“The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

—Mkgnao!

—O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.

—Milk for the pussens, he said.

—Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to.”  (James Joyce, Ulysses, Chapter 4)

As always, dear readers, welcome.

We were chatting with our cat this morning.

(this is a google image—Minerva is opposed to being photographed, something to do with magic, we believe—but she is a Siberian, like this one)

Well, not deep in conversation, as, unfortunately, our vocabulary is rather limited and what we know is based upon a number of years of trial and error, rather than serious linguistic analysis.  We do know that something like “Mrr-ANG!” (M + trill, ending with a sound sort of like the dessert, meringue, said mer-RANG!)

appears to mean “I need food and water, please!”

Being trainable, we respond to that and she seems pleased when the requested items appear in her bowls.  Whether this is because she sees that, dim as we are, we understand a little of her language, or she’s just happy to get food and water, we can’t tell for sure, but she’s pretty consistent with the sound, so it’s probably a good guess that that sound means what we think it does.

Beyond that, we’re still in the initial stages of discovery.  This would be easier, of course, if we had a kind of cat Rosetta Stone.

Found in northern Egypt in 1798, it’s a bi-lingual inscription.  The top two parts were in two forms of ancient Egyptian writing, Hieroglyphics and Demotic, which were, at the time of its discovery, unreadable, but the bottom inscription was in classical Greek, a well-known ancient language.

Imagine such a stone on which the top was Feline (as we’ll call it)—but perhaps in only one form—and, below, an ancient but known language, like Latin, say.  We could then guess, as the main decipherer, Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832) guessed of the Egyptian writing on the Rosetta Stone,

that what he saw was, in fact, the same message, written in 2 different languages, Egyptian and Greek.  With that in mind, he began to try to make the equivalents between what he saw on that top line with what he saw of the Greek below.  He had no idea how to pronounce it, of course, and we still don’t, in part because the writing system didn’t include vowels.  Champollion, however, had learned ancient Egyptian’s final linguistic form, Coptic, once still spoken in modern Egypt, along with the dominant language, Arabic, and he found this useful in his work.  (If you’d like to hear a little more about spoken ancient Egyptian, see this LINK by Egyptonerd:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_7ZVSHV2tU We highly recommend this site as Egyptonerd is both very learned in things Egyptian and just fun to watch and listen to—and all from what looks like his attic/loft.)

So, here would be the stone, with a sample of Feline above and Latin below.

_____________________________________________________________

|   MRRNKGIAO RRRAHNIAH URRNAHNIAP GNAPNAPNAP  NAOIAO NRAH  |                                                                                                              

|                                                                                                                                    |                                                                     

|                                                                                                                                    |

________________________________________________________

|     OMNES SCIUNT FELES ORBI TERRARUM IMPERARE                                    |                                                                                                          

|                                                                                                                                    |

|                                                                                                                                    |

_____________________________________________________________

There would be all sorts of things to sort out along the way.  An immediate problem would be the word order.  Suppose that Feline is what is called a SVO language—that is, a Subject Verb Object language, like English:  we love dogs.  But Latin is commonly an SOV language, a Subject Object Verb language:  we dogs love.  This means that, although the ideas may match, the way the words are set down won’t necessarily.  And that’s only one difficulty!

It’s easy to see why, then, that, in stories with talking animals, the animals always seem to speak the language of the main characters.  And talking animals are everywhere, from fairy tales, like “Puss in Boots” (first appearing in Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités, 1697—here’s the first English translation, from 1729)

to children’s stories, like The Jungle Book (1894),

L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900),

and C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy (1954—although a number of the Narnia books feature talking animals—beginning with Aslan).

For this posting, however, we want to conclude with a series of books with a very different approach, one which goes back to our (Cat) Rosetta (Rosecatta?) Stone idea.

