One of my first literature loves was the Chronicles of Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis. There was a lot that went over my head, lion-Jesus included, and I never quite ‘got’ The Silver Chair, but this strange fantastical world imprinted itself in the back of my eyelids. It was that time in my life where I desperately wanted magic to be real, where I could whisper my secrets to the trees and they might whisper back. I would knock on the back of the wardrobe in my room, wondering if one day the fake-wood panel would give way to that other place.

I would read anything that you put in front of me. Once, when I was perhaps 9-ish, I peered at the books my parents kept in my room. There was one, pastel-coloured, with an illustration of a blonde woman and a pushchair on the front. It was a book for new mums, with advice on how to navigate your new life, how to take care of both yourself and your child, and a quite detailed explanation of childbirth. I learned a lot that day, but mostly I left with a new perspective on my parents.

At Secondary school, the time I could spend pouring over books reduced slowly and all at once, like waiting for milk to boil on the stove. I learnt to read on the school bus on the hour-long journeys, though this became difficult in the darker months. It was a shaky compromise, but it worked for me.

At university, that time shrunk even further. Though I was reading a lot for my degree, it was harder to read for pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading ancient texts, and reading about them, if this blog hasn’t tipped you off about that already! However, I wanted to read more broadly, read fiction that had nothing to do with anything I was studying, just to refresh my palatte if nothing else. I found it hard to set time aside for this, since I didn’t have the long commute of before, where productivity was out of the question, and my friends also had their heads in their respective books.

Since moving back home, I wanted to tackle my growing To Be Read pile, but something was blocking me. I found myself repeatedly saying ‘I’ve forgotten how to read’. When I got home from my graduation, with sore heels and a bittersweet feeling, I was bone-tired but not quite ready to go to sleep. I sat in bed and reached for my bookshelf. The closest book to me was the first of the Umbrella Academy comics, Apocolypse Suite. It is far stranger than I remembered it, the world-building looser, the characters more spiky. Writer, Gerard Way (yes, that Gerard Way) makes you feel like you’re running to catch up with the plot. Sometimes you need an extreme sensation to make your brain and body reset, such as eating spicy food or someone shoving an icecube down your shirt. In that way, Apocolypse Suite was the bedtime story I needed in that moment. I slept like a rock.

More recently, I read The Wedding People by Alison Espach. I bought it last Summer on a whim, though I hadn’t even cracked it open until about a couple weeks ago. I liked the illustration style of the cover, with the swirling blue waves. There’s arms sticking out from the water, one brandishing a bottle of wine, the other showing a peace sign.

It reminded me of the album Not Waving, But Drowning, by Loyle Carner, which is named after the poem by Stevie Smith. If you put up a facade of strength without sharing your vulnerabilities, than when the tide comes in, even those who love you will think you are waving, not drowning. There, without even having to look at the blurb, the cover communicated something vital about the story, that any viewer could feel implicitly, whether or not they know the poem.

The book itself is the kind of balm I needed, the first full non-Classics-related book I’ve read in months. Its about two women, at different stages of life, meeting and becoming unlikely friends. It’s also about the main character, Phoebe, finding human connection after so long without, and relearning how to live fully. It’s dark at times, more than I might have felt comfortable with when I first bought it. Phoebe’s internal monologue is curious and raging and witty and lonely and very easy to get lost in. The characters in The Wedding People are sometimes sketched cartoonishly and yet also so painfully human you just want to step into the book and give them a hug, or slap them, or both.

Now, the dam has cracked open and I feel like I can actually read again. It feels good to sink into a physical book after so long reading academic books and articles on my laptop. There’s a feeling that creeps up sometimes, that I need to read this or should read that but I’m putting those thoughts away. Reading for me is not about productivity, it is not something to be optimised, or scheduled. It is for the sake of exploration.

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-Polytropos :)

For as long as I could dictate my own music taste, I was peripherally aware of My Chemical Romance. I remember when Twenty One Pilots released their cover of Cancer. It was the first My Chem song I ever heard. In my eleven-year-old brain, this band was too grown up for me so I made myself wait until my twelfth birthday. Then, in 2017, I became a fan in earnest, with House of Wolves being my most listened-to MCR song of that year. This was four years after the infamous breakup, when the band got “so emo it fell apart.” I lamented not being a fan earlier — like I could have every gone to a Danger Days show at the tender age of seven. Twelve-year-old me, who would stay up late reading about ‘Smashing Pumpkins Theory’ and Frank Iero talking about broken clocks and Nick Jonas, could not have fathomed seeing the band twice.

Cue 2019. By some miracle I secured tickets to see them (in Milton Keynes of all places!) though, due to the lockdowns, I didn’t see them until 2022. And now, last Saturday, I saw them play Wembley Stadium on the last of their three sold out shows.

MCR are currently playing the “Long Live” The Black Parade tour, which is centred on their third album, Welcome to the Black Parade. The album itself tells the story of The Patient, a young man (or teen) dying of cancer, reckoning with his mortality. When he passes on he will be greeted by the Black Parade, ghostsly visions of a childhood memory with his father. These psychopomps are represented by the band, in their military marching band costumes.

However, the “Long Live” tour is not a cut and dry performance of this story. Instead, MCR have created a new country for this story to live in, breathing new life into these iconic tracks. Now the band have become the 52nd Regiment of the Black Parade, from dystopic country of Draag, which is styled on the USSR at the height of the Cold War. The ruler of this country, the Grand Immortal Dictator accompanies the band on tour. There are cryptic messages in the cyrillic-inspired alphabet, Keposhka. The country appears to be industrial and agricultural, with its ever-grey sky featured in its national anthem, and consistent imagery of wheat fields. This new form of the Black Parade were gone for so long because they were held in the MOAT, Draag’s prison, where they were reconditioned.

When my friend and I got settled in our seats at Wembley Stadium, and after the openers (Anthony Green and Sunny Day Real Estate) the screens displayed rules, in English and Keposhka. These were things like “No weapons, dental tools or otherwise.” and “All displays of grief are subject to their proper inspections.” We were sat right at the back and high up, so the sun was in our eyes for some thirty minutes. We’ll Meet Again played over the speakers, as a wave of cheers rippled from the pit to meet us. The other players, the Clerk, the Secretary, and more had made their way to the stage. A marching drummer and two soldiers came on. On the B-stage, an island in the pit, were two opera singers, whose Draag names are Marianne and Sylvia. We rose for the Draag national anthem. I never felt more patriotic.

A countdown on the screens heralded My Chem’s arrival. The show started gently with The End, Gerard Way marching up and down the stage triumphantly. All of the band decked out in their parade gear. Though from my vantage point they were tiny, I could just about keep track even without looking at the big screens. It was one thing seeing thousands of other concert-goers as we entered earlier, of all ages, most decked out in red and black. It was another thing to hear them, tens of thousands of people screaming “when I grow up I want to be nothing at all.” The End flowed into the second song, Dead! seamlessly, with the energy rocketing up for Ray Toro’s killer guitar solo. When it ended, Gerard, playing this character with a ‘Draag’ accent, introduced the band and the Grand Immortal Dictator (“Tractor Magazine’s most interesting man”) who was sitting on his throne holding a football.

If I could describe every song I would, but I’ll keep it simple. When the opening G note of Welcome To The Black Parade rang out, it was like a spell was cast over the whole stadium. This anthem, if you didn’t know, is a proclamation to keep going when hope is lost, a promise to keep fighting, and to remember who you are fighting for. To keep it real, I burst into tears, shaking as I sang along. I knew I would cry, though not so early into the show. But, as those guitars and rolling drums came in, I thought of the people who I was singing for, and by that point I was a goner.

At another break in the show, we were asked to vote. Everyone, once we passed through the turnstiles into the stadium, was handed a card that says NAY in black on one side, and YEA in red on the other. Gerard told us that four contestants had lost a gameshow, and we were to decide their fate. These ‘contestants’ were lined up on the B stage with their faces covered and arms behind their back. I voted YEA for them to receive a bicycle consolation prize, but most of Wembley voted NAY for the sweet release of death. The silhouettes of gunmen ‘fired’ at the contestants. This moment of the show is affectionately dubbed the ‘elexecution’ by fans, and don’t worry - the outcome is always the same!

Mama was a crisis point of the show, with fire licking up the sides of the main stage and the screen blaring warnings of nuclear armageddon. The lyrics are framed as a soldier writing home to his mother, and here on stage we saw the aftershock of war in all its burning chaos. At one point in the song a man engulfed in flames darts out between the band, ran from one side of the stage to the other. Marianne and Sylvia returned onstage, adding their voices to the wall of sound. Then, in an interlude, Gerard Way sang about a dagger, holding it aloft for the crowd.

Towards the end of the show was Famous Last Words. Whatever pyrotechnics was happening before this point was a match compared to the bonfire of a stage during this song. A countdown marked the closing of the song. I sobbed through all of it, sue me! The chorus never fails to get me; at different parts of the song it sounds like a mantra, others it sounds like a threat. It bleeds into a somehow even more defiant reprise of The End. The Clerk and the Secretary reappeared, this time as Pierrot and Pierrette. The Clowns danced with the band and then stabbed Gerard, who finished the song as he’s bleeding out. The last Black Parade track is Blood, played over the speakers as the Clowns danced around and played with Gerard’s corpse. The show ended with a literal bang! The Clowns detonated bombs concealed under their clothing.

There was an interlude before the second part of the show on the B stage, scored by a cellist. We had time to move around and reset while the band got out of character and out of costume to play songs from the rest of their discography. Unfortunately, I missed the start of the first song, Boy Division, which began as I was drying my hands in the bathroom. Frank Iero decides the B stage setlist for each night, and I was very lucky that he was feeling generous that Saturday. There were two songs from their debut, the hits from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, and so so many songs from Danger Days. As much as I love Black Parade, Danger Days is my favourite album of theirs. I might write about it some day. They even played Party Poison for the first time in 15 years!

Out of character, the band could interact with the audience more. Mikey Way pointed out a fan’s sign to Gerard, who chatted a bit about Baldgur’s Gate and D&D. Since it was their last night at Wembley, Gerard expressed their gratitude to play there and said he hoped they would one day play the stadium again. He confirmed that even if MCR don’t have any definite plans for the future, they enjoy playing together and want to continue. I swear, my twelve-year-old self would not have believed it! The night ended with Kids From Yesterday, a sentimental song from Danger Days, played out by Ray Toro’s guitar solo.

As we slowly, reluctantly, tore ourselves away from the stadium, my friend paid a compliment to the people sitting next to us, who had so much energy the whole time. I admire how comfortable she is with talking to strangers; I like to, as well, but it usually requires a lot more psyching myself up. We poured out of the stadium with the rest of the crowd, and even though there was a massive block of people outside the tube station, and all that ringing in my ears, there was still a palpable sense of togetherness in the air.

There were moments in the concert where someone might say ‘that’s going too far’, and I can definitely understand why. However looking back on it in totality, and with my knowledge of My Chem, nothing felt out of place. The Black Parade is about death, and the violent imagery that comes along with it is used with more intention than just pure shock value. MCR is a band that formed as a reaction against horrific violence, meaning that a lot of their work explores the ways that humans hurt one another, usually in the form of institutional violence. While The Black Parade tells this story in one way, I love that the recontextualisation within the “Long Live” tour expands on the original themes without undoing The Patient’s story. I think this tour also emphasises the theme of control, with the totalitarian Draag controlling the band through the other characters who have submitted themselves to the state. Hell, during Teenagers, Gerard waves around a puppet. However, this control is temporary, as shown by the chaos and fire at the end of the show. Anything can be burned down.

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Thank you for reading!

No blog next week - I’m busy graduating! When I return, I will be posting every two weeks!

Thanks to Elz (https://substack.com/@elzapoetfromnowhere) for coming along with me, and letting me use your photo! I’m glad we got to share this memory :)

If you want to learn more about the world building behind the “Long Live” The Black Parade tour there are tons of fanmade resources that I’ll link below - I couldn’t have written this piece without them.

• lore summary/fan theory

• long live the black parade fanwiki

• megadoc with details and stats from every show on this tour,

• list of all the pre-show rules

-Polytropos :)

When I finally sat down to watch it, everything fell into place. It was a hot Sunday evening, a couple weeks ago now, midsummer. I sat in the dark on my bed, smelling the dry grass drifting in from my window, only illuminated by the laptop screen.

The film is La Chimera (2023), directed by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. It is not the kind of movie that can be meaningfully ‘spoiled’, but, if you care about that sort of thing, be warned I will discuss it in its entirety.

La Chimera is about an Englishman, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who has returned to his community in Umbria after being released from jail. Though an archaeologist by training, he uses his skills and powers of divining to rob ancient graves with his friends. He is also grieving his dead lover, Beniamina (Yile Vianello), who he remembers through his friendship with her mother, Flora (Isabella Rossellini). The film is dreamlike and, at times, fantastical, with the magic serving the meandering folktale plot.

