Halloween Heartbeats For The Bran Castle

Bran Castle, built in the 14th century as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks, was home to the Romanian royal family from the 1920s until the communist regime confiscated it in 1948. At the end of communist rule in the 1980's, Bran Castle was restored, dubbed "Dracula's Castle," and thus became a popular tourist attraction, with some 450,000 people visiting the castle each year.

While Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, aka "Vlad the Impaler", may or may not have ever stayed at Bran Castle, the Transylvanian castle did inspire Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel Dracula -- and apparently that is enough for millions of people.

Me? I'm not such a fan of horror & blood. But I am a lover of affairs of the heart & hearts themselves... beating with life they literally keep the beat of our lives, turning the rapid pulse of emotion into the racing hearts of passion and then the heated pumping of erotic acts... and how the heart stills with emotional too, be it the skip at romantic introduction or the pause when the heart is broken... I even love them long after they've stopped beating. So, I'd still go see the Bran Castle -- but not for Dracula; I'd go for Queen Marie of Romania.

While married to Ferdinand of Romania, Marie not only had an affair with Lieutenant Zixi Cantacuzene which produced a child "disappeared from history"; a longer affair with Barbu Ştirbey which produced at least one son, Prince Mircea, and possibly one daughter, Princess Ileana; but Princess Maria (called Mignon) might have been the daughter of Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia.

Certainly all of this had to have affected Marie's thinking regarding her son, King Carol II, and his relationship with Magda Lupescu -- first his mistress, and this his wife after his abdication -- but she publicly stated he had "sinned grievously". The irony seems to have been lost to Marie who only became further estranged from her son.

All such juicy things to further investigate...

And then there's this bit: Queen Marie made arrangements in her will for her heart to be kept in a cloister at the Balchik Palace -- her son Carol II dutifully carried out the request.



In 1940 her heart was transferred to the chapel at Bran Castle (the casket with Queen Marie's heart has since been moved to National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest).

Who doesn't want to pilgrimage to this woman's home?

If that's not enough to seduce you to, how about this quote from Queen Marie regarding a proselytizer:

I have met ..... I did not like him. He seemed to me to be a snob. He spoke of God as if He were the oldest title in the Almanach de Gotha. And all that business about telling one's sins in public -- He wanted me ... me ... to get up before my children and confess everything I had ever done! It is spiritual nudism! Ça se ne fait pas.

(From All I Could Never Be, by Beverley Nichols.)

In 2005, the Romanian government passed a law allowing restitution claims on properties seized by the Communist government of Romania in 1948. It was due to this law that, in 2006, the Romanian government awarded ownership of Bran Castle to the son and heir of Princess Ileana, Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany, known as Dominic von Habsburg -- then a 68-year-old New York architect.

Because of Princess Ileana's questionable lineage, among other things, the property distribution was challenged; but as Queen Marie herself named Ileana as the one to inherit Bran Castle, the Constitutional Court of Romania and an investigation commission of the Romanian government reaffirmed the validity & legality of the restitution procedures used and in December 2007 issued confirmation that the restitution to Ileana's son, von Habsburg, was made in full compliance with the law.

According to the contract signed when Bran castle was returned, the government pays rent to von Habsburg for the right to run the castle as a museum (including charging admission) for three years. That period ends in 2009 and full rights to the castle & property will then transfer to von Habsburg.

Having no experience with running a museum, von Habsburg and his family have put the castle up for sale to those "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."

I'm not sure my lusty love of history would meet approval; but as Bran Castle is expected to fetch over $135 million, I don't suppose I could afford it anyway.

Tits On A Bird

Kindness Of Strangers is one of my "secret meeting projects" which has been keeping me busy... Making altered art with vintage nudes (don't worry, I'm only cutting up images of no value), like this piece I call In The Beginning:

In the beginning there was the goddess... And fish -- because all creation myths are a bit fishy. Prints from an original altered art piece, created from vintage art nudes, other illustrations & water color paint.

I ask you, "Who hasn't thought of putting tits on ostrich legs?"

Hey, You've Got My Mermaid In Your Religion

Thanks to mlfoley of Irish Wit and German Sadism for showing us the "two great tastes that go great together", mermaids and Jesus, which forms religious prostitution: Flirty Fishing.


Don't let the candy-sweet comic illustrations of the pamphlets fool you, there's something here to stick in your craw, alright; it's the cult part that's like too much peanut butter -- sticky & hard to swallow.

Flirty Fishing (FFing) was the use of sex to show God's love and win converts as well as a means of raising financial support. It was practiced by the Family of Love (aka Children of God, the Family, and now the Family International or TFI) from 1974 until it was officially discontinued in 1987; due, in part, to the AIDS scare. The cute euphemism is traced to Matthew 4:19 where Jesus says "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

In the latter part of the '70s and early '80s, [David Berg], responding in part to the sexual liberality of that time period, presented the possibility of trying out a more personal and intimate form of witnessing which became known as 'Flirty Fishing' or 'FFing'. In his Letters at that time, he offered the challenging proposal that since 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8), and His Son, Jesus, is the physical manifestation and embodiment of God's Love for humanity, then we as Christian recipients of that Love are in turn responsible to be living samples to others of God's great all-encompassing Love. Taking the Apostle Paul's writings literally, that saved Christians are 'dead to the Law [of Moses]' (Romans 7:4), through faith in Jesus, [Berg] arrived at the rather shocking conclusion that Christians were therefore free through God's grace to go to great lengths to show the Love of God to others, even as far as meeting their sexual needs.

XFamily.org has more Flirty Fishing ephemera as well as additional writings by Berg or transcriptions of his speeches, called Mo Letters (the name "Mo Letters" derived from David Berg's pseudonym, Moses David).

In The Church Started By A Man Who Had Six Wives, Forgiveness Goes Without Saying

Ugly Doggy shows us this example from the "The Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue and Their Impact on American Culture" exhibit at the New York Public Library’s Science, Industry and Business Library.



(Apparently, The Episcopalian Church counts on Americans not to recall that Henry VIII killed two wives -- even after he broke with Catholicism so that he could get a divorce annulment of the marriage to his first wife. To secure such right to annul, he executed along the way. Forgiveness? My definition must be different... Unless Episcopalians are expecting forgiveness for calculated murders and other crimes; which could be a mighty fine religious selling point for some.)

At that post, Ugly Doggy also writes:

But going back to history, I have always sustained that through advertising you can tell a lot about a country's psychology.

In that sense, the same goes for the history of advertising. When seeing ads from the past, is easy to realize how our habits, manners and values have changed. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worst.

But as with our own pictures, where most of the time we couldn't believe we were wearing that or using that hair style, old advertising becomes the photo album of us as a society.

If you want to see some more old ads, check also these ones and this postings as well as these TV commercials.

Sounds a bit like our trips through sex history, ey?

Found via Tom McMahon.

Dance Of The Hoo-Hoo

Vintage ragtime sheet music which reminds me of what some folks teach their kids to call their -- looks around to see who is listening, then whispers -- private parts. No, not the pussy.



Found at A Tad Too Much tan For Taupe, Rob Crausaz's Ragtime MIDI Files (yes, a sound file is there!) says this of the Emma Y. Suckert song:

Dance of the Hoo-Hoo (1898)
This delightful folk rag, which is available on the "Lester Levy" website, was written in honor of "The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo" (the cover has a replica of their official symbol). According to its website TCOHH is, "the oldest industrial Fraternal Organization in existence in the USA" (being founded in Jan. 1892 as a "public relations department of the lumber industry").

Intrigued, I Googled-on...

