On The Ning Nang Nong

Domine, Quo Vadis? (Lord, where are you going?)

According to Catholic tradition, St. Peter and St. Paul were both executed in Rome around the year 67 C.E. during the reign of the infamous emperor Nero. The story (found in early Christian writings but not in the New Testament), states that Peter was freed from prison in Rome after he and Paul converted their jailers. Peter was then persuaded by fellow Christians who were concerned for his safety, to flee Rome. As he left, Peter encountered the resurrected Jesus. Astonished, Peter asked “Domine quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going?). Jesus replied “I go to Rome to be crucified anew.” When he heard these words, Peter understood that his actions were cowardly and that he must return to Rome. There, he was arrested and crucified upside down at his request because he did not feel worthy of dying as Jesus had.

Would Peter's escape and subsequent evangelism or the self-sacrifice as a martyr benefited Christianity more? We would never know.

 

Greek Drama

Other stories say that Asclepius was killed because after bringing people back from the dead, Hades thought that no more dead spirits would come to the underworld, so he asked his brother Zeus to stop him. This angered Apollo who in turn killed the Cyclopes who made the thunderbolts for Zeus. For this act, Zeus suspended Apollo from the night skyand commanded Apollo to serve Admetus, King of Thessaly for a year. Once the year had passed, Zeus brought Apollo back to Mount Olympus and revived the Cyclopes that made his thunderbolts.After Asclepius's death, Zeus placed his body among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus ("the Serpent Holder").

This will make a fine Martin Scorsese film. Asclepius was killed by Zeus's thunderbolt. Apollo slayed the maker of the thunderbolts. Zeus punished Apollo for the death of Cyclopes. After a year, every one hugged and reconciled and honoured the trouble maker (Asclepius) with a star.

 

English Attention

Here are words and phrases and constructs that caught my attention in the last few days.

"A lady and a gentleman passed in front of me, breaking off their conversation to keep me from catching what they were saying, as if they refused me the alms of their thoughts."

Alms? Alms of their thoughts?! Woh! That's strange yet sympathetic construct. The writer wants to convey his agony for such refusal of their stealing conversation.

Why stealing? steal: move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously. Like: "he stole down to the kitchen". This is an unheard meaning to me. Stealing down the hall, stealing the bicycle into a room, we stole around in the park, we stole across the street. Seriously? How did I miss this additional meaning of "steal" to signify a stealth movement in English. I know! Why use "steal" when you can substitute it for another widely known usage. Such usage stinks! But then why say stink and gentrify it into "ordure".

"His life is permeated by a stink of ordure and offal of a primitive meat industry and the struggle of daily bread."

See we turned "stink" into "ordure" and made it schön. I meant beautiful! While watching the film Effi Briest, the man drawls ..'you are so schön'. Sounds like shonu of Hindi which means darling. Such airy modifiers will pump up your lady love!

Should we use these elevated constructs in our mundane talk. I don't know. Nabokov wanted to title his memoir "Speak Mnemosyne". He was stopped in his tracks by his publisher who persuaded him to change the title as old ladies would not inquire a book at the store whose name they stutter to pronounce. Thus, he conceded to "Speak Memory" as the autobiographical title.

I say, dispatch wonky and airy and versatile words not sparingly but judiciously. Know thy audience! In doubt, don't assault with verbal grandiosity when a modest expression would do.

 

Brechtian! Brechtian!

If you are reading a book with literary merit, very soon you will run into either Borges or Brecht.

Such citations are too proverbial to be missed. Borges at least entertains us with his fabricated realism but Brecht escapes me. I wanted a one paragraph essence of Brechtian drama. But I found a mound of dossiers on his iconoclastic style of writing though I only wanted a short shrift of his writing. The Internet was uncooperative as it swamped me with high-brow analytical study of his avant-garde drama.

Finally, I ran into two terms that were closely associated with his canon: “distancing effect” and “alienation effect”. And also that Mother Courage! Bercht wanted us to dissociate from the sentimentality of the drama and reason the plot from a distance, as in, assess the merit of the drama through impartial lens. Don’t entangle or empathise with the fictional characters and judge them from intensified emotions, but ascertain their goings-on from the veiled sidelines.

I don’t know what Brecht intended to achieve. I am not a theatre student so I don’t know if such Brechtian ministrations elevate or erode a play. I might visit this topic later when I hear of similar Brechtian instances and piece together a more coherent resolve of his undertaking. Till then, when I encounter Brecht and 'Mother Courage' I will approvingly squeal: Oh you mean that gibberish Verfremdungseffekt effect?!

 

Pyre and Padmavat

I have not watched Padmavat movie. I just know that it faced (un)just opposition. I know neither the storyline nor the controversial visuals. But I heard of a pyre scene in the movie where the Princess and her retinue leapt into a blazing fire. That scene was condemned as regressive. Beyond this, I don’t know much about the movie. The whole fire-leaping brouhaha called to my attention another historical instance where not a woman but a man lunged into the fire.

Diodorus says that Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and luxury. He spent his whole life in self-indulgence. He dressed in women's clothes and wore make-up. He had many concubines, female and male. He wrote his own epitaph, which stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life. His lifestyle caused dissatisfaction within the Assyrian empire, allowing a conspiracy against him to develop led by "Arbaces". An alliance of Medes, Persians and Babylonians challenged the Assyrians. Sardanapalus stirred himself to action and routed the rebels several times in battle, but failed to crush them. Believing he had defeated the rebels, Sardanapalus returned to his decadent lifestyle, ordering sacrifices and celebrations. But the rebels were reinforced by new troops from Bactria. Sardanapalus's troops were surprised during their partying, and were routed.

