#compared to greek myths where it much more prevalent

[happyk44]

AU where the second Titan war didn't happen with camp Jupiter because of how Saturn is much more significant in ancient Rome, so even as Kronos he couldn't be effed to fuck with the Romans

So when Percy mentions that he defeated Kronos, Jason is v much "bro what" because, uh, grandpa is much more cool on the Roman end, so how dare you fight the guy who brought peace and agriculture to Latium

[ihatethecoldalot]

So in the middle of writing a piece for my friend I kept on going in circles around the mythological equivalents in the PJO and HOO books and more specifically the parallels to the most famous of plays + greek myths.

I’ve decided to go over them (and make you see them too) because otherwise this will not stop bothering me. So with out further ado…parallels.

(I’ll be going over them through a strictly couple lens with perhaps a post following on them separately and why i specifically picked the character.)

Percy & Annabeth

Okay first off the main couple of the series. Percy and Annabeth are wonderfully dynamic in how many parallels to everyone they have. Including the fact that they constantly swap parallels and i love that for them.

⇾ Perseus & Andromeda

In Book 1 it’s the most prevalent parallel with Medusa & the Tunnel of Love serving as their echo.

1. Perseus & Percy

Percy kills Medusa, his name is Perseus, he is on a quest for his father Zeus to claim his grandfather’s throne innocence in response to robbery of his throne of a Mcguffin. He gets flying shoes courtesy of Hermes Hermes’s son, he uses a mirror given to him by Athena led by a daughter of Athena. He holds the eye of the Gray Sisters hostage for information, goes to the garden of the Hesperus in the third book paralleling both Hercules and Perseus. Hades's helm of darkness to hide Annabeth NY Yankees Cap is Percy's MYP in TTC.

Okay, so Percy shares a lot of similarities to him namesake as expected. But what about Annabeth to Andromeda?

2. Annabeth & Andromeda

Both start with A, the Princess Andromeda, Luke’s ship is his main vessel much as Annabeth is one of connections to humanity. Annabeth on the Tunnel of Love becomes the Damsel, in need of rescuing by Percy against the sea monster by an attack sent by a god in which Percy set her free claiming her hand in marriage claiming her friendship.

Perseus married Andromeda in spite of Phineus, to whom she had before been promised. ⇾ Percy and Annabeth are dating in spite of their family rivalry and/or Luke who she could be considered to be promised to.

The goddess Athena places Andromeda in the northern sky at her death as the constellation Andromeda, along with Perseus. -> Andromeda’s connection to with Athena here along with Perseus.

Also extra special bonus: Andromeda is from Ethiopia and therefore dark-skinned, Leah Jeffries is black, both she and Walker Shobell perfectly completing the symmetry

So as we can see Percy and Annabeth’s parallels to their mythological counterparts of Andromeda & Perseus. Along with how Percy & Athena’s relationship might end and Annabeth & Percy’s near certain marriage according to Ancient Greek Myth Rules as they constantly save each other.

⇾ Odysseus & Penelope

Next up, this bad boy. This is where parallel sharing my beloved steps in, Odysseus and Penelope are constantly the Percabeth Formula from BotL and beyond. Annabeth’s own journey from SoM and MoA are the most obvious example, but we’re starting off with Percy.

3. Percy and Odysseus

In TLT, Percy enters the Lotus Hotel where he figures out it’s a trap. Percy goes to the Underworld where he sees his mom who died of a broken heart he has to leave behind. His trip to the Sea of Monsters has him encountering Circe, although he takes the role of the crew to Annabeth’s Odysseus. In TTC he is aided by Athena and Hermes Zeus.

In BotL he encounters Calypso who directly compares him to Odysseus one that becomes more obvious in HoH with the dwarves remarking on her being Odysseus and therefore Percy’s big What If. Also in BoTL he goes missing for a long time, long enough to burn his funeral shroud only for it not to be needed. (how much you wanna bet Annabeth wove it?) While BotL he makes the most obvious parallel to Theseus I’d argue it is truly a thin veneer to cover his similarities to Odysseus. From Percy’s cunning with his gun trick, to his meeting with Calypso + his own metaphorical Circe (Rachel) and his presumed dead but actually alive.

In SoN he takes his detour journey to his true goal of Ithaca Camp Half-Blood where he is greeted by Nausicaa Hazel who leads him to the Queen Praetor Reyna. (Reyna’s name literally means Queen 💀). Nausicaa Hazel stand up to him while she is constantly considered as golden as her island and Percy is compared to a Greek God like Odysseus when he changed from beggar to himself before Telemachus. Percy is also called Graecus at CJ much like Odysseus is called stranger at both Ithaca and Scheria.

Percy is considered the best swordsman while Odysseus bow is actually impossible to string. Literally everyone has a crush on Percy like they do on Odysseus.

That’s a lot of parallels for them. (my brain hurts) Odysseus is certainly what Rick was aiming for when writing Percy in the later books. You can see the original Perseus/Andromeda blueprint in TLT, but it fades by the middle of TTC as the more tragic and well-known heroes take the forefront in Rick's writings of his protagonists. Again, we can infer a hopeful or improved relationship with Athena and an eventual happy ending like Odysseus if you ignore the Telegony.

4. Annabeth & Odysseus

Annabeth is Athena's favoured child. She is everything an Athena child should be (IE Odysseus), she gets her own dramatic goodbye/rejection by Athena who insists Annabeth must be more like way finding Odysseus. Annabeth seeks mercy with the Romans like Odysseus approaching Polyphemus only to be thwarted when seeking that mercy by a crewmate.

Annabeth has claimed to be Nobody in SoM, her mercy with Polyphemus comes and bites her in Tartarus. Both she and Percy descend and return out of the Underworld. I'd say that her stabbing the Cyclops that held Luke & Thalia hostage could also be considered her own wild boar as well, a challenge she overcame that got Athena's attention.

Then, she undergoes a series of trials which require wit and end with her facing down a foe that she defeats but due to hubris she gets dragged down into an unending side quest Tartarus with the one she loves the most. She returns home to her kingdom camp where she has very little issues to deal with beyond just repairing shit and living her dream.