From Stichting Argus:

The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo was founded on January 21, 1892, in Gurdon, Arkansas, to which its headquarters had returned at the time of this writing. In the intervening years, it has moved a long way from its intention, which was to fight superstition and conventionalism, and became a parody of established secret societies. It started out with the intention of having nothing that other orders possess. Originally, there were no lodge rooms. Meetings, or “concatenations,” were held in hotels, the first being at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans on February 18, 1892. Even the name is unique. “Hoo-hoo” is not some arcane lumberman’s distress call, but a word coined by one of the founders, Bolling Arthur Johnson, about a month before the order was founded. He used it to describe a lonesome tuft of hair on the head of one Charles H. McCarer. “Concatenated” referred both to the cat, which was chosen as the symbol, and to “concatenation,” or “linking together in a chain.”

The founding members were not just lumbermen. They also included railroad men (who transport lumber) and newspaper men (who cover it with print). The organization chose as its emblem a black cat, to show its disdain for superstition, and based much of its ritual on the cat’s nine lives. Their officers were the Supreme Nine, made up of the Snark, the Senior Hoo-Hoo, the Junior Hoo-Hoo, the Bojum or Boojum, the Scrivenotor, the Jabberwock, the Cuctocacian, the Arcanoper, and the Gurdon. The overall leader was the Snark of the Universe. One of the high points of the ritual was the Embalming of the Snark, by which process he passed into the House of Ancients.

The organization is still around, Hoo-Hoo.org, but it doesn't seem as fun and irreverent as before.

Pray For Me Video

The explicit version of SIXX:A.M.'s newest music video, Pray for Me:

Malleus Maleficarum Demons Chronicals Mini-Figures

Collin at CQ reviews Demons Chronicle XI Mini-Figures: Malleus Maleficarum:

Historically, the ‘Malleus Maleficarum’, or ‘The Hammer of Witches’, was a book written in 1486 by a pair of ornery witch hunters, during the height of the persecution of these perceived ‘witches’. The invention of the printing press around this time allowed the book to spread far and wide, despite being banned by the Catholic Church as ‘unethical’. It’s a very interesting read, with entire chapters dedicated to things like “What do you do if you’ve been physically emasculated by a witch?”, which seemed to be a fairly major concern. That, and witchcraft being an affront to God, of course - but mostly, there was a lot of terror about strange vanishings in trouser town, all written in an anecdotal style akin to ‘one time I heard about this guy and this thing TOTALLY happened to him.’

The book also addresses the fact that witches can turn men into beasts, though they rarely seem to turn other females into lesser forms. By extension, these witches also had the power to make themselves ridiculously seductive, so that barely any magic was needed against whichever male they sought to ruin - just purely biological sex appeal. This is the complicated premise of the eleventh and latest set of Demons Chronicle gashapon, created by Yanoman in Japan.

Looking at them, I'm a bit surprised to see such a number of them with an ancient Egyptian theme; then again, there's the standard mythology of zodiac themes, a requisite in anything anime. Scantily clad and even nude, I should just be happy there are no tentacles.


More on the series of mini-figures, from Collin:

This eleventh series is composed entirely of female figures in mythical animal forms. They’re about 2 inches tall, with an additional heavy base for each figure, and they all come disassembled into about six or seven pieces each, which must be put together very delicately. Every figure comes in two different color schemes - a painted, full-color version, and a beige, statuesque version. New to this series is the option to display each figure with a human head, or an alternate scary animal head - revealing the duality of the nature of these shapely witches. Don’t be fooled, guys - it’s no fun to make out with a bird skull.

You can see nine more of them in at Collin's page in the CQ community.

Nude Tarot

More images from the deck of tarot cards I mentioned here.



As mentioned, the deck offers two versions of The Lovers cards for sexual preference options.




The Daughter of the Moon Tarot, originally called A Matriarchal Tarot, is built on Dianic Wiccan principals and features many female goddesses -- and lots of nudity. Shown below are Kali, Pele, Mawu, Calafia, & Malama; examples of many cultures, colors and physical types.







The round card shape is also considered to be more female in symbolism. Those familiar with tarot cards will note the uniqueness presented with round cards -- depending upon your grace in reading them, round cards are that much more challenging or fluid to read.


The book gives brief legends for each female archetype, goddess, and image used; and yes, because I'm one of those kind of womyn, my copy of the book is autographed by author Ffiona Morgan at the National Women's Music Festival in '93 (in Indiana that year).

High-Five Fridays #2

High-Five Fridays provide the chance to not only be nice, but for me to catch-up on missed posts I should have made during the week. Here's what you almost missed this week...

#1 Sam introduces us to Bernard Natan, "The most important pornographer you've never heard of."

#2 Vintage Pulchritude has lovely vintage erotica. My only complaint is that of the typical collector -- where's the information on the object/photo? But if you just like to look, never mind my collecting concerns and enjoy the antique art nudes.

#3 I'm not just a smut collector -- or even just a collector; I'm many things. But another area of collecting I'm into is religious items; I think any smut collector has to note, but not necessarily like, the connections between sexuality and spirituality, especially when it comes to organized religion. It's like the other side of the coin, I guess. So this anti-Christianity antique postcard is very interesting.

In my best Monty Python imitation I say, "And now for something completely different..."

I direct you to Gracie Passette's political post, #4, Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right; Or Do They?; I'm utterly surprised there are no comments as she's dared to go completely non-pc. Related, #5, Girl With Pen's Deborah Siegel wonders Do More MEN Think Us Ready for Madame President?

Find out how to give your High-Five Fridays here!

The purpose of this meme is to give high-fives to 5 people, posts, blogs and/or websites you've admired during the week. I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 5 high-fives on Friday. Trackbacks, pings, linky widgets, comment links accepted!

Visiting fellow High-Fivers is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your High-Fives in others comments (please note if NWS).

Find more High-Five Friday folks here!

History of Western Porn

Marianna Beck's series, The Roots of Western Pornography, is being published at Libido Film's blog. As they put it, "porn is not merely about sex. It also has a social and political context." Amen.

So far, there are three parts:

Part One: an introduction and Italy in the 16th-century in Italy (titled: I modi -- the birth of the stroke book)

Part Two: French Enlightenment in the 17th-century

Part Three: England Bites Back With Fanny Hill

Watch for the rest because it's excellent.

Image from Pietro Aretino's I modi.

The Trix Rabbit Was A Penis Bearing Trickster

Upon learning that the Trix Rabbit "is probably the most striking example of a cereal trickster who closely follows the mythic conventions of the North American tricksters in particular," I began to ponder "tricksters" again.

In case you are too lazy to click the above link (tsk tsk), here's some info from Tricksters and the Marketing of Breakfast Cereals, by Thomas Green, The Journal of Popular Culture (Volume 40, Issue 1, Page 49-68, February, 2007) that you'll need to keep along with the class:

In his basic form, the Trix Rabbit resembles mythical trickster figures in that he is an anthropomorphized animal, like the hare trickster Wakjunkaga. He exhibits the insatiable hunger typical of Wakjunkaga, but not for foods typically associated with rabbits. He desires only the Trix brand breakfast cereal, and is willing to cheat and deceive in order to get it. In the early days of Trix, the variations on the specific disguise that the Rabbit adopted were still closely identified with the plot premise: He was attempting to appear as something other than a rabbit, so a little old lady or astronaut disguise would do. In more recent years the disguises have begun to take on the form of whatever the advertisers perceive as popular with kids at the time, so in the 1980s the Rabbit disguised himself as a breakdancer, and, most recently, a karaoke singer. In any case, the Rabbit is using these disguises, to appear more human than rabbit, which emphasizes the way in which the Trix Rabbit most closely corresponds to the archetypal Radin/Jung trickster.

Jung, in particular, theorized, in a now largely discounted but still interesting way, that the trickster figure represents the psychological state of humanity making the transition from animal to human. Using Radin's description of Wakjunkaga as a touchtone, Jung describes the trickster cycle as demonstrating how the trickster gradually comes to greater levels of control over his selfish, predatory, animalistic impulses—associated with animal physical forms such as the hare, the coyote, and the raven. In this way, according to Jung, Radin's trickster evolves into a thereomorphic culture hero who sacrifices himself to give gifts to humankind, which is the hallmark of humanity in this scheme (144).

