Because I do not learn from past mistakes, even the most recent ones, I have a recent one to oops on. The admonition to trust but verify is valid. Something I have known and mostly applied. The times I don’t apply I pay the price. So do you in this instance. The last post contained ranting about The Odyssey. The ranting maintained that the essentials were omitted from the film. They were not.
Odysseus does indeed spend time on an island. Eight years in fact which does extend the trip a bit. With a real babe. And the Cyclops monster does appear. He does have a single eye which is indeed poked out by our hero. (This is to remind us never to run with sharp pokey objects.) The only rant that was correct is the part where the monster is told that Odysseus’ name is No-man.
Maybe this is enough about Greeks and Myths and Time for now.
*****
As for the Precious
Last night as I lay sleeping, I was awakened by a soft, light, unusual pressure in my stretched-out hand. It was that it was unusual which awakened me I’m sure. Coming out of the depths I realized it was the precious paw of my sleeping partner, the littlest cat, Lizzy Fig. One sweet paw placed ever so gently in my palm. Next the other front paw. I wrapped my hand lightly over hers. We lay like that then, until we each fell asleep in our time, safely. And that is the name of Joy. Beyond all words.
Much ado has been made of The Odyssey and I fully intended to see it. Then I read some of the reviews. This is not something I normally do. In fact my intention is to never read them but as I seldom pay attention to my intentions, I did. So. The most interesting to me was that two essential parts of the Odyssey were left out. (My essentials as I’m only speaking for myself here.) The essentials were the Siren Song and the time spent on the island with the lotus eaters and singers of love and lust and pleasures consumed and consummated. But to me the very most important part that I dearly loved was the escape from the cave and the monster because Odysseus told him his name was “no man.” Therefore the allies of the blinded one-eyed giant monster could not help him against Odysseus because when they called out to him asking who he needed help with, the horror responded with “no man.” Ha!
How clever. How enjoyable were both of those sections in their entirety. I don’t know or care who the editor(s) or screenwriters were, but they should be gone with the wind. And whoever else went along with the script as it is, (e.g. the whole production crew including director). I no longer have any desire to see the movie.
This is a photograph published by globalperspectives.info. It is showing when Odysseus blinds the Cyclops making him into a no-eye instead of a one-eye. You will not see this in the movie so I thought I would show you here.
How’s that for a movie review of a film I haven’t seen? I’m sure I could make a living at this.
*****
I am quite tired of the word “literally” being used, even when it is used correctly.
I am also quite tired of the text on facebook being a block long and mostly because the author is using the gimmick of one paragraph per sentence or word. Please. The emphasis is lost due to its very repetition. The same with exclamation points. Only one at the end of sentences, please. And certainly do not pepper every other word or sentence with them. *sigh* Of course it loses its power that way.
*****
Wired has published an article about the sun being blocked due to the effects of el nino. That is to say, the powers that be are considering the blocking. Because the sun has such a powerful impact on el nino and makes it exponentially worse than it would be on its own. This is not news. This proposal has been offered up for a few years now. Perhaps it is currently becoming more serious. That would not surprise me. What surprises me is how we do not learn from our past mistakes. Let me go on record here as saying What the Hell are you Thinking! There are always, always consequences unforeseen when we mess with nature. Just because we cannot see the repercussions does not mean there aren’t any. The Earth always wins. Mother nature is not cuddly.
Remember the culling of the herd of elephants? Culling is a nice word for destroying, killing, murdering. We killed these bull elephants in front of their babies, the baby bulls. They watched as their fathers were killed and lay dying in front of them. Okay, so there were fewer elephants to overrun the surrounding small villages. There were in turn fewer new babies to overrun the villages.
What they got instead was a herd of new bulls that overran the villages and destroyed everything in their path. They acted out in outrages patterns of destruction and terrorised anyone whom they encountered. Afterall, they had no elders to raise and teach them their role within the herd. They saw their parents killed, shot by humans. They learned fury. They learned rage. Some say they even learned revenge. Well, at least there were fewer of them.
And right now the Earth seems pretty pissed off at us. Let’s please not add to the chaos. Leave the sun alone.
“Oh, people have made a lot of my falling in love with Italy, and though I don’t deny it, I sometimes chafe at the idea—there’s an inkling of sexism to it, as if I’ve lost my head and left my real responsibilities behind to run off with the gardener. … When I was learning Italian, I wasn’t just trying to learn a new language—I was searching for something latent in myself, some greater personal and creative freedom, and I ended up finding it there, in a language in which I will always remain an outsider. It’s freed me from the trap of origins and prescribed identity, from the tyranny of authenticity and the myth of the so-called mother tongue. That, to me, is true liberation.”
–JHUMPA LAHIRI—Born this week in 1927
Lahiri authored many books, most noted are The Interpreter of Maladies, and The Namesake.
I’ve posted this here as I think our dear Jhumpa has captured perfectly the feelings of those who, in the end, move from visitor to citizen of another country. The expatriates of their home country. Or, as we say here in the U.S., the immigrants.
Funny isn’t it, how the change in a word used to describe something can so dramatically change the attitude towards the object. Or person.
Copied from a Facebook post. And, oh my. Good grief—what?
I’ve been around a few years and let me tell you—I was totally unaware of this. I also wonder why teachers (even in grade school) don’t tell students such things. Imagine. It could have made percentages interesting! I would have been joyous to know this. It would have given me the thrill of being a secret agent. A holder of secret knowledge. But then I would have told anyone who would listen. Of course I had to check this out by multiplying a few numbers. And then it was obvious.
What? number two: I ate breakfast at a restaurant this morning before going to the grocery store. I love restaurant eating. Not only because I don’t have to cook, but for the theatre of it. I’m sure that I must have discussed this previously. I must have as I so enjoy the sense of almost being a voyeur—and in public. Usually I hold a mental discourse to include myself in the drama I am witnessing. Not today’s fare. Today I watched a woman sitting alone in a booth. For the longest while nothing out of the ordinary happened and I couldn’t see anything of note occurring around us. I turned back to my book, [Run, A Novel by Ann Patchett] an after-dining habit I indulge while drinking my coffee. I glanced over the book just to check in with my subject while expecting nothing, and was met with a surprise.
She was sitting there rolling up remnants of the paper products—napkins, the sheath from a straw, the wrap from the eating service, and so on. Then she tossed them over the table to the other side and floor of the booth. Let me complete the picture by telling you she was an old woman with completely white hair and a blue sweater wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm from the cold of the air conditioning. The kind of woman whose mother would have slapped her hands at such behavior. The kind of woman who never would have allowed her children to do such a thing.
I started to laugh but stopped the moment I began to think of reasons. Could she be drunk? I thought not. Was she angry with the service? No, she had chatted easily with the waitress earlier. She might even have been a regular customer.
What then? The words we dread to use as we get older or have older loved ones. The words that float in and we push them away. Alzheimers. Dementia. But no, I thought. I couldn’t end with that. Good theatre wouldn’t end with that.
Ohhhhh…did I ever drop the ball. Somehow I managed to miss several comments that were made regarding past posts. One was actually from 2022. Four years ago! I am so embarrassed.
I have spent the alloted time for the blog today in remedying the situation. Of course I cannot. All I can do is offer some very late responses. A 4-year delay in responding! In my defense, I did not—absolutely did not—ignore the comments, I did not see them. And I did not see where I was notified. I can only promise that it will never happen again.
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 