It’s another sunny Sunday, unfortunately.  I don’t mind the sun but I prefer the weather to match the season, a little bit better than it has this year.  We had one month of winter in December and since then it’s been mostly spring-‘ish.’  Yet I’m still banking on March and April to provide some opportunities to skip class and ski some fresh frozen precipitation; – don’t worry Dr. Sexson I’ll be sure to make it to your class, one of only a few that are enlightening, exceedingly entertaining (especially since I’ve counted a number of times when Sexson has said ‘stupid’ or ‘crazy bitch’), and always apocalyptic. 

         I must admit I found the test on Friday rather, ‘tricky’ itself.  I was not expecting the matching section, and the essay questions were ‘tricky’ in that there was so much to answer with that I couldn’t really pick, choose, and focus my answer.  But I have never been an excellent test taker: I often fumble under pressure and second-guess myself.  However, overall, I’ve always thought that Sexson’s tests are more than fair and well constructed; though I was surprised there was a matching section it covered a lot of good material.

         I’m going to return to Hermes and his trickery for a bit.  A number of things have been on my mind revolving around Hermes, music, the lyre, and lying.

         Hermes, and Stewie are our notorious tricksters.  And not only are they mischievous but ridiculously entertaining.  So is music, which Hermes entranced Apollo with; ”This unfamiliar sound is a divine thing.”  Hermes, as the trickster, performs amazing music; but doesn’t it seem somewhat miss-matched that a trickster performs exquisite music?  I guess not entirely; yet the idea that music is constantly ticking us is interesting.  Music lies.

         Hermes instrument, the lyre, perfectly resembles

 the Latin origin, Lyra.  Lyra is the name of a northern constellation, and the first and last words in Phillip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials: the name of the main character, the trickster who lies abundantly, and who is surprisingly female; lovely Lyra.  If Woodruff is in love with Antigone and Charles Dickens is in love with Little Red Riding Hood, I may be in love with Lyra; except I may have said the same thing about Alice roaming around in Wonderland; but they’re both fictional characters and it’s ok to be in love with multiple fictional characters, right?  Either way or one, they are both amazing and brilliant females.

         Now, Lyra lies, a lot, and she is extremely good at it.  Hermes lied too, but maybe not as well as Lyra; but perhaps he lied better when he played music, when he appeared to be an innocent little baby, born the day before.  In fact Hermes’ trick worked with Apollo.  Rather than continue to scold the child, Apollo claims he deserves the fifty cattle, and praises him above and beyond the Muses on Olympus.  Apollo blabbers, “Where does it come from?  Really it has three things at once to choose from: fun, and love, and sweet sleep.  I also serve the Muses on Olympus.  Dances they love, and shimmering strains of music, Lush singing and the flutes alluring cries.  But nothing has enthralled my soul as this does – However brilliant young men’s shows at banquets.  Zeus’s child, your sweet playing is amazing.  Young as you are, you’ve got impressive talents.”  Hermes successfully tricks Apollo to forget about his mischievous deeds through his baby music. 

Yet, if music is constantly tricking us, it seems this obsession with music is slightly confusing and purposeful at the same time.  I don’t think people listen to their favorite music with a predetermined motive that it is going to trick them.  We listen for pleasure, comfort, and entertainment just as Apollo said, without realizing he was duped, by a baby.  Yet it makes sense to think that music ‘tricks,’ or relieves, us from the despondencies of life.  This is why everyone has an obsession with music, either their entire life or for significant periods.  It seems almost too simple; but I believe that people are unconsciously aware of music’s trickery, which thus empowers music even more.                      

Posted by bmcycleski at 2:07 PM MST

Updated: Sunday, 22 February 2009 2:20 PM MST

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1. What does hubris mean?  -pride, arrogance

2. The eleusinian mysteries: something done - reenactment of abduction of persephone; something said - rain, conceive; and something seen - stalk of corn.

3. The five Steiner conflicts:  Man vs Woman, Youth vs Age, Individual vs Society, Living vs. Dead, Gods vs Humans

4. Epithet?  A handle, nickname, that refers to an attribute of a person and often stands for that person, or thing; example , trim ankles = persephone.

