#just finished wilsons odyssey didnt i

[catoswound]

normal behaviour about the odyssey

[froggierboy]

i just got to the top of my dash and saw your bookstore post again—i’m in the middle of Harrow and i’m hoping to finally make Dr. Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey my summer book (if i don’t pick it up sooner)! I was following along with your Gideon reading bc I’d just finished it right before you started—how did you like it??

i loved it! honestly i didnt really expect to, and i had trouble getting into the setting at first but it ended up really sucking me in. i loved gideon so much as a protag and i miss her now that i'm starting harrow (like she's not dead dead right like she's gonna be back? right? harrow is gonna just spit her back out or something? right???)

[marcosgreeklitblog]

Blog #16, "Homers The Odyssey" by Emily Wilson, page #490-520

Summary- We pick up as the bloodbath that Odysseus and Telemachus have done is finishing. The slave lady went to call Penelop and she finaly told Penelop that her husband, Odysseus, who had been gone for years, was back home. She did not believe her, and said shw would have to test the man who was downstairs, as she didnt want to get her hopes up. Well she tested Odysseus by saying that their bed was moved, and he said it was impossible since the frame was carved from a tree while he built the rest of the room sound it, so the bed could not be moved. She finally believed him, and just into his arms. 

Critical Analysis- The most important quote of the Week was when Emily Wilson/ Homer said “At that, we her heart and body suddenly relaxed.She recognized the tokens he had shown her.She burst out crying and ran straight towards him and threw her arms around him, kissed his face, and said…” on page 501. This is the most important because we finally see Penelope be reunited with Odysseus, and she truly believed and was happy that her husband was finally home. The whole family was back together and they could be happy again. It was the happy ending fitting for a book like the Odyssey. 

Personal Response- Well i really like the 30 pages that i read because it was a lot of family coming back together and things like that. Penelope, Odysseus, and Telemachus are all reunited as a family now, and its the perfect childrens book happy ending for a book as intense as “The Odyssey”. Now i think all that is left is for Odysseus to dispose of the body and expose himself to the public, that he is back home. I assume the public will have mixed feeling about Odysseus being home, but i think it will mostly be positive feelings about his return. 

[carlosgabrielruiz]

PINKERTON - 33 1/3 Proposal Part 6

CHAPTER 4 Many Rivers to Cross:A Brief History of Rivers Cuomo

For most people, Weezer begins and ends with Rivers Cuomo. Period. Point blank. Rivers Cuomo is undoubtedly the brains and heart behind the band – without him, there would simply be no Weezer. Rivers is the primary songwriter, lyricist, band director, and de facto Great Leader (although it should be noted that in the early days he shared some of those songwriting duties and credits with Matt Sharp and original guitarist Jason Cropper). 

Rivers was born in Manhattan on June 13, 1970. He grew up in upstate New York in the Buddhist Zen Center where his father was a farmer. In 1975, his father left the family and Rivers moved to Connecticut with his mother and brothers to live in Yogaville on an ashram farm.(1) He grew up as a quiet and shy child only later to become a metalhead with an outgoing love for Kiss and Van Halen.

When he turned 18 Rivers moved to L.A. and started to officially make a go of it in music. He got a job at Tower Records and was introduced to drummer Pat Wilson. (2) They became friends and formed a band called Fuzz. Rivers moved into Pat’s apartment which he shared with Matt Sharp, who was a talented multi-intrumentalist. Matt soon decided to join them and they embarked on an odyssey that would eventually make musical history. 

Valentine’s Day of 1992 was a momentous occasion for the newly formed, yet still-unnamed, new band because that was the day that Rivers Cuomo (lead guitar), Matt Sharp (bass), Jason Cropper (guitar), and Pat Wilson (drums) first gathered together to rehearse and record their sessions. The band “got together at T.K. rehearsal studios, in West LA, and rehearsed for either 3 or 4 days straight.”(3) The demo tape that was made during the session featured a list of all the potential band names they were toying with at the time including the initial band name “Fuzz”, as well as “Meathead”, “Outhouse”, “Hummingbird”, “the Big Jones” and “This Niblet”.

