If Patroklos Was A Popstar

Rous'd His Drowsy Blood

2010-01-10T12:37:00.000-08:00

[Written for the Yuletide Challenge of 2009]

Heaven preserve me from the vindictive feelings you cherish, warping a noble nature to ignoble ends.
- Patroclus to Achilles; The Iliad (tr. E.V. Rieu)
With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad...
- Thersites; Troilus & Cressida (W. Shakespeare)

He is not willing to hand Patroclus over without a fight. Open wide and take your medicine; he gently slips the coin into Patroclus' mouth, fighting the urge to snatch it back. I'll fight you for him, I'll fight you for him. He wants to hide the coin in the sackcloth on his back, in the smeared ashes, in the pile of shorn red hair, that looks like dead and dying flames.

Come on, old Charon. I'll fight you for him. I'll fight you and I'll fight your dog too. Achilles clutches Patroclus' funeral shroud, his hand a fist in the snowy white material. He does not want to let go and they can't make him. He will wait for Charon, right here. That filthy old man can climb onto the funeral pyre if he wants to take Patroclus. Achilles' whole body shudders at the thought of Charon's bony fingers closing around Patroclus' ankle. The Myrmidons murmur at their chief's grief and they say it is a red rag to a bull. May the gods help Hector. The Spartans turn their faces away, embarrassed by this unseemly show of sorrow. It is excessive but that is Achilles, even in the face of such a death. Some dare to wonder aloud if Achilles wishes he was in Patroclus' place (although Patroclus was in Achilles' place and so it was and so it always has been). Contrary to popular opinion, Achilles does not have a death-wish. There will be time enough to make his indelible mark on the Underworld but Achilles, living and breathing and raging, is indispensible. The Greeks are lucky to have him, even in the anarchic depths of his sorrow and rage. (Narcissus will never have a patch on this man.)

Patroclus must burn but Achilles does not relent. If he cannot beg, borrow or steal Patroclus' life anew, he will lay on the most excessive funeral games seen this side of the wine-dark seas and every target and every prize is Hector's head and Hector's blood and Hector's innards and Hector's fingernails and kneecaps and Hector's gods-forsaken heart.

-*-

Achilles remembers, of course. He remembers when he first met Patroclus. Two young men, scarcely more than boys, eyeing each other doubtfully.

"I killed a man," said Patroclus. "Just to watch him die." And then he said, in an apologetic rush, "That's not true. It was an accident. He was my friend. That's why I've been sent away."

Achilles didn't know that he and Patroclus would be friends. He and Patroclus were cousins, apparently, except that Patroclus was not divine. (Oh, Patrocluswas divine.)

"When I was a baby, my mother tried to drown me and then she tried to burn me alive." Achilles looked at Patroclus with all defiance and was affronted when Patroclus did not lower his eyes or beg his pardon.

"I'm older than you," said Patroclus.

"Age before beauty, then!"

Patroclus was older than Achilles; he looked his new companion up and down, the way he had seen his father look at the maidservants. "As you say, O Beauteous Achilles."

There was something mischievous in Patroclus' tone, something altogether irreverent, and it knocked the breath out of Achilles (so he knocked Patroclus down). They began to wrestle and punch and the glorious, sweaty fight was worth the punishment levied on them by Cheiron.

Achilles remembers the moment he first realised that Patroclus was as hot-blooded as he. The nights were often cold and Cheiron did as Cheiron did and Achilles and Patroclus might be left to their own devices for days and nights at a time. They did not object; they were young men who could be kings. They relished their little freedoms, away from courtly life and goddess' meddling. They strategised by camp-fires and pointed sticks and drawings in the warm mud were battlefields enough for them.

"I am to lead a boring life, if my mother has her way," announced Achilles.

Patroclus looked around at the flickering shadows, at the cave-mouth, at this wilderness in which they were kings. "Do you intend to be a farmer, then?" he asked, drawing his stick across Achilles' carefully drawn battle-lines. "You will spend your days fretting about the rain and the rocks and never think of me for fear of becoming quite over-excited." Patroclus was all confidence. "I will be a soldier," he announced. "I will be the greatest warrior in this whole land."

