beaglemed

The year is 1953.
American artist Bill Coloy (1898-1973) creates
Mediaeval Myth,
a social critique comparing modern media propaganda
to the brute torture methods of Medieval Europe.

Sort of reminds you of Dante’s Inferno, doesn’t it?

Remember when
I walked into that quasi-cubist line drawing
last week and couldn’t get out? Jonya Redwine,
Shawn Smith and Manley Miller sent emails
to Kristin so that she could alert the wizard
to my predicament.
Gosh, I thought I had more friends than that.

I asked the wizard to send
something special to Jonya, Shawn and Manley.
He said that instead of mailing a gift,
he would invite them to be the
guests of honor at my
Beagle’s Rescue Party.

Details next week.

Oscar Wilde went to prison in Britain for indecency;
two years, hard time. His health was broken beyond repair.
Upon his release, Oscar left for France, never to return.
He died in Paris at the age of 46.

According to legend,
Oscar looked up from his bed and said,
“Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
and then he breathed his last.

I think I know what Oscar was feeling
when he wrote these lines
about a man who was hanged in:

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (Jail)

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,

And the dripping wall is high,

So it was there he took the air

Beneath the leaden sky…

I know not whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in gaol

Is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year.

A year whose days are long.

Thanks, Jonya.
Thanks, Shawn.
Thanks, Manley.

Aroo.

“A few years ago, Ed and I were exploring the dunes on Cumberland Island, one of the barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland of south Georgia. He was looking for the fossilized teeth of long-dead sharks. I was looking for sand spurs so that I did not step on one. This meant that neither of us was looking very far past our own feet, so the huge loggerhead turtle took us both by surprise. She was still alive but just barely, her shell hot to the touch from the noonday sun. We both knew what had happened. She had come ashore during the night to lay her eggs, and when she had finished, she had looked around for the brightest horizon to lead her back to the sea. Mistaking the distant lights on the mainland for the sky reflected on the ocean, she went the wrong way. Judging by her tracks, she had dragged herself through the sand until her flippers were buried and she could go no farther. We found her where she had given up, half cooked by the sun but still able to turn one eye up to look at us when we bent over her. I buried her in cool sand while Ed ran to the ranger station. An hour later she was on her back with tire chains around her front legs, being dragged behind a park service Jeep back toward the ocean. The dunes were so deep that her mouth filled with sand as she went. Her head bent so far underneath her that I feared her neck would break. Finally the Jeep stopped at the edge of the water. Ed and I helped the ranger unchain her and flip her back over. Then all three of us watched as she lay motionless in the surf. Every wave brought her life back to her, washing the sand from her eyes and making her shell shine again. When a particularly large one broke over her, she lifted her head and tried her back legs. The next wave made her light enough to find a foothold, and she pushed off, back into the water that was her home. Watching her swim slowly away after her nightmare ride through the dunes, I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.”

- Barbara Brown Taylor