The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

Xmas Special:

Hail Bierce.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Yearly Lie”

Ambrose Bierce

A merry Christmas? Prudent, as I live!—

You wish me something that you need not give.

Merry or sad, what does it signify?

To you ‘t is equal if I laugh, or die.

Your hollow greeting, like a parrot’s jest,

Finds all its meaning in the ear addressed.

Why “merry” Christmas? Faith, I’d rather frown

Than grin and caper like a tickled clown.

When fools are merry the judicious weep;

The wise are happy only when asleep.

A present? Pray you give it to disarm

A man more powerful to do you harm.

‘T was not your motive? Well, I cannot let

You pay for favors that you’ll never get.

Perish the savage custom of the gift,

Founded in terror and maintained in thrift!

What men of honor need to aid their weal

They purchase, or, occasion serving, steal.

Go celebrate the day with turkeys, pies,

Sermons and psalms, and, for the children, lies.

Let Santa Claus descend again the flue;

If Baby doubt it, swear that it is true.

“A lie well stuck to is as good as truth,”

And God’s too old to legislate for youth.

Hail Christmas! On my knees and fowl I fall:

For greater grace and better gravy call.

Vive l’Humbug!—that’s to say, God bless us all!

A spoiler.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“False protagonist”

Wikipedia

In fiction, a false protagonist is a literary technique, often used to make the plot more jarring or more memorable by fooling the audience’s preconceptions, that constructs a character whom the audience assumes is the protagonist but is later revealed not to be. A false protagonist is presented at the start of the fictional work as the main character, but then is eradicated, often by killing them (usually for shock value or as a plot twist) or changed in terms of their role in the story (that is, making them a lesser character, a character who leaves the story, or revealing them to actually be the antagonist).

A false protagonist is a red herring in the form of a character. Especially in film and literature, the false protagonist may begin as a narrator. In video games, a false protagonist may initially be a playable character, only to be killed or revealed to be the antagonist. Due to the episodic nature of television, it is possible to accidentally create a false protagonist, when an actor leaves a series prematurely or becomes busy with other projects.

Example

Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho may be the first film to feature a false protagonist. It opens with Marion Crane as the main character; however, she is killed partway through the film, making the murder far more unexpected and shocking. The death of the character assumed to be the protagonist takes the audience completely by surprise and builds the villain Bates up to be far more fearsome and frightening. Hitchcock felt that the opening scenes with Marion as the false protagonist were so important to the film that when it was released in theaters, he compelled theater owners to enforce a “no late admission” policy.

Winter Special:

So we try to get through.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Bad Year”

Edward William Thomson

May, blighted by keen frosts, passed on to June;

No blooms, but many a stalk with drooping leaves,

And arid Summer wilted these full soon,

And Autumn gathered up no wealthy sheaves;

Plaintive October saddened for the year,

But wild November raged that hope was past,

Shrieking, “All days of life are made how drear —

Wild whirls of snow! and Death comes driving fast.”

Yet sane December when the winds fell low,

And cold calm light with sunshine tinkled clear,

Harkened to bells more sweet than long ago,

And meditated in a mind sincere: —

“Beneath these snows shining from yon red west

How sleep the blooms of some delighted May,

And June shall riot, lovely as the best

That flung their odors forth on all their way;

Yes, violet Spring, the balms of her soft breath,

Her birdlike voice, the child-joy in her air,

Her gentle colors” — sane December saith

“They come, they come — O heart, sigh not ‘They were.'”

Battle of Fredericksburg Anniversary Special:

Why do people do this? Why is this what people do?

Why is this our history and our future?

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Battle of Fredericksburg”

Wikipedia

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought 1862 December 11–15, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Ambrose Burnside. The Union army’s futile frontal attacks on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders on the heights behind the city is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the U.S. Civil War, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates. A visitor to the battlefield described the battle to President Abraham Lincoln as a “butchery.”

