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sublimegentlemanalpaca · 7 years

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(SPOILERS) BEHOLD! The Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. Those known, guessed at, and so on. Enjoy

ELDER CARETAKERS GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH: British Cleric. The first Caretaker of the Geographica. Known for The History of the Kings of Britain. His portrait is present in the Pygmalion Gallery, but is unfinished meaning he can not step through. WACE: Norman Poet. Best known for Roman de Brut and other poetic works. He has no portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery on account of being a Fiction. This set a precedent so other Fictions would not be recruited as Caretakers (Herman Melville ) or Mystorians (Sir Walter Scott). CHRETIN DE TROYES: A French Poet. Known for his works relating to Arthurian legends, and for originating the character of Lancelot. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. 28 year gap... ROGER BACON: English Philosopher and Francescian Friar. Aka Doctor Mirabilis. Best known probably for his work with Automatons among other things. Has no Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery on account of living as The Tin Man (no actual relation to the character from Oz as far as I know) so he is sort of a Cyborg I think? Died when holding off a Lloigor (A fallen Star specifically) in the ruins of Parlon so the other Companions could escape through a door from the Keep of Time. DANTE ALIGHIERI: Italian Poet. Known best for the Divine Comedy, mostly the Inferno. Was a Canidate to replace Dee as the Prime Caretaker. Had a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Unfortunately he remained outside of Tamerlane House after the Seven day time limit and Perished while visiting the Underneath. GEOFFREY CHAUCER: English Poet. Like Dante legitimized the use of his native language’s vernacular. Best known for the Canterbury Tales. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Holds the title of Senior Caretaker, and is in charge of hazing new members of the Caretakers Emeritus. Has some dealings with Imaginary and Fictional Islands. Gap of 15 years between their death and birth. ? SIR THOMAS MALORY : English writer. Best known for writing Le’ Morte D’Arthur. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Is dirtier in appearance than expected. LEONARDO DAVINCI: Italian Inventor and Painter. Known for works such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. Also made a Time Traveling Treadmill that no ordinary human can use. Is said to have plagerized Roger Bacon. Is also quite pompous....was apparently chosen by Chaucer ? 8 year Gap. DOCTOR JOHN DEE: Known as the CHRONOGRAPHER OF LOST TIMES and as THE SCHOLAR: English Alchemist, Astrologer, Navigator, Hermetic Philosopher, and Advisor. Perhaps best known as an Royal Adviser to Queen Elizabeth part of her Intelligencia. Originated and took the position of Prime Caretaker. The first Caretaker to go rogue. Stole the Geographica but was unsuccessful in keeping it. Went on to found the Imperial Cartological Society (I.C.S) Under Queen Elizabeth the First. This organization was a cover for Dee’s Personal Cabal (Dee’s Cabal, or just The Cabal) which worked in service of the Ecthroi. The Cabal’s go to bring the world, the universe, and all of creation to ‘Perfect Order’. Dee’s personal goal of becoming Master of all Creation. Following Dee’s treachery, it was decided that there should be Three Caretakers to deal with such a potential problem in the future. The First Trio was as follows. TYCHO BRAHE: Danish Astronomer, Alchemist, and part time Duelist. Known for his Astronomical observations, and false nose. Caveo Principia alongside De Cervantes and Spenser. Mentored Johannes Kepler. Has a Painting in the Pygmalion Gallery. Is not on good terms with Don Quixote Is known to steal things and hide them in the boat house near Tamerlane House. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES: Spanish writer. Best known for writing Don Quixote. Caveo Secundus. Went on a quest with Quixote, and his fellow Caretakers Brahe and Spenser to retrieve the Stolen Geographica. Succeeded. Is on good terms with the Knight. Has a painting in The Pygmalion Gallery. EDMUND SPENSER: English Writer. Best known for the Faerie Queen. Participated in the quest to retrieve the Stolen Geographica. Caveo Tertius (perhaps switch him with Brahe?). On good terms with Quixote. The Trio follow them included: JOHANNES KEPLER: German Mathematician, Astronomer, and Astrologer. Best known for his laws of a Planetary Motion. Caveo Principia alongside Shakespeare and Marlowe. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Do I need to introduce him? Alright. English Playwright, Poet, and Actor (?). Best known for his plays, Sonnets and Poems...really good. Caveo Secundus. Has pretended to be dumber than he is to avoid the pressure of living up to people’s expectations of him (Poor Will). Part of this act was always suggesting someone should be Flogged. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Planned and Built Shakespeare’s Bridge as a new way of Crossing the Frontier. Also built a Zigurat to travel back into Deep Time. Ended inspiring the construction of a lot of Pyramids. CHRISTOPHER (Kit) MARLOWE: A contemporary of Shakespeare’s. Best known for Doctor Faustus, and also known for the problematic Jew of Malta. Defected to the ICS. His last known location was trapped on some Fictional Island ( which is different than an imaginary one, according to Chaucer). Made a Tulpa .No Portrait. Following those three. CYRANO DE BERGERAC: French novelist, playwright, and duelist. Most well known for a play about him. Caveo Principia.Defected to the ICS. Stuck on either a Commet, or the Moon. JOHN MILTON: English writer, best known for Paradise Lost. Caveo Secundus. Defected to ICS. Last seen somewhere in the Underworld. Unsure and Unkown (UaU). Probably CHARLES COYPEAU d’ASSOUCY? A French Musician and Burlesque Poet . From what I found he was a Contemporary of DeBergeracs (one writer claiming they were lovers) but became bitter rivals later on. Whatever the case, d’Assoucy as Caveo Tertius, Failed in his Duties as a Caretaker and his Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery is turned over. After them. Three unkowns. Possibly CHARLES PERAULT: French writer and compiler of French Fairytales such as Beauty and the Beast. Caveo Principia. Ultimately Failed in his Duties as a Caretaker, leaving his portrait to be turned over. JOHN DRYDEN: English Playwright during the Restoration. England’s first Poet Laurette. Caveo Secundus. Failed in his duties as a Caretaker. OLE CHRISTENSEN RØMER: Danish Atronomer. First Quantitative measurements of the Speed of Lightz Caveo Tertius. Ultimately failed in his Duties. As such his portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery is turned over. Next DANIEL DEFOE: English writer, best known for Robinson Crusoe( I’m pretty sure). Caveo Principia. Actually a Spy for the ICS, and Dee’s Cabal. Was a Tulpa, killed by Smaranth, then brought back as a Painting. Retrieved by the Cabal so he might reveal the location of the lost Prince Coal. Is away from Tamerlane House Past the limit of Seven Days and Perishes on Easter Island. JOHNATHAN SWIFT: English writer, best known for Guliver’s Travels. Caveo Secundus. