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It is Halloween night–a good time to take a break from spooky cities and enjoy some hair-raising movies, candy, and fellowship, but here is a creepy85ctoyggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggwaqv s 7ian painting (whoah! sorry for the typo there–my little black cat, Sumi, ran across the keyboard and, in the spirit of the night, I will leave her addition to this post exactly as she entered it). Above is a picture of Glasgow Cathedral from the Necropolis (after J.A. Houston). We will be back in early November to wrap up with some thoughts about cities and the dead. In the meantime enjoy some Halloween merriment (and this picture of Sumi continuing to distract me from my blogging duties by literally dancing on my shoulders). The two of us are off to eat Milky Way Midnight bars and tuna/chicken Temptations, respectively, and maybe then play with the “‘feline feather flyer cat toy”. Don’t get so sucked into dead cities that you forget to live! 
No series about the cities of the dead would be complete without a visit to the world’s most populous country, China. Because of China’s 5000 year+ uninterrupted cultural history, there are some extraordinary examples to choose from, like the Western Xian tombs, or the world famous Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, a circular tomb with a circumference of 6.3 km (3.9 miles) and an army of more than 7000 life-sized earthenware soldiers (they don’t build ’em like that anymore, thank goodness). However for artistic reasons, Ferrebeekeeper is going to highlight the most well-known tomb complex in China–the Ming tombs which is a compound of mausoleums built by the emperors of the Ming Dynasty from 1424 to 1644 on the outskirts of Beijing. Indeed today the tombs are now in a suburb of Beijing, surrounded by banks, residential housing parks, and golf courses.
The First Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor, whose rags-to-riches story has no obvious equivalent in history, is NOT buried in the Ming tombs (although don’t forget to follow this spooky link to read about his horrifying excesses), nor is his successor, the Jianwen Emperor, who was usurped and vanished from history. However the third and greatest Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the mighty Yongle Emperor is buried there. The Yongle Emperor chose the spot according to principles of Feng Shui (and political calculus) and he and 12 other Ming dynasty emperors were interred there along with a dynasty worth of empresses, concubines, favorite princes, et cetera etc. Each of the 13 mausoleums has its own name like the Chang Ling Mausolem, which is tomb to the Yongle Emperor, or the Qing Ling Mausoleum which is the final resting place of the Tai Chang Emperor.
Some of the subjects of past Ferrebeekeeper posts can be found buried in the Ming Tombs–like the Jiajing Emperor (who is in the Yong Ling Mausoleum, if you are keeping track of this at home). Considering how much mercury that guy drank, he is probably perfectly preserved somewhere in there glistening like the silver surfer even after all of these years.
I say probably, because we don’t know. Only three of the 13 tombs have been properly excavated and explored by archaeologists (these known tombs are the tombs of the Yongle Emperor, Longqing Emperor, and the Wanli Emperor). In 1644, the whole necropolis was looted and burned by Li Zicheng, the first (and last) Emperor of the ill-fated Shun Dynasty, but, fortunately, he seems to have burned and looted tombs the way he set up kingdoms–very badly and incompletely. This means there are ten whole tomb complexes of China’s richest greatest emperors which are awaiting the archaeologists of the future (probably…it is always possible that one of China’s more recent autocrats secretly looted everything and sold it to dodgy collectors or hid it under his bed). Imagine the unknown treasures awaiting discovery!
The first paragraph alluded to the artistic merit of this graveyard, and I really meant that. Just look at the beauty of the Sacred Way in the top photo (this is the main entrance to the tombs which Emperors would traverse when visiting the spot to pay homage to their predecessors) or the ceremonial chamber form the Ding Ling Tomb (which is the third image down). Best of all, we have an amazing painting (below)! Look at the this beautiful watercolor map/landscape painting from the late nineteenth century which shows the entire tomb complex (the painting itself belongs the Library of Congress). Naturally, if you click the painting it will not blow up to full size here (thanks to the hateful anti-aesthetic nature of WordPress). However here is a link to the original image at Wikipedia, you can expand it to immense size on your computer and take a personal tour of one of the world’s most lovely and historically significant tomb complexes.
