Where am I ?

The text on p. 13 and the illustration on p. 24 are reproduced from Paul Fletcher, In the Bull-Ring: Hot Air and Hyperbole in Antipodean Writing (Nelson: Shingle Bay, 1999), pp. 73 & iv.

The illustration on p. 14 is reproduced from Paolo Caneppele & Günter Krenn, “Infinite Distance in Close-Up.” Justine and the Story of O (Köln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 2000), p.15.

The texts on pp. 16 & 61 come from the Compendium of World History: Chronologies, Analyses and Biographical Data, ed. Siobhan Michaels (New York: Space Publishing, 2001), pp. 273 & 134.

The texts on pp. 17, 50, 62 & 64 come from Plato, The Collected Dialogues: Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, n.d.), pp. 1218-22, 1219, 543-44 & 1159-60.

The texts on pp. 18, 29, 66, 70 & 75 come from Stephen Sunderland, Soul Avatars (London: Arkana, 1991), pp. 207-8, 255, 151 & 123, 171 & 174.

The text on p. 19 comes from Devon Jennings, “Boob-tube review.” TV Times (19/9/03): 16.

The text on p. 20 comes from Jock Standish, Doctor Who: XL Glorious Years (London: BBC Bookshelf, 2004), p.iii.

The texts on pp. 21, 23, 40 & 78 come from Bela Seriton, Encyclopedia of Strange Phenomena (New York: Infinitude Press, 1995), pp. 234, 71, 173 & 247.

The text on p. 22 comes from John Flaxman, “Prophecies of 9/11.” Enigma (29/12/02): 29.

The text on p. 25 comes from Sisters, vol. 29 (11) (2004): 7-8.

The texts on pp. 27 & 49 come from The Sign of the Scorpion: An Erotic Mystery Story (New York: Black Mask Books, 1934), pp. 176-78.

The texts on pp. 30, 43, 76 & 79 come from Gabriel de Souza, Masters of Memory (London: Dion, 1999), pp. 296, 22-26, 17 & 14.

The text on p. 33 comes from Roger Horrocks, “The Invention of New Zealand.” AND 1 (1983): 9.

“Ithaka” (p. 34) first appeared in Tongue in Your Ear 8 (2005): 42, and was reprinted in Lorraine West & Stefan Kalleides, In Transit: Poems & Translations (Athens: Journeyman Press, 2005), p.18.

The texts on pp. 36, 56 & 72 come from Ivor Maskelyne, Egypt or Atlantis? (St. Albans: Third Eye Publishing, 1984), pp. 75-76, 244 & 124.

The illustration on p. 41 and the text on p. 52 are reproduced from Bud Plant’s Incorrigible Catalogue, ed. Laurie Woodum (Spring 2004): 75 & 25.

The text on p. 42 comes from International Newzbreaks (22/07/04): C3.

The text on p. 44 and the illustration on p.45 are reproduced from from James Churchward, The Lost Continent of Mu (London: Dion, 1926), pp. 9-13.

The illustration on p. 44 is reproduced from The Hutton Commentaries [http://www.huttoncommentaries.com/]

The illustrations on pp. 47 & 56 are reproduced from The Codex Nuttall: A Picture Manuscript from Ancient Mexico, ed. Zelia Nuttall (Boston: Peabody Museum, 1902), pp. 81 & 26.

The text on p. 51 comes from Jared Bolton, “Metonymic Imprisonments.” JOL [Journal of Occidental Literature] 9(2) (1987): 309.

The text on p. 58 comes from K. B. Ramananda, Buddha Consciousness: An End to Turmoil (New York: Helion Press, 1968), pp. 32-33.

The text on p. 67 comes from Mauricio Estebán, The Code-Breakers: Cryptograms and the People Who Solve Them (London: Sphere Books, 2001), p.128.

The quotation on p. 70 is from Alan Moore, From Hell (Auckland: Bantam, 2001), chapter 4, p.26.

The text on p. 70 comes from Jim Corbett, The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), p.139.

The illustrations on pp. 71 & 80 are reproduced from Robert B. Stacy-Judd, Atlantis: Mother of Empires (London: Dion, 1939), pp. 174 & 145.

Letter

Atlantis book – Atlantis book. What a fascinating idea! It always reminds me of the old Aelita by Alexei Tolstoy, a book which (in the Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House version) always had an incredibly magical feeling for me. In fact, recently I’ve been toying with the idea of trying to get it sent to me, as the chances of finding it here again are nil. Atlantis is great.