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. UaU. Possibly CARLO GOLDINI? Italian Playwright. Caveo Tertius Failed in his Duties as a Caretaker . You know the drill. Following Defore and Swift JOHAN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE: German Writer, Philosopher, and Statesman. Perhaps best known for his version of Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and other works. Caveo Principia. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. UaU possibly, Pierre Beaumarchais: French Polymath. Notably Playwright, watchmaker, and arms dealer. Best known for writing the play the Barber of Seville and it’s sequels. Caveo Secundus. My headcanon is he tried to sell his own reproductions of the Anabias( spelling?) Machines. Ultimately failed as a Caretaker, and has his Portrait turned over. UaU. Possibly Antonio Salieri the Venetian Composer, or possibly Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...take your pick. Following under Von Goethe. WILLIAM BLAKE: English Poet and Painter. Caveo Principia. Began the Portraits for the Pygmalion Gallery before Basil Hallward. The ‘Second Greatest Betrayer of the Caretakers ‘. Thought to have defected to the ICS and died in a river of gold. Then thought to be working for Dee’s Cabal. In actuality, Blake has six (formerly seven ) Tulpas of himself. Is loyal to Verne and is in fact the leader of the Mystorians. As such, he may be addressed as Doctor Blake. WILLIAM COLERIDGE: English Poet , best known for Kublai Khan. Defected to the ICS. Last seen in the ruins of Xanadu past the End of the world at Terminus. Offered a chance to leave by Stellan Sigurdsson. He declines, thinking if he stays the ruins will eventually return to their Former glory. WASHINGTON IRVING: American Writer. Perhaps best known the Sleepy Hollow. Caveo Tertius, eventually Caveo Principia after Blake and Coleridge defect. JAKOB GRIMM: Along with his brother Wilhelm, Jakob compiled around 200 or more German Fairytales. He and his brother also produced the first Dictionary. Was an eventual replacement for William Blake, taking on the role of Caveo Secundus. Lived long enough to help train Hans Christian Andersen (Seriously Jakob lived a freaking long time). Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Has likely had plenty of experience with situations found in the Tales he and his brother collected. Forced to act as a spy for the Shadow King to keep his brother alive, with the skin on his back ( showing a map to the Nameless Isles) ripped from his back. Dead? FRANZ SCHUBERT: Austrian Composer. Perhaps best known for The Unfinished Symphony. Among other works( not really familiar with Schubert). Replacement for Coleridge, taking the position of Caveo Tertius. The second most Supernaturally inclined of the Caretakers (second only to Poe). Knows quite a bit about the Echthroi. May be able to banish demons and similar entities through his music. Next we have Hearts on Fire, or the Romantic Trio. MARY WALLSTONECRAFT ( latter Shelley): English writer, best known for Frankenstein. Caveo Principia. Had wonderful adventures with Percey and George. Saved George Gordon’s Portrait from being completely Burned. PERCEY SHELLEY: English Poet. Best known for Ozymandius? Caveo Secundus. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. Tried to burn George Gordon’s Portrait. George Gordon/Lord Byron: English Poet, writter, and Nobleman. Best known for Don Juan, and laying out the Byronic Hero. Defected to the ICS, but did not have a Tulpa. His portrait was almost Burned away. Following a reconciliation between the Caretakers and the remaining members of the ICS, Byron had been put on Probation, with other to follow no doubt. Is the butt of just about everyone’s jokes. EDGAR ALLAN POE.: American Writer and Poet. Best known for his poems and Horror short stories. Not as well known for his Humor based short stories. Following George Gordon’s treachery, Poe immediately stepped in to take on the Role of acting Caveo Tertius. Has no Portrait in The Pygmalion Gallery as he is still alive and it’s his house. Poe is the Enigmatic Master of Tamerlane House( which is one of the best places ever) having his own room. Likely let the Caretakers have use of it prior to taking on the Identity of Poe. Poe is revealed later on to have been the Wizard Prospero, and long before then he was (is) the Biblical Cain. The First Murderer. Poe is also noted to be the Arch Imago of the Archipelago.( which I still have some difficulty understanding). Later when he is outed he thinks on taking the Name Cronus. I still refer to him as Poe for simplicity’s sake, and because I find it to be cooler for one reason or another. One other note regarding Poe is that it’s Stated that he is the Leader of The Caretakers Emerti (The Reclusive Leader of the Caretakers Emeriti DoW page 29) Following Hearts on Fire and Poe ALEXANDRE DUMAS PERE: French Writer. Best known for the Three Musketeers series, Count of Monte Cristo and other Works. Caveo Principia with Hawthorne and Andersen. Baker for Tamerlane House. Mentored his Son Alexandre Dumas Fils NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: American Writer, perhaps best known for the Scarlet Letter and Rapicini’s Daughter (who it turns out is a Mesenger). Caveo Secundus. Head of Security at Tamerlane House. One of the most Badass among the Caretakers. Expert and Hand to Hand Combat. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: Danish Writer, best known for his Art Fairytales such as the Little Mermaid or the Ugly Duckling. Caveo Tertius. