Berkeley Workout

Foray

Homer's Iliad: Anti-Indoctrination

Reading Homer’s Iliad is anti-indoctrination.  Is Homer praising war and heroism or questioning their value?  Is Homer advocating for the gods or calling faith in Zeus and his family into question?  Is Achilles or Hector the true heroic model?  Both? Neither?

Aside from the urgent questioning, we are given urgent empathy as well.  The Trojans, the putative enemies, are not the Other, but they are brothers and mothers, fathers and sisters.  All are mortal, and wrath is understandable, but not entirely justifiable in action and effect.

Read Homer’s Iliad and be mortal in the best sense.

Erikson's Fisher: "Clothes Remain"

Steven Erikson’s Poetry in the Malazan Book of the Fallen Series:
A Sample

One of the pleasures—and there are many—in reading Erikson’s Malazan books is the poetry that Erikson uses as headnotes to many of the sections and chapters.  The poems are presented as composed by characters (not Erikson himself, per se), and most of these characters are off-stage personae, not seen in the action of the various novels, but because the poets’ work appears over and over, the conscientious reader gains a sense of each poet’s character, each psychology and style, at least for the major contributors.

Here’s a favorite example from a favorite poet—Fisher—from the ninth book in this ten book series, Dust of Dreams (headnote to Chapter Nine).

Down past the wind-groomed grasses
In the sultry curl of the stream
There was a pool set aside
In calm interlude away from the rushes
Where not even the reeds waver
Nature takes no time to harbour our needs
For depthless contemplation
Every shelter is a shallow thing
The sly sand grips hard no manner
Of anchor or even footfall
Past the bend the currents run thin
In wet chuckle where a faded tunic
Drapes the shoulders of a broken branch
These are the dangers I might see
Leaning forward if the effort did not prove
So taxing but that ragged collar
Covers no pale breast with tapping pulse
This shirt wears the river in birth foam
And languid streaming tatters
Soon I gave up the difficult rest
And floated down in search of boots
Filled with pebbles as every man needs
Somewhere to stand.

--Clothes Remain
Fisher

TOP MUSICAL HIT: 14TH BIRTHDAY?

I've read somewhere--some meme, some random posting--that the top musical hit on your 14th birthday has a mystical, even fatal effect on the arc and outcome of your life.  My 14th birthday on June 19th, 1975, seems to have seen this arc of hits:


June 7 "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" John Denver
June 14 "Sister Golden Hair" America
June 21 "Love Will Keep Us Together" Captain & Tennille

I can check further, but I think America's hit was the one that matters.

I'm not sure how I think and feel about all this, but I do recall being both puzzled and drawn in by the lyrics and their delivery in that song so many years ago.



SISTER GOLDEN HAIR---------by the band AMERICA

Well I tried to make it sunday, but I got so damn depressed
That I set my sights on monday and I got myself undressed
I ain't ready for the altar but I do agree there's times
When a woman sure can be a friend of mine

Well, I keep on thinkin' 'bout you, sister golden hair surprise
And I just can't live without you, can't you see it in my eyes?
I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find
But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind

Will you meet me in the middle, will you meet me in the air?
Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?
Well I tried to fake it, I don't mind sayin', I just can't make it

Well, I keep on thinkin' 'bout you, sister golden hair surprise
And I just can't live without you, can't you see it in my eyes?
Now I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find
But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind

Will you meet me in the middle, will you meet me in the air?
Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?
Well I tried to fake it, I don't mind sayin', I just can't make it

Doo wop doo wop

Written by Gerry Beckley • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Auden's "If I Could Tell You"

IF I COULD TELL YOU

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

--W,H. AUDEN

Bottle-of-Dreams

That's Chloe, by the way, a dancer of Atlantis, so click the link to know more.