As a Halloween treat, here is a pen and ink drawing which I made of a great dark fantasy metropolis (which is also a lurking predatory fish). As you can see, there are three stages to the composition: the cerebral top portion inhabited by angels, gods, and flying marvels; the primal underworld at the bottom (which is filled with wailing souls, dark sacrifice, and insatiable hunger); and, in the middle, a glistening city between the two extremes. In the sky, Apollo, god of prophecy and the arts, rides his chariot angrily towards a blithe Icarus. At far right, Death watches the city while, beneath the towers (beyond life?) the inhabitants…or possibly their souls walk through a Tartarus of appetites and chthonic marvels. I am sorry that it is too small to appreciate (it took me forever to draw all of the little ghost figures and monsters which are under the fish). The piece speaks to the larger nature of humankind’s collective existence (and our appetites) but I feel the supernatural monsters and crystal landscape with the heavens also speaks to larger possibilities we could aspire to. I am sorry it is slightly crooked in this shot: this was the best picture I have but it is slightly distorted (until I can get a finer scan made).
Ghosts do not seem to care about cultural appropriation. That is one of the many eye-popping crazy lessons of An Bang Cemetery, an up-to-the minute ultra-necropolis in Phu Vang district of Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam. The graves in the cemetery are a mixture of Vietnamese, Chinese, French, Indian, Thai, and American styles. The monuments reflect religious traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Đạo Mẫu, Cao Đài, and probably other more esoteric faiths and sects.
The fishing village of An Bang is on a beautiful white shore in Hue. In 1975, the reunification of Vietnam caused a diaspora which swept away many of the “boat people” who lived in An Bang. In the 80s and 90s cash began to flow back into the community from all around the world.
An Bang Village is not very far from the vaunted imperial tombs of Vietnam’s Nguyen dynasty which lie along the Perfume River (the ancient imperial tombs are a UNESCO heritage site). The contemporary villagers took some of their inspiration from the majesty, size, and beauty of the classical imperial graves, but they took the rest of their inspiration from…everywhere. At first blush the American influence may seem to be lacking…but look at the ostentation, the gaudiness, the competitive one-upmanship among the dead (plus where do you think that International money came from?)
There is a riot of styles and color and meanings, but yet I am not sure I have ever seen anything more distinctly Vietnamese. I don’t think there are many sculptural installations anywhere that could compare with the utter Baroque riot of An Bang…and that is to say nothing of the corpses, mourners, phantasms, spirits, and what not! Most of the intelligent people whom I know believe that there is nothing after death, and cemeteries are pointless. My rejoinder would be that cemeteries are not for the dead, they are for the living. Plus just look at this color, art, and form! Of course Vietnam is a developing country, and it could be argued that this money could be spent better elsewhere, but in America we spent 6.5 billion dollars on the 2016 election (to say nothing of the corporate money that went into buying influence) and look what we wound up with. Maybe the dead are better off with the money after all. They sure know how to live it up in style at least!
Welcome back to Ferrebeekeeper’s special Halloween series about cities! Obviously, no such effort would be complete without venturing once again into the realms of the Gothic, that ill-defined but very real concept which encompasses literature, history, culture, and architecture in exceedingly different (and yet weirdly unified) ways across a span of 1700 years. My first inclination here was to present some famous Gothic fantasy cities—Minis Tirith, Gotham, Lankhmar, Oldtown, and Ankh-Morpork (sob) but the daunting nature of this project quickly became obvious. Maybe we will revisit these places later (I feel like I have lived in each of them), but right now let us turn to what is arguably the world’s most successful actual extant Gothic city, which is also a place I don’t know nearly as well as those fantasy burgs: the great metropolis of Barcelona!
