
Sound Dunes


Autonom@uz – /ôˈtänəməs/
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Onstage rehearsals for Georges Méliès unfinished 1910 film “Midnight Magic”.
jds/gpt 3.5
*This is a fictional account based on factual events. I assume no responsibility for corrections or for the suitability of this story for any particular purpose other than amusement.

During the golden age of cinema, amidst the bustle of the cobblestoned streets of downtown Paris, lived and worked the visionary filmmaker Georges Méliès.


Mary Eastey, gentle and methodical, carried a bundle of dried herbs tied with blue thread — mugwort, feverfew, wild carrot. Her sister Sarah Cloyce learned from her: boiling, binding, whispering prayers while the steam rose.
Martha Corey, sharper of tongue and mind, recorded the ailments of her neighbors in a tiny ledger. To the Puritan eye, these were women trespassing in the domain of divine providence.
The historian reads between depositions and inventories — ointments, tinctures, linens — and sees an early form of community medicine. Their “witchcraft” was empiricism: trial, error, observation. Each poultice was data, each birth or fever another page in a silent, collective notebook.
The village called it sorcery; the record calls it science by a woman’s hand.
A serendipitous visual project made with the help of Walter Holland’s musical interpretation of Max Ernst’s famous painting. This one born of chance, with no interpretation other than your own.
Thanks to Walter Holland for his kind permission.