Community

Arthur finds himself among three key groups in the course of the film. The first are his grave robbing friends, named the tombaroli. They are chaotic and self-centered, and waste no time trying to draw Arthur back into his thieving ways. They rely on his supernatural ability to sense the ancient graves, but they are proficient in excavating. They also lean on Fabiana (Ramona Fiorini), the only woman in the group, to cook and keep watch for them.

Then there is Signora Flora and her family, all daughters and granddaughters. The matriarch is a musician, taking in Italia (Carol Duarte) as a live-in music student, though she ends up being an unpaid maid. Her preferential treatment of Arthur over her other daughters belies a grief for her late daughter, who she treats as missing.

Lastly is Italia’s band of women and their children in the abandoned train station. Through Italia, they transform the empty space into a refuge for those at the margins like herself, an immigrant and single mother. Fabiana, sick of the tombaroli, has also found a new home for herself here.

While each group has different wants, they move as a unit, talking over each other.

Observation

Observation and vision play a crucial role in the story. The film opens in darkness with only the voice of Beniamina. She is the first image, and we see her through the eyes of Arthur as she addresses the camera. This was an intentional choice from Rohrwacher, who wanted Arthur’s dream of her to “inundate [the screen] with light”. Wide shots and documentary-like footage of the locations make the audience aware of our observation of the film.

In preparation for a dig, one character, who is new to the tombaroli, breaks the fourth wall to note how the ancient Etruscans - a pre-Roman Italian civilisation - were matriarchal. “If the Etruscans were still here,” she tells us, “there wouldn’t be all this machismo in Italy.” Interestingly, she is also the only character to wield a camera, turning the observation diegetically onto the tombaroli.

The question around the ethics of tomb robbing is expressed by the motif of vision - “this was not meant for human eyes". Rather, these grave goods were meant for the dead and the dead alone. However, this vision is not always negative. Rohrwacher says of the audience, that “our gaze is like the sun” and on Beniamina’s back, the first thing we see of her, is a tattoo of the sun.

mythology

Mythology and the ancient world permeates La Chimera. It is taken for granted, just as the many tombs that litter the Italian landscape. The most blatant example is the sculpture of the goddess Cybele, which I discussed in last week’s post.

The story of Beniamina and Arthur parallels that of Orpheus and Eurydice. Though we are not told the circumstances of her death, we know that Beniamina she was young, like Eurydice. Arthur, bereft like Orpheus, wanders around aloof from the world. While many retellings of this story focus on Orpheus’ first descent to the underworld, La Chimera tells us of Orpheus’ death, facing the consequences of his apathy.

Arthur and the tombaroli are also mythologised within the film. There are bards who, at two points in the story, sing about the tombaroli as folkheroes. While the rest of the gang were willing to sit and listen to the songs of their exploits, Arthur turns away, since he is not able to listen to his own story. This is opposite to a hero such as Achilles who himself sings about the deeds of heroes. It may symbolise Arthur’s rejection of the mortal world and his place in it, or alternatively, his rejection of the plot. His compulsive desire to seek out these graves, even though he has ample opportunities to choose a different life, marks him as a tragic hero, whose demise is brought about by both fate and the hero’s will.

Lastly is the title of the film. What does ‘La Chimera’ mean?

The chimera was a mythological creature with the body and head of a lion, a goat’s head, a snake for a tail, and could breath fire. The word has come to mean any combination of creatures in one body. This could refer to the multi-faceted story. However, in Italian, la chimera also means something imaginary, representing the ghosts that Arthur is chasing. One character in the film even refers to Arthur’s magic as his “chimera”. Thus the title refers to the dreams and visions that compell Arthur. In addition, there is the famed Etruscan bronze statue, the Chimera of Arezzo, connecting Arthur’s visions with the Etruscans themselves.

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the dead

This film is about those gone, both the ancient dead and the more recently departed. Arthur has one foot in the grave from the very beginning, through his supernatural ability to sense the Etruscan graves. Rohrwacher depicts his magic through the camera turning on its head, showing Arthur upside down, evoking the image of the ‘hanged man’ tarot card. In one of his early encounters with Italia, she points out the trees which resemble a man with his legs in the air, and head planted in the earth.

There are also grave consequences (did you really think I could resist the pun?) for those who disturb the tombs. When she realises the truth about the tombaroli, Italia curses them. They brush it off, self-righteous, but the confusion and chaos that follows sticks to them. They would sell these trinkets and talismans for the dead to Spartaco without a second thought.

And there is so much to say about Spartaco. I once spent two months researching and writing about 18th century grave robbers. Something I recognised in that project through leafing the pages of that ship’s log, is the same disdain from the art dealer Spartaco. The disdain for the ‘common’ ancient goods, the cheap pottery, the children’s toys, ready to sell it on with no regard for the people they were once buried with. It is the same banal depravity of those Englishmen trawling through the North African Roman ruins lamenting how shoddy they found the craftmanship, as if they were owed artwork. They searched for something ‘sophisticated’ among the ruins like a fish trying to find something called ‘the ocean’.

In the end the tombaroli and Spartaco both growl and snarl at each other like wild dogs for something that was never meant for any of them.

final thoughts

The more I learned about this film the more I fell in love with it. There is so much still of its rich symbolism which I was not able to include here.

The funny thing is, if I watched La Chimera in 2023, when my friend first told me, rather than sat in my room as midsummer came to a close, filling my room with darkness like being buried alive, I would not have experienced it half as well as I did that night. Partly for reasons too personal for Substack, and partly because my enjoyment of it was enhanced by the knowledge I now have of the ancient world and myself over the past three years.

I’ll end with a quote from Alice Rohrwacher. This quote, and all previous ones from her, were taken from the BAFTA screenwriter’s lecture series, which you can find on Youtube:

-Polytropos :)

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The above is a scene that comes halfway through the 2023 film La Chimera. In it, we see Cybele as a statue of a nude woman with a nest of birds in her hair, cradling a fish in her arms, and petting a panther winding around her legs. When I saw the film, I recognised the name ‘Cybele’ but couldn’t quite place it. So I did a bit of reading, and I’m here to report back what I found.

Cybele is a Phrygian goddess, from Asia Minor. This spelling is latinised from the Phrygian Matar Kubileya, the latter meaning ‘of the mountain’. She was known as the mother goddess and the this epithet continued as her cult spread West to Greece and, eventually, Rome. The Phrygians depicted her in stone carvings with lions and birds of prey likely signifying her power and regal side. She also carried a drum, or tympanon, and this association with sound and music is present throughout her worship. She is thought to be a ‘universal’ mother goddess, though Bøgh suggests this is outdated, and that she is instead a protector of the city.

The goddess was adopted by the ancient Greeks as Meter Kybele and then as Magna Mater Deum Idaea in Rome. While she was worshipped in Greece, I focused on the Roman adoption of her to see if I could connect any of these dots to the Cybele of La Chimera.

Amidst the second Punic war, when Rome’s most fierce enemy, Carthage, was invading Italy, the Roman Senate consulted books of prophecy for a divine solution. They interpreted these Sibylline Books as instructing them to officially induct the cult of Cybele, which they did in 204 BCE. As part of this induction they commissioned a temple and religious games, known as the Megalensia. The Romans often depicted her on a chariot pulled by lions, or seated wearing a ‘mural crown’ - a crown shaped like the walls of a city.

Though Senate’s choice does indicate the goddess’ function as city-protector, it also reveals how aristocratic Romans dealt with the foreign aspects of this Eastern religion. The games are Roman and she empowers the Republic to military victory, but the Galli, male worshippers of Cybele who castrated themselves, are considered separate to (high) Roman society. Yet through witnessing one extreme of the non-normative (Roman) masculinity, Latham notes how the aristocrats would define themselves in opposition to that effeminacy.

Roman discomfort around the Galli is exemplified by the Roman poet Catullus. In Catullus 63, he tells the story of a gallus named Attis, after Cybele’s famous companion. During the poem, in a moment of mindless devotion to the goddess, Attis self-castrates, and, once aware again, must come to terms with this action. Latham argues that the emphasis on castration demonstrates a fear that “alienation” from gender is also an alienation from your nation and citizenship. This morbid curiosity surrounds many Roman author’s writings of Cybele’s worship.

However, Virgil traces his Trojan hero Aeneas’ lineage to Cybele herself, choosing to make him her great-grandson. He refers to Aeneas and his fellow refugees as Trojan, but also Phrygian like the goddess, and Dardanian, which Wilhelm notes demonstrates their Etruscan roots. Cybele appears within the Aeneid as an active ally to her descendent. She lets him build the ships he needs from her trees on Mount Ida (the same as in Magna Mater Deum Idaea). Yet it’s not all straightforward praise. As Latham argues, just as Aeneas must shed his Easternness and manifest as a hero in Rome’s image, Virgil separates the goddess from her less ‘Roman’ worshippers.

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Returning to La Chimera, I see a version of the goddess slightly different to the one I have gleamed from these articles. The film emphasises her wild qualities and her connection to animals. The birds and panther nod to her regal origins, though the fish is quite unusual. The birds in her hair also serve as an alternative to her typical mural crown; a nest as opposed to city walls. She is also nude, unlike the clothed Roman representations of her, perhaps moving away from her matronly aspect.

It is worth noting that the character who attributes this statue to Cybele is also selling her at an auction. She names Venus de Milo and Nike of Samothrace before introducing this ‘Cybele of Etruria’, and it’s this sales pitch which makes me doubt her attribution. Despite this, I think it is still significant that the film names her as Cybele and not any other. As we learned earlier there is a thread, if a tenuous one, that connects Cybele to Aeneas and Aeneas to Etruria through Dardanus and the poet’s meddling. Finally, the film depicts various people on the fringes of life, which the goddess symbolises through her contradictory aspects of wildness and society, and her worshippers.

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Thank you for reading! Next week’s blog will be a more detailed look at the ways La Chimera responds to the ancient world.

-Polytropos :)

Here are links to the articles I read for this week’s post! I knew very little about Cybele going into it and now I feel I’ve just scratched the surface!

Bøgh, B. (2012). Mother of the Gods: Goddess of Power and Protector of Cities. Numen, 59(1), 32–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23244928

Bøgh, B. (2007). The Phrygian Background of Kybele. Numen, 54(3), 304–339. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27643268

Latham, J. (2012). “Fabulous Clap-Trap”: Roman Masculinity, the Cult of Magna Mater, and Literary Constructions of the galli at Rome from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity. The Journal of Religion, 92(1), 84–122. https://doi.org/10.1086/662205

Satterfield, S. (2012). Intention and Exoticism in Magna Mater’s Introduction into Rome. Latomus, 71(2), 373–391. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41547220

Wilhelm, R. M. (1988). CYBELE: THE GREAT MOTHER OF AUGUSTAN ORDER. Vergilius (1959-), 34, 77–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41592353

Paramore’s 2023 album This Is Why scored my Art A Level exam. It was one of several albums I was shuffling through three days of 5 or 6 hours. Pouring plaster into cardboard moulds, my four other classmates painting in silence. The final track from that album, Thick Skull, is one of my favourites from an already excellent album. It might be one of the last ever Paramore songs, though who’s to say? I want to give it a closer look, the way I did with Hozier’s Abstract (Psychopomp) at the start of this academic year.

lyrics

intro

The opening lines of this song are more of an intro than a verse. It is a soft start to the song, both in its vocal delivery and the guitar chords underneath it.

I am a magnet for broken pieces

I am attracted to broken people

I pick ‘em up and now my fingers are bleeding

And it looks like my fault

And it looks like I’m caught red-handed

The speaker describes herself as compulsively drawn to ‘broken’ people, emphasised by the repetition. This attraction has a tactile aspect to it, compelling her to hold these broken people, though it hurts her. The lack of rhyme in the third line ending with ‘bleeding’ is jarring, a technique that is repeated throughout the song. The last two lines echo one another, with the idiom ‘red-handed’ making metaphorical the literal image of her bleeding fingers.

Though the magnet metaphor implies that the speaker has no control over her attraction, the last two lines of the intro make it clear that there is something in her attraction to be ashamed of, that she could be punished for it. Even if she knows why she’s bleeding, the external perception holds more weight, since it ‘looks like’ she has done something wrong. Again the phrase ‘red-handed’ breakes the fault/caught rhyme, further emphasising the wrongness. This indicates the theme of being in the public eye.

chorus

The chorus has a call-and-response structure, with the response written here in brackets. This first chorus is sung softly, just as the intro, though the instrumental slowly grows in intensity. The guitar sounds almost like an alarm, making us feel the danger.

Hit over the head (epiphany)

Over my head (repeatedly)

Thick skull never did (nothing for me)

Same lesson again?