Burnside’s plan was to cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg in mid-November and race to the Confederate capital of Richmond before Lee’s army could stop him. Bureaucratic delays prevented Burnside from receiving the necessary pontoon bridges in time, and Lee moved his army to block the crossings. When the Union army was finally able to build its bridges and cross under fire, urban combat resulted in the city on December 11–12. Union troops prepared to assault Confederate defensive positions south of the city and on a strongly fortified ridge just west of the city known as Marye’s Heights.

On December 13, the “grand division” of William Franklin was able to pierce the first defensive line of Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson to the south, but was finally repulsed. Burnside ordered the grand divisions of Edwin Sumner and Joseph Hooker to make multiple frontal assaults against James Longstreet’s position on Marye’s Heights, all of which were repulsed with heavy losses. On December 15, Burnside withdrew his army, ending another failed Union campaign in the Eastern Theater.

1. Background and Burnside’s plan

In 1862 November, Lincoln needed to demonstrate the success of the Union war effort before the Northern public lost confidence in his administration. Confederate armies had been on the move earlier in the fall, invading Kentucky and Maryland, and although each had been turned back, those armies remained intact and capable of further action. Lincoln urged General Ulysses S. Grant to advance against the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He replaced General Don Carlos Buell with William Rosecrans, hoping for a more aggressive posture against the Confederates in Tennessee, and on November 5, seeing that his replacement of Buell had not stimulated General George McClellan into action, he issued orders to replace McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. McClellan had stopped Lee at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, but had not been able to destroy Lee’s army, nor did he pursue Lee back into Virginia aggressively enough for Lincoln.

McClellan’s replacement was Ambrose Burnside, the commander of the IX Corps. Burnside had established a reputation as an independent commander, with successful operations earlier that year in coastal North Carolina and, unlike McClellan, had no apparent political ambitions. However, he felt himself unqualified for army-level command and objected when offered the position. He accepted only when it was made clear to him that McClellan would be replaced in any event and that an alternative choice for command was Joseph Hooker, whom Burnside disliked and distrusted. Burnside assumed command on November 7.

In response to prodding from Lincoln and general-in-chief Henry Halleck,

I adjusted the title and ending.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Stuffed Owl”

James Thomas Fields

edited by The Voice before the Void

“Who stuffed that white owl?” No one spoke in the shop:

The barber was busy, and he couldn’t stop;

The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading

The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding

The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;

Not one raised a head or even made a suggestion;

And the barber kept on shaving.

“Don’t you see, Mister Brown,”

Cried the youth, with a frown,

“How wrong the whole thing is,

How preposterous each wing is,

How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is—

In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck ’tis!

I make no apology;

I’ve learned owl-eology.

I’ve passed days and nights in a hundred collections,

And cannot be blinded to any deflections

Arising from unskilful fingers that fail

To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.

Mister Brown! Mister Brown!

Do take that bird down,

Or you’ll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!”

And the barber kept on shaving.

“I’ve studied owls,

And other night fowls,

And I tell you

What I know to be true:

An owl cannot roost

With his limbs so unloosed;

No owl in this world

Ever had his claws curled,

Ever had his legs slanted,

Ever had his bill canted,

Ever had his neck screwed

Into that attitude.

He can’t do it, because

‘Tis against all bird-laws

Anatomy teaches,

Ornithology preaches

An owl has a toe

That can’t turn out so!

I’ve made the white owl my study for years,

And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!

Mister Brown, I’m amazed

You should be so gone crazed

As to put up a bird

In that posture absurd!

To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;

The man who stuffed him don’t half know his business!”

And the barber kept on shaving.

“Examine those eyes.

I’m filled with surprise

Taxidermists should pass

Off on you such poor glass;

So unnatural they seem

They’d make Audubon scream,

And John Burroughs laugh

To encounter such chaff.

Do take that bird down;

Have him stuffed again, Brown!”

And the barber kept on shaving.

“With some sawdust and bark

I would stuff in the dark

An owl better than that;

I could make an old hat

Look more like an owl

Than that horrid fowl,

Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.