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery Following Dumas, Hawthorne, and Andersen. CHARLES DICKENS: English Writer, best known for his novels such as Oliver Twist or the Christmas Carol. Caveo Principia alongside Dumas fills and Twain. Trained Magwich, Richard Francis Burton (the eventual face of the ICS) and eventually trained Jules Verne. ALEXANDRE DUMAS fils: French Writer and Playwright. Defected to the ICS. Believed to be dead. MARK TWAIN (-aka SAMUEL CLEMENS). American Writer, best known for the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Caveo Tertius. Has had experience with Time Travel. A friend to Mesenger Hank Morgan. A friend in life to Cabal member Nikola Tesla. Father to Joe Clemens (aka Injuin Joe or Harry Billy)? Has probably been to the Underneath? Knows how and when to fire a pistol ( to defend a lady’s honor, or to silence a bunch of braying Jack Asses). Then we have Travel Buddies. JULES VERNE: The Frenchman, The Prime Caretaker. French Writer known for his Sci Fi and Adventure Stories. Took on the role of Prime Caretaker. Was thought to be a Tulpa but in fact has been alive. Raises Goats as a hobby. Keeps his own skull from another timeline on his desk. Gives up his soul to serve as the Load bearing stone of the Keep of Time. PROFESSOR STELLAN SIGURDSSON: A Norwegian or Icelandic man who in his earlier days was quite the adventurer. In his later years he became a Professional Philogist and Linguist. Might be the model for some of Verne’s Adventurers. Taught Jamie and later John. Was a personal friend of the Goblin King (who’s name escapes me). His primary death is what brings John Jack and Charles together. Later on he helps lead an Expedition with Don Quixote, The Grail Child Rose Dyson, the Badger Uncas, and the Clockwork Owl Archimedes passed the edge of the world at Terminus to find Madoc and repair the Sword of Aneas. Unfortunately he is a painting. The journey takes more than a Seven Days and perishes on the way back. He perished standing up with the help of Quixote, who told him he (Stellan) would have a place in a hall of Heroes. He was also able to finish a book John recently published at the time. H.G. “Bert” Wells: The Far Traveler. British Writer. Best known for his various Science fiction works. Caveo Tertius. An Anomoly as he is an H.G. Wells that time traveled while the other H.G.Wells (Herb) is just being H.G.Wells (and a Mystorian). Came from the future with his daughter Aven who’d eventually become captain of the Indigo Dragon. Accompanied Stellan on many Adventures, and was also a friend of the Goblin King. Joined Rose Dyson, Laura Glue( I’m pretty sure? Correct me if I’m wrong) Charles Williams, Edmond McGee, Archimedes, Fred (I think? )and Richard Francis Burton on a quest to find The lost prince Coal. He eventually died when Prime H.G. Wells’ Prime Time ends. Herb moves on, While Bert gets a Painting in the Pygmalion Gallery. Thanks to some shenanigans on Verne’s part, they are also able to get a Painting of Verne’s wife Weena. Resigned and defected. J.M. ‘Jammie’ Barie. English writer and Playwright best known for Peter Pan. Caveo Principia. The first and so far only Caretaker to resign from the position. That said he did not join the ICS, Cabal, or any other opposing organization. Was friends with Peter Pan until they had a falling out. He has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery along with other allies such as Oscar Wilde. HARRY HOUDINI (Erich Weiss): Austro-Hungarian Born American Magician and Stunt performer. The Magician. Caveo Secundus, defected to the ICS and was chased around the world by Samaranth when he tried to reveal the Archipelago of Dreams with Arthur Connan Doyle. Knows some actual magic and is quite proficient in it. SIR ARTHUR CONNAN DOYLE: The Detective. Caveo Tertius. Defected to the ICS See Houdini...later with Houdini and Burton they join forces with the Caretakers. He and Houdini also become apprentice Goat herds. Helping with Verne’s goats. The Caretakers of Prophecy J.R.R. Tolkien: John, Ron, Tollers. The Prime Caretaker. English writer, best known for...I don’t think he needs much of an introduction. Caveo Principia. Eventually takes over the role of Prime Caretaker from Verne. Expert in Languages, and some combat. He eventually ascends and becomes a freakin Dragon along with his wife Edith. C.S. “Jack” Lewis: English Writer, best known for the Chronicles of Narnia. Caveo Secundus. Has a Portrait in the Pygmalion Gallery eventually. Has had dealings with Giants at some point probably. Charles Williams: The Third. British Writer best kno...known for.....uh.... known for Burning down the Keep of Time. He also has written some rather good books including All Hallows’ Eve and War in Heaven. Caveo Tertius. Friend to all animals (especially Badgers), and a Master of Stealth. Also has a fair understanding of other dimensions. An alternate timeline version of him is responsible for burning the Library of Alexandria. He had made a Tulpa, and as such is still able to do feild work for the Caretakers. After John Jack and Charles. FRED THE BADGER (last name)? Grandson of Tummuler, son of Uncas, and Aprentice to Charles Williams. Once a member of the Royal Animal Rescue Squad. Is really supposed to be Caveo Principia but once he had two other Caretakers with him, he decided to take the role of Caveo Tertius like Charles. MADELINE Le’ENGLE: American Writer, best known for the Wrinkle in Time series. The Chronos and Kairos books and others. Caveo Secundus Apprenticed by Jack. Ray Bradbury: American Writer. Best known for his various Science fiction and dystopian works. Apprenticed Under John Present Caretakers? JAMES A. OWEN: American Writer and Ilustrator. Best known for the Star child Comic series, and the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica book series. Caveo Principia. UaU. Possibly Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, or Susan Cooper. I’m not sure which...Also, Ursula K LeGuin. Or Robert Holdstock as others have suggested. Just remembered Cinda Williams Chima, and Cornelia Funke. They all seem like they’d work really well. I can’t determine who. Leaning towards Chima and Funke. UaU. Would think maybe Pratchett but I think in this context he’d be a Fiction. That said.”, NEIL GAIMAN: English Writer. Best known for his Fantasy books like Stardust, American Gods, his comic Sandman, and his book Coraline. And done. Make corrections if you like. But there it is. Nearly two months, and just now nearly three hours. It is done! Done to the best of my ability...but done all the same! Make of it what you will. The format isn’t staying how I type it. The Spaces aren’t showing up. Damn. Well that’s for tomorrow. Now for bed.

#Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica #Caretakers Emeritus #it’s done! It’s God damned 1:00!am

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sightseeing-travel · 5 years

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Top 7 Things to Do in Pasadena When You're Not Watching the Rose Parade or the Game

All eyes are on this SoCal city every New Year’s Day for two of America’s most iconic annual events.

Pasadena, California plays host to the back-to-back morning Rose Parade and afternoon Rose Bowl Game. The game is one of the major bowl games in college football, but the Rose Parade that precedes it is truly one-of-a-kind.

The Rose Parade dates back to 1890. Pasadena had become a popular West coast wellness resort town for the East’s elite. Town leaders wanted to show off their blooming rose gardens and orange groves to the East as it remained under winter snow and ice. The parade, featuring the unique spectacle of flower-covered floats as well as equestrian units and marching bands, traded county-fair type ‘tournaments’ like foot races, polo matches and tug-of-war for football at the turn of the century. Amazingly, it’s continued uninterrupted ever since, even during both World Wars.

Millions watch on TV world-wide, and hundreds of thousands attend in person. But sports fans, floral admirers, and parade lovers have much more to entertain and intrigue them during a visit to Pasadena at New Year’s or any other time of the year.

Old Pasadena

Dating back to the 1870’s when the town was establishing its credentials as a wellness escape from winters back East, Old Pasadena Historic Area is a US National Historical Landmark. Visitors can stroll through 22 blocks of quaint alleyways or airy European-style piazzas teeming with 200 outdoor cafes, restaurants, art galleries, boutiques and specialty shops.

Tournament House and Wrigley Gardens

This ornate, Italian Renaissance-style mansion on Pasadena’s ‘Millionaires’ Row’ was once owned by chewing gum mogul William Wrigley, Jr. It was built in the early 19th century, and Mrs. Wrigley willed the property to serve as the headquarters for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, the non-profit that still produces the Rose Parade today. Displays inside showcase the history of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Games, as well as parade Grand Marshals and Royal Court.

Volunteers from the Pacific Rose Society maintain the hundreds of varieties of roses, camelias and other flowers in the gardens in the grounds of Tournament House. The gardens and the house can be toured by the public.

Arts & Crafts Hub

Pasadena’s heyday as a magnet for the wealthy building vacation and West Coast homes in the early 20th century made the city a natural incubator for the era’s Arts & Crafts movement. Pasadena architects Charles and Henry Greene became influential with the houses and their large-scale ‘ultimate bungalows’ that are prime examples of Arts & Crafts style, with all the interior design elements and furnishings designed by the architects as they designed the house itself.

Their Gamble House is called ‘America’s Arts & Crafts masterpiece’ and is also considered one of the finest examples of overall residential architecture in the entire country. Greene and Greene built the house and its furnishings in 1908 for David and Mary Gamble (of Procter and Gamble soap and toothpaste fame). It’s one of the few Greene and Greene projects with the original furnishings remaining and is National Historic Landmark. The City of Pasadena and the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture operate the house today. Two lucky 5th-year architecture students get to live there, and it’s open for public tours and events.

Rose Bowl Flea Market

The huge Rose Bowl Flea Market is held every second Sunday of the month. The legendary market draws 20,000 vintage treasure seekers and bargain shoppers who rub elbows with celebrities and designers looking for one-of-a-kind pieces. 2500 vendors set up rows of specialty products, antiques, local art, vintage clothing and accessories. Merchandise is arranged by type, and there’s a color-coded map to guide you. Entry ticket prices drop the later you enter the market, and you can even purchase pre-opening VIP preview tickets for serious or competitive shoppers/collectors.

The Huntington Library Art Collections and Botanical Gardens

The Huntington is located on the 207-acre estate of the late Henry Huntington. The railroad tycoon amassed what was called 'the greatest group of 18th-century British portraits ever assembled by any one man' and it was opened to the public in accordance with his will following his death in 1927.

The renovated Huntington Art Gallery offers a space showcasing 1,200 objects of European art from the 15th to the early 20th century, including the18th and 19th British and French masterpieces like the renowned “Pinkie” and Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy.”

Courtesy Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens

The newly expanded Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art offers one of the largest presentations in California of American art from the colonial period through the mid-20th century.

The Library includes works from American and British literature, including an original Gutenberg Bible and Ellesmere’s manuscript of Canterbury Tales as well as the photographic archive of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The botanical gardens feature 14,000 varieties of plants on more than 150 acres divided into specialized gardens including the Rose Garden, Herb Garden, refurbished Japanese Garden, Desert Garden, Zen Garden, Australian Garden and Children’s Garden. In the Chinese Garden, visitors can stroll around the 1.5-acre lake bordered by Tai Hu rocks and enjoy landscape that includes five hand-carved stone bridges, a stream, and a canyon waterfall connecting to the Japanese Garden.

Norton Simon Museum

This extraordinary museum features seven centuries of European art and one of America’s largest collections of Asian sculpture that spans 2,000 years. The museum is home to an extensive Impressionist collection, which features masterpieces by Degas, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet and Pissaro. The museum also features works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Cézanne and more.

The Great Outdoors

Pasadena is an outdoor wonderland, and you can explore trails and parks to connect with nature. Eaton Canyon Natural Area is a 190-acre zoological, botanical and geological nature preserve with picnic areas, native plants and hiking trails. Be sure to take the kids to Junior Nature Trail, less than a quarter mile, which is scenic with a pond, California sagebrush and animals like birds and rabbits.

Visitors who like more dramatic views head to Mount Wilson Observatory, a 5,700-foot astronomical observatory residing in the San Gabriel Mountains. Visitors roam the beautiful grounds, dazzled by a simple – yet powerful – scene of endless, clear blue sky. Warning: sunsets are addictive.

Start your Trip!

Photos courtesy Visit Pasadena.

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#featured #shore #usa #luxury #family_vacation #wedding #adventure

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isthereagodyet · 7 years

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Day 1,666

It’s been a thousand days since one of my favorite posts on this blog, and as a token of gratitude for all who still follow the page and as a gesture to those who have followed since, I will be working on putting up a copy of what the page looked like that day sometime in the next few days. Also, a friendly reminder, there’s still no god.

1641-1660:

1641 - A fort is founded in what is now Montreal, the Irish rebellion breaks out, and Massachusetts becomes the first American colony to grant legal recognition to slavery

1642 - Great astronomer Galileo Galilei dies in Italy, King Charles I and Parliament go to war against one another over religious disputes, because of course

1643 - Dutch US colonists massacre Algonquin Native Americans, Louis XIV becomes king of France at the age of 4 following the death of his father Louis XIII, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form the United Colonies of New England, an earthquake strikes Santiago, Chile and kills a third of the population, and the first recorded tornado in the US occurs in Massachusetts

1644 - The Manchu Dynasty in China seizes power and seeks to expand China’s influence, the daughter of the late Swedish king comes of age and becomes ruling queen of Sweden, and the first recorded UFO sighting in the US occurs

1645 - Sweden and Denmark sign a peace treaty, as do the Dutch and Native Americans, Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud is beheaded for treason, and King Charles I’s army is decisively beaten

