5.23.22

Melanie Hamilton’s barbecue at Twelve Oaks dress in Gone With The Wind (1938)

Ozma of Oz by John R. Neil

Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874)

Pre-Raphaelite

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

just finished dracula it was so good but where do i go from here what is my personality if not the girl who brings dracula around everywhere she goes

Movie Poster for “Camelot” (1967)

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,

Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,

And thought of him I love.

-“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman, 1865

Spring by Alphonse Mucha, 1896

couldnt get this out of my head

Love Poem To a Stripper by Charles Bukowski

The Lady of Shalott (1888), by J.W. Waterhouse

Waterhouse made this painting, which later became his most famous, at the age of 39.  Tired of classical subjects, he decided to shift to a subject from English Romantic literature and selected a popular poem from Alfred Tennyson: the cursed Lady of Shalott elects to die by sailing to Camelot (see below for the entire poem).

The painting was immediately associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which just entered into a revival.  At the same time, it is full of symbolism, like the expiring candles and the two swallows on the left side. With their reappearance each spring, they represent resurrection.

The Lady of Shalott

Part I

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And through the field the road runs by

    To many-towered Camelot;

And up and down the people go,

Gazing where the lilies blow

Round an island there below,

    The island of Shalott.

 Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Through the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

    Flowing down to Camelot.

Four grey walls, and four grey towers,

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

    The Lady of Shalott.

 By the margin, willow-veiled,

Slide the heavy barges trailed

By slow horses; and unhailed

The shallop flitteth silken-sailed

    Skimming down to Camelot:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,

    The Lady of Shalott?

 Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

    Down to towered Camelot:

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers “‘Tis the fairy

    Lady of Shalott.”

 Part II

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

    To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 And moving through a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

    Winding down to Camelot:

There the river eddy whirls,

And there the surly village-churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls,

    Pass onward from Shalott.

 Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,

Or long-haired page in crimson clad,

    Goes by to towered Camelot;

And sometimes through the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror’s magic sights,

For often through the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

    And music, went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed;

“I am half sick of shadows,” said

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling through the leaves,

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

    Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneeled

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,

    Beside remote Shalott.

 The gemmy bridle glittered free,

Like to some branch of stars we see

Hung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily

    As he rode down to Camelot:

And from his blazoned baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

    Beside remote Shalott.

 All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burned like one burning flame together,

    As he rode down to Camelot.

As often through the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

    Moves over still Shalott.

 His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed;

On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flowed

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

    As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flashed into the crystal mirror,

“Tirra lirra,” by the river

    Sang Sir Lancelot.

 She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces through the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

    She looked down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror cracked from side to side;

“The curse is come upon me,” cried

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

    Over towered Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

    The Lady of Shalott.

 And down the river’s dim expanse,

Like some bold seër in a trance

Seeing all his own mischance–

With a glassy countenance

    Did she look to Camelot.

And at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right–

The leaves upon her falling light–

Through the noises of the night

    She floated down to Camelot:

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darkened wholly,

    Turned to towered Camelot.

For ere she reached upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

    Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

    The Lady of Shalott.

 Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they crossed themselves for fear,

    All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, “She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

    The Lady of Shalott.”