In 1920, Hugh Lofting (1886-1947)    

published The Story of Doctor Doolittle.  The book had begun as a series of stories which Lofting, in the trenches of France in the Great War, wrote home to his children.  In the first volume in the series, he begins his study of animal speech when his parrot, Polynesia,

 informs him that all animals have their languages.  The Doctor then goes on to a long series of adventures with animals through 15 books (several published posthumously).  For modern people, more aware of the dangers in casual racism, there is an element of that racism which would hardly have been noticed when at least most of the books had been published, but stands out now.  Considering how humane the Doctor—and his author—were, it’s sad to be reminded that even in past children’s books using stereotypes and certain words was thought to be perfectly acceptable.  We offer you a LINK to the first book, however, suggesting that, for the ideas about human/animal communication and for the quiet humor which often turns up, you might try it, skipping over those parts which we now would question:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/501/501-h/501-h.htm

And, more cheerfully—and more characteristic of so much of the Doctor—we include this, from the 1967 film, starring Rex Harrison as the Doctor.

It’s the song the Doctor sings when Polynesia reveals to him that all animals have their own languages and he’s excited at the potential for interspecies communication.

(Chorus 1)
If I could talk to the animals, just imagine it
Chatting to a chimp in Chimpanzee
Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting to a cheetah
What a neat achievement that would be!

If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Maybe take an animal degree
I’d study Elephant and Eagle, Buffalo and Beagle
Alligator, Guinea Pig, and Flea

I would converse in Polar Bear and Python
And I would curse in fluent Kangaroo
If people ask me, “Can you speak Rhinoceros?”
I’d say, “Of course-ros
Can’t you?”

I’d confer with our furry friends and animals
Think of the amazing repartee!
If I could walk with the animals, talk with the animals
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals
And they could talk to me

(Chorus 2)
If I consulted with quadrupeds, think what fun we’d have
Asking over crocodiles for tea
Or maybe lunch with two or three lions, walruses or sea lions
What a lovely place the world would be

If I spoke slang to an orangutan, the advantages
Any fool on Earth could plainly see
Discussing Eastern art and dramas with intellectual llamas
That’s a big step forward, you’ll agree

I’d learn to speak in Antelope and Turtle
My Pekinese would be extremely good
If I were asked to sing Hippopotamus
I’d say “Why not-amus?”
And would

If I could parley with pachyderms, it’s a fairy tale
Worthy of Hans Andersen or Grimm
A man who walks with the animals, talks with the animals
Grunts and squeaks and squawks with the animals

(Chorus 3)
A man can talk to the animals. It’s a miracle!
In a year from now, I guarantee
I’ll be the marvel of the mammals, playing chess with camels
No more just a boring old M.D

I’ll study every living creature’s language
So I can speak to all of them on sight
If friends say, “Can he talk in Crab or Pelican?”
You’ll say, “Like hell he can.”
And you’ll be right

And if you just stop to think of it, there’s no doubt of it
I shall win a place in history
I can walk with the animals, talk with the animals
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals
And they can squeak and squawk and speak and talk to me!

And here’s Harrison singing—well, speaking it:

Now we hear our cat calling:  if we hurry, we might pick up a new vocabulary word!

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

And remember that there is always

MTCIDC

CD

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops at all—

As always, dear readers, welcome.  If you don’t recognize our quotation, it’s from a poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886),

Number 254 or 314, depending upon the edition, written, it is thought, in 1861.  Here’s the manuscript—

We don’t know about you, but we really like to read the manuscripts of works we’re fond of, especially if they’ve got things crossed out or replaced or added to.  Then, it’s as if you’re actually looking over the writer’s shoulder as she/he works.  Here, for instance, is the first page of John Keats’ (1795-1821) “Ode to the Nightingale”, written one spring day in 1819.  You can see Keats changing his mind as he writes.  (The title was changed, too, in the days between writing and printing, and we now know it as “Ode to A Nightingale”, which somehow makes it less personal to us.

But this posting is neither about nightingales or hope, but about feathers:  in particular, white ones.

In 1902, the adventure novelist AEW Mason (1865-1948),

published a new novel, entitled The Four Feathers.

It was set in the 1880s, when Britain had newly conquered Egypt,

taking it from the government of Ahmed ‘Urabi (1841-1911, whom the British called “Araby Pasha”),

an Egyptian army officer who had led a successful revolt to detach Egypt from the fading Ottoman empire.  As he was a nationalist, the government in London was anxious that he might threaten their control of the Suez Canal, and so an expedition was sent in 1882 to assert British dominance. 