In fact, about him there’s not one natural feather.”

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,

The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch.

And the barber kept on shaving.

Krampusnacht Special:

Winter is the darkest time of year.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Krampus”

Wikipedia

In German-speaking Alpine folklore, Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure. According to traditional narratives around the figure, Krampus punishes children during the Christmas season who have misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards well-behaved children with gifts. Regions in the Austrian diaspora feature similar figures and, more widely, Krampus is one of a number of Companions of Saint Nicholas in regions of Europe. The origin of the figure is unclear; some folklorists and anthropologists have postulated a pre-Christian origin for the figure.

Traditional parades in which young men dress as Krampus, such as the Krampuslauf (Krampus run), occur annually in some Alpine towns. Krampus is featured on holiday greeting cards called Krampuskarten.

Appearance

Although Krampus appears in many variations, most share some common physical characteristics. He is hairy, usually brown or black, and has the cloven hooves and horns of a goat. His long, pointed tongue lolls out.

Krampus carries chains, thought to symbolize the binding of the Devil by the Christian Church. He thrashes the chains for dramatic effect. The chains are sometimes accompanied with bells of various sizes. Of more pagan origins are the ruten, bundles of birch branches that Krampus carries and occasionally swats children with. The ruten have significance in pre-Christian pagan initiation rites. The birch branches are replaced with a whip in some representations. Sometimes Krampus appears with a sack or a washtub strapped to his back; this is to cart off evil children for drowning, eating, or transport to Hell. This part of the legend refers to the times of the Barbary slave trade, when Barbary pirates from North African bases raided European coasts to abduct the local people into slavery. This quality can be found in other Companions of Saint Nicholas such as Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) of Dutch folklore.

Origins

The history of the Krampus figure has been theorized as stretching back to pre-Christian traditions. In a brief article discussing the figure, published in 1958, Maurice Bruce wrote:

There seems to be little doubt as to his true identity for, in no other form is the full regalia of the Horned God of the Witches so well preserved. The birch—apart from its phallic significance—may have a connection with the initiation rites of certain witch-covens; rites which entailed binding and scourging as a form of mock-death. The chains could have been introduced in a Christian attempt to “bind the Devil” but again they could be a remnant of pagan initiation rites.

Discussing his observations while in Irdning, a small town in Styria in 1975, anthropologist John J. Honigmann wrote that:

The Saint Nicholas festival we are describing incorporates cultural elements widely distributed in Europe, in some cases going back to pre-Christian times. Nicholas himself became popular in Germany around the eleventh century. The feast dedicated to this patron of children is only one winter occasion in which children are the objects of special attention, others being Martinmas, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and New Year’s Day. Masked devils acting boisterously and making nuisances of themselves are known in Germany since at least the sixteenth century while animal masked devils combining dreadful-comic (schauriglustig) antics appeared in Medieval church plays. A large literature, much of it by European folklorists, bears on these subjects. … Austrians in the community we studied ar...

Mark Twain’s Birthday Special:

Twain bestows personality upon your holiday meal.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Hunting the Deceitful Turkey”

Mark Twain

When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun–a small single-barrelled shotgun which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much heavier than a broom. We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time. I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try. Fred and I hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild turkeys, and such things. My uncle and the big boys were good shots. They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they didn’t wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them. When the dogs treed a squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way –and not quite succeeding. You could see his wee little ears sticking up. You couldn’t see his nose, but you knew where it was. Then the hunter, despising a “rest” for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim at the limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel’s nose, and down tumbled the animal, unwounded, but unconscious; the dogs gave him a shake and he was dead. Sometimes when the distance was great and the wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the squirrel’s head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one–the hunter’s pride was hurt, and he wouldn’t allow it to go into the gamebag.