There are ton more parallels but they can pretty much be ascribed to Odysseus being the model of all children of Athena.

Annabeth = Odysseus is very compelling in how much it makes sense in the grand scheme of MoA. Annabeth in SoM and MoA is top tier Odysseus vibes along with being at her best character wise in my opinion.

5. Percy & Penelope

P names, Penelope & Percy are descended from water based gods. (Naiad in Penelope’s case), LOYALTY, they both hold the memory of their lost love dear. I’m not saying Frank could be Telemachus but i’m not not saying that.

Percy is…lusted after in a more romantic sense by several people like Penelope, Percy is left waiting as Annabeth undergoes her trials. Percy consistently is the one to hold off masses of suitors monsters, Penelope is considered to be like-minded to Odysseus (aka his equal) much like Percy & Annabeth are equals in different ways.

So some superficial parallels, but the fact that there even are any implies some intent at least with the Penelope-Odysseus theme taking forefront after TTC

6. Annabeth & Penelope

Weaving, cunning, easily emotional, Annabeth waits for Percy after his disappearance -> Penelope waiting after the Trojan War. In one source, Penelope's original name was Arnacia or Arnaea so A names as well.

Annabeth is Percy’s equal, Homer refers to Penelope as ‘like-minded’ to Odysseus, making her one of the smartest woman of the Aegean. I’d argue Arachne as the Mother of Many Spiders could technically be the suitors narratively but so can Luke.

The parallels are more superficial if appealing. Percy = Odysseus and Annabeth = Odysseus makes more sense than one of them simply being the other although through their ‘like-mindedness’ they are much the same.

So what have learned?

Rick really loves his Odyssey, I really enjoy my obscure characters and etymology knowledge, and we can have some hope for the chalice of the gods & perhaps a Diomedes figure showing up or Percy & Athena finally getting along with Annabeth and Sally moments.

I’ll be back (probably) for Fraser & Jiper parallels and most likely solangelo once i read TSATS.

[i-spilled-my-soup]

what are your thoughts on will's (presumed) main insecurity being 'powerless' compared to the other apollo campers? (im saying this prior to reading tsats so ig nothing is really 'confirmed') cus some ppl think it's goofy some ppl think it's interesting

he got minmaxed into damage reduction so i get that he feels insecure around all the dps people around him. but also the "weak but actually op" trope is very prevalent and i. kinda want to see an average built main character? like no fancy tricks? nothing glamorous? it would be so cool if will was killing people without even plague "powers" just really efficient methods of assassination(but i guess riordan wouldn't want kids to know how to do that) kinda goofy but i hope he stays powerless

tangent into my personal response to riordan books

whenever i think abt riordan demigod powers i gripe a little. a decent amount. cause the riordan storyline is a parallel to kids with absent parents, and that the kids are thrust into danger by their parents who don't even acknowledge them, right? and its huge character moment when the kids get even a little recognition, or when the gods straight up appear to talk to their kids? but in ancient myth, thinking homer, virgil, ovid, the demigods have no control of the elements or anything like that. their greatest power is their leverage of godly bias. cause the gods are everywhere. so the ancient trope and riordan trope are pretty much fully contradictory so i can't. it'd hard to add historical interpretation into riordan for me

and. it's so. it's y. you can be so cool without magic.

yes riordan's characters are cool and their scenes are noteworthy because they are flashy. because they can summon waves, and terraform, and shoot fireballs, and it must have been imperative for riordan when writing this series for a younger audience. but now i'm looking at these guys doing it constantly, and their strength keeps increasing, and the physical rebound keeps increasing, and i've . hit a wall in my interest? like no one is weak and no one is making mistakes and the greatest character flaws are jealousy, stubbornness, and... selflessness?

it all feels predictable at this point. like, i could not have predicted that this guy who survived three successive bouts of treason cause of his otherworldly rizz had said flutes were un-liberal as a kid, leading to flutes getting removed from the school curriculum, and also he had a sexy lisp. i couldn't have predicted that two bros would force sparta into their first ever military defeat, the philosopher bro using 3d chess strats in his phalanxes and the bodybuilder bro clutching with his 300 strong gay bodybuilder gang.

but. tsats preview where there's another obscure deity and she wants to hear about these teenagers' love lives? and it all begins with a star wars reference? yeah that's about what i could have expected

it just feels like there's no stakes at this point. i still stand that things would be way more interesting if they just died at this point, cause it's been drilled in that "you were so close to death" "you could have died" "you will die" and so on. but even so somehow i didn't feel much when the side characters or main characters died in hoo or toa?

it could be the direct characterization . riordan , especially in recent days, really loves his direct characterization. i think so, cause i did like the bits in tower of nero when the characters were just being silly and being friends.1!! like. just talking about cows. just throwijg each other around. the good stuff. the characters just feel like flat pngs and riordan adds filters to them every other chapter

tl;dr: my tastes have shifted to out of pocket ancient greek and roman myth/history and i don't enjoy romances

[tobacconist]

okay, okay... im not disrespecting your religion as a neopagan, i love you guys, but... i do believe there are a LOT of very prevalent misconceptions about historical witchcraft and paganism in the neopagan community and... well, this is kinda exactly what i was thinking about when i made this poast...

let me take that point about christianised pagan holidays, for example. do you think that the newly-converted roman christians didnt notice their ancestral pagan festivals were being changed to align with their new faith? of course they did! it was on purpose! the roman catholic church, the greek church, the coptic church, etc. have always been keenly aware (and fairly proud) of their pagan past. they celebrated christmas INSTEAD of saturnalia. it was a statement. this is why its so hilarious when fundie christians say christmas trees are satanic; to a first century christian, the whole point of christs sacrifice was supposed to be that he redeemed both jews AND pagans! thats why christians are allowed to make images of saints and eat pork, etc. the rise of christendom did violently destroy a lot of indigenous culture and religion, that cant be denied, but the celts arent a good example because, by all accounts, the celts embraced christianity quite readily readily, with comparatively little violence (perhaps why their culture retained more pre-christian elements than others?)

now to the second point: let me make this clear, because i am so tired of this; NO ONE was ever charged with being wise, or for providing herbal remedies or assisting in childbirth. herbal remedies (and verbal remedies) were literally the only medical recourse people had back then. women were assisted in childbirth by elder women in their communities, thats just how things worked. it seems weird and pagan to us now, but thats just how people lived. what people nowadays call witchcraft (blowing out birthday candles, celebrating the seasons, using herbs) is NOT what witchcraft historically meant. no magistrate could charge you for these things, unless he really hated you and could somehow twist it into a much more serious charge. people were charged with witchcraft for propitiating evil spirits, causing strife, poisoning people, murdering children, causing supernatural destruction to animals and property, etc. the 'if she floats shes a witch if she drowns shes innocent' myth has to die, its ahistorical, and its disrespectful to the people who actually lived through these times.