Come on give it to me, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me

The phrase ‘hit over the head’ can mean making a point overly obvious, which is indicated by the response, ‘epiphany’. Epiphany is the name of several Christian holidays, perhaps alluding to Paramore’s religious upbringing. It comes from the ancient Greek verb epiphaino (ἐπιφαινω), meaning reveal, with the sense of bringing something to light (and you thought I couldn’t make this about Classics!). It is this second sense that implies that the speaker is being made very clear of a point, perhaps that she is to blame for other people’s pain. The second line ‘over my head’ suggests the opposite; that the speaker keeps missing the point. She does not take it in, despite how many times it is violently impressed into her. The response of ‘repeatedly’ this time has a harmony, creating a musical pun since Hayley Williams’ voice is doubled.

The title of the song arrives in the middle of the chorus. Her defense is the ‘thick skull’, a part of her body. Depending on how you read the double negative (or litotis if you’re feeling fancy) her skull is either effective or incapable of protecting her. This line also subverts the call-and-response, as the response finishes the sentence. The speaker acknowledges how cyclical her situation is with a rhetorical question. The connotations of being a schoolchild from ‘lesson’ furthers the theme of arrested development. However, in the final line, she challenges the listener to keep trying.

verse

After the chorus, the drums kick in and the song takes on a heavier tone.

Only I know where all the bodies are buried

Thought by now I’d find ‘em just a little less scary

Might get easier but you don’t get used to it

Keep on autopilot

Hey, hey! What’s the body count up to now, captain?

This verse explores the theme of stasis. The speaker expected that time would dull her fear about the ‘bodies’, but it is only the motions which are ‘easier’ because they have become habitual, like ‘autopilot’. These buried bodies could refer to past difficulties, or skeletons in the closet. Again the rhyme is broken by the phrase ‘used to it’ which jars the listener who was just getting used to the rhyme scheme of the first two lines. The speaker’s passive attitude is expressed by yielding to the authority of ‘autopilot’ and the ‘captain’. These specific choices also create a sense of travel and movement which contradicts the speaker’s stasis. The last line functions more as a pre-chorus with its rhetorical question answered by the chorus.

bridge

After the chorus there is a very cathartic guitar solo. This instrumental break gives the other bandmates, Zac and Taylor, a chance to shine on their own. The energy then drops moving into into the bridge.

Come on out with your hands up

Come on out with your hands up

I’m coming out with my hands up

Come on out with your hands up

The bridge follows an AABA structure as it changes from second to first person in the third line. Here we see the speaker coming face to face with the consequences for her perceived actions. She surrenders to those who seek to punish her.

outro

The bridge is followed by the chorus that Hayley Williams belts out the most passionately. As she repeats ‘give it to me’, the outro is layered over the top.

I pick ‘em up and now my fingers are bleedin’

And it looks like I’m caught red-handed

The outro repeats the third and fifth line of the intro, omitting the fourth line to bring the wordplay of ‘bleedin’’ and ‘red-handed’ together. The instruments drop out, leaving Williams’ voice alone to end the song and album. This cyclical imagery, which comes up throughout the album, is brought to a close in this structure.

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music video

I won’t through the music video beat for beat as I did for the song itself, but I’d like to draw out certain images and themes which resonated with me.

There are a lot of shared images and shots from the This Is Why music video, the lead/title single of the album. For example, the bright red lipstick scrawled over Williams’ face, echoing the lyrics about bleeding and death. Before the drums first come in, is a shot of her falling out of a window, the exact same in the This Is Why music video, though for Thick Skull, she is not caught by her bandmates.

In this video, Zac and Taylor are shown with their faces obscured and backs to the viewers, further emphasising Williams’ isolation from her bandmates. During the guitar solo they both are shown driving a minivan, with Hayley lying across the backseats, then she is shown to be in the driver and front seat, visually replacing them.

Finally, throughout the music video, the camera slowly zooms in and out. This creates a sense of surveillance, that we the viewers are intruding on the band, which aligns with the theme of punishment.

end

If you have got this far and not listened to Thick Skull then what are you doing? Listen to it and then come back here! Better yet, listen to the full album.

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Thank you for reading. It’s bittersweet finishing my studies, but I appreciate you accompanying me here for over half of my degree.

-Polytropos :)

what is a video essay?

Much like how a vlog is a video blog, a video essay is a smallscreen argument, about any topic the essayist desires. This format came up on Youtube, which I stumbled upon through the media and cultural commentary circles, though they are also now a mainstay of Nebula. While they are associated with long run times, since platforms like Instagram and TikTok have raised the time limit on their videos, vertical video essays have become a niche of their own. They can be polished and professional as a documentary or casual, like a friend telling you about their latest interest. Sometimes they resemble podcasts, relying more on the script and delivery than the visual aspect.

what makes a good video essay?

A good video essay will make me interested in a topic that I previously didn’t care about. It will also weave different topics together to make the overall argument more compelling. Bonus points for the most unexpected combination.

However, a video essay can do more than make a convincing argument. For me, a good video essay makes use of its medium to make its point. The visuals should enhance the experience by furthering the essayist’s argument, or telling a story, for example. Although I do like playing an essay on another screen while working on something else, a good video essay will test my distractability (if that’s even a word). I also really enjoy a multi-media approach, combining art or animation, as well as sharp editing.

my list

1. culture - F.D. Signifier

F.D. Signifier makes essays about public figures, politics and culture. I like how he discusses the early lives of his essays’ subjects in a way that sheds light on their current behaviour without devolving into armchair psychology. He captures the complex and contradictory behaviours and connects them with broader cultural patterns. Several times he has picked a subject which has been reassessed by the public years after he initially posted his essays, with time proving him right with figures like Drake and Nicki Minaj. I chose his essay about Mike Tyson below, since it is exemplary of his analysis of complicated celebrities, while also being on the shorter side for his channel. However, his best work is the most recent upload on his channel; his four hour video essay, or documentary, on the filmmaker Tyler Perry.

2. history - Philosophy Tube

The ethos of Philosophy Tube is for host Abigail Thorn to share her degree with us for free. Her discussion of philosophy is always grounded in its historical context and modern relevancy. Her videos are incredibly well-produced, including short asides or skits, which highlight the themes of her essay. Although she discusses lofty topics, Thorn has a fun and approachable energy, since her essays are written with the layperson in mind. I like that she always pushes further than the ‘obvious’ question, and that is a skill I aim to emulate in this blog. I have picked for you a Classics-themed essay, her video on Stoicism and its modern permutations.

3. music - The Griot(s)

Don’t worry! There are video essays under 20 minutes. The Griot(s) are a channel that focuses on rap and hip hop music. They discuss this scene and the culture it’s situated in, with the majority of their videos placed at under 20 minutes. They are able to convey a lot in a short runtime, with a choppy, energetic editing style. They also include exclusive interviews and feature small artists, which feels like a rarity in the genre of video essays. I chose this video specifically since this was my introduction to The Griot(s), and it discusses an underrated aspect of rap music, and music in general, which is the visual

4. art - Nerdwriter1

Nerdwriter is probably one of the first video essayists I ever stumbled across. He makes videos on a wide range of topics, particularly visual media. His videos are rarely longer than 10 minutes, and yet they are dense with analysis. He typically focuses on the methods and techniques of artists, what makes their work so great. The essay of his that I chose below is one that stuck with me years after I first watched it. It introduced me to De Chirico, whose art I fell in love with. When I wrote about liminality last year, this video was top of my mind.

5. film - Patrick (H) Willems

Patrick Willems is a filmmaker who makes video essays about films. He, like Philosophy Tube, uses side plots and a universe of characters to add colour to his essays. Willems bounces between very specific niches, such as ‘Muppet Cinema’, and wider multi-part episodes about, for example, the proliferation of legacy sequels. I enjoy his earnestness, it makes his interest contagious, and makes me keep returning to his videos. Take the essay that I chose, about the Wachowski Sister's’ cult classic Speed Racer. In this video essay, Willems argues that this movie, above all others, is the most important of this century. That’s a bold thesis. And yet, whether or not you have seen this film, you end the video completely understanding his reasoning, and even agreeing with him. Don’t believe me? Give it a watch.

6. literature - Princess Weekes

Princess Weekes makes video essays on literature, media and fandom culture, among other things. She has a casual style and delivery which is balanced with her in-depth research. It is also refreshing to see the internet fan culture taken seriously in the way that Weekes does. While she has made a couple of excellent videos about Greek mythology retellings and Persephone, I chose this video about Nosferatu since it ties many threads of discussion together. Weekes uses the Robert Eggers adaptation as a springboard to explore the literary history of vampires and the Gothic genre. In doing so, she nuances the polarizing reception of the film, in a way that was very vindicating to watch during the worst of the discourse.

7. video games - Jacob Geller

Last, but certainly not least, is Jacob Geller. I think he might be one of the video essayists I recommend the most to my friends and family, and I have mentioned him at least once in one of my earlier blogs. I don’t really play video games, so his channel which is primarily about analysing them, wouldn’t seem like my type of thing on paper. But Geller has that infectious enthusiasm that so many of my favourite essayists share. He often draws in links to history or art, which doesn’t hurt either. This video essay below, in my opinion, is the best way to introduce Jacob Geller. I won’t tell you anything else about it, I think it speaks for itself.

honourable mentions

It was difficult to narrow down the list of video essayists that I have, so here’s even more who I couldn’t just leave out of this post, with (very) brief descriptions:

• shanspeare: media, internet culture, fandom

• cj the x: art, philosophy, chaotic

• filmjoy: film, history, emotional

• books n cats: literature, history, horror

• out here: (UK) subculture, art, media

• strange aeons: internet culture, fandom, alternative

• overly sarcastic productions: history, mythology, literature

• sarah z: culture, politics, media

• mina le: fashion, film, history

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final thoughts

If your favourite video essayist hasn’t been mentioned in my list, please let me know! I am always looking for new channels. You might have noticed that I typically enjoy video essays on similar or overlapping themes. However, even when people make them about the same topic, the best video essayists bring their own style and voice, making the journey just as important as the destination. In other words, there’s a video essayist out there for everyone.

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-Polytropos :)

I’m not saying that I would do a better job than Christopher Nolan. I don’t have any Oscars. I’m saying I would do a different job, that would also be better.

If I had unlimited money and a guaranteed audience, I would make the Odyssey a 2D animated television series, making each ‘book’ a 30 to 40 minute episode. I think the nature of TV is better suited for slow-paced stories, and I want the audience to really feel the tension of the poem, whether or not Odysseus will successfully return home.

Animation is a vehicle for boundless imagination. It can contain the unreality of the poem without reminding the audience that they are, in fact, the audience. I want my version of the poem to be vibrant and chaotic.

I used to love watching Sita Sings the Blues as a child. I admire how it draws from Indian art into different animation styles to play with tone. I don’t think my Odyssey would be quite as fourth-wall breaking as that movie, but I would want to draw from various ancient and contemporary Greek artistic traditions to enrich the world-building.

I want the gods to be in a completely different medium to the mortals. My first thought was live puppetry, but they could also be 3D stop motion figures, or something similar. There needs to be visual separation between the worlds of gods and men. In this vein, the flashbacks that go beyond the time span of the poem, for example when the bard sings about Troy, or the story of Odysseus’ scar can be animated in profile in the style of Mycenaean frescoes or black-figure vase painting. While there may be some anachronism in these choices, this can be a purposeful nod to how the poem itself plays with time.

One animated TV series that I’ve been watching on and off is called Scavenger’s Reign. It’s about humans trying to survive after being stranded on an alien planet. I love how it balances the fantastical ecosystem of the planet with the grounded emotional arcs of the characters. This combination of surreal setting and real people is one that is reflected in the Odyssey, especially when we encounter witches and monsters.

Having covered the visual, let’s discuss the story. The three themes that resonate with me the most are nostos, closure, family. From these, everything else will follow.

The theme of nostos is the most important one. It’s an Ancient Greek word meaning homecoming, and the first half of the word nostalgia. Odysseus goes through two homecomings in the poem, the first being his 10 year journey to arrive on the shores of Ithaca, and the second being how he regains control of his house from the Suitors. Not many who survived the Trojan War got a successful or happy homecoming, and these examples should be emphasised to show how difficult Odysseus’ goal is.

Closure is important from the point of view of the Ithacans waiting for Odysseus to return home. We need to see the impact that Odysseus’ absence has had on the Ithacans, whether or not they mourn him. Their lack of closure around his death has created a liminal state where they are either waiting for his return or waiting for other Ithacans to act based on his death.

Family, thus, marries the above themes. Odysseus wants to return home to his family, even if he also wants to create more stories for himself along the way. He gives up a chance for immortality with the divine Calypso so he can be mortal with his wife Penelope. Likewise his family have become strained and disparate in his absence. They are who he returns to and when he does return they must be worthy of one another.

It is important that the audience does not meet Odysseus until episode 5. We need the delayed introduction, so that they can feel the impact of seeing this man crying on the shores of Calypso’s island Ogygia, regardless of how familiar they are with the story. You don’t need to add anything new to make it feel impactful, you just need the audience to feel the importance. That means, while it won’t be overly bleak or dark in tone, it will be earnest.