5. Which two characters exemplify Steiner's five conflicts?  Antigone & Creon

6. Stichomythia?  Rapid succession of one-liners.

7. Sparagmos? the tearing apart of live flesh.

8. Anthropocentric?  Human centered;  theocentric? god centered.

9. Miasma? pollution

10. Go over intro to antigone:  Antigone's view of politics, notion of the moving target, Creon's name

11. The myth of eternal return, Groundhogs Day, and Demeter and Persephone:  cyclical repetition

12.  Hermes is everywhere:  in Thor the cat, Stewie Griffin, Bart Simpson and more.  

13.  Thoreau suggest we read the _____ and not the ______.  Eternities, Times

14.  Zeus and Creon take someone from above and put them down below.  

15.  in ill tempore?  in the great time, in the beginning.

16.  Which two mythological figures are polytropic? Odysseys and Hermes

17.  The three great tragedians, Escalus, Sophocles, Euripedes.

18.  Who is the god of the crossroads?  Hermes

19.  Agon = conflict

20.  All that is _______ possesses the _________.

21.  The chorus in Anitgone says the two best things to happen to a person are never to be born and die.

22.  Sarvam:  all is fleeting, all is suffering

23.  Antigone means, against birth, anti birth

24.  Oedipus' injury as an infant?  holes in ankle - maybe he should be called trim ankles.

25.  Hermes response about his innocence:  He was 'born yesterday'

26.  Robert Johnson did what at the crossroads?  Sold his soul to the devil to play the guitar.

27.  We laugh so we don't have to cry.  

28.  Anagogy:  the heavenly realm

29.  Senex is an old man 

Posted by bmcycleski at 7:39 PM MST

Updated: Thursday, 19 February 2009 8:10 PM MST

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It was during early autumn, either right before school began or just after; I believe I was still in middle school at the time.

Since my family lived a little off the beaten path we would let the cats, three total, out whenever they begged.  And it was not unusual for a cat to be out all day, so today was no exception.  The oldest cat 'Boots' went out one morning to peruse the neighborhood.  My brother also left that morning, or the night before for a sleepover, to a friends house not very far away but in another neighborhood on the other side of Bridger Drive which we would ride our bikes too.

Later that afternoon, my mom was out running errands, I was riding my bike around the house, and my sister and dad were inside.  Dan, my brother, came home on his bike with a very distressed look on his face.  He ran inside and I could tell something was wrong so I followed.  As I entered the house I heard my brother stuttering through sobs that he thought he saw Boots on the side of Bridger Drive, dead and mangled from being hit.

As all three of us kids started tearing up, my steadfast father knew he had to investigate.  Dan and dad jumped into the pickup and went to go recover the corpse - my dad used a shovel for this roadkill since there wasn't a pitchfork handy.  When they returned home Dan was still crying and my dad even looked sad.  My sister and I were so worried it was Boots we didn't take dad's advice not to look to closely.  When we saw the cat, I nearly vomited and we both swelled with tears.  The cat had been hit and run over multiple times, so disfigured it was hardly recognizable, but it was definitely a tabby and about the right size as our Boots. 

We dug a nice grave by a lovely grove of aspen trees and buried Boots' with some of his favorite toys.  Each of us took turns shoveling dirt back into the grave, watching our first family cat in Bozeman slowly disappear into the earth.  After much grieving, and confusion about how we would tell mom - who had picked Boots out at the Human Society roughly 3 years earlier - about the dead cat, we all went inside for some refreshments.

 And like clockwork, around sunset just after the family had finished eating dinner and sharing memories of Boots, there was a scratch at the door, and there was Boots waiting to to be let in.

We buried the wrong cat.

In a way Boots was resurrected, within our own minds since we had experienced and mourned for his death.  Of course Boots had no idea about his false funeral and he probably thought all the fuss we made about his return that night was weird, but he certainly didn't say no to some extra treats.  To this day Boots is living strong.  Though he is the oldest cat, he still parades around with youthful freedom.  And it's hilarious to watch the younger cats tease and wrestle with him - the conflict between young and old also exists in the cat kingdom.  

