Platypus of Truth

Gifts God gives us gifts we do not want. Beatings and persecutions, the difficult relative; we are acquainted with these. It is the good things we are not ready for, or that come in forms we did not want that baffle me the most. It is the open door that comes ten years too late, the friend in a form that did not fit our scruples or agenda, the return for all the wasted years when we finally fit our sorrows; these are the things that I do not understand. Every good and perfect gift is from above, breaking atmosphere with the fire of the Dove.

Here's another try at some fan art for Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House . I didn't want the labyrinth to detract from the central figure, but I'm wondering now if it's too sparse. The central drawing is pen and ink imported into ClipStudio and modified. Interestingly enough, this iconic figure from the Netflix series is only briefly alluded to in the Shirley Jackson novel. It does, however, make frequent appearances on dust jacket covers. That was really the key for the director in the Netflix adaptation: to build a television mini-series around the most iconic images from the book undergirded by a careful study of the relationships between the main characters and Hill House. It's an interesting way to do an adaptation. For my adaptation into 2D media, I chose to rework The Bent Neck Lady  in the simple color pallette and black background of Mignola and Stewart's Hellboy  series. Maybe that's because I can't draw, but the artists who create

Karen Sullivan as she appears in the unpublished novel The King of the Summer Court (picture and photo by the author). Be mindful of these bones, be mindful of these bones...

I really did beat it, you know; The Legend of Zelda . -not in 1987, but in 2018. I might blame those old lithium batteries that deleted your game at the worst possible moment. That happened to me in grad school. I guess I've been waiting more than 30 years to see the end of the darn thing. Simple as it was, I liked it. The Legend of Zelda , the original NES version, will always be the ur-video game for me. If A Link to the Past  is Aeschylus, Sophocles is Ocarina of Time , and Twilight Princess is Euripides, then this is the Homer from which they all sprung. There's a magic and a wonder in the raw simplicity of its design, in the inevitability of its limited digital vocabulary, the steady drone of its music, that has as much power to enchant today as it did 30 years ago. Zelda is now its own Neo-Platonic mythology with endless branches and variations still leading young souls up the ladder of wonder to the primal unity of Virtue. Still, the highest does not stand without

The Funeral Let us now speak of those things we do not speak of. Let there be five-minutes' honesty in this family. We shall speak all the good we did not say because we were offended, or because it hurt too much to temper evil or offer it the slightest justification. Let us speak the evil we do not speak because it is always the understood foundation of all our interactions; Banquo's ghost at every Thanksgiving meal. Let us dare to make confession before the Dead and this casket be a holy altar where only family may sing to one who knows the place beyond us where no shadows fall. For we are family, and we will have Five-minutes' honesty At this time or never.

I paint my life in bricolage of Autumn Leaves My high school art teacher always told us: "art is with your eye, not with your hand." In other words, Art is a way of seeing the world. It draws our attention to things we don't normally take the time to see -or even know how to see until an expert shows us. Where we grow up and what our life's experiences are color how we see any given piece of art, but it works the other way as well. What pieces of art we've seen color how we see our lives. I've been watching all sorts of autumnal fare this Autumn season and it helps me narrativize my life while also being narrativized by the life experiences I bring to it. That said, I've been feeling lately that if my life could be narrativized in film it would be Over the Garden Wall , followed by Dead Poets' Society , shading into Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House . There are, of course, other ways to spin it, but that's how I feel right now. What about

After finishing Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House , all I can really say is that if you can stomach restrained and artistic horror, watch this series. It did not end the way I thought it would. I could not predict the twists and turns. It is a work of art that transcends its genre. Like Eliot's poetry, there's something so specific about Flannagan's re-interpretation of Jackson's novel that it becomes universal. There are all kinds of things I never experienced depicted in the ten hour series and yet it felt as if it was speaking directly to me. It's about a family that starts in New England and when the parent's dream falls apart, the family moves to California. The eldest son wants to be a writer. Mental illness runs in the family. The youngest sibling has an interracial marriage. There's infertility. Siblings move across country and keep contact by phone -or not. And, of course, the haunting. Those are the similarities I'm willing to commit t

Another illumination doodle, this time from Tolkien's Genesis , the Valaquenta . The book is Christian Neo-Platonism at its finest, and eminently worthy of a much more skilled illuminator than I could ever be. Still, it's fun to try my hand at it and see what I can come up with. The doodle is done in pitt pen on paper and then photocopied and colored in with conte markers (the ones often used for adult coloring books). The lines are pencil and the words are done with my best ballpoint pen (Parker). The background embroidery is from Guatemala (talk about a really skilled artist!).

