Dear Readers,
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Dear Readers,
Summer came and went, and you heard nothing from us. We were too dazed with sunshine and lake-soaked to settle down indoors and look at our laptops. But Fall is here, and with it, our favorite Holiday: All Hallows Eve. And so we hunkered down in our rooms, keeping out the chill and letting in wandering spirits. And now we have this issue for you, devoted to everything uncanny, everything out of place, unusual, odd. An issue for portals to other realms and times when you’re not yourself. But first, from Emily Jewel Mundy, a brief History of Halloween Hello, readers. And welcome to the third issue of the Odds/Ends Archive—brought to You, and you, and you on this hallowed day. One where the roots’ wrists twist and swallow back the leaves. One where the graveyards’ guts grumble unrelentingly. One for the slitting of the silky, milky barrier between our realm and… well, theirs. This thirty-first day of October seems to know its mysterious wealth better than some of us know ourselves. Each year, we barely scratch the surface of its howling, harrowing guise. We vanish backward some 2,000 years and reappear at the ancient festival of Samhain, or “summer’s end.” For the Celtic societies (sprawling about modern Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France), welcoming winter was an imperative process, as the cold and dark season brought chilling changes to a people who survived primarily on crops grown and animals raised. A dusk of dwindling daylight and uncertain survival conditions, this time of year became abruptly associated with human death. The Druids (elite, or—revered, priestly members of Celtic society) believed the spirits of those who had died the previous year could crawl out from their resting place and back into our realm to roam the earth on the night of Samhain. Celebrating with a roaring fire (in hopes of encouraging the dimming sun not to vanish entirely), villages danced and yowled, a-whirl in front of the flames with the wish to keep descending evil spirits at bay. Doors, though, were propped forcefully agape to vacant houses, welcoming kind and kindred spirits inside—one night of warmth, in exchange for blessing. On this night, they adorned themselves with carved animal heads and dried skins to conceal their human forms from curious spirits. They burned crops and sacrificed sacred animals. They attempted fortune telling, future predictions, and spells. All this superstition, enacted for the sole purpose of avoiding possession, curse, and winter’s misfortune. By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the vastness of the Celtic territory, and over the course of four hundred years, two Roman festivals were irreversibly melded with Samhain: Feralia (a Roman festival commemoration of the passing of the dead) and the day of Pomona (celebrating the Roman goddess of fruit and trees—apples, specifically). Christianity’s thumb spread and kneaded itself into Roman society when the Great Invisible Clock struck 1000 A.D., and the Catholic Church probed the culture’s early expressions of Autumn celebration for modification, sneakily stirring saints into the festive mix. Alholowmesse (Middle English for “All Saints’ Day”) punctuated the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, All Hallows Eve. Halloween came crawling to the United States with the flood of European immigrants (particularly those fleeing from the Irish potato famine). Unlike most morphed American traditions, neither the rigid Protestant beliefs in New England nor the Americanizing of Halloween in the latter nineteenth century could stifle this holiday’s ancient allure. Zam. We’re present day. Our culture certainly lacks a seriousness in revering this holiday, but truly, does not celebrate all that differently. There you have it, readers. As you roam at the height of this mystical season, take note of Halloween’s holy, uncanny, mysterious self-awareness. Listen to the soil swallow the leaves. Don’t you hear the graveyard churning? --- Thanks to a few of our favorite ghouls, we’ve got some wonderful art about just these feelings. We’ve got spooks masquerading as humans, and humans hiding in spooks. We’ve got all kinds of escapism — escape to strange lands, and from the even stranger present. What’s more horrifying than the here and now? So escape with us. There’s a reason we love ghost stories. Whether you’re feeling exposed or unseen, alone or crowded, terrified or terrifying, we’ve got something for you today. Love, E, L, & M Dear Readers,
Spring isn’t really here until May Day. We’re ready to run out to the park, make a few daisy chains (even those thousands of invisible cuts from rolling around in the grass, making our legs itch; even those can’t bring us down). We wish some of the old May Day traditions were still alive and well. Maybe not the maypole thing — that’s a little odd, even for us — but weaving flower garlands (fuck Coachella), or leaving little paper baskets of fresh flowers on your neighbors’ doors. That’s a nice way to usher in the new green sprouts and the sun. We’ve got our own May Day rituals, though. The first time you go for a walk without bringing a sweater. The first time you take your shoes and socks off in the park. The first time you wear a sundress (no stockings). The first time you kiss someone under a tree, or by a river, or, or, or _____ (you can’t get away from it; Spring’s about love, much more than February ever could be). Sticking your feet in the (cold, too cold) lake. Strawberry ice cream cones. Kicking a soccer ball back to a stranger. If there’s a theme for Issue No. 2, our May Day Issue, our Spring Issue, our Holy-Shit-The-Crocuses-Are-Finally-Blooming Issue, it’s distraction. It’s trying to focus, and looking out the window during class because there’s a bee thumping against it, spindly bug legs heavy with orange pollen. It’s absentminded humming, surreal whirls of cherry blossom petals, and fragments of unrelated memories. Thank you for reading, thank you for writing, thank you for drawing. Thank you for getting out in the sun, for getting distracted, for being distracting. Go be disruptive. We love disruptive. Happy May Day. Remember that there’s always new growth on old trees. Do a little photosynthesis for us? Love, E, L, & M Dear Readers,
