In case you don't know what Sadie Hawkins Day is it is the one day every four years that the girls can ask guys out without seeming forward. At least that's what it used to be. It got the name from the old cartoon strip LIL ABNER.
Fairweather and I were stunned the other day when Madame Sadie told us she was going to the local VFW’s Sadie Hawkins Dance. Not so much that she was going, which really is surprising, but the fact she was going to ask a certain British Psychic to come across the pond and go with her. Now it really wouldn’t have been as shocking if it was Stephen Colbert or even Ol’ Capn’ Morgan (her favorite ghost) but D. A. I guess one fraud might pick up on another one. She was batting her eyes, sighing, and smirking about what dances they could do together.
Now I don't even want to think of Madame "dancing" with the man. She's not been called an old bat for nothing. The last living man I know for sure she went out with raced out into the night shrieking and never came back to town. Word was he got a job in Siberia and had to leave suddenly.
We had to argue her out of wearing that old red dress that had seen better days. We took her off to Belks and Goody’s before she found a dress that was at least not motheaten. Next we had to take her down to a little specialty shop called "Intimate Treasures".
Fairweather and I were scandalized at some of the little items she tried on and the toys she eventually chose to take home with us. I suppose we would have visited Victoria’s Secret if our little neck of the world had one which fortunately for my nerves we don’t.
Madame even had the nerve to hint that my boyfriend and I needed a little excitement in our lives which I tried to tell her were fine the way they are.
Madame was on Cloud Nine when the psychic agreed to be her date for the evening. I couldn’t resist asking "Will his wife be coming with him?"
"She most certainly will not." Madame said in a huff. "They are currently separated and may be getting a divorce."
"Really?" Fairweather asked.
Madame ignored that question so I’m thinking she made up the separated comment.
They had the Sadie Hawkins dance a little early due to the fact some of the leaders of the VFW were going to be out of town on the 29th. My gentleman and I hadn’t planned on going but as Fairweather said someone needed to make sure Madame Sadie stayed out of trouble. And of course, since Fairweather isn’t involved with anyone, the sad lot fell to me.
I picked a nondescript outfit because frankly I didn’t want anyone paying attention to the fact I was there. I’m not known for being a party girl around town. And these old geezers, and a few young ones too, think any female at the VFW dances are fair game.
Personally I didn’t want to get in the middle of a fight nor did I want my boyfriend getting hurt either.
Madame and her psychic friend were as giggly as a couple of schoolgirls. Flirting and "dancing" on the bar. I believe it was suppose to be a version of "dirty dancing".Finally they decided to sit one of the songs out over in a corner. Their cooing was decidedly sickening. I was trying to think of a way to leave early. I had better things to do with my time. If my boyfriend wasn’t there I could always wash my hair. That was really more fun than watching Madame…….
I turned away for a split second and turned back as someone nearby gasped.
The psychic DA had a strange look on his face. One I had witnessed on his tv shows many times before. He was being taken over by a ghost. And from the look in his eyes not just any ghost. Captain Morgan was making his displeasure at being denied Madame Sadie’s company be known to everyone in this little East Tennessee town.
DA caught two swords that dropped out of thin air. One fell in each hand and crossed just below his elegant nose. It reminded me for all the world of a giant pair of scissors.
Oh well, could have been worse could have crossed near another part of his body-one Madame liked even better than his nose.
"Knave. Stealing my woman the minute my back is turned."
"Get gone ghost. You are long dead."
"Ask Sadie if I was dead on Christmas."
My poor mind couldn’t take this. And I’m a little more open than most of the people at the party.
"That man is crazy. He’s talking to himself." People muttered all around me. "They should take him and lock him up before he hurts himself or the old bat."
Well that meant I had to do something. Madame sure wasn’t. She looked excited at the thought of the duel about to take place.
"Cap’n. Mr. A. Madame don’t you think a duel for the lady’s honor needs to take place in private? After all we wouldn’t want the law becoming involved would we?"
With growls of "this isn’t over" The unlikely trio went out to My boyfriends van and I went to collect him.
All the way back to Madame Sadie’s the trio in the back seat took turns at billing, cooing, and growling. The billing and cooing to Madame and the growling at each other. A very difficult thing to do when the trio were actually only two bodies.
Forgive me if I say I didn’t stay to see how the duel ended. All I know for sure is Madame looked as satisfied as the cat who ate the canary the next morning.
And someone of my acquaintance said they saw DA heading toward the Knoxville Airport looking like a scalded cat.
At a guess I’d say he was surprised at an actual ghostly takeover and maybe Madame was a little more than he could handle. Go Capn Morgan!

Last night I watched a special on Ovation TV about efforts to restore artwork in the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy. The basilica, the mother church of the Order of Saint Francis, was badly damaged by an earthquake on September 26, 1997. Among the artworks that were all but destroyed were some by the last great Italian Byzantine painter, Cimabue.

It got me thinking about how we have, over the course of Europe's wars and natural disasters, lost so much great artwork. Cathedrals full of glorious medieval stained glass, museums, lost to bombs, to fires, to sheer wanton malicious destruction in religious conflicts. Cimabue is that rarity, though; very few of his works survive, but more than one has been badly damaged or destroyed by Mother Nature rather than human intervention. And the frescoes in the Basilica of Saint Francis were not the first such.

