Yet Sad that Her Frankenstein Had Become Just a Name, Like Dracula or Satan, Something that Stood for a Kind of Scariness, Good for a Laugh

Slide show is from yesterday's production of Richard Campbell's Frankenstein, a rock opera, the first musical I have voluntarily gone to see since the movie Tommy in 1975 with my cousin Jennifer. The lead guitarist is my friend Mr Alarum. We were told we could take photos as long as we turned off the flash, so I think it's OK to post that, if it's not please let me know. Planet and Earthgirl and Ari were particularly impressed with the monster, especially his spasticity when rising from the operating table. I was happily amused with the emcee guy - his voice, in the upper registers, the tone and timber of Geddy Lee. When I said so to Planet and Earthgirl and Ari they said, Who?

• No, no Rush song. Though the guy's voice brought back memories of field parties.
• Light links today, little reading last night, no time to read this morning. I might add some at links at lunch (or not) but there's plenty of links in Saturday and Sunday posts you haven't read yet if you want more.
• Yes.
• SCOTUS works for Triskelions.
• Relay failures.
• The stupor of power.
• New Inquiry's Sunday links.
• New York Review of Books celebrates Czeslaw Milosz's 102nd birthday with a collection of pieces by and articles about Milosz. I posted a bunch of Milosz poems earlier this year, use this label to read them. You're not going to, are you. Your loss.
• Empty space.
• Why being a POC writer sucks sometimes.
• Not committing to a Kate Bush song a day for July, though until I decide....
• Well, both Scarlet Tracery and Dave Mandl played the below Peter Jefferies's song within the past 24 hours and I can take a hint.

MARY SHELLEY IN BRIGANTINE

Stephen Dunn

Because the ostracized experience the world

in ways peculiar to themselves, often seeing it

clearly yet with such anger and longing

that they sometimes enlarge what they see,

she at first saw Brigantine as a paradise for gulls.

She must be a horseshoe crab washed ashore.

How startling, though, no one knew about her past,

the scandal with Percy, the tragic early deaths,

yet sad that her Frankenstein had become

just a name, like Dracula or Satan, something

that stood for a kind of scariness, good for a laugh.

She found herself welcome everywhere.

People would tell her about Brigantine Castle,

turned into a house of horror. They thought

she'd be pleased that her monster roamed

its dark corridors, making children scream.

They lamented the day it was razed.

Thus Mary Shelley found herself accepted

by those who had no monster in them —

the most frightening people alive, she thought.

Didn't they know Frankenstein had abandoned

his creation, set him loose without guidance

or a name? Didn't they know what it feels like

to be lost, freaky, forever seeking who you are?

She was amazed now that people believed

you could shop for everything you might need.

She loved that in the dunes you could almost hide.

At the computer store she asked an expert

if there was such a thing as too much knowledge,

or going too far? He directed her to a website

where he thought the answers were.

Yet Mary Shelley realized that the pain she felt

all her life was gone. Could her children, dead so young,

be alive somewhere, too? She couldn't know

that only her famous mother had such a chance.

She was almost ready to praise this awful world.