One year after he starred in Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams was in a movie called Cadillac Man. It is about a workaholic car salesman, whose guile is put to the test when his dealership becomes the scene of a hostage situation. The movie itself is not very good, however it did show me that Odysseus must have a bit of car salesman about him.

That being said, I won’t characterise Odysseus as a sarcastic wisecracker. That’s been done. He needs to be charming, the kind of man you would trust with your life in battle. He is warm, he loves the people around him, his crew, the wife and son he left behind. He also needs to be selfish and prideful, someone with the propensity to be cruel.

Thank you for reading! What would you do if you were adapting the Odyssey?

-Polytropos :)

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Author’s note: This was originally going to be one, much longer, piece, but I’ve decided to split it into two. This week I will talk about the discourse around Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, and next time I will tell you how I would adapt the Odyssey for the screen.

Being a Classics student, I have been talking to my coursemates about Nolan’s upcoming adaptation since it was announced last year. From the start I was optimistic but uneasy. Any cinematic adaptation of the Odyssey, by nature of its medium, cannot contain the whole story. If you were to read the Odyssey aloud it would take 24 hours, and so a three, even four hour film can only tell one sixth of the full text. As the film approaches, we can see from the trailers and interviews that Nolan also plans on including episodes from the Iliad and wider Epic cycle, so… how’s that going to work?

Sidenote: since 3+ hour films are not going anywhere anytime soon can we bring back the intermission? Bollywood does intermissions and it’s great, so can Hollywood remember them please and thank?

With any adaptation, it helps to pick a primary theme to organise your telling around, and so far, I’m not sure what Nolan’s is. To hazard a guess, it might be about Odysseus as a Great Man, which would makes sense given that his last film, Oppenheimer, had a similar theme. Personally, this theme is not my favourite; it is overplayed and doesn’t suit Odysseus. Granted, a hero and lord of Ithaca would have such a grand view of himself, but I believe that the poem does not view Odysseus as a Great Man. Whatever the primary theme is, I hope Nolan sticks to it, because even if ‘Great Men’ is not something that interests me, I dislike carelessness more.

The cast

Nolan’s Odysseus is played by a Matt Damon, who, despite his better efforts, looks like he has emerged from a Boston Winter, rather than a man who has spent ten years fighting a war on the Ionian coast, and another ten years drifting around the Mediterranean Sea. The fact that there are very few Greek actors in the film, if any, is a conspicuous omission, though I doubt that the discussion around this all comes from a place of good faith.

I have many thoughts about Nolan’s somewhat colour-blind cast. You should know, if you value historical accuracy, the Greeks of the Bronze Age were aware of and trading with people across Africa. The Odyssey and Iliad both refer to the ‘Aethiopians’, a mythologised depiction of Africans, who are worthy of hosting the gods as dinner-guests. One poem from the Epic cycle, the broader collection of poems describing the events leading up to and following from the Trojan War, is titled the Aethiopis and is about King Memnon of Aethiopia arriving at the war as an ally to the Trojans. Conversely, the Mycenaeans didn’t see themselves as ‘white’ in the modern sense, and the British isles would have been a far distant place. All this to say that if you don’t see a problem with WASPy Matt Damon playing Odysseus, or you do but it doesn’t anger you as much as Lupita Nyong’o playing Helen and Clytemnestra, or Zendaya playing Athena, you should go and touch grass.

But these choices also concern me. Lupita plays Penelope’s two villanised cousins, Helen, who blames herself for leaving Menelaus which caused the Trojan War, and Clytemnestra, who murders her husband. While the poet does dress their villainy with nuance, I can easily see this getting lost in the sauce of the film, given that Helen and Clytemnestra are tertiary characters. Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, is (to simplify) portrayed as the moral opposite of Helen and Clytemnestra, by remaining loyal to Odysseus. I wonder, was it ‘too much’ to cast the virtuous Penelope as a Black woman like her cousins?

The vitriolic reaction to this cast, especially Nyong’o, spiralling out on social media is not new. It reminds me of how the Star Wars and Marvel franchises began casting people of colour in prominent roles, and left these actors to fend for themselves amid the disgusting racist backlash (to give just one example, see John Boyega). The fact that these commenters throw around ‘historical accuracy’ as a dogwhistle for their views is shameful, and contributes to the sentiment that Black and Brown people do not ‘belong’ in Classics.

Choice of translation

There are many angry because Nolan references Dr. Emily Wilson’s 2018 translation of the Odyssey. Their opinions, if you couldn’t already tell, are usually based in bad faith, often centred around Wilson aligning her translation more with the poem’s depiction of the enslaved women and girls of Ithaca, which neither insults them as ‘bitches’, nor downplays their status with ‘servants’.

The straightforward language, seen in the trailer when Antinous (Robert Pattinson) insults Telemachus (Tom Holland), is an aspect of this. This is one of the features that, to be honest, I actually like. Homer’s Greek is very direct, while still being beautiful, something that I find Wilson captures well in her translation and that Nolan seems to have picked up on. While to a modern audience, anything ancient is seen as elevated, I think it serves the adaptation well to use plain dialogue, depending on who’s speaking. The Suitors would be brusque and sneering, whereas Odysseus washed up on the shore asking for hospitality from princess Nausicaa would not be.

At the same time, while Wilson’s translation is very important for calling into question the choices of past (male) translators, hers is not without flaws. In the conclusion of her chapter on ‘Race and Sexuality in Antiquity’, Dr. Jackie Murray criticises how Wilson translates Odysseus’ skin tone. The poet uses μελάγχροος, meaning dark-skinned, twice, once to describe Odysseus (16.174-6), and once for his herald Eurybates (19.244-9). For context, μελάγχροος (melanchroos) is related to English words like melanin. However, Wilson translates the word for Odysseus as ‘tanned’ and for Eurybates as ‘black skin’. Murray points out how Wilson’s translation artificially frames Eurybates as the darker-skinned subordinate to the lighter and nobler hero, when this distinction does not exist in the Greek, reinforcing negative stereotypes.

Visuals

The final thorn of Nolan’s Odyssey, the costuming, colours and overall visual language, is what disappoints me the most. The Bronze Age was a vibrant time, especially through the kaleidoscopic lens of poetry. Where is the colour, Nolan? Why am I looking at plain marble statues again? Not only is it historically inaccurate, but, worse, it is unoriginal. Nolan had an opportunity to really move away from the visual cues used by other big screen adaptations of the ancient Mediterranean. But he chose the safe route and I am tired of it. It’s not that I don’t understand why some choices are made. Heroes played by movie stars can wear their helmets for all of two seconds so that they can take it off and show their glorious contractually-obligated faces while they rush into battle. It just seems like an uninspired choice from a supposed visionary.

My opinion is that an adaptation of the Odyssey does not need to be entirely historically accurate to the Bronze Age. The poet certainly wasn’t. The Odyssey (and the Iliad) is full of anachronisms from the poet’s own time, several centuries after these poems are supposed to take place. A clever filmmaker might find ways to signal that as a way of heightening the fantastical element of the story. Which could be why we see Laestrygonians in Western European medieval armour… But now I’m thinking of the Batman Helmet that Agamemnon wears and I’m sad, because it seems like they just went with whatever had nebulous cool vibes.

A recent book-to-movie adaptation with purposeful anachronism which works for me is Oscar' Isaac’s portrayal of Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro’s recent film. His voice and body language in the early half of the movie emulates the theatrical posturing of rockstars. This idea is also emphasised in his costuming. While Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein may not have acted like this in the book, del Toro makes this choice to emphasise the theme of Frankenstein as a visionary artist, creating a parallel between the scientist and the del Toro, and thus Creature and the film. While it may not work for some viewers, it works for me because these anachronisms enhance the narrative that del Toro wants to portray.

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Final thoughts

There is legitimate criticism to be had of Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of the Odyssey, which is getting buried under piles of anti-blackness and bigotry. Note how the worst vitriol slips away from Nolan himself, who is in primary creative control, and attatches itself to the actors instead.

When I watch this film, I’m sure that I will be frustrated by mischaracterisations, monochrome and more. I am also genuinely curious to see what parts of the 2020s this Odyssey will reflect, which Ithacas Nolan thinks we want to return to. One movie alone will not ‘threaten’ the Odyssey, as some seem to feel. There is a wealth of past adaptations, which I plan to watch, and there will continue to be plenty more.

Something that I love about a story that is so old and so famous, is that it has inspired countless artworks of every form. The cover of this post is a screenprint by Romare Bearden, an artist I’d not heard about before, and I look forward to researching more about. I’d love to hear about an adaptation or depiction of the Odyssey that resonates with you!

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- Polytropos :)

Thank you for reading this to the end! If you want to hear more about the movie, Lady of the Library on Youtube has some really interesting videos about it. I also highly recommend reading Murray’s chapter on Racecraft in the Odyssey; while it touches on Wilson’s translation, it’s about much more than that.

Here is a snippet of next week’s post:

I’m not saying that I would do a better job than Christopher Nolan. I don’t have any Oscars. I’m saying I would do a different job, that would also be better.

If you are new here, or if you have stayed subscribed during my break, thank you for waiting! I have just finished my final exam, which means that I’m done with my degree! It feels sad to be done with Classics in an academic context (at least for now). Even though I’ve learnt so much during my undergrad, I’ve barely scraped the surface of what there is to know. I hope to continue my learning here, with my JSTOR account and a dream.

I decided to start this blog over a year ago (!) because I wanted to be a better writer and to have an outlet for my various academic and creative interests. It feels strange posting my thoughts on the Internet, especially when there are so many blogs sharing similar things, and the last thing I want to do is repeat the same takes that already circulate Substack. Thus, I generally avoid writing about something that is in the current discourse, unless I know that I have something unique to add. This usually takes the form of comparisons or visual responses. Often while meeting coursework deadlines is when I get my most distracting ideas, so I’ve built up a bank of them which I’ll be drawing from now that I’m back.

Recently, I’ve been using Capacities for organising my thoughts. I like how it allows me to link together different ideas, and it seems to work well for my brain. I also like handwriting when I get the time, something about the physicality of it helps to channel my thoughts. While the more coporatised parts of the Internet seem to be getting increasingly worse to navigate, I’m trawling for independent sites that inspire me. Eventually, I’d like to make a personal website of my own, and can share parts of my process here if you are interested.

To round off this week’s blog I’ll share three websites that I’ve found in my search. If you have some favourites of your own, please share in the comments!

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The first, once posted, is a growing digital archive of vintage postcards, with both the artwork and the messages on the back. Though some are blank, it is a trove of snapshots into people’s lives, the memories that they wanted to share with loved ones. Even the handwriting is a point of interest, making each a challenge to decipher.

Then, coffee receipt stories, which contains mini comic strips drawn on the back of, well, coffee shop receipts. They are organised by theme and location, and there are hundreds and hundreds to enjoy. Each one is an insight into a small part of the artist’s day, the people they meet, and even their dreams.

Finally, there is fridge poem, which is full of words, suffixes and prefixes. You move around, either dragging the words into a little poem of your own, or reading those made by other visitors of the site. I noticed several hearts made up of words while moving through the space.

Once again thank you for sticking around! I’ll resume my posting on Fridays, and we’ll see where we go from there!

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- Polytropos :)

As a young brown person, I’m so frustrated that being woke, a term that originated from AAVE to mean being socially and politically aware, has shifted from a valued perspective to something shameful in the cultural imagination. It’s been decontextualised and appropriated by white podcast bros and their ilk the world over, dismissing it as ‘Tik Tok speak’ or ‘Gen Z slang’. No, historically it was (and is) a call to action for Black Americans, a reminder to stay aware of the injustices perpetrated against them.

And now it has been diluted to such a point that people don’t want to be seen as ‘too woke’. What? Since when did we apologise for speaking against bigotry?

On principle that kind of dismissal gnaws at me. It’s relegated to the same Cloud Dancer White corner of ‘it’s not that deep’ and ‘the curtains are just blue’ and ‘it’s just a joke, calm down’.

At the same time, I understand the worry of being seen as too out there for pointing out the political dimensions of something that could have just stayed ‘casual’

I spent the whole first day of 2026 watching series one of The Night Manager. It is a 2016 BBC drama about an undercover agent (Tom Hiddleston) trying to outmanoeuvre an arms dealer (Hugh Laurie). The first episode sets up Hiddleston’s motivation for wanting to take down Laurie, through the murder of an Egyptian woman (Aure Atika) he fell in love with. Though I enjoyed the tension and intrigue, this moment took me out of the story. How many times have I watched a woman of colour be expendable on screen. Even if she does survive, she’s relegated as a prop for the (white) protagonist’s development.