1646 - King Charles I surrenders in Scotland and signs a peace treaty with Parliament, and the first machine patent is granted in the US

1648 - The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years’ War, and people in Moscow revolt and slaughter 200,000 in Poland when a new tax is implemented on salt

1649 - King Charles I is charged with treason, argues his case, and is beheaded for treason

1650 - Philosopher René Descartes dies

1651 - Charles II is crowned king of Scotland, his forces are defeated by those of Cromwell, and he flees to France

1652 - Rhode Island, apparently more reasonable than the rest of the US, enacts the first law declaring slavery illegal, Massachusetts declares itself an independent commonwealth, and colonies begin to arise in South Africa

1653 - New Amsterdam is founded, and Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland

1654 - The Russo-Polish War begins, England, Ireland, and Scotland unite, and England signs a peace treaty with the Netherlands and a trade agreement with Sweden

1655 - Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, Saturn's largest moon, Jamaica is captured by the English, and the Dutch West Indies Company denies Peter Stuyvesant's wish to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam

1657 - France and England form an alliance against Spain, the English attempt to crown Oliver Cromwell the king of England and he refuses, and the largest urban fire in Japan kills roughly 100,000 in Edo

1658 - Oliver Cromwell dies, a pro-Charles II plot is discovered in England, and Denmark signs a peace treaty with Sweden

1659 - The Netherlands, England, and France sign a peace treaty

1660 - The Royal Society is founded in London, and long parliament is dissolved as Charles II is restored as the king of England

#atheism #religion #philosophy #god #satanism #history

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artifact-genealogy-blog · 7 years

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Quaker Friends Meetinghouse | Pembroke, Massachusetts c.1706

You may have noticed on the front page of this site, a very cool photo of two blue doors. The photo is taken of the front of the Quaker Friends Meetinghouse in Pembroke, Massachusetts. This house of worship is one of the oldest Quaker Meetinghouses in the United States. The Meetinghouse was built by Robert Barker, Jr. son of an original settler of Duxbury in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts. Duxbury Quakers were traveling a distance to Scituate to gather and pressed for a Meetinghouse closer to their home. Lore has it that the house was built in Scituate and moved "over the ice" to it's present day location. The structure sits on a triangular piece of land where routes 139 and 53 intersect in Pembroke. Ensconced in brush atop a stone wall, there appears not formal (or informal) entrance for even a pedestrian to walk through. The house is in beautifully restored condition. The muted seafoam blue/green paint imbues the front and east facing sides while an opposite side is naturally shingled. The first floor has undergone updated and it is said that the second floor remains nearly untouched. Originally, the first floor was divided into two sections; the rights side for the men, the left for the women and they also had separate entrances, note the two front doors. There is no plumbing and therefore no bathroom inside. A second small storage shack is positioned next to the house. Most intriguing is the burial ground in back. Many proper graves and some makeshift still remain. It is difficult to discern whether there was an original pattern or intention to the burials. Some families appear at rest together and others are strewn randomly along the property. The name of the humble resting place is "Friends Burying Ground".

Interred in Friends Burying Ground

John Bailey (1751-1823) , Quaker preacher, inventor, clockmaker

According to the Bayley Family Genealogy published by descendants in 1899, three Bayley's came from England to Massachusetts: James settled in Rowley, John settled in Salisbury and Thomas in Weymouth. The John Bailey of 1751 buried in Friends Burying Ground is a 7th generation descendent of Thomas of Weymouth. John Bailey (1751-1823) son of Revolutionary War Colonel John and wife Ruth Randall. Bailey's father was second in command at Dorchester Heights and was a reliable favorite of General Washington and was known to be a "brave and attentive officer". Col. Bailey, along with his brother, served as selectman of Hanover for several years. His father's will bequeathed him 1700 dollars, part of his land and required him to comfortably support "my old negro's for the rest of their natural lives". In the year 1770 John Bailey's residence is listed as Hanover and Lynn, Massachusetts. According to The Book of American Clocks, Bailey was a mechanic, crafts person and clockmaker, making his first clock at age 12.

Face inscribed "John Bailey, Hanover" John Bailey was a Quaker preacher. He is said to have been a conscientious man yet would have "spiritualized a broomstick". He repaired guns, muskets, compasses and clocks. Bailey was an accomplished inventor and engineer as well. In use at his old home in Hanover was an iron sink of which Bailey designed the first pattern for. He also created the first pattern for a crooked nose tea-kettle cast at the foundry in nearby Middleboro. Bailey was said to be "steam mad" and predicted that within 50 years the most common method of travel would be via steam and had the forethought that a "different kind of road would be required". At the time of his steam tinkering, Bailey developed a roasting jack for cooking meats over an open fire. In 1895 on of these jacks was still in existence, the patent for which was signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Rudolph, attorney general. Bailey was married three times. Mary Hill, who is said to be his second wife, is buried in Friends. His third wife, Tabitha Olney, was a descendant of Thomas Olney, one of the original settlers of Rhode Island. Thomas Olney landed in Salem, Massachusetts on the ship Planter in 1635 and was asked to leave the colony due to religious differences. Thomas Olney followed Roger Williams into Providence and was integral to the formation of government in 1640 serving as Treasurer, tax collector and a member of the court. He was one of the original 12 persons to be deeded land by Williams. Bailey's three marriages produced five children. Most notably is son John Bailey, Jr. (1787-1883), also known as Bailey, III, who inherited the watch and clock making mind and grew his talents into a thriving and profitable business. The eight-day, tall clocks made by Bailey and Bailey, III were well-known and sought after fixtures in Plymouth Colony. Only families of affluent economic superiority were wealthy enough to afford tall clocks and it is very rare to find one today. Bailey III relocated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, one of the most active whaling communities in the country, where he imported astronomical instruments. Bailey's business was making over $5,000.00 per year when in 1824 things began to turn. Bailey, III was an abolitionist and vice president of both the Bristol County Anti-Salvery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In the 1850s Bailey launched two anti-slavery newspapers; Pathfinder and the People's Press, Lib. Known to be a man committed to the rights of and welfare of others, Bailey would not commit to a political party. He was a trusted confidante amongst the black community of New Bedford. An active lecturer and organizer, Bailey at his home, a stop on the Underground Railroad, held anti-slavery meetings. Always seeking his advice on whom to vote for, the black community were encouraged by Bailey to

