M.J. Rose

Seeing old photographs of these long lost theme nightclubs make us so very happy. Those were the days…

The awesomely insane Heaven and Hell nightclubs of 1890s Paris

(http://io9.com)

“In modern times, you can find a stray cabaret or goth club in most modern metropolitan areas. But back in the late 19th century, your options were limited, albeit merrily deranged.

Paris of the 1890s had several supernatural nightlife options, each of them with marvelously outlandish gimmicks. In the 1899 book Bohemian Paris of To-Day by William Chambers Morrow and Édouard Cucuel, the authors visit several of the City of Lights darker drinking destinations, such as the Cabaret du Néant (“The Cabaret of Nothingness”) in the neighborhood of Montmartre.

At this gothic nightspot, visitors pondered their own mortality as they drank on coffins and were served libations (named after diseases) by monks and funeral attendees. Recalls Morrow:

Large, heavy, wooden coffins, resting on biers, were ranged about the room in an order suggesting the recent happening of a frightful catastrophe. The walls were decorated with skulls and bones, skeletons in grotesque attitudes, battle-pictures, and guillotines in action. Death, carnage, assassination were the dominant note, set in black hangings and illuminated with mottoes on death […] Bishop said that he would be pleased with a lowly bock. Mr. Thompkins chose cherries a l’eau-de-vie, and I, une menthe…”

For the rest, and many wonderful photographs, click here.

M. J.’s  novel THE MEMORIST centers around the hunt for an ancient flute made out of bone that looked just like these and were just about as old…

9,000 year-old-flutes found in China

(www.ancient-origins.net)

“Researchers in China have discovered six complete ancient flutes made of bone belonging to the Neolithic period carbon dated to about 9,000 years old. Fragments of many more flutes were found in the same area too. The flutes are complete playable flutes made of the bones of the red-crowned crane with five to eight holes. The area that they were discovered is Jiahu of the mid-Henan Province.

What is interesting is that the music played through the seven holes correspond to a tonal scale extremely similar to the eight note scale used today. Although this sounds like a minor detail it is a very important discovery that is also quite amazing. The seven musical notes that we use today and the tone scale used have harmony that is distinct and is based on complex acoustic properties. Is it coincidence that whoever made those 9,000 years old flutes and generally people from all over the world (Africa, Asia, and Europe) were able to come up with scales reflecting all these acoustic properties just by simple chance?…”

See more here.

Were the Druids as sophisticated as the Romans? A new history argues that this may in fact have been the case!

A 1570 map of Europe, from Abraham Ortelius’ atlas (detail)

The Ancient Paths: Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe, review

Tim Martin has his eyes opened by an enthralling new history that argues that Druids created a sophisticated ancient society to rival the Romans

By Tim Martin

“‘Important if true” was the phrase that the 19th-century writer and historian Alexander Kinglake wanted to see engraved above church doors. It rings loud in the ears as one reads the latest book by Graham Robb, a biographer and historian of distinction whose new work, if everything in it proves to be correct, will blow apart two millennia of thinking about Iron Age Britain and Europe and put several scientific discoveries back by centuries.

Rigorously field-tested by its sceptical author, who observes drily that “anyone who writes about Druids and mysteriously coordinated landscapes, or who claims to have located the intersections of the solar paths of Middle Earth in a particular field, street, railway station or cement quarry, must expect to be treated with superstition”, it presents extraordinary conclusions in a deeply persuasive and uncompromising manner. What surfaces from these elegant pages – if true – is nothing less than a wonder of the ancient world: the first solid evidence of Druidic science and its accomplishments and the earliest accurate map of a continent…”

For the complete article click here.