The Whispering Gallery

Grab a warm cup of tea and join us for some Japanese ghost stories and folklore in this introduction to Yoshitoshi's Thirty-six Ghosts (that he created as woodblock prints). The stories are read to you from the book "Japanese Legends and Folklore - Samurai Tales, Ghost Stories, Legends, Fairy Tales, Myths and Historical Accounts" by A.B. Mitford. We'll be exploring the ghostly woodblock prints in our next episode.

The image for this episode is from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, ''The Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree'', October 1889. From the ''Thirty-six Ghosts'' series. 9.25" x 14.25". The print depicts the magical Kurozome, who has manifest as the spirit of the Komachi cherry tree.

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Just over two decades ago Edward St. John Gorey left us to follow the path taken by the doomed Gashlycrumb Tinies. A Pisces, he was born in February of 1925 he used his pen and ink drawings to invite us into his cross-hatched Edwardian and Victorian styled stories. 

If you haven’t seen his drawings please, please, check out the Whispering Gallery podcast on Instagram. His drawings didn’t always spell out everything for us which left us to draw our own conclusions About how the story was actually going down. And while there seems to be an immediate response to categorize his work as macabre or horror, that may not be entirely the case. 

There is a very Edward Gorey mystery to be investigated. Were his drawings meant to be designated to and locked in the genre of horror and the macabre or was there something else that he was shooting for? In the book Ascending Peculiarity he states: 

Quote “Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what's important is left after you have explained everything else.” Unquote

Edward left things not shown in his drawings. Allowing us to draw our own conclusions. For example in most of the Gashlycrumb Tinies illustrations, you see the problematic situation that the tinies face, but mostly you don’t see them experiencing their end. B is for Basil assaulted by bears and he is being surrounded by two very large bears, that is all you see. One of the bears is stepping closer. However there is no mistaking R is for Rhoda!

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Copyright 2021 Suzanne Nikolaisen. All Rights Reserved.

Edward Gorey's pen and ink drawings, with cross hatching, give off a spooky vibe. He leaves quite a bit to the reader/viewers imagination. Join me for a a reading of "The Doubtful Guest" written and illustrated by Edward Gorey. 

Then we take a detour to his favorite breakfast haunt with "Edward Gorey's Favorite Diner Isn't Spooky At All" by Tove Danovich
Updated February 13, 2018 MyRecipes.com | Extra Crispy

Should Edward Gorey's work be categorized as horror or is it macabre? Or is there something else going on? Did he have a different intention? We'll go down this rabbit hole in the next episode and it might be a surprise!

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What made the Polybius arcade game strange, and so scary? Well, it’s not a real game. It’s fakelore, better known as urban legend (from what I’ve read there are games by that name now, but they came out after the rumor-mill had been started.

What made it scary? The threat it posed to players Health and well-being. The men in black, the possibility they were tracking the high scores for their organizations nefarious reasons. That the games were removed within weeks of being dropped off.

Polybius, the fake-arcade game, has a starring role in dark coin-op arcade video game lore—and is who we’ve been looking for as the phantom of the arcade.

So, what exactly are we talking about? What’s a Polybius? Turns out as it relates to our story it’s a who and a what. Going chronologically, Polybius is the name of a conscientious Greek historian (who lived in Arcadia and was later kidnapped and taken to Rome, 841 miles away and across the Ionian sea (east of the Mediterranean sea). 

Polybius lived from 200 BC to 118 AD and wrote the Histories (originally 40 volumes about the rise of Rome) and the people of the Hellenistic period—he included their ideas and the events of the time period.

Polybius was known to question other historians and he was very careful with presenting things accurately. Quote from passage xii 4c; “…to question as many people as possible, to believe such witnesses as are trustworthy, and to prove him [the historian] a good judge of the reports that reach him”. He even wrote about his intent to share the truth and apologized if he ever missed the mark saying the error would have been an honest mistake.

So, somebody out there must have been thinking they’re a comedian. Polybius was born in “Arcadia” - haha…arcade, get it!?! And the twist is that he believed historians should not report on anything they are unable to verify through multiple people and eyewitnesses… but, they can’t verify the Polybius arcade video game - said resources aren’t available. Very clever. 

