Or the View Over Imalogos
Recently, I said (quite) a few words as a totally unqualified commentator about the recent cataloging of standing stones in the Neuchâtel region for a local radio. (No, I don’t know what I said, I never listen to broadcasts, preferring to spare myself the ordeal of hearing what I had to say from the outside as it were.)
Believe it or not, this modest canton has a concentration of menhirs that doesn’t pale in comparison with Brittany or Scotland, making it, along with the exceptional site of La Tène, a place worth pausing for a second to admire the view.
Not being an archaeologist or a historian, I am blessedly relieved of all responsibility for what I say…
I do love standing stones. They are stalwart, only great adversity can make them supine, otherwise they sturdily shrug off rainstorms and centuries. Around them time makes eddies and backwaters for drifting leaves like myself to gather in.
To stand near them is to have time wash over you, to pool in your eyes and ears and mind.
And, no matter where they stand, there is a lovely view, be it in a vale or a thick wood.
The place you see is that place that is always the same/never the same.
I love these places-of-the-mind into which you can never physically enter. I have grown accustomed to my statute of forever-foreigner, so much that even now in Canada I am not sure where I stand. When I can stand still, that is…
I am such a hopeless hiker in time. When alone, I cannot slow down, the urgency of so much to see keeps me breathless. (Isn’t it curious how much your eyes can see and never be full?) When in company, I make everyone miserable by my erratic progress and frequent stops to stare at things incongruous. In museums, I spend more time trying to find everyone else than I do visiting what is on display. (Usually they are in the cafeteria, nursing tepid coffee and impatiently consulting watches.)
That’s why menhirs are so useful. They are the “Point of View” or Lookout” signs that dot life’s scenic routes. “This is a place of some significance” they declare. “The view from here, looking out or looking in, is worth stopping for.”
To this end, I would like to coin a word. No neologism is not going to frighten me, even one mixing (purists quail in horror, but they are always flighty birds) Latin and Greek. My first entry in the Howe’s New English Dictionary (work in progress) is the following:
IMALOGOS im-à-lo-gos, n. the meaning of images (L. imago, image. Gr. logos, word).
An imaginary place, where images have meaning. The capacity of images to express meaning.
The place where images have meaning. On my maps of the mind, if Byzantium is where the all the images are, then when they travel they disembark at Imalogos, like bales of some shimmering fabric or sacks of spices. Or perhaps they wash up on the beaches nearby, to be gathered like bright shells by curious travellers and exchanged in far markets…
Besides, it sounds rather akin to Imaldris, Galapagos and Celephias, with a hint of Mythago thrown in. Good company to be keeping.
This spring’s excursions are already spoken for: we’ll be out finding stones to stand beside.
OF LORDS AND BRUSHES
The Canadian documentary is nearly wrapped up. The film has been slowly pared down from 2 hours to the required one-hour format (45minutes in the US, 52 over here, where viewers are deprived of seven whole minutes of advertising per hour…) and will be delivered at the end of the month. Personally, I am in that state of indifferent panic where things like this always place me – the fate of the laid-back control freak.
GETTING IN TOUCH
Just a quick note to say I have finally updated the “CONTACT” section with a brand new (and rather complicated) bit on the postal rates. Please read carefully before sending anything.
Otherwise, quite a few letters have been returned to me – admittedly, I took so long to reply that people have had time to mowe more than once. Sorry about that.
ON THE ROAD (AGAIN)
I’ll be signing books again at the bookshop La Dam’Oiseau in La Chaux-de-Fonds, on Wednesday March 16th at 4: p.m. There are also quite a few other dates of different sorts lining themselves up; I’ll announce them as they are confirmed.
The event in Bristol has been cancelled, by the way. So much for the song and tap dance routine Alan and I had been working on…
ON THE SITE (AGAIN)
Dom and I have been busy, adding new images to the click-to-get-closer function. Other features are in the works, so watch this space.
WASHING UP
Porcelain plates are the best palettes. Somehow, an illustration is like a meal – no matter how good the dessert was, you still have to deal with the dirty dishes… There are times when I’d prefer to frame the plates rather than the finished illustration.