In the first faint gray of the dawn the stately wild turkeys would be stalking around in great flocks, and ready to be sociable and answer invitations to come and converse with other excursionists of their kind. The hunter concealed himself and imitated the turkey-call by sucking the air through the leg-bone of a turkey which had previously answered a call like that and lived only just long enough to regret it. There is nothing that furnishes a perfect turkey-call except that bone. Another of Nature’s treacheries, you see. She is full of them; half the time she doesn’t know which she likes best–to betray her child or protect it. In the case of the turkey she is badly mixed: she gives it a bone to be used in getting it into trouble, and she also furnishes it with a trick for getting itself out of the trouble again. When a mamma-turkey answers an invitation and finds she has made a mistake in accepting it, she does as the mamma-partridge does–remembers a previous engagement–and goes limping and scrambling away, pretending to be very lame; and at the same time she is saying to her not-visible children, “Lie low, keep still, don’t expose yourselves; I shall be back as soon as I have beguiled this shabby swindler out of the country.”

When a person is ignorant and confiding, this immoral device can have tiresome results. I followed an ostensibly lame turkey over a considerable part of the United States one morning, because I believed in her and could not think she would deceive a mere boy, and one who was trusting her and considering her honest. I had the single-barrelled shotgun, but my idea was to catch her alive. I often got within rushing distance of her, and then made my rush; but always, just as I made my final plunge and put my hand down where her back had been, it wasn’t there; it was only two or three inches from there and I brushed the tail-feathers as I landed on my stomach–a very close call, but still not quite close enough; that is, not close enough for success, but just close enough to convince me that I could do it next time. She always waited for me, a little piece away, and let on to be resting and greatly fatigued; which was a lie, but I believed it, for I still thought her honest long after I ought to h...

“Not the Wind, Not the Flag”

from The Gateless Gate

Wumen Huikai

translated from Japanese by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps

Thomas McGrath’s Birthday Special:

Never enough poet-heroes.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“Thomas McGrath (poet)”

Wikipedia

Thomas Matthew McGrath (born 1916 November 20, near Sheldon, North Dakota; died 1990 September 20, Minneapolis, Minnesota) was a celebrated American poet.

McGrath grew up on a farm in Ransom County, North Dakota. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army Air Forces in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. McGrath was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, and also pursued postgraduate studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He taught at Colby College in Maine and at Los Angeles State College in California, from which he was dismissed in connection with his appearance, as an unfriendly witness, before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1953. Later he taught at North Dakota State University in Fargo, and Moorhead State University in Minnesota. McGrath was a member of the Communist Party USA and a Guggenheim Fellow. He was married three times and had one son.

McGrath wrote mainly about his own life and social concerns. His best-known work is probably Letter to an Imaginary Friend, published in sections between 1957 and 1985, and as a single poem by Copper Canyon Press in 1997.

“Best of all, Letter to an Imaginary Friend licks its fingers and burps at the table. Polite it is not–and the better for it when McGrath turns from his populist vitriol to what may be his most abiding talent: that of bestowing praise–grace, even–on the common, the unruly, the inconsolable, those McGrath chose to side and sing with and for whom ‘the world is too much but not enough with us.'”

–Josie Rawson, Rain Taxi, Vol. 2 No. 4, Winter 1997/1998

The vastnesses of life (death), the paltriness, the irony. A great poem.

⁓The Voice before the Void

“The Hill”

from Spoon River Anthology

Edgar Lee Masters

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,

The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?

All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One passed in a fever,

One was burned in a mine,

One was killed in a brawl,

One died in a jail,

One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife —

All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,

The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one? —

All, all are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth,

One of a thwarted love,

One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,

One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire,

One after life in far-away London and Paris

Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag —

All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily,

And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton,

And Major Walker who had talked

With venerable men of the revolution? —

All, all are sleeping on the hill.

They brought them dead sons from the war,

And daughters whom life had crushed,

And their children fatherless, crying —

All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where is Old Fiddler Jones

Who played with life all his ninety years,

Braving the sleet with bared breast,

Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin,

Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven?

Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,

Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary’s Grove,

Of what Abe Lincoln said

One time at Springfield.