I have legions of friends who return from Barcelona singing its praises as the world’s greatest party city, and I remember lots of partial factoids from the 1992 Summer Olympics (which were completely amazing: Thanks Barcelona!). Sadly, I don’t know much about the actual city which is too bad–of all of the places on Earth, Barcelona has true claim to being the most Gothic city, not just because of its Gothic quarter (the somber medieval buildings were added to and spruced up at the end of the 19th century) , its ancient Gothic cathedral (the Barcelona Cathedral, seen at the top of the post and immediately above), its new Gothic cathedral (The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família designed by Gaudi, which is immediately below), or its many other Gothic architectural wonders, but instead because of its history.
Barcelona has two foundation myths, both of which are amazing. According to legend it was either founded by the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal’s dad) or by Hercules himself as he roamed the Mediterranean world during his famous labors. Wow! The truth is only slightly less amazing. The Romans first built Barcelona into a major city, but they built on top of a settlement which was already ancient. Archaeologists have found artifacts/remains which can be dated back to 5000 years ago.
Ancient Roman Burial Ground in Barcelona
As the Roman Empire blew apart (because of climate change, cultural stagnation, and disastrous misrule by corrupt dolts), strange groups of barbaric invaders from the hinterlands marauded through what had once been the most prosperous provinces of the West. Among these tribes were Huns, Franks, Sueves, Vandals, Alans, and Burgundians (goodness help us), but perhaps the most infamous of these groups were the Visigoths, who sacked Rome itself in 410 AD. The Visigoths warred with Rome and its allies for generations while they sought a permanent kingdom (hoping perhaps to become like the Franks, who grabbed up the most beautiful parts of France). For a time it seemed the Visigoths had found a permanent home in what is now southern France, but the tides of War turned against them and they moved southwards.
Thus, in the beginning of the 6th century AD, Barcelona was the capital of the Visigoth Kingdom. In 511 AD, the king of the Visigoths was a nine-year-old child named Amalaric. Amalaric was an Arian Christian, which is to say he was a follower of the nontrinitarian Christological doctrine of Arius, not that he marched around in studded jackets throwing dumb white power fist salutes (although, frankly, he probably did that too). He was married to Chrotilda, the daughter of Clovis I and she was a devout Catholic devoted to the trinity. The two fought ferociously about religion and Amalaric would beat Chrotilda savagely to demonstrate the superiority of his Christological doctrines. At one pointshe even sent a towel stained with her blood to her brother Childebert I to show him the benighted state of her marriage.
Hmm…We have fallen down a bit of a Medieval history rabbit hole here in describing why Barcelona is a Gothic city. To succinctly recap, it was the capital of the Visigoths and it has whole districts of Gothic buildings which are either Medieval, or made in faux Medieval styles. And what about Amalaric? In the early 530s, he fought the Ostragoth army and was defeated. He fled back to Barcelona but was betrayed and murdered by his own men (perhaps at the command of Theudis, governor of Barcelona. Some say you can still hear Amalaric’s ghost, angrily promulgating Arian doctrines among the midnight bubble disco parties of present-day Barcelona, but to me that sounds like something some disreputable blogger made up to get hits.
Persepolis (pictured above) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the great Persian Empire which ruled the near east from around 550 BC to 330 BC (when Alexander the Great swept through and conquered it). Persepolis was apparently a rather strange city—an imperial showplace of palaces, temples, and stately grandeur, but with very few inhabitants, at least compared to the thriving Persian cities of Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana. Archaeologists are still arguing about whether it was a palace complex, an administrative center, or a seasonal city for high Zoroastrian festivals. Whatever the case, Persepolis’ strange quasi-urban nature is a good segue to today’s featured location: Naqsh-e Rustam, a Persian necropolis which is located 12 km (7.5 miles) from the site of Persepolis (both locations are high in the mountains of what is today the Fars province of Iran).