But what Green doesn't tell you may put your breakfast cereal in a whole new red light.

Paul Radin, who Green mentioned, was an anthropologist who focused mainly on folk literature and religion among Native Americans (among others) and wrote The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. This initial trickster treatise was published in 1955 after studying Winnebago myths.

Of this work, Karin Glinden writes Trickster:

The Winnebago Trickster cycle of forty-nine stories is central in his book, The Trickster and is the most referenced trickster figure of his writings by subsequent students of Native American tricksters. According to Radin the translation of the tricky one in a Siouan language of the Winnebago is wakdjunkaga; accordingly this specific trickster cycle is also known as the Wakdjunkaga Trickster cycle.

(Please note, there are several spellings of wakdjunkaga (Green used "wakjunkaga" and I've also seen "Wisakejak" & "Wisakedjak" for the Cree trickster.)

Among the forty nine stories are the story of Wakdjunkaga taking his extremely large and weighty penis from the box off his back where he carries it to send it across the river to impregnate a chief's daughter and the story of the talking laxative bulb consumed by the trickster resulting in effluent scatological comedies.

According to Glinden, Radin concludes his study by saying:

The overwhelming majority of all so-called trickster myths in North America give an account of the creation of the earth, or at least the transforming of the world, and have a hero who is always wandering, who is always hungry, who is not guided by normal conceptions of good or evil, who is either playing tricks on people of having them played on him and who is highly sexed. Almost everywhere he has some divine traits. These vary from tribe to tribe. In some instances he is regarded as an actual deity, in others as intimately connected with deities, in still others he is at best a generalized animal or human being subject to death (155).

But the effluent scatological comedy plot thickens... as Glinden writes:

Trickster myths are found in nine of the eleven Native American Regions (Hynes 3). Koshare, Koyemshi, and Neweke are trickster clowns of the Pueblo people who display wanton voracity, sexual and otherwise, but are confined to ritual ceremonies (Leeming 46). Other common animal-person tricksters besides the Hare and Spider are the Raven and Coyote. "Coyote…easily the favorite…crosses tribal boundaries with as much ease as he crosses moral and social ones. He exists is the West from Alaska to the great deserts, he is everywhere on the Great Plains, and he ranges even to the East Coast"(Leeming 48). Coyote is often a teacher by counter-example as he employs base human traits including lying, cheating, and sexual misconduct.

It should be noted at this time that tricksters are not really thought of as shape-shifters; they may have the ability, but the key is that the trickster is disguised, just as the Trix Rabbit, in order to fool or expose foolish things. Trickster may fool, be fooled, but he also teaches; this is his purpose.

Also, the trickster is not male or female but rather is genderless meaning that a trickster may be of any gender -- but they are not Two Spirit People, expressing the gender continuum.

While a trickster may appear as any gender, most often they are depicted as male. This is for two reasons.

One, in stories where the lesson lies in sexual misconduct the male member is most useful -- nothing illustrates sexual impulsivity like a penis!

The other reason lies in cultural constructs which allows and disallows freedoms based upon gender. In Transformation Of The Trickster, Helen Lock writes of the cultural situationality of trickster gender:

...both Landay and Jeanne Rosier Smith, in Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Literature (1997), which focuses on women writers, make the crucial point that tricksters are culturally specific. In the patriarchal societies that produced the archetypal tricksters Hyde discusses, the very qualities that enabled the trickster to operate belonged culturally to men, or, as Landay puts it, “[I]n a sexist society, the male trickster clearly has the advantages of masculinity: mobility, autonomy, power, safety” (2). These advantages are in themselves gender-neutral, but are gendered by cultural association. Trickster is not gendered—only cultural perceptions of the freedom and mobility necessary to be trickster. Thus, premodern tricksters were imagined as primarily masculine, though with gender-changing abilities, while the alchemical age saw Mercurius as fully hermaphroditic (representing also the “female aspects of matter” [Nicholl 32] as part of his elusive ambiguity), but gave this transformative spirit the masculine name of the god whose powers they perceived it to embody; and now, particularly in modern Western literature and culture (although such figures abound elsewhere, also), Landay and Smith find many female trickster figures, from Toni Morrison’s Pilate to Catwoman. Each age redefines the trickster it needs, as the boundaries of the possible, in this case for women, continue to shift; and although Hyde may be right that there are no modern tricksters in the sense of the archaic archetype that depended on a world of polytheism, it seems more appropriate to say that tricksters have always resisted the confinement of archetype, and modify and transform it whenever a new age gives them a chance.

Speaking of new age...

I find it interesting that there are a number of tarot cards which feature Coyote Trickster. On one hand, this is due to a popular resurgence of interest with Native American culture, sometimes on a more pop level than a scholarly one. But it certainly makes sense that tricksters would hold an appeal to those who like to deal with symbols, including not only authors but those who use tarot cards.

There is something fascinating about the mutability of tricksters which easily lends to twists, modifications and new or different interpretation. My Daughter of the Moon Tarot, a very female centric tarot deck of Dianic Wiccan principals, offers a Coyotewoman card which is optional to use rather than the Pan card (the only male card in the deck -- and a positive male energy card).





It was, strangely, this Coyotewoman card which made me once obsessed with tricksters.

Which is not surprising, given my Judeo-Christian up-bringing. From Glinden again:

Taking note of this is to underline a fundamental difference in the psyches of Native and non Native Americans. Inherent in Christian mythology is the concept of tragedy as one can fall from a rigidly defined sense of order. When there is no coherent order to fall from, rather a creation birthed from paradox that is inclusive of both sacred and profane, there is no tragedy. Tricksters bring instead comedy, a communal adhesive.

Oral stories were told for specific reasons within the separate cultures of Native Americans; the revered storyteller tailored the story while speaking to distinct people of the group being addressed. It is difficult to ascertain the full extent of the messages from these historic trickster stories as they were respectfully told to and altered for the people they were told to, which also accounts for the myths' mutability. However, the trickster is prevalent in contemporary Native American literature. The messages are apropos in light of the movement of Native Americans to deconstruct old stereotypes of American Indians and renew a vital consciousness about their identities and clearly accessible to the contemporary reader.

For more on tricksters, see the Introduction to Native American Tricksters by K. L. Nichols.

Image credits: Image of coyote and stars by Layne Miller, via.

Sheik Fathers & Flapper Mothers, That's Why Young People Go Wrong

Found via Infomercantile, in The Troublemakers post, was this excellent clipping:

"WHY YOUNG PEOPLE GO WRONG"
REV HARRY BLACK

Pastor Free Methodist Church
Corner West Colton Avenue and Webster Street Redlands, California

(a newspaper report)

PARENTS HEAR PULPIT ATTACK
Sheik Fathers and Flapper Mothers are Assailed by Redlands Clergyman
(Special Staff Correspondence "The Sun")

REDLANDS, CALIF.--Sheik fathers who enjoy prize fights and jazz more than the comfort of home and children, and flapper mothers "who display the kneebone, collarbone, backbone, and wishbone," were scored in the spirited sermon preached by the Rev. Harry Black at the first of a two weeks revival at the Free Methodist Church in Redlands.

"The automobile, sheik fathers, flapper mothers, immodest dress and lack of religious training are the causes for the downfall of many of our youth," the pastor declared in his sermon on "The Revolt of Youth, Roadside Spooning, Why Our Young People Go Wrong and Who Is To Blame." He continued:
CROWDED AUTOS ARE ATTACKED
"The automobile can be made a blessing or a curse, and it is both. It is a disgrace to society for four or five young folks to crowd into one seat of a car, and nothing but a base desire will lead boys and girls to do this. They should be arrested right on the spot.

For more from this Free Tract, including the Bible on bobbed hair, see Thingsville's post with scans.

