did you see the 30 rock where wesley snipes (not *the* wesley snipes) reveals that he’s trying to flee extradition to the uk because of the olympics?

“we’re not prepared!” he gasps. “did you see the beijing opening ceremonies? we don’t have control of our people like that!”

It’s a little try-hard.

Intellectually I’m thinking – did they really print those?? Personally I’m thinking – I hope it’s true…

And yes, the “Information Ninja” badges are rather cool

Thanks for your comments, though. I read Graves years and years ago, thanks for bringing that up!

Furthermore, he goes into Haephestus’s nature and deeds starting with the line “Hephaestus, The Smith-god, was so weakly at birth, that his disgusted mother, Hera, dropped him from the height of Olympus to rid herself of the embarrassment that his pitiful appearance caused her…”

Elsewhere, in his description of The Underworld, Graves implies that Hades rules over part of the Underworld (might be Tartarus and sounds kind of hellish) while Cronos rules over Elysium which is sort of heavenly.

I’d recommend this as a good read on the Greek Myths. Graves is a very good writer – you might be more likely to be familiar with the Claudius books. He also gets across the idea that there were regional variations on the myths. In an introduction, I have read that he tended to borrow fairly liberally from various sources. He follows each myth with some fanciful theories as to origins, which I tend to skip.

I see that it is only available from the library as an audio cassette. I am posting this after your commentary about the rebranding of the library and agree entirely with that one – I wish they had spent the money wasted on the new bar code-style logo on expanding their collection instead.

Also, I know that there is skepticism about Wikipedia, but there is a section on the underworld god called “Hades” that does not seem to grind a political axe – see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades

It also talks about Hades as a Christian term for the abode of the dead.

In what I have read, the Gods don’t come across as all that nice, they are a spiteful, cheating, and murderous lot and quite often women get raped (or get changed into a plant or constellation by a Goddess to avoid rape by a God). It sounds like the new “Clash” sounds more faithful in spirit to the “original” myths than the old.

I haven’t seen it yet – will wait for it to hit the cheap theatre on 50th St. I expect your comments comparing it to the Harryhausen and finding it wanting to be correct. I remember the original being trashed when it first came out. I went to see “The Lightning Thief” because a god daughter had liked it and found it to be more of a jumble of mythic references, but according to her, that’s what the books are like as well.

Speaking of misogynist films, if you caught “Antichrist” during its recent run, I look forward to your comments. I find Von Trier frustrating – he treats his female characters like dirt and his characters and dialogue seem kind of schematic to me, but then he throws in a breathtaking shot or sequence.

Regards,
Peter