Naqsh-e Rustam, the cemetery of Persian emperors, had even fewer inhabitants than Persepolis, and mostly those inhabitants were (and still are!) deceased. The most important tombs are four large tombs cut high into the living rock of the cliff face. These are the tombs of Darius I (c. 522-486 BC), Xerxes I (c. 486-465 BC), Artaxerxes I (c. 465-424 BC), and Darius II, the great emperors of ancient Persia. The facade to Xerxes tomb is pictured immediately below.
Not many cities have only 4 long dead inhabitants. Indeed, the site of Naqsh-e Rustam was sacred long before the Achaemenids carved their unearthly mausoleums. The oldest carvings are dated to around 1000 BCE and thought to be from the Elamite kingdoms. Later on, the monarchs of the Sassanid dynasty (the empire which stood in counterweight opposition to Imperial Rome) also carved great reliefs there. These illustrate battles and victories. In the middle of the complex is a mysterious cubic tower known as the Ka’ba-ye Zartosht. It was made at the same time as the tombs and is presumably a Zoroastrian sacred building, but nobody really knows what is was originally for.
I wrote about this astonishing place, because I was struck by the majesty and remoteness of the great tombs carved out of living rock, but now that I have started writing, I realize that Naqsh-e Rustam strains any definition of a city (other than as a place of great human-crafted edifices). The urban culture, the political hegemony, and the sheer human labor required to craft such a site are obvious from the 2500 year old architecture, but the bigger questions about why humans make the things we make, or even about why the Persians organized their great civilization in this fashion are not answered by the haunting graves an monuments.
It is getting to be the end of October and there is no reason to wait any longer for our special annual Halloween series–a series of posts about a specific unsettling yet evocative topic (which hopefully speaks to broader themes of life). In years past, Ferrebeekeeper’s Halloween edition has featured topics such as the mother of monsters, flowers of the underworld, flaying, serpents, and (a particular favorite) the undead! Where do we go from those awesome, spooktacular topics?
As you can see by glancing at the category cloud to the left, Ferrebeekeeper’s biggest new category is cities (or maybe you can’t see it, if you are looking at a cellphone or a particular browser or something…sadly, Ferrebeekeeper understands WordPress less by the day, but that doesn’t change my urban fixation).
Once, not long ago, cities were rare or non-existent(try to imagine that), yet, as humankind continues to relentlessly expand, all the world is becoming one continuous city. To thoughtful people who worry about the future of the biosphere, this fact represents a horror of a whole different magnitude than imaginary monsters, spooky gardens, or even the all-too-real homicidal maniacs of yore. The forests, the steppes, the coasts, the farmlands, even the uncompromising desert…they are all going. What we are left with is a homogeneous sprawl of concrete and plastic habitats where people drive their deadly benzine buggies from one identical shop to the next (or simply sit all day in taupe offices staring at screens filled with hateful numbers and rules for rich people). It is a truly chilling dystopia–and it is here already!
So, up until Halloween Ferrebeekeeper will feature lost and destroyed cities, necropolises, evil metropolises, and twisted urban horror, but for this introductory post, I will just present…[scary melodramatic music] an infographic map! [disembodied screaming].
Here is the United States reassembled and blocked out by land use. Upon initial perusal, this graphic (from Bloomberg, 2018) seems pretty encouraging. Cows! Forests! Wilderness! National parks! Our great empty continent will be the land of the free forevermore! Yet, as we concentrate more on what is really there, it is increasingly astonishing. There is a lot of pink and red! If the United States were a garden and the map’s pink and red bits were statues, we would say it was a statue garden. Admittedly, the non pink and red portions of the map convey their own shocking aspects as well. How come a 30th of our nation is given over to economically unfeasible and environmentally unsound ethanol production? What the devil is a Weyerhaeuser? GOLF? Seriously? I have never met anyone under 50 (or anyone who was not a white dude) who ever even played it. Now I am not without sympathy for middle-aged white dudes. Yet apparently this dumb game takes up more space than say, Connecticut.