NOW, you do have a point about the demonisation (and occasional beatification) of prechristian deities. but wasnt cernunnos once a symbol of wild masculine animal power? then when the celts were christianised the horned figure became a symbol of ridicule and cuckoldry, and the devil was portrayed with horns to show his frightening and low bestial nature. its not hard to understand how it happened, culturally. but i AM a strong believer in the witch-cult hypothesis, because ofcourse during the process of christianisation there were those who kept the old ways and refused to conform. yes, there were even those who saw the devil as a symbol of rebellion against the corrupt establishment, and (i believe) we have proof of this in the secret survival of 'old school' coven wicca, and in the tradition of italian stregheria, and the romanian schools also. and this is evidenced by the collected writings on these topics, where both primitive local and roman gods are invoked, along with jesus christ and beelzebub, and the tetragrammaton.

anyway, these things have little to do with modern so-called witchcraft. because as we both know baneful magic breeds nasty things, and that we must never do it. never ever. because there are consequences for all things. and every thought and deed is kept in heaven, in written records undying,. it is no sin to cast a good spell, or to work white magic. my point, basically, is that its not all make believe (teehee) and if you call yourelf a witch you should know this. and know why there were once laws against these things.

irregardless, the

theres this prevailing idea in all discussion of historical witchcraft that... it just didnt happen. it was all hysteria and nothing but the deranged fantasies of misogynist men levelled at innocent women.

like. okay. i get it. most people dont believe in witchcraft in this day and age. its easy to read historical grimoires and think 'this is all just fantasy. this is like creative writing. anointed with milk in which nine bats have been drowned? a lions pelt smeared inside with the fat of a murdered baby? wearing a dead mans shroud stolen from his very grave? theres no way people actually did those things...

but they did. we know they did. even if you dont believe it 'worked', the fact remains that people did, infact, do these things, and did believe that it worked. we have not only the books and grimoires themselves (and the cultural oral tradition of it all, references in literature and idiom etc) but actual, physical archaeological evidence of people performing these kinds of rites. like, toads sealed up in jars etc. and most importantly - PEOPLE STILL DO THIS SHIT. occultism still exists. yes, you might think they are just nutters who like playing dressup, but ritual murder/animal sacrifice/all sorts of other bizarre shit DOES still go on, and it is in direct cultural lineage with this.

it isnt a perfect metaphor, but what i always say is this: if you want to truly understand the cultural environment which brought about the witchtrials in england - look to modern day nigeria. that is: a deeply religious country, historically colonised, where pre-christian animist traditions are still a strong part of society but sit uneasily with the religious establishment. where many people do still believe in witchcraft, generally despise it, but often resort to it for matters of love/business/to curse ones enemies/etc in secret. ive heard it described as two rival vendors at a market, each vying to win over the people. one side is a fairly new foreign import which is more respectable and has the backing of the establishment, promising a better life in the beyond in return for living righteously; and the other side has been there for years, everyone knows her products are bad but theyve all relied on her in the past, and she doesnt care how righteously you live, and doesnt promise a better life far far away but offers immediate improvement in the very primal aspects of life. and there are still laws against witchcraft in nigeria, but the higher government would rather just ignore it, leaving such matters to the local level and; the law failing, often these shoddy venders end up at the hands of mob justice. and its not hard to imagine (back to medieval britain) how this kind of situation, considering all the rest of the turmoil in the period (both the government and the people deeply anxious about their lives and livelihoods), eventually bubbled up into complete hysteria.

basically my point is this: what you have to understand is that during this period, there were bitches runnin round (claiming) to toil merrily in the service of satan, and (claimed) to have the power to destroy crops and do other wicked things. and people were fucking terrified of this.

[qqueenofhades]

Queer History Friday: Inverting the paradigm of ‘progress’

Right, so. You can thank @extasiswings for the fact that this is definitely a Thing; I don’t know for how long, but it’s definitely a Thing, thus spake Zarathustra. Anyway, one of the things we’re going to talk about today is the ‘myth of progress,’ which you have probably come across before. It posits that history and human existence are structured teleologically, or that rather, they function in a system that moves toward an end or goal, and that in the case of history, it only ever moves from “less enlightened (tm)” to “more enlightened (tm)” ways of doing things. We are smarter than the people in the past, simply by nature of living after them, and whatever they did or believed, it’s inferior to our way of doing/believing things in the present.

/extended fart noise from offstage

Yeah. We’re gonna put that one in the “Nosirree Bob” bin.

Anyway, last week, one of the things I talked about was the original Latin in the passage about one of Richard the Lionheart’s rebukes for unorthodox sexuality being Hella Gay. Well, I am now back to talk about (among other things) more Gay Latin, this time in the case of the etymology of the word “contubernium.” In its original essence, the word means the basic unit of the Roman army, a group of ten men. “Contubernales” shared a tent in the field, or barracks when at home, and ten groups of contubernales made a “century,” or a hundred men, from which we get the word “centurion” for its commander.

However, the other meanings of the word “contubernium” in classic Latin texts are a little more interesting, and you will see a bit of it in the links above. But in short, aside from “[male] military companionship” (since the Roman military, like the Roman world, was exclusively and culturally male), it also means “marriage, concubinage, slave marriage, lower-status marriage” and generally has connotations of on-the-DL sexual behavior. But it moreover means those bound by intimate ties of friendship, close romantic association, or the like; someone with whom you are living (and bedding) together within all senses of the word.