Oh, Achilles was stung. There was nothing like the pride of another to awaken his own arrogance and Achilles did as Achilles did. "I will be the greatest warrior in all the lands!"

Patroclus tilted his head and narrowed his eyes and he did not need to speak his challenge aloud. The fights were always best when Cheiron was not there to separate them. Achilles does not know when split knuckles became a lover's caress but his thumb would glide across Patroclus' bruised cheek and Patroclus would raise Achilles' knuckles to his mouth.

"Hyacinthos," said Achilles, his eyes drifting shut.

"Oho, and that makes you Apollo, I assume?"

"Hmmm, and who is our West Wind? Though you will keep your head on your shoulders a while yet." Achilles was certain and Patroclus laughed, his lazy, contented laugh that warmed Achilles more than fires or his own whiplash scorn at the whole wide world.

"Hubris is our West Wind, or yours at least." (Oh, trust Patroclus to grow sombre in the space of a single heartbeat.)

"My mother is a goddess," said Achilles. He locked his arm tight around Patroclus' neck.

"So you always say," murmured Patroclus, "whenever you have lost an argument."

-*-

Achilles' mother is a goddess.

Patroclus is dead and the war rages on and his corpse is the decaying epicentre. His armour has been stripped from his body and all of the best Greeks fight over him (except for that notable exception who is, even now, walking with his mother by the shore). New armour will be crafted for Achilles, better than before. Hector will rue the day.

Achilles' mother is quite mad; even he can see that. She sways in the shallows and tells him that he should have been a farmer. He might have lived to a ripe old age and Achilles balks at the very notion that some day his skin might sag and his hair might fall out. He will never be a toothless old man. Patroclus might not recognise him, even in the flattering shades of Hades. In any case, he has no intention of making Patroclus wait over-long, now that he has chosen his path.

"Do you remember the day I sent you to live in Lycomedes' court?"

"Oh, yes." This brave soldier does not get his feet wet as he walks along the sands. Of couse he remembers. What boy could forget the day his mother stuffed him into a dress to hide him from such horrid, wonderful things as war and death and blood? He bows, a near-imperceptible inclination of his head. (He learned such gently-mocking gestures from Patroclus.) "It does not appear to have worked, Mother."

Thetis draws herself up to her full height. She could destroy Troy in her rage or at least unsettle the livestock and worry the priestesses.

"I remember the day," she says. "You told me you would as soon wear Patroclus' clothes and skin and sinew; that he would keep you safe or die trying! Well, he has, I suppose, but you have always had a prescient bent, my son." She tosses her head and her hair flies about, like thick clumps of damp seaweed (some watered-down Medusa). "I knew that you would make a pretty girl. He had filled your head with such fancies and you believed them, like any young maiden might. You did your best to ruin it, of course. Deidamia's little red-headed son begotten with one of her own handmaidens!" Achilles smiles, though it was quite the wrong sort of Pyrrhic victory. He liked Deidamia well enough for a season or two and she gave him a fine son.

They walk in silence for a time, Thetis occasionally becoming distracted by shells or swirls or eddies. "Let me tell you about love, my boy."

Achilles knows what follows; he has heard it often enough. Let me tell you about love, my boy. I love your father, well enough, for a mortal man. Soon, though, he will be no more than dust and I shall shake him off my sandals. It is strange for she is always barefoot. So it is with your Patroclus. Only dust.

Achilles should be angry but Patroclus is not dust yet.

"Zeus should have been your father," Thetis declares, laying her water-wrinkled finger-tips on his cheek. "You should have been great."

"I am great," Achilles says. "I am Achilles. Zeus should, Zeus should. I do not care! Better that Odysseus should have kept his nose out of it or that Paris should have kept his-"

Thetis' son is a mortal (and yet he knows that mortal men are to blame).

"You will not kill Hector while you are wearing sackcloth," she intones with a lovely sigh, as though a lack of armour will be enough to dissuade Achilles. "If you kill him, you will die."