Unfortunately for their rule, there arose to the south, in Egyptian-ruled Sudan, an Islamic revivalist movement, led by Muhammad Ahmad (1844-1885), called the Mahdi, “the rightly-guided one”.

Under his leadership, the Anglo-Egyptian government was driven from the Sudan and the Egyptian governor, Charles Gordon (1833-1885), a well-known British soldier,

was killed in January, 1885, as the Mahdi’s men captured the capital, Khartoum.

The Mahdi died soon after, but his movement was continued by Abdallah ibn Muhammad (1845-1899), who called himself the Khalifa, “the successor”.  Initially successful, he was eventually defeated just north of Khartoum, at Omdurman in September, 1898, by an Anglo-Egyptian army under HH Kitchener, pursued, and killed.

With this violent era as the background, the story is about Harry Feversham, a young British army officer, who, just before the 1882 attack on Egypt, resigns his commission, and finds himself attacked as a coward by three fellow officers and his own fiancée.  To show their opinion of him, each presents Harry with a white feather, a traditional symbol in Britain since at least the 18^th century of cowardice.  The rest of the story concerns Harry’s eventually successful redemption, including going disguised to the Sudan and rescuing one of those officers who sent him a feather.  By the end of the novel, one of the other officers is dead, but two of them, and his fiancée, now convinced of his courage, take back their feathers.  (If you’d like your own copy to read, here’s a LINK:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18883/18883-h/18883-h.htm )

This was not only a very successful novel (it’s still in print, over 100 years later), but was the source of an entire series of films, from the first—an American production—in 1915 (a silent, of course)

to a second, in 1921 (a British production, for which we can’t seem to locate a poster), to a third, in 1929,

which could have been an early “talkie”, but, instead, had a musical score soundtrack, but no dialogue.

After this came the one which we have always thought the best, that of 1939, which was filmed on location and was, for us, the most convincing, although, like a number of the others, it picked and chose what it wanted from the novel and moved the period from the 1880s to the mid-to-late 1890s, including a depiction of the battle of Omdurman. 

Films didn’t stop there, however, as there were further adaptations, in 1955 (entitled Storm Over the Nile),

in 1978,

and, most recently, in 2002.

When you read the original, you know that you’re in the late Victorian/Edwardian world, where “manhood” and “courage” are all about men in red coats

 (or khaki)

proving themselves by being involved in what, to people in the 21^st century, would seem like brutal colonialism.  Within its own time, however, this was seen as being a story about a man full of doubts about who he was within his society, making a decision which prejudiced those he cared about against him, and who then, through taking great personal risks, found a surer sense of himself and regained the respect and affection of those who mattered to him.  And that’s why, we think, not only has the novel survived, but why people keep using it as the basis of films. 

But what about those white feathers as symbols? 

 The current theory is that the idea of cowardice is derived from the once-popular sport of cockfighting.

Supposedly, roosters with same-patterned/colored tails were better fighters, while those whose tails included white feathers were weaker.   As far as we know (we’re not chicken experts), this has not been scientifically proven.

The idea of cowardice, and its symbol, however, was one which one of our favorite authors would have faced before he became a second lieutenant in 1916. 

From August, 1914, members of “The Order of the White Feather” would stop a young man not in uniform in any public place in Britain and, by handing him such a little present, try to shame him into joining the army.

Considering what could have happened to anyone who, having taken that feather and then enlisted, we might disagree with Ms Dickinson about there being much hope involved.

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

And remember there’s

MTCIDC

CD

As always, dear readers, welcome.  If you read us regularly, you know that we love epics of all sorts and periods and cultures.  We have also been dictionary readers since we were children.  So, when, recently, we heard someone say that something was an “epic fail”, it caught our ear in both an epic and lexicographic (what a great word!) way.  Consequently, we thought that it might be fun to do a little investigating and thinking out loud a little about the use of “epic” in that expression

We began by asking ourselves:  what is an epic that it can be (silently) compared to something else, in this case, a kind of disaster?