This seems like the opportune moment to mention that Roman culture, literature, and society was... Really Hella Gay.

Roman society almost unanimously assumed that adult males would be capable of, if not interested in, sexual relations with both sexes. It is extremely difficult to convey to the modern audiences the absolute indifference of most Latin authors as to the question of gender. Catullus writes of two male friends enamored of a Veronese brother and sister: “Caelius is crazy about Aufilenus and Quintius about Aufilena, the flower of Veronese youths -- the former for the brother, the latter for the sister.” [...] Many homosexual relationships were permanent and exclusive. Among the lower classes informal unions like those of Giton and Encolpius may have predominated, but marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes. Even under the Republic, Cicero regarded Curio’s relationship with another man as a marriage, and by the time of the early Empire references to gay marriage had become commonplace. [...]

Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the rituals appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress. (Suetonius reports a popular joke of the day to the effect that if Nero’s father had married that sort of wife, the world would be a happier place.) (pp. 73-74)

This is from Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality by John Boswell, which is still a landmark book in the field and has been since it was published in 1980. It’s difficult to overstate how completely radical this book was (and in some ways, still is). Boswell was only 33 when he published it, a distinguished Yale professor of history, and it is a massive piece of work that involved him personally consulting and extensively translating sources in Persian, Greek, Latin, French, and more. He was also writing a comprehensive history of ancient and medieval homosexuality at a time where he had to defend using the word “gay” in a scholarly publication, and spend extensive time refuting the “homosexuality is completely unnatural and perverted” thesis. 1980 was also the beginning of awareness of the AIDS crisis, and Boswell himself died of AIDS at the age of 47 in 1994. Today, when LGBT rights are, if not universally accepted, at least a mainstream and high-visibility political position, it’s difficult to overstate the level of fear and loathing that existed just 30-odd years ago. This is basically equivalent to Boswell saying that terrorists and plague-mongers had always existed in history, furthermore were not wrong to do so, and that they had a right to live their lives as much as anyone else.

You may have heard of Ruth Coker Burks, the “cemetery angel” of Arkansas in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic, when it was still called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency). If not, read her story. Fair warning: you will cry. A lot.

The point is this: one only has to compare the attitude toward homosexuality in ancient Rome, and the attitude toward homosexuality in 1980s America (and hell, 2000s America), to think that the progress theory starts sounding awfully suspect. Of course, like any society, Rome had its own weird mores, hypocrisies, and hangups about sexuality (it was especially focused on the distinction between passive/active and free/slave, rather than gender) and of course, one of the reasons homosexuality was so accepted was because women had comparatively no social prestige, agency, or public respect at all. (You should also check out Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, published in 1996.) Ancient Rome was a world entirely structured around men, and the right of men to have whatever kind of public or private (Roman-cultural, Roman-legal) existence they pleased, and the prevalence of homosexuality is in part a response to that.

Nonetheless, let us take that notion of “progress,” the idea that humanity only ever moves from “less enlightened” to “more enlightened,” and let us once more fart at it for good measure. Let us also recognize that queerness, its expression, and construction has -- as noted -- existed since the beginning of human history, that Rome’s successors were much less tolerant of it than it was, and it’s the successors’ particular tradition which has, unfortunately, shaped a lot of ours.

[izarov]

More Portugal

Some quick impressions of Portugal: There are many more tourists then I ever imagined. The vast majority are from Europe and there aren’t many Americans. It is remarkably clean and well maintained and the metro system was easy to use and timely. Portuguese was hard to pronounce or understand. With other Romance languages I can usually pick up a word here or there, this was not true in Lisbon. I was surprised by how easy it was to get around without speaking or understanding a single Portuguese phrase. Almost everyone we encountered spoke enough English to communicate. The youth culture did not seem as prevalent. We saw many old couples with elderly men who were walking, holding hands,, and generally were attached to their wives who were no younger, were not trying to look younger. We saw one couple where the man was significantly older then his wife and they were British. *** On our last day in Portugal we went to the beach town of Cascais. The beach was a typical beach town with stores selling towels and hats and knick-knacks of all kinds. There were rows of restaurants where someone stood in the lane and tried to corral you into eating there. The beaches were well populated with franchises that rented lounge chairs and umbrellas. We rented some lounge chairs and sat between a group of German women. They reminded me of the British women who shared a daylong cruise on the Mediterranean with us when we were in Turkey 17 years ago. They were memorable for going topless on the cruise and were terrifyingly huge in every respect. They seemed monsters out of some Greek myth with pendulous breasts that intimidated. I still remember a dream I later had that somehow I end up suffocated by the breasts alone. I am surprised that Ben, who was with us on the trip was not permanently traumatized or in the alternative didn’t develop an unfortunate breast fetish. The Germans weren’t really of this magnitude but something about their conversation and demeanor took me back to that Mediterranean cruise. Thinking about the German women’s conversation made me contemplate how much you learn about yourself when traveling. Specifically how much easier it is to recognize the prejudices and stereotypes you carry with you daily and how irrational they can be. When we were in Lisbon we went to the Port Institute to taste Port. It was a relaxing place and the Port lined shelf after shelf. In the tasting room with us were a group of French people, three couples. They were laughing and teasing each other and taking pictures and because they were French, and my views of the French begin and apparently end with Bridget Bardot probably in some Godard film, I assumed that they were trading sexual innuendo in rapid fire. Of course, this was silly and almost certainly completely wrong, but even writing this I cling to my first impressions, Bridget Bardot wrapped in only a towel. I compare this to my reaction to the beach town conversation of the German women who, like the French in the Port Institute were laughing and talking among themselves. It did not occur to me that they were trading sly double entendres. This was not a possibility to my categorizing mind. These two examples just reminded me of how important it is to be aware of my biases, which of course aren’t limited to the French or Germans, but extends to Brits, and Chinese and Italians, and what is more extends with even greater force to American ethnic groups. For anyone wondering I will return to Bel Canto dinner.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Irish for Noh: The Masks of William Butler Yeats

Alvin Langdon Coburn’s portrait of W. B. Yeats, from the book Men of Mark, 1913.