Did you think of using this new ‘research’ that traces Atlantis to this amazing Greek settlement on a volcanic island ringed by an outer ridge (annoyingly I can’t remember the name), which was subsequently blown up by a huge eruption? I think it’s on Crete that they discovered wall paintings under a layer of ash that had an almost map-like depiction of Atlantis, and the picture seemed to be of this ringed-island place, answering to the first major reference to Atlantis by whatever ancient writer wrote about it.

In fact, if memory serves me correctly, they reckoned that it had been the same eruption that did for the Minoan civilisation on Crete as well. They dated it by pottery-styles and stuff.

A diver went down to check the walls of the remaining hard ring (because the outer ring or another ring built up by the eruption still survives, though the island was completely destroyed), and reckoned that it was dangerously cracked and that another similarly-dangerous eruption might happen any day.

(All very inconvenient, of course, if you want to do a sort of Carl Barks lost-city-under-the-sea version of Atlantis instead, or Tolkien’s ‘Atalante’, Numinor sunk under the waves, or something).

[Loose page of an unsigned letter]

Tuesday

Amnesia

The popular notion of amnesia comes from media reports or soap operas. People are found wandering about, with no idea what their names are, where they come from, or about any other details of their past. This does indeed happen – generally as a reaction to stressful conflicts in everyday life. The memory is usually restored to normal within a couple of days. Exactly what has happened to impair their sense of recall is debatable, and seems to differ from case to case. What is most intriguing is that the precise form the memory defect takes seems to depend on their own preconceived views [*] on how memory itself functions.

Subjects seldom lose the use of their native language,
or the more-or-less subconscious details of everyday life:
dressing, eating, interacting socially – even reading & writing:

Perhaps the closest analogy is with “glove anaesthesia,” a phenomenon often observable in sufferers from hysteria. This is a form of numbness which extends up to the wrist, incapacitating the subject’s hand, but not corresponding with the actual nerve patterns which dictate feeling in this part of the human anatomy. In other words, it is the mind which has decided that the hand is paralysed, rather than any impairment in the actual somatic structure of the body. It is because we think of the hand as a hand (the foot as a foot, the arm as an arm, and so on), rather than seeing it – correctly – as part of a complex gestalt of somatic processes, that it is possible to conceptualise such paralysis. In the case of amnesiacs, how much is genuine failure of the memory system itself, as opposed to a simple refusal to remember,[+] is extremely hard to tell.

[The Home Encyclopaedia of Psychology, ed. G. O’Bannon, p. 20]

[*] See >Cannibal Worms.
[+] See >Hysterical Dissociation.

Atlantis (Etymology)

Plato (>Timaeus / Critias):

Atlantis[*] - named after its first king, Atlas[+]

North-West African Tribes:

Atalantes - names given by classical writers
Atarantes - to the inhabitants of regions
Atlantioi - near the Atlas mountains

North African Berbers:

Attala - legendary kingdom off the coast

Celtic tribes of Europe:

Avalon - paradise in the western seas

Basques:

Atlaintika - their mythical place of origin

Portuguese:

Atlantida - a lost land below the Azores

Canary Islands:

Atalaya - still a common place-name

Vikings:

Atli - Valhalla in the western seas

Phoenicians/Carthaginians:

Antilla - an island in the west

Ancient Egyptians:

Amenti - abode of the divine sun-boat

Ancient Babylonians:

Arallu - the western paradise[#]

Ancient Arabians:

Ad - the first civilisation in the west

Hebrews (Torah):

Adam - the first man

Sanskrit (Puranas):

Attala - “White Island” in the west
Atyantika - a final catastrophic destruction

Pre-Columbian Mexico:

Aztlán - Aztec (eastern) island of origin

Venezuela:

Atlán - home of the “white Indians”

North American:

Azatlán - Indian village on Lake Michigan

Malay:

Luca Antara - great mythical South Land[~]

Latin:

Antarctica - frozen since the poles shifted
Antipodes - counterbalance to the old world
Australia - great southern land
Aotearoa - Land of the Long White Cloud

[N. Driscoll, Atlantis: A Conspiracy Revealed, pp. 19-21]

[*] See >Atlantis (Location).

[+] See >Ventris, Michael.

[#] See >Quarles’ Book of Emblems.

[~] See >Mu.

Where am I ?

The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis

Index

The R.E.M. Trilogy (1997-2008)

Nights with Giordano Bruno

E M O (2008)

EMO

Wednesday

Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Letter

Table of Synapses

Tuesday

A

Atlantis (Etymology)