This may not have stuck out to me quite so much, but at the time I had recently started reading Orientalism by Edward Said for an essay. In this Said writes about the European invention of the ‘East’ as the mirror of the ‘West’ and the ultimate Other. This is typified in the depiction of Eastern countries and individuals. Said argues that the Orient isn’t necessarily always geographically East, rather it can be any place where the West exerts power, such as Egypt. Here arises stereotypes of Oriental ‘excess’ which represent both their power and femininity; it is their luxury which makes them weak in the eyes of the West. The Orient through this Western lens is also an amalgamation of various countries and stereotypes; think of the confused blend of South Asian and Middle Eastern aesthetics in Disney’s Aladdin.

Take the Aeneid, for example. On his way to establish a home for the refugee Trojans, Aeneas finds himself in the newly-established city of Carthage, ruled by Queen Dido. The poet, Virgil, fashioned Dido on Pharaoh Cleopatra, who even after her death was seen as a threat to Rome. Dido is a good host and sympathetic to Aeneas’ plight, being a refugee herself. Venus, Aeneas’ mother, makes Dido fall in love with him to ensure that she wouldn’t mistreat him. But the longer Aeneas stays in Carthage, the longer he delays his ultimate destiny of settling Italy. Though she expects to marry him, he sails away in the night, without saying goodbye. In heartbroken rage, Dido curses all future Romans with eerie foreign rites that Carthage would be their worst enemy. She then falls on Aeneas’ sword and the funeral pyre she made for herself. Though Virgil portrays Dido sympathetically, her unstable emotions and magical ability make her the Eastern threat that Rome so feared. She framed as the ancestor and reason for Hannibal and the devastating Punic wars. Yet, as the paradox of Orientalism reveals, she is so easily brought to ruin by Aeneas, as Carthage would one day be by Scipio Africanus.

Viewing The Night Manager with this in mind, the disposability of the Egyptian woman to motivate the Englishman is an extension of this view that she is the Other. She is exoticised and attractive, but she is not allowed to exist outside of the control and power of men. This is the power of both the Egyptian men who are portrayed as unpredictable and dangerous, and Tom Hiddleston’s character who is portrayed (in the first episode) as gentlemanly and calm. Later on in the season, the disparity between the destructive, flashy Egyptian secondary antagonists and the menacing, subtle English primary antagonist (Laurie) becomes obvious. This framework is subverted slightly in the second season, which highlights the colonial attitudes of the English pulling the strings in the background.

Once you know about the hallmarks of Orientalism, especially as it is expressed in art and literature, it is very difficult to unsee. I can’t simply turn it off and, honestly, I don’t want to. I want to be able to understand the flaws of the art I enjoy and I find the process of creating that deeper understanding enjoyable in and of itself.

What’s an example of Orientalism that you have noticed in art?

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books

While at University I find it difficult to keep up the reading habit I could once boast about in secondary school. Still, that I managed to read even some books that are outside of my course is a win I’ll gladly take!

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

• Peel back the linguistic layers of this orange and find a surprisingly straightforward treatise on the importance of freewill in society. I’m glad to have read it but I won’t be revisiting it anytime soon.

Kaikeyi - Vaishnavi Patel

• i enjoyed Patel’s take on an ancient story, a prequel of sorts for the Indian epic the Ramayana, from the perspective of its most maligned character. ‘Redeeming’ mythological villainesses seems to be a recurring topic in fiction, and Patel is able to tell Kaikeyi’s story without treading much of that familiar ground.

The Mighty Dead - Adam Nicolson

• I like the mixture of historical and personal in Nicolson’s investigation into the importance of Homer. I think he leans into the potential historicity of the Iliad and Odyssey a bit too much for my taste but still I enjoy that he shares the same passion for old stories as me.

The Conquest of Ruins - Julia Hell

• Sometimes studying Classics is like being handed a key to unlock the door of ‘why is the world the way it is.’ Hell lays it all bare in this book, the banal self-fulfilling prophecy of empires being haunted by the ruins of older empires.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa

• This book was a much needed spot of lightness, a recommendation from my dad. I love a slice-of-life, and watching the main character discover reading reminded me why I love it too.

film

Going back through my Letterboxd diary I’m pleasantly surprised with the amount of films I’ve been able to watch over the past year. I think my goal for 2026 is to watch more movies in the cinema.

Nosferatu

• This was a great start to 2025, more an adaptation of the black and white film than Bram Stoker’s novel. I liked how the gender dynamics are portrayed particularly in the main couple. I also like seeing Willem Dafoe just do his thing.

Conclave

• I saw this for the first time with a bunch of friends from uni; besides an older couple behind us in the cinema we were the only ones laughing. It says that it is not enough to vote for the lesser of two evils, there has to be a better option than what we’ve been given.

Sinners

• Sinners is a revelation. I left the theatre thinking ‘this is what movies could be.’ My favourite kind of historical fantasy is one where the magic enhances the history, and the push and pull of the vampires and Blues music work perfectly to inform this telling of Black American history.

Black Orpheus

• This movie suffers from being made by someone outside of the culture they’re portraying, but I still found it a compelling adaptation of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Something of Eurydice’s home life reminded me of the family gatherings I’ve grown up with. It made me cry in a way very few films have.

Frankenstein

• I curse every executive at Netflix that I didn’t get to see this in the cinema. I watched this in my room, with an intermission from my flatmate who had some important gossip to share, frantically noting down my thoughts like a mad scientist. It was just as captivating rewatching it with a couple friends, this time with better commentary.

Wake Up Dead Man

• I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this film; I was worried that Benoit Blanc would have diminishing returns. Luckily, I was quickly proven wrong! I watched it again with my mum, and still it hooked me, despite knowing how the mystery would play out.

tv

On this list I’m focusing on shows I’d finished, rather than ones I dip in and out of (with the exception of MASH, which is neverending). Those shows that I’m still mid-watching include Beef, Scavenger’s Reign and Interview With The Vampire. I also haven’t included the reality shows I watched (mostly Taskmaster and Glow Up).

Severance

• Severance was the kind of psychological thriller sci-fi I didn’t know I was looking for. A lot of media engages with mid-century nostalgia and retro-futurism just for aesthetics, but this is one where it felt very intentional. I love when a location feels like its own character and the Lumon office building really hits the mark.

MASH

• This is my comfort TV show, and I’ll be rewatching it forever. I love when the actors step in to direct, as it’s often when the show is at its most inventive. I usually watch it right before I go to bed. Though, like most sitcoms, each episode does not drive a wider plot forward, the characters are still given space to grow and evolve.

The Bear

• I always watch the Bear with my mum. I think I like watching people who are scary good at their jobs, and the Bear certainly delivers on that. The dynamics between the characters feels so real and lived-in, which makes them feel like people you’ve known all your life.

BBC Pride and Prejudice

• My flatmate introduced me to the wonders of the Pride and Prejudice mini series, over a couple evenings while she told me about how much more accurate it is than the movie. It’s one of those classics I know nothing about, and it was a joy to experience it for the first time in this way!

music

2025 has been fantastic for music. So many of my favourite artists have released new albums this year, and that’s what I have listed here. On top of this wonderful new music, I’ve found a lot of songs and artists through Youtube, particularly the playlists on Club Carter Radio and the album dissections on Turningthetables and HThaze.

Face Down in the Garden - Tennis

• I’ve been obsessing over Tennis like Tashi Duncan in Challengers. Their last album is wistful and warm. It feels like it’s come pre-aged, a vintage bottled time. While I hope they one day return to music, this will be on repeat until they do.

The Crux - Djo

• This album feels like a natural step up Djo’s first two albums. He wears his Beatles-y inspiration on his sleeve, and it results in a wonderful balance between playful and poignant.

Lotus - Little Simz

• Though this album has seen Simz be pushed to her emotional limits, she still lands on her feet, hitting the ground running with incredible focus and intention. It is so cathartic to reach the end of the album and feel Simz get to the other side of her hurt.

hopefully ! - Loyle Carner

• I’m glad that it was on the tour for this album that I finally got to see Loyle Carner live. A tonal shift from hugo, this album has become a comfort listen for me. It makes me feel wrung out, like after having a good cry.

Breach - Twenty One Pilots

• Breach has been ten years in the making, and having been a fan since Blurryface, I have to say they have absolutely stuck the landing. They blend familiar and new sounds with their signature hard-hitting lyricism. I’m so excited to see where they go next.

Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party - Hayley Williams

• Hayley Williams is a powerhouse, I’m sure you already know this. Ego Death is vibrant, wide-ranging and vulnerable. Though every song is brilliant, Mirtazapine, a love song to antidepressants, particularly stands out.

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And that’s a wrap! Thank you for a wonderful year! I’m really glad I started this blog, and I look forward to another year of writing!

- Polytropos :)

Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, is the full title of Mary Shelley’s book, though the allusion to Prometheus is not the only connection to ancient texts in the novel. The theme of reanimating the dead appears in one spectacular moment in the middle of the Pharsalia by Roman poet Lucan.1

The Roman general Magnus Pompey’s hapless son Sextus Pompey seeks out the witch Erichtho to learn the future He meets her in Northern Greece after his father pushed back Julius Caesar’s forces to Thessaly. To grant his prophecy Erichtho reanimates a freshly slain corpse to interrogate. The wretched body hates every second of his cursed re-existence, begging to return to his un-life. Here are the passages to compare:

Chapter 5, Frankenstein

It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!—Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.

Book 6, Pharsalia (trans. Jane Wilson-Joyce)

At once, the dotted gore warmed, its heat softened black

wounds, blood coursed through veins out to the tips of fingers and toes.

Battered organs deep in the icy thorax throbbed,

and new life, oozing back into deserted marrow,

mingled with death. Soon, the thing is pulsing in every limb.

The sinews strain, and the corpse lurches up from the ground-

not inch by inch, not limb by limb, but heaving itself

up from the earth, standing erect all at once. Eyes glazed, lips

stretched back, it has not the face of a living man, but

does now look like one dying. Pallor lingers, and stiffness.

Brought back to the world, he is dazed. But his mouth, muzzled,

utters no murmur, voice and tongue are granted only

for his replies. (lines 750-762)

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein owes its existence to the combined legacy of both Shelley’s novel and the many screen adaptations that come before it. When discussing the process of adaptation across the press tour, del Toro uses the analogy of marrying a widow; you have to respect the memory of the late husband, but at some point you and her just need to get it on. Knowing this going into the film makes watching much easier than if I expected it to be a word for word adaptation. Here are the notes I made when watching it:

• orientalism

• war profiteering

• side wound of christ

• victor frankenstein is an incel

• adaptation like fashioning the creature

• plato’s cave

• even elizabeth wants to cage the butterfly

• shes in it, she can’t see another way

• the creature is more connected with nature than the humans

• the leaf, rats, stag

• i am obscene to you but to myself i simply am

• a review of frankenstein through cut up letters

The core change del Toro makes is the details of Victor Frankenstein’s family and backstory. His distant father and oedipal relationship with his mother is emphasized, with an added racialised aspect separating Victor and his mother from his father and brother. Mia Goth plays both Victor’s mother and his brother’s fiancee Elizabeth whom Victor is enamoured with.

The time period of the film is shifted later in the 1800s than the book is set, at the time of the Crimean War. Victor’s project is fully funded by Elizabeth’s uncle, an arm’s dealer, and project-managed by his investor brother. His fascination with unmaking death stems from his past trauma and unchecked ambition to outdo his father. Yet he is enabled by the profiteers from empire, who want to colonise death, the world not being enough. Immortality-obsessed billionaires come to mind. But Victor, busy picking still-warm bodies from the battlefield, is less interested in legacy than proving a point.

His passion for science is mirrored in his sister-in-law. Elizabeth, fresh from the convent, is more drawn to nature, to the insects that she dresses like. She is ideologically opposed to the bloody posturing of the men around her, being the first person to show the Creature true kindness. Even still, when butterfly watching with Victor she chooses to cage a butterfly, showing that her gentle and open perspective is limited by the society she inhabits. When she realises that he is still infatuated with her, she brings the caged butterfly to his laboratory of half-formed humans.

Elizabeth is seen through the narration of a compromised Victor. He must diminish her disdain for his machismo, treating it as a joke, because to engage with her as a peer would throw his life’s work into question and break his pride. She is more palatable viewed as a manic pixie dream mum. This rosy view of her is entirely disrupted when she meets the Creature in the basement of the tower.

The Creature, sometimes called Adam, is something to behold. Curious and childlike, he reflects the people around him. Jacob Elordi disappears into the role, portraying the movement of a new being like a dazed fawn. Everything is new to him, and Victor reduces his exposure to the world to a sewer, water, and pain, making Plato’s allegory of the cave literal. It is Elizabeth who instantly connects with Adam, treats him with curiosity, and teaches him the motion of speech.

People view Elizabeth and Adam’s dynamic as either romantic, platonic, familial or erotic. Personally, I think it blurs all of these boundaries - the main point is their connection and its intensity. Likewise, the Creature can represent any permutation of the Other, be it an othered race, gender, or the experience of being a child or disabled. That’s not to say that those experiences are all the exact same, but that you could read Adam into many of them.