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person,” declares Oscar Wilde, “Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.” Wilde’s fellow Irishman — poet William Butler Yeats — agreed.

Although Yeats’ poetry is often misconstrued as autobiographical, the poet scorned such transparency, calling it “unimaginative” and comparing realism to “putting photographs in a plush frame.”

From his “Crazy Jane” poems (1933) to his eulogies for the cause of Irish nationalism, Yeats donned many masks throughout his poetry career – from the punch-drunk dreamer in “Lake Isle of Innisfree” (1893) to the doomed pilot in “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” (1917) to the inhibited aesthete of “Among Schoolchildren,” (1928) and the dying sage of “The Tower” (1928).

For Yeats the personae — the Latin word for “masks” — voicing his poems are as meaningful and expressive as the poem’s words. This is why he looked back to ancient Greek models of “sung” verse and why he sought a modern literature in which form and content are indivisible, a quest he immortalized in the famous rhetorical question, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

And it is Yeats and dance — not Yeats and poetry — that takes center stage in the multimedia exhibition, Simon Starling: At Twilight (After W.B. Yeats’ Noh Reincarnation) at Japan Society, which explores the Irish poet’s debt to the formalism of Japanese Noh theater.

The exhibition draws extensively on material relevant to British artist Simon Starling’s theatrical production, At Twilight. When it was performed in Glasgow last summer, At Twilight included as part of its staged docudrama a creative revival of Yeats’ one-act Noh-inspired play At the Hawk’s Well (1916) which combined chant, verse drama, masked actors, pantomime, dance, gesture, and a musical score.

Simon Starling, “At Twilight: The Guardian of the Well, (After Edmund Dulac)” (2014–2016), hand-painted cotton muslin. Made in collaboration with Kumi Sakurai and Atelier Hinode, Tokyo. (image courtesy the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow)

The star of this expansive exhibition is a video installation featuring the spellbinding “hawk dance” from Yeats’ play, performed by the Scottish Ballet and choreographed by Javier de Frutos, a revival based on archival photos of the original production costume, which was created by the French designer and illustrator Edmund Dulac.

Appropriately, the exhibition is as multilayered as Yeats’ detours into writing for the stage. Around the turn of the 20th century, as he reached the peak of his poetic powers, he began composing verse plays while struggling to establish an Irish national theater that might voice what he cryptically called the “deep mind” — truths embedded within traditional Irish legends and myths. As tireless as Yeats was in pursuit of this perfected art, the results were mixed.

In 1899, Yeats co-founded the short-lived Irish Literary Theater but years later managed to help set up the far more enduring Irish National Theater Society, housed at the Abbey Theater. He also wrote ten original plays, none more culturally hybrid than the Noh-inspired At the Hawk’s Well.

How Yeats came to Noh theater is one of the great plot lines behind At Twilight. While World War I raged in Europe, Yeats was living in Stone Cottage in the forests of Sussex, England. There he was assisted by the expatriate American poet Ezra Pound, with occasional visits from Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. Both poets had a hand in introducing Yeats to the refined, abstracted aesthetics of classical Japanese verse and Noh drama. In both art forms, the affective impact of the work supersedes its meaning. Yeats was ripe for such an indoctrination.

Noh mask dating back to 17th-18th century (Zō-onna type), Tokyo National Museum (via Wikipedia)

More than a decade earlier, in his polemical essay, “The Reform of the Theater” (1903), Yeats had argued against the then-prevalent realism, typified by the British stage productions of that period. He called instead for a stylized and aristocratic theater with “simplified acting” built around “emotional subtlety” that restores to language its lost “sovereignty” and replaces the “broken and prosaic speech of ordinary recitation” with “the musical lineaments of verse or prose that delights the ear with a continually varied music.”

This call for the “reform” of theatrical realism laid the groundwork for the poet’s interest in Noh while revealing his conflicted loyalties about class and national identity. Yeats was a Protestant born in Dublin, raised partly in London and in County Sligo where he absorbed Irish traditional legends and folkways. Unlike his generational peers who came from similar upper-class Anglo-Irish stock, Yeats was an Irish nationalist who hoped for a postcolonial Ireland revitalized by an embrace of the Celtic imagination and the folk beliefs of its agrarian past.

Irish Volunteers barricade Townsend Street, Dublin, to slow down the advance of troops, during the Easter Rising, 1916. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images, public domain)

Yeats’ Irish populism was always complicated, however. In fact, though he served in the Irish Senate late in life, he was, during his years working in the theater, more of a political idealist and reactionary than a progressive or a pragmatist. He loathed any popular craving for realism, both in literature and in the Realpolitik of post-Parnell Irish nationalism. He abhorred what he considered crass provincialism among Irish working-class audiences, the very people who took to the streets in the April 1916 Easter Uprising and fought in the ensuing Irish Civil War — two bloody conflagrations that stirred as much ambivalence in Yeats as did the narrow aesthetics of Irish theater.

Sure enough, in 1913, while learning about Noh theater, which flourished in 14th and 15th-century Japan, Yeats thought he had found what he was looking for – a form of theater that could reconcile these cultural tensions. He probably detected in Noh’s yūgen – loosely translated as “graceful elegance” or “subtle mystery” — a formally strict construct within which he could update old Irish tales while elevating such material above the “mob” mentality, framing the stories into abstract plays that could “pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too subtle for our habitation.”

So the Noh model allowed Yeats to craft such a non-realistic, aristocratic play as At the Hawk’s Well, combining mysticism, ritualized gesture, stark scenery, a poetic libretto, and “pantomimic dance” into a single art form.

Simon Starling, “At Twilight: Old Man (After Edmund Dulac)” (2014-2016), Paulownia wood, Japanese lacquer, gesso, pigment, glue, animal hair. Mask made in collaboration with Yasuo Miichi, Osaka. (image courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow)

Yeats’ At the Hawk’s Well recasts the Irish myth of Cuchulain by depicting the warrior as a “Young Man,” who seeks the “life-giving waters” at a well, where he meets both an embittered “Old Man” and a mysterious girl/witch/hawk who is “Guardian of the Well.”

