the bells are tolling ~

[lookingland]

update: Goodie Proctor's got My Poppet

Day Ten(ish): did some reading yesterday that yielded some very inneresting things about Mr. Hanty. Like his wife, Mrs. Hanty, who begged him not to take the job, and their squadron of small children (if anyone might have a poppet laying around the house, he'd be the one!).

i also think i have a solid idea for the images of the opening of the book: it's sunday morning. a little boy (like 6 years old maybe) nails a pair of black trousers over the front window of his mother's baltimore home (or washington? i can't decide ~ i'll probably just not mention the city by name). he eavesdrops on his mother and perhaps an aunt who whisper about so-and-so who was shot dead on friday for some idiotic thing.

cut to: the church service where a derelict drunk, a hundred year-old little old lady, and two or three other sad sacks are scatterd throughout the pews. the nervous pastor twitters a little before he addresses the crowd with a very brief remark, then dismisses the lot of them.

cut to: another curch, this one in washington fer shure ~ Reverend Razor is spewing damnations.

cut to: the birthday barge (cue forboding music).

and that's as far as i've gotten. i may actually try writing it this weekend since i don't really need to do anymore research for it.

ooo ~ let the pages begin!

in other news: i've decided not to take the contract job. i don't need the headache and i won't die without the money. thank you, everyone for weighing in and sharing your thoughts. the poll turned out a dead even 9-9 (i added the 10th vote to break the tie).

i forgot to mail my netflix movies yesterday which means i now have no films for the weekend. maybe that's a good thing. i'll get other stuff done. i'm thinking of putting netflix on snooze starting in june anyway. my dvd player is frittering out and i haven't really been watching anything good lately.



a mourning bracelet from 1863 made
from an ambrotype and braided human hair
expect to see a bunch more strange, funereal things crop up here from time to time.

Comments

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

Do you think that's HIS hair? If so, I'm impressed. It must have been very abundant in his advanced age :D

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i was wondering that too ~

i think there's a couple of possibilities: might have been his hair saved from when he was a younger man or it might be his wife's hair, cut for the occassion.

there's also the outside possibility it's an anonymous donor's hair fashioned by funeral-piece makers (since this stuff was such a huge market). but that would actually seem odd to me.

[gwyn-hwyfar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, maybe people saved chopped-off ponytails for just that purpose...seeing as how death was always waiting around the corner back then.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

yep ~ it could even be hair from their children.

: D

[sparowe]

That bracelet is quite fascinating, really....

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

don't you want one?

: D

[sparowe]

I could understand wearing one, at least, if it were someone close to me. I'm just not sure if that should be disturbing or not.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i vote "not" personally.

i think peeps are too squeamish about very natural things (like death). some cultures have very elaborate funerary rituals (including keeping such momentos, etc,).

i think "american culture" (what it's become) is actually the disturbing thing. people flock to glorify in blood guts and gore on the movie screen, but real-life death is too much to bear and the rituals of grieving have vanished into denial, compensation, and the self-comfort of excess eating, spending, and lust.

for me, thinking of it in those terms, makes wearing a hair bracelet might be (comparatively) sane and self-controlled in a healthy way.

just rambling, it;s a lazy morning here.

: D