This other is also seen in the loose theme of orientalism, (i.e. exoticising anything east of Europe). Victor cites the Chinese philosophical concept of Qi, the invisible flow of life force or energy, when he brings corpses to life. Later when Harlander shows him his model of the lymphatic system, the piece of the puzzle Victor was missing, he comments that Muslim scholars referred to it as the ‘secret circulatory system.’ Though these are the only two references to non-Western knowledge, it struck me that Victor would appropriate ‘Eastern’ knowledge for healing the sick, to his own ends of cheating nature. Meanwhile, the Creature reads Ozymandias, a poem by Mary Shelley’s husband Percy about the statue of an Egyptian pharaoh and whispers to himself, “My name is Ozymandias.”

When I watched the film, I wanted to write out my thoughts using cut up letters from some art magazines I have lying around. I ended up making this poem. I’ll put a transcript below.

Pecking at his Liver

muse, speak across centuries a Western, white European, scientific man challenges we now share. a fairy tale

mother cut my feet lift my spirits. The name was given scientific names, to satisfy her need

my mother’s greatest frustration films misinterpreted and potentially reinvented by other people.

This is not a dilemma. I have the life she wanted but could not have. science life itself, science film ways of using technology light and energy.

brother and sister primed for marriage confining and limiting The caged-in domestic, together.

• Post-AI imperfections:

unfathomable an animated, unidentifiable black mass blurs ‘Jesus loves a winner!’

another category! rooted in deep connection with nature, its own desires and agency.

war, name War mocking, offensive insulting or derogatory. their stomachs are too full verges on the necrophilic,

organ both flesh and rock pteridophilia, the term ‘ecosexual’ beyond the human. ‘Things come back to bite you!’

life enhancing. worlds of queers they’re people like me.

an intrinsic part of who i am of what is considered a living entity,

Does it haunt us?

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Sorry it’s been so long. As it turns out, writing a dissertation and a blog are not easy to both maintain at once. I’m going to keep writing as much as I can, though for the time being there will not be regular posts. Thank you for reading and supporting me, it really means a lot

- Polytropos :)

I was inspired by the YouTuber KickthePJ’s series ‘comforting thoughts to hear when you’re feeling uneasy’, which I used to watch during lockdown. My mum also often tells me to keep track of what I’m grateful for, and so this also functions as a gratitude list of sorts.

1. i can identify two constellations (orion and the little dipper)

   1. the stars i see have been around for longer than i can fathom, and will stay for far longer than that

2. i live somewhere where i can regularly see the stars (so long as it’s not overcast)

3. i cross a lake to go to my lectures

   1. there’s a heron who fishes there

   2. there’s teenage swans, too big to be cygnets, with fluffy grey feathers

   3. i can never remember the difference between coots and moorhens, but i have friends who will tell me

   4. i see people stop to feed the ducks or take pictures

      1. often it’s parents and their kids

4. there’s a little tree with red leaves outside my window

   1. it waves hello

5. sharing sweets with friends

6. making a bad pun and watching everyone’s reactions

   1. at least i’m amused

7. having a hot drink on a cold day, especially chai

   1. my glasses fog up every time

8. seeing old photographs of my family

9. making a reference in a group that only one other person gets

   1. you make eye contact and immediately fall to pieces laughing

   2. seriously, we share one braincell

10. i can always listen to the music i fell in love with when i was 12

    1. things have changed so much since then

    2. the best artists are the ones who’ve grown alongside me

    3. and if i’m really lucky i get to see them live

11. people thousands of years ago were just regular people

    1. they grieved and made art and told stories

    2. they had favourite animals and named their pets

    3. they complained to their parents, wrote bad reviews, sent birthday invites

12. i know which songs to sing to soothe myself

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Thank you for reading this! I know it’s been a while, but don’t worry, it’s regularly scheduled programming from here on out.

Let me know in the comments what brings you comfort in the colder months!

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Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier is a song about a collection of memories being recalled from a bird’s-eye view. The crucial memory here is witnessing an animal being hit with a car. The song uses imagery of water, and how light reflects in rain to evoke picturing the memories. The chorus repeats the sentence ‘see how it shines’, which gets recontextualised as the song goes on. It could refer to the streetlights, the eyes of the wounded animal, the narrator’s lover, or the earth from afar, a ‘pale blue dot’. Us, the listener, are commanded to only observe just as the narrator can only view these memories. In the second verse, the lover rushes to comfort the animal after it was struck by the car. It dies in their arms; they are the last thing it sees. While the ‘abstract’ in the song’s title refers to the slew of memories, the lover who comforts the dying animal is the ‘psychopomp’.

Psychopomp is the word for a figure who guides others into the Underworld, into the afterlife. This refers to the character within the song but also to Hozier’s medieval inspiration. Abstract (Psychopomp) is the 14th track of Hozier’s 2023 album Unreal Unearth. The album is loosely structured on the nine circles of Hell as described in Dante’s Inferno. In the Inferno, the 14th century poet Dante Alighieri is guided through the Underworld by the ghost of the ancient Roman poet Virgil, who functions as a psychopomp in the story.

One of the bonus tracks for Unreal Unearth, called Hymn to Virgil, explores this dynamic further. Hozier writes from the perspective of Dante, a man who took heavy inspiration from the ancient poet. There is great tension between his admiration of Virgil, who was pagan, and Dante’s Catholicism. Virgil could guide Dante through the grisliest parts of Hell, but despite his good qualities, his faith prevents him from following Dante to Purgatory.

Dante may have been responding to the Underworld as depicted by Virgil. In his epic, the Aeneid, our titular character Aeneas is instructed to descend to the Underworld. This takes place at the halfway point of the poem, in Book 6, a pivotal moment for the hero.

Aeneas has been buffeted from place to place since he fled the burning wreck of Troy. Finally he has arrived in Italy, where the gods and ghosts told him he will settle with the Trojan refugees. But first he must descend. He consults the priestess of Apollo in Cumae, an eerie woman known as the Sibyl. She accompanies him down, showing him the shades of his past, and other horrifying truths. Aeneas sees how the worst sinners are punished, like Ixion on his ever-spinning wheel. Then he is taken to Elysium, where his late father, Anchises, gives him encouragement to go on.

This episode of the Aeneid was certainly inspired by Odysseus’ journey to the Underworld in the Odyssey. The Homeric version of the Underworld is far more minimalist, not the vast space that Aeneas is taken through. Indeed, Odysseus travels without a guide. Virgil takes the well known story, and embellishes it with his own poetic flair.

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I find it fascinating how the figure of the psychopomp has changed and evolved in these three works. From the distant and strange Sibyl, to Dante’s artistic inspiration, to Hozier’s lover, the psychopomps in each of these works has gotten closer to the person they’re guiding.

If you could choose a person (or animal!) to be your psychopomp who would you choose and why?

Here’s one I made earlier!

Video description: Two ‘Lego friends’ figures hug. The (playdough) king rides in on a spider (halloween decor), which eats one of the Lego friends. The survivor punches the king, knocking him out. She takes the crown and sits on the spider which eats the king. The spider crawls over the camera, presumably eating it too.

Animation is an art that I really admire, perhaps because it’s one that’s out of my reach. I had so much fun making short films like the one above, but the process of creating them made me realise how much skill the art requires.

There are some short animated films that are formative works of art to me. I would like to show you three of them and explain why I love them so.

But first here’s an honourable mention that was the reason I chose this week’s topic.

Le Génie de la Boîte de Raviolis (2005) is an 8 minute Swiss stop-motion masterpiece, directed by Claude Barras, who you may know from My Life as a Courgette. I remember first watching it in a French lesson in secondary school. It charmed my classmates and I immediately.

Armand is an ordinary man working at a tinned ravioli factory. After another day at work he comes home, ready to have his dinner, which is - you guessed it - ravioli. He opens the tin and to his shock, out bursts a singing genie! The Genie grants Armand two (yes, two) wishes. As the story unfolds, the Genie and Armand become unlikely friends.

Here’s the kicker: I can no longer find this film. It was on YouTube at some point - I definitely rewatched it there. But I trawled Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine, all in vain. The tragedy of digital media! Reader, I swear to you, if you find and send me this beautiful short film, I will grant you two (yes, two) wishes!

Edit: Thanks Dad for finding the film :)) https://www.20min.ch/fr/video/court-metrage-le-genie-dans-la-boite-de-ravi-538403557782

The following short films are all viewable on YouTube.

Ocean Kid (2018)

For a long time, I wanted to create a story set in a flooded world. Whatever that story may have looked like, Ocean Kid, by KickthePJ is pretty damn close to that image in my mind. PJ narrates us through this marine world in measured soothing tones. The animation is mixed media, using paper cutouts, watercolour, and digital elements. It has a storybook quality to it. We are introduced to the eponymous ocean kid, who tells us of his new life since the Great Flood. The loose fantastical aspects paired with the themes of memory and isolation create a emotional core for the audience to hold on to. We all feel lost at sea at times.

Mon Ami Qui Brille Dans La Nuit (2020)

This short film is made by students at Gobelins, the school of visual arts in Paris. Honestly, I could write about any and all of the student films on their YouTube channel, but I’ll let you discover the wonder for yourself. My Friend who Shines in the NIght is a ghost story that warms my heart. The spirit is unable to leave the the mortal realm and doesn’t know why. They are taken in by Arthur, who befriends them and does whatever he can to help them move on. The animation uses thick line art and flat colours, drawn over live-action backgrounds. These are mostly still photographs, but there is one shot that brilliantly animates a moving vehicle over a moving live-action background. This contrast adds to the playful tone of the film, despite the heavy theme of death. The film pokes fun at our various ways of reckoning with death, whether that’s scientific, through doctors and therapists, or spiritual, with the occult and religious. Yet, through it all, the humour does not undermine the poignancy.

La Mort de Robespierre (2024)

This short film by CalArts student Janelle Feng is far darker in theme than the previous examples, hence the age restriction on the video. It explores the key players of the French Revolution, Robespierre and his most dedicated ally, Saint-Just. The Reign of Terror is about to break, and the walls are closing in. Saint-Just still believes that they are righteous, but he needs his leader to step up. Once known as ‘incorruptible’, Robespierre sees the writing on the wall, the consequences of his actions all rushing to meet him at once. The pressure screws tight around him. The violence he takes against himself is represented through the visual metaphor of a skeletal lamb. The monotone colour scheme and hatched lineart creates an oppressive, overcast, rainy atmosphere. The use of comic-book style frames deepens the isolation in the figures’ final moments. In under six minutes Feng conveys the complexity of this specific moment in history, infusing every frame with double-meaning.

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conclusion

I feel like trying to link these three short films together would be quite contrived. I suppose I could say that France often inspires some lovely animation? But really the lack of throughline between these short films is the point. Animation is one medium of telling a story, not a genre of story itself, just as live-action is not a genre. You wouldn’t put Rear Window and Get Out and the Kissing Booth trilogy in the same box just because of how they’re made. Each of these short films even uses a different style of animation, each connected to the specific story they tell.

I think what I love about any great animated short, is that it has to do so much to tell a full story in such limited time, that often the artist(s) saturates each frame with as much storytelling as possible. Little changes in colour, pacing, gesture brought to life that create an implicit wash of emotion. All chosen with intention, whether it is instinctual or thought-out. It is so very human.

In 1967 the French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a lecture that was published posthumously titled ‘Des Espace Autres’ (Of Other Spaces). In it he defines a term that he created, heterotopia.

The reason I came across this text was that it was the focus of a paper by Elena Giusti - Virgil’s Carthage: A Heterotopic Space of Empire. In it Giusti demonstrates how the North African city of Carthage, as depiced in Virgil’s Aeneid, maps onto Foucault’s heterotopia. Understanding Carthage in this way, she argues, helps us to understand how Virgil conceived of Rome.

However, reading this reminded me of my favourite TV show, MASH. It is a dramedy that ran from 1972 to ‘83 set in an American military hospital during the Korean War (1950-’52). The protagonists are a wise-cracking, morally grey group of doctors who want for their patients and their own survival, in desparate circumstances.

I want to see what happens when I look at MASH through Foucault’s Of Other Spaces.

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but first, a digression!

There is a theory about MASH among fans on Tumblr (yes, I’m still on Tumblr, what about it?) that the characters of the show exist within a timeloop. Think of Groundhog Day, a movie where Bill Murray experiences the same day (groundhog day) thousands of times until he matures enough to break the cycle and see the next day. Unlike Bill Murray, the characters in MASH experience days distinct to one another, however the three years of the Korean war warp and loop over and over to accomadate the eleven years of television.

It makes me think of The Good Place, a sitcom that takes place in the afterlife. In the afterlife, time does not move in a linear fashion; it moves in the shape of the name ‘Jeremy Bearimy’ writ in cursive.

The dot above the “i” is a part of the timeline — it is Tuesday, it is July, it is also the time of ‘never’. Don’t think about it too hard, it might give you a stomachache.