Here is this week's attempt at beautifying the church bulletin. I like the cosmic feel that the little ring planets add. It makes the diamonds in the lower panel look more like stars hovering over the sea. I've tried some other experiments with calligraphic dragons in pencil, so we'll see if I can turn out one that I really like. If so, I'll post it here. Meanwhile, my grad apps are going forward and should be all in by the end of the month (Princeton, U of Chicago, Stanford, U of Washington Seattle, Indiana U Bloomington). Language study goes forward at the same pace as well as art history and archeology. Right now, however, there's still time to doodle. We'll see what's happening this time next year...

I'm currently in the middle of Netflix's series "The Haunting of Hill House". I've never read the book, but the writers, director, and cast have turned it into a powerful piece of film. This is the kind of thing I wish I could write and can't get close to even on my best days. Like so many of the best Horror pieces, this one isn't about ghosts and ghoulies so much as it is about how families and individuals respond to trauma. The "haunting" is first and foremost a metaphor. The labyrinthine eponymous house is a metaphor for the twists and turns of the human mind. We all have our ghosts. Some of choose to flee into addiction. Some of us build up walls. Others of us choose to role play confidence we don't feel or dependency in the hope that others will solve our problems for us. Of course, we can confront our fears, but that is where the real problem lies. If we go it alone, our horrors can overwhelm us. It is not good for Man to be alone.

Today, I am merging my linguistic and artistic endeavors. Here, we have one of the practice doodles I've been learning how to do with the Septuagint text of Gensis 1:1a. Evidently, I'm also learning how to create textual variants (gotta keep Bart Ehrmann happy somehow) as my text is missing several accent marks and has misplaced the word "was" in lines 5 and 6. At least it's inerrant in the autograph... Which if you got to hear Dr. Gary Rendsburg's paper at the Lanier is a product of a Davidic redaction anyway (now that's interesting!)...

Here's the finished watercolor taken as a picture with my phone. If the scanner loses much of the color, then the phone makes it rather blurry. I'll keep trying. Anyhow, here we have Camilla from Chamber's immortal "The King in Yellow" pace Alan Lee's Tinuviel .

Here we have today's attempt at learning how to use watercolor pencils. The shadow cast by a crystal bowl over the corner of the picture is a happy accident. I also have a new phone, so this doubles as a learning how to use the camera.

Sadly, my scanner isn't good enough to pick up the subtleties, but here's my first attempt at watercolor pencils. The sky is all blue in the original and the vine leaves are all filled in. Maybe my phone camera could do a better job, but I'll wait to try that on a new composition.

Every year, in honor of Michael Ward's groundbreaking Planet Narnia , I award seven Summer reading books with to one of the seven heavens of Medieval cosmology. Prior awards can be found by following the "Summer Reading" tag at the bottom of this post. This year presents a bit of a challenge, as most of the books I read were technical in nature, but I think there were still enough idle hours to get us to our requisite "Seven Heavens". Moon: The Heaven of Madness and Change belongs this year to Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, as he appears in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman . I kinda, sorta, got this series in grad-school -it was perhaps too much for me at the time. All things have their season, however, and right now seems to be my time for The Sandman . Mercury: The Heaven of Language goes to the most well-written grammar for any language I've studied: Wheelock's Latin . All one has to do is pick up Hanson and Quinn's Greek to see the massive differ

Here's yesterday's church bulletin with the drawings colored in. Polychrome on Greek pots was muted, but Etruscan funeral painting had quite a bit of life to it and may hint at what all those lost Greek panel paintings looked like. That said, the colors I picked for the designs still have a vibrantly modern look though I tried to restrain my pallette somewhat as a nod to the originals.