As I relived this experience in words, I admit I almost cried again at the thought of a dead, loved pet, even if it wasn't the right one.  But I think Boots has some sort of power, or purpose, to live though unknowable to him.  Within his cackling 'meoouuuhhh's and squeaks resonates his age, but also his wisdom as he outwrestles or scorns the other kitties.  Perhaps Boots will never die since his funeral has already happened.  Perhaps Boots knows that we thought he died, that we gave up waiting for him to return, and that we buried his favorite toys with some other cat who'd never played with them; and so now we're stuck with Boots forever, somewhat the opposite of Creon's fate.

And, no, we never exhumed the cat toys.     

Posted by bmcycleski at 3:34 PM MST

Updated: Friday, 13 February 2009 4:23 PM MST

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            I did not know what to expect from the play Antigone by Sophocles.  From the brief discussions in class I had a vague idea but I was surprised numerous times while reading and anticipating the story.  I’m still working on finishing the Steiner pages – I find it annoying to read a book on a screen, don’t know why, I guess I can’t get into as good a flow – so a more detailed response with the Antigones passage is coming.  However, I have a few things to mention about the play, characters, and such.

     I was going to be really pissed if Creon had lethally executed Antigone.  But the entire time I could understand both sides.  Creon was mad about Polyneices’ betrayal and Antigone was striving to meet the demands of the gods, her family, her individuality, and the state – to some extent. 

   For starters I was amazed with the spectrum of values Creon held.  Before he knows that a female tried to bury Polyneices, Creon believes it must be a man who is greedy and therefore did the deed for money.  And then he says, “Money is the nastiest weed ever to sprout / In human soil.  Money will ravage a city, / Tear men from their homes and send them into exile. / Money teaches good minds to go bad; / It is the source of every shameful human deed. / Money points the way to wickedness, / Lets people know the full range of irreverence” (lines 295-301).   I could never agree with anything more completely than the wickedness of money.  Yet it’s so essential, what the fuck?  I would prophesize - with my naïve, young, blurry brain – that the corruption behind the wicked contradictions of money may be what brings catastrophic consequences to our world.  For crying out loud, money is made from the trees we destroy and then we turn around and try to pay for ‘green’ technologies to stop global warming.  How does that work?  A reliable friend recently told me he read that if hemp would have been used for paper products rather than lumber, around 85% of the world’s rainforests would still be standing, oxygenating the planet. 

  Back to Creon and his view of money, since I could rant on and on, it’s ironic that a ruler feels this way about money because he’s wealthy.  Money probably never caused Creon any trouble in his life yet he’s keen to its evil power: another odd contradiction.  However I’ve been reading a lot of Shakespeare in capstone, and the class dedicated to The Bard, this semester and I have noticed a trend with ruling characters possessing traits similar to Creon’s.  They are always older men stuck in their ways, but they waver periodically into fits of madness or idiocracy.  As stupid as these men seem in such fits, most times their best lines are delivered in one of these fits.  So Creon is fluctuating between insanity and sanity, which leaves him ‘howling’ at the end of the play – identical to King Lear. 

The past possesses the present.  Similar scenarios repeat themselves, returning mythically again and again.          

Posted by bmcycleski at 5:46 PM MST

Updated: Saturday, 7 February 2009 5:53 PM MST

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Ha!  Dr. Sexson told us to steal something so I stole my time back on Friday!  Actually, not really, a cold, headache, and sleep stole most of my time at the end of last week.  I hate missing class; but since I didn't miss any of Dr. Sexson's classes last semester I figured one would be ok this semester.  

I checked the "'master'" bloggers' sites for what went down in class on Friday, but none of the masters had mastered Friday's lecture notes yet.  So that sent me browsing through some other blogs:  Rio has some really cool pictures on his site that revolve around Steven's 'Idea' poem.  The second to last one is my favorite, the caption reads "Homage to The Idea of Order at Key West."  <http://riojadegonzalez.blogspot.com/2009/02/paintings-and-pictures.html>  Last semester Dr. Sexson had us memorize this poem and it became one of the major themes and subjects of class.  It's more than an amazing poem, it's 'beyond genius..."  

I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Sexson had Kayla or Erica, or everyone from 300 last semester sing this on Friday, which I would have been able to participate in.  I guess I could recite the poem as make-up work for missing class; we'll see.

