Eilidh and I came across this Funeral Ode when researching the funeral of Old Abe Lincoln.  It hits upon our predilection for hands, in this case evil hands, that cause events to happen.  The hand, after all, is the cutting edge of the mind (according to Jacob Bronowski).

We realised that the figure or image of ‘the’ hand has frequently appeared in our performance works.  Many performers have used an additional hand to activate proceedings that they as individuals might otherwise avoid.  I say ‘the’ hand as each has  been imbued with either a specific character or a general supernatural quality, the prosthetic appendage becoming the vessel of or channel to the body or world to which it belongs:  the hands never belong to this world and are always artefacts, portals or talismans from another.

For example we had a rubber hand in our first show ‘So Long’ where Eilidh wielded the hand of God.  In ‘Glee’, Pauline held on to a replica of Prince Albert’s hand as she channelled Queen Victoria.  (We discovered that Victoria actually had Albert’s body parts cast to keep her company, hand included).  In ‘Hugger-Mugger’ (the basis of Old Abe) Nic wore a skeleton glove which channelled the evil hand of Evil Dead 2.

Evil Hand from Evil Dead 2

In this final case it was Nic’s real hand inside the glove that became possessed and not an inanimate object.  This led to a situation where the ‘evil’ occupied a living body part forming a rupture between the cutting edge of the mind and the mind itself: the hand had a mind of its own, possessed as it was by some kind of evil.  However because the hand was still attached to the body we arrived at the problematic cohabitation where the mute hand would carry out some naughty act much to the protestation of the speaking head, thus leading to the “It’s not me, it’s Emu!” phenomenon championed by Rod Hull (and Emu of course).  No matter how much the head screams “It’s not me it’s the hand!” we cannot help but revel in the fact that it’s always the hand and always the head, the puppet and the puppeteer, dancing together.  It’s the joy of imagining that there’s some kind of handy predisposition towards the base pleasures of demonic possession or some possibility of letting the hand wander on it’s own volition and not being responsible for our actions that makes the sight of someone smashing plates over their own head so much fun to watch.

Here’s the classic of Emu vs. Parkinson.  He doesn’t say it at the end of this one, but I long for Hull to proclaim: “It’s not me it’s Emu”, it tickles me.

We have been well aware of the hand’s yearning towards exterior guidance for some time as this Funeral Ode from 1865 testifies.  Stay posted for more hand wranglings as we continue to explore the meaning of ‘The Evil Hand’.

President Lincoln Lying in State

FUNERAL ODE.

WHEN raging earthquakes bury towns, Or fierce volcanoes lash their manes

Of boundless, fiery ruin round

The groaning hills and shrieking plains, he world may fitting emblems find To speak the horror of its heart,

In cities craped, in banners furled, And all the solemn show of art.

But when a Human Hand is turned Into a ruthless demon-power,

And smites a nation in its Chief,

Even at his triumph’s crowning hour,

What emblems shall Man fitting find, What types sad, grand enough to show

The horror shaking continents,

And their infinity of woe?

Alas! alas ! we wildly feel

There should be still some outward sign, And so we furl the shining flag

And darkly cloud the glowing shrine.

How vain ! At last the Nation lifts

Its naked hands to Heaven, and owns

The impotence of every type

Before the awful Throne of Thrones :

Then silent stands and thinks of him

The swerveless Good, the calmly Great : In wonder would the reason pierce

Of their Beloved’s mystic fate.

Was he too dear an Idol here ?

Too merciful for this dread time? Did Heaven now will a sterner hand, With justice mailed, to guard the clime?

O God of Nations, if we sin

In questioning, forgive, for we

Are by our woe driven on to seek The meaning of Eternity !

Forgive, and bless, and make us feel’ That Thou wilt still love, watch, save all,

Though even the best of rulers die, Though earth should sink and planets fall !

HARPER’S WEEKLY MAY 6, 1865

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1865/April/pacification-south.htm

As I became invisible, I began to see things that had once been invisible to me. By Jenny Kendler

I am very much enjoying the view from Wunderkamer: a journal of environmental art:  http://www.environmentalartblog.com/

And Jenny Kendler’s site.

Enjoy!

This film’s tagline was: The wonder film of the century, about the most romantic figure who ever lived!

Judge for yourself.

The full film is available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/abraham_lincoln

Looking into Our American Cousin - the play the Lincolns were watching when Abraham was assassinated - I discovered this useful synopsis by Timothy Noah.