[Also, I apologize to our international readers: I would love to see the world this way, but it looks like the metrics might just not be there yet. We will have to take the United States as an exemplar for the moment]
Anyway, this is a long introduction for 2018’s Halloween special: Cities of Horror and the Dead (which will get more spooky and less preachy as we go on). This is also a good starting post for really thinking about how cities are inexorably growing and how we are engineering them to be asphault dead zones. I live in a city (indeed, THE City), but I worry about what the planet will be like if Earth becomes more of an ecumenopolis. Cities can be more scary than any place I know of. Yet if they come out weird and creepy it is because they were poorly put together. The scariest horror movies I know are the ones where the protagonist chases the monster straight into the mirror. What could be worse than finding out you are not the hero, but a villain? Cities are that mirror. Let’s see what we can see in their shining dark depths.
or reasons beyond my fathoming, my internet connection at home is not working properly. Until I get Optimum to come out and fix it at some time I am not at the office, I will have to type with my thumbs…so I will keep this post pithy and petite!
I just attended the opening night for the EFA studios in Midtown Manhattan to check out what my artistic colleagues are up to (and, of course, to see if there was any fodder for Ferrebeekeeper). There were many fine works (I especially liked the dark schematic paintings of Akira Ikezoe which looked like Rube Goldberg in Neraka) but perhaps the finest works of craft were also the most relevant to this blog.
The magnificent Renaissance pigeon portraits at the top and the bottom of this post were painted by Amy Hill. Hill paints directly from the works of Northern European Renaissance masters to create works with the style of Memling, Archimbaldo, Van Eyck, and Cranach. She combines this finery with quotidian elements and images from contemporary society or nature: in these cases., pigeons. Although I love the refined lordly raiment of these birds (and Ms. Hill said she worked forever on that filigree ruff and it still haunts her dreams) I think the finest aspects of these strange portraits are the beaks and eyes. There is something crazy and moving about the wild eye of that top pigeon. More importantly though the bill of the bottom bird is beautifully organic and sensitive. It looks like a hand–a tool which is simultaneously nimble & strong as well as sensitive yet adroit..which I suppose is exactly what pigeon beaks are to their owners.
Thanks again to Amy Hill for letting me photograph her lovely works. I hope she has a very successful show!
Europe
This is Rudolf IV of Austria (1339 –1365). He was the first Archduke of Austria…or of anywhere (like some sort of 14th century rapper, he invented the rank of Archduke for himself, in case you were curious where that ponderous title originally came from) and he was also Duke of Styria and Carinthia from 1358, as well as Count of Tyrol from 1363 and first Duke of Carniola from 1364 until his death in July of 1365. Rudolf IV’s megalomania and grandiose plans laid the foundations of Vienna’s future greatness (and Austria’s). The future imperial city was a backwater without even an episcopal see before Rudolf started building cathedrals, modernizing his duchy, and inventing fancy titles for himself (he invented some counterfeit royal charters too). In this post, however, we are concentrating not on on his historical importance to Habsburg dynasty building, but on his splendid portrait, the first half frontal portrait in Western Europe. Like much of Rudolf’s legacy, the archducal crown of wild vines, arches, and jewels, was seemingly invented. The intimate and introspective style of the work was partially borrowed from the master painters of Byzantium, but was also an Austrian painting innovation. Like Rudolf’s reign it forshadowed wonders to come.
Ferrebeekeeper recounts a lot of mythological stories and religious tales–using almost the same voice as we use to tell non-fictional stories. However, it is critical to remember that such folklore and mythology is not true…at least not in the same way as history or science are real (and even those reality-based disciplines are shot through with ambiguity and factual inadequacy: truth is a very lofty ideal indeed!). Instead religious tales tell a complicated moral or ontological truth about our species by means of symbolism. How we interpret this symbolism is all-Important.
