vitriol

[vi-tree-uh l]
noun
1. Chemistry. any of certain metallic sulfates of glassy
appearance, as copper sulfate or blue vitriol, iron sulfate
or green vitriol, zinc sulfate or white vitriol, etc.
2.

oil of vitriol; sulfuric acid.

3.

something highly caustic or severe in effect, as criticism.

I will take it all: tongs, molten lead, prongs, garrotes, all that burns, all that
tears, I want to truly suffer. Better one hundred bites, better the whip, vitriol,
than this suffering in the head, this ghost of suffering which grazes and
caresses and never hurts enough.
Jean-Paul Sartre

he magazine you are holding in your hands is the result of an intersection of

forces, visions and communities. Quiet Lightning, Name Drop Swamp Records and The Emerald
Tablet respectively a literary nonprofit organization which began as a reading series, a record label
which serves as vehicle for Andrew Paul Nelsons musical taste and prowess, and an art gallery and cultural
center devoted to bringing back the literary and philosophical salon have joined up to create, and hereby
present, a cross-section of the moment in time that the San Francisco Bay Area creative scene is going
through.
Ive been running The Emerald Tablet
since 2011 in partnership with artist
and entrepreneur Della Heywood, and
more recently with the invaluable
support of Quiet Lightnings founder
Evan Karp. Located in North Beach,
the space hosts a rich programming
of artistic and cultural events as well
as rotating art exhibits. In addition to
hosting outside bookings and roving
recurring events like Quiet Lightnings
monthly readings, we produce some
things entirely in house. In particular,
we have designed several series: Under
the Influence, in which five performers
present work by a muse of theirs, paired
with their own original material. Call
and Response, in which a presenter
expounds on areas of their own
expertise, prompting an improvised
response by an ensemble of creative
musicians. And most recently, a series
of events known as Chemical Wedding,
which features bands booked by Name
Drop Swamp and presented alongside
authors invited by Quiet Lightning.
That last series has served as catalyst
for this new publication, vitriol.
It occurred to us that the peculiar
curatorial activities which bring
us to work together are creating a
space where disparate communities,
ideas and art forms can intersect

and combine, forming a single

multifaceted
experience
which
anyone so inclined can access.
Chemical Wedding is the crucible
for a three-way partnership between
The Emerald Tablet, Quiet Lightning
and Name Drop Swamp. We wanted
a way to acknowledge, record, and
build upon this intersection. On a
beautiful morning in Muir Beach,
California, sitting in the home of a Zen
master, Evan Karp and I came to the
realization that letting the live events
provide content for a periodical was
the natural next step.
Chemical Wedding takes its name
from a very unusual book, The
Chymical Wedding of Christian
Rosenkreutz, published in Strasburg
in 1616 by anonymous members of
the order known as the Fraternity
of the Rose Cross, or Rosicrucians.
The storys protagonist, Christian
Rosenkreutz, is invited to go to a
royal palace in order to attend the
Chymical Wedding of the king
and the queen. Throughout the
journey, esoteric ideas related to the
alchemical tradition are explored via
codes, riddles and allegories, and the
whole tale is itself an allegory for the
process of spiritual transformation
pursued by the alchemists. The union

of the king and queen hints at the

joining of opposite polarities into a
single reborn and perfected being.
In turn, The Emerald Tablet takes its
name from a brief and obscure esoteric text believed to have been written sometime between the sixth and
eighth centuries, and held in high regard by alchemists ever since. You can
read a rather elegant English translation by Isaac Newton, as well as other
renderings, by searching for Emerald
Tablet on Wikipedia. To keep a long
story short and to our point, the reason we borrowed this manuscripts
name for our venue is found in its second and third lines:

That which is below is like that
which is above & that which is above is
like that which is below to do the miracles
of one only thing

And as all things have been &
arose from one by the mediation of one:
so all things have their birth from this one
thing by adaptation.
This idea, often simplified into the
adage as above, so below is a standard
expression of belief in the ultimate
unity of the opposites. We referenced
it because from the beginning, Della

I ntroduction

and I had wanted to create a space

where things that appear separate or
disconnected can find and expose their
points of union: from dichotomies like
science/art, intellectual/emotional, etc.
to the various art forms and creative
avenues, to disparate communities
that dont traditionally communicate
with each other, to other more subtle
links, such as those between the
intangible realm of ideas and the very
tangible human existence we share in
the here and now. As above, so below.
And vitriol? One of the riddles
encountered by Christian Rosenkreutz
while on his way to the Wedding
concerns the acronym V.I.T.R.I.O.L.,
which stands for the motto Visita
Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies
Occultum Lapidem, meaning: Visit the
Interior of the Earth; by Rectification
(i.e. Purification) You Will Find the
Hidden Stone. The hidden stone is the
philosophers, the legendary substance
that can turn common metals into gold.
And rectification refers to a process by
which all vile elements are stripped
away, leaving only the most noble
of metals. Vitriol, to the alchemists,

was the substance by which this

purification was achieved: an acid that
would corrode all metals except for
gold, on which it had no effect.

A goal that transcends and outweighs

all the things you were supposed
to, but somehow knew better than
pursue.

While alchemy has been an objective

endeavor, now deprecated, that helped
form the basis for modern chemistry,
the allegorical reading of these ideas
is whats timelessly inspiring about it.
Towards the end of the Rosicrucians
remarkable 1616 novel, just as
Christian is closing in on the secret
chamber in the palace in which the
Wedding is to occur, he happens upon
another room, in which alchemists
are literally transforming base metals
into solid gold. Despite the lure of this
display of earthly power, our hero
knows not to stop there, because a
far greater prize awaits a few steps
away. Philosophical gold, representing
the evolution of the human self, the
crowning of our attempts to come
into being, the finding of the only
matter that truly matters: what does
not cheapen or rust over time, what
remains after everything else has
been destroyed by the ruthless acids
of temporal life, the vitriol of our days.

We dont mean these analogies to

provoke religious reflections, some
urge to save your immortal soul, or
the decision to join a spiritual group.
By now you catch our drift. There is
an alchemy in coming together as the
individuals and ensembles featured in
these pages do, at the happenings you
will read about. There is something
sublime, an essence rare, to be found
by those who wont stop at reaching for
the coin of the realm. There is a royal
palace that we can travel to, and as the
alchemical scholar Adam McLean has
written, all of us are eternally invited
to the Wedding.
If you have already accepted the
invitation, we hope that this magazine,
like its symbolic namesake, will be a
tool to take you some of the way there.
For the rest, may it be an echo of the
invitation, and a telling of travel tales
from others who have set out on the
journey. Onwards!

Lapo Guzzini is executive director of events and activities for The Emerald Tablet. In the years from 1996
through 2001, while residing in Rome, Italy, Lapo created video projections and installations in collaboration
with musical artists, developing conceptual and textual material as well as visual experiences for audiences
across Italy, Spain and France. Since moving to California from Italy in 2001, Lapo has been studying and
producing art in a variety of media, passing through painting, drawing, sculpture and ceramics to his current
focus on the written word. From 2007 through 2009, Lapo attended UC Berkeley and studied mathematics
and logic with leading experts in the field. He is a strong believer in the fundamental unity of the human
pursuits of reasoning and creativity. By curating the scene that gravitates around The Emerald Tablet, he
seeks to create a welcoming and vibrant community space for creators, a melting pot for all the multifaceted
expressions of the human spirit to intersect and find points of synergy. Contact him at lapo@emtab.org

JUN E - O CTOBER 2014