Superhero Porn

From Gracie & CR/LF's review of TheWild & Wacky Adventures of Chloe:

Joel, a comic-book geek, spends way too much time fantasizing over the heroines in his fav comic. He is mocked & ridiculed, but still, he lusts & masturbates (providing himself ‘comic relief’ *wink*) over ‘Super Chloe.’ One night, he is promised that she can be real, if he believes enough... And thanks to the miracle of porn, Chloe is brought to life.

...After Chloe becomes real, enters the 3D world, Joel leaves her home alone as he goes off to work. The door bell rings... [and it's] Two Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door! My God, it’s hysterical!

Click here to watch the clip -- and then go buy it.

Aroldo Bonzagni (1887 -1918)

Images found here, via Secondhand Rose, who wrote a poem to accompany this one:

He Is Risen

Wrong time of year? --Or is it, hmm?

I wonder why Viagra ads haven't snatched this one up... err, so to speak.

Bamforth & Co: Postcards & Films

While Bamforth & Co is remembered for their "saucy seaside postcards" (postcards with bawdy & risque captions sold on promenades and piers to Victorian English folk on vacation 'seaside'), the story doesn't begin there - that's the end, so to speak.


James Bamforth was a photographer in the 1840's and he founded the company in founded the company in 1870 (in Holmfirth, Yorkshire), specializing in Life Model lantern slides.



According to Magic Lantern:

James Bamforth specialised in the mass production of photographic "Life Model" slides, often based on religious themes or moral instruction. He was no doubt influenced by the nonconformist, chapel based religion of that area, so it is somewhat ironic that the company should become more generally famous in the 20th Century for saucy postcards.

Bamforth built a studio in Holmfirth, and designed and painted the backcloth's and sets. Members of his family and other local people posed for the photographer for little or no pay. In many ways the Life model slides were made like early movies which they predated by 20 years or more. It is not surprising that Bamforth's became involved with movie making. ".....he chose homely themes, due to his use of neighbours as models and sitters...Thus it came about, to his lasting credit, that the simple characters of his stories combined with the perfect naturalness of the leading figures in them, has endeared his life model sets to millions of children and adults." Photogram February 1899

Many of the slides illustrated hymns and other popular songs. With each slide depicting a verse, they were designed for audiences to sing along. They were such a great success that Bamforth build a factory in 1898 and began mass production.

Since the magic lantern slides told simple tales, and Bamforth had everything required -- a skilled photographer, studio & production space, a pool of performers, costumes, and experienced in plot construction -- it seemed only natural that Bamforth would begin making films.

Screenonline says:

Possibly in response to this expertise, Riley Brothers of Bradford, who had been involved with moving picture technology since 1896 and had already begun to make films of their own, commissioned Bamforth in 1898 to produce further films to be sold exclusively to purchasers of their equipment. Although the exact business relationship between the two firms and the production dates of the films remains unknown, the subsequent advertisement of these productions in a 1903 Hepworth catalogue as 'RAB' films acknowledges their partnership.

(For more on Riley, see here.)

While Bamforth only made films for a few years (during two brief periods, 1898-1900 and 1913-1915), he made quite a few of them. Enough for film historians to call his films as the earliest examples of British comic film. His biggest star was Reginald Twisk, who played a Chaplin-like character known as Winky.

Some of his films were inspired by the magic lantern slides, including the themes and stories themselves. While I haven't been able to see many of Bamforth's films (Screenonline only allows Brits in schools to do so), it seems the morality lessons have taken on a more cheeky air.

Two must-see movies are:

Women's Rights (1899): Gossiping housewives find themselves in an awkward predicament.

Lover Kisses Husband (1900): Comedy short in which an adulterous tryst is foiled by a cunning husband.

In 1914, the war itself affected both film making and the focus of Bamforth & Co. The popularity of lantern slides had dimmed with the popularity of films, but movie production slowed due to World War I, and Bamforth & his sons focused on the growing market for picture postcards.



Not surprisingly, the sentimental was popular, and some of Bamforth's song & hymn lantern slides were converted into postcard series. Often called Bamforth Song Sets these cards are highly collected themselves, and these collectors consider the postcards the best characterizations of the soul of Bamforth & Co.

But with war also comes the need for comic relief, and while the English "seaside holiday" may have been an invention of the Victorians, the seaside postcards became extremely popular during and after the First World War.



So much so, that by the end of the war Bamforth & Co had moved away not only from the sentimental but from photographic images and the company began to really focus on the artist drawn risque comic postcards.



Derek Bamforth once explained the success of the cards:

'The more vulgar, the better'

He said: "We never publish anything obscene, we know where to draw the line. But the more vulgar the card, the better it sells."

And so it went, for decades.


Until the 1980's when James Bamforth's grandson retired and the company was sold to Scarborough printing firm ETW Dennis. In September 2000 ETW Dennis went into receivership and the Bamforth name and the copyrights to thousands of designs were bought by Ian Wallace, owner of The Beatles Shop, for an undisclosed sum. Now Bamforth designs can be found in new limited edition sets and licensed as Wallace plans to entice a younger audience who has never seen these gems:

"It's the humour of Carry On films and Benny Hill - they're just plain daft."

However, not everyone sees the images as a "bit of fun". Critics in the past have branded them sexist relics, best left in the past.

"OK some people think they're a bit sexist, but I think they're just fun," said Mr Wallace.

"Anyone who takes the images too seriously and doesn't laugh at them is a bit sad."

He is adamant that he can find a new audience willing to appreciate the cards' humour.

"I think there's a lot of young people who haven't seen this kind of stuff," he said.

"The images have been out of the public eye and hopefully they will come across as being fresh and fun."

Mr Wallace, I couldn't agree more.


For more (do you need more?!) on Bamforth, see Remembering Bamforth & Co. Ltd..

Antique and vintage Bamforth postcards can sell for cheap on eBay.

Cultivating: Waist Places & Waste Places

Turn of the century (1900's) postcard featuring one man between two women, his arms about the waists of each. Text reads: Cultivating the "Waist" Places.--

Theochrom Serie 1230-56, printed in the U.S.

A humorous play on waste lands, those lands which have not yet been made property but which may be reduced to that condition, be it the desire of an individual or a group (a country or politician in the name of colonization, for example, or a religious group in the name of God). All of which fall under the category of sheer greed.

The issues of waste lands, conquest, emigration, war, and dominion as ordained by God were quite fascinating to folks in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

For more, see The Rights of War and Peace, including the Law of Nature and of Nations, translated from the Original Latin of Grotius, with Notes and illustrations from Political and Legal Writers, by A.C. Campbell, A.M. with an Introduction by David J. Hill (New York: M. Walter Dunne, 1901).

See also, The Waste Places (1915),a poem by Irish poet James Stephens (1882-1950) as well as Eli Siegel's Beginning with Psychiatric Terms: An Aesthetic Realism Consideration (1966) in which the poem is an allegory for ethical unconscious.

Of Mahu, Men & Islands

The seller of this vintage Tahitian photo writes:

striking woman with very long wavy hair, tropical print dress, leis of whitish flowers around her head and hanging from her neck. gaze to side of camera.

believe this to be a photograph of a Mahu--a person born as a male but raised as a female in Tahitian culture. A practice not only of Tahitians but of groups in India, Indonesia, and other places. Considered as part of the Third Sex by contemporary gender studies.

I wondered how the seller could make such a claim -- other than close inspection of the photo showing more 'masculine' traits in the face. Even then it is rather a big leap.

I did some research of my own on the Polynesian Mahu.

The definition of 'third sex' and 'person of ambiguous gender' is a bit misleading. While Mahu are thought to possess the virtues of both men and women, Mahu are most definitely males -- males who physically remain male but dress and act like women, right down to typical household chores of cooking and taking care of children. (Males who do more than behave like females, who become females, are called Raerae -- transsexuals.) In some ways, this makes the Mahu your every day gay. But that's a simplistic gender view.

