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Thursday, December 03, 2009

Nazis In The Bathroom

I was in the guest bathroom this morning when I noticed there were swastikas on the wallpaper. I happened to have recently been reading Billy Blake's How Sweet I Roam'd: With sweet May dews my wings were wet, And Phoebus fir'd my vocal rage; He caught me in his silken net, And shut me in his golden cage. He loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; Then stretches out my golden wing, And mocks my loss of liberty. and found the loss of liberty to be poignant, especially to us of the latter days of empire, who see even our saviors turn into the Pilates and Priests of our destruction. The paper had a pattern of Victorian durable goods on it, outdoor furniture, garden benches, engines for pumping a solution of nicotiana on the plants to drive off insect pests, forcing gardens, hothouses, and bird cages: calling birds within a cage / all the world is in a rage, or something along those lines... Upon an iron chair, the uprights on the back were flanked with 2 swastikas, one oriented right, the other left. What a joy to connect with the world where the swastika was the ancient South Asian symbol, and think not of Josef Goebbels, but Wilkie Collins, moonstones, and perhaps some possibly sinister, most definitely silent, lascar sailors lurking about the countryside while the gentry slept, secure in their beds. Nowadays, what lurks upon the moors? What hellish hound?

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