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I'll be getting episode 2 ready with more behind the scenes stories about art revisions at Atari, and the story of Polybius, the Phantom of the arcade.
We’re tracking early era video game art from the mid-1900’s to the time of legend. Which time of legend? Stay tuned and together we’ll follow the path of jingling quarters into the video game arcades in search of the Polybius coin-op arcade game—and the happy homes with Atari 2600’s and handfuls of game cartridges--all from decades past, and guess what? There’s more art involved than you or I might have guessed! 

As Pacman races through his mazes, being chased by colorful ghosts, we’re winding our way through the intricate maze of video game art as it all was being developed in the primordial soup of digital ideas and creativity. We’re not just talking Pong, but I won’t kid you, it’s part of the video game art story. 

We'll mainly focus on  the Atari coin-op and home console Video Computer System (VCS) also known as the Atari 2600 and the related box cover-art and video game art. Atari was the leader in the video game industry, but companies like Namco, Nintendo, Activision, Intellivision, Cinematronics Arcade, Imagic, Kee’s Game Arcade, and Commodore were busy working in the industry as well. One thing that stands out about Atari was that they didn’t give their engineers, artists and programmers any credit for working on the games, but we’ll be talking about them, with a little help from the book, Art of Atari by Tim Lapetino.

“Everybody believes in innovation until they see it. Then they think, 'Oh, no; that'll never work. It's too different.'” -- Nolan BushnellThe mystery begins well before we start our search for the phantom of the Polybius arcade game. The 70’s was a time of kids on pedal bikes with banana seats, Bonnie bell lip smackers, moon boots and feathered hair. Commercial artists were coming to the end of the “cut and paste” and overhead projector era but technology was not entirely there yet for them to begin working on computers.

Stay tuned for the next episode, we haven't talked about Polybius yet!

Research sources: (details to come) books, online, documentaries, interviews, game sound clips, Stella (A multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator https://stella-emu.github.io), an Atari Video Computer System (VCS), intro music by https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/

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Copyright 2021 Suzanne Nikolaisen. All Rights Reserved.

Join me for some detective work, to find clues about the missing flowers and find out why the Semper Augustus bulb was so highly regarded, and how tulips made it to Holland in the first place. And what's the deal with the missing flowers when they appear to be all accounted for in the Dutch Golden age paintings? Let’s get started and dig into the shadowy garden of secrets.

During the Dutch Golden age a popular category artists painted in was still life and drilling further into that category - floral arrangements. I think the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands describes the flower painting best on their web page displaying Flower Still Life by Hans Gillisz Bollinger (1644) oil on wood - they said “A bouquet of striped tulips, a rose, an orange lily, a red and white carnation, stocks and a cyclamen. This is an imaginary bouquet…”

Were these painters of flowers - early fantasy-botanical artists? Recording flowers and sometimes insects, often incorporating broken tulips into their compositions. Broken tulips were a clear favorite of many of the painters. We’ll talk about what broken tulips are soon.

If you’re like me, you might be surprised that tulips didn’t originally come from Holland. Tulips grew wild in the valleys of the heavenly mountains, or the Tian Shan mountains of China. How did tulips end up in Holland? There are so many questions, right?!?  It wasn’t from point a to point b. 

Thank you so much for your company and for listening! Keep your flashlight close and your spooky art stories closer while visiting the Whispering gallery. 

The writing and production of the Whispering Gallery podcast and copyright are held by Suzanne Nikolaisen.

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Episode Image: Semper Augustus, artist unknown, before 1640, gouache on paper, height: 30.8 cm (12.1 in); width: 20 cm (7.8 in), Norton Simon Museum https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Semper_Augustus_Tulip_17th_century.jpg

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Today we’re continuing our two part journey into sand paintings not long for this world. This time we’re heading into the world of sacred sand paintings at what’s known as the roof of the world, Tibet, an autonomous zone in China which is just north of the Himalayan mountains. 

Let’s go beyond the spinning Tibetan prayer wheels, the luminous glow of multitudes of flickering butter candles, and into the mystery of the sand painting called the Kalachakra Mandala. If you haven’t seen it please visit us on Instagram @Whisperinggallerypodcast. 