Examples of epics immediately came to mind:  the Iliad,

and the Odyssey,

and the Aeneid

—all long stories in verse.  And we quickly added Beowulf,

Ramayana,

and Mahabharata,

all also long poems in verse, the Mahabharata being said to be the longest of all epics, 200,000 verses long (in contrast, the Iliad has 15,693, while the Aeneid has only 9,896 lines). 

The word “epic” itself is from Greek epos, which has a number of possible translations, but, at base, means “something spoken”.  This can easily be understood as “something told” and could refer to the work of the first Greek singers, the aoidoi (ah-oy-DOY).

 In Homer, we often see the word in the plural, as part of the phrase  epea pteroenta, literally “words with wings”.  This is used when people speak a lot and/or rapidly, which seems sensible, especially if you’re making a reply or trying to persuade someone of something.  There may also be a small poetic  joke here, as well, as epea can also mean “lines of verse”, so a character might be said to be speaking in “winged verses” in Homer, at the same time as “winged words”.

“Epic” is an adjective formed from epos, and appears to have become part of the English language during the Elizabethan era.  The first known citation comes from George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589), where Puttenham calls John Hardyng (1378-1465), who wrote a rhymed chronicle of the history of England, “a Poet Epicke or Historicall” (Puttenham, Part I, Chapter 31).  We’ve sampled a manuscript version of Hardyng’s chronicle in the very useful edition of Simpson and Peverley (and you can, too, at this LINK:  https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/simpson-pevereley-hardyng-chronicle )  but, although it has the length of a shorter epic (7,042 lines), we would be reluctant to say that Hardyng would ever have the popularity of Homer or Vergil or Valmiki, the poet of the Ramayana.

Still, if you go to the always-handy Etymonline, you’ll find “epic” defined (digesting a longer definition in The Oxford English Dictionary) as, “pertaining to or constituting a lengthy heroic poem.”

And “lengthy”, as you can see, would certainly would fit all of the epics mentioned above, including Puttenham’s Hardyng.  So, on the one hand, “epic” in “epic fail” could mean something gone wrong on a scale as big as an epic is long:  after all, the war at Troy has been going on for 9 years when the Iliad takes place, and Beowulf covers the full extent of the hero’s life. 

But then there’s that word “heroic”. 

If we follow that definition, is an “epic fail”, which we’re assuming is something rather grand, also somehow heroic?

We don’t have any more information about our original quotation:  it was probably just something which zoomed past our eyes on the internet, or we heard someone say in passing on the radio.  Applying a text from our list of epics, we thought about Hector, the son of Priam, the king of Troy, and the main hero on the Trojan side.  The Iliad doesn’t have much to say about him for the previous 9 years, but he’s active in the current one although, even as the chief warrior on the Trojan side, he never appears to have faced the chief Greek warrior, Achilles, until their confrontation in Book 22.  Here, Hector is ashamed to retreat, but acts as a kind of rear guard for the Trojans until he’s facing Achilles by himself.

And then everything goes wrong for him:  he loses his nerve and Achilles chases him three times around the walls of Troy; he throws his spear, which bounces off Achilles’ shield; he thinks that his brother, Deiphobus, has come to help him, but it’s actually a hostile Athena masquerading; sword drawn, he charges and Achilles stabs him at the base of his throat; when he begs for a decent burial, Achilles says that the dogs and birds will eat his body.  And, after he dies, all of the other Greeks gather around to stab his corpse (now they’re brave), then Achilles puts holes in Hector’s feet, runs a line through the holes, ties the line to the back of his chariot, and drags him around the walls of Troy while Hector’s wife and parents look on in horror.

If anything could be described as an “epic fail”, we would propose that it would be the combat with Achilles and the death of Hector.  But was the comment we overheard or read about such a grim and dramatic event as to merit such a comparison?

And this is where another source comes in.  The Oxford English Dictionary, begun in 1857, when it comes to richness of source material, is a wonderful thing—we used it to find that reference to Puttenham.  At the same time, to keep up-to-date on what’s going on in contemporary English, we often dip into Urban Dictionary.  If you know this source, you know that some of those who contribute are often less than enthusiastic about other people’s word choices.  So, to gain another viewpoint, we consulted Urban Dictionary and found, among other references:

“Epic Fail -A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to successfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of an individual or group.”

