Classics in Contemporary Culture

Prog Rock's Blessed Afterlife

A band slated to kick off this weekend's "Mountain Jam" (Hunter, NY) is called "Elysian Theory"; guitarist Tim Reid explains their name as follows:

Reid said in Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields in Elysium, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. Medieval poet, Dante Alighieri, based Canto IV of “The Divine Comedy” (The first circle of Hell; the Virtuous Heathen; Limbo) on the mythological Elysian Fields.

“We’d been trying to come up with a name and ‘Elysium’ just resonated with us,” Reid said. He said the name is particularly apt, since the band often writes about spiritual issues, but he delineated the spiritual from the religious.

And, “theory,” felt right, interjected Feeney, since matters of spirituality are perceived by some as a philosophy or theory. Both words have multiple layers of meaning, he said. Reyes, Reid and Feeney, the original members, selected the name.

Their music? A blend of old & new:

Reyes said the band’s music, loosely defined as “progressive rock,” is intended to transport listeners to another time and place that’s individual to each listener. He said Elysium Theory strives to capture that sensation by mixing passionate playing with technical skill and draws on both classic and modern influences.

Reid said the band writes its own songs, music it likes listening to, but also performs classics by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Who, Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree. “We’ve created a sound that is familiar and new, challenging, yet easy to listen to,” he said.

Hydrocracy

The link between natural resources and cut-throat politics...observed by the premier Greek choral lyric poet?  Here's Bill Hatch at counterpunch.org, showing off some Latin & Greek-itude:

However, homo californiensis cannot change the weather any better than King Oedipus could. The San Luis – Delta Mendota water Authority uses as its slogan the first line of the first poem of the ancient Greek athlete-loving poet, Pindar: “The noblest of the elements is water.” Aside from the little chemical mistake, not made by Pindar, that water is a compound and not an element, the shrewd agribusiness water thieves of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley did not complete Pindar’s clause, “while gold, like fire flaming at night, gleams more brightly than all other lordly wealth …”

Deus ex machina vs. Anime

An essay on io9.com--disturbed over the use of God or other supernatural forces in bringing recent television series to a close (Lost, Battlestar Galactica)--compares Aeschylus' Oresteia and Aristotle to the experience of writing anime:

These stories come from an inherently conservative point of view: everyone has a place to stand and a part to play, and attempts to step outside those boundaries can only result in pain and suffering. You'll notice that stories about God commonly involve triumph over the self, not triumph over an oppressive regime - Arjuna never once thinks that he should share his riches with the lower castes, or that he'll unseat the monarchy once he wins the battle. Doing so would overturn the "natural" order of his environment. Arjuna's kingdom, once he wins it, will continue to rely on slavery to sustain itself - because that's how Krishna wants it. God's role in these stories is a conservator, one who might snip off poisoned buds or gently nudge humans in one direction or another in attempt to preserve that which is good and right, without radically altering anything. God conserves the status quo, and we're supposed to take comfort in that: a place for everyone, and everyone in their place.

Recent American television finales have embraced this logic. The endings of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battlestar Galactica, and LOST all involve a divine figure returning balance to an earthly equation by repeating an ancient pattern. The Avatar achieves his final state and the four nations again live in harmony. Humans create Cylons, battle Cylons, and become Cylons. The Island calls people in need of personal change, gives it to them, then lets them go (to Heaven) before calling another group. All of this has happened before, and will happen again. The pattern doesn't change, it simply repeats.

Another word for "repetition" is "letdown."

As far back as Aristotle, critics and audiences have measured the quality of a story by (among other things) whether it has a discernible beginning, middle, and end. Things must change. The characters must be in a different place than before, and the audience must feel for them. Traditionally, this comes about as a result of the character making a choice or taking an action that has consequences, and then suffering through them. Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia so that his ships might sail to Troy, and Clytemnestra retaliates by murdering him. Hamlet refuses to kill Claudius when he has the chance, and he (and everyone else) dies. Rochester lies to Jane about his marriage, and loses her. Meursault kills the Arab, then awaits his execution. Consequences follow actions. Stories progress. Circumstances change. Characters grow.

But lately on American television, they haven't. Lately, all tension has been drained from their actions, and all opportunities for choice have been robbed from them by fate. Does it matter that humans created Cylons? Not really. They did it because God wanted them to. Does it matter that the Losties all had issues with their parents that they needed to overcome before they could be whole? Nah. They were all in Purgatory, anyhow. Does it matter that Aang had lost access to the Avatar State? No - apparently stray rocks can unblock his chakra. (That's right, kids: Aang works like the Millennium Falcon - a well-placed punch can bring his circuits back online.)