It is Achilles' stark expression that makes her blood run cold.

-*-

Achilles kills Hector. It cannot be desecration when it is vengeance. This ugly task done, it does not seem to matter that an entire civilisation is quaking behind its solid walls. They have seen the wrath of Achilles and they are afraid. He is invulnerable, that is how the whisper goes and grows. He is invulnerable. No one can believe that this half-mad, half-immortal man can die but the gods move in mysterious ways.

Half-mad and cowering in the sands because Patroclus must burn, Achilles mourns. He sacrifices dogs and horses and pretty Trojans. This is how he cares for the very man who warned him of this ugly end. Patroclus said it and Achilles laughed. "O, Patroclus the Wise. We will not die!" he said. "I am Achilles."

Patroclus the patient, idling by the gates of the Underworld until, at last, he comes to Achilles, an anaemic shade. He looks so reproachful that Achilles might have laughed; it was the very expression that had been Patroclus' face when Achilles told him he was prettier than any maiden in Peleus' court.

"They will not let me in," says Patroclus' ghost and Achilles is fiercely exultant that he has won, that Patroclus has not left him. "You will join me soon," Patroclus' ghost says. "Our ashes will sit in the same urn and your skin will (finally) be my skin, your heart my heart. You will be safe, don't you see?"

Achilles would scoff. He does not need to be kept safe, whether by cross-dressing or Olympian-forged armour or baby-baths in the Styx. He would scoff except that he understands his failure. Intent on revenge, he has failed Patroclus, good-natured Patroclus, who has come gently to remind him that he, too, deserves sacred funeral rites, for all that Achilles would keep him to himself. Achilles would take Patroclus in his arms now but Patroclus is as substantial as a breath of air (a warm breath on Achilles' neck in the darkness of a war-ridden, wound-riddled night).

Achilles makes his sacrifices. He makes a treaty with the river and gives Patroclus a lock of his hair in the river's stead.

Briseis weeps, as well she might. All the spoils of war weep because they know that Achilles does not fear death.

(Death would do well to fear Achilles.)

Afterthought

2009-07-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

&In lieu of new content because my head's all over the place, here is some writing, first posted on 28.05.2009.

--

title: afterthought
summary: all about ariadne.

You were not the last-born child but you felt like an afterthought. You are not angry anymore because you are a goddess. You had a half-brother with a head like a bull and somehow you felt ugly. You had other siblings too, though you scarcely think of them and all the petty ways in which they annoyed you. There was a time that you took some satisfaction from pretty little Phaedra’s fate. She was always a liar, even when you were children and her crimson cheeks bespoke her guilt. She was the one who spilled the milk or kissed the boys (and made them cry) or took your eldest brother’s car for a ride and wrapped it around a ‘Welcome to Knossos’ roadsign.

Your brothers were not much better, truth be told. They tired of you as quickly as you tired of them and their boy-games and their toys. Androgeus won all the prizes and he was murdered just to wipe that smug look off his face, as he collected another trophy and another underwear model and a holiday for two in Athens. Glaucus was a Lazarus before his time and a regular little honey-trap and he kissed more boys than Phaedra did (when he was not picking fights). Deucalion was not the worst (he might have been the best) and it was no shame in being duped by Odysseus. Catreus was paranoid but not paranoid enough. In his position, you would have slaughtered your own children but perhaps that is the goddess in you speaking. They all thought you ineffective and pretty (in your own way, which was not Phaedra’s way of the short summer dress and plunging necklines). Androgeus pinched your behind once (he was drunk) and said that if it was not illegal and immoral, he would be an Athenian youth, to be comforted by you in the face of certain death. You were not quite sure whether he thought it more immoral to be Athenian or to make advances on his own sister. You cannot judge; you enjoy being a deliberately non-interventionist deity and your mother slept with a bull; sexual indiscretion is a family pastime.