Sardanapalus returned to Nineveh to defend his capital, while his army was placed under the command of his brother-in-law, who was soon defeated and killed. Having sent his family to safety, Sardanapalus prepared to hold Nineveh. He managed to withstand a long siege, but eventually heavy rains caused the Tigris to overflow, leading to the collapse of one of the defensive walls. To avoid falling into the hand of his enemies, Sardanapalus had a huge funeral pyre created for himself on which were piled "all his gold, silver and royal apparel". He had his eunuchs and concubines boxed in inside the pyre, burning himself and them to death.

Fire is perilous! It doesn’t differentiate any gender. Man, woman, or eunuchs are ravaged in that scorch. The circumstances of these immolations vary, nevertheless, by citing that men too braced the fatal leap albeit for seedier reasons may placate the disgruntled protestors.

For further reference: The Death of Sardanapalus by Eugene Delacroix

 

On the pleasure of hating

A very pleasurable essay by William Hazlitt.

Below is my favourite passage that amuses me. Our affections are fickle and our admiration is mercurial. Yet at times we muster defiance from the norm and hold steadfast to some obscure piece of writing like I just did now .. an essay from 1826.

We take a dislike to our favourite books, after a time, for the same reason. We cannot read the same works for ever. Our honey-moon, even though we wed the Muse, must come to an end; and is followed by indifference, if not by disgust. There are some works, those indeed that produce the most striking effect at first by novelty and boldness of outline, that will not bear reading twice: others of a less extravagant character, and that excite and repay attention by a greater nicety of details, have hardly interest enough to keep alive our continued enthusiasm. The popularity of the most successful writers operates to wean us from them, by the cant and fuss that is made about them, by hearing their names everlastingly repeated, and by the number of ignorant and indiscriminate admirers they draw after them: - we as little like to have to drag others from their unmerited obscurity, lest we should be exposed to the charge of affectation and singularity of taste. There is nothing to be said respecting an author that all the world have made up their minds about: it is a thankless as well as hopeless task to recommend one that nobody has ever heard of. To cry up Shakespear as the god of our idolatry, seems like a vulgar national prejudice: to take down a volume of Chaucer, or Spenser, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or Ford, or Marlowe, has very much the look of pedantry and egotism. I confess it makes me hate the very name of Fame and Genius, when works like these are "gone into the wastes of time," while each successive generation of fools is busily employed in reading the trash of the day, and women of fashion gravely join with their waiting-maids in discussing the preference between the Paradise Lost and Mr. Moore's Loves of the Angels. I was pleased the other day on going into a shop to ask, "If they had any of the Scotch Novels?" to be told - "That they had just sent out the last, Sir Andrew Wylie!" - Mr. Galt will also be pleased with this answer! The reputation of some books is raw and unaired: that of others is worm-eaten and mouldy. Why fix our affections on that which we cannot bring ourselves to have faith in, or which others have long ceased to trouble themselves about? I am half afraid to look into Tom Jones, lest it should not answer my expectations at this time of day; and if it did not, I would certainly be disposed to fling it into the fire, and never look into another novel while I lived. But surely, it may be said, there are some works that, like nature, can never grow old; and that must always touch the imagination and passions alike! Or there are passages that seem as if we might brood over them all our lives, and not exhaust the sentiments of love and admiration they excite: they become favourites, and we are fond of them to a sort of dotage.

 

Beefcakes, Bruisers, and Budweisers

I came across the sentence

"It is amusing to contemplate what a bruiser like Achilles would have thought of Professor Alpers's suggestion"

Bruiser? Who is a bruiser?
bruiser: a person who is tough and aggressive and enjoys a fight or argument.

I never heard such usage before. Beefcakes are at least known to me. With no beef or cake but flesh aplenty.
beefcake: attractive men with well-developed muscles.

Strong men have amusing monikers while we women are stuck with tepid Amazon. I think we should invent slang for burly women also or appropriate Budweiser.

 

Row over brow

I never had a Barbie doll. If I had one today, I would not only be spoiled for choice but also be confronted with the physiognomy of the doll.

Frida Kahlo’s great-niece calls for Barbie doll to be redesigned

Critics say that the doll is more Barbie-like than Frida-like: that it doesn’t reflect Kahlo’s heavy, nearly conjoined eyebrows, and they say its costume doesn’t accurately portray the elaborate Tehuana-style dresses the artist wore.

In that confusion, I might purchase another doll in the "Inspiring Women" series from Mattel. Barbie was a slinky doll. I never realised the stride Barbie makers have made to indulge the smart generation with their rebooted range of toys.

Included in the brand’s Inspiring Women series alongside Kahlo are the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart and Katherine Johnson, the Nasa mathematician who broke race and gender barriers. Johnson, who is now aged 99, was featured in the recent film Hidden Figures. These dolls come with educational information about the contributions each has made to society.

 

Tumbleweed


I am reading a book and toosh a sentence .."drifting like a tumbleweed". Eh, what? Remind me again, what and how is a tumbleweed. I had to pull up a video. Aah! ...so that is like a tumbleweed, drifting like a tumbleweed.

 

In Memoriam