Portrait of John Bailey, III "vote for the man who would do justice to their race". These principles, however, cost him his business. The Whig party encouraged Bailey, Jr. to influence the black community to vote their ticket. They threatened his business if he refused. George Howland, local and successful shipbuilder and Quaker preacher of New Bedford expressed to Bailey, III. that he had better yield or he would be ruined. The Bayley Family Genealogy, documents Bailey, III response as: "George, as long as fish live in the sea and clams live in the sand, I'll not sell my principles". Surreptitiously, the Whig party hired a man to take over Bailey's work and the next week every chronometer was taken from Bailey's store. He indeed was ruined. Politics... they haven't changed. Bailey passed in 1883. Father John Bailey died in 1823 in Hanover. Tabitha in 1827 also buried in Friends. Ann Barker (1750-1789) Ann was born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, daughter of Abraham and Susanna Anthony. On 27 January 1785 she married Benjamin Barker (1757) son of Prince Barker and Abigail Keen, grandson of Isaac Barker & Elizabeth Slocum, great-grandson of Isaac and Judith Prence, great-great grandson of Robert Barker, Sr. original settler of Duxbury. He is the great nephew of Robert Barker, Jr. builder of the Friends Meetinghouse. Ann and Benjamin produced two children together; Abraham (1786-1855) married Margaret Buffum and Susan (Sarah) Ann (1788 - 1861) who married David Buffum of Newport. After Ann's untimely death at the age of 38, Benjamin Barker married Rebecca Partridge of Boston in 1791. They had one child, Samuel born in 1792 who married Catherine Gooch of Boston. Both his Barker family name and his marriage to Ann left Benjamin a wealthy man. Nathan Thomas Shepherd, Jr. (1843-1912) Nathan Shepherd came from a family of box manufacturers. His grandfather,

Calvin Shepherd 1786-1876 Calvin Cleveland Shepherd (1786-1876), a farmer, came to Bridgewater, Mass from Canterbury, Connecticut. Calvin operated a cotton factory at Pudding Brook in Pembroke before converting it to a sawmill where he produced boxes. The box operation remained in the family for generations. He married Mary Byram of Bridgewater, daughter of Joseph and Sarah Hall. Their marriage produced 9 children. Nathan Thomas Shepard, Sr. (1811-1885) was the third born. Nathan is listed as a box manufacturer and printer on the 1810 census. He died from complications due to an accidental fall leading to the amputation of his arm. Following the shoe worker's strike of 1860, Nathan relocated to Lynn,

Massachusetts with brother George and entered the shoe cutting trade. In 1871, Nathan T., Jr. married Susan Ann Burleigh of Lynn, Massachusetts. Susan came from a family of twelve children born to William of Ossipee, NH and Nancy Hodsdon of Tuftonboro, NH. Both her parents having been dead by the time of her marriage to Shepherd and sometime before 1871, Burleigh relocated to Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1874, their son William Burleigh Shepherd was born in Lynn. By 1880, the lumber industry was booming in Minnesota and the Shepherds relocated where Nathan was a "door sash manufacturer". By 1900 Susan was still married to Nathan and owned the home where she lived on 1103 1st Avenue, North in Minneapolis. There she boarded two women. Somewhere thereafter, Susan moved in with son William and family at 2640 Dupont Avenue, S in Minneapolis and Nathan relocated to Spencer, Massachusetts where perhaps had an opportunity to return to shoe cutting as that area was fast developing mills to produce such items. In 1912, Nathan died from cancer of the intestines. In 1915, Susan is still noted as living with William on Dupont Ave., however she is not listed on the 1920 census. I have yet to discover her death record. Susan LeFurgey (1831-1931)

Susan Shepherd Le Furgey (1831-1931) Searching for Susan proposed some challenges at first. Le Furgey is not a local name and therefore results of other relatives that might lead to information about Susan were few. She was found however, with a name spelled differently. The headstone originally had me thinking that her name was Le Furcey; the "C" was in fact a "G" with an inferior mark. She was born in 1831 to Mary Byram and Calvin Shepherd. In 1920, Susan Le Furgue is present on the US Census as an 88 year old woman living with her son John Calvin and daughter in law, Nellie Howland. Susan's husband, Lemuel Le Furgy (1837-1909) came from a well-to-do shipbuiding family of Loyalists in Tyrone, Prince Edward Island, Canada and operated the Le Furgy Mill and became a prominent business man in Pembroke. Likely because of his shipbuilding past and mill operation, his ties to the foresting industry allowed the extended family to capitalize on wood products and manufacturing. He eventually became a figure in the box and packing industry founded by his father in law. Sarah L. West (1858-1912) The L. is for Lucinda! She was born in Watashaw, Minnesota in 1858 as Sarah Calkins, (or Corkins) born to Daniel P. (1811-1869) , a farmer from Connecticut family origin, and Hannah Chandler Ford of Pembroke, Mass, daughter of James and Mercy Lewis. When she was just 16, Sarah married Calvin Shepherd West (1853-1928), son of James and Mary Green Shepherd, in 1874. Mary Green Shepherd is the sister of Susan Shepherd Le Furgey. On the 1880 census, Calvin is noted as being a box manufacturer. The box business, that his grandfather Calvin Shepherd began, was inherited by his father James. Sarah and Calvin had one child, Lester D. born in 1880. Lester married Ethel Loring Jacobs of Hingham in 1902. In her will, dated 1905, Sarah leaves her estate to her husband and the remainder to pass onto her son upon his decease. Her inventory includes a deposit to Scituate Savings Bank for 1349.02 and another to Rockland Savings Bank for 770.93 which is today's equivalent of about 50,000.00 USD. Sarah died of breast cancer in 1912. Calvin, two years later, remarried Abbie Curtis in Brockton. They resided in Norwell until Calvin's death in 1928 where he was a proprietor of a grocery store. Read the full article

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rhernandez02-blog · 7 years

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Assignment 2

Critical Questions:

1.) Is being in control what women really desire in a relationship?

2.) Would the verdict for a man to discover what it is a woman truly wants (after a rape conviction) work in today’s societies?