According to Like a Lady, In Polynesia by Roberta Perkins Mahu have ancestral customs and were socially accepted -- even admired for the special roles they play within their communities. It's a somewhat complicated picture:

For the English, French and Dutch seafarers who visited the South Pacific Islands in the 18th century, confronting the Polynesian transgenders was a mixture of shock, fascination and repulsion. The best reports of these early contacts come from the HMS Bounty expedition to Tahiti (1789-91) under Captain William Bligh. One of his officers, Lt. Morrison, wrote: "They have a set of men called mahu. These men are in some respects like the eunuchs of India but they are not castrated. They never cohabit with women but live as they do. They pick their beards out and dress as women, dance and sing with them and are as effeminate in their voice. They are generally excellent hands at making and painting of cloth, making mats and every other woman's employment" Being a thorough gentleman who considered it his duty to investigate everything, Captain Bligh's curiosity got the better of him "I found with her a person, who although I was certain was a man, had great marks of effeminacy about him and created in me certain notions which I wished to find out...The effeminacy of this persons speech induced me to think he had suffered castration...Here the young man took his mantle off which he had about him to show me the connection. He had the appearance of a woman, his yard and testicles being so drawn in under him, having the art from custom of keeping them in this position...On examining his privacies I found them both very small and the testicles remarkable so, being not larger than a boy's five or six years old, and very soft as if in a state of decay or a total incapacity of being larger, so that in either case he appeared to me as effectually a Eunuch as if the stones were away." One can imagine old stiff and proper Captain Bligh in full dress uniform fingering the mahu's genitals with his starchy white gloved hands.

(Yes, that Bounty and Captain Bligh.)

An unexplained phenomenon on Tahiti was that just one, and only one, mahu resided in each village at any one time. As one Tahitian pointed out: "When one dies then another substitutes...God arranges it like that.. It isn't allowed...two mahusin one place. I've traveled around Huahine (the Society or Tahitian Islands) and I haven't seen two mahus in one place. I never saw it." How this phenomenon worked is still a mystery, but obviously some sociological mechanism must have been at work in each village to ensure that not more than one mahu lived there at a time. Since, as we know the desire to change gender is spontaneous and not an orderly event, how then did such precision occur on cue? Perhaps a young mahu growing up in a village which already had an established older mahu may have been forced to seek a village where none existed. Another suggestion is that a mahu was made by the community, who selected a boy to be raised as a girl to replace the established mahu when she passed on. The question remains, though, what criteria was used for this selection? However it was achieved, mahus were accorded great respect and dignity.

Bligh observed: "The women treat him (mahu) as one of their sex, and he observed every restriction that they do, and is equally respected and esteemed." Anthropologist Robert Suggs reported a similar attitude towards mahus on the Marquesas Islands, while another ethnographer, Donald Marshall, said much the same for Cook Islanders, and by all accounts it was similar on Hawaii. On Mangaia, the mahus were not only well regarded by the rest of the population, but they excelled at women's tasks, sang in an excellent high pitch falsetto and were better dancers than all other women. Anthropologist Robert Levy claimed that the mahus on Tahiti served as an object lesson for demarcating the sexes. Since the sex roles were similar in many respects and some tasks were performed equally by men and women, the mahu was pointed to as neither wholly man nor wholly woman. However, this does not explain the presence of mahus in more warlike societies ouch as the Marquesans, the Hawaiians or the Maoris, where the sexes were clearly defined by the warrior status of men.

According to Captain Bligh: "These people (mahus), says Tynah, are particularly selected when boys and kept with the women solely for the caresses of the men...Those who he connected with him have their beastly pleasures satisfied between his thighs, but they are no farther sodomites as they all positively deny the crime." Indeed, it seems that anal sex, even in heterosexual relations was not practiced in Tahiti. The mahu then was a diversion for oral sex, since many Tahitian men claimed that it’s just like doing it with a woman, but his (mahu) way of doing it is better than with a woman...When you go to a woman it is not always satisfactory. When you go to the mahu it's more satisfactory. The sexual pleasure is very great." However, fellatio was not reciprocal, as one Tahitian explained: "I was 'done' by a mahu...He 'ate' my penis. He asked me to suck his. I did not suck it...He offered me money. I said I would hit him. I did not want that sort of thing, it is disgusting." Despite this, there was a Tahitian belief that semen is like a vitamin supplement. "(Mahus) really believe that (semen) is first class food for them," said one Tahitian man. "Because of that mahu are strong and powerful. The seminal fluid goes throughout his body...I’ve seen many mahu and I've seen that they are very strong." Sodomy was also denied by other islanders. The mangaians, for example, thought anal sex ridiculous, yet were quick to point out that it took place on the other Cook Islands. It is possible, of course, that the Polynesians were quick to realise the disgust with which white men regarded sodomy, and in their eagerness to accommodate them as trading partners flatly denied any such behaviour in their community. So, Europeans began to view mahus not as substitute women, nor as sodomites, but as an alternative sexual arrangement for the sole gratification of men.

As for the incidence of female-to-male transgenders across Polynesia, it seems to have been unknown, or, at least, rare, for anthropologist Donald Marshall was told of the existence of women who insisted on doing men's work (though not cross-dressed), on Mangaia, though he had never seen one.

Like many old world traditions and societal sects, the Mahu tradition has changed. Not with 'the times' so much as in response to foreigners, including more than the usual ministry of white missionaries which stripped them of the respect of their communities.

Just as the Devadasi suffered from colonization, so the Mahu have become sexually sullied with the arrival of outsiders:

But the Mahu tradition is struggling. When thousands of French soldiers arrived for the nuclear testing program there weren’t enough local women to entertain them – so many Mahu turned to prostitution.

As Bormann reports, it’s given a traditional phenomenon a very bad name.

It's simplistic to say "so many turned to prostitution", as if this had no cultural, economic or other motivational issues. Attitudes aside, what currently exists of Mahu culture is a rather watered-down version of the old legacy of the islands. Even the word Mahu is, in many places, now just derogatory slang to dismiss any non-hetero males, ignorant to the word's origin and history.

For more on Mahu you can visit The Island Goddess Pages, "embracing the online Mahu Communities of Hawaii, Mainland US & Worldwide".

Tipsey For Nipsey (Russell)

Now I knew Nipsey Russell must have made some comedy records, but I had no idea what I was really in for when I grabbed these two old Nipsey records...


(Yeah, and I left those 50 cent price tags on 'em for the photos -- so it eats at your souls!)

The covers are nearly identical, save for the colorized photos and the song titles. The front covers read:

Nipsey Russell Presents Borderline Records

HARLEMS "Son of Fun"

The spines, however, make a bit more sense with the "Borderline Records Presents Nipsey Russell Harlem's Son of Fun". They also make it clear that I have volumes two and three -- so I'm missing number one (hint-hint y'all!)

Reading the titles doesn't do the works justice -- I know, because I read them and still wasn't prepared -- but here they are. (And hit the links to download/listen.)

Vol II

Side One:

Little Peter My Boy
Drafted
Cherry For A Banana Split

Side Two:

Nudist Wedding
Well Do Hospital
Public Transportation
The Singer

Vol III

Side One:

A Day At The Races
Radio Roundup
My Friend Luigi

Side Two:

Tall In The Saddle
School Days
Honeymoon Hotel

Like many folks, I knew Nipsey from game shows (my favorite, too, is Match Game). But I had no idea that 1960's Nipsey Russell was raunchier than Match Game Nipsey! Who knew that you could get away with such things in the 60's -- let alone without a warning label or whatnot.

