The NYT Crossword in Gothic Miscellaneous: 2009

Friday, June 5, 2009

Stupefyin' Jones

Stupefyin’ Jones: A walking aphrodisiac; Stupefyin' was stunning - literally. So petrifyingly, drop-dead gorgeous that men who glimpsed her froze dead in their tracks, rooted to the spot - in a word: stupefied! Statuesque actress Julie Newmar became famous overnight for playing the small role in the 1956 Li'l Abner Broadway musical (and the 1959 film adaptation) without uttering a single line.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Loving Cup

A loving cup is a large, two-handled cup, often made of silver, that may take many forms. In the past, at weddings, banquets, or meetings, a loving cup might be shared by a number of persons for ceremonial drinking, symbolizing friendship and unity. Loving cups are often given as trophies to winners of games or other competitions.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Queen of Sheba

Lenore

Lenore
by Edgar Allan Poe

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! -a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river-
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? -weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read -the funeral song be sung!-
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her -that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read? -the requiem how be sung
By you -by yours, the evil eye, -by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride-
For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes-
The life still there, upon her hair -the death upon her eyes.

Avaunt! tonight my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!
Let no bell toll! -lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven."