Making Light :: Revolutionary allegory :: comments http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html#comments Language, fraud, folly, truth, history, and knitting. Et cetera. en Sat, 23 Aug 2003 11:23:49 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.261 Revolutionary allegory This is The Hanging of Absalom, a needlework thought to have been created in the wake of the Boston Massacre... This is The Hanging of Absalom, a needlework thought to have been created in the wake of the Boston Massacre... http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html Revolutionary allegory -- comment #1 from CHip comment from CHip on 22.Aug.03 That's a ... fascinating ... reuse of the story; a convenient use of symbols without any of the underlying tangle. (I reread much of Samual recently to go with singing Honegger's King David and I still haven't sorted out all the pieces.) Rather like the performance of Julius Caesar near the beginning of The Syndics, where the characters are made to look like figures from the Mob's revolution, making the play is a tortured analogy to current-to-the-story events.

If I believed in an afterlife (perhaps as envisioned by Parke Godwin) I'd love to look in on Kornbluth and Brunner vigorously (well, as vigorously as they ever did anything in life) arguing their differing concepts of the Mob/Mafia/CosaNostra/..., waving copies of The Syndic and The Shockwave Rider as they argue about the elephant behind them.

]]> <p>Posted August 22, 2003 11:31 PM by CHip</p> http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html#26802 http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html#26802 Fri, 22 Aug 2003 23:31:08 -0500 Revolutionary allegory -- comment #2 from Anne comment from Anne on 23.Aug.03 As a stitcher myself, I'm struck by how much the anonymous needleworker cared about her subject. The materials had to be imported; the time to create it would have been easier to come by, but it still must have taken her forever. The detail on my monitor isn't sharp enough to guess at what stitches she used, but it's probably mostly chain and stem, which take an age, especially in those huge boring swaths of grass. Satin (to stitch on) and silk (to stitch with) weren't cheap. Needles weren't either. (And if you lost one, O the frustration until you could get another!) I can see her sitting by the fireside of an evening, arguing with her husband about whether women would get the vote.

]]> <p>Posted August 23, 2003 11:23 AM by Anne</p> http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html#26841 http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/003377.html#26841 Sat, 23 Aug 2003 11:23:49 -0500