Sufficiently Lavendered
Who owns the City of New York today? The Devil!
segment 1 — empire & ego
brooklyn’s elites believed they were civilizing chaos with stone and steel. illidan believed he was bringing order to outland through sheer will.
do you think every age just renames its conquerors? what’s the moral difference, if any, between roebling’s bridge and illidan’s war?
segment 2 — sermons & spells
henry ward beecher could hypnotize two thousand people at once — no notes, pure voice. kingsley convinces murphy like he’s casting a spell.
what’s the line between persuasion and sorcery? are all charismatic figures just channeling belief energy?
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"I am worth using the good paper."
segment 3 — the intimate cosmos
bachelard zooms in: lavender in a wardrobe, light from an armoire. meanwhile, beecher and kingsley zoom out: cities, souls, salvation.
is the household a micro-bridge between heaven and earth? or is the domestic space a rebellion against empire — a different kind of power?
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segment 4 — contagion & corruption
in The Poisonwood Bible, disease, language, and guilt spread like invisible vines. in Illidan, corruption is literally demonic.
why do humans need to imagine moral decay as infection? is it a fear of losing control — or a longing to be cleansed?
segment 5 — closing reflection
so, across these stories — from sermons to spells to soap and wax — maybe what’s really being built isn’t a bridge or a temple, but a fragile sense of order.
what kind of order do you think is worth building, knowing it’ll probably fall apart someday?
(see hallucination in q3)
Caitlin Doughty
Zena Hitz
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions – then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
Who owns the City of New York today? The Devil! —HENRY WARD BEECHER
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
Privately he turned more and more to his family, his books, his scholarly interest in Brooklyn history. At the moment, he was finishing up a translation of a journal kept by two Dutchmen during a trip to New Netherlands in 1679, something he had found in an Amsterdam bookshop.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
“Mr. Murphy only failed as a politician,” said one Brooklyn observer of the time; “in all else his life was a grand success.”
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
Ice conditions on the river were so bad on several occasions that a traveler by train from Albany could reach New York in less time than a commuter from Brooklyn could.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
The night was bitterly cold, no night to be out, according to the story, and Bay Ridge was a good four-mile drive.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
in the library of Murphy’s palatial home, beside a log fire, the conversation went on until past midnight. Murphy is said to have been highly skeptical at first, even hostile to the whole idea of a bridge. Kingsley is supposed to have responded with mounting enthusiasm for his subject, meeting Murphy’s every argument with sharp, convincing rejoinders.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
“His unexhausting and unresting mind, matchless in its clarity and invincible in its force, was my wonder and admiration.” After a time Murphy was listening as though under a spell. By the time they were at the door saying good night, Murphy had been converted. ... All McCue said was that nobody could have withstood Kingsley’s onslaught of facts and figures.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
Magtheridon flinched as the spell began to bite. Illidan’s heart thundered as he exerted his will. He felt as if he were engaged in a tug-of-war with a giant. Magtheridon’s advance slowed. His face twisted as if he, too, felt the strain. “You are strong—for a mortal,” the pit lord said. “I am not a mortal,” said Illidan. “Anything that can be killed is mortal.”
--Illidan - William King
When he spoke, his voice was deep and guttural. “I do not know you, stranger, but your power is vast. Are you an agent of the Legion? Have you been sent here to test me?” Illidan laughed. “I have come to replace you. You are a relic, Magtheridon, a ghost of a past age. The future is mine. From this moment on, Outland and all its denizens will bow to me.”