And though Yeats’ play provides the unifying thread, Starling’s exhibition casts a far wider net, taking into account countless Modernist crossroads where Eastern aesthetics met the European avant-garde of the 1910s – in poetry, sculpture, painting, and design.

To do so, the exhibition juxtaposes historical photos and works by Western artists with original and replica Japanese Noh masks, each animated in a timeless almost ecstatic expression — part scowl, part grimace, part grin.

There are new masks and costumes made by Starling in collaboration with Japanese mask maker Yasuo Michii and costume designer Kumi Sakurai. Certain masks represent poets and artists in Yeats’ circle. In addition to a Noh-inspired mask of the Irish poet, other Modernists have cameos in the exhibition. The hieratic face of Ezra Pound as immortalized in the famous sculpture by Henri Gaudier-Brezska inspired one mask, while another borrows the sleek, totemic, abstract style of Constantin Brancusi for the arts patron Nancy Cunard, in whose London salon Yeats’s play was first staged. These are gracefully suspended from sculpted replicas of a stark, leafless tree that was featured in the original production of At the Hawk’s Well — and will remind many visitors of the similarly jagged, bare, and nearly dead tree in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953). Years later, Alberto Giacometti sculpted a reiteration of the tree, possibly inspired by the Yeats work, for a 1961 production of Godot.

Simon Starling, “At Twilight: W. B. Yeats” (2014-2016), Paulownia wood, Japanese lacquer, gesso, pigment, glue, animal hair. Mask made in collaboration with Yasuo Miichi, Osaka. (image courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow)

Despite the well-curated profusion of archival materials – photographs, notes, letters and even a sprawling, wall-sized “Mind Map” that charts the zigzagging influences among various Modernist art forms — it is not so easy to figure out what Yeats specifically thought about what he had achieved, artistically speaking, by adopting Noh techniques and methods for At the Hawk’s Well.

In an introductory essay he wrote for the collection Certain Noble Plays of Japan (1916), edited by Pound and Ernest Fenollosa, Yeats provides at least one clue, homing in on the way Japanese Noh dramatic verse recursively exploits a single recurring image or metaphor. Yeats describes this centrifugal or catalyzing force as the “rhythm of metaphor” and compares to it to “the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanese painting.”

The Irish poet’s insight indirectly associates the swaying dynamism of key words within Noh dramaturgy to the slow, studied, dance-like motions of the masked actor onstage. Echoing Yeats, Royall Tyler, a British translator and specialist in Japanese literature, refers to the push-and-pull poetics of recurring images and metaphors in Noh drama as “pivot phrases” or “pivot words” in which “a word, or even part of a word, may mean one thing when taken with what precedes and what follows.”

More recently, in her new study of Noh and European Modernism, Learning to Kneel (Columbia University Press, 2016), Claire Preston further theorizes that Yeats’ was seduced by the supernatural qualities delivered in Noh stagecraft, such that “By translating the masks, chorus, music and dance of noh for his Cuchulain cycle, Yeats hoped to turn the actor’s body […] into a container that can be filled by spirits, ghosts and gods.”

Simon Starling, “At Twilight: Young Man (After Edmund Dulac)” (2014-2016), Mask: Paulownia wood, Japanese lacquer, gesso, pigment, glue, animal hair. Mask made in collaboration with Yasuo Miichi, Osaka. (image courtesy of artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow)

Perhaps Yeats found in the model of Noh theater a fine balance, which he pursued in his own poetry, between the spirit world of the dead and the embodied one of the living. Put another way, Yeats’ poetics seek a balance between surface and depth, between the mask of a human face and the personality hidden beneath it.

After all, Yeats returned constantly to the subject of faces. In the poem “Before the World Was Made” (1933), he celebrates the “vanity” of mirrors and of makeup, as the speaker declares that, although she seems to be polishing a bodily surface, she is ultimately producing “the face I had before the world was made.”

Thirty years earlier, in his dramatic dialogue between lovers in the poem “The Mask” (1903), Yeats pits the romantic magnetism of the lover’s face against the need to see into the essence below the surface, “lest you are my enemy.”

In the end, the lover refuses to figuratively unmask, reminding the companion that the theater of life is the only reality there is. And, besides, “What matter [the mask], so there is but fire/In you, in me?”

Simon Starling: At Twilight (After W. B. Yeats’ Noh Reincarnation)continues at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street, Midtown East, Manhattan) through January 15.

The post The Irish for Noh: The Masks of William Butler Yeats appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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What is wrong with the Indian diet? Apparently a lot, claims UK-based cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra - Times of India

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What is wrong with the Indian diet? Apparently a lot, claims UK-based cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra - Times of India

With delectable flavours and fragrant spices, Indian cuisine is certainly popular around the world. In addition to its wide variety of rich flavours, a traditional Indian diet also boasts of a wide variety of nutrients in a balanced quantity. However, on the flip side, obesity and diabetes still continue to be a significant public health concern for India.

According to the medical journal Lancet, the burden of diabetes is rapidly increasing in India and there is an estimated 72.96 million cases of diabetes in the adult population of the country as of now. Infact, India has been deemed as the world’s capital of diabetes. So, for a nation that boasts of lentils, fresh and fruits and vegetables as an integral part of its diet, where exactly did we go wrong?

Is our growing inclination towards western food (pizza, burger, fries etc.) to be blamed or is there more to the Indian diet? We connected with a renowned cardiologist and famous author Dr Aseem Malhotra and asked him to shed light on the same. In this riveting conversation, Dr Aseem touched upon several eye-opening facts and misconceptions about the Indian diet that continue to plague our minds even today. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

The role of comorbidity and death from COVID-19 Dr Aseem emphasized on the fact that even as the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the globe, it is the people with underlying chronic metabolic diseases including high blood pressure, obesity and type 2 diabetes which are affected the most. India has the highest prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the world, which on an average reduced the life expectancy by up to 10 years.