I had a classics professor in college who gave us a reading about the Punic War from Livy. Livy (who himself lived in politically fraught times) prudently cited the failure to properly observe the state religion as one of the reasons the Romans lost a huge Punic War battle (or as Livy stated it: the Romans failed to sacrifice enough to the gods of Olympus). On the midterm, the professor asked why the Romans lost the battle and many students dutifully regurgitated Livy’s exact answer in their little blue books. “I was surprised to find so many pantheists in this class!” said the professor as he handed back the books and explained why readers need to think carefully about what they are reading (and also why so many students did not have the grades they expected).
It might seem like I am writing about this subject because of dissatisfaction with some aspect of contemporary religious sentiment. For example, based on their actions and pronouncements, many contemporary Christians seem to believe that the central message of Christianity is that they (fundamentalist Christians) are always right about everything and God will take them to heaven to live in happy bliss when they die (even as he casts all of the people they personally dislike (and pretty much everyone else) into eternal hellfire). Gods are a metaphor for the self—unless you happen to be devout; in which case your god is an actual magical entity who cares about you personally but mostly despises everyone else.
Ahem, anyway…Instead of talking about whether evangelical Christians fail to understand Christ’s message of kindness and giving, I wanted to draw people’s attention back to a Greco-Roman story we told here a while ago—the story of Asclepius, god of healing. Asclepius was the son of the beautiful and terrible god Apollo (whose myths always fascinate and horrify me). According to the myth, Asclepius mastered healing to a profound degree previously unknown to mortalkind. Through study and devotion, he obtained the ability to alleviate all of people’s suffering, anguish, and illness. His art was so profound that he could even stop death itself. Unfortunately, Asclepius became so great as a healer that he lost sight of the healing itself. He began to think of himself as one of the gods. He was originally drawn to medicine out of sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. But success changed him and he began to only heal those who gave him enormous amounts of gold. Because of this Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at him. Asclepius was incinerated utterly. His quasi-divine healing prowess vanished from the earth because of his hubris and people were thrown back into lives of suffering and death.
Now here is my point. I suppose if we had a devout pantheist here they would say “Zeus is all powerful and Asclepius offended him by trying to imitate that power! Hubris will always be punished. All hail Zeus!” Since the pantheists are pretty much gone though (except maybe in my history class), we can look at the story on its own. Asclepius was a human, and he his mastery of healing represents humankind’s surprising ability to master this subject to an enormous degree. But Asclepius was arrogant and selfish. He started to misuse his healing arts for profit. When he stopped caring about being a physician first and began to lust for gold and power instead of wisdom, his healing art was lost and everyone suffered. The story has a patina of magic, but it is a metaphor about real things. Indeed, it should seem intimately familiar to any American who has been forced to contend with our for-profit healthcare system (even before the contemporary American medical industry mixed up the staff of Asclepius with Hermes’ rod of commerce). Seem from that vantage, the story of how Asclepius was destroyed when he forgot his true purpose doesn’t just sound like an ancient Greek myth about hubris. It sounds like a rebuke to contemporary healthcare companies which are so stingy, cruel, and greedy that they are shortening people’s lives. Worrying about gold instead of research and healing didn’t work out so great for the greatest physician. Perhaps it is a mistake in contemporary medicine as well.
Of course, a careful reader might also ask whether I was being completely honest when I said that this post has nothing to do with Christianity in contemporary America. This particular myth about somebody who incurs a terrible all-consuming price for losing their compassion is Greek—but the moral seems… familiar. A great rabbi once asked a seemingly hypothetical question “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” I don’t believe in souls as real things. They are symbolic of what is eternal and all-important in our little lives as pieces of the great gestalt of human life. Perhaps the question could be interpreted as, “what if you lose the most important aspect of yourself by being greedy and power-hungry?” The story of Asclepius provides a ready answer to that question. Perhaps the New Testament has similar answers, which people are overlooking. Physicians need not lose their healing. Christians need not abandon what is truly divine within Jesus’s words. Perhaps the Romans need not even lose the great battle, but we are all going to have to focus a bit harder on the complicated symbolic aspect of the text.
ferrebeekeeper 