--Illidan - William King
Brooklyn was “The City of Churches,” Talmage and Storrs were among its pastors. But Plymouth Church, a big brick barn of a building on Orange Street, was its foremost institution, bar none, the thing Brooklyn was famous for from one end of the land to the other. For it was there, on an open platform, before a congregation of two thousand or more, that Beecher preached, weekly—except summers
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
From the photographs there are of Henry Ward Beecher and the volumes of printed sermons, it is a little hard to understand just what all the excitement was about. One eye droops quite noticeably, giving him an unbalanced, slightly unpleasant look. He wore his hair long and loose, as was the custom with many platform spellbinders of the time
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
he had a physical vitality, an exuberance that appealed enormously to both men and women. In an age that adored both oratory and showmanship, he was the supreme orator and apparently one of the great performers of all time. A brilliant pantomimist and mimic, he could turn in an instant from radiant joy to real tears to thundering, righteous anger—whichever was called for.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
He used no notes and began his sermons very softly, as though holding a private conversation with the front pews. But then all at once the “full, round, sonorous” voice would fill the church. Mark Twain, who watched in awe from the gallery one Sunday, wrote, “He went marching up and down the stage, sawing his arms in the air, hurling sarcasms this way and that, discharging rockets of poetry
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
Except possibly for Grant, no one alive was so highly regarded. His sermons were read avidly in the newspapers, and gotten up in book form they outsold the most popular fiction. Sunday-morning ferries to Brooklyn were known as “Beecher boats.” The easiest way to find Plymouth Church from the ferry landing was to follow the crowd.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
The Heights was the unchallenged social, cultural, and moral center of Brooklyn life, with the social and moral part of things taken the most seriously. It was also, one would gather, about as pleasant and lovely a place to live as there was to be found in urban America, then or since. It was not Brooklyn, but it was very often taken to be.
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
They were the people who gave habitually to charity drives and figured on the boards of various Brooklyn institutions. Their names on a directors’ list or an incorporating charter meant eminent respectability. They employed the best cooks, sent their sons to Yale or Columbia. On spring evenings along the shore drive to Fort Hamilton, they could be seen riding with “elegant equipages
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
J. Carson Brevoort, to give just one example, had been educated in Europe and served for a time as private secretary to Washington Irving. He was a recognized authority on American history and entomology. “His knowledge of fish,” it is reported on good authority, “was hardly exceeded by any naturalist and his collection of books and specimens was magnificent and valuable.”
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
the view from the Heights was as fine as anything on the eastern seaboard—a sparkling blue and green sweep of 180 degrees, taking in river, bay, Manhattan, the Jersey hills, Staten Island. There were ships everywhere one looked, making for port, heading out to sea. On any summer day in 1869, when the age of sail and the age of steam still overlapped, river and harbor were a ceaseless pageant
--The Great Bridge - David McCullough
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,” he had written in 1844, “the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
--Constantine's Sword - James Carroll
When Nazism defined Jews as the negative other, in opposition to which it defined itself, it was building on a structure of the European mind that was firmly in place before Hitler was born. If nothing else is clear by now, it is that that structure of mind had its foundation in Christianity
--Constantine's Sword - James Carroll
defining the Jew as the negative other had served as a self-protecting Church’s modus operandi down the centuries, from the Gospel of John to the sermons of Luther, from Saint Ambrose to the anti-Dreyfusards. Antisemitism was a consistently exploited organizing principle, a pillar of Protestant and Catholic identity. Individual Jews and whole Jewish communities were periodically sacrificed
--Constantine's Sword - James Carroll
“Our people. You keep harping on about our people. They are not our people. They are your people.” “Do you hate us so?” “Yes,” he said. His lip twisted into a sneer. “But fortunately for you, I hate the demons more.”
--Illidan - William King
Tyrande said, “Then let us hurry back to the surface! The demons’ corruption spreads with every second we waste.” And that was it. All the greeting he was going to get after the long, wasted millennia. No apologies. No remorse. She had helped cast him into this dreadful place, and now she needed his aid. And the worst of it was that he would give it.
