AIR Update #2: A Startling Pink Glow
The first page from Acquisition 0176-1075. All 3 pages and a transcript have been posted.
This week in the archives, I stumbled onto a series of letters between two Victorian men. I took a bit of time organizing them at first, as they were all mixed together, but luckily there were clear distinctions in handwriting and paper color to help me sort out who wrote what. After that, I briefly skimmed them and put them in what I assume to be chronological order. I admit it was a fairly intuitive process – it just felt like what I was doing was correct, so outside the first letter I have yet to seriously analyze or read anything in depth.
Some quick research gave me a handful of insights and speculations surrounding the time these were written. Each piece of paper measures roughly 5 x 8 inches, which was a popular casual letter size for men in Victorian America (women used slightly smaller paper, because for some reason paper is gendered?) There is a waxy substance on some of the letters, which I assume was spilled by their recipient while crafting a response.
I have scanned each letter completely and will be transcribing them during the coming weeks. The handwriting at times can be…very tricky to interpret, in addition to being entirely in cursive, so I imagine this will take me a bit, but the content of the first letter alone assures me this is worth it. The scans will be added to the website’s Collection page as I finish up their respective transcriptions.
I will be taking the content of these letters and allowing them to inform my studio practice going forward – I am bustling with imagery and ideas based on what it described in this first letter alone. I’m hoping by the next update I have an example of a reactive work based on this story. Hopefully that makes all of this worth it.
The full transcription of the first letter can be found at this link It describes a fascinating encounter with something mysterious and enigmatic, which I’ve highlighted in this excerpt:
It was on my walk home that I encountered something I still cannot comprehend. It started with a voice. It sounded almost of singing, a bittersweet voice that defied melody but still resonated with some semblance of song. At first I thought nothing of it as I rounded the dark corner to my current abode, leaving the warmth of the gaslit streets to come to my now shrouded doorway. Perhaps it was a bird in the nearby woods, or a tone deaf woman finishing her nightly routine, or a lonely child swimming in their imagination as their voice traveled out their window.
But as I approached my door, it seemed to get louder. It was at this point I truly noticed it for what it was; something unnatural, something strange, something that should not have been. As it became louder, it simultaneously felt more distant. I do not know how else to describe it. It was as if it became an echo of itself yet it boomed around me – it was not the originator of the sound yet it became louder and louder. While startled I was not yet frightened. It was only when I turned to face the street I had once been strolling that I felt any sort of terror. The orange and yellow warmth of the gaslights were replaced with a rose-tinted glow. I felt it was the same color of pink that brushed upon the cheeks of my colleagues at dinner, whose wine glasses never seemed to empty regardless of how often I saw them drink. This rose glow emanated with a ghastly moaning, the same song without a melody I had begun to hear just moments before, but it was not coming from the gaslights. The gaslights were seemingly shut off to make way for this pinkish glow. It was moving from the street and into the alleyway I stood, illuminating with it the other door frames and windows of the narrow space. I made not a single sound while it approached my stoop, making note of the fact that I seemed to be the only creature who could even perceive of it.
In spite of the fear that gripped me, something about the glow felt comforting. It felt welcoming even. I admit I feared for the briefest of moments that this was death himself, come to take me from my mortal body and into my next life. Perhaps this welcoming atmosphere was meant to ease me upon facing my own mortality. Perhaps it was pink to remind me of my favorite carnation, something soft, maternal, and sweet. But it never reached me. As it encroached closer and closer, the glow itself never cast its light upon my skin or jacket or shoes. It approached me, then disappeared. It was not sudden, but gentle. It was as soft as a sigh. The shapeless glow faded away and took its uncanny yet beautiful moaning with it. The gaslight returned their warmth in response. I was left alone, painfully aware of how silent the world around me truly was.
The sound as Niklaus describes it is absolutely fascinating; something that evades a singular source point yet surrounds him. The “song without a melody” seems to describe something atonal – how I would imagine a pre-modernist person describing music full of dissonance and evading the Western 12-note scale. Something that is “louder” yet “more distant” gives me a sense of reverb or echo. It is triggering the former musician in me and I have to try my hand at replicating it.
I am also intrigued by the visual component of the pink-hued glow that crept around the alleyway. I have no idea what this could have “actually” been – it doesn’t sound like any visual phenomenon I’ve heard of. For a brief moment I thought it could have possibly been ball lightning or something similar but despite never being fully documented, it doesn’t sound like it could be that at all. Although there is a Magic the Gathering playing card that depicts ball lightning as pink, perhaps it was?
Regardless, I find this story fascinating and it is very much something I want to explore in my practice. I plan on creating a series of prints attempting to capture the visual miasma that Niklaus experienced.
To the studio!
Neil Daigle Orians • Archivist-in-Residence
