&I am guilty of listening to a lot of INXS. Sad but true.
&I have a lot of cinema-going to do, of the worthy sort - like The Reader and Revolutionary Road. Also, possibly Bride Wars. Don't judge me. I lead a stressful life and occasionally, I like to go to the cinema and turn off my brain.
&I have a lot of reading to catch up on. I've read the first two books in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series and I love them. I own the next five. Now, where is the time to read them? I know, I know, it's Sunday, the weekend. Why am I not reading instead of messing about online?
Actually. I don't know. I should really step away from the laptop. I can do that. Sure.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
(dionysian-apollonian opposition)
(from 21.06.07)
Apollo has always been a strange one. Sons of Zeus are usually spoiled brats. They trail around after their mortal mothers in the supermarket, dragging their feet and throwing tantrums in the tinned food aisle.
Apollo is worse than most. He has never played fair and even when he doesn’t win, he engineers it so that he doesn’t lose. Instead, his opponents find themselves being parted from something, their pride or their skin or their dignity. Apollo never puts much store in dignity, not even his own, although he is fiercely proud. He drives his poor mother to distraction and his sister too, or he would if she displayed any interest in his ever-expanding collection of bad habits. Artemis lost count long ago, sometime before Hyacinthos turned her brother’s head.
Hyacinthos was one of Apollo’s first bad habits and it played out like a movie scene, gallivanting and laughing and running hand-in-hand through overgrown meadows until the West Wind pulled a face and got stuck on jealousy. Hyacinthos lost his head and so did Apollo and there have been days and weeks when even Dionysos has had to applaud Apollo’s dalliances with raging revenge. Dionysos has never been as unhinged as Apollo can be and he never understands the bad press he gets, just because he likes a tipple of an evening, and the occasional wild orgy.
Dionysos, with all the solemnity that he can muster, will remind his listeners that he, at least, has never turned a girl into a tree because she spurned him. He will call for another round of drinks and try to recall the last time he was spurned by any lover before he reminds himself that it is he who leads others on a merry chase.
Apollo may enjoy the view from his pedestal but Dionysos can still drink him under the table.
Apollo has always been a strange one. Sons of Zeus are usually spoiled brats. They trail around after their mortal mothers in the supermarket, dragging their feet and throwing tantrums in the tinned food aisle.
Apollo is worse than most. He has never played fair and even when he doesn’t win, he engineers it so that he doesn’t lose. Instead, his opponents find themselves being parted from something, their pride or their skin or their dignity. Apollo never puts much store in dignity, not even his own, although he is fiercely proud. He drives his poor mother to distraction and his sister too, or he would if she displayed any interest in his ever-expanding collection of bad habits. Artemis lost count long ago, sometime before Hyacinthos turned her brother’s head.
Hyacinthos was one of Apollo’s first bad habits and it played out like a movie scene, gallivanting and laughing and running hand-in-hand through overgrown meadows until the West Wind pulled a face and got stuck on jealousy. Hyacinthos lost his head and so did Apollo and there have been days and weeks when even Dionysos has had to applaud Apollo’s dalliances with raging revenge. Dionysos has never been as unhinged as Apollo can be and he never understands the bad press he gets, just because he likes a tipple of an evening, and the occasional wild orgy.
Dionysos, with all the solemnity that he can muster, will remind his listeners that he, at least, has never turned a girl into a tree because she spurned him. He will call for another round of drinks and try to recall the last time he was spurned by any lover before he reminds himself that it is he who leads others on a merry chase.
Apollo may enjoy the view from his pedestal but Dionysos can still drink him under the table.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
(In Which Persephone Apportions Blame)
(from 07.08.06)
When there is a beautiful boy in their midst, goddesses tend to misbehave.
Adonis was a beautiful boy. Persephone should have known better. She should have read the omens; any child borne of a myrrh tree can only spell trouble (myrrh masks the stench of death and mortals all must die). To be honest, even amongst the gods, there was something a little off about a daughter seducing her father. Someone should have had words with Aphrodite but she fluttered her eyelashes and flaunted her girdle and everyone forgot what they were going to say in a chorus of lovelorn sighs.