You liked the look of Theseus. Even your father liked the cut of his jib or some sailing parlance that continued to be lost on you, for all the time in the bars by the docks, making polite conversation with sailors and exchanging kisses and numbers (you were never a saint). It helped that you did not love your half-brother and it helped that you wanted to be anywhere but here. You could never quite bring yourself to hitchhike or whore your way off Crete but helping Theseus was no better.

The whole Naxos debacle embarrassed you; you could barely look Dionysus in the face when he pitched up. You said that you had had your fill of heroes and he told you that he was not a hero, he was a god. You asked if Theseus would get what was coming to him and Dionysus laughed, that little cackle of his, and said that he would leave that to his sister-goddesses.

2009-05-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

& today, I'm going to see a little local rugby match in Croke Park. From the looks of it, I'll be in the Leinster section but, obviously, I'll be supporting Munster. Legitimately. I'm legitimately a Munster supporter! I grew up in Cork. I spent Saturdays on muddy sidelines in County Cork cheering on my brother's school team before I quite understood what this game was all about. When I was little, rugby was the Five Nations on the telly and the cream cakes we would eat and I mostly knew that we wanted the guys in green to win. I still want the guys in green to win, though with today's match and the Lions tour this summer, I fancy red is this season's green.

2009-03-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

& Following a brief IM chat with my cousin, I decided I should rock on and make a blog post. He asked me about the two pictures I have adorning, respectively, my Gmail Chat profile and my Blogger profile.

i. Ellen Page. Also known as the oscar-nominated actress from Juno. The reason I use a picture of her is because, once upon a time, I was compared to the character in question. Yes, my brother and sister-in-law decided that the pregnant 16 year-old in the movie reminded them of me. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted until I saw the movie and reckoned I could live with it.

ii. Jennifer Connolly. There's no particular reason why I should choose this woman. She's gorgeous and married to Paul Bettany so perhaps I just want to be her but, mostly, I chose this picture for the expression. I've had a Blogger account for many years and I still have an element of fear about the interwebs which is, perhaps, why I don't have a picture of myself here.

(Gleaned from the Watchdom community/captheck on livejournal.)

& Also discussed this evening was Watchmen. I went to see it last Friday in a Savoy screen packed full of people who had actually read the book. I had not read the book (although I am reading it now). Honestly? I thought the film was brilliant. I'm informed that it stayed true to the spirit of the book and, certainly, from what I've read so far, I can appreciate that. I will leave you now, with an excerpt from our IM conversation, in which I am excitable.

Me: WATCHMEN IS AWESOME

i'm reading the book now but i saw the movie without having read it AND IT IS AWESOME

Cousin: had you read the book?

good to know, i'd heard it was impossible to understand without it

Me: noooo. i followed it, definitely. and jeffrey dean morgan is amazing and when it comes to dr manhattan? i totally would.

just so you know

Cousin: bought the book at xmas but neither of us has read it yet

you like big blue radioactive willies?

Me: have you seen his thighs? but also, he's awesome. he's dr manhattan

Cousin: I look forward to his thighs

i'd better leave you and your over-excitement alone now.

2009-03-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

& I'm in Boston, Massachusetts, getting ready to vacate my hotel room and I mostly don't want to leave (not the hotel room, so much as the city; not the city, so much as the country). I mostly don't want to work in this country, either, I must admit. To be a doctor here is to have no other life. I should return to my packing and contemplate when I can next go to New York and be a tourist who thinks the grass must be greener here.

(when you're down and confused)

2009-02-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

& I'm listening to INXS again; I swear it's not all I listen to (it's just all I listen to when I manage to blog, evidently). I'm not listening to Jon McLaughlin right now and it's not because I've gone off his music; it's because his music reminds me of New York and I'm having enough issues letting go as it is.

& yes, I was in New York this week, for four and half days, and I'm pining for it. I had a wonderful time with two of my best friends. There was snow and there were museums and there was fantastic food (with a liberal helping of maple syrup when appropriate) and there was Guitar Hero and there was even a Jon McLaughlin gig (which was not helped by a pile of jetlag and fire alarms going off intermittently throughout the evening; my sense of reality had shifted markedly by the time the guy came onstage but fortunately I have photographic evidence thanks to owning the best camera ever).