Things moved quickly for the band from there. A little over a year after their first official rehearsal, the band - now officially named Weezer - signed a major label record deal with Geffen Records. The band had hoped to self-produce their debut, but the suits at Geffen were not going to let that happen. Eventually, the band picked Cars’ frontman, Ric Ocasek, to handle production on the record. According to Rivers Cuomo, “The record company was really pushing us to work with a producer, so we figured that if we had to have somebody in the studio with us, it might as well just be someone who writes good songs – and the Cars’ first record just rules.” (4) 

The band went to Electric Ladyland studios in New York to work on their record. Everything was going great up until it wasn’t. There were internal problems with the guitarist Jason Cropper that led to Rivers firing him from the band. According to Ric Ocasek, “He (Rivers) called me when the record was finished, the day before we were supposed to start mixing, and said, ‘Listen, I just fired the guitar player.’ So I said, ‘What are you gonna do now?’ He’s like, ‘I want all of his parts off the record.’” Luerssen (2004)

With two days before mixing was due to begin in New York, Sharp and Cuomo called Brian Bell.5 He auditioned on tape and was hired to replace Jason. But it was too late to in the game to fly him out to re-record all of Jason’s guitar parts. Under the gun, and with only a day of studio time left before mixing was slated to begin, Rivers re-recorded all of the guitar parts himself (even though Brian is credited on the record).

The Blue Album was released on May 10th, 1994. The 10-track LP provided a “new roadmap for alt-rock following the death of Kurt Cobain and the conclusion of grunge’s first era.”(5) The catchy power-pop record with hook-laden choruses and kitschy Spike Jonze directed videos was an overwhelming success. It would invade the mainstream and go on to sell over 3 million records in the U.S. alone. The band went on a seemingly never-ending tour to promote the record. 

Rivers struggled with the newly found fame and success that the Blue Album had brought the band. He was “frustrated by the limitations of rock and the lifestyle of touring around on a bus and playing the same songs over and over.” Cohen (2015). So he did what most people in his position would do, he put the band on a hiatus and enrolled in Harvard to study classical music. 

But before the semester started, Rivers decided to fix his right leg, which was two inches shorter than his left leg. The surgery on his right leg left him in agonizing pain. It would be a long recovery. During his first year at Harvard Rivers’ right leg was encased in a metal frame that would require him to adjust and tighten the screws daily in order to elongate the bone.(6) He became hooked on painkillers and opioids while trying to manage the pain.

As he told The New York Times. “I grew a long beard and walked around with a cane… The only time I could write songs was when my frozen dinner was in the microwave.” Rockland (2006) “Where I was emotionally … I went to a more serious and dark place.” Runtagh (2019). 

Alone and in pain, Rivers was listening to a lot of classical music and he kept coming back to the opera Madame Butterfly by Puccini. “One of my favorite operas by him was Madama Butterfly, specifically when the role was played by Maria Callas,” he recalled to Pitchfork. “On tour, I would listen to her every night after the show and be so moved by the depth of emotion and sadness and tragedy. It really was calling to me, like, “Come on, Rivers. You can go there. You can go much further with your music than ‘The Sweater Song’ or ‘Buddy Holly’.” Cohen (2015)

His deeply personal and emotional lyrics were raw, to say the least. He opened himself up to a level of honesty, anger, pain, and emotional truth that was only hinted at within the Blue Album’s casual, ironic detachment. But make no mistake, that anger and honestly was always there just below the surface, only it was wrapped around a bouncy hook with a singalong chorus. 

With a dozen or more new songs ready to record, Weezer decided to head to the studio. Only this time, they would self produce the new record themselves. They wanted a feel that was similar to their live shows that would better capture the power and energy of their new songs. The resulting record was a “grittier, slightly darker sound that was more Pixies than the polished power-pop Ric Ocasek had helped the band realize on the Blue Album.” (7)

A few months before the album was slated for release, Rivers Cuomo “issued a precarious warning to the band’s fan club about his mental state during the writing process:” Braun (2016).

There are some lyrics on the album that you might think are mean or sexist. I will feel genuinely bad if anyone feels hurt by my lyrics but I really wanted these songs to be an exploration of my ‘dark side’ – all the parts of myself that I was either afraid or embarrassed to think about before. So there’s some pretty nasty stuff on there. 

You may be more willing to forgive the lyrics if you see them as passing low points in a larger story. And this album really is a story: the story of the last two years of my life. And as you’re probably well aware, these have been two very weird years.

But the worst was yet to come... TO BE CONTINUED IN THE 33 1/3 BOOK PINKERTON 

1 - Weezerpedia. Rivers Cuomo. https://www.weezerpedia.com/wiki/Rivers_Cuomo.

2 - Cohen, Ian. (2015, February 9). Rivers Cuomo. Pitchfork. https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/9590-rivers-cuomo/.

3 - The Weezer Recording History. (2006, February). Weezer.com. http://www.weezer.com/info/recording/WeezRecHist3.htm.

4 - Luerssen, John D. (2004, August 1). River’s Edge: The Weezer Story. Toronto. ECW Press.

