Platypus of Truth

The school year ended yesterday amid much tidying of classrooms and eating of comestibles.  Another year of teaching down and another class of seniors sent off into the world of adulthood.  What that means practically is that summer is here and with it a return to the other things in my life.  After all, teachers, contrary to popular belief, don't spend the vacation resting in coffins beneath the school yard until the bell rings and they rise again to feed on the blood of the living (At least I don't).  Summer is the privilege of our professional status combined with our relatively smaller(compared with equally educated and qualified professionals) paychecks.  It's a time to refresh, recharge, and regroup before returning to the task of tutoring the next generation into adulthood.  My grand aunt, who was single for years, spent her summers traveling the world and becoming the sort of person that anyone would be privileged to learn from.  At the univers...

While my academic interests have run (since college) towards the Ancient Greeks, I have to confess to not being terribly interested in Sparta.  I'm always a sucker for literature and the Spartans didn't really produce much (Tyrtaeus and Alkman).  However, Sparta is the second most attested Greek polis in the ancient sources.  That means that if you want to study "Ancient Greece" and have it mean anything more than just "Ancient Athens," you have to deal with Sparta.  So, helping me come to grip with those laconic Lakonians are Paul Cartledge's The Spartans and Spartan Reflections . The Spartans is an introduction for a popular audience to the world of the ancient Spartans.  It's well laid-out, covering in an efficient and pleasant manner the relevant political history, key figures, and key questions in Spartan studies.  Spartan Reflections is a collection of Cartledge's essays on Sparta running up to the early oughts.  That makes it a little...

I was talking with a friend today about possible career paths for an academically inclined 20-something.  Much of that period of life seems to be about coming to terms with the fact that you can't do most of the things you are interested in.  In fact, the thing you end up doing may not even be that which interests you the most but merely that which someone is willing to pay you to do.  For those of us with broad interests and a broad education, it can be a particularly painful season of life. Some, however, do find a way to reject the enforced narrowness that seems to come with adulthood.  These people make a specialty out of generalizing.  I was trying to explain this and the two people that came to mind first were Francis Schaeffer (the Swiss-Chalet-dwelling guru-apologist) and John-Mark Reynolds (founder of the Torrey Honors Institute and Provost of Houston Baptist University).  Both of these men made careers out of generalizing.  Knowing a little...

The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.  -Theseus to Hippolyta, A Midsummer Night's Dream V.i Finding myself in need of a little enforced recreation, I picked back up one of my favorite games of the past three years, Titan Quest .  This will be my third time through the game.  Aside from the carefully calibrated work-to-reward ratio, what is it about Titan Quest that has me coming back to it for a third time?  I suppose that with all the character-class combos it's highly replay-able.  It's also easier than dealing with all the patches and streaming difficulties of Starcraft II .  Still, there are other games I might be replaying.  So, why this one? I think the answer to my question may be ambiance.  Titan Quest has the feel of...

A little while ago I posted about my students' successful production of Sophocles' Antigone .  It was a delight, then, to be able to catch some of them and tell them that the Getty Villa is presenting dramatic readings of several Greek tragedies this summer and has already done Antigone in a prior season.  If we all lived in SoCal, I would propose an unofficial summer field trip for anyone who was willing to go and watch the classics come to life.  Alas.  Anyhow, if you are a SoCaler, be aware that this opportunity is available. The important point in all of this is that interest in the Greek past is alive and may become even more alive if those who know and love it are willing to step out on a limb and share that love with the public.  Shakespeare can still draw a crowd because the bard's fans are willing to dig deep and bring real ingenuity and talent to the task of bringing his works to life.  If those who love Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides ar...