Näett louis d'or charbon de lumière ma nuit et mon soleil

[sovay]

handful_ofdust has Tumblr-posted one of my favorite artifacts. I first saw it in Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People (1985), published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated with objects from Met's collections. It was photographed from a slightly different angle then, accompanying a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor:

I want to say your name, Naëtt! I want to make you an incantation, Naëtt!

Naëtt, her name has the sweetness of cinnamon it's the perfume where the wood of lemon trees sleeps.
Naëtt, her name has the sugared whiteness of coffee trees in flower
It's the savannah which blazes beneath the masculine love of the mid-day sun.
Name of dew cooler than shade and the tamarind tree
Cooler than the quickly-passing dusk when the heat of day is silenced.

Naëtt, it's the dry whirlwind and the dense clap of thunder.

Näett coin of gold coal of light my night and my sun
I your champion have made myself a sorcerer to name you
Princess of Elissa exiled from Fouta on a catastrophic day.

(I don't know the translator. The original text is here.)

It was "Fragment of a head of Queen Tiye. Yellow jasper. Egyptian, Dynasty 18 ca. 1417–1379 BC" when I read about it as a child. I see it's now "Fragment of the face of a queen," her identity as split and partial as the curve of her lips or her eyes lost to the smooth cleavage of stone.

It's still beautiful.

Comments

[sovay]

Most of the time the work wasn't more interesting than any other cashier job, but at least on my lunch breaks I was in one of the most interesting places in the world, and I did get to meet a lot of famous people of the day, at least briefly.

I ran into Sam Waterston once in a convenience store. I was clinically dehydrated from a combination of stomach flu, all-night writing to deadline, and a general failure of common sense; under doctor's orders, I was buying eight liters of water and a bag of chips. Waterston was buying some snacks and an armful of roses for his castmates in Long Wharf Theatre's Travesties, which was opening that night. I told him he had really good eyebrows. (It's true.) He laughed without rudeness and told me to give mine time. I still think this is one of the most gracious responses a person can give to a compliment from someone who is clearly nearly hallucinating behind them in the checkout line.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

That's lovely!

I bumped into Alan Rickman, twice, about a year apart. The second time I said "You, again?" and he looked puzzled and I explained I'd run full into him coming around the corner at the Leicester Square Tube station and he said "Oh, pardon me," and bowed slightly and gave me a grin.

Which isn't a Met story, but it's the one you reminded me of. My top Met story was when Jackie O. bought her tag from me and the young woman working with me that day didn't know who she was.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Sam Waterston came up in this blog entry from John Lithgow (http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/learning-lear-we-really-are-putting-on-a-play/?emc=eta1), and with your story freshly in mind, I thought of you.

[sovay]

Sam Waterston came up in this blog entry from John Lithgow, and with your story freshly in mind, I thought of you.

"We spotted each other immediately, exchanged silent greetings from afar, and at the first brief pause in the action, I climbed down from the stage, ran up the aisle and gave him a sweaty hug. It was Sam Waterston."

Thank you!