Mythical Places and Calendars

Tommy Tran ttt_42 at mail.utexas.edu
Fri Oct 20 05:19:58 CET 1995


I hope you are all happy, I'm now again in my research mode, which was what 
compelled me the write that paper of mine.

________________________________________________________________________________

DANIEL: (Mythical Places
I found this at the following link:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/rajs/Shangri_La.html

>Writers have imagined and explorers have travelled afar before and since James
>Hilton first conjured up "Shangri-la" in his classic 1935 novel The Lost 
>Horizon. It is refreshing to know that the notion of Shangri-la has been 
>preserved over time, at least in pockets. While most references to Shangri-la 
>relate to the fictional utopia, I am taking the liberty, here, to give it
flesh 
>and blood and present the Himalayan region of the world, in its totality, as a 
>living, existing Shangri La, with a subtle difference from the original
idea of 
>the Shangri-la. 

Kubla Khan is one of my favorite poems, and is the original source for the 
legend of Xanadu.  This a quote of his own account of the poem creation:

"In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed (it 
was later found that he had been taking a from of opium), from the effects of 
which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the 
following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: 
``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden 
thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.''
The 
Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the 
external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he 
could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that 
indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as 
things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without
any 
sensation or consciousness of effort."

Here is a (slightly edited) list of refrence to Xanadu I had found
at http://www.aus.xanadu.com/xanadu/faq.html:
________________________________________________________________________________
What is the history of the name "Xanadu"?

* Marco Polo mentioned the original palace "Shan-Du", somewhere near
Beijing, in 
his autobiography. 

* Samuel Taylor Coleridge published the poem "Kubla Khan", ... in the early
19th 
century... [He] was interrupted while trying to write it down by the infamous 
"person from Porlock" who bothered him on trivial business and made him forget 
the rest of the poem. This has been disputed by scholars who didn't believe 
there actually could have been any more to the poem. Coleridge was inspired by 
the autobiography of Marco Polo mentioned in answer 7a above, which he was 
reading. 

* Orson Welles, in his famous film "Citizen Kane", named the palace of Charles 
Foster Kane "Xanadu" after the Coleridge poem.  It was based on the real life 
palace of San Simeon owned by William Randolph Hearst. 

* Ted Nelson named his World Publishing Repository (trademark of Project
Xanadu) 
project after the Coleridge poem, to suggest "the magic place of literary
memory 
where nothing is forgotten". 

* The secret hideout of Mandrake the Magician in the comic strip of the same 
name was called "Xanadu" (presumably after the Coleridge poem). 

* The rock group Rush released a song called Xanadu, obviously inspired by 
"Kubla Khan", on their 1970s album "Farewell to Kings". 

* The 1980 movie "Xanadu" starring Olivia Newton-John as a muse was also named 
after the Coleridge poem, as an allusion to literary inspiration. She also sang 
the title song. 

* Greg Bear used "Kubla Khan" in his 1984 science fiction novel "The Infinity 
Concerto" and its sequel "The Serpent Mage" (collectively published as
"Songs of 
Earth and Power"), in which the poem is considered a song of power whose 
completion would have vast political and social implications. The book also 
features a massive palace called Xanadu. 

* David Butler based the plot of his 1986 science-fiction novel "The Men Who 
Mastered Time" around the story of "Kubla Khan". 

* Douglas Adams used the story of the creation of the Coleridge poem mentioned 
in answer 7b above as a central part of the plot of his science-fiction novel 
"Dirk Gently's Wholistic Detective Agency". (highly suggested - Tommy)
________________________________________________________________________________

BJORN: (Calendar)

Here is something I found out of my encyclopedia:

>Year
>In ancient calendars, years were generally numbered according to the year
of a >ruler's reign.  About AD 525, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus suggested
that 
>years be counted from the birth of Christ, which was designated AD (anno 
>Domini, "the year of the Lord") 1.  This proposal came to be adopted
throughout 
>Christendom during the next 500 years.
>The 1st century of the Christian Era began in AD 1, the 2d in AD 101;
>the 21st will begin in 2001.

So a 537 A.D. artifact may be possible, espessially in a group of monks, who
would be quick to adopt such a standard, if they had heard of it.  This does
confirm your interpretation of the Latin phrase usage (AD first), though.

________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, here is the bibliography for my paper minus specific comic books
(Barks and
Rosa) (I've already taken too much space):

Works Cited
"Barks, Carl." Contemporary Authors.  Ed. Hal May. Detroit: Gale Research
Co., 1985.
Boatner, E. B.. "Carl Barks - from Burbank to Calisota." The Comic Book
Price Guide 
        7 (1977): A-37 - A-57.
Blum, Geoffrey. "One More Hurrah." Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge Adventures.
ns 33 
	(July 1995): 25-28.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton
University 
	Press, 1968.
Cocks, Jay. "The Duck with the Bucks."  Rev. of Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His
Life & 
	Times, by Carl Barks.  Time 17 May, 1982: 78-79.
Erickson, Byron. Reply to letter of Paul Kjoss. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge.
235    
     (July 1989): cover.
Holman, C. Hugh, William Harmon. A Handbook of Literature. New York: Macmillian 
	Co., 1992.
Merchant, Paul. "Epic." Grolier's Encyclopedia. Grolier Inc., 1995. CARL
Information 
	System.
Miller, Jim. "Lord Love a Duck."  Rev. of Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life &
Times, by 
	Carl Barks.  Newsweek 28 June, 1982: 76.




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