& in conclusion, I want to go back.

(baby don't cry)

2009-01-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

&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.

(dionysian-apollonian opposition)

2009-01-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

(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.

(In Which Persephone Apportions Blame)

2009-01-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

(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.

a new year's revolution?

2009-01-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

& 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?

2008-10-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

(& this is how I side-step actual blogging.)

& Another (old) bastardisation of Greek mythology, written in February 2007, a second-person re-telling of the story of Eros and Psyche.

& monsters under the bed

Your beauty was always a problem. There were always monsters under your bed and there was bugger all you could do about them. Your parents didn’t even try to help. You think they were spooked by your beauty too and, even though you were too old to die by exposure, they left you on a mountainside, all alone (with your matching luggage set and a .45). You hitched a ride and got hitched and you didn’t have a damn clue who you married because you were drunk on misery and tequila sunrises.

Your new home was a penthouse, high above everyone; it was just like the song that played on the jukebox in the seedy dive where you signed your marriage contract (love was lifting you up where you belonged).

You never actually saw him, your significant other. He was away during the day and always made love with the lights off. He used to joke about how, if you ever tried to see him, if you ever turned on a light or lit a candle (or even a bloody cigarette) in his presence, he would walk out on you. The funny thing was that it wasn’t really a joke and it scared you to think that he might offer you up to the monsters under your bed. That was why you never turned on the lights when you heard the rustling sound of wings at night or when you felt a draught (even though all the windows and doors were closed) or when you heard whispers in a language that was not your own.

You did not think that your own sisters were the monsters under your bed although you should have known. They were always such vindictive bitches because you were always so much more beautiful than them. It was their fault and their whispers in your ear that made you turn on the light and he left you because he didn’t believe in second chances or child support.

You talked to your mother-in-law and learned the true meaning of vindictive bitch. She was the one with the goddess complex and the lipstick-smeared martini glasses who always made you feel as though you were the worst thing that ever happened to her son and it was all because you were more beautiful than she was. She resented you for making all the guys crazy when you walked down the street in your miniskirt and high heels.

You didn’t want all the guys, though; you just wanted the one who deserted you when all you had done was turn on the light to ward off the monsters. You knew he was beautiful too, with dark, kohl-rimmed eyes and feather-soft kisses and strong arms.

You won him back, of course; you were stubborn that way and you made ground-rules, like counting to ten before losing your temper and leaving all the lights on and all the candles burning and pretending not to be home when your mother-in-law came to call.

2008-10-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

Every year, for the past 26 years, I have forgotten to wish my cousin a happy birthday on his actual birthday. I am always one day late and I really do apologise.

Happy Birthday, Andy. Maybe I'll get it right next year? Anyway, I'll be catching up with you age-wise in a month or so. Do they hand out zimmer-frames when you're 27?

2008-10-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

&Ahahaha. I see my venture into public acknowledgment of my literary endeavours went largely unnoticed. Probably just as well but I suppose that now is the time to point out that November happens to be National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to write 50 000 words between the 1st and the 30th of November and it is something I haven't managed to do. I've made three failed attempts but perhaps this year will be the year of sucess. It's one of those things that irks me, I have to say. Over the years, I've written tens of thousands of words. Pages and pages. A lot of it never sees the light of day. Some of it is posted here and there, under an assumed name (and wild horses won't get me to admit to where, so don't even try). Some of it is actually quite good. The story/novel(la) I intend to write for this year's NaNo is provisionally entitled Copper Alley and has nothing whatsoever to do with the street in Dublin or the café near Christchurch Cathedral. For the first time (at least, where NaNo is concerned), I'm writing something that might be called fantasy.

&I've started to re-read The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm only fifty pages in but, yes, it's grabbing me just as much as it did the first time I read it, over three years ago. If you haven't read it, do because this book is the very definition of original and excellent writing.

And this is why I should not be allowed to play with the Classics

2008-10-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

+So. Sometimes I write and do not blog. This is something I wrote about two and a half years ago and I've revisited it often. Warnings for strong language and implied naughtiness of various flavours.