Happy day after Hobbit Day everyone! In addition to language learning, much of the past few months has been taken up with studying archaeology and art history including a trip to the Getty Center (Egypt: Beyond the Nile) and a symposium at the Lanier (United Israelite Kingdom Seminar). Along the way, I've been studying the distinctive designs of Greek polei, Scythian tribes, and Etruscan city-states. So, to get all that out of my system, I decided to illuminate this Sunday's church bulletin in a medley of styles with a little Art Nouveau thrown in for good measure. As Summer is also on its way out, I will be trying to put together another "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading" awards list. We'll see if there's enough "summer reading" to qualify, given how technical things have been lately. In the meantime, the Platypus speaks Truth.

We were in L.A. for a few days and that necessitated some in flight distractions. So, in between reading Juvenal's Sixteen Satires , I tried my hand at a bit of design work with a ballpoint pen. I'm hoping this sort of doodling will help up my game a bit. You can see earlier attempts studding the edges of a few of my Sabriel  series below.

 Pictured: Kerrigor and Sabriel in Pitt pen and Brush Marker on sketch paper. It's been several years since I last did a blog-through of a book. Returning to live-blogging and Garth Nix's Old Kingdom have both been fun. So what are my final thoughts now that it's over? Nix is a much more accomplished writer than contemporary Terry Brooks. While I have fond memories of reading the Shannara series in the early 90s, I wish I had been reading Nix's stuff instead. On the other hand, even though Sabriel  is a Y.A. novel, its darkness might have disturbed me and vitiated my ability to appreciate the world the book creates. Turning to the Sabriel  and Clariel  as an adult, I find myself able to appreciate the tightness of Nix's writing as well as the genuine novelty and cohesiveness of his imagined world. I also feel much more able to appreciate Nix's Realism. There are rules to the Old Kingdom, and Nix plays by them. Many writers of Fantasy seem to confuse Real

Today's post continues my blog-through of Garth Nix's dark fantasy, Sabriel , picking up where we left off with chapter 26. We're getting down to the end and there are spoilers galore. So, if you don't want to know how a 23 year old novel (so what if it spends every weekend binge-watching Parks and Rec , it can stop any time it wants to!) ends, don't keep reading. So here we go. The end run of Sabriel  is all about locating Kerrigor's bronze coffin (pictured at left: marker on boarding pass stub) and putting an end to his preserved remains ala Dracula  or The Mummy .  As I said before, we're now out of Brooks and Le Guin territory and into Room With a View  and All Quiet on the Western Front . Signs and portents gather as Col. Horyse, like Yates' Irish Airman, foresees his own death. We also learn that there was an incident 20 years earlier with the dead crossing The Wall in large numbers and that the towns of northern Ancelstierre have been drilli

We're continuing our blog-through of Garth Nix's Sabriel  starting at Chapter 24. The image is of The Clayr, who I thought deserved stained glass (or Conte marker on the backing of a pack of Bic pens). We're getting closer to the end now, so if you don't want to what Nix penned 23 years ago (under no circumstances is it moving back in with Mom and Dad! -that would be weird...) really, really don't keep reading. Ok, you're still reading. Nix keeps the pressure up as Sabriel goes into shock (nice touch of Realism, that) and the scavengers from earlier begin hounding her and Touchstone (Mogget went awol when Abhorsen slipped his collar). When Sabriel is wounded, Touchstone gains super-powers and runs all the way to the top of the hill before collapsing. If we've read the prequel, Clariel , we know that berserking runs in the royal family. At the top of the hill, as promised, Sabriel encounters the Clayr. The Clayr are apparently a family of mystics that ca

It's the GRE for me this week, so things on the blog front have slowed down. Still, that's why we take notes when doing this sort of thing, so they're there when we have time. Tonight's post will be the eighth in a series devoted to Garth Nix's break-out novel, Sabriel . If you are averse to learning the secrets of a 23-year-old novel (so what if it secretly wears My Little Pony socks to work -they're cute!) then don't keep reading. Ok, you've been warned! Here we go. When last we left our heroes, Sabriel had entered Death (a.k.a. Dragon Age's "The Fade") to find her father's spirit while Touchstone (Alistair anyone?) and Mogget remained in the diamond of protection to face Kerrigor and his undead minions of undeath (as pictured to the left on a scrap of boarding pass). Chapter 22 features the best descriptions of the Nine Gates of Death that we have anywhere in the book. They are simple, hazy, and yet still wonderfully dante