Adonis cannot be blamed that Aphrodite never learned; no more can Paris or Hippolytus be blamed for the quirks of the immortal. Aphrodite will blame them all and more, sitting at the near end of the bar with a Cosmopolitan in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
She put Adonis into a chest to keep him safe. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea at the time. In any case, the logic of the love-struck should not be questioned. (It never occurred to her to stick Hephaestus out of sight but, then again, he would never have stood for it.)
It was a very nice chest, she will tell anyone who listens. He didn’t want for anything. Persephone saw to that, she will say breezily, because Persephone was at hand to keep Adonis safe, to treasure him always, to have and to hold him, if Aphrodite would have allowed it. Again, it was Aphrodite’s fault for leaving temptation on the doorstep of another goddess. Persephone was never as cold and unfeeling as she seemed. She has never understood why she could only spend four months of the dreary long year with a boy to whom she had been mother and then lover and all she could rely on were her own charms. No one realises that she is not as unfeeling as she seems.
Adonis would come back to Persephone every eight months with red tulips because he decided they should be her favourite flower; they matched her lips, he said tactfully, and her white cheeks would suffuse with red goddess blood and, of course, she could never stay mad at him. It was not his fault.
Aphrodite brought him to life, Aphrodite brought him to death. Persephone will tell that to all within earshot as she sits at the far end of the bar with a Bloody Mary. That harridan has far too many jealous lovers, she’ll say, and they are no match for Ares’ gun or Ares’ temper. Adonis was too pretty to die, he is to pretty to die but he dies again and again.
It’s Aphrodite’s fault. It always is.
When there is a beautiful boy in their midst, goddesses tend to misbehave.
Adonis was a beautiful boy. Persephone should have known better. She should have read the omens; any child borne of a myrrh tree can only spell trouble (myrrh masks the stench of death and mortals all must die). To be honest, even amongst the gods, there was something a little off about a daughter seducing her father. Someone should have had words with Aphrodite but she fluttered her eyelashes and flaunted her girdle and everyone forgot what they were going to say in a chorus of lovelorn sighs.
Adonis cannot be blamed that Aphrodite never learned; no more can Paris or Hippolytus be blamed for the quirks of the immortal. Aphrodite will blame them all and more, sitting at the near end of the bar with a Cosmopolitan in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
She put Adonis into a chest to keep him safe. Perhaps it seemed like a good idea at the time. In any case, the logic of the love-struck should not be questioned. (It never occurred to her to stick Hephaestus out of sight but, then again, he would never have stood for it.)
It was a very nice chest, she will tell anyone who listens. He didn’t want for anything. Persephone saw to that, she will say breezily, because Persephone was at hand to keep Adonis safe, to treasure him always, to have and to hold him, if Aphrodite would have allowed it. Again, it was Aphrodite’s fault for leaving temptation on the doorstep of another goddess. Persephone was never as cold and unfeeling as she seemed. She has never understood why she could only spend four months of the dreary long year with a boy to whom she had been mother and then lover and all she could rely on were her own charms. No one realises that she is not as unfeeling as she seems.
Adonis would come back to Persephone every eight months with red tulips because he decided they should be her favourite flower; they matched her lips, he said tactfully, and her white cheeks would suffuse with red goddess blood and, of course, she could never stay mad at him. It was not his fault.
Aphrodite brought him to life, Aphrodite brought him to death. Persephone will tell that to all within earshot as she sits at the far end of the bar with a Bloody Mary. That harridan has far too many jealous lovers, she’ll say, and they are no match for Ares’ gun or Ares’ temper. Adonis was too pretty to die, he is to pretty to die but he dies again and again.
It’s Aphrodite’s fault. It always is.
a new year's revolution?
& it is the first of January again. I knew it was coming but it surprised me nonetheless.
&perhaps 2009 will be the year I write more (although that does not necessarily equate to blogging more; I've come to the conclusion that my life is either too dull or too wildly exciting to commit to bloggery).
&watch this space?
&perhaps 2009 will be the year I write more (although that does not necessarily equate to blogging more; I've come to the conclusion that my life is either too dull or too wildly exciting to commit to bloggery).
&watch this space?
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