The full playtext is available on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3158

—-

Our American Cousin Revisited
Was the play that ended Lincoln’s life any good?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009, at 7:19 PM ET

Actor Edward Sothern as Lord Dundreary

It’s the hoariest sick joke in America: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” By now it isn’t even a joke; it’s become a familiar way to complain that undue attention is being given to some frivolous aspect of an otherwise grim and urgent matter. But we’ve had a century and a half to ponder the awful tragedy of Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater and its effect on the post-Civil War Reconstruction, the presidency, and the American character. Surely that interval is sufficiently decent that we may now ask, in earnest: What sort of aesthetic experience occupied the Great Emancipator’s final hours?

A pretty terrible one. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald calls Our American Cousin a “creaky farce,” which may be too generous. Its British author, Tom Taylor, would later become editor of Punch, but there’s very little evidence in Our American Cousin that he had a sense of humor, and by the early 20th century Taylor would be widely excoriated as a hack. Even Joseph Jefferson, who originated the title role, admitted the play “possessed but little literary merit.” In its day, however, Our American Cousin was an enormous hit, having lasted five consecutive months (a very long run in those days) when first presented in New York. The play, which tells the story of a “rough-spun, honest hearted” Yankee who voyages to England to claim an inheritance, likely won its following by giving Americans an opportunity to laugh at stereotypically doddering English aristocrats while simultaneously giving Britons the opportunity to laugh at stereotypically uncouth Americans. What was it like to watch? To grasp that, you really have to read it, something I did recently to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. To spare you from doing the same, I provide what is (as best I can tell) the only detailed synopsis available anywhere.

Act I. The curtain rises on a drawing room in Trenchard* Manor as the servants gossip about the “most uncomfortable” financial circumstances besetting the family. Beautiful young Florence Trenchard, daughter to a baronet, is in love with Lt. Harry Vernon of the Royal Navy, but she can’t marry him until he rises in rank. Florence rushes onstage, hoping the day’s mail has brought word that Harry’s been assigned a ship. Instead, she has a letter from her brother Ned, who is traveling in the United States. Ned reports that in the wilds of Vermont he has “lately come quite hap-hazard upon the other branch of our family,” which two centuries earlier emigrated to the American colonies. From these rustics Ned has learned the fate of his great-uncle “old Mark Trenchard,” who years earlier disinherited his daughter for marrying against his wishes and angrily departed England to seek out his American relations. Uncle Mark found these Vermont Trenchards, Ned has now learned, “and died in their house, leaving Asa, one of the sons, heir to his personal property in England.” Asa, Ned writes, is sailing for England “to take possession” of Mark Trenchard’s riches.

Asa arrives, refusing to give the butler his card and declaring himself “the tallest gunner, the slickest dancer, and generally the loudest critter” in the state of Vermont. (This is roughly the point in the play where President and Mrs. Lincoln, entered their box at Ford’s Theater, having arrived 20 minutes late.) When lunch is served, Asa complains there’s “No mush,” “No pork and beans,” no “brandy, rum, gin and whiskey,” etc. The Trenchards are alternately horrified and amused by their bumpkin cousin. Meanwhile, the villain of the piece makes his entrance: Richard Coyle, agent of the estate, who, meeting privately with the baronet, Sir Edward Trenchard, tells him he faces financial ruin because of an unpaid loan held by Coyle. In truth, the loan was long ago paid off by Sir Edward’s late father, but Coyle has hidden the evidence. Coyle proposes to remove the financial encumbrance by marrying Sir Edward’s daughter Florence, who detests him. Sir Edward is scandalized but must consider it.

More comic business ensues between Asa and the butler, Mr. Binny:

Binny. Will you take a baath before you dress?

Asa. Take a baath?

Binny. A baath.

Asa. I suppose you mean a bath. Wal, man, I calkalate I ain’t going to expose myself to the shakes by getting into cold water in this cruel cold climate of yours, so make tracks.

Binny. Make what?

Asa. Vamose!

Binny. Make vamose!

Asa. Absquatulate.

Binny. b—what sir?

Asa. Skedaddle.

Binny. Skedaddle?

Asa. Oh! get out.

The curtain falls as Asa, trying to figure out what the shower is for, douses himself fully clothed.

Act II. The curtain rises on Mrs. Mountchessington, a guest at Trenchard Manor, instructing her unmarried daughter Augusta to “be attentive to this American savage” because his inheritance makes him a good catch. Augusta’s sister Georgina meanwhile beguiles another wealthy prospect, an imbecilic peer named Dundreary, by pretending to an invalid (”I’m so delicate”). Florence is approached by Coyle’s clerk, Abel Murcott. Years before, Murcott was Florence’s tutor, but Sir Edward dismissed him for making ungentlemanly advances. Now a remorse-haunted drunk, Murcott warns Florence that Coyle means to marry her. Asa, who unbeknownst to Florence has been sleeping on a window seat, emerges from behind the curtains and offers to help. Murcott tells Florence and Asa that he found amid Coyle’s papers written proof that Florence’s grandfather paid off the loan that Sir Edward believes is his financial ruin.

