Monday, September 26, 2011

Queen Faraday goes barefoot


Some time ago, I bought princess glasses at Cracker Barrel. They're pink , with an attached tiara (with rhinestones & a rather strangely-orange "gem" at the top) & rose-colored lenses. Across the base of the tiara they say, "Queen for a Day." (So why don't I call them queen glasses? Princess glasses, I'm sure you'll agree, has a much better ring to it.)

Queen For a Day morphed itself, in my mind & mouth, into Queen Faraday, so I looked up Michael Faraday on wikipedia (go ahead, I'll wait) & read about his splendificy. There was so much I hadn't known about Faraday, that he was almost completely self-educated, bad at math, member of a strict religious sect (the Sandemanians) & one of the most important scientists of his (or any) generation.

Queen Faraday needed a first name, & I chose Emilia, for Emily Dickinson & Amelia Earhart--who they would have been if they'd been in a transporter accident. (Normally, I would set that phrase off with parentheses, but--for Ms. Dickinson--I used a dash.)

Her middle name? Blake of course, after William, poet & philosopher & artist & mystic. I like to keep the Tygers burning bright, in the forests of the night & elsewhere.

I tell you of this now because I am reading a biography of Michael Faraday. I believe William Blake will be next. I've already read a biography of Amelia Earhart, after I'd sold Growing Wings & the editor wanted quotes about wings or flying at the beginning of each paragraph. I also read the complete poems of Emily Dickinson at that time. I do look forward to her biography.

Blog alternative:
215. Create an alter-ego from admired heroes. Hat-shep-sut Da Vinci? (middle name Babe, from Ruth &/or Didrickson?)