Back cover reads:

about "NIPSEY" RUSSELL
HARLEM'S 'SON OF FUN'

NIPSEY RUSSELL is, by all odds, the more perceptive, brilliant and flexible of the current crop of young comedians. His keen wit is so readily adaptable to all situations and types of "Material" that he has been able to vary his efforts to everything from: -- Injecting bright sage humor into RELIGIOUS CONCERTS to -- Touring as Comic M.C. with star-studded Jazz Variety Shows (BILLY ECKSTINE'S GREAT SHOW OF '54) to -- Guest performances on CBS-TV (the ROBERT Q. LEWIS Show) to -- Legitimate Drama (Summer Stock lead in "CABIN IN THE SKY" Seacliff Theater) to -- dispensing the accepted brand of Commercial Comedy in plush Supper Clubs (The ELEGANTE in B'klyn and the CORDILLION ROOM of the CONCORD HOTEL). He projects so easily in each medium and with such warmth and affability that he is completely captivating to most audiences.

NIPSEY was born in Atlanta, Georgia and danced professionally from the age of nine. He received his early training in showmanship and stagecraft from two entertainment "Greats", EDDY HEYWOOD Senior and ANDY FAIRCHILD. College trained in Liberal Arts and Business, Nipsey served overseas in World War II as Army Lieutenant in the Medical Administrative Corps.

NIPSEY RUSSELL wrote, directed and emceed his own Radio Variety Show (STATION WLIB-N.Y.) for more than 17 months; played a featured part in the Negro National Network's RUBY VALENTINE SHOW Starring Juanita Hall... and was top comic in the STUDIO FILM "Rhythm" SERIES. Nipsey is a great favorite at the Famous APOLLO theater and his 10 year record run at Harlem's CLUB BABY GRAND is still unsurpassed. IN THESE ALBUMS -- Nipsey demonstrates his mastery of the "Double Entendre" Quips & Quotes and his hilarious interpretations of the raucous and bawdy routines he laughingly calls --

"DIALOGUE THEY DARE YOU TO DO!"

Die-hard collectors, I found no real info on these recordings. The album cover text which says that Nipsey presents Borderline Records made me wonder if this was his own label. Even when I found a (very few) other vintage records by Borderline, also comedy recordings, I wasn't sure... Nipsey had a business degree you know.

But Barnes and Noble states, "In 1960 Russell signed to the Borderline label and released a series of comedy LPs including Confucius Told Me, Things They Never Taught at School, The Birds and the Bees and All That Jazz, and Sing Along with Nipsey Russell."

Also, most if not all of the bits recorded on these two records (and the others) were also recorded on the (much easier to find) Humorsonic label -- which I also didn't find any real info about. (I'm still not satisfied with this; so more research is required.)



Here are my 'liner notes' and additional resources:

I think this may be what is referred to as "STUDIO FILM "Rhythm" SERIES".

This was the only reference I could find to Nipsey's radio show.

Listen to NPR's tribute to Nipsey Russell.

The cover states it was the Negro National Network, but it was (should you care to continue searching) in reality the National Negro Network, started in 1953 by Leonard Evans. W. Leonard Evans, Jr. died in June of this year (2007); he left a wonderful legacy of African-American media. Here's a wonderful 1963 interview with Evans titled "Why Do We Need a Negro Sunday Supplement?" Should that site remove the recording, or you'd prefer to download it for listening to later (it is quite long), I've uploaded a copy here.

For more on African-Americans and radio history, see this article by author Donna Halper (whose interesting media bio includes the discovery of Rush.

From Nipsey to Rush. This is why I dig collecting.

PS When sharing the Nipsey humor tracks with your friends, please credit me, Silent Porn Star, with a link. It's polite, proper and provides incentive for me to go through the bother of making such files to share. Thank you.

Weird Cults, BDSM and Vintage Sci-Fi (aka Of Brundage and Bondage)

Once again, ptupper72 at Beauty In Darkness is intriguing me... This time with Ancient Mystery Cults.

This is from Part One:

A mystery cult or mystery religion is what might be called a boutique religion. Instead of being a total institution one is born into, people are voluntarily and optionally initiated into them. It was also possible to be a member or even an officiant of multiple cults.

Mystery cults have initiation rituals, and initiation seems to be the main point of them, for their own sake. Victor Turner distinguished between liminal rituals, which result in significant and permanent changes in status (e.g. weddings, graduations), and liminoid rituals, which don't have a permanent change in status (e.g. BDSM scenes, in my opinion).

And this is a quote from Ancient Mystery Cults by Walter Burkert, as quoted in Ancient Mystery Cults Part Two, on the subject of flagellation as (possibly) depicted in the mural at the Villa of the Mysteries:

A kneeling girl, keeping her head in the lap of a seated woman and shutting her eyes, the seated woman grasping her hands and drawing back the garment from the kneeling girl's bare back, while a sinister-looking female behind is raising a rod -- these are all quite realistic details of caning. But the threatening figure wielding the rode has black wings; she is not from this world but rather an allegorical personality.

Image of Weird Tales via Gloria Brame, and one of her readers comments, "The cover illustration is by Margret Brundage, who did most of the vintage Weird Tales covers of the 'thirties. Her covers often featured naked or nearly nude women in bondage."

For more on Margaret Brundage, see this interview with her in 1973.

Of Nudes and Swans

One often sees images of nude women with swans.

Vintage German photo of nude and swan, circa 1910.

Limoges Leda and Swan figurine, circa 1925.

Sleeping Swan, by Michael Parkes.

Often the images seem soft and romantic, dreamy. Other times they are artistic; a sensual play between skin and feathers.

Nude woman and swan titled,"Leda and the Swan," drawn by A Juredaz.

But there's more to the story.

Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology, in which Zeus (Jupiter) took the form of a swan and raped Leda on the same night she slept with her husband, King Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. (Of course Zeus had to be a swan; as a member of the Anatidae family it's one of the few birds that possess a penis.)

The motif was rarely seen in the art of antiquity, but emerged in the Italian Renaissance as a combination of a classic theme and erotica. Using the classic Greek myth exploring sex was possible as long as it was bestiality, yet explicit sex between humans was far too inappropriate.

There are many variations depicting Leda in sexual acts with the swan: love-making, copulation, beak/mouth penetration, and rape.

The earliest known explicit Renaissance depiction is a woodcut illustration in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice in 1499.

Ammanati's marble statue (1500s).

Marble sarcophagus from Heraklion Museum (Crete)

Engraving, early C16, Giulio Campagnola.

Marble sarcophagus from Pergamon Museum (Berlin)

Leda and Swan, Maurice Ferray, marble, onyx & bronze, 1898-199

Gustave Moreau: Leda and the Swan, 1865-1875.

Leda and the swan, Scindia Museum, Gwalior, India

In 1928 William Butler Yeats published his poem, Leda And The Swan.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Yeats' poem is often discussed and debated.

I particularly like this discussion of Yeats' poem in terms of rape:

In 'Leda and the Swan', the issue that causes heartburn in many modern critics
is not the fact that the theme is a rape, but that Yeats seems to
1. glorify the power and sensuality of the rapist - "the feathered glory".
2. accede to the (male) belief that 'women love a bit of force' - "And how can
body, laid in that white rush / But feel the strange heart beating where it
lies?"
3. use the rape as a starting point for historical and cultural inspiration -
"his knowledge with his power".

Of course, it must also be said that Yeats at least tries to represent Leda's
state of mind - "those terrified vague fingers"; compare Spenser:

'Whiles the proud Bird ruffing his fethers wyde,
And brushing his faire brest, did her inuade;
She slept, yet twixt her eyelids closely spyde,
How towards her he rusht, and smiled at his pryde.'

(This same link also refers the question of what "feminist critic" means.)

There's even large debate over Yeats' intentions with his poem. Apparently Yeats had desired a political poem. As proof, see this passage from "Pornography and Canonicity: The Case of Yeats' Leda and the Swan," and essay in Representing Women: Law, Literature, and Feminism, pages 165-87:

According to Yeats, the poem was inspired by a meditation on the Irish situation in relation to world politics. The first version was finished at Coole in September 1923, in the atmosphere of political instability resulting from the Irish Civil War. Yeats told Lady Gregory of "his long belief that the reign of democracy is over for the present, and in reaction there will be violent government from above, as no in Russia, and is beginning here. It is the thought of this force coming into the world that he is expressing in his Leda poem." The swan-god, it seems, originated as a "rough beast," an unlikely amalgam of Lenin and President Cosgrave, subduing the anarchic masses personified by Leda; but Yeats insisted that, "as I wrote, a bird and lady took such possession of the scene that all politics went out of it, and my friend tells me that his `conservative readers would misunderstand the poem.'" All politics did not evaporate in the alchemy of the creative process, however: class politics were overshadowed though not entirely effaced by the politics of sexuality.

Ah, politics and sex. Gotta love that combination.

As long as I'm quoting... More from those same pages:

Yeats knew that his name and become a byword for paganism, anti-Catholicism, opposition to Gaelic culture, and snobbery. . . .

"Leda and the Swan" can thus be read as an aristocratic liberal intervention in the cultural debate about post-Treaty Irish identity, an insistence that in bringing to birth a new, independent Ireland, "love is a lustier sire than law." Was Ireland to become, as Yeats wished, "a modern, tolerant, liberal nation," free to deploy the resources of classical mythology and to admire naked Greek statuary; or was it to surrender to the obscurantism of the clergy, soon to be reified in the legislation of the new state? Sexuality, bodies, and their representations occupy center stage in this ideological struggle. The Swan, originating in Yeats'' mind as an image of the violent imposition of the law, ironically comes to symbolize all those desires the censors found threatening: in the context of the poem's reception its brutal energy represents the forces of sexual liberation. . . .

The Greek mythology itself was conflicting about the aspect of rape. Was this seduction, god allowed trickery? Was it violent rape? Is her submission to be expected because she's a mortal? Or did she enjoy it?

The subject of rape vs. seduction and Leda's participation level (enjoyment) is often part of the art too.

In Leda and the Swan, by George O' Connel Leda is rides the swan seemingly unaware of the consequences of will follow. (1973, Lithograph on woven paper), Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia.

In this engraving on paper by Cornelis Bos (ca. 1536-1540), one copied from a painting that Michelangelo completed for the Due Alfonso of Ferrara but did not deliver because he was insulted by the Duke's agent -- or possibly because he was not sure the painting was appropriate, Leda is rather masculine and very sexual. There is no resisting the swan's advance.

There are many imaginations of Leda and Zeus the swan...

Salvador Dali, Lena & Swan.

Petrus Paul Rubens, Leda and the Swan, oil on canvas. Flemish, 1601-2.

Vladimir Suchanek, Prague, color lithograph.

Carlos Cartagena pinup, 1995.

Leda and the Swan (sixteenth century), Paolo Veronese.

Early Georgian period heavy gold ring, 15ct gold (by test) and with a gorgeous hand carved bezel and shank surround in a continuing pattern of dense flowers. The intaglio, classified as an "erotic" intaglio shows a nude Leda with her swan suitor, the God Zeus.

Neon lighted sign, outside German hotel.

Leda and the swan mosaic from a Roman house in Paphos, Cyprus, late 2nd century CE. London, British Museum.

Leda: In Praise of the Blessings of Darkness, Pierre Louys, University of Georgia.

Leda and the swan and Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra and Helen; (Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519] Collection, Rome

MEERSCHAUM GERMAN PIPE-bought in Germany at end of WW 1 by consignor's grandfather. Highly carved with Leda & the Swan. Bakalite stem, leather case. Carl Hiess, Wien, Graben printed on case.

Oil on canvas, Paul Tillier (1834-1915).

Leda and the Swan, bronze, Roman Imperial, circa 1st Century A.D., 5 13/16 inches high.

Nazi art, Leda and Swan.

Modern Leda & Swan, likely by Hilary Pollock.

The story of Leda doesn't end with that one night...

Being a god means that Zeus is going to impregnant her -- immortal sperm, and all that. Of course, she was also with her husband, Tyndareus.

From this one night we have several children, which typically hatch from eggs, and several versions of the children's parentage. In some Leda bore/hatched Helen (of Troy) and Clytemnestra, children of Zeus, and at the same time bearing Castor (Kaster) and Pollux (Polydeuces), children of Tyndareus. In others, Castor's father was Tyndareus and Pollux's father was the Greek god Zeus resulting in twins where Castor was mortal and Pollux, being the son of a mythological god, was immortal.

Further confusion continues as Castor & Pollux are sometimes both mortal, sometimes both divine. One consistent point seems to be that if only one of them is immortal, it is Pollux. In Homer's Iliad, Helen looks down from the walls of Troy and wonders why she does not see her brothers among the Achaeans and the narrator says that both are already dead and buried back in their homeland (Lacedaemon), suggesting that at least in some early traditions, both were mortal.

Mortal or not, Castor and Pollux are the twins known as Gemini, including the constellation.

Leda's daughter Helen becomes Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal. At least in some versions. There are others which say that the Helen of Troy is the daughter of Zeus and the goddess Nemesis. Adding to the confusion, there is even one story where both Leda and Nemesis have contact with the egg which is to be Helen.

One story comes from one of the Cyclic Epics, Cypria (generally thought to preserve traditions that date back to at least the 7th century BC). In Cypria, Nemesis did not want to mate with Zeus and so she changed into various animals forms in attempts to avoid Zeus. Eventually Nemisis becomes a goose and Zeus, also transformed as a goose, mates with her. In this story it is Nemesis who produces the egg from which the Helen (of Troy) hatches.

In some of these stories, this egg, before hatching, is found by a shepherd. He gives the the egg to Leda to protect. Leda does and when the egg hatches, she is so enamored with the baby girl (Helen) that she raises her as her daughter. In the 5th century comedy Nemesis (by Cratinus) Leda is told to sit on an egg so that it would hatch, but there is no doubt the egg is Nemesis' (and that the Helen who hatches has Nemesis as her biological mother).

It is also interesting to note that in stories in which Helen is Leda's daughter, the sex with Zeus is not depeicted as rape. For example, in Euripides' play Helen (late 5th century BC), it says that Zeus, in the form of a swan, was chased by an eagle and sought refuge with Leda. The swan gained her affection and the two mated. Leda later then produced an egg from which Helen was born.

Apparently such beauty as helen's cannot be so tainted as to have been concieved in rape.

But back to Leda.

There has only been one coin minted with the myth of Leda and the swan. It is on the reverse of this coin with the bust of Severus Alexander (222-235 A.D.).


However, Leda and swan are on reverse of a bronze medal of Faustina the Roman. Faustina herself is interesting -- she was 'a courtesan celebrated by Joachim du Bellay, who was in Rome from 1553 to 1558, and possibly identical with the Faustina who excited the passion of Brantôme.' The legend may be completed as Favstina ro(mana) o(mnium) p(ulcherrima), or the Roman Faustina, of every beauty.

The reverse also has the legend si Iovi.quid homini which implies if Jove does this, what of men? (The Roman name for Zeus was Jupiter or Jove.)



In 1964, Kurt Kren made the film 7/64: Leda mit dem Schwan. At IMDB one reviewer says:

"Based on the poem by Yeats called also "Leda and the Swan" it features some unforgettable and disturbing imagery. We see Leonardo,who grates a large cucumber over Leda with a grater,squashes 10 tomatoes and cracks 5 eggs on her.He places a bottle containing a rose between her legs.Then he scatters bread-crumbs and coffee powder over her.Leda sets her upper body upright and draws in one leg.Leonardo places a large,uninflated plastic swan between her legs and so on.Unquestionably bizarre and edited very fast,"Leda and the Swan" is among the best short films made by infamous Viennese Aktionists.7 out of 10."

I don't even know how to follow that up.

If all these Leda and Swan images weren't enough for you, try here.

For a somewhat strange (definitely kitschy) version of Leda and the swan shown with fashion dolls, go here.

Indian (Sex) Servants of God

Devadasi literally means "Servant of God." Like Christian nuns, the Devadasi were girls who married a deity or temple.

