But you won't get away from the tune that they play to the bloomin' old rag over'ead

[sovay]

I caught a fragment of the funeral this morning: a black hearse at a slow march on a green field, a bell tolling and drums, bystanders watching through their cellphones. It is not really that the jokes about the Queen celebrating her cybernetic jubilee—Charles having expired of frustration in the interim—were more plausible than the fact of her death in the course of mortal time, but why else do we believe in fisher kings? I hadn't known she was married in a dress embroidered with ears of wheat, as though spelling for fertility. One of the commentators spoke of seasons of death and renewal, as if all the newly televised pageantry were some enormous mummers' play. I don't think I am used to seeing ritual on such a scale; that is the point of it. I keep thinking about people as links in time, as memory palaces. I wish it did not come so automatically paired with the thought of unmoored futures. Far enough down that way lies trying to glue time in place, to hold back the earthquake.

Comments

[davidgillon]

I keep thinking about people as links in time, as memory palaces.

Oh, that's an interesting thought, and I guess for us she was, there's a whole slew of identity, both personal and national, and other stuff, that the Queen symbolized for us for the whole of my life.

I hadn't intended to watch the funeral, but caught the procession at a point I thought was about 20 minutes from the hearse leaving (according to the Guardian's expected timeline), so thought 'I can watch for 20 minutes'. That ended up actually being an hour, but it was interesting to watch and pick out odd details - soldiers with rifles reversed, legs moving into curtseys at the top edge of the screen as the gun-carriage passed the royal staff lining the kerb outside Buck House, the precise choreography of removing coffin and royal standard from the gun carriage - including things like the sailors braking the carriage from behind sidestepping in unison to open up the space. That choreography must be stored in a document somewhere (or did they pull out the old newsreels?), to be learned anew by a new generation of servicemen and, this time, women. I'll admit I was a little startled when I heard the commands for the sailors on the gun-carriage given in a female voice. Everything stays the same, everything changes.

[sovay]

Oh, that's an interesting thought, and I guess for us she was, there's a whole slew of identity, both personal and national, and other stuff, that the Queen symbolized for us for the whole of my life.

I think it's part of the job, which I don't mean flippantly. And I'm not sure she's stopped. It's just that little further in the past, now.

That choreography must be stored in a document somewhere (or did they pull out the old newsreels?), to be learned anew by a new generation of servicemen and, this time, women.

I saw the gun carriage! It was remarkable. I was also curious how the pattern and the pace were transmitted and rehearsed.

I'll admit I was a little startled when I heard the commands for the sailors on the gun-carriage given in a female voice. Everything stays the same, everything changes.

I loved hearing her voice. That's the earthquake.