Letters from Radio Quotidia Lost and Found 1

Welcome to Radio Quotidia, episode 11. This month’s theme: Lost and Found, 13 minutes or so of music and musings. Quentin Bega here at the mic. I’m broadcasting from our studio in the depths of Quotidia inside a digital onion. My aim to keep you entertained for a while.

Robinson Jeffers in his poem The Epic Stars presents a modern take on the battle between light and darkness, The heroic stars spending themselves,/Coining their very flesh into bullets for the lost battle,/They must burn out at length like used candles;/And Mother Night will weep in her triumph, taking home her heroes./There is the stuff for an epic poem-/This magnificent raid at the heart of darkness, this lost battle-/We don’t know enough, we’ll never know./Oh happy Homer, taking the stars and the Gods for granted.//

Oh happy Homer, indeed! In the Christian Era, the battle between light and darkness is framed as a struggle between Lucifer and his fallen angels championing the darkness and Jesus with His mother and disciples leading the forces of light. A recurring trope in folk tales and literature is that of a tempter seeking to recruit another soul by blandishments and inducements. The Faust legend is well-known featuring in the plays by Christopher Marlowe and Goethe, as well as Thomas Mann’s epic novel.

The devil quotes scripture for his own ends as we know and I can imagine him quoting The Latest Decalogue by Arthur Hugh Clough, Thou shalt have one God only; who/Would be at the expense of two?/No graven images may be/Worshipp’d, except the currency:/Swear not at all; for, for thy curse/Thine enemy is none the worse:/At church on Sunday to attend/Will serve to keep the world thy friend:/Honour thy parents; that is, all/From whom advancement may befall:/Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive/Officiously to keep alive:/Do not adultery commit;/Advantage rarely comes of it:/Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,/When it’s so lucrative to cheat:/Bear not false witness; let the lie/Have time on its own wings to fly:/Thou shalt not covet; but tradition/Approves all forms of competition. In my treatment of the story, the tempter takes the guise of an old man hitchhiking. He performs no marvels but merely plants the seeds of despair where he can in his travels around the world. Do guard against his blandishments as you listen to A Brief Encounter, [insert song]

The premium placed on the value of feminine beauty kicks in earlier and earlier it seems- a sweet spot of the two decades between fifteen and thirty-five? Lamentably, fewer women than men older than this remain in esteem in Western culture. Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss,/This world uncertain is./ Fond are life’s lustful joys-/Death proves them all but toys./None from his darts can fly-/I am sick; I must die./Lord Have mercy on us. The opening stanza of Thomas Nashe’s, In Time of Pestilence, is as striking today as when it was penned towards the end of the 16^th Century. Beauty is but a flower,/Which wrinkles will devour./Brightness falls from the air;/Queens have died young and fair;/Dust hath closed Helen’s eye:/I am sick; I must die./Lord, have mercy on us. 

Sex and Death- as always, a heady mixture- and one supplied in copious quantities by artists down the centuries. The Pre-Raphaelites lapped it up. Founder of the movement, William Holman-Hunt, painted the Lady of Shallot entangled in her magic tapestry’s web as Sir Lancelot passes by outside singing Tirra Lirra. 

The Awakening Conscience, painted fifty years before, makes for an interesting comparison; there, too, is a mirror, a window and a beautiful woman depicted, but here, she’s on her lover’s lap as she gazes, transfixed out of the window. As I look from one painting to the other, I am, inexplicably reminded of those beauty pageants for pre-teens where mothers primp and preen their pre-pubescent daughters for the cattle-call. The song Universe of Blue, which follows details the future life of such a little one. [insert song]

Next week’s songs shine a light on two of the ages of love-young love coiled about by extravagant metaphors and love in old age which features, rather, a cement mixer!

Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone- Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 9 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.