In the collection of the twenty-four stories, The Canterbury Tales, the tale Bath’s wife told was rather interesting. It begins with a virgin being raped and when the offender is presented to the King for consequence - vs the verdict of beheading, the Queen offers a different verdict. She wants this knight to discover what it is a woman truly desires in a relationshit. Ship*. The King Arthur allows it likely because he already “understands” what it is women want and “if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”. The knight then goes on this journey and “discovers as such”.

Being In control as a woman in a relationship is something I am… to an extent. As a gay woman, I understand what it’s like to deal with a female partner and I understand what it’s like to be a female partner. The roles that humans were subjected to in the late 1300’s, early 14 were astronomically different and is reflected in yet another assignment. Gender roles and conformity to them are good substance for debates and I believe at the end of the day - everybody wants to be in control. Being in control is a state of mind and should never be projected onto another individual or have one compromise their beliefs/wants in this life. It’s a type of slavery.

Lastly, this type of verdict would never work in our modern-day societies. Hahahaha, come on. Times were a hell of a lot different six hundred plus years ago when things seems logical and moral. Up for debate, of course, but this method allows one to truly reflect on his or hers actions and learn a solid life lesson verses couple years in jail (maybe). A lot of standards were different before us and it’s unfortunate to see the post-industrial solutions to certain problems. There is a lack of emphasis on the mental state of mind and it’s disturbing to see how situations are handled in this era.

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stevescoles · 7 years

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But what’s he pointing at? Stood at the juncture of the Kettering and Wellingborough Roads more than a century, you never catch him blinking. Overlooking Abington Square, staring out the sunset, clearly still adjusting to his new tan since they took the white veneer off, he’s Charles Bradlaugh. He’s one of Northampton’s fiery beasts, writes Alan Moore.

In 1833 he came out fighting, hatched in Hoxton, the grey cyclops giants of a nascent industrial era rising to their feet around him: locomotives, steam-ships crossing the Atlantic, Faraday poised on the crackling brink of electricity, Charles Babbage warming up his Difference Engine, and angelhead William Blake already napping in his unmarked Bunhill Fields bed just a short way up the road, brown bread for some six years by then. The son of a solicitor’s clerk, Bradlaugh quit school at eleven, working menial jobs, avoiding Hoxton’s violent, wealthy and entitled proto-Boris Johnson ‘High Rips’ and becoming the world’s worst Sunday School teacher in the process, rapidly suspended from his calling amidst accusations of a glaringly apparent atheism. Rather taking this to heart, Bradlaugh had published his A Few Words on the Christian Creed – a kind of uncorrected proof edition of The God Delusion – by the time that he was seventeen. Atheism with attitude, evidently.

After a disastrous what-was-he-thinking period of three years enlisted with the Seventh Dragoon Guards in Dublin, Bradlaugh bought his discharge with a legacy left by a great-aunt and returned to London, a convinced freethinker and a sadder, wiser man of twenty, during 1853. Good-looking in the early photographs; a teen Houdini, interrogatory eyebrows, wings of hair tucked back behind his ears. It was around this period that Bradlaugh started hanging with a bad crowd of reformers, radicals and secularists, cranking up his godless pamphleteering under the concealing nom de guerre of ‘The Iconoclast’, and gradually ascending to the forefront of contemporary London indie politics. In 1854, Bradlaugh was married to the daughter of a Mr. Hooper who’d enjoyed his future son-in-law’s oration at a Freethinkers and Chartists meeting held in Bonner Fields. The union produced a daughter, named Hypatia after the beautiful Ancient Greek philosopher, astronomer and mathematician who was skinned alive with clam-shells by a Christian mob, but Bradlaugh’s marriage receives little mention in the few surviving biographical accounts, and it may be that it was over relatively quickly. By the age of twenty-five in 1858, the year in which his daughter was born, he was president of London’s Secular Society and two years later became editor of secularist newspaper The National Reformer. An emerging 19th century underground celebrity, Bradlaugh rubbed stony shoulders with freethinking luminaries such as the notoriously keen-on-the-cane poetic decadent Algernon Swinburne (who my late mate Steve Moore memorably described once as a “ginger flagellant midget toff”), and at the age of thirty-three was the co-founder of the National Secular Society. It was in this capacity that he encountered and commenced a long and passionate relationship – maybe his marriage was over by this point or maybe not – with the extraordinary Annie Besant.

Annie Besant, Bradlaugh’s junior by some fourteen years but every bit his equal, was a distillation of Victorian counter culture into an exotic brandy of a woman, heady and inflammable. Later, she’d go on to organise the glowing and phosphorous-disfigured Bryant & May match-girls into their historical industrial action, do the same for London’s dockers, address the unemployed in Trafalgar Square at 1887’s viciously-quashed ‘Bloody Sunday’ protests, campaign for the rights of women and, after becoming a devotee of the charismatic shaman/charlatan Madam Blavatsky’s Theosophy movement, would announce bemused teenage messiah Krishnamurti to the world and pretty much singlehandedly midwife the birth of abstract art in her 1901 book Thought Forms, its ideas assiduously lapped up by such fashionable Theosophists as Kandinsky and Mondrian. But back in 1866 this hadn’t happened yet, and Besant was commencing her incendiary career in partnership with the most famous atheist-insurrectionist and troublemaker of his day, Charles Bradlaugh. A bohemian Bonny and Clyde, Besant stood beside her secularist sweetheart when the British government, in 1868, made an attempt to prosecute The National Reformer on grounds of blasphemy and sedition, charges of which Bradlaugh would eventually be acquitted. Then, a decade later, the pair were in court together faced with fines and six months jail-time for the publishing and distribution of obscene material, this being a reprinted pamphlet of advice on birth control entitled The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People. One Charles Darwin, asked to speak in their defence, pleaded ill-health but privately confessed that he was personally opposed to contraception, a variety of natural selection which he did not feel he could endorse. Both of them were sentenced to do bird, but got off on a technicality. Their sex life was most probably fantastic.

