Empty Voices

Anyone who’s ever found themselves locked inside their house for an evening, poring over old maps, understands the great fascination. Not everyone is drawn to a life in cartography, but maps have fascinated artists and writers for centuries. Maps are a key part of many works of great literature, and an old map of the world is often nothing less than a great work of art.

Destinations almost seem knowable when one looks at a map, but of course, discovering the place in person reveals infinitely more mysteries that are worth exploration. It might be difficult to find a Florida map these days that has keys to buried treasure, or lost cities, but there are traces that can be found.

In northwest Florida, the city of St. Joseph is now just a historical memory. But at one time, it was a city on the rise, and one with great promise. There were thousands migrating here, and it was also marked as a potential spot for vacations and seaside fun. In the mid-19th century, when it all boomed, it all fell apart at nearly the same time. Yellow fever and hurricanes took the population to half, and eventually the idea of a perfect city had to find its home somewhere else. This leads to questions of how contemporary cities are here for now, but there’s no telling what the maps of home will look like in another century.

When considering the history of ancient Western cities such as Rome, Italy, there are a few things that frequently come to mind. Generally, when thinking of ancient Rome, many people will associate it with Jesus Christ, Roman mythology, some of the ancient architecture such as the Colosseum and a few of the major political figures such as Julius Caesar. The other common aspect of the ancient culture that is typically remembered today is the drama of the time. And while the way plays were presented and how they were incorporated to society is entirely different from the way it is today, many of the plays from the time are still produced on today’s stage. Theatre is one of the popular attractions for many of the guests staying in one of the hotels in Rome and it’s particularly inviting when they have the chance to see one of the ancient plays onstage.

This is the age where the two genres of theatre known as Comedy and Tragedy were in effect and Tragedy had been written about as the perfect form of drama by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. However, the comedies were generally hits with audiences and Rome had its favored comedy writers. Plautus and Terence were the two primary comedy playwrights in Ancient Rome for which we still have existing scripts.

Plautus lived from approximately 254-184 BC and most, or all, of his comedies were based on earlier Greek plays from the New Comedy format. His plays were popular and generally expressed stories from Roman middle and lower classes. Terence was alive from either 195 or 185 to 159 BC. The most likely date is around 195 because his comedies had begun being performed around 170. He was bought as a slave by the Roman senator Terentius Lucanus who educated him and later freed him due to his literary abilities. He didn’t live long and wrote six plays during his career, all of which still survive.

The next time you’re in Virginia, put some time aside from all the theme parks and living museums, and check out a different piece of history at Fort Monroe’s Casemate Museum in Hampton, Virginia.  The fort itself was constructed from 1819 to 1834, although the site’s fortifications stretch back as far as Captain John Smith in 1608 who wanted to build a fort at Point Comfort, which was the colonial name for this part of the country.  Fort Algernourne was built here first in 1609.  During the war of 1812, though, after the capture and burning of Washington D.C. in 1814, the nation realized better coastal defenses were needed.  The first and the biggest of these defenses was Fort Monroe.  Generally speaking, a casemate, also known as a casement, is an armored building from which guns may be fired, from the original idea of a fortress’ vaulted chamber.  During the Civil War, the casement at Fort Monroe was used as a prison, where the former Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, was held.

Inside the biggest stone fort in the United States (not to mention the only fort still operating with a moat around it), you will find the Casement Museum.  To get inside, drive across the moat and provide your license and registration to receive a day pass.  The museum itself covers the history of the fort from its origins in the 1830s, the Civil War, both World Wars, to the present day.  You’ll be able to see where Jefferson Davis was kept prisoner, and there are also restored rooms that depict what life was like at the fort during the Civil War.  Afterward, you’ll be able to go on a walking tour of the fort and see more historic areas.

Many people who stay over night in the Hampton area have found this museum one of the best parts of their trip to the Hampton-Williamsburg area.  Indeed, going inside Fort Monroe and visiting the Casement Museum is a little like time traveling: You’ll find out about the famous people who were there, what happened to them, and why the fort was built the way it was.  It’s a trip that’s relaxing and casual, and, most important these days, it’s free.

Today, the Manhattan borough is one of the most vibrant, and culturally rich neighborhoods in the city, filled with parks, community centers, art schools, fine restaurants, theatres and many a best Manhattan hotel.   Across the country and around the world, the musical genres of Hip-Hop, Rap, Swing and Jazz, all owe their beginnings to this neighborhood and the times during the Harlem Renaissance.  Not only in music, but in political and literary history, this neighborhood, and the people who have called this home for many generations, have changed world views and society norms, through their art, their ideas and their progressive views on the definition of civil rights and equality.

Today, there are new businesses, new families and new housing developments on the rise, and this stems from, and is reflecting in the resurgence that occurred that time so many years ago, the time of the Renaissance, which began just following the American Civil War.  During a time that was still tainted by racism, many African-Americans moved North, in search of a better way of life, a livable way of life, and they found it in the housing developments of Harlem.  Between the years of 1900-1920, the African-American population in the city of New York doubled.

The newly arriving population, brought with them what all of the immigrants have brought over the years, their culture, their art, their ideas, their music, their ambitions and their talents.  During the 1900′s this became the epicenter for the nation, in the fight towards racial equality, supporting three headquarters for civil rights groups.  During 1909, W.E.B. DuBois, together with white civil rights workers and prominent leaders in the African American community, founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP.

As in so many of the streets of the city of New York, this feeling, this historical importance is written on the walls, on the faces, and in the spirit of everyone living in these neighborhoods today.  Take a walk through Harlem on your next visit, you will feel the vibe of a small borough of New York, as well as the vibe of a time in our nation’s grand history.

Whenever you see an antique stove — a Franklin or a base burner, or a parlor cooker, or a round top oak stove, and so on — you might not see the range of discussion that went into these ancient appliances, largely popular from the 19th Century to the early years of the 20th Century.  You might not guess a great deal of fuss went into these stoves and their various ornamentations, made out of everything from brass, nickel, or 24K gold plating.  In 1881, in the early days of the Old West, in fact the same year as the Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, back in the Michigan, people were arguing over the artistic value inherent in stove construction at the National Association of Stove Manufacturers in Detroit.

In that meeting, an artist, John R. Chapin, argued against ornamenting these stoves based on principles of art.  Here’s some of why he argued that nickel plated ornamentation on a stove was out of place: He gave the example of saying that a person’s eye sees first a stove’s fire pot, that the eye will naturally be drawn to the flames behind the grate or inside the open door.  When the person’s eye tires of looking at the fire, then those eyes will want something different — something quieter and calmer.  If the eye next sees ornamentation on the stove, something that also is glittery and glaring, it will affect the eye badly.  Instead of the rest the eye seeks, the eye will travel away from the ornamentation and back to the fire itself, agitating the eye further, creating, artistically, a bad effect.

The stove manufacturers were interested in this point of view from a couple of angles.  One, they found nickel plating stoves somewhat costly and were looking at a way to eliminate it; two, they felt undereducated in terms of the principles of art and wanted to know more about it.  If they could convince their public that less nickel plating was the way to go, from an aesthetic point of view, then it would save them money and time in manufacturing the antique stove.