Three alternate endings to "The Odyssey":
1: Odysseus pops his head out from under the sheepskin seconds too early, to check for cyclopses. Squishing ensues.
2: After 10 years of plying the ocean, he takes a bath, and dies.
3: The ship runs out of food. Odysseus eats everyone, then gnaws his own leg off, before running aground. He starts a new kingdom where no man can have more than three limbs.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A little piece of what I'm working on
This is a little idea from my play (or possibly short story...? dunno yet)
let me know what y'all think if you get a chance to read it.
'A man in rags sits in a fucked up chair. On a table beside him, there’s a sheaf of papers and a dented, old, evil looking pistol next to a gnarly old box of bullets and a little battery powered lantern. A battered army cot sits next to the table. There’s a mirror, too. He takes the papers and shuffles them until he finds one in particular and puts it on top. He picks up the gun, weighing it. He puts it in his mouth, finds this uncomfortable, and moves it to his temple. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them after a moment, gets up, and goes to the mirror, putting the gun to his head again. He studies the angle. It’s not quite right. He adjusts it until he’s sure the angle’s perfect. He practices putting the gun up to this position until he’s sure he can get it without looking. Then he walks over to the lantern, turns it off and puts the gun to his head. He pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He turns on the light with shaking fingers, put the gun back with the bullets, and lies down in the bed.
Can’t get a damn thing right in this world, he says.'
let me know what y'all think if you get a chance to read it.
'A man in rags sits in a fucked up chair. On a table beside him, there’s a sheaf of papers and a dented, old, evil looking pistol next to a gnarly old box of bullets and a little battery powered lantern. A battered army cot sits next to the table. There’s a mirror, too. He takes the papers and shuffles them until he finds one in particular and puts it on top. He picks up the gun, weighing it. He puts it in his mouth, finds this uncomfortable, and moves it to his temple. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them after a moment, gets up, and goes to the mirror, putting the gun to his head again. He studies the angle. It’s not quite right. He adjusts it until he’s sure the angle’s perfect. He practices putting the gun up to this position until he’s sure he can get it without looking. Then he walks over to the lantern, turns it off and puts the gun to his head. He pulls the trigger. The gun clicks. He turns on the light with shaking fingers, put the gun back with the bullets, and lies down in the bed.
Can’t get a damn thing right in this world, he says.'
Thursday, November 13, 2008
"Everybody who made it through adolescence is a hero"
A hero is always the result of a challenge-- some overwhelming force to be fought and through great struggle, overcome, whereupon those left standing in some way transcend their old selves and walk newly baptized into a repleninshed world. I think anyone who's experienced them will agree that the teen years are full of such challenges...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Metonymy
Couldn't help but think how the american flag stands in for so many concepts, both for proponents and opponents. Stand in front of it, and an entire dialog takes place behind it-- one of patriotism, heroism... and so forth. Burn it or stamp on it, and you say something else entirely.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
To follow up from before, maybe nowadays heroes/heroines are recognizable only as abstractions teased out from what in the past was so clear cut and simple. Perhaps this is a consequence of the current range of all types of story driven media and the cross cultural nature of today's intellectual zeitgeist?
Still, when you look at any given example, can't you still see the thread that Campbell talks about? Even is the stretch is a long one, you can still span the gap between the ancient and the modern without too much trouble.
And even though "heroic nature" has become obscured by relativism (not in the pejorative sense, simply the objective...err... subjective... sense), I still sense a great connection between all kinds of modern stories and this taproot that is ancient myth.
I think it's ironic is that we've come so far from the ancient world, in some ways, but that we still inhabit and imagine stories that mirror those that are thousands of years old.
Still, when you look at any given example, can't you still see the thread that Campbell talks about? Even is the stretch is a long one, you can still span the gap between the ancient and the modern without too much trouble.
And even though "heroic nature" has become obscured by relativism (not in the pejorative sense, simply the objective...err... subjective... sense), I still sense a great connection between all kinds of modern stories and this taproot that is ancient myth.
I think it's ironic is that we've come so far from the ancient world, in some ways, but that we still inhabit and imagine stories that mirror those that are thousands of years old.
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