--Illidan - William King
I am reminded of an optimistic proverb according to which: “Every pot has its cover.” The world would get along better if pots and covers could always stay together. Gentle closing calls for gentle opening, and we should want life always to be well oiled.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
An armoire radiates a very soft light in the room, a communicative light
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
If we give objects the friendship they should have, we do not open a wardrobe without a slight start. Beneath its russet wood, a wardrobe is a very white almond. To open it is to experience an event of whiteness.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
In the wardrobe there exists a center of order that protects the entire house against uncurbed disorder. Here order reigns, or rather, this is the reign of order. Order is not merely geometrical; it can also remember the family history.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
With the presence of lavender the history of the seasons enters into the wardrobe. Indeed, lavender alone introduces a Bergsonian durée into the hierarchy of the sheets. Should we not wait, before using them, for them to be, as they say in France, sufficiently “lavendered”?
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
Our philosopher dislikes compartmented arguments. This seems to me to be a good example for demonstrating the radical difference between image and metaphor.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
It was impossible to do anything but meet Kil’jaeden’s gaze. The Deceiver’s eyes were magnetic. They compelled adoration and awe. They held an infinity of promises and an eternity of terrors.
--Illidan - William King
A house that shines from the care it receives appears to have been rebuilt from the inside; it is as though it were new inside. In the intimate harmony of walls and furniture, it may be said that we become conscious of a house that is built by women, since men only know how to build a house from the outside, and they know little or nothing of the “wax” civilization.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
When she washed a sheet or a tablecloth, when she polished a brass candlestick, little movements of joy mounted from the depths of her heart, enlivening her household tasks. She did not wait to finish these tasks before withdrawing into herself, where she could contemplate to her heart’s content the supernatural images that dwelt there.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
But how can housework be made into a creative activity? The minute we apply a glimmer of consciousness to a mechanical gesture, or practice phenomenology while polishing a piece of old furniture, we sense new impressions come into being beneath this familiar domestic duty. For consciousness rejuvenates everything, giving a quality of beginning to the most everyday actions.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
And so, when a poet rubs a piece of furniture—even vicariously—when he puts a little fragrant wax on his table with the woolen cloth that lends warmth to everything it touches, he creates a new object; he increases the object’s human dignity; he registers this object officially as a member of the human household.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
From one object in a room to another, housewifely care weaves the ties that unite a very ancient past to the new epoch. The housewife awakens furniture that was asleep.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
To sleep well we do not need to sleep in a large room, and to work well we do not have to work in a den. But to dream of a poem, then write it, we need both. It is the creative psyche that benefits from rhythmanalysis. Thus the dream house must possess every virtue. However spacious, it must also be a cottage, a dove-cote, a nest, a chrysalis. Intimacy needs the heart of a nest.
--The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
Contagion, why, this was worse than snakes, since you couldn’t see it coming!
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
after school and lunch, in which we were ordered to stay in our beds, under our mosquito-net canopies. Mother called it siesta time, which at first I mistook as fiesta time, a puzzlement to me since it was not at all festive. Ruth May usually fell asleep, open-mouthed in the heat, with her hair plastered down across her sweaty face like the poster child for fever.
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Especially since we are practically grown-ups now, to hear others tell it. You always see twins dolled up together as kids, but you never see two grown women running around in identical outfits, holding hands. Are Adah and I expected to go on being twin sisters forever?
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
But Nelson said, “No, no, Mama Price, kakakaka!” Evidently it’s a disease where you have to go to the bathroom a thousand times a day. (He acted it out in a pantomime that made Ruth May laugh fiercely.) He said you go so many times you don’t have anything left of your insides. Then the children sometimes will die.
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
As he peers at his reflection, I catch myself studying Nelson: his elbows darkened by use, his skin many tones of brown, like antique mahogany furniture. Owing to his sugarcane habit, his stubby front teeth are all pretty much gone to the sweet hereafter. There’s a disturbing, monkeylike glint of canines off to the sides when he grins. But still, when he smiles you know he really means it.
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The day Nelson came to us he only spoke, “How are you, thank you please,” for English, but after a few weeks he could say about anything that mattered, without turning it all on its head the way Mama Tataba used to. I would say Nelson is gifted. But I’ll tell you what, gifted doesn’t count for a hill of beans in the Congo, where even somebody as smart as Nelson isn’t allowed to go to college
--The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