Gryllus to the Rescue

A noteworthy book for young people:  The Pig Scrolls, by Paul Shipton (2005).  Looks like fun!  Here's a summary from a Library Science website (?) [pdf]:

This hilarious story is set in Ancient Rome. Gryllus, who was once a crewman of Odysseus, tells how he was transformed into a pig and then chosen to save the world. Circe had turned Odysseus’s crew into pigs, but when she changed the crewmen back into their original forms, Gryllus, who was enjoying his life of leisure, elected to stay a pig. Unfortunately, his quiet life in the woods was interrupted one day by Sibyl, who informed Gryllus that he had been chosen by Apollo to save the cosmos. Gryllus thought Sibyl was crazy and ignored her, so Sibyl kidnapped him. On their journey to Delphi, they encountered monsters, gods, a strange goat herder and a man wearing trousers. Gryllus came to realize that the fate of the world really was in the hooves of a talking pig.

I'm not sure where I picked up this reference, but I've been meaning to post this for a while now...

Classic Comics

Some nice Classically-themed comics by Luke Surl; for example, this one on Prometheus:

See also: 

• Atlas Shrugged
• Minotaur Myth-Busted
• Ad Hominem 

Late Antiquity in Film: Constantine and the Cross

The other day, I watched Constantine and the Cross (Costantino il Grande), a 1962 Italian screen version of the story of Constantine...Hmm...what to say about it?  As you might guess from the era, it's similar in some ways to the overdubbed, dime-a-dozen sword & sandal films about Hercules etc., but it does stand out as somewhat better.  The quality of the DVD was not particularly high, and there was the requisite "In Hoc Signo Vinces" moment--very much a traditionalist, pro-Constantine version of the story...No labarum that I saw, though.

Pro-Constantine:  For example, the plot accepts as fact the idea that Maximian tried to kill Constantine but was forestalled by the substitution of someone else in Constantine's bed--after which Maximian killed himself--rather than some more nefarious / ruthless construction of the rising leader's actions...

Not exactly the historical Constantine overall...but not pure fantasy either.  Some bending of history for dramatic purposes:  Constantine's first contact with Christians apparently is when he asks one of the Christians on trial some questions...and it turns out that the Christian in question is really his mother!  Eusebius, by contrast, reports that Constantine converted Helena to Christianity--but of course, Eusebius definitely has a dog in the fight...

From Philip Sawyer's online review of the movie--an excerpt:

As Italian epics go, this is diverting and occasionally thought-provoking. Some scenes are impressive, mainly because of the widescreen framing, but the direction by Lionello De Felice can only be described as serviceable. The sets are quite spectacular, and I would not be surprised if most of them were real historical locations rather than studio creations. The staging of the battle scenes is fairly ordinary and as a result not very exciting.

The script is relatively free of melodramatics as compared to similar American films of the time, and thankfully does not push the religious elements strongly.

And a conclusion:

A reasonably interesting epic from the early 1960s, this might be worth a rental if you are not deterred by poor quality prints.

Geminae Belli Portae

You've heard of "Generation Z"; you've heard of the "Millenials"...Well, the new term to describe these alternately ambitious and lazy up-and-comers (or not) is the "Janus Generation"...or so argues Jerry Pattengale in Inside Higher Ed. The article begins with a pair of anecdotes:

"Students today are so industrious!" My colleague blurted this after learning students had replaced labels on their water bottles with exact replicas — but with the test answers typed in the ingredients section.

However, another colleague disagreed with any positive attribute for today’s students. She recently summoned a failing Comp 101 student to inquire about his surprisingly excellent final paper. After he repeatedly claimed to have written "every word," she replied, "Then I have just one final question. Young man, exactly when did you have your abortion?" She concluded, "Students today are lazy. For 40 years I’ve caught students copying papers — but at least they had read them first!"

Some further snippets:

Student characteristics that appear as "laziness" to some are categorized as "technologically preoccupied" to others. "Entertainment" for one professor is labeled "sophistication" by another.

...

The Janus Generation faced another reality, the coming and going of troops. The two faces of the god Janus had appeared on opposite sides of Rome’s War Gates (or, the Gates of Janus, the god of doorways and beginnings, the namesake of January). Emperors bragged if these gates were shut (time of peace) and not open (time of sending to battle as Janus watched in both directions).

...