Florence brings Asa to meet her beloved cousin Mary, granddaughter to Asa’s benefactor. Raised in penury, Mary Meredith is a humble dairy maid. Rather than pity her, however, Asa is smitten (”Wal, darn me if you ain’t the first raal right down useful gal I’ve seen on this side the pond”). Florence tells Asa she hadn’t the heart to tell Mary he’d been left her grandfather’s fortune. She also confesses to Asa her love for Harry and complains that Dundreary has declined to use his influence to get Harry a ship. Asa, however, gets Dundreary to change his mind in exchange for a bottle of hair dye.

Asa. Now, look here, you get the lieutenant a ship and I’ll give you the bottle. It’s a fine swap.

Dundreary. What the devil is a swap?

Asa. Well, you give me the ship, and I’ll give you the bottle to boot.

Dundreary. What do I want of your boots? I haven’t got a ship about me.

Asa. You’d better make haste or your whiskers will be changed again. They’ll be a pea green in about a minute.

Dundreary. Pea green! [Exits hastily.]

As the curtain falls, bailiffs descend on Trenchard Manor. “Florence,” sighs Sir Edward, “I am lost.”

Act III. The curtain rises on the dairy, where Mary finds Asa whittling: “It helps me keep my eyes off you, Miss Mary.” Asa confesses to Mary that he knew her grandfather in America and that he bequeathed him his property. “Will you excuse my lighting a cigar?” Asa asks and then improvises a new ending to the story. Before he died, Asa says, old Mark Trenchard saw his error in “hardening my heart against my own flesh and blood” and asked for a candle. He then took the will and burned it. “Just this way,” Asa says, removing a paper from his pocket and lighting it with his cigar. The paper is Mark Trenchard’s will. Later, Florence finds a fragment of the document Asa has destroyed, and tells Mary, “It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue.”

Mrs. Mountchessington, meanwhile, is determined that Asa marry her Augusta. “All I crave is affection,” Augusta tells Asa. Asa tells them both that Mark Trenchard left his fortune to Mary, not him. Augusta abruptly calls him a “nasty beast,” and Mrs. Mountchessington tells Asa he is impertinent but that she will excuse it because he doesn’t know “the manners of good society.” Asa is outraged. “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap.”

(Here, in the Ford’s Theater production, John Wilkes Booth rather ham-handedly inserts into the text a bang, a crash, and the words “Sic semper tyrannis.” Pandemonium as the curtain falls.)

What you’ve read so far should make clear that President Lincoln, whose literary gifts far exceeded Tom Taylor’s, did not die wondering how Our American Cousin would end. The American bumpkin would set things straight for his aristocratic relatives and win the hand of the virtuous milkmaid. For the sake of completeness, though, here’s what the Lincolns missed:

Asa asks Mary to marry him. She accepts. With Murcott, Asa slips into Coyle’s office, smashes open a cabinet with an ax, and finds the paper that absolves Sir Edward of debt. Coyle confronts them. Asa shows what he’s found, then tells Coyle he must not only let Sir Edward know he is free of this debt but also pay off the baronet’s other debts with “money that stuck to your fingers naturally while passing through your hands.” He also tells Coyle he must apologize to Florence “for having the darned impudence to propose for her hand.” Finally, Coyle must resign his stewardship of Trenchard Manor, installing Murcott in his place. Murcott vows to “conquer the demon drink.”

Coyle does as he’s told, knowing the alternative is prison. A jubilant Sir Edward grants Florence’s hand in marriage to Harry, and Mary’s to Asa. Georgina marries Dundreary and Augusta marries the man she dropped for Asa. Four of the servants pair off and marry. Florence addresses the audience: “I am sure you will not regret your kindness shown to Our American Cousin. But don’t go yet, pray—for Lord Dundreary has a word to say.” Dundreary sneezes. “That’s the idea,” he says, and the curtain falls.