This is the first issue of the Odds/Ends Archive. We want it to be a strange and beautiful place for the art you make here and there, that you don’t know what to do with. Art that just doesn’t fit in with the other kids. This Issue, Issue No. 1, our V-Day Issue, our Inaugural Issue (is that word ruined forever? Dammit) doesn’t have much to do with romantic love, we have to admit. But there’s a lot of love in it—from us, from the incredibly talented hearts of our contributors, even from you, our first and beloved readers. But, for some context, Emily Jewel Mundy gives us: A REAL HISTORY OF ST. VALENTINE'S DAY Doesn’t daydreaming about pagan festivals, Christian martyrdom, and Geoffrey Chaucer put you in a saucy, sexy, sensual mood? Oof. Us too. Mulling over the twisted conglomeration of (mostly) violent origins to our beloved Valentine’s Day gets us hot and bothered—hope it’s doing the same for you! This holiday’s deepest roots grow from the ancient Roman festival, Lupercalia, held annually on February (well, close enough) 15th. The purpose of this PC festival was intended to secure the fertility of women (and to keep evil out of their uteruses, of course). Two young, healthy, handsome boys, clad in goat’s skin, the goat representing the embodiment of sexuality, would run around the city happily slapping passersby with long strips of goat flesh. And this ritual must have pleased Faunus, the half-goat/half-man Roman woodland deity of herds and crops, because the festival survived until the end of the 5th century. In 496, Pope Gelasius recast this pagan festival as a Christian feast, declaring February 14th (there we go!) to honor St. Valentine. Which St. Valentine he intended to honor, however, remains a mystery…as there were at least three early Christian saints by that name. One was a bishop in Terni, one was a priest in Rome, and no one knows much about the third except that he met a brutal end in Africa. Astoundingly, all three unlucky St. Valentines were said to have been martyred on February 14th. Rough. Most modern scholars prescribe to the story of the priest in Rome, who royally pissed off Roman emperor Claudius II sometime around 270. Here’s when we teeter between factual and mythical causes for disfavor. According to one legend, Claudius II prohibited marriage for young men, believing they would make better soldiers. Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret (ah, the determined heart) but was put to death once he was caught. Another legend has it that Valentine, imprisoned by Claudius, fell in love with the daughter of his jailer, and sent her a love letter faithfully signed “from your Valentine.” Too bad he was whacked before she could ever read the love note. The most plausible story centers around agape (Christian love): Valentine was martyred for refusing to renounce his religion. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church has settled on primarily teaching that origin. Three cheers for self-sacrifice. It wasn’t until the 14th century that this Christian feasting holiday morphed into one definitely feeding into love love, the kissing kind. And none other than the Father of English Literature is responsible for injecting Valentine’s Day with some sticky-liquid romance. In honor of the engagement of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer composed a poem called “The Parliament of Fowls” in which he linked the royal engagement, the mating season of birds, and Valentine’s Day: For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate. So it went. The royal love birds paved the way for the common flock to flirt and fondle, smooch and get sweet on each other, rather than concern their thoughts with one of the three long-gone St. Valentines. By the 18th century, gift-giving and card-composing had become maddeningly common in England. These hand-made tokens were strewn with lace, ribbons, cupids, and hearts, and eventually spread all the way to America. We have Esther A. Howland to thank for beginning the mass-production of Valentine’s Day cards in the 1850’s—what a commercial success. According to the Greeting Card Association (of which you now know exists), 25% of all cards sent each year are valentines. This Valentine's Day, in lieu of a valentine, here is Issue No. 1. We’ve got a G R E A T S H O W for you tonight. We’ve got otherworldly creatures from the ‘80s, half-instrument half-alien; we’ve got a child who can’t watch the fireworks for the crack and boom of them; we’ve got an internet search history. We’ve got some flora, some fauna, and some objects of undetermined origin. We’ve got a guide to the right (or possibly very wrong) questions to ask on a first date. Thank you for reading. Thank you for making. Thank you, most of all, for loving, in these strange and hateful times. We encourage you to make art: for yourselves, for each other. Happy Valentine’s, from the bottom of our odd hearts, E, L, & M |
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