih trokuta na otoku Pagu, u blizini mjesta Novalje. Trokut je otkrio hrvatski geodet Zdenko Grbavac 9. svibnja 1999. godine na brdu Tusto čelo, prilikom obavljanja geodetskih poslova za lokaciju kamenoloma. Prilikom mjerenja tla, Zdenko je zapazio trokutnu formaciju na brdu Tusto čelo, i kada je napravio mjerenja zapazio je pravilnost trokuta koji je ima sljedeće mjere: dvije stranice od 32 metara, te jedne stranice od 22 metara te da je kamenje unutar trokuta svjetlije od kamenja izvan trokuta. Svoje otkriće Zdenko je objavio medijima, što je privuklo dosta pažnje javnosti, turista, znatiželjnika, znastvenika i ufologa. Struktura kamenja koja se nalaze u trokutu drugačija su od kamena koji se nalazi van trokuta. Prema istraživanjima hrvatskog geologa Stjepana Zvonarića, kamen unutar trokuta kada se izloži ultraljubičastim zrakama daje crvenu fosforenciju, što znači da je kamen unutar trokuta bio izložen ekstremnim temperaturama u prošlosti. Crvena fosforescencija je samo vidljiva na licu kamena koji je okrenut prema zemlji, jer tijekom godina i izlaganjem vremenskim prilikama i suncu crvena fosforescencija je isprana. Slična svojstva nisu pronađena ni u jednom kamenu u bližoj okolici paškog trokuta. Otkriće paškog trokuta 1999. godine izazvalo je pravu senzaciju kod hrvatskih ufologista, a mjesto je posjetilo prema nekim procijenama više od pola milijuna radoznalaca i turista, osobito nakon reportaža o misterioznim svjetilima koja su je pojavljivala u to vrijeme. Zbog raznoraznih nagađanja i glasina navodno o nadnaravnim moćima kamena ili kao ljekovita tvar, mnogi posjetitelji su uzimali su dijelove kamena s paškog trokuta tako da na nekim mjestima na trokutu sada zjape rupe. Zbog devastacije grad Novalja je zaštitio područje gdje se nalazi trokut 2000. godine.

“That’s really good, and it’s really sad.”

“Under the Lion’s Paw”

Hamlin Garland

“Along the main-travelled road trailed an endless line of prairie schooners. Coming into sight at the east, and passing out of sight over the swell to the west. We children used to wonder where they were going and why they went.”

It was the last of autumn and first day of winter coming together. All day long the ploughmen on their prairie farms had moved to and fro in their wide level fields through the falling snow, which melted as it fell, wetting them to the skin all day, notwithstanding the frequent squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate clouds, and the muck of the furrows, black and tenacious as tar.

Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and fro silently with that marvellous uncomplaining patience which marks the horse. All day the wild geese, honking wildly, as they sprawled sidewise down the wind, seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, and with neck outthrust and wings extended, sailed down the wind, soon lost to sight.

Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the snow lay on his ragged great-coat, and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering him like gyves, whistled in the very beard of the gale. As day passed, the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the ploughed land, and lodged in the depth of the stubble, till on each slow round the last furrow stood out black and shining as jet between the ploughed land and the gray stubble.

When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, began to alight invisibly in the near corn-field, Stephen Council was still at work “finishing a land.” He rode on his sulky plough when going with the wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand.

“Come round there, boys! Round agin! We got t’ finish this land. Come in there, Dan! Stiddy, Kate, stiddy! None o’ y’r tantrums, Kittie. It’s purty tuff, but got a be did. Tchk! tchk! Step along, Pete! Don’t let Kate git y’r single-tree on the wheel. Once more!”

They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last round, for they worked with greater vigor than before.

“Once more, boys, an’ then, sez I, oats an’ a nice warm stall, an’ sleep f’r all.”

By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it was too dark to see the house, and the snow was changing to rain again. The tired and hungry man could see the light from the kitchen shining through the leafless hedge, and he lifted a great shout, “Supper f’r a half a dozen!”

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time he had finished his chores and started for supper. He was picking his way carefully through the mud, when the tall form of a man loomed up before him with a premonitory cough.

“Waddy ye want?” was the rather startled question of the farmer.

“Well, ye see,” began the stranger, in a deprecating tone, “we’d like t’ git in f’r the night. We’ve tried every house f’r the last two miles, but they hadn’t any room f’r us. My wife’s jest about sick, ‘n’ the children are cold and hungry—”

“Oh, y’ want ‘o stay all night, eh,?”

“Yes, sir; it ‘ud be a great accom—”

“Waal, I don’t make it a practice t’ turn anybuddy way hungry, not on sech nights as this. Drive right in. We ain’t got much, but sech as it is—”

But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his steaming, weary team, with drooping heads and swinging single-trees, moved past the well to the block beside the path. Council stood at the side of the “schooner” and helped the children ou...

The following chapter.

Also, August 1st is the anniversary of Melville’s birth.

-The Voice before the Void

“The Tail”

from Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Herman Melville

Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, I celebrate a tail.

Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across.

The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut

into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:–upper,

middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are

long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running

crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much

as anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old

Roman walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the

thin course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those

wonderful relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so

much to the great strength of the masonry.