+the wrath of achilles

Briseis looks so pretty on the cover of the crumpled magazine in the wastepaper bin, even with creases all over her, like old scars. She’s no Helen of Sparta but she has a glow all of her own. Agamemnon is ripped clean in two, with a beard and moustache of blue biro drawn on his face.

Achilles never knocks when he enters a room so Patroklos has learned not to knock either. Achilles is still asleep. If he was angry, rip-roaring force-of-nature furious, Patroklos would understand. Instead, he is childish and determined and on strike, a petulant protest at the world. He does not blame Briseis; the girl did not have a choice. Faced with blackmail and fear of exposure, Briseis swallowed her pride and has allowed herself to be seen on Agamemnon’s arm. If only she could have swallowed Achilles’ pride too.

It should not have surprised them that they were under surveillance, that the Atreides somehow knew about their arrangement (and they thought they were being so discreet). Patroklos misses those days, with Briseis and Achilles kissing on the living room couch; she would be wearing one of Achilles’ shirts and their legs would be entwined across the coffee table, between the overflowing ashtrays and empty whiskey bottles. There would be three pairs of jeans on the floor, tangled up like drunken dancers losing their balance, spinning out of control.

Every time Helen appeared on the television screen, with the sound turned down, Briseis would have to ask. “Do you think she’s pretty?”

“Mm, not as pretty as you,” Achilles would say, his lips pressed to her collarbone, devout and improbably innocent. “Really. Ask Patroklos,” he would add mischievously. “He dated her for a while.”

“Scurrilous lies,” Patroklos would say, wandering back in from the kitchen, eating corn flakes straight from the box. “I wasn’t rich enough to date her.” (And he wasn’t.)

Patroklos misses those easy days with an ache; they can never be comfortable again. Now the empty whiskey bottles surround Achilles’ bed, and the overflowing ashtrays, and the girls’ faces are never the same. There are people dying still and Odysseus’ protection racket can only go so far. Achilles will not lift a finger to help Agamamnon now and where would Patroklos be but in Achilles’ bedroom, opening the curtains wide, letting the sunlight splash onto Achilles’ bed? Between rise and shine, you lazy bastard and fuck off, you miserable wanker, Patroklos bullies Achilles into the shower and brushes his damp-darkened hair off his shoulder and presses his lips to Achilles’ skin. He knows he can’t make it better, not when he misses Briseis too, and he knows that their every movement is probably being watched, because Achilles is the unknown quantity.

Stubborn hero, Patroklos sighs. The bathroom tiles are smeared with condensation and handprints that will fade long before Achilles’ anger subsides. Stubborn, foolish hero.

(don't you put me on the back-burner)

2008-09-13T04:03:00.001-07:00

& I'm trying to tidy my room. I've said this every other day since I moved into this apartment (almost a year ago). It's at that stage - you know the one - worse before it gets better? I may never get out of this mess alive.

Harold Pinter and Cheese

2008-09-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

& I am such a bad, bad blogger and I can only apologise. Every time I post, I solemnly swear that I'll do better next time and then next time is about three months later. (Hyperbole for the complete and utter win!)

& Anyway, last Monday, I went to see No Man's Land, the production of Harold Pinter's play currently running at the Gate Theatre, starring Michael Gambon, David Bradley, Nick Dunning and David Walliams. Audiences at the Gate Theatre always seem as though they should be jam-packed full of famous faces (indeed, at a play last year, Nick Dunning was in the audience and, afterwards, updated us on the Arsenal result that evening). Last Monday, Matt Lucas was present, which was an excitement all of its own. But back to the play. The acting was superb. Obviously, Michael Gambon, as all the reviews stated, was marvellous. I have to say though, that I was blown away by David Bradley. It's a very sinister play (yes, yes, I know. Pinter) in places but quite light-hearted in the second act (and I was informed that it smacks of Beckett by people who know about this kind of thing).

