same ingredients, similar brew

Lee Miller, WWII

A week or two ago, my illustrious blog friend, Alan Burnett (today revealing his nickname "Ali") left this comment on my recent post on Charles Simic:

There must be something about 

certain characteristics that pool together: 

born collector, notebook-keeper, blog writer. 

Same ingredients, similar brew and a knowledge 

of what you like, I'll probably like. 

Off to look up Simic 

(just written his name down in my note-book).

That day, unbeknownst to me, Alan posted an article on his blog titled "Swaying His Legs Like a Pair of Woolen-Coated Pendulums", about writing a novel in a series, on the back of postcards mailed to a friend (I loved the woolliness of the title, as well as the postcards) and the very same day, I posted my poem "Exposition of Sleep" which also included "pendulum", not exactly an everyday sort of word.

After this series of small synchronicities, Alan proposed an experiment.  We each would choose a postcard which would represent a current thought or interest, add a message identifying the thought, and mail them to each other on the same day, Saturday, February 26, 2011.

I quickly pulled out three postcards from my collection.  One, a girl in WWII military uniform with a tie, a street scene with a vintage bookseller in Paris, and a 1960s era TWA postcard, depicting an American girl with a red bicycle, in Paris.  It was a hard decision, but I finally chose the last.

postcard sent by Alan Burnett

Here is the card Alan sent me.  Upon first glance, I immediately noticed Lee Miller in military uniform with a tie, very similar to one of my unmailed choices. He mentions going to Oxford and buying a lot of vintage postcards all based on book covers; this corresponds with my other card choice.  But, what I didn't initially see, is the fact that the book, The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose, is about a successful American fashion model  who moved to Paris in the 1920s and established herself as a photographer, producing some of the most powerful images of the century.

So what is the result of our little experiment?  Even though the two postcards are very different, (hop over to Alan's blog and take a look at mine) there is still a wealth of similarities lurking under the surface.

In the body of the written correspondence, we both mention personal adventures and vintage ephemera. He mentions traveling to Oxford; I mention New York.  He talks about the art form drama; I mention poetry. His card shows a talented female artist Lee Miller; I mention Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Among all the similarities, it all boils down to this:  both our cards picture American girls who went to Paris, a fascinating mutual theme. These synchonicites are not surprising in two people with similar interests, characteristics that pool together like doppelgangers. It's amazing how kindred spirits can connect so easily in this digital age of blogging. But, when I told WT the results of our little test, he laughed.  "Does Alan know you're psychic?"

P.S.--Okay, this is spooky.
(click to embiggen)

doppelgängers

A man's face is his autobiography.

A woman's face is her work of fiction.

Oscar Wilde

The last time I was at one of my favorite bookstores, not the one with the creaky hardwood floors, but the other one, in the old church building, I picked up a lovely soft cover book Virginia Woolf by Ruth Webb. Not only is it full of wonderful photos of Woolf, but excerpts of her handwritten pages, as well. I've always maintained much can be gleaned from one's face and hand.

One thing about her face, that especially struck me, was how much she looked like Oscar Wilde. Intriguing, how both writers, in their own particular styles, used settings in English polite society to discuss human relationships in class and gender. I was also compelled to compare their handwriting, which happened to be amazingly similar, not to mention their names both begin with "w". Curious, don't you think?

Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway manuscript, left, and Wilde's correspondence, right
(click to enlarge)

lincoln's doppelgänger

A grand set of mounted Longhorn steer horns hung in his bedroom, over his bureau. It was an awesome sight to a small girl, peering up from underneath. They belonged to my great-grandfather, Glenn, son of Palestine Hanna, featured here on past Sepia Saturdays, and were from his days in Albuquerque in the early 20th century. Across the top of the horns rested a stately black walking stick, tipped with a silver cap.


Three years ago, after the death of my grandfather, my dear aunt gave me the walking stick I remember so well. After close examination, I barely made out some engraving on the cap. I pulled out my trusty magnifying glass, and played one of my favorite roles, a giddy Sherlock Holmes. Compelled to a delicious hunt, I drooled investigative juices.

Rev. N. Gillam

by

L. H. Hicks

.

As the delicate script appeared from the patina, my DNA danced a little jig. First, I checked my ancestral file, which contains the names and notations of over 6000 people, which I am proud to say, took five long years to log in and document.

.

My fourth great uncle, Oliver Hazard Perry Hanna (1813 -1880), as it turns out, was married to a Rachel Gillam. Sure enough, Rachel had a brother, Nelson Gillam (1814 - 1902) who was minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church near Delphi, Carroll County, Indiana for many years.

.

At the Carroll County Historical Museum's online site, I found a photo of Rev. Gillam. There is a certain compelling, yet haunting, Lincolnesque quality about him, with the same deep set steely blue eyes and gaunt cheek bones. They could be brothers. (I feel another research project coming on.) I was unable to pin down the one who bestowed the gift, H. L. Hicks. I assume he was a dear friend, or possibly a parishioner of his church.

.

Here's what John Rutherford has to say in his book, Millennium History of Carmel Methodist Church:

.

Reverend Nelson Gillam’s ministry here in 1851 and 1852 was not the superficial kind in which numbers are counted, but the kind in which men are gloriously converted to God. His preaching was the type of Peter, filled with power and effectiveness.

.

He must have been quite a charismatic speaker. I would love to take a journey back in time and attend one of his Sunday sermons, his walking stick resting on one of the altar chairs, alongside the pulpit.

This is a Sepia Saturday post.

doppelgänger

Poetikat used the delightful word doppelgänger in a wonderful haiku last week. I commented how much I liked the word and she quickly suggested I should post on the subject. After doing a bit of research, I found the word to be even more intriguing than I first thought.

dop·pel·gäng·er, noun

Etymology: German Doppelgänger,
from doppel- double + -gänger goer

Date: 1851

1 : a ghostly counterpart of a living person
2 a : double
2 b : alter ego
2 c : a person who has the same name as another

In the vernacular, the word doppelgänger has come to refer to any double or look-alike of a person. Well, you know, I couldn't let this pass without mentioning the Deppster and me. The jury is still out on whether we share the same Cherokee great-great-grandmother. We do, however, look quite a lot alike. I guess it's safe to say he and I, though we might not actually be cousins, we most definitely are doppelgängers.

The word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance it could have been a reflection. In some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person's friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one's own doppelgänger is an omen of death. In Norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance.

Since I am a huge Lincoln buff, the story of the president seeing his own doppelgänger caught my attention. Here is an excerpt from Carl Sandburg's biography:


A dream or illusion had haunted Lincoln at times through the winter. On the evening of his election he had thrown himself on one of the haircloth sofas at home, just after the first telegrams of November 7 had told him he was elected President, and
looking into a bureau mirror across the room he saw himself full length, but with two faces.

It bothered him; he got up; the illusion vanished; but when he lay down again there in the glass again were two faces, one paler than the other. He got up again, mixed in the election
excitement, forgot about it; but it came back, and haunted him. He told his wife about it; she worried too.

A few days later he tried it once more and the illusion of the two faces again registered to his eyes. But that was the last; the ghost since then wouldn't come back, he told his wife, who said it was a sign he would be elected to a second term, and the death
pallor of one face meant he wouldn't live through his second term.


Spooky, huh? But, Lincoln was known to be superstitious, and old mirrors can be known to produce double images. Whether this Janus illusion can be counted as a doppelgänger is perhaps debatable. An alternate consideration, suggests that Lincoln suffered vertical strabismus in his left eye, a disorder which could induce visions of a vertically displaced image.

For the accounts of other famous reports of doppelgängers, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Donne, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Emilie Sagée click [HERE].