The relationship between Indians and chronic metabolic syndrome In India, 43 per cent of people with normal BMI (Body Mass Index) are metabolically unhealthy. This means that a huge proportion of people are living in this illusion of protection thinking that they are not overweight or unhealthy.

Dr Aseem spoke at length about metabolic syndrome and how 1 in 3 adults in India are suffering from this syndrome. He defined metabolic health using these 5 parameters:

Your blood pressure should be ideally less than 120 over 80 mm Hg

You should not have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes

Your triglyceride levels should be less than 1.7 millimoles per litre

Your good cholesterol (HDL) should be greater than 1 millimoles per litre.

If you are a man your waist circumference should be less than 90 cms and for a woman, it should be less than 85 cms.

This essentially means that even if your BMI is ideal, if you have excess fat around your body or any of the above-mentioned parameters, you are probably not as healthy as you may think.

Extra sugar, fried snacks and refined carbohydrates: Everything wrong with the Indian diet Quite appropriately, when talking about the word ”diet”, Dr Aseem linked it to its greek origin ‘diaita’, which essentially means ‘lifestyle’. Surprisingly, 70 per cent of Indian diet calories come from consuming carbohydrates and most of them are not necessarily from the best quality of carbohydrates. These poor quality carbohydrates include a lot of sugar, flour-based products, snacks loaded with starch, loaves of bread, and white rice. Another shocking finding shared by Dr Aseem is that an average Indian consumes at least 15 teaspoons sugar in the form fruit juices, sweets, sugar-laden drinks and snacks. He underlined the fact that while one does not need any amount of sugar to stay healthy, the World Health Organization has drawn the upper limit on five teaspoons of sugar per day. This essentially means, Indians are probably consuming 3-4 times of sugar then they should.

Your diet can reverse type-2 diabetes Contrary to popular beliefs, Dr Aseem explained that it is never too late to change your dietary habits as it can help you reverse type 2 habits within weeks. This can be done by carefully monitoring your diet and changing the needful. For the uninitiated, Dr Aseem has been working with type 2 diabetes patients and empowering them to reverse the same with the help of lifestyle and dietary changes.

While he did not advise the patients to instantly stop taking the medications, he did recommend dietary changes for type-2 diabetes patients. He stated that medications and insulin for type-2 diabetes do not work on increasing the lifespan or reducing the chances of a heart attack and they also come with their side-effects.

When you work on reversing type-2 diabetes, you not only take away the immeasurable suffering of the patients and the impact this disease has on their nerves, eyes, kidneys etc but it also adds years to their lives, he added. Since the patients of type 2 diabetes tend to have a particular sensitivity to the sugars and refined carbohydrates, when they begin to cut down the sugar, rice, bread, potatoes etc, their blood glucose level may start to go down in a span of few weeks.

As a result, they may end up reducing the medication dosage when advised by their doctor. He pointed out that type 2 diabetes is a condition of carbohydrates intolerance, so shunning the glucose and carbohydrate-laden products like rice, breads, pasta, sugar etc can do wonders for the patient. Additionally, junk and processed food items should be replaced with whole foods including fresh fruits and vegetables. He also said that fruit juices should be avoided as they are full of sugar and whole fruits should be added to the diet instead.

The relationship between the Keto diet and managing type-2 diabetes The cardiologist underlined that whole food-based Keto diet can be very beneficial for those battling type-2 diabetes. On the other hand low-sugar, low refined carbohydrate, a Mediterranean inspired diet with lots of vegetables or unprocessed meat like lamb, chicken and fish can also be a part of a healthy diet.

He also busted the prevalent myth of eating as frequently as every two hours and said that there is no legitimate need for the majority of the people to eat every two hours, no matter what is being propagated on the internet.

The goodness of Intermittent diet When you cut down the sugar and starch in the form of junk food, snacks and packaged food items, you actually eat to fullness and don’t feel as hungry as before. Speaking about Intermittent diet, Dr Aseem agreed that there are emerging pieces of evidence which back the claim that it can be good for your metabolic health. He also underlined different methods of doing the intermittent diet and explained that for two or three times a week, he fasts for 16 hours a day and eats in a window between 12 to 8 pm.

The lack of protein in the average Indian diet As per a statement by the Indian Dietetic Association, a whopping 84 per cent of Indians are protein deficient! This is not surprising considering the fact that meat inadvertently remains one of the best sources of protein, which doesn’t find its place in an average Indian thali. He pointed out that protein deficiency poses a big threat to the elderlies as they lose muscle mass and strength with age.

He listed down some of the best sources of protein which included eggs, paneer (cottage cheese), lentils etc and pointed out that Indians need to consume more of these protein-rich products in their diet instead of flour-based products and rice. Eggs remain one of the best sources of protein, including the yolk. The cardiologist reiterated the fact that the cholesterol present in egg yolks does not raise our cholesterol and will not give you a heart attack.

Move over vegetable oils, it is time to bring back desi ghee The vegetable seed oils used for cooking in the Indian households including the sunflower oil, canola and soybean oil are not exactly healthy. Dr Aseem suggests swapping them with desi ghee, coconut oil and extra virgin oil. Since these oils remain quite stable even after they are heated up, they make for a healthier alternative to the vegetable oils that become toxic after heating.

He also reiterated that the adoption of the modern western diet through these fast food joints is actually increasing the consumption of toxic food items and should be avoided as much as possible.

Why you need to quit smoking and start walking It is important to note that the reduction in smoking remains one of the biggest reasons for lowering the death rate from heart disease in the UK and US. Infact, he points out that quitting smoking can be more powerful than all the medications given for reducing the risk of a future heart attack combined together.

Dr Aseem also simplified the whole formula of physical activities and nudged the people to take out 30 minutes every day from their daily routine and go for a brisk walk, at least five times a week. The need to get up and get moving for at least 30 minutes is all the more important in this work from home era where we stay glued to our laptop screens for an immeasurable about of time.