Today we resume our walk through Garth Nix's Sabriel . Prior posts in this series can be found by visiting the blog and scrolling down. If you wish to remain ignorant of the details of a 23 year old book (it's too poor for avocado toast but day-old pizza for breakfast is just fine!), do not keep reading. You have been warned! We're picking up with chapters 18 and 19. This, at long last, brings us to civilization -or what's left of it. Belisaere, capitol of the Old Kingdom, is a sort of fifteenth century Constantinople. The boom chain that guards the harbor is there, and people do live and trade in the port, but it is clear that they are squatters in the ruins of a grander civilization. Instead of the Turks at the doors, Belisaere has the Dead. For all that, it is still beautifully described and described as beautiful; the first place to be described so in the book. The little inn where Sabriel, Mogget, and Touchstone stay, The Three Lemons, is a picture of bou

It's a dark and stormy day here and that feels like a good background for discussing dark fantasy. So here we are at installment 6 of my read-through of Garth Nix's Sabriel . Earlier posts can be found by visiting the blog and scrolling down. Prior posts on Clariel  can be found by following the Nix label on the blog and scrolling down. I will give you the ritual warning that I will be discussing details of the novel. If you want to avoid knowledge of a 23 year old book (please stop trying to set it up with that awkward cousin of yours, he's not misunderstood, just creepy) then do not keep reading. Ok, that said, today's drawing is on a bit of boarding pass I found (yep, I'm down to portions of boarding pass now) and features Touchstone imprisoned as the figurehead of a ship (the king is the figurehead of the ship of state? Nice one, Garth). We'll begin our analysis of the book at Chapter 13 where... Glory, Hallelujah, it's raining men! You know it!

Today's post is the fifth in a series examining Gath Nix's fantasy classic, Sabriel . If you are spoiler sensitive about a 23 year old novel (yeah, I know, you're going through that mental rolodex looking for religious friends it might have something in common with...) then don't keep reading. I warned you! Ok, so today's drawing feature Mogget assuming his Final Form. It reminds me a bit of Dead Hand in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . This is the last boarding pass I have to beautify with my marker collection, though the pictures should continue with each post. Chapter 11 opens with another seemingly unreliable aid for Sabriel: The Paperwing. Evidently, Abhorsens fly about in magical paper airplanes! The paperwing is another of Nix's wonderfully novel fantasy elements. It is believable in execution and unlike anything in Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin, Dunsany, MacDonald, or Howard. It is delightful, ambiguously trustworthy, and feels real . Interest

Today's post contains part 4 of my read-through of Garth Nix's Sabriel , the first book in his Abhorsen Series. Due to the popularity of this book, I need to speed read from here forward in order to get it back to the library on time. That will make future posts more condensed, but perhaps that will make them more interesting. Either way, here we go! Do not continue reading if you have qualms about spoilers on a 23 year old book (that wants you to please stop asking it to hold babies at church; they're children, not an infectious disease). Chapter 8 begins with what should be a pleasant scene: in a nice soft bed with a fluffy white cat sitting at the foot. The first discomfiting fact is that Sabriel is naked (violation/vulnerability) and that the cat is really an imprisoned being of unimaginable power and malignancy. Things get creepier when the cat speaks and asks Sabriel to remove its collar. Mogget, for that is who the cat is, is unscrupulous as well as cle

This is the third post covering my reading of Garth Nix's 1995 Dark YA Fantasy Sabriel . Prior posts in the series can be found here and here . Posts from 2014 on Nix's prequel, Clariel , can be found by using the Nix tag at the bottom of this post or on the side bar. As with the prior two posts, this one features my depiction of Sabriel encountering the Shining Spirit along the river of death. It is done with pitt pens and felt markers on the back of an airline boarding pass. In the meantime, let's get on to the review. As always, don't keep reading if you don't want spoilers on a 23 year old novel (That likes beer, hard liquor, and binge-watching Parks and Rec?). From my notes: Chapter 6 opens with a sudden shift in perspective, an odd choice that still plagues Nix in Clariel . We find ourselves in the head of one of the lesser dead, Thralk. The jump in perspective is meant to enhance the tension as we watch Thralk creep up on Sabriel's broken war