 It also appears Hermes' Caduceus and the Staff of Asclepius were brought up.  Rio's blog, again, gave me insightful links to read up about these two tools of the greeks.  

The Caduceus : 

 This magic wand of Hermes is the Greek's Karykeion, or Herald's Staff.  According to the link from Rio's blog, Karykeion derives from the word 'eruko,' meaning restrain, or control.  And, not surpisingly, the Caduceus is commonly used as symbols or logos for medical, pharmaceutical and other commercial and military organizations.  

But the Staff of Asclepius is this: 

This staff was used by the ancient greek physician, Asclepius, and so is the correct Greek symbol for medicine.  I think it's interesting that this staff is less elaborate, has only one snake, and was probably made from a shittier stick; but it's still the staff of medicine.  This makes sense, seems more natural than Hermes' Caduceus that interestingly looks similar to christ on the cross.  The two snakes on the Caduceus appear to connect and make an infinity looking sign, whereas the meager staff as one snake open to help heal.  

I can't remember whose blog it was but they mentioned they were surprised I hadn't seen Groundhog Day because it seems like I can always keep up with Dr. Sexson.  This is hardly the case.  My childhood, adolescence, and a lot of my time now is spent in the mountains so I am way behind on the movie scene.  I didn't fully engage in a passion with literature until after high school.  In fact, as a dumb little high-schooler, my least favorite class was english and I received better grades in math and science.  Needless to say, neither of those disciplines appealed to me as a career, then or now, which leaves me free to indulge in literature; and in retrospect the flip-flop has treated me better than I could have ever imagined.  

So to conclude this rambling blog, here are the statistics, so far, that tangent from the circumference of class.

1 of 40 students has heard a dirty joke.

37 out of 40 students have a mother.  Where did the other three come from?

Though the line is blurry, between 2 and 3 students, out of 40, have been intoxicated.  Come on kids, this is college!!!

26 out of 40 students have been 14.  Does that mean 14 students still have to go through puberty?   

Posted by bmcycleski at 3:03 PM MST

Updated: Saturday, 7 February 2009 4:02 PM MST

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Hermes is a badass: building instruments out of turtle shells and playing tricks on his brother before he was even a day old is comical and clever.  The hymn to Hermes really sparked my interest, not only in Hermes, but Maia, Apollo, and the diversity of gods’ relationships with Zeus.

This Maia lady sounds intriguing.  Since there wasn’t a hymn to Maia in our text I resorted to our trusty worldwide web for some background on this nymph.   Maia was the eldest of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione.  Maia was the oldest and the most beautiful but also shy, possibly the reason Zeus and her affair was so secret and in the dead of night, “Maia, the bright-haired nymph, and Zeus’s lover. / She stayed away from where immortals gather, / But in her shadowy cave the son of Cronus / Made love to this well-groomed young thing at nighttime, / While white-haired Hera lay submerged in sweet sleep - / No deathless gods or mortal men could see them” (38).

            As I was browsing through our hymns I found the Hymns to the earth, moon, and sun towards the end.  The footnote with the Hymn to earth, mother of all things, mentions that Hesiod’s Theogony “begins with Gaia, the Earth, who starts the generations of gods by creating Uranus, or Heaven, and making him her consort” (93).  The similarity between Maia and Gaia immediately stood out to me, and I found it on the Internet right away too.  This also reinforces the power or sacredness of women, not to mention the earth’s nickname often begins with ‘mother.’  Maia appears to be a breathing god symbolic of Zeus’s earth, or, I’ll add solitude. 

The fact that Maia and Zeus make love in secret, on a mountain on earth, in a cave, supports the idea that Maia could have been Zeus’s earth: his emblem of earthly and motherly love, who he thought was as beautiful and perfect as earth, the feeder of creation, Maia, Gaia.              

Posted by bmcycleski at 1:26 PM MST

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I blame Dr. Sexson.  On the sixteenth, our second day of class, Dr. Sexson gave us an assignment to go get in an argument with an old person.

 Now for those of you who are new to Sexson's classes, a lot of his assignments are a little out there.  Last semester he asked all the guys to find a random girl and recite Shakespeare's sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"  I still have yet to do this, but when I do I'll let you know how it goes.