& Cheese. In a recent comment from my cousin, I started wondering about the true definition of cheese. In my opinion, cheese is very earnest music, with big hair and fluorescent pink leg-warmers, and, preferably, pre-dates the 90s (although I will allow that the 90s did offer us some cheese). It should be most ideally experienced by singing along (into a hairbrush). Examples of 'my' definition of cheese include: I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight (The Cutting Crew), If You Leave Me Now (Chicago), Alone (Heart) and so on and so forth. Opinions?

2008-08-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

& I'm really sorry, honest. This serious blogging is all well and good when I can motivate myself to do it. [I mean, my brain sort of works in blog posts? Yet when it comes to typing them up, I get distracted and wander off and before I know it, it's three weeks later.]

& Anyway, my dear cousin has tagged me to do a meme. A meme of six things that make me happy. Let's all remember that I'm really terribly fickle, so if I were to do this meme next week, my answers might be entirely different.

Things I Like. Yo.
(in no particular order)

i. Jon McLaughlin.
Singer-songwrighter-pianist from Indiana. I've been listening to his music obsessively-and-on-repeat for a while now. Also, he's pretty.
No. Really, really pretty. Not well-known in Ireland at all although he did perform at this year's Oscars (a song from Enchanted). Of course, that's not going to mean very much to the Irish audience, given that the show was most convincingly thieved by Glen Hansard and the wonderful Marketa Irglova but this guy writes some rather sweet songs and is pretty awesome on the piano and there is something heartening about knowing that people still write songs like Perfect (& in my life if i can have one thing i don't deserve/then i have never wanted anybody else but her).

ii. Saturday mornings.
Which is funny, given that I try to sleep right on through Saturday mornings if at all possible. I very rarely have to work on a Saturday which is rather wonderful. Occasionally, I manage to crawl out of bed and even make it to the shop to buy the Guardian and bacon and eggs. (Note: I do change out of my pyjamas in order to go to the shop but sometimes, I'm in the minority down at Spar.)

iii. DVD Boxsets.
It's OK! I will narrow this down. A bit. While working as a junior doctor, I very rarely had the time to watch television at normal person hours. I might occasionally catch a late night repeat of Battlestar Galactica or Heroes but that would be about the height of my consistency of viewing. So, I began to invest in boxsets (and this is where Saturday mornings come in handy). I'm one of those people who can quite happily sit down and watch episode after episode of a given TV show. Once, I watched the entire third series of The Mighty Boosh in one sitting. The next morning, I woke up with an actual hangover, no joke.

iv. Neil Gaiman.
My favourite author (and anyone who knows me, knows how much I love reading and having and owning books, so this is big, man). Mr Gaiman is reason I read - nay, purchased - graphic novels, in the form of Sandman because I figured that if he wrote them, they must be worth a look (they are). I think I was first introduced to his writing by way of a recommendation. American Gods is an incredible novel with incredible scope and if you haven't read it ... why the hell not? I have countless new books I haven't actually read yet but I know that I will re-read American Gods, Stardust, Sandman, &c many, many times before I get around to reading some books for the first time.

v. Starbucks Iced Caramel Macchiato.
OK, so I'm a sell-out. But there's something about this particular coffee that reminds me of summertime (and given what Irish summers have amounted to in recent years, that's no mean feat). Also, that much caffeine and that much refined sugar do wonderful things for my energy levels and I can conduct conversations at a much higher rate than usual!

vi. Manuel Almunia, Francesc Fabregas & Theo Walcott.
Yeah, I know that there are three parts to vi. but these three guys can come under the umbrella of the three Arsenal players for whom I have any emotional attachment. Sorry, that should be the only three Arsenal players for whom I have any emotional attachment.

& I swear I'll try to update more often. I still have movies and plays to review and I'm going to see No Man's Land at the Gate Theatre next week. Oh, what a life I lead.

Time sort of got away from me there.

2008-08-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

& aw, man. Where did those two-and-a-bit weeks go? I totally meant to blog, like, every other day. I've to ramble about 3 movies (one of which does include The Dark Knight, so my esteemed first cousin can stop mocking me now, OK?) and a play, but it's 12.30am and I have to work tomorrow.