Today, we continue my blog-through Garth Nix's 1995 dark fantasy sensation: Sabriel . The first post in this series can be found here . As an added bonus, I'm attempting to doodle my way through Nix's world and hope to provide a different drawing with each post. Today's features Sabriel setting out from the wall into the borderlands between the technological world of Ancelstierre and the magical world of The Old Kingdom. As this is a liminal place, her gear is appropriately liminal with modern and medieval touches. I think Sabriel as pictured here owes more than a little to Trish from the Eldritch Horror  games, though the sword is definitely John Howe and the bells are church handbells (nine tailors make a man). Anyhow, if you wish to remain spoiler free on a 23 year old book (is it in grad school or a temp at Dunder Mifflin?), don't read on. From my journal notes: Chapter 2 opens with a set-piece that reinforces the leitmotif of boundary-crossing: The W

This poor post has been a long time in coming (hopefully Liz and Joi will forgive me). My first live blog through one of Nix's Old Kingdom books was Clariel   in 2014. LIFE has intervened since then. Anyhow, I finally have space to pick the poor project up again starting at the start of The Abhorsen Trilogy: Sabriel . In each post, I will share my thought from the previous spate of reading. I will also endeavour to accompany each post with a drawing giving a little glimpse into my experience of Nix's world. The first two drawing are done with bic pen on boarding passes as I began reading Sabriel  on a trip to Tulsa. As a final word: if you haven't read Sabriel  and want to remain spoiler free, don't read on. Ok, you're still reading, so from here on out your blood be on your own head. From my journal: I've read Clariel  at Liz's suggestion, so I know a little of what goes on in Nix's world. Still, we don;t ever get to see a trained Abhorsen in

H.P. Lovecraft excelled at creating visions of evil that were believable in a materialistic age. His witches, cultists, and eldar gods require no supernatural explanations, and yet resonate every bit as much as anything found in Cotton Mather or Algernon Blackwood. It is no wonder then, that H.R. Giger and screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett turned to H.P.L., particularly his At the Mountains of Madness , in creating the film Alien . Ridley Scott's direction of Alien , Prometheus , and Alien Covenant  consciously bathes in the arctic light of Lovecraft's novella. So after another viewing of Prometheus  and Alien Covenant  this summer, here are my own interpretations of the alien: part corpse, part machine, part dragon, part demon. It is a secular antichrist, man's failed attempt to become God.

We're already past July 4th, and I haven't addressed the critical issue of Summer Reading. In part, that's because I'm applying to grad schools and six to eight hours of each week day is devoted to language study and catch-up reading. So, right now, most of my Summer Reading is Wheelock's and Hanson and Quinn. Other things have managed to slip in, however. If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed the Neil Gaiman binge. It started with Troll Bridge , moved on to The Neverwhere , gained steam with The Sandman  vols 1-6, The Dream Hunters  and Overture , and finished up with Fragile Things  and The Ocean at the End of the Lane . That's a lot of Gaiman! To break up the flow of goth drama and tragic sexuality, we've also been listening to Stephen Fry read the Sherlock Holmes novels and doing our own read-through of Frank Herbert's Dune . We're looking forward to watching the Sci-Fi channels mini-series after we're done with tha

Neil Gaiman's worlds are not nice worlds. That's not merely true of his dark epic,  Sandman , but also of his children's tales. The Graveyard Book  opens with the brutal murder of the protagonist's family, including his infant sibling. Troll Bridge  is a clear metaphor for sexual addiction with its origin in childhood trauma. The Ocean at the End of the Lane features a father attempting to drown his seven year old son and a nanny threatening to accuse the same boy of indecently exposing himself to her if he won't keep silent about her plot. I have to confess that it's shocking. Then I remember all the stories I've encountered as a teacher, and I of all the children I've encountered for whom these things are a part of their lives. Gaiman specializes in reaching out to those dark places. His fictional narratives create safe spaces for trauma to be processed and his narrators provide a reassuring "me too". I've found more than a few famili

I'm almost done with volume 4 of The Sandman  and I think that's about as far as I got in grad school. Volume 5, however, will require more cash or a library hold. We'll see which comes first. In the meantime, here we have the siblings Dream and Death done in brush marker with a little Gustav Klimt intruding on the left a la Overture .

