Robert’s Time Capsule: Prussianian Art and More!
Success! Combing through his archives, Robert has unexpectedly uncovered several yellowing manuscripts from his own proto-Muser days, including a veritable trove of peasant art from the mysterious floating island of Prussiania. Read on…
(Robert’s annotations are below each image.)
This clearly represents some dreadful conqueror out of ancient Prussianian history, standing triumphant on the piled-up bodies of his human and armadillo foes and flanked by stylized trees. He might be part armadillo himself, or perhaps he is just wearing armadillo-carapace armor. Or is that a cape? I’m afraid his name is lost to memory, unless some contemporary notes turn up in the archives. Could he be the legendary Metamucil?
This one does have notes, titled Recent Peasant Work Uncovered in Hemophilia. Row One is identified as follows: “Two armadillo officials point the way to a begging pariah [peasant] in Bacterian (prob.) mud-fields. Overhead floats a zeppelin while a mud-digger digs in the background.” Row Two is a satire on Prussianian court life. Nobles pick one another’s pockets, but the King’s pocket is padlocked. At right, two peasant servants carry in the Armadillo Vizier, clearly a personage of some importance.
This is a scene from everyday life. Peasants capture and cook a sea turtle for a nobleman, who rejects it. They cast it back into the sea. It’s clearly a commentary on the futility of life for the average Prussianian.
Now we get a glimpse of Prussianian religion. The accompanying notes describe this picture as follows: “Cloud-gatherer Voltus [god of lightning, storms, and electricity] (with male and female plug and socket in hands), earth-mother Athea sitting on the flat world, and sweating [sun god] Solarcaine. They here depict the well-known myth of the courtship of Athea: Solarcaine offers the sun-bowl to Athea, who indignantly scorns his advances and runs to Voltus.”
This depicts the Prussianian conception of the afterlife. In the top row, the mud-digging peasant sweats under the yoke of the haughty king and the cruel whip-wielding strawboss. At right, he dies and descends (head first) into the underworld. In the second row, an anthropomorphic armadillo-headed god resembling the Egyptian Anubis judges his soul by flipping a coin and sends it to its next life (row 3). It’s clearly a commentary on the futility, etc.
This has nothing to do with Prussiania. It’s a Peanuts spoof that reflects my obsession with the Lord of the Rings. Note that I signed it in both Elvish Tengwar characters and Dwarvish Angerthas runes.
Back to Prussiania and the piece de resistance: a map! I was hoping something like this would turn up. It shows just part of the island; I don’t remember how much more there was. It must be a fairly early map; later on, Malaria and Diphtheria were combined into Phantasmagoria. Later still, the nobility got fed up with the king and fled to a nearby (non-floating) archipelago — but that’s a different story.
There’s more…
Date: March 24, 2010
Categories: Nonrandom Craziness, Prussiania, Sound and images, Time Capsules
