{"id":42982,"date":"2024-10-22T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=42982"},"modified":"2024-10-17T16:11:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T23:11:38","slug":"helikon-the-unexpected-love-story-of-alfred-fiddleduckling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/helikon-the-unexpected-love-story-of-alfred-fiddleduckling\/","title":{"rendered":"Helikon \/ The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Books That Belong On Paper<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.<\/em>\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get the issues a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HELIKON HATH NO FURY LIKE A MUSE SCORNED<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Helikon, The Muses of Chuck Sperry<\/em>
by Chuck Sperry, Foreward by Charles Bock
Hangar 18
2017, 136 pages, 9.0 x 12.0 inches, Hardcover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a familiar sight at Widespread Panic, Black Keys, Umphrey\u2019s McGee, Pearl Jam, and Dave Matthews concerts \u2014 a crush of people, mostly guys, some with poster tubes slung over their shoulders, crowding around the merch booth even before taking their seats, hoping to score the latest limited-edition screen print of a fetching, scantily clad babe by artist Chuck Sperry. A few years back, Sperry\u2019s \u201cladies,\u201d as these pieces are known among some rock-poster collectors, were likely mistaken for multi-colored updates of the hippie chicks that occasionally populated the 1960s psychedelic Fillmore and Avalon posters of Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, and the late Alton Kelley. Those artists often took their inspiration from Art Nouveau-era legends like Alphonse Mucha and Jules Cheret, and Sperry\u2019s ladies certainly mine that territory, too. But according to a gorgeous and meditative self-published monograph titled Helikon, Sperry\u2019s muses go back much further than the late 19th century, by a factor of a few thousand years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posing in little more than their flowing hair, amid flowers, stars, and damask backgrounds whose patterns also adorn their silver flesh, Sperry\u2019s muses take their names from the Orphic Hymns, which were composed as long ago as the third century B.C. In Helikon, which takes its name from the mountain in Greece where the impact of Pegasus\u2019s hooves are said to have created the springs that gave birth to the three original muses, Sperry pairs photographs of his beauties, printed on oak or birch panels, with their corresponding Orphic Hymns, song lyrics by English rocker Nick Cave, and poems by Ovid, Homer, and Hesiod, along with a few more contemporary sources. The resulting mood is as far removed as it could be from the bedlam at the merch booth. Instead, we are invited to linger and read \u2014 God help us \u2014 the ancient poetry that has inspired Sperry\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading this book about images, it turns out, is important, though not unconditionally. For example, in his foreword to Helikon, Charles Bock begins with this probably accurate prediction: \u201cOdds are, you won\u2019t read this.\u201d In the scheme of things, skipping Bock\u2019s intro won\u2019t be the end of the world, whereas not reading the poems and prose accompanying Sperry\u2019s muses would be a major mistake. Poems take time to read, and longer to digest. Some must be read more than once, and none can be read while multitasking. In Helikon, the words transport us, allowing us to see Sperry\u2019s work through fresh, yet ancient, eyes. Importantly, they drive from our minds thoughts of the transitory \u2014 that Tethys was first introduced to the world as a Dave Matthews poster; that Artemis and Naiad made their debuts before fans of the Black Keys; that Olympia, Daphne, Semele, and Thalia were Panic ladies before they were Sperry\u2019s muses. \u201cImpatient of yoke, the name of bride, She shuns, and hates the joys, she never try\u2019d,\u201d Ovid tells us of Daphne. Somehow, \u201cWidespread Panic, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Jerry Joseph. Friday, June 20, 2014, Chicago, Illinois. FirstMerit Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island\u201d doesn\u2019t have quite the same ring to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Ben Marks<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A NEWLY HATCHED DUCKLING IMPRINTS ON A FIDDLE \u2014 EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling<\/em>
by Timothy Basil Ering
Abrams ComicArts
2017, 240 pages, 6.9 x 1.0 x 9.4 inches, Hardcover<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timothy Basil Ering\u2019s The Unexpected Love Story of Alfred Fiddleduckling<\/em> is a beautiful book. It is an unconventional, charming love story with a refrain of \u201cunexpected\u201d events and realizations for both the characters within it and the young audience following Alfred Fiddleduckling\u2019s adventures. Ering\u2019s writing is exact and almost understated at times (\u201cIt was a storm. A big one.\u201d), illustrated with paintings that are steeped in mood, sea fog, and the light of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfred Fiddleduckling got his name when he was still an egg, nestled safely in Captain Alfred\u2019s fiddle case, a special gift for the captain\u2019s wife on a journey home across the sea. His namesake (who, in addition to being a fiddler and a sailor, is also a farmer), is on his way home from procuring some new ducks when a storm blows in unexpectedly, leaving Alfred Fiddleduckling to hatch alone and adrift in the empty wet velvet interior of the fiddle case. He imprints on the only object floating nearby, the fiddle. But, unlike the traditional newly hatched bird finds and blindly follows a mother, no matter what creature she may be plot, Alfred Fiddleduckling and the farmer\u2019s fiddle develop a different and deeper instant connection, a relationship that truly sings. Through the music they make together, the duckling and his instrument inadvertently pick up the broken pieces of the shipwreck and bring their ragtag flock back together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Mk Smith Despres<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 37<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[2398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43003,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42982\/revisions\/43003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}