Weekend Muse

Dear Readers,

For your weekends, I like to ruminate on things. When you read this, no doubt you are more at peace than the typical times, so I try to be more casual and more personal. The same for this message.

My thoughts of late, provoked by writing for my loyal audience here, have wandered to the different threads of culture that the Fates wield. They are, to overuse a metaphor, my currecny in the navigation of Anachronism. There are so many: letters, newspapers, novels, stories, advertisements, posters, photographs, paintings, poetry, music.

The classical tales hold that there are Nine Muses, and the contemps of neo-Aegea would likely agree. They d not quite match up with my list above; really, I've made no attempt for them to do so. Yet, I still cannot help but imagine these fine women--no, goddesses--staring over my shoulders as I pore over the works that people have made in their names. I wonder if they judge each interpretation I read, if they agree that I should hold no truth necessary in my analysis. Even this is a bit of cultural corruption that I should not allow into a mind that should read each source without a hint of bias, but I still find the feeling creeps up upon me.

Different sources, or different muses, however, raise different problems. The printed sources are the easiest. Challenging when the language is obscure, but still relatively easy to deal with. Photographs are not too hard, though sometimes esoteric time streams have quirky ways of framing a picture. Paintings are more of an enigma.

It's really music, though, that causes the most problems. Scales, rhythms, tempo, all of it is very, very culture. You know your musical tradition, but there are many many others that exist among even your contemporaries. What you call music your parents might call noise. I know mine did, when I was time normal. The anachronist may call nothing "noise." It is all music, and it is all beautiful to someone...and still, given my cultural proclivities, the search for that beauty can be a source of extreme frustration.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Deparment of Anachronism
University of Constantinople