Exhibit No. 1:



This is most usually known as Cimabue's Crucifix. It is a panel painting, commissioned by and executed for the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence in 1287-88. It seems to us rather flat and one-dimensional, in the tradition of Orthodox icons, especially compared to the work done by Cimabue's pupil Giotto, who bridged the gap between medieval and Renaissance painting. We aren't seeing it as it was, though. It was almost totally destroyed in a flood on November 4, 1966, when the River Arno burst its banks and the basilica was filled with water and mud. Art students, many of them American, spent endless hours on hands and knees in the mud that remained once the waters receded, picking bits of paint out of the mire, running it through sieves to find just one more piece. This is how much they were able to restore; the river took the rest.

The frescoes in the Basilica of St. Francis were already in poor condition before the earthquake of 1997. They depicted a Crucifixion and a Deposition (the removal of Christ's body from the Cross). They were somewhat flawed from the beginning. Cimabue painted them on surfaces which were not freshly prepared; we do not know why he didn't demand fresh fresco. Medieval artists used paints that contained lead oxide; the whites in these paintings, in particular, darkened almost to black once the lead began to oxidize. There was also smoke damage to the paintings, from centuries of smoke from candles and incense (the basilica was built between 1228 and 1253), and from fires set in the nave by French troops during one of the many wars fought by France and the Italian provinces. During the earthquake part of the vault--those glorious high "cathedral" ceilings--collapsed, taking the frescoes with them. The paintings were not a top priority during the restoration of the basilica; a long fight for funding for their preservation bore some fruit, and the work is ongoing.

A few of Cimabue's works have survived relatively intact. This Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and Sts. Francis and Dominic (circa 1300) is preserved in Florence's Pitti Palace:



It seems to me to have a charm not quite of this world, nor quite of heaven to it, and the colors are lovely.

Hope I haven't bored you too much. Till next time, fair thee well.

I have certain favorites among all the ghost stories out there. In England, one such straddles the line between ghostlore and folklore: Herne the Hunter, who haunts Windsor Forest, around the eleventh century castle of the same name.



Folklore experts--among them the generally discredited Margaret Murray--point out that Herne, who is usually depicted as a man wearing a helmet made of a deer's antlers, bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic god Cernunnos, lord of the forests, animals, and fertility.

Herne has also been linked to the Wild Hunt, a spectral band of riders, horses and hounds originally from Norse and Germanic mythology. (Other ethnic folklore has taken up the Wild Hunt; there's even a Cajun version in Louisiana lore know as the Chasse Galerie, composed of those who hunted on the Sabbath instead of going to church.)



Historically though, Herne's story goes something like this: Herne was a forest warden (we'd call him a park ranger or a game warden) in Windsor Forest during the reign of King Richard II (r. 1377-1399). On a hunt one day, he saved the king from being gored to death by a wounded stag by throwing himself in front of the animal. Herne was mortally wounded, but a man who has been described as a wizard appeared out of nowhere and told the king that if the dead stag's antlers were cut off and tied to Herne's head he would recover. This was done, Herne got well, and the king bestowed so many favors upon him over the next several years that jealous fellow huntsmen went to the king and accused Herne of witchcraft. A search of Herne's hut in Windsor Forest revealed a crude altar on which were found the skulls of several animals--the exact species the royal hunt had killed that day. In fourteenth century England, as in most medieval societies, witchcraft was considered a form of heresy; accused witches would be tried in ecclesiastical courts and burned to death. Rather than face such a fate, Herne ran out into Windsor Forest and hanged himself from a giant oak tree. Until 1796, one particular ancient oak was pointed out as "Herne's Oak"; the tree that was blown down in an 1863 storm, and famously burned in her own fireplace by Queen Victoria "to lay the ghost" was a tree planted to replace the original, which actually stood in another location.

As a ghost, Herne was a well-established Windsor tradition by the time of Shakespeare; in THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1600) he's used to play a joke on the foolish lovelorn Sir John Falstaff. As Mrs. Page says in Act IV, scene iii:

There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the wintertime, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns. . .
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Received and did deliver to our age
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

Sightings of Herne are bad omens. He is such in Harrison Ainsworth's novel WINDSOR CASTLE (1843); Henry VIII's repudiation and judicial murder of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, follows upon a sighting of Herne. Herne is said to have appeared in 193l, just before the Great Depression affected Great Britain, and again in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was said to have been seen on horseback in 1962, racing through Windsor Forest accompanied by great hounds of a breed not seen in England in nearly seven centuries. The most recent report comes from the early 1970s, when an observer was allegedly found a suicide, hanging from an oak, after seeing Herne.



One final note: Those who haven't read it already, check out Anexplorer's blog at http://anexplorer.blogstream.com. He has a beautifully written and illustrated account of a personal experience of the supernatural he had in England. It's truly chilling.

Until next time, fair thee well.

Just wanted you to know that A) I've deactivated my DOOR HANGING blog--I realized I'm more comfortable with short subjects than novels and gave it up; and B) I have a new one called Gimme a Book. It's also here on blogstream, at gimmeabook.blogstream.com. Hope you'll come visit me there.

I found this photo on photobucket and it brought to mind a poem I wrote a long time ago--it's WAY out there, gotta say--but I have always felt that the woman speaker would have slipped away to look at the moon eventually--

Night: dead-silent

reach, touch
faltering along the curve of my waist

I turn slightly, only half-asleep
wondering as always
is this midnight move reassuring
or reassurance?

Your fingers close on mine
vise upon vise: muscles strain
to maintain contact------
my joints feel dislocated within your grip

and though we lie together in fire
on some occasions

now your somnolent clutch turns my blood cold

**********************************************************************



copyright 2008 by Fairweather Lewis

Hope you like it. One of my favorites.