The timeline of MASH folds over, loops around and doubles back in a Jeremy Bearimy as the show extended more than three times longer than the very real Korean War it takes place in. On some level, the characters are aware of this. They often joke about operating sessions that go on for ‘years’ and that the wounded they operate on seem to get younger and younger.

This helps the show as a commentary on the futility of war, and the American military. The first three seasons of the show aired during the final years of the Vietnam War, which itself lasted for nineteen years. We, the audience, watch the actors age over time, while their characters stay the same age.

Other fans believe that the timeloop is sustained by the audience. Whether the TV channel or a bingewatch, once the credits roll on the final episode and the characters leave Korea, series 1 episode 1 is always queued up. Our charming head surgeon Hawkeye Pierce dark-haired once more, playing golf in a minefield, the overlayed yellow text reading ‘100 years ago… Korea 1950’. Certainly I resonate with this feeling of audience-induced timeloop; in a recent rewatch I skipped an episode because I didn’t want a character to die.

If you want a visual example of The Timeloop you can watch this compilation here.

the other space

Heterotopia comes from two Ancient Greek words; heteros (other) and topos (place). Foucault defines it with utopia in mind. Not eu-topos (good place), but ou-topos (not place). The second utopia is an impossible place, like the world inside the mirror. A heterotopia is also like the world inside the mirror, a real place but all back to front.

Foucault defines the heterotopia with six principles which I’ll title as the following:

1. crisis and deviation

2. change in function

3. multiple (incompatible) spaces

4. slices in time, ‘heterochronies’

5. entering and leaving

6. illusion or compensation

As I go through Foucault’s criteria for a heterotopia, I will consider how the characters inhabit the space, and how the audience interact with it. I’m using the English translation by Jay Miskowiec, which you can read for yourself here.

1. crisis and deviation

Heterotopias of crisis are ‘other places’ where people who are in a state of crisis (relative to their culture/society) go. The examples that Foucault provide include adolescents, menstruating women, and the elderly. He says that in the modern age they have become heterotopias of deviation, where people who’s behaviour deviates from the ‘norm’. This includes psychiatric hospitals, prisons and retirement homes.

I think that MASH is a heterotopia of crisis, particularly as a transitional space for injured and unwell people who pass through its collapsible walls. Being wounded or sick in a warzone certainly seems to qualify as a crisis by Foucault’s standard.

Conversly, it is a heterotopia of deviance for the audience, since a leisure activity such as watching TV can be seen as deviating from the norm of ultra-productivity.

2. change in function

A heterotopia’s function must change over time, as cultures and contexts change.

MASH goes through several evolutions during its eleven series run. The first 3 series are more slapstick in tone, moving into something more balanced from series 4 to 6, before settling into a serious tone for the final four series. These shifts happened as cast members changed and the actors took on a greater creative role in the show. The sitcom formula stayed the same, with one or two plot arcs per episode and most returning to the status quo by the end of the episode. However, episodes that the actors directed and wrote were often more experimental in direction and structure.

I think that as the tone has changed over time, so has the function of MASH as entertainment. Rather than weekly viewing, as when it was originally aired, certain channels show reruns of a couple episodes back-to-back every day. Nowadays you can watch it at your own convenience, with or without the subtitles or laughtrack. This isn’t a bad thing, to be clear, but it does change the function of MASH from new weekly entertainment, to background viewing, to a regular comfort watch.

3. multiple (incompatible) spaces

A heterotopia can juxtapose several different spaces at once. Imagine several images layered on top of each other.

MASH, set in Uijeongbu, Korea, was filmed in Calabasas and LA, California. It is difficult for me to reconcile that the outdoor scenes are filmed in a different place to the interiors. Also, the layout of the camp has some inconsistencies such as the living quarters of the minor characters.

Foucault uses the cinema as an example for this principle, as it projects a 3D space onto a 2D plane. Perhap then, it is not too much of a stretch for the television to count as a heterotopia under this principle.

4. slices in time, ‘heterochronies’

Since time and space are linked, it’s natural that heterotopias get weird with time, which Foucault terms as heterochronies. This could be due to an ‘accumulation’ of time, where one space encompasses many slices of time at once, or a temporariness, where the space is ephemeral.

The acronym ‘MASH’ stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, although the first word speaks to the temporary nature of the space. While the characters remain in the same location for the vast majority of the show, there are a handful of episodes dedicated to the characters picking up camp and moving. The characters do there best to make their space comfortable, but living so close to the front lines means that they cannot expect their quarters to be static.

At the same time, I hope that I have already made clear through the Tumblr Timeloop Theory that MASH for the viewer exists as slices of time layered over one another. There’s both the real history and contemporary experience of the Korean and Vietnam Wars that’s echoed in the story, and the inconsistent timeline of the plot.

5. entering and leaving

As discrete spaces, the heterotopia is a place you noticeably enter and leave.

For the characters in MASH they entered the heterotopia when they landed in Korea. The hospital itself has a proud welcome sign for those entering. The first episode of series 4, Welcome to Korea, introduces a new doctor, BJ Hunnicut (it stands for “anything you want”) fresh off the plane from Mill Valley, San Francisco. In this episode he is taken into the heterotopia by his psychopomp of sorts, Hawkeye.

It is a lot harder to leave MASH than to enter it. Some characters, having served for what the Army deem as a long enough time, receive an honourable discharge and are sent home. Others, after experiencing acute mental illness, are given a Section 8 and dishonourable discharge. Many leave by death.

For the audience, entering and leaving MASH is far more simple. We enter with the opening credits, and depart with the closing ones, both soundtracked with an instrumental version of the song Suicide is Painless.

6. illusion or compensation

The sixth and final principle of heterotopias is illusion or compensation. Either the heterotopia exposes the illusion of ‘civilisedness’ - Foucault uses brothels as an example - or they attempt to compensate for our messy world.

The military hospital is a great place to compensate for the horrors of war. There are all the rules and regulations of an outpost of the US army. It’s a space intended to be hygienic, clean, and free of the pests and diseases that plague the rest of the warzone. Naturally, despite the army’s best efforts, the rot still gets in.

This contrast creates the heterotopia of illusion for the audience. The show explores the sheer outrageousness of war, by exposing the physical and psychological impact of the war on the characters. That they’re doctors drives the point home further, as they know that they’re healing people just to send them out into danger again.

closing thoughts

MASH is a heterotopia. It is a place where space and time fold over on each other. It is a place where the audience enter a different world that reflects our own, back to front. It is a place where the characters live a decade in three years. In short, it is an ‘other place’.

buy me bubble tea!

I will tell you the story, as best I can, dividing it into five parts whilst I show you some posters I have designed recently. Yes, I was on Canva again. I have chosen five styles, but I’ll keep the colours and text the same. To best view the posters, I’d recommend reading this on your desktop. I found most of my inspiration on twenty75, you’ll see as I go along. Alright, shh, the play is about to start!

act 1: pixel art

The Nurse, the only person from Medea’s childhood in distant Colchis, wrings her hands. Her mistress has been inconsolable; she built up a life in a foreign land with her husband, Jason, in Corinth, and now he wants to throw her aside for the princess. Medea hasn’t eaten in her grief, we are told. She and their two young boys will be exiled from Corinth by her oath-breaking husband. The Nurse consults the Chorus, the women of Corinth. Meanwhile, the wailing from Medea’s bedchamber has grown near unbearable.

find more ascii art here

act 2: modern medieval

Medea finally enters the stage, saying “Women of Corinth, I have come out of the house lest you find fault with me.” She explains her isolation from her (surviving) family and her lack of resources. She asks the Chorus to hold her secrets. They agree, as do we, the audience.

Medea speaks with the king of Corinth, pleading him to give her an extra day before she must leave with her two young sons. The king, thinking that this won’t do any harm, takes pity on her and agrees. The king will not have time to regret this.

When he leaves, she tells the Chorus her plans to enact revenge. They cannot do anything more than listen.

Finally, husband of the century, Jason, arrives. He acts like he did Medea a favour, bringing her away from barbarian society to civilised Greece. Jason laments that he ever let her tag along after he retrieved the Golden Fleece. Medea reminds him that he would never have won the Fleece, or even left Colchis alive if it weren’t for her magic. At every turn it was her guile, her intelligence, her perseverance that kept him alive.

act 3: minimalism

Medea is visited by another man, Aegeus, who had been to visit the Oracle of Delphi to learn why he had no sons. When Medea tells him of Jason’s treatment of her, he is shocked and agrees to give her a favour. To sweeten the deal, she promises to use her knowledge of healing so that he can have sons. He swears an oath to let her live in his lands and keep her safe from enemies, no matter what happens.

When he leaves, Medea lays out her plans to the Chorus. She wants to use her sons to deliver a deadly present to Jason’s fiancee — a dress and crown coated in her cursed magic. For that, she must convince Jason to not send their sons into exile.

She then declares her final revenge; to murder her two sons. This way, when she flees, Jason will truly have lost everything. His status, his ally, his legacy. The Chorus desperately try to dissuade her, but she is ready to do anything to hurt Jason.

Jason is quickly won over by Medea’s sudden remorse, and lets her send the princess the gift.

act 4: paper collage

Medea steels herself up for what must come next. Though she doesn’t want to hurt her children, she knows that as long as they’re alive, they are in danger from Jason, the king of Corinth and their allies. It would be better, she says, to take their lives herself, than let an enemy kill them.

A messenger arrives with news of the princess. She gladly accepted the boxes containing shimmering dresses and elegant jewellery — finery fit for the bride-to-be. When the young woman tries on the garment and the crown she is paralysed with agony. The dress eats at her skin, the crown burns her, both clinging to her flesh.

The king rushes to his daughter, clasps her in his grief and fear. The clothes fix themselves to him too, holding them close together. He rips his flesh trying to tear away from her, stuck fast. His parting gift, the vision of his girl dying before him as he succumbs to the pain.

act 5: botanicals

We and the Chorus hear the boys cry for help from somewhere distant. Jason storms onto the stage, furious at Medea’s crimes, demanding his children to stay with him, to keep them safe. The Chorus tell him that it’s too late. He tries to enter the house to get to his sons, but it’s locked fast.

Above him, above everyone, appears Medea. She drives a divine, flying chariot, carrying the bodies of their children. Jason curses her, mourning his bride and the children he had cast away. Medea declares that she will bury her sons herself, undergo rites to atone for what she’s done, and then live with her one ally, Aegeus.

Medea flies away in her chariot. Jason, instead, will grow old in the wreckage of their choices.

encore

The lack of resolution is disconcerting. When the dust has settled and the blood has dried, noone has ‘won’. I think sometimes when seeing pithy Classics memes, I can lose sight of what the story actually is. Euripides built upon a pre-existing tradition, condensed it into a tense and heavy poem that never slakes off its heaviness. You carry that weight out of the theatre. I think perhaps Medea’s story resonates as a revenge fantasy. For people in a bad place, they get to view someone who gets out of it, who hurts completely those who have wronged her, without fear of repurcussion. Perhaps it also resonates as a cautionary tale, warning others what could happen if you break your vows.

In some ways it’s nice knowing that there’s no easy solution. Medea is not just a manipulative monster, nor a Girlboss role model. Jason is not just a oath-breaking perpetrator, nor is he just a victim of circumstance. Regardless of what we, the audience, think, both characters are convinced that they are wholly in the right.

Stories like Medea are not meant to be comfortable. They offer us a space within the fictional world to explore dark subjects, without having to experience it first hand. It might be prickly, and a bit cramped, and it really smells of old blood, but I think I’m going to sit here for a little while longer.

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hi, polytropos here, just to let you know that as I prepare to start my final year of university, I’m going to post every other week. hopefully this will keep my stress levels in check! Thank you to everyone who has been reading and supporting me, it really motivates me to keep doing this!

narnia

When I was a child I was captivated by the world of Narnia. It was something of an obsession. Though I fell in love with the characters, the magic and the wonder, C.S. Lewis’ description of food also stuck with me.

A few scenes from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe come to mind.

There is the infamous Turkish Delight, the sweet conjured by the sinister White Witch for Edmund. It was laced with an addictive magic that manipulated him into betraying his siblings.

Likewise, his younger sister Lucy was persuaded to visit the faun Mr Tumnus by his tea-time spread. Slices of toast topped with butter, honey and sardines, and a cake dusted with sugar. Mr Tumnus planned to use this food, along with music, to lure Lucy before he would kidnap her. However, the time they spend together makes him change his mind, letting her go despite knowing how White Witch would react.

