Published bimonthly by whim and fancy for the Avram Davidson Society.
Contents copyright 2001 The Nutmeg Point District Mail and assigned
to
individual contributors. All rights reserved.
Henry Wessells, Editor.
Cooper Wessells, Honorary Secretary.
All correspondence to:
TEMPORARY CULTURE
Post Office Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072
Electronym: wessells@aol.com
Use this electronym for requests to be added to or dropped from the
mailing list. Back issues are archived at the Avram Davidson Website,
URL : http://www.avramdavidson.org/
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THE ORIGINATING ADDRESS
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SPECIAL DIGITAL IMAGE ISSUE
The gallery of digital images is now functioning
at the Avram
Davidson Website, with maps, digital facsimiles of bibliographical
interest, and several items that can only be classed under the heading
of Curiosities.
The URL is http://www.avramdavidson.org/gallery.htm
Map of British Hidalgo (with place names
! brilliant color !)
http://www.avramdavidson.org/hidalgo.htm
Map of Scythia-Pannonia (with permission
of cartographer John Westfall)
http://www.avramdavidson.org/spt-map.jpg
The Phoenix and the Mirror covers and title pages of the Doubleday,
Ace, and Russian pirate editions
Plus the Vilvoy hardcover bindings, Joyleg, Polly Charms, Mandrakes,
Witches (upsetting all stereotypical images), and, most curious of
all, Dorothy Pentreath, the last person to speak the Cornish language.
When your editor noticed this plate in an extra-illustrated edition
of the works of Peter Pindar, he made a picture for the website, as
something unusual, but with absolutely no idea that Davidson
had written Reno Odlin on the subject . . . serendipity.
http://www.avramdavidson.org/cornish.htm
File sizes have been reduced to make the gallery more readily
accessible. More images will be added on an ongoing basis. There
are also a number of pages and images realted to some of your editor's
other interests, including a visual history of Temporary Culture,
Continuous thanks to the heroic Jim Nicholson, whose generosity
and server make the Avram Davidson Website available.
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AVRAM DAVIDSON SOCIETY MEETING
The next meeting of the Avram Davidson Society will be held on
Monday 23 April 2001 in New York City, in the upstairs restaurant at
Zen Palate, 16th Street and Union Square East at 12:30. All
are
welcome to attend the luncheon gathering. R.S.V.P. to the editor
at wessells@aol.com by Wednesday 18 April.
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VERGIL MAGUS EXPLAINED : A NOTE FROM RENO ODLIN
In furthering his quest to differentiate the Imperium in which
Vergil Magus dwelt from that of our own dear Earth-Prime, and the
languages thereof, Avram toward the end of his career asked me for
some way of justifying his proposed distortion of the common formula
"SPQR" (Senatus Populusque Romanus) to "SQPR." I fear I was not
much help.
Now, ten years and a bit later -- ten years too late in fact --
the solution occurs to me.
SENATVS QVIRITES POPVLVS ROMANI.
I am aided to this by the example of Aemilius Paulus' 190 BC
Decree, which gives POPLVS SENATVSQUE ROMANVS; and by numerous
formulations running "Populus Romanus Quiritum " and "Quirites
Romani" in Livy.
"Quirites" designated the Romans in their civic character;
"Populus" originally referred not to "The People" but to the
armed youth, as one might say the cantonal militia. For a Roman
general to address his troops as "Quirites" was considered
equivalent to a full discharge.
All which may not have meant much to Vergil's Rome or Naples,
but it helps to form a factual substratum for Avram's sidewise
leap into his Alternate Universe. Or perhaps he can use it after
all -- wherever he now is.
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WEST COAST AVRAM DAVIDSON GATHERING IN FEBRUARY
Your editor, recently in San Francisco for the California Antiquarian
Book fair and to eat wild chanterelles, grisettes, and other comestible
fungi, was able to meet up with several friends of Avram during the
Potlach convention. The scarcity of _Adventures in Unhistory_, and
the
need for a new edition (take heed, publishers!) was one of the topics
of conversation.
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Dorothy Pentreath of Mousehole in Cornwall
the last Person who could converse in the Cornish language.
The Old Woman of Mousehole : Excerpts from Avram Davidson's letters
to
Reno Odlin
March 12/91
[. . .] One hesitates to say about Cornish. Despite all the talk
about Truganini ("Queen Truganini"!) it has long been clear to me that
she was not The Last of the Tasmanians, being survived by another such
(woman) on Kangaroo Island, SA; but Peter Conrad's bopo that should
be
b o o k, but _bopo_ is rather nice, don't you say? says that not only
was there another one in Tasmania who lived into the 19-zeroes but
that
she also made a phonograph record, of songs, chants, in her otherwise
extinct
language. Not to forget about Cornish -- I am sure we face a revival
here.
I had not thought enough remained on which to base a revival, though
was
surprised to see in the UCI Library a book contain[in]g the texts of
two
plays in Cornish. There was, I now recall, an anyway attempted revival
of Cornish Nationalism ('Dylan Thomas, asked what he thought of Welsh
Nationalism,
replied in three words, two of which were "Welsh Nationalism."') perhaps
30 yrs ago. A sort of Pretend Parliament convened, calling itself The
Stannaries
-- which ignorant Me had thought meant Tin Mines -- and "repealing"
any/every
laws pertain[in]g to Cornwall since 1790. As for Mrs Dolly whataname,
supposedly
the last Cornish speaker, evidently her totality of Cornish speech
consisted
of saying her prayers therein. And I suppose the lega[l] need to translate
all the laws passed by the House of Keys into Manx has kept that somewhat
alive, e'enthough as G. C. Edmondson reprts that "Nobody speaks it
at home."
I have heard nothing further in years about the one tiny remote Egyptian
village where Coptic is said to survive, nor about the 20 young Coptic
couple in Metropolitan Egypt who'd sworn to speak no tongue other than
Coptic. The last tidings of the one or two villages where the Western
Aramaic
survives were getting but no help what all from the Govt of Syria,
which
had established a large army encampment there. [. . .]
April 2/91
[. . .] Thanks also for the Cornish xerox from the WSJ. Fascinating.
But let's get this straight: WS[J] does not say, great authority that
it
is, that "Dolly Pentraeth's last words, in Cornish, were: "I will not
speak
English--you ugly black toad!" but that "In her last days...she gave
vent
to a few well-chosen words of Cornish..'" blah blah blah. Maybe. [.
. .]
The illustration at http://www.avramdavidson.org/cornish.htm comes from
an extra-illustrated edition of the Works of Peter Pindar (circa
1825).
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE AVRAM DAVIDSON SOCIETY
The Last Wizard with A Letter of Explanation.
Publications of the Avram Davidson Society, number one.
Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, xii pages. Second printing, May 1999.
Single copies, $10.00 (postpaid).
El Vilvoy de las Islas.
Publications of the Avram Davidson Society, number two.
Size: 6 x 9 inches, viii + 32 pages. June 2000.
Trade issue of twenty-five copies hand bound in quarter green linen
with
paper-covered boards, numbered 1-25. SOLD OUT
Issue of 100 copies in paper wrappers : single copies, $13.00 (postpaid).
To order, send a cheque in U.S. funds, payable to Henry Wessells, to
:
P.O. Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072, USA
Orders by e-mail to wessells@aol.com will be held until payment is
received.
Trade discount available.
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Next Issue Date : 8 May 2001
The editor of The Nutmeg Point District Mail invites contributions on
any
topic pertaining to the life and work of Avram Davidson.
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