If you have trouble getting sound sleep at night, Dr Aseem advises cutting down on tea and coffee (due to their caffeine content) after midday as they act as stimulants. Incorporating yoga and meditation in the daily routine is another important part of calming down your mind and sleeping well at night. It also helps to dial down the stress levels.

The truth of Vegan and Vegetarian diet When it comes to the diet you are following, it is never a good idea to go to any extremes. So, if you have switched to a Vegan or Vegetarian diet, it is important that you include more vegetables in your daily meals when compared to white rice, bread or other flour-based products. Since protein deficiency seems to be more common in vegetarians, closely monitor your protein intake for the day and include pulses, lentils, chickpeas, paneer (cottage cheese) and spinach. As a rule of thumb, you should consume 1 gram of protein per kilogram of your weight.

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Blog Entry #2: Historical Influence

Word Count: 1129

Ancient Greek & Medieval Natural & Environmental Philosophy

Nature has been a root of spiritual importance and vitality to the human condition long before it was depleted by more modern society. In ancient times, nature was one of the most important things about life. Many people were farmers and worked the land and valued it as sacred, as the technology at the time did not allow for mass agriculture.  As history goes on and cultures change, we have usually maintained the importance of the environment and being one with nature up until modern philosophy. Unfortunately, our anthropocentric habits and inherently selfish human traits have prevented us from maintaining the same love for nature. We had begun to place more value on technology and human progress, and the intrinsic value of nature that was agreed upon in earlier times has been fading for some time now.

A truly recognizable mark of Ancient Greek culture was the mythology. The greeks believed in a plethora of Gods and Goddesses, many of whom represented at least some aspect of nature. Zeus, the King of the Gods, represented the sky and air. Poseidon represented the sea and water. Hades represented the underworld, and his wife Persephone represented spring. Persephone’s mother Demeter represented agricultural growth, the land and wheat. Aphrodite, who was the Goddess of Love had her place in nature as well as she represented motherhood, natural reproduction and the natural passion that exists in all beings, not just humans. Apollo represented the sun and music and poetry, while his twin sister Artemis represented the moon and nature and wild beasts. Pan, an ancient God was thought of as a literal embodiment of nature and the environment. Where there were not Gods, for examples in lakes and mountains, were specific nymphs like naiads. Greeks believed firmly in the wrath of the Gods should you do anything morally wrong, and there are many myths which tell the wrath of Artemis as she protected wild beasts and animals. Artemis, a maiden goddess, is the goddess of untouched nature; she endowed the wilderness with sacredness. In psychological terms, she was the projection of whatever it is in the human psyche that finds the sacred and inviolable in nature. She protected the wilderness, and as she inspired respect for animal life, she still permitted the hunt. Apparently, before killing an animal, a prudent Greek would consider whether the act would offend Artemis. For example, the preservation of young animals and pregnant females had the effect of encouraging the reproduction of game species, and this was often done to please Artemis. It is significant that all of what would have been considered as offensive to Artemis were often things that were morally wrong in terms of human action towards nature. A deep ecologist would agree that we are a part of nature and unnecessary killing of anything in nature is wasteful, unnecessary and harmful to the environment. Prudent greeks would follow the same mindset because as deep ecology is a cultural perspective of thought, so was the religious ideals the greeks practiced.

Of all of the philosophers who had their beginning in ancient Greece,  the one whose ethics looks most environmental in the sense that it is directed towards the preservation of the ecological balance of nature is Pythagoreanism. Unfortunately, no writings of Pythagoras survived, however we do know the prescriptive content of Pythagorean ethics in relation to the natural world begins with a prohibition against taking life in any form. Essentially, this meant that there was rules against eating anything that had been killed, whether plant or animal. Beans and certain leaves were not permitted because it would be considered slaughtering the plant it had come from. This is an extremely intense form of environmental protection, with its closest modern day comparative being veganism. Vegans do not eat animals or even animal by-product, often to protest the inhumane living conditions in factories, slaughterhouses and even farms which raise and create food from all kinds of animals from chickens to pigs. However, being vegan does not mean that all other aspects of one’s life are sustainable, but it is extremely important to make what little steps and progress we all can.

Unfortunately much of this changed around the same time that the Greek philosopher Plato began exploring the philosophy of nature. Philosophy emerged in ancient Greece due to religious myth, cosmology, technology, economics, a communications revolution and the rise of the Greek city-state and democracy. Whether this was by himself or as a part of a greater movement in ancient Greek philosophy his perspectives were unique to that of Greeks who believed in the gods. Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology, based on unchanging objects (the Forms) prevented the development of an ecological perspective and the appreciation of natural beauty, given that according to that theory the world of sensory experience did not exist. A conception of reality which maintains that the natural world is an illusion makes the idea of natural preservation conceptually difficult, if not impossible. This led to a downward spiral from deep ecology into a relative mindset which followed anthropocentric worldviews, which state that humans are the central or most important element of existence. This opened the door for many modern philosophers to adopt a planetary management, anthropocentric worldview which is proven to damage to our environment and is unfortunately still highly prevalent today.

A modern philosopher with views that are usually seen as completely antithetical to those of animal ethicists and environmental philosophers is Rene Descartes. Rene Descartes was born in France in 1596. He believed that nature had no intrinsic value and that there were no grounds for thinking that animals have the minds or capacity to reason, as all their behavior is explicable if they are “conceived of as clockwork machines that operate according to mechanical laws,” thus coining the concept that animals are machines. Descartes argued with this reasoning that the environment has no moral standing, it is an instrument to be exploited for human ends and goals, and that human beings ought to harness the vast powers of nature so that they may become the “masters and possessors of nature”. In my personal opinion, this philosophy definitely contributed to the damaging anthropocentric worldviews which influence our policy today. As this worldview had been adopted and maintained throughout more modern history, we can see the negative effects it has had. This worldview needs to shift back to something closer to what was found in ancient Greece when nature was valued and taken care of. Planetary management is undoubtedly the most selfish and careless way to address climate change, because since humans are a naturally selfish species, that mindset will never reverse or improve the damage already done to our environment.

Alexis Zobeideh

Dr. Van Buren