 Thursday, May 13, 2004
BIZARRE: ClassCon, CanCon
I was just about to close up shop for the a.m. when a reviewish sort of thing of an opera called Nagano crossed my screen ... bizarrely enough, this opera seems to combine three of my interests:
Three crucial games are re-enacted by dancers with hip-hop moves, and a ballerina portraying a puck flashes her breasts to distract a demonic Canadian opponent.
Horrified when daydreaming Juan Antonio Samaranch passes him over at the medal ceremony, a team member faints and has a dream in which deified goalkeeper Dominik Hasek utrageously sung, entirely in Latin, by counter-tenor Jan Mikusek is given the crown jewels by Vaclav Havel. [More from FT]
ClassCon, CanCon, and hockey ... all in one post! Surely a sign ... Go Flames!
5:51:10 AM  
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY
ante diem iii idus maias
... on Lemuria, see Jim Tucker's post at Dappled Things
5:34:26 AM
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CHATTER: Trojan Roundup
Today's trip through the information superhighway's drive through window has a few items of interest in regards to some movie we've been talking about. On the serious side of things, an op-ed piece in Elon University's student newspaper does the 'drawing parallels' thing and concludes:
From the beginning of the war in Iraq, many Americans protested: “Not in our name.” Since then, doubts about the reasons for going to war, doubts about the evidence, doubts about the process leading up to the war—all of these have escalated. The French philosopher and activist Simone Weil called the Homer’s epic “the poem of Force.” She saw the human power to enslave others, to brutalize them, to strip them of their humanity as the true “hero” of the “Iliad.” It is a “hero” that is alive and well among us still. And while the system of military justice deals with the individual soldiers who performed specific acts, it would be well to remember that they are part of a military force acting on our behalf.
After that, we see that a preview piece in Celebrity Cafe begins with a somewhat jarring non sequitur:
Not since 2000’s blockbuster smash The Gladiator, has so much buzz surrounded an ancient Greek epic.
Folks who still want to read what film critics think (and or to see how well they know the original story) can read reviews from LA City Beat, Filmjerk, Press and Sun-Bulletin, The Age, and the St. Petersburg Times. Rather more interesting, though, is the New York Daily News, which has a nice little tidbit from the premiere party:
Greek to them?: Lowdown couldn't resist quizzing folks at Monday's star-studded "Troy" premiere party, "If you were a Greek god or goddess, who would you be?"
Some answers: Sean Bean, who plays the wily Odysseus: "Probably Zeus. He seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted to do. He seemed like quite a gentleman."
Garrett Hedlund, who plays Achilles' cousin Patroclus: "Poseidon."
Will Smith: "I'd be Negros."
Ashley Olsen: "I don't know."
U2's Bono: "I am a Greek god."
Last, and probably least, the Guardian seems to have inspired the Mirror, which has a quiz of its own today (see yesterday's Trojan roundup below) entitled "Is your man a Troy Boy?" ... alas, not Quizilla-like.
5:30:32 AM
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CHATTER: Bush as Pericles ... er ... Caligula
Seen in Buzzflash:
In the coming week, more photos of hulking soldiers assaulting bone-thin, naked Iraqi prisoners will explode in the media like dirty bombs, staining America's reputation and crippling its historical role as a bearer of democracy to the world. Bush's act as Pericles, the wise War President rallying a besieged nation to "stay the course," has reached its conclusion. He is now Caligula, the depraved adolescent-king of late Rome whose motto was, "Let them hate as long as they fear."
Of course, we've seen so many news sources suggesting President Bush was Pericles ...
5:14:59 AM
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NUNTII: Forma Urbis
Stanford's Forma Urbis project continues to get press coverage:
Stanford professors and students have been working to piece together an ancient map of Rome as part of the Forma Urbis Romae Project, which brings together the Departments of Computer Science and Classics. The project, which began in 1999, uses advanced computer technology to reconstruct “the world’s oldest jigsaw puzzle” — an enormous and detailed marble map of Rome as it existed in the third century CE.
The map, which is also called the Severan Marble Plan of Rome, has been in the hands of archeologists since the 16th century. The 1,186 fragments currently being catalogued make up an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the original, which depicted the ancient Roman capital in great detail. However, piecing together the fragments proved to be an enormous task. Before Stanford’s Digital Forum Project took over, archeologists working by hand found matches at the rate of about one every few years. The Stanford project now averages one match per month, compressing decades’ worth of progress into a span of weeks. [more from the Stanford Daily]
5:08:50 AM
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CHATTER: Greek Unibrows
From a style column in the Rocky Mountain News:
Pop quiz: Why did Greek civilization decline? Because the No. 1 sign of beauty in the culture was the unibrow.
To appeal to their Greek men, the women, if they weren't blessed with a natural forehead caterpillar, painted one on - thick and dark - or wore false eyebrows. The Style Matters theory is that their enemies simply couldn't tolerate the look, invaded Greece and destroyed the civilization.
This 'unibrow'-beauty-standard claim keeps coming up from time to time ... I'd love to know the source of it. I've never been able to find an image from the ancient world which depicts a 'beauty' with a unibrow ... unless you're into satyrs or cyclopses.
4:46:40 AM
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AWOTV: On TV Today
9.00 p.m.|DISCU| The Helike: Real Atlantis
In 373 BC, the Greek city of Helike was destroyed by an earthquake
and tsunami and disappeared into the sea. Modern archaeologists have
spent decades searching for the lost underwater city until crucial
clues finally came from geology.
DISCU = Discovery Channel (US)
4:29:23 AM
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