Not quite Homeric, but okay. 

Then again, there was this:

“A word that used to be used to describe a book, a movie or other work as timeless, great, and meaningful. Is now used by [unprintable word:  substitute “the less intelligent”] who combine it with “win” or “fail” to describe everyday things…

INCORRECT usage:
[unprintable word–substitute “speaker”] #1: I forgot my wallet so I had to go home and get it.
[same unprintable word:  substitute “speaker] #2: EPIC FAIL!”

So, was what we saw or overheard, by its use of the expression, its own epic fail?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

And know that

MTCIDC

CD

ps

We found the reference to Puttenham in the Oxford English Dictionary (upon which JRRT was once engaged, in 1919-1920—here’s the LINK to a really interesting article on his work there:  https://public.oed.com/blog/jrr-tolkien-and-the-oed/ ).  If you’d like to see the Puttenham for yourself, here’s a LINK:

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16420/pg16420-images.html

If nothing else, it’s very interesting to see just how much earlier English literature Puttenham had available to him in the 1580s. 

As always, dear readers, welcome.  We begin with a quotation:

“Look out! Look out!
Pink elephants on parade
Here they come!
Hippity-hoppity
They’re here and there
Pink elephants everywhere

Look out! Look out!
They’re walking around the bed, on their head
Clippity-cloppity
Arrayed in braid
Pink elephants on parade

What’ll I do? What’ll I do?
What an unusual view!
I could stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs
But technicolor pachyderms
Is really too much for me

I am not the type to faint
When things are odd or things are quaint
But seeing things you know that ain’t
Can certainly give you an awful fright!
What a sight!

Chase ’em away!
Chase ’em away!
I’m afraid, need your aid
Pink elephants on parade!

Pink elephants!
Pink elephants!”

All right, patient readers are asking, what in the world is this?  And where will you go with it?

It’s, in fact, from Walt Disney’s 1941 movie, Dumbo.

If you’re not familiar with this film, it’s about a very small elephant with very large ears who discovers that, using his ears, he can fly.  His real name is “Jumbo, Junior”, which is clearly based upon the name of the  first famous elephant in modern history, Jumbo, who lived his adult life beginning in the Jardin des Plantes,

in Paris, then in the Zoological Gardens in London,

and finally in the circus world of the American entrepreneur, P.T. Barnum.

(If you’d like a copy of the autobiography of Jumbo’s keeper at the London zoo and a biography of Jumbo, here’s a LINK:  https://ia803204.us.archive.org/4/items/autobiographyofm00scot/autobiographyofm00scot.pdf )

In the story, Dumbo’s only friend is a mouse, named Timothy, which is its own joke on the traditional idea that elephants are afraid of mice.

with whom, by accident, he becomes intoxicated

and suddenly, the two have a vision:  Pink Elephants!  which is accompanied by a very strange song, the words of which we’ve quoted above.

Here’s the LINK to a clip of this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcZUPDMXzJ8

Normally, this is said to be something which long-time alcoholics are traditionally said to see, but it makes for quite a scene in the film, as we’re sure you’ll agree!

In this scene, we were inspired by these lines:

“I am not the type to faint
When things are odd or things are quaint
But seeing things you know that ain’t
Can certainly give you an awful fright!
What a sight!”

to think about another story where people see things they “know that ain’t”.  And, as Tolkien is never far from our minds, or these pages, we were on Weathertop,

When the Wraiths first appear, they are described as

“…three or four tall black figures…standing there on the slope, looking down on them.  So black were they that they seemed like black holes in the deep shade around them…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 11, “A Knife in the Dark”)

And then Frodo slips on the Ring and:

“Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, the shapes became terribly clear.  He was able to see beneath their black wrappings.  There were five tall figures:  two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing.  In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel.”

Frodo sees the Ring Wraiths for what they really are because, by putting on the Ring, he enters its world, and that of the Wraiths, which appears to be a kind of twilight place between Middle-earth and someplace else—in a sense, a “place that ain’t”, as the Wraiths are a kind of ghost, doomed to haunt the world only while the Ring exists (or, in the case of their chief, when a weapon from the past catches him). 