Finally, once all the Pevensie siblings are in Narnia, they find their allies in Mr and Mrs Beaver, who also bring the kids home for supper. They bundle up in the Beaver’s Dam. Peter watches Mr Beaver fish in the frozen river and he brings back a fresh catch which Mrs Beaver fries. Lucy and Susan help her with preparing boiled potatoes which is served with the fish.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Chapter 7:

There was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mr Beaver stuck to beer) and a great big lump of deep yellow butter in the middle of the table from which everyone took as much as he wanted to go with his potatoes, and all the children thought – and I agree with them – that there’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish Mrs Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll, steaming hot, and at the same time moved the kettle on to the fire, so that when they had finished the marmalade roll the tea was made and ready to be poured out.

homeric poetry (meaning of meat chapter 3)

Food serves an important role in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Here I’m drawing my analysis from chapter 3 of The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey, by E. Bakker.

In the Iliad, the heroes stop to feast at different points in the epic. These meals typically consist of some kind of meat roasted on a spit served with bread and diluted wine. The wine had to be diluted otherwise it would be too strong to drink. The feasts take place often enought that you may not question where the assembled Achaean (Greek) army are getting all of this meat from. The bulls and sheep are slaughtered without end, no mention of who is taking care of this seemingly vast herd on the Trojan beach. This is not a plot hole, the Iliad is not a story focused on realism. Instead these Toby’s Carvery interludes represent heroes eating in accordance with their status; copious amounts of roasted meat.

After Achilles’ lover and companion, Patroclus, is killed, Achilles is inconsolable. He refuses to eat in his grief. He rampages, killing anyone in his sight, fighting a river, murdering Patroclus’ killer, Hector, and desecrating his corpse. Then, Hector’s father, Priam king of Troy, seeks an audience with him, so he can bring his son’s body home. Achilles is shocked but receives Priam warmly. They break their fasts of grief together, Achilles who killed Priam’s favourite son and Priam whose son killed Achilles’ love. Here the feast is a closure for both the men and the poem. Having eaten, Achilles can now return to the realm of expected heroic conduct, giving Priam the body of his dear dead son.

In the Odyssey, food, especially meat, is not taken for granted. While journeying, Odysseus and his companions experience food insecurity, leading them into perilous situations. Food is often used against them. This is seen when would-be hosts eat their guests — think of the cyclops and the laestrygonians (giants). Or, eating the food has a magical consequence — the lotuses that make the eater forget their home and Circe’s feast that turns the crew into pigs.

The most consequential food is, of course, the cattle of the Sun god Helios. Odysseus and his men wash up on a distant island where Helios keeps his cows. Their ship cannot sail in the still air, so there they remain. Circe had warned them to not eat the divine cattle, so they subsist on the ship’s supplies. But days turn to weeks, and despite Odysseus’ insistence, the hungry crew sacrifice the cattle and eat them. They set sail soon after, which is when a divine storm strikes the ship, killing all except Odysseus who refused to eat Helios’ cows.

Even when he finally arrives in Ithaca, Odysseus sees the impact of the Suitors, who have been continually feasting on his livestock, eating him out of house and home. In disguise as a beggar, he is greeted well by the enslaved swineherd Eumaeus, who unknowingly gives Odysseus his first meal back home. He doesn’t have a lot, but still gives Odysseus the best cut of pork available to him. This is contrasted with the Suitors, who have the run of Ithaca. They jeer and insult beggar-Odysseus, throwing shanks of meat at him, and refusing to let him dine with them. Odysseus enacts his revenge in the same dining hall where they humiliated him, bringing war into his home. He kills the Suitors as they are dining, meat and wine dashed to the floor as flesh is cut and blood is spilt.

the bear

The Bear is an intense workplace drama set in a family-owned restaurant in Chicago. It explores the perils of running a restaurant and the dynamics of a family (both homegrown and handmade) who have experienced a sudden and brutal loss. This family is made up of charming, talented and neurotic people all dressed up in chef whites.

I’ve just finished watching series 4 with my mum. I know some people have not enjoyed this latest season so much; it lacks the grit, relatability and directions of the earlier seasons. I agree to an extent. There is a clear tonal and stylistic shift. But ultimately I enjoy the Bear for the same reasons I always have: the characters and their interpersonal relationships. To me the hustle of the restaurant is secondary to the scenes where the characters get to cook for others.

These characters’ love of food comes through in the way they treat others. In the pilot episode, Syd, despite having an awful first day at work, cooks a delicious ‘family meal’ for the Beef’s staff. This meal begins to break the ice between Syd and her new colleagues. In the latest season she spends an episode looking after her niece, who opens up to her about her friendship as Syd teaches her how to cook. Although Richie doesn’t cook, he too uses food ‘surprises’ to make guests at the Bear feel welcome. Likewise, Carmy reconciles with his mum by making her lunch.

final thoughts

Food is presented in different ways in these fictions. In the Iliad, food is in abundance, taken for granted by the feasters. Food is seemingly also in abundance in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as the White Witch conjures food from nowhere, and Mr Tumnus is able to serve an English tea in the dead winter of Narnia. Mr and Mrs Beaver’s access to food is specifically described by Lewis, regularly fishing in the frozen river and keeping preserves. They are also the only figures in the book who serve food to the Pevensie siblings without sinister intentions. Lewis may have been inspired by the Odyssey, where magical food has a dangerous consequences for the eater. Odysseus, in his home, is appalled when he finds out about the Suitors’ draining of his wealth by continually feasting. Food as an unsteady resource is a big theme of the Bear, as the restaurant relies on high quality ingredients to feed their guests.

However food largely serves in each of these stories as a motivator for emotional resolution. The Pevensie siblings find solidarity and kinship with the Beavers. Achilles and Priam see eye to eye over a meal, despite the gulf of war and grief that divides them. Odysseus is welcomed home to Ithaca by Eurymachus with a meal. Lastly, the chefs of the Bear connect with each other and themselves through their art.

I’m going to get political for a second. If you don’t like what I will say next, you can always click away. I can’t write about food and not write about this.

Living in a world where the access to food is so unequal means that food is politically charged. As much as food can bring us together, both in fiction and real life, it has also been used to devastating effects. Historically, dominant countries have weaponised the ability to access foods against the country or culture they are antagonising. Withholding, or destroying, or shifting the harvest away to such an extent that they bring on a famine, killing thousands upon thousands and weakening the survivors to the point where they cannot resist the continued exploitation. This was the case in the tragic events of the Great Hunger in Ireland, and the Bengal Famine. This is also happening now in Gaza, where food and aid has been available at the border, but were denied entry by the Israeli government. Their blockade has lasted months (March - July) and even now as meagre aid is trickling in, it is not enough to support the Gazan civilians, not when they have been cut off to point of critical starvation.

I ask that you support these people, return their dignity, and donate here, here and here.

support a family here

I’m feeling a bit directionless and listless. The things that I have been thinking of writing about feel like they deserve more time than something hastily written the day before. So I guess the question is, what inspires me?

audio

I always have some music on to soundtrack my writing. Right now, it’s heart pt. 6 by Kendrick Lamar. The playlist is one that I made, of pink-sounding songs. Pink matches the PJs that I’ve been wearing all day.

I used to not make playlists at all, just choosing one song after another, or just playing one artist on shuffle. Then, (I can’t remember how) I began organising the music I listen to. There’s the colour categories, the songs by season, or energy (upbeat vs understated).

There are certain artists that I keep coming back to at the moment, whether that’s the nostalgic sound of Tennis, or the confidence of Little Simz. My tastes shift around every few months like bubbles in a lava lamp.

video

Next, of course, there’s video. If I’m not listening to music while I work, I have a YouTube video playing in the background. Sometimes the topic is lighthearted and funny, sometimes it’s something a bit more heavy. I like learning from people who are passionate, even if I have no personal interest in what they’re talking about. Jacob Geller, is a great example of this. His channel analyses video games, often in the context of wider culture. So even though I have never played Call of Duty, I’m curious about what he has to say on how torture is depicted in that game.

Outside of YouTube, I watch a bit of TV. In particular, the 1972-1983 hit dramedy, MASH. I am always either rewatching MASH or in-between rewatching MASH. It is a show about the horrors of the Korean War, told through the perspective of wise-cracking army doctors. I’ll probably write more about it at some point. Consider that a warning.

visual

Finally, this last category is for visual art that inspires me. I’ll give you one artist that inspires me and perhaps I’ll do a more extensive list later on.

When I did Art A level, I had the opportunity to try a bunch of different mediums, including lino print-making. I loved the process of carving slithers of rubber and unearthing layer after layer. I’ve never tried making a woodcut print, but my brief experience with lino has helped me to appreciate the sheer effort required.

Hokusai (1760-1849) might be one of the most famous printmakers in the world. He created the print ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’, which you can find as jigsaw puzzles, tattoos, lego sets, and anything else you could think of. That print was one of a wider series called ‘36 Views of Mt. Fuji’, a series of landscape prints which featured the iconic mountain.

His use of colour and composition has this gorgeous evergreen quality to it. He made these prints when he was in his 60s or 70s, and the skill that comes from a lifetime of making art is evident here. The process of creation is not always evident when looking at the finished piece. I have to pause and remind myself that each layer was meticulously planned out, each colour blended in ink on the plate before applied to the woodblock. The result looks effortless, but each layer had to be executed precisely for the image to appear whole.

I hope that when I’m 70 I will still be creating and writing. I wonder what kind of art I will make?

buy me bubble tea!

Hephaestus, to put it lightly, had a rough start. His mother, Hera, threw him from Mt Olympus for being born disabled. He landed in the sea where the nymph Thetis looked after him, letting him grow up in safety.

In Book 18 of the Iliad, Thetis goes to his forge. She goes there to ask the god to make new armour for her son, Achilles. His armour was now being worn by the Trojan prince Hector who took it after killing Achilles’ lover Patroclus.

Thetis sees some curious things in Hephaestus’ forge. When she comes to him he is forging tripods with little wheels that can be summoned when the gods convene on Mt Olympus for an assembly. When he leaves his bellows to greet her, he is attended by metal women, bronze automata that obey his any wish. It’s the bard’s strange detour into sci-fi.

I find it quite striking that humans have been dreaming of androids for thousands of years. Often these fictional metal creations have been women or womanlike. Think the Stepford Wives, Ava from Ex Machina, Hel from Metropolis, or, less sinister, Janet from The Good Place.

Our techbros imitate the stories around them and thus our many virtual assistants have been designed to be perceived as women. Siri, Alexa, and Cortana (rip) all have feminine presences and voices. More recently, OpenAI came under fire for one of their audio generators which sounded similar to actress Scarlet Johansson. This similarity was likely due to her role voicing an artificial intelligence named Samantha in the movie Her (2013).

‘Artificial Intelligence’, as it is advertised and pushed upon us today, is not truly intelligent. It cannot come up with original thought, it can only string together the data it has been fed into a pattern that best satisfies the users’ prompt. Nor does it operate with intention. It just spits out words regurgitated from the data provided (illegaly) by its company.

Really it is the shiny new thing in a long line of methods that companies use to undervalue the worth of human work. Google, OpenAI etc. sink their money into creating systems that scrape data from anyone whose words and images can be accessed online, and give it to their little machines. Middle Managers then leap at the chance to divert the work that would otherwise be given to an un(der) paid intern. Meanwhile, the centres housing these servers are causing very real harm to the people around them.

When Hephaestus creates those bronze maids, they are not artificially intelligent, they are divinely so. Though any mortal metalworker could fashion a human-shaped object, they lack the immortal ability to make it animate it. The automata as spun up by the poet of the Iliad function as mortal enslaved women do in other parts of the poem. Like the self-propelled tripods, they are convenient. I think this may track onto how Generative AI is marketed for the average user. Look how easy it is, don’t think too deep about it.

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After Hephaestus greets Thetis, robot women by his side, and agrees to her request, he starts to forge Achilles’ armour. He starts with the shield. What follows is over 100 lines of poetry describing the intricacies of the god’s creation, a story within a story. The bard details Hephaestus telling a story (albeit visually) and thus describes the work of a poet. Within the shield are scenes of life: marriage, war, farming, court, dancing and so on. The figures move across the static space; the scene changes colour though made from gold; we can hear the music they play and taste the sweet grapes they harvest.

This is act of creation is not convenient. Hephaestus works by himself, ensuring that the shield is both strong and beautiful. And since it is for Achilles, who is returning to the battlefield and will never leave it, why not remind him of the life he is leaving behind?

I can’t fully square the idea of Hephaestus outsourcing his domestic work to the automata with the sheer amount of creative effort that he pours into making Achilles’ shield. I suppose it demonstrates the difference in the value of housework compared to creative work in the context of the poem. However, a poet would naturally be inclined to favour artistic effort. What do you think?

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on laundry and dishes

Science fiction has undoubtedly influenced our assumptions about Artificial Intelligence. We anthropomorphise the machine and it makes criticism amorphous. The binary code of ones and zeroes get chas…

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a year ago · 64 likes · 13 comments · Inigo Laguda

Narration, Description, and Theme in the Shield of Achilles, 1992, Calvin Byre

The Shield of Achilles, 1990, Andrew Sprague Becker

Ancient Automata and Mechanical Explanation, 2003, Sylvia Berryman