But as for the assignment to go argue with an old person, it may have been the reason that I need to find a new job.  It was the first friday of the semester Dr. Sexson gave us that assignmnet and I worked that night.  Well, the manager found something to bitch about - like he always does - and remembering my assignment, I initiated an argument in the kitchen's defense.  The manager didn't like that and I could see I wasn't going to be able to convince him of my point; so, I put in my notice.   This has been a long time coming and so isn't really that big of a deal; however, I do blame Dr. Sexson for the culminating finale of my career at Ferarro's because of the argument assignment.  And for that I thank you Dr. Sexson.  School and life will be far less stressful now.

This did make me think though, that arguing with an old person is pointless because they are so set in their ways and habits that nothing will deter them otherwise.  Even though my boss isn't an exceptionally old person, he is older, than me at least, not you Dr. Sexson, who as we know is hundreds of years old;  but I think I still fulfilled the assignment, initiate an argument, and I am no longer an angry cook.  

Posted by bmcycleski at 12:17 PM MST

Updated: Sunday, 25 January 2009 12:40 PM MST

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The muses.  Ahh yes, the muses.  Since I couldn't remember all the muses I figured I'd do a little research and re-acquaint myself with Zeus' daughters. 

 I forgot how much of a ladies man Zeus was.  Maybe taking this class is a better idea than I thought.  Anyways, Zeus and Mnemosyne, the god of memory, had an affair which resulted in nine daughters, the muses.  These girls are in charge of inspiring artists, poets, philosophers and musicians - sound familiar - and presiding and guiding over all the arts and sciences.  

In no particular order the nine muses of Zeus and Mnemosyne are:

Calliope, the muse Epic poetry and beautiful speech;

Clio, the muse of history, aka the 'glorious one;'

Everyone's favorite, Erato, the muse of love and erotic poetry, the 'amorous one;'

Euterpe, the muse of lyric poetry, was 'well-pleasing;'

Melpomene, the muse of tragedy was fittingly known as 'the chanting one;'

Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred songs sand 'many hymns;'

Terpsichore was the muse of chorus, song and dance;

Thalia, the muse of comedy, was 'the blossoming one'

And Urania, the muse of astrology was the 'celestial one.'

As another one of our themes for class is women, I thought it would be courteous to mention these ladies.  I finally read the block-buster-book "The DaVinci Code" by Brown last year, and all this girl talk reminds me of the 'sacred feminine' from Browns story.  

These 'sacred feminine' muses are exactly that, sacred goddesses who were thought to evoke inspiration and achievement through song or praised.  Hmm. Praising women, this sounds all too common - yet so does the opposite.  It seems today things have come full circle a little to far.   

Posted by bmcycleski at 11:43 AM MST

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"All that is past possesses our present." -John Fowles

 Right away this theme made me think of the cliche 'history repeats itself.'  This seems obvious but many people take it for granted.  What's happened in the past previews what will happen in the future.  In a sense it's a giant tautology:  if it happened before it'll happen again - maybe not to the same extent but there will definitely be similarities.  

 However, in this class, we are using the theme in the context of Classical Foundations of Literature, old stories revisited.  I was surprised to hear that a student once told Dr. Sexson that the classics are 'old, irrelevant, and boring.'  I would never think of the word 'classic' connoting flat, pessimistic thoughts and emotions.  Take for instance a 'classic' sports game; a past Super Bowl game labeled classic would probably be far from boring.  If anything it's probably more exciting, new, and hypnotic because it's old.  I'm really not that knowledgeable about football so I can't give specifics, yet I know that football players used to wear less pads, smaller helmets, and still hit each other just as hard.  That alone sounds more exciting.  

The 'classics' of literature also had less advantages - no computers, internet, ballpoint pens - however I doubt their literature was any less influential.  I bet that it's more influential, important, and pertinent because 'classic' authors had more time to devote to their work - rather than get distracted on MySpace and merely accomplish as little as possible.  With fewer distractions the 'classics' had more time to create even more complex stories and plays.  And what did they probably write about?  None other than the most complex and confusing situations: human interaction, be it with other humans, the gods they worship or the entire world.         

Posted by bmcycleski at 12:20 PM MST

Updated: Sunday, 18 January 2009 12:50 PM MST

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