Bradlaugh was elected MP for Northampton during 1880, the point… where everything gets out of hand

Two years later Bradlaugh was elected M.P. for Northampton during 1880, the point in his narrative where everything gets out of hand. Politically, he was an independent liberal teetotaller supporting women’s suffrage, the trade union movement, Irish home rule, republicanism and the rights of Queen Victoria’s subjects on an Indian subcontinent then labouring beneath the yoke of empire, while being opposed to socialism. All of the above were, at the time, broadly acceptable positions that could at least be discussed in public without heralding the imminent collapse of orderly civilisation. Not so with the atheism, though. On May 3rd, Bradlaugh turned up at the House of Commons so that he might claim the seat to which he’d been elected, perhaps with a sick note from his mum asking he be excused from taking the religious Oath of Allegiance and be allowed instead to simply make secular affirmation of his loyalty. Studies suggest that the professed morality of the religiously inclined is largely based on the belief that they and their most private thoughts are under round-the-clock surveillance by some form of spectral and omniscient GCHQ who’ll see them flambéed for eternity if they transgress. Yeah, it’s not really ethics if it’s something you’ve been forced to do at gunpoint, is it? And conversely, since such people perceive atheists as being in some way unsupervised by this invisible imaginary cop, their seemingly unshakeable assumption is that godless individuals must constantly be getting up to murder, rape, armed robbery and arson behind everybody’s backs because, essentially, why wouldn’t they? With this in mind, you can imagine how Bradlaugh’s request to duck out on the Oath went down.

Nobody, God presumably included, seemed to like the idea much. Select Committees were convened in May and June and, unsurprisingly, concluded that Bradlaugh was not allowed to take his seat without effectively renouncing atheism. Bradlaugh, just as unsurprisingly, was having none of it. “Respectfully refusing” to withdraw from Commons, he was hauled away by a Sergeant-at-Arms and relocated to a small cell in the clock-tower of Big Ben, directly underneath the deafening bell itself. While this, of course, was only temporary, it commenced a long war of attrition between Bradlaugh and the status quo which took almost a decade to resolve. On one side was the hell-bound Hoxton heavyweight along with his supporters like George Bernard Shaw and the frustrated voters of Northampton, while on the other side were the Conservative Party (worked up to an anti-Bradlaugh fever pitch by Winston’s dad Lord Randolph Churchill), the Catholic Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury. During this lengthy period, when Bradlaugh lost his seat four times for refusing to take the Oath and was four times voted back in by a determined and angry Northampton electorate, when there were furious pro-Bradlaugh protests in the 800 year-old Market Square that were only suppressed by armed riot police, we get a glimpse of the radical spirit in this town as it once was, not so long ago: a glorious, uncompromising thing which, once its teeth were into an idea, would lock its jaws and never let it go. Escorted from the House by the constabulary at least once, Bradlaugh’s response was to inaugurate Northampton’s first alternative or underground newspaper, The Radical, a kind of great-grandparent to this current publication. Like a fin du siècle Jeremy Corbyn, Bradlaugh was pressed into service as a bogey-man epitomising right-wing dread and loathing. This is nowhere made more evident than in a Punch cartoon from 1881 depicting our man as “The Cherub of Northampton”, a vampiric monster with Charles Bradlaugh’s plainly evil and demonic head, sporting a top hat made from pamphlets that seems to be infested by spiders and supported by enormous bat-wings (this was some sixteen years before Stoker published Dracula, remember), flapping mournfully above the huddled and benighted rooftops of Northampton, shown as filthy with a visible shoe-maker’s. The next time Punch deployed this kind of imagery would be in 1888, for Jack the Ripper.

Then, miraculously in a cosmos without God, in 1886 Bradlaugh was finally permitted to assume his seat as an M.P. By 1888 he’d managed to successfully propose that Members be allowed to make an affirmation rather than to swear an Oath, and started his postponed career in Parliament by supporting Annie Besant’s then-ongoing Match Girl’s Strike. His championing of Britain’s Indian subjects earned him the contemptuous nickname “the Member for India” from Conservative M.P.s, and he ferociously campaigned for all of his enduring ethical preoccupations – women’s suffrage, the trade union movement, secularism – until death removed him from the field of play in 1891, aged fifty-seven. Yes, he died young by our standards, and no doubt if he’d had access to the wisdom of our current century he would have lived a great deal longer, and, almost as certainly, would have accomplished a lot less. For Bradlaugh’s funeral, his body would have been transported by underground coffin-train to the London Necropolis, apparently more recently renamed as Brookwood Cemetery, where the event attracted some three thousand mourners. Many of those come to pay their last respects were Indian, including 21year-old Charles Bradlaugh fan Mohandas Ghandi. The Abington Square statue, both insisted on and paid for by Northampton’s people rather than its less-than-keen civic authorities, was raised up soon thereafter, outside the old slipper factory that was there before the war memorial, currently fenced off to deter the homeless. Man, you should have seen the crowds for the unveiling, heads and hats and bonnets in their thousands, barely contained in the frame of the daguerreotype. Simply, they loved him. In 1898 his daughter, the peace activist, freethinker, atheist and author Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner published a pamphlet to address the no doubt faith-based rumours that her father had accepted Christianity before he died, concluding that there was no indication of his atheistic principles having been altered in even the smallest detail; godless to the last.

As for posterity, well, that’s a matter of opinion. The statue’s still there, still pressing the button for an invisible elevator to Elysium that will never come, frozen between the Jaguar showrooms and the closed-down public toilets, although what vanishingly small percentage of the people passing under his admonishing gaze every day have any idea who he is or why he matters is impossible to judge. The rag-week students of the 1930s would dependably paint footprints leading from his plinth to the then-functional urinals just across the Wellingborough Road, and one Saturday night during the early 1970s I glimpsed a drunken and, it might be thought, extremely lonely individual attempting sodomy with the once-feared Northampton Cherub, who remained throughout stoic and focussed, sticking resolutely to the point. As for his other lasting claim to fame, it’s doubtful that the vehement teetotaller would be any more enthused to have a pub haphazardly named after him than Emily Pankhurst would be keen to lend her name to a lap-dance establishment.

But what’s he pointing at? St. James’s End? Wales? Warwickshire? The soaring, sexless übermenschen of the Francis Crick memorial down from the library? He indicates the western lands, the day’s end, and therefore the future, unencumbered by religious certainties or the oppression of minorities; a future safe for women, working people, match-girls and Mahatmas. Sometimes, in the last rush of low golden light up Abington Street late upon a winter’s afternoon, it’s almost possible to see, beyond the Holy Ghost Zone and the Jesus movie-house, the country that he’s gesturing towards.

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Charlie is our darling But what’s he pointing at? Stood at the juncture of the Kettering and Wellingborough Roads more than a century, you never catch him blinking.

#Alan Moore #Charles Bradlaugh

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