In addition to taking care of the temple they learned and practiced classical Indian arts traditions. Originally, like nuns, they were to be celibate all their lives, but at some point in their history (likely as the wealth and prestige of temples grew) sex became part of their sacred duties. In Hindu belief, the Devadasi had sex to commune with their god; it was a sacred experience.

The Devadasi life was not forced upon anyone -- like many Christians dropped young girls off at nunneries, so did Hindus take their girls to be raised and trained for the honor of serving their faith. (Yes, I'm sure many of the poor just dropped off their kids for one less mouth to feed, but many a nun began thus -- or as an orphan.) This was not forced prostitution and the Devadasi occupied a rank next only to priests. They were revered, enjoying a high social status.

However, as colonialism imposed cultural changes, bringing about the demise of kingdoms and Hinduism itself, the Devadasis were deemed immoral for their sex outside of marriage -- as defined by Christians. They were not only frowned upon and classified as prostitutes, but many were forced to become prostitutes just to survive.

There is a movement to reclaim the role of Devadasi, both to uplift them historically (removing the Western biases) as well as to resurrect the legitimacy of the practices today. One such women is Kama of Kingston, who is interviewed here.

Kama knows (and can perform) her Kama Sutra, but she also knows so much more. Her blog is filled with political and cultural matters: "This is the personal diary and commentary of an Indian Devadasi escort living and working in the UK. I am hoping that this Blog will let me record my experiences and feelings about being young, foreign, and selling sex in the UK."

It's an amazing history, and quite surprising to see such a young little thing standing up tall (to be the nail who takes the hardest pounding) in such culturally, politically intolerant times of conservatism, censorship and control.

You can buy statuary with Devadasi images here, and watch videos of Kama here.

Victorian Love Letters

From a rich young Gentleman, to a beautiful young Lady without a fortune.

Miss Sophia,

It is a general reflection against the manners of the present age, that marriage is only considered as one of those methods by which avarice may be satisfied, and property increased; that neither the characters nor accomplishments of the woman are much regarded, her merit being estimated by the thousands of her fortune. I acknowledge that the accusation is too true, and to that may be ascribed many unhappy matches we daily meet with; for how is it possible that those should ever have the same affection for each other, who were forced to comply with terms to which they had the utmost aversion; as if they had been allowed to consult their own inclinations, and gave their hands where they had engaged their hearts. For my own part, I have been always determined to consult my own inclinations, where there is the least appearance of happiness; and having an easy independency, am not anxious about increasing it; being well convinced, that in all states the middle one is the best. I mean neither poverty nor riches; which leads me to the discovery of a passion which I have long endeavored to conceal.

The opportunities which I have had of conversing with you at Mrs. A's have at last convinced me that merit and riches are far from being connected, and that a woman may have those qualifications necessary to adorn her sex, although adverse fortune has denied her money. I am sure that all those virtues necessary to make me happy in the marriage state, are centered in you; and whatever objection you may have to my person, yet I hope there can't be none to my character; and if you will consent to be mine, it shall be my constant study to make your life agreeable, and under the endearing character of husband, endeavor to supply your early loss of the best of parents. I shall expect your answer as soon as possible, for I wait for it with the utmost impatience.

I am your affectionate lover.

The young Lady's Answer.

Sir,
I received your letter yesterday, and gratitude for the generous proposal which you have made, obliges me to thank you heartily for the contents.

As I have no objection to either your person or character, you will give me leave to deal sincerely, and state those things which at present bear weight with me, and perhaps must ever remain unanswered, and hinder me from entering into that state against which I have not the least aversion.

You well know (at least I imagine so) that the proposal you have made to me is a secret both to your relations and friends; and would you desire me to run precipitately into the marriage state, where I have the greatest reason to fear that I shall be looked upon with contempt, by those whom nature had connected me with; I should consider myself obliged to promote the happiness of my husband; and how consistent would a step of that nature be with such a resolution? You know that I was left an orphan, and had it not been for the pious care of Mrs. A. must have been brought up in a state of servitude. You know that I have no fortune; and were I to accept your offer, it would lay me under such obligations as must destroy my liberty. Gratitude and love are two very different things. The one supposes a benefit received, whereas the other is a free act of the will. Suppose me raised to the joint possession of your fortune, could I call it mine unless I have brought you something as an equivalent? or, have I not great reason to fear that you yourself my consider me as under obligations inconsistent with the character of a wife? I acknowledge the great generosity of your offer, and would consider myself highly honored, could I prevail with myself to prefer to pace of mind, the enjoyment of an affluent fortune. But as I have been very sincere in my answer, so let me beg, that you will endeavor to eradicate a passion, which if nourished longer, may prove fatal to us both.

I am, sir,
With the greatest, &c

The Gentleman's Reply.

Dear Sophia,

Was it not cruel to start so many objections? or could you suppose me capable of so base an action, as to destroy your freedom and peace of mind? or do you think that I am capable of ever forgetting you, or being happy in the enjoyment of another? for affection's sake, do not mention gratitude any more. Your many virtues entitle you to much more than I am able to give; but all that I have shall be yours. With respect to my relations, I have none to consult with besides my mother and my uncle, and their consent, and even approbation, are already obtained. You have often heard my mother declare, that she preferred my happiness with a woman of virtue, to the possession of the greatest fortune; and though I forgot to mention it, yet I had communicated my sentiments to you before I had opened my mind to you. Let me beg that you will lay aside all those unnecessary scruples, which only serve to make one unhappy who is already struggling under all the anxieties of real and genuine love. It is in your power, my dear, to make me happy, and none else can. I cannot enjoy one moment's rest till I have your answer, and then the happy day shall be fixed. Let me beg that you will not start any more objections, unless you are my real enemy: but your tender nature cannot suffer you to be cruel. Be mine my dear, and I am yours forever. My servant shall wait for the answer to your sincere lover, whose whole happiness is centered in you.

I am, &c.

The Lady's Answer.

Sir,

I find that when one of your sex forms a resolution, you are determined to go through, whatever be the event. Your answer to my first objections, I must confess, is satisfactory. I wish that I could say so of others; but I find that if I must comply, I shall be obliged to trust the remainder to yourself. Perhaps this is always the case, and even the most cautious have been deceived. However, sir, I have communicated the contents of your letter to Mrs. A. as you know she has been to me as a parent. She has not any objection, and I am at last resolved to comply. I must give myself up to you as a poor friendless orphan, and shall endeavor to act consistent with the rules laid down and enforced by our holy religion: and if you should so far deviate from the paths of virtue, as to upbraid me with poverty, I have no friend to complain to, but God, who is the father of the fatherless. But I have a better opinion of you than to entertain any such fears. I have left the time to your own appointment, and let me beg that you will continue in the practice of that virtuous education which you have received. Virtue is its own reward, and I cannot be unhappy with the man who prefers the duties of religion to gaiety and dissipation.

I am yours sincerely.

Read more at Miss Mary's.

When one tosses the old postcards, letters, ephemera (and scrapbooks of the same), one throws out such documentation of relationships and persons of the past... This (and the absense of vibrators) are mentioned in Estate Sales and Women's Lives.

Antique Nude Glass Negatives

True story: A couple of decades ago, a collector is in Biarritz. In search of Operatic 78 rpm recordings stumbles into a more delicious find -- four boxes full of glass negatives. The people were going to throw away what the collector calls jewels...

The antique negatives tell of two young Spanish people in Biarritz. Pretty glimpses into days gone by, yes, but of more interest to us is the set of negatives includes nude images of what the collector calls a "young Catholic virgin." While it seems fantastic that at such a time (1900), in place (religious Spain), such photos were taken, one must be reminded of the centuries of artistic nudes. Someone had to model.

What is interesting to me is to see the same form dressed and 'out and about' as well as nude in a more private setting -- that really breathes the life into the past for me...

To view these antique images, visit Catholic Erotica 1900.

Before you click a link and visit, I remind you to click "English Spoken" where possible to get the story in English!