Janus was also known as the god of doorways and beginnings, and our students need these. From Kohn’s 1993 warning through Jossey-Bass’s recent release, Helping Sophomores Succeed, the key is helping them to find their life calling and sense of purpose. Whether we see the face of laziness or sophistication, nearly all major studies show a student core interested in spirituality and purpose. I have come to conclude that "the dream needs to be stronger than the struggle," and when students commit to causes they deem worthy they are more likely to succeed.

[Thanks to JMM at Classics-L]

Sapphic Songs

Bernard Rands' new vocal setting of fragmentary poems by Sappho, now again, was performed at the University of Chicago's Harris Theatre (in the "Contempo" concert series)--it sounds pretty interesting:

Scored for mezzo-soprano soloist with backing septet, now again draws upon Paul Roche’s translations and free renderings of the few surviving fragmented stanzas of the celebrated yet historically nebulous poet of Lesbos. The score is less a dramatic song cycle than a reflective meditation, painting a spare, melismatic evocation of the broken, elliptical texts.

Yet Rands’ luminous music is consistently compelling and ear-catching, lyrical yet cast with neo-Classical restraint as with the bardic opening for solo harp that introduces the words “Far sweeter-tuned / than a lyre/ Golder than gold / softer than velvet.” Rands adds pointillist dashes of trumpet, flute and percussion amid effective use of an echoing soprano and alto (Amy Conn and Nina Heebink).

Susanne Mentzer proved a fine advocate for this music, her dark-hued voice assaying the leaps and challenges of the restless vocal line and conveying the texts’ sensuality and expressive nuance. Conductor Cliff Colnot brought his usual meticulous preparation and concentrated direction to the score, allowing all the crystalline subtleties to register.

Coming Soon...Romans in Scotland

Slated for release in theatres in 2010 (at least in Russia? [imdb]), The Eagle of the Ninth (based on a 1954 novel) will tell the story of a young centurion who travels through Caledonia, "to confront its savage tribes, make peace with his father's memory, and retrieve the lost legion's golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth..."

Still shots available here...and painful-to-read story of an...er...intimate injury suffered by the leading man here...

Rome Fell? Blame FDR!

Well, not FDR personally, but his pinko socialistic policies, definitely!  So argues Pia Varma in an article [p. 1; p. 2] in Glenn Beck's Fusion magazine...(as reported by MediaMatters).  For example, while considering what brought Rome to the point where Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Varma highlights the importance of the Gracchi:

To make matters worse, in the middle of the Second Century B.C., two brothers with great political ambition came to power. The Gracci [sic] brothers emerged from the Populares Party. They understood that they could gain enormous amounts of political power by making grand promises and using propaganda and charisma to woo the Roman citizens. They promised grain at prices below market and, eventually, for free. They promised to redistribute land, and they put into place sweeping "New Deal" like social reforms, which increased the welfare state. Essentially, you name it, they probably promised it. As a result of these progressive reforms, farmers rushed to live in the cities for their free grain and slaves were freed in order to qualify for the dole.

For some reason, the Roman Empire only lasted 200 years, according to this article, and yet it also survived to be destroyed again, I guess, by Diocletian:

Roman Emperors, such as Diocletian, began grasping at straws: regulating industry and trade, nationalizing businesses and fixing prices and wages. However, despite all the concerns from the more rational members of the Senate, Rome continued to collapse. Cicero had even warned, "The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome becomes bankrupt."

Ah, only Cicero didn't...

The peroration:

So there you have it, the breakdown of the Roman Republic (and maybe the breakdown of the American Republic) in a nutshell. We've modeled our government after Rome, we looked at the writings of Roman philosophers like Cicero and Cato to create our Constitution, we got terms like "senate" and "citizen" from Latin. We even designed our nation's capital after Roman architecture. And, in a way, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others gave us the ultimate "mulligan" when they founded America. But they also warned us of what happened to Rome and urged us not to go in the same direction. And what did we do? Like sheep and cowards, we didn't listen, didn't learn from past mistakes and, eager for security and temporary quick fixes, have been voting ourselves back into bondage ever since.

American, wake up! We don't want to be Rome! Let's not forget that this shining city on a hill ultimately burned down with Nero fiddling away!

As our leaders in Washington stand at the bank of the Rubicon, ready to cross, we must remember Cassius's wise words in Julius Caesar when he said, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."

Too much to respond to, but the creepiest aspect is that (am I wrong here?) the last bit sounds like a call to assassination...Yikes!