There are hundreds of deities concealed within the mysterious, and flat, 2D sand painting. I’m not sure if this is just representative? Given logic, spatial limitations ie the missing full size mansion with rooms and different floors with room for the deities  there’s no clear explanation how they pull this off—If we go all sci-fi or mystical maybe they’re in there somehow, just around the corner so to speak. Dimensions, wormholes or string theory - who knows?

So Sand painting versus 3D model of the five floor mansion rendered in Maya that we can explore… not today my friends, not today. 

Instead, Hold on to your hat! Because what you’re actually looking at-is- the 3D Kalachakra Mandala, from above. Drone view of a five-story mansion holding 722 deities — and this  is where the Kalachakra deity manifests the state of enlightenment.

If your head is spinning, you’re not alone. 

Thanks to: 

Wou.edu Western Oregon University

Archive.sltrib.com The Salt Lake Tribune

https://freesound.org/people/kevp888/sounds/440240/ kevp888 Sept 14th 2018 br_094_Himalaya_Buddhistmonks.mpe

https://freesound.org/people/kevp888/sounds/440242/ kevp888 BR_096_Himalaya_BuddhistMonks.mp3

https://freesound.org/people/djgriffin/sounds/98844/ djgriffin, June 11 2010 Tibetan Buddhist chanting > ganze gompa monks the monks morning meditation prayer ritual

https://freesound.org/people/TitusL108/sounds/272058/ TitusL108 Tibetan sounds > Tibetan singing bowl 3

The writing and production of the Whispering Gallery podcast and copyright are held by Suzanne Nikolaisen. If you would like to support the podcast visit buymeacoffee.com/suznikart to help cover the cost of books, research subscriptions and our podcast host.

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Thank you again for listening! Keep your flashlight close and your spooky art stories closer while visiting the Whispering gallery. 

Image source: namgyal.org/sand-mandala

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Copyright 2021 Suzanne Nikolaisen. All Rights Reserved.

This episode of unusual art stories takes us into the parched mysteries of the the southwest desert in the United States to the Navajo (Dine') Nation where sunburnt stone and windswept canyons have witnessed generations of legendary healing from sand paintings that may seem to be an enigma to outsiders of this solitary wilderness. 

This is part one, of a two part series, on the impermanent nature of sacred dry sand paintings. Art that is destroyed after its created may seem unusual but take a step into the unknown with us to find out why.

If you're new to the Whispering Gallery podcast and our spooky, spine-tingling and hard-to-believe art stories I hope you'll subscribe and join our community! Please rate and review the podcast and share it with a friend. Take care!

Photo Source: navajopeople.org/navajo-sand-painting.htm

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Copyright 2021 Suzanne Nikolaisen. All Rights Reserved.

Venture into the past where some viking art was expressed as stone ships put to harbor inland. Within the pages of a book a stone ship rests, nestled in a clearing surrounded by pine-tree-guardians, where the grasses grow right up against the stones; breaking like calm seas in wispy dry strands. Listen to this episode to find out why the stone ships earth art was created.

Please Note: the various different ages gave me some trouble - the Bronze Age, The Viking Age, the Nordic Bronze Age, depending on the resource the dates don't seem to stay consistent. I kind of just had to put a pin in the map and do my best.

If you're new to the Whispering Gallery podcast and our spooky, spine-tingling and hard-to-believe art stories I hope you'll subscribe and join our community! Please rate and review the podcast and share it with a friend. Take care!

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1. Readings from The Atlas of Legendary Places, Gotland, by James Harpur and Jennifer Westwood, Konecky & Konecky, A Marshall Edition, p. 106-108. 

Photo Source: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gnisvaerd-Gotland-2006-04-27-a.jpg Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic, Photo by N. Stjerna

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This art ghost story should not be missed! Join Emily and Suzanne to wrap up this series on the sighting (and photo) of who some say is Claude Monet's ghost! Find out about the colors Monet painted with as an impressionistic artist, his vegetable garden, and even his final resting place. 

If you're new to the Whispering Gallery podcast and our spooky, spine-tingling and hard-to-believe art stories I hope you'll subscribe and join our community! Please rate and review the podcast and share it with a friend. Take care!

Say hello, DM me on Instagram and comment on the posts to join the conversation! @whisperinggallerypodcast

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Copyright 2020 Suzanne Nikolaisen. All Rights Reserved.