 This made us wonder, what would the Ring allow its rightful owner, Sauron, to see?  When Frodo puts on the Ring again, to escape Boromir, and climbs up Amon Hen, the Ring still on his finger:

“At first he could see little.  He seemed to be in a world of mist in which there were only shadows:  the Ring was upon him.  Then here and there the mist gave way and he saw many visions:  small and clear as if they were under his eyes upon a table, and yet remote.  There was no sound, only bright living images.  The world seemed to have shrunk and fallen silent.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 10, “The Breaking of the Fellowship”)

Even if silent, this is a teeming world:

“But everywhere he looked he saw the signs of war.  The Misty Mountains were crawling like anthills:  orcs were issuing out of a thousand holes.  Under the boughs of Mirkwood there was deadly stife of Elves and Men and fell beasts.  The land of the Beornings was aflame; a cloud was over Moria; smoke rose on the borders of Lorien.”

But, reading this, we were a little puzzled.  Although some of this we know to be happening—certainly in Moria— much of the rest is yet to come in the story.  If this is Sauron’s view, are he and Frodo actually “seein’ things you know that ain’t” and the Ring shares some power (and danger) with Galadriel’s Mirror?  As she says:

“Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

If so, then should both take note of her warning?

“Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them.  The Mirror is dangerous as a guide to deeds.”

As a possible guide to Sauron’s mind and its imaginings, we want to return to this idea in another posting, but, as we started out with a strange, but still somehow jolly vision, we’d like to conclude with an odd and comic one, the present time being dark enough as it is!

In 1950, there appeared a film, based upon Mary Chase’s 1944 play, Harvey.

The basic story is about Elwood P. Dowd, played by the well-known actor of the period, James Stewart,

a gentle, quiet man, who spends much of the play/film in the company—so he says—of a 6’3”  (190.5cm) tall rabbit named “Harvey”.  Dowd lives with his sister, who is constantly embarrassed by Dowd’s insistence that Harvey is not only real, but extremely wise, and his seeming assumption that everyone can see him.   Unfortunately, at least initially, no one else can see Harvey, including Dowd’s sister, who, eventually attempts to have Dowd committed to an insane asylum.  In a complex turn of events, however, Dowd’s sister is the one who is (temporarily) committed and the doctor who examines Dowd not only can see Harvey, but finds him a very pleasant companion.  The film ends happily—although, until the very end, it’s difficult to know if Harvey is a figment of (several) people’s imagination, or real…

We know that the pink elephants were the result of accidental intoxication.  And Frodo sees the Wraiths and possibly a form of the future because of the Ring.  Harvey simply appears, as Dowd explains, and strikes up a friendly conversation.  Perhaps, considering those weird pachyderms, and the terrors of the Ring’s world, meeting a very tall and perhaps invisible but benevolent rabbit, would be a vision which we would prefer that we did see?  As Dowd says to the doctor:  “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.”

Thanks, as ever, for reading, stay well, and be sure that there’s

MTCIDC

CD

ps

Jumbo also inspired a famous classical piano piece.  It comes from Claude Debussy’s (1862-1918) Children’s Corner Suite, first published in 1908, and it is entitled “Jimbo’s Lullabye”.  Here’s a LINK:

(“Jimbo” appears to be a corruption, through the French pronunciation of “u”, of Jumbo.)

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Recently, we’ve been watching the old Walt Disney Zorro, first series and very much enjoying it.

By the time Disney’s version appeared, in 1957, Zorro had had—for film—a long history.

It had begun in 1919 with a 5-part serialized novella by Johnston McCulley, “The Curse of Capistrano”.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., a famous early-20^th-century silent movie star, appears to have realized the character’s potential and almost immediately appeared as Don Diego Vega (the “de la” came later) in 1920, in The Mark of Zorro, which, in our opinion, is a film still worth watching, if nothing else for Fairbanks’ own stuntwork.

(The Internet Archive has this—for free–https://archive.org/details/markofzorro-1920   We are big fans of silent film and the IA has lots of them, if you enjoy this one.)

After that initial film, a number of others have appeared, (here’s a LINK to what may be a complete—and rather overwhelming list:  https://zorro.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Zorro_Films )   including our favorites, the 1940 The Mark of Zorro

and the 1998 The Mask of Zorro.