[Update, Feb. 19: In a blog post ("A Sort Of Defense"), Richard Byrne grumps rudely about this column but then provides some interesting information about the play and its star Laura Keene, whom he identifies correctly as "the first female entrepreneur in the bumptious world of New York theater." According to Byrne, the comedy presented before Lincoln (which would be pretty close to the text I worked from) bore very little relation to the play as written by Taylor: "We can't really know much about how good or bad Taylor's version of Our American Cousin was because we don't have a copy of his original script." Point taken, though I'd argue that the judgment of the play's original New York male lead that the original "possessed but little literary merit" does provide a small hint. At any rate, my interest here was in recreating as vividly as possible Lincoln's theatrical experience, not in exploring what the play was like years before Lincoln saw it.]

Correction, Feb. 24, 2009: This article originally misspelled the name of the family at the center of Our American Cousin. The correct spelling is Trenchard.

Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2211071/

Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Two “gay” male penguins have hatched a chick and are now rearing it as its adoptive parents, says a German zoo.

Story from BBC News.

The zoo, in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, says the adult males - Z and Vielpunkt - were given an egg which was rejected by its biological parents.

It says the couple are now happily rearing the chick, said to have reached four weeks old.

The zoo made headlines in 2005 over plans to “test” the sexual orientation of penguins with homosexual traits.

Three pairs of male penguins had been seen attempting to mate with each other and trying to hatch offspring from stones.

Since the chick arrived, they have been behaving just as you would expect a heterosexual couple to do  Bremerhaven zoo

The zoo flew in four females in a bid to get the endangered birds to reproduce - but quickly abandoned the scheme after causing outrage among gay rights activists, who accused it of interfering in the animals’ behaviour.

The six “gay” penguins remain at the zoo, among them Z and Vielpunkt who are now rearing the chick together after being given the rejected egg.

“Z and Vielpunkt, both males, gladly accepted their ‘Easter gift’ and got straight down to raising it,” said a zoo statement.

“Since the chick arrived, they have been behaving just as you would expect a heterosexual couple to do. The two happy fathers spend their days attentively protecting, caring for and feeding their adopted offspring.”

Humboldt penguins are normally found in coastal Peru and Chile, but their numbers have been dwindling due to overfishing, reports the AFP news agency.

‘Drive to mate’

There have been previous reports of exclusive male-to-male pairings among penguins, some of which have also included the rearing of chicks.

Homosexual behaviour is well documented in many different animals, but it is not understood in detail, says Professor Stuart West, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford.

Professor West says it has been suggested that homosexual activity could serve various purposes - for instance, it may relate to social bonding and establishment of dominance among bonobo chimps, while in some bird species, females may come together to rear young.

Other animals may simply exhibit a “drive to mate”, while others may, like humans, enjoy non-procreative sexual activity.

“Homosexuality is nothing unusual among animals,” Bremerhaven zoo said on Wednesday.

“Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction.”

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | ‘Gay penguins’ rear adopted chick.

More Cheering, more moves, more attitude.  And here are the instructions, broken down real easy like.

OK so it’s not the greatest documentary ever made, but there’s some great quotes.

When the CD of Act V of Robert Wilson’s epic the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down came out while I was at Dartington I became immediately obsessed by it. I listened to it all the time. And many of the lines in Laurie Anderson’s monologue entered my consciousness and rattled around for years. But only today, having not heard or thought about it for years have I found the empty CD case and spent all day rummaging around on the internet for the scarce details about the production. I re-read the libretto in the CD booklet and found myself remembering the intonation of each line. Only today have I realised that Act V encompasses Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and all kinds of references and techniques that relate to Hugger-Mugger, or whatever this project will become. I am very happy to revisit this old friend.

Here are some of the things that I watched:

the CIVIL warS documentary

David Byrne Knee Play 9

These little ‘knee plays’ for brass band were created for connecting sections of The Civil Wars during big scene changes. Some are better than others. I like the business one (5) too.

I can’t embed this video so follow this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7880858.stm

The former chairman of HBOS Lord Stevenson of Coddenham and the former chairman RBS Sir Tom McKillop have said they are ‘profoundly sorry’ for the distress caused by the banking crisis.

The former bank executives were giving evidence to the Treasury select committee as part of its inquiry into the banking crisis.

Why not join a JISC list?  I didn’t realise there were so many!

I just joined: Live Art, Cyber Theatres, PARIP, PSi, Performance Art, AHDS-Performing Arts and the catchy titled SCOT-FE-PERFORMING-ARTS.  Now I sit back and let the inundation commence.  This is what you’re supposed to do if you’re an academic… Please don’t think I’m lonely or not busy.  I just thought that a little experiment was in order.

Having been on the Live Art List for years I’m intrigued to discover the difference between that and The Performance Art one.  Many students often ask the difference between the two names.  Will it be the same folk?  Let’s wait and see.

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/mailinglists/category/W4.htm