& it sort of occurred to me today that I don't measure the time it takes to walk to work in actual minutes. I count it in songs. Currently, I listen to a particular playlist on my iPod (a playlist imaginatively entitled august oh-eight). I hit play when I leave my apartment and I get through Jon McLaughlin's Beating My Heart, Ryan Adams' Touch, Feel & Lose, REM's Near Wild Heaven, The Killers' When You Were Young and the first half of Leonard Cohen's Anthem. Well, I thought it was an interesting observation (and sometimes I want the journey to be longer so I can listen to more songs).

2008-07-29T13:19:00.001-07:00

& two nights running. Hold the phone.

& I'm just back from going to the cinema. I've heard tell that there's a movie called The Dark Knight doing the rounds, not to mention a little film called Mamma Mia! and I do want to see both of them, honestly (although possibly not in that order, oy). No, today, I saw Summer Hours, and I'm not sure what I thought of it. Not much happens which, in itself, isn't a flaw. The plot, such that it is, revolves around a family of three grown-up children and their mother's estate. There's an element of intrigue, involving the relationship between their recently-deceased mother and her uncle, a renowned painter but it's really just alluded to.

The acting was rather good - Juliette Binoche and Charles Berling were impressive, as was Isabelle Sadoyen, as the elderly housekeeper. It's the biggest role in which I've seen Jérémie Renier and he was convincing as the youngest brother. I'm debating as to whether to mention that he's exceptionally good-looking but that might make me seem superficial.

Hey. Wait.

Nevertheless, I left the movie feeling unfulfilled. I'm not entirely sure what sort of point the movie was trying to make. There's a scene, towards the end, when the youngest generation have a party in the old house and it felt a little bit like the party scene in Love in Thoughts, but generations and leagues away.

& it just occurred to me that I'm wearing Blogger hoodie while typing this. Ooh. See what I did there?

2008-07-28T12:39:00.001-07:00

& I just ate half a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. The one with the ickle white chocolate polar bears in it? The environmentally friendly sort? The sort that's going to make me fat if I continue to imbibe it at this rate.

& I watched Stardust (2007) yesterday. I love that movie and not least because it's based on a novel by one of my very favourite authors, Neil Gaiman. It has some scenery-chewing turns by the likes of Robert De Niro, Peter O'Toole and Michelle Pfeiffer, a Who's Who? of British television actors (Julian Rhind-Tutt, Nathaniel Parker, Mark Williams, David Walliams, Ricky Gervais), our very own David Kelly, as well as some beautiful young things, Ben Barnes, Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Henry Cavill and Sienna Miller (all of whom also act). It's a charming movie, based on a charming book, with a Take That song on the soundtrack and I am easily pleased. Watching it, though, I couldn't help but notice that every fantasy looks a little bit Lord of the Rings. At first, I just assumed it was because everyone's decided to start filming in New Zealand, but apparently not? (Who knew that Hertfordshire could look so vast?). Looking back on it, even The Princess Bride (1987) looks a little bit LotR and it was filmed in the Burren. King Arthur (2004) is another impressive-looking movie but, to the best of my knowledge, Wicklow doesn't actually look like that in real life (with neither the snow or the women wearing strips of leather and blue face paint).

& I still don't know what the hell I'm doing here but I'm off to an OK start.

[shuffling feet]

2008-07-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

-if patroklos was a popstar? (A line from some writing that meant something once and means something else now)

& yet another attempt to indulge in a spot of grown-up blogging. Hopefully, this one won't be like those diaries I tried to keep as a youngster. There would be a flurry of activity. I would be obsessive in my writing for a month (or more, or less) and my interest would gradually wane. The only long-term commitment I've ever had to a diary has been my secure, not-open-to-the-public LiveJournal but that is a story for another time.

& I have half an idea that I'll blog about books I've read (except I have no time to read) or movies that I've seen (but I've an appalling taste in films) or music that I like. I may even write about writing (it's one of those things I pretend I don't do).

& it will be watch this space.