5 - Runtagh, Jordan. (2019, May 10). Weezer’s Blue Album: 10 Things You Didn’t Know. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/weezer-blue- album-rivers-cuomo-things-you-didnt-know-822881/.

6 - Rockland, Kate. (2006, February 16). At School with Rivers Cuomo: Student with a Past. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/garden/16weezer.html.

7 - Braun, Laura Marie. (2016, September 23). How Weezer’s ‘Pinkerton’ Went from Embarassing to Essential. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music- features/how-weezers-pinkerton-went-from-embarrassing-to-essential-105567/.

[tactidoll]

so i was gonna do a top 10 games of 2017 but liek 

i havent really played enough to constitute one so instead im gonna do an awards text post/show, and come up w some stupid awards and explain them a lil and give a reason why 

this is long so im gonna put a cut 

1: the “greediest game developer” award

notice i said developer and not publisher otherwise its obviously ea with their inserting the wilson style lootbox into everything 

and the winner bungie games for destiny 2, destiny 2 was under the radar for the longest time due to battlefront 2′s literal massacre of a mess, but bungie has shown that no distance is too far for them, first creating the eververse, a quick way to get lots of “bright engrams” which is the ‘endgame’s sole reward, but all the little bits like making shaders one time use and having them only apply to one piece of gear, making them only useful in bis items and only then until the next raid comes out, to its latest disaster of a christmas event, still bungie remain open to listening to customer and community feedback just not acting on it 

2: the “i finally get it” award

yknow when a style of game, or just game for that matter is super popular but you never understood why, and then u play it or do something and it finally clicks, thats this award 

and the winner PUBG, ive never been to into the battle royale mode of any game, even being a huge dayz fan id rather just play on the whole huge maps than small in comparison 100 person battles for supremacy, and then pubg came out, polished and changed things i didnt like and it clicked, i finally got why people like battle royale modes, sadly its lootboxes and rather fucked economy of certain pieces, and its utter appalling excuse for game optimisation remove it from any game of the year awards 

3: the “sheer joy” award

once every now and then a game releases and it captures everyones hearts and then some more, its captivating and reminds you that video games are meant to be fun, none of the slog or pain of games, no salt or anger, just pure unadulterated fun 

and the winner super mario Odyssey, honestly could it have been anything else, odyssey caught me and didnt let go the same way stardew valley did, and while i still havent finished it, i hold zero doubts anything could top this 

4: the “god i cannot wait for you to get out of early access so i can play you” award

i dont like playing early access story games because ill eventually reach the end and have to wait either in suspense or give up outta boredom, this is for the game i want to play but dont wanna ruin by playing it to early 

and the winner atom rpg, ive heard this described as fallout 3 van buren if black isle studios continued development, and it was set in russia, in the 80′s and not with the 50′s aesthetic, and i simply cannot wait for it to release, and the game looks great, runs well and is stable which is more than we can say for Bethesdas sorry excuses for engines 

5:  the “continued growth game” award 

something that has gone leaps and bounds from its initial release, improving the game and truly making it the best it has ever been 

this is a toss up between warframe, rainbow six siege and league of legends 

and it think league is taking it, the release of patch 7.22 and the start of the preseason has really reinvented the game, removing the old and honestly game ruining runes/mastery system and replacing it with a new fresh and fun version has really improved and strengthened the game, along with a really good selection of new champions this year, and the esports looking to improve itself a lot in the coming season, i think league is truly a good game 

6: the game of the year award 

no explanation needed to be honest

and the winner is 

j̧̬̱̭̞͖͈͕̳̈͋ͥ͂u̎̈́̈́͒̚͞҉͇̦̟̲̭͚̺ͅs̠͎̩̥̹̞ͮ̏̎̆ͨ̏̚t̟̮̦̖̦̪̭̓̆ͣͩ̊͐̅̕͡ ̪̘͙̪͚͖̍͒͗͞ͅͅm̙̝̙͍̣͍̯̀͋ͭ̀̊ͥͨ̈́o̡͕̪ͩͪ̾̃̕n̓ͫ҉̜͎͈i̫͂c̸̗͎͕̥͙͈̯̖̲͋͗̿͟ä͙

jk i havent played ddlc yet. the winner is super mario odyssey, few games could ever be described as perfect and odyssey is one of them, if you have a switch you have to play it 

and for a few honourable mentions 

persona 5 and horizon zero dawn and yakuza 0 for making me desperately want a playstation 4 

nier automata for being a game literally every single game developer from triple a all the way down to wannabees in their basement, everyone should play all the main endings and understand this incredible break down of video games 

the switch for being the most amazing turn around from dissapointing to incredible