But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not

enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and

woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side

the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with

them, and largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the

confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to

a point. Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to

do it.

Nor does this–its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the

graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease

undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those

motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength

never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in

everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the

magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from

the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As

devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of

Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that

seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the

Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever

they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled,

hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most

successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of

all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative,

feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is

conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.

Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether

wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it

be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace.

Therein no fairy’s arm can transcend it.

Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for

She wanted to hear me read from Moby-Dick, so I opened the book to a random chapter.

-The Voice before the Void

“The Fountain”

from Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Herman Melville

That for six thousand years–and no one knows how many millions of ages before–the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings–that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapour–this is surely a noteworthy thing.

Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items

contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their

gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times

is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or

a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the

surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him

regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by

inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the

necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he

cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary

attitude, the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet

beneath the surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no

connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle

alone; and this is on the top of his head.

If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function

indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a

certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with

the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not

think I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous

scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in

a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his

nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to

say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem,

this is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives,

by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without

drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle

of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his

ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable

involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels,

when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated

blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea,

he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel

crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for

future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact

of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded

upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I

consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in

HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I

mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale

will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his

other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets

seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he

...

Life is paradox.

-The Voice before the Void

There is Life Before Reading Moby-Dick, and There is Life After Reading Moby-Dick

Works mentioned:

Report to Greco by Nikos Kazantzakis

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour

“The Fiddler” by Herman Melville

50 Great American Short Stories edited by Milton Crane

“I and My Chimney” by Herman Melville

Great Short Works of Herman Melville edited by Warner Berthoff

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

“Arma Virumque” by Ambrose Bierce

The Sermon on the Mount by Jesus

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

The Sea-Wolf by Jack London

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Other authors mentioned:

Homer

Mark Twain

Robert Benchley

Patrick F. McManus

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Edgar Allan Poe

H.P. Lovecraft

Genuine mysteries are so very rare, but here is an artifact of an unknown language, an unknown botany, an unknown madness, an unknown world.

-The Voice before the Void

“Voynich manuscript”

Wikipedia

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912.

Some of the pages are missing, with around 240 still remaining. The text is written from left to right, and most of the pages have illustrations or diagrams. Some pages are foldable sheets.

The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. No one has yet succeeded in deciphering the text, and it has become a famous case in the history of cryptography. The mystery of the meaning and origin of the manuscript has excited the popular imagination, making the manuscript the subject of novels and speculation. None of the many hypotheses proposed over the last hundred years has yet been independently verified.

The Voynich manuscript was donated by Hans P. Kraus to Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 1969, where it is catalogued under call number MS 408.

1. Description

Codicology

The codicology, or physical characteristics of the manuscript, are studied by various researchers. The manuscript measures 23.5 by 16.2 by 5 centimetres, with hundreds of vellum pages collected into eighteen quires (units of 25 pages). The total number of pages is around 240, but the exact number depends on how the manuscript’s unusual foldouts are counted. The quires have been numbered from 1 to 20 in various locations, using numerals consistent with the 1400s, and the top righthand corner of each recto (righthand) page has been numbered from 1 to 116, using numerals of a later date. From the various numbering gaps in the quires and pages, it seems likely that in the past the manuscript had at least 272 pages in 20 quires, some of which were already missing when Wilfrid Voynich acquired the manuscript in 1912. There is strong evidence that many of the book’s bifolios were reordered at various points in its history, and that the original page order may well have been quite different from what it is today.

Parchment, covers, and binding

Protein testing revealed the paper (parchment) was made from calf skin, and multispectral analysis in 2014 showed the parchment was unwritten before the manuscript was created. While the parchment was created with care, deficiencies exist, and the quality is assessed as average at best.

Some folios are thicker than the usual parchment thickness, for example bifolios 42 and 47.

The goat skin binding and covers are not original to the book but date to during its possession by the Collegio Romano. Insect holes, present on the first and last folios of the manuscript in the current order, suggest a wooden cover was present earlier to the later covers and discolouring on the edges points to a tanned leather inside cover.

Ink

Many pages contain substantial drawings or charts which are colored with paint. Based on modern analysis using polarized light microscopy (PLM), it has been determined that a quill pen and iron gall ink were used for the text and figure outlines; the colored paint was applied (somewhat crudely) to the figures,

Ambrose Bierce’s Birthday:

Bierce regards Death with fine, sarcastic, suppurating contempt.

-The Voice before the Void

“A Guest”

Ambrose Bierce

Death, are you well? I trust you have no cough

That’s painful or in any way annoying—

No kidney trouble that may carry you off,

Or heart disease to keep you from enjoying

Your meals—and ours. ‘T were very sad indeed

To have to quit the busy life you lead.

You’ve been quite active lately for so old

A person, and not very strong-appearing.

I’m apprehensive, somehow, that my bold,

Bad brother gave you trouble in the spearing.

And my two friends—I fear, sir, that you ran

Quite hard for them, especially the man.

I crave your pardon: ’twas no fault of mine;

If you are overworked I’m sorry, very.

Come in, old man, and have a glass of wine.

What shall it be—Marsala, Port or Sherry?

What! just a mug of blood? That’s funny grog

To ask a friend for, eh? Well, take it, hog!