Our boxed set was in black-and-white and, while we were watching, although it was great fun, we kept wondering what it would be like in color.   As a project, then, we thought that it might be interesting to do a little image research and come up with models for our own “colorizing”—and, as we did our research, we were rather surprised at what we found.

We began with the very elaborate Disney set of “Los Angeles”, about 1820.

(This is a beautiful Disney model of the downtown.)

This appears to have been mainly constructed of adobe—mud brick, plastered over, and the colors might have looked something like these—

And here is where our first surprise appeared.

In reality, this “Los Angeles” has almost nothing to do with the real Los Angeles of 1820.  Here is the original, in the first picture we’ve found of it, dated 1847.

And here’s the first photo (daguerreotype?), from 1869.

The major building in the first picture, labeled “church”, and on the left in the 1869 photograph, was consecrated in 1822 and, as “La Placita”, much changed, is still there.

The set model, perhaps because it is meant to be a Los Angeles of about 1820, doesn’t show us this, but the early illustrations also don’t show us any of the two-story buildings which appear in the model.  And, more striking, the presidio (“military base”, or cuartel, meaning “barracks”, as it’s labeled on the wall of the set)

is missing, as well.  What about the “lancers” as they’re called in the series?  Where were they living?

Our second surprise:  there seems, in fact, to have been no garrison at all in Los Angeles in 1820.  There were four presidios at that time in what was called Alta California, at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, each being the headquarters for a military district.  In reality, then, we presume, since Los Angeles was between San Diego and Santa Barbara—see map below—

that, should it ever need soldiers, they would come from either of those two presidios.

The soldiers who might have been sent were not technically lancers—although they carried lances, along with carbines, pistols, and swords.  Instead, they were dragones de cuera, “leather dragoons”, Spanish frontier soldiers so-called because they also wore a kind of leather armor and even carried leather shields as protection against the arrows of the Native American tribes they occasionally came up against.

Underneath the leather, however, they wore a uniform much like the ones Zorro’s “lancers” wear.

 

Because they could be attached to a presidio, they were also sometimes called presidiales.

As we’ve said, there was no presidio at Los Angeles, but we think that the actual presidios of Alta California served as models.  Take, for example, this map of that at San Diego from 1820

or this reconstruction of the installation at San Francisco.

In both cases, just like the “cuartel” at Zorro’s Los Angeles, there is a walled enclosure with a selection of buildings inside.

If the buildings on Disney’s set weren’t there in 1820 and there were no soldiers, we could still “colorize” them, of course, but was there anything which might match the actual Los Angeles of 1820?  And here we thought:  how about the citizens?  During that period, Los Angeles had about 650 people, many scattered on farms and the growing haciendas of the region, which became known for its leather, as well as for its grapes.

Images of people who would have lived in Los Angeles in the 1820s don’t appear to be easy to find, but we could locate parallels from those of two artists who worked in Mexico in the 1830s and early 1840s, Carl Nebel and James Walker, and, with the exception of the last image, these are all from their work.

Here are a couple of portraits of those at the top of society.

To the right in the second picture is a vaquero, literally, a “cowboy”, who worked for the hacienda owners, and here’s an image of several at work.

And we can add some folk perhaps a little lower on the social scale—

 

Then, as we continued our research, came our third surprise:  the Disney studio had been ahead of us in all of this, having eventually themselves colorized a number of the episodes!

It was a pleasure to do the research, however, and, even if the Los Angeles of Zorro wasn’t the Los Angeles of our 1820, it gave us a keener appreciation for the high quality of imagination and construction skill which continues to bring us—in color or in black-and-white—so much adventure and fun.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well and know that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

CD

ps

In 1924, The Mark of Zorro appeared as a novel.  Here’s a LINK so that, if you’d like, you can read it for yourself:   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61620/61620-h/61620-h.htm

pps

In our research, we stumbled upon this article—in color—about surviving Zorro/Don Diego costumes and we thought that you might enjoy it:

https://hollywoodmoviecostumesandprops.blogspot.com/2011/09/guy-williams-zorro-tv-costumes-from.html