I had some time to kill yesterday and so I turned to doodling two of the lead characters of Niel Gaiman's Sandman . I'm always late to the party, but I finally figured out this year that Liz always dresses like Death. Sorry guys! All three drawings are freehand without references. I wish I had Dream's wardrobe. I don't think it would look as good on a short, stout, bald, Irish-Quebecois-Italian though. Ah well...

Sandman Overture  is quite possibly the perfect comic book. I read it  through twice over the course of the school year and I think I will only be more impressed by subsequent readings. Here, then is my poor study of one of Williams III's pen and ink drawings for a variant cover. Like Lizzie, I need more practice...

Cover of Evanescence: Synthesis Medium: Red and black pen Why: Pen forces you to commit to every line and own up to every mistake. It may raise the stakes, but it also forces you to get better at your craft.

Birthday 2018 Today is my birthday On this day was Cassius born I write my life in bricolage Of Autumn leaves and poems for persons That I meet (real and unreal) Who shimmer Whether all alone on the Forest floor or grandly swaying on the tree When God turns all the Hills to gumdrops in New England. I cannot see the Whole but only in parts as The Apostle says: Through a glass and darkly. Each part considered Carefully connects back To the branch from which It fell at that first Moment of Creation. My life remains a pile of Leaves; Sybiline Books of prophecy -a child's jump and the meaning's gone- The Meaning and the Moment missed.

Doodling a little today thanks to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

Red How can I begin to see you, Apart From the myths I Make inside my Head? How can I begin to say the things That cannot be Said? Even if I bled My heart dry, I Cannot reach You With the thing That I am saying. Many waters cannot Drown Love, and all Solomon's Songs are but prelude to the Reality of the Feast. The impossibility of Love is bridged by The Spirit Who moves Between the Father and the Son, That unites us in His blessedness and make the Bride One.

Green I want to die When I see The opportunity That lies open to you Because you do not have What I have Because you are not me. Life is full of doors and one by one their Vistas close Until we are alone With the choices that Make us who we are. I wish I could give You what I have For closed doors make a home and a home Can be filled with Things worth having. Walk on, then, in all the wondrous places of the Poor, Until you have filled Yourself with things You need a place For. Then shut your doors and make yourself a Home.

There's a lovely little puzzle game on sale now from the Square Enix Collective: Goetia . My wife and I have just finished this beautiful little French puzzle-solver and are thoroughly impressed. The basic mechanic is similar to the Myst  games or the Monkey Island  series. Tonally, however, Goetia  is an artful blend of Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and Charles Williams. The plot is as gripping as the puzzles and we kept playing as much for the story and the eerie atmosphere as for the mechanic. Those who are squeamish about the occult elements the game's title suggests should know that it keeps a firm grip on Good and Evil and finishes off with a strong (but in nowise preachy) message about human nature.

Socratic Discussion, and teaching in general, require that we do a lot of bleeding. It's a form of transfusion really: our life blood sustaining our students even as they give theirs to sustain each other. We're not talking about self-harming or histrionic display: those waste life and kill good discussion by turning the focus on the giver and away from the goal of the gift which is power for LIFE. The life is in the blood . Being a good teacher, or a good discussion participant, means knowing when to bleed and when to staunch the bleeding. If we give all that we have, we bleed out, in clinical terms, we experience  Depression . Good teachers don't overshare. When they are vulnerable with their students, when they open a vein, it should fill a purpose in the lesson. As soon as the needed transfusion is delivered, self care becomes a imperative. You get a cookie after giving blood and told to avoid strenuous activity for the rest of the day. What does "bleeding&qu

Note: this is a reworking of an old blog post and appeared originally in the journal "Old Roads". Three friends have mentioned it in the past few weeks, so I thought that I would re-post it here. Favorite books are like old friends: they age with us, bringing new treasures as the years go by. One of my old companions has been Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I was first introduced to this strange and wonderful novel in tenth grade as part of the literature curriculum.   Since then, I’ve made a habit of picking up Bronte’s master-work every few years.   It never disappoints.   Rather, as I grow and mature, there’s always some new facet of Jane Eyre that sparkles with a light I hadn’t seen before.   I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom Bronte’s tale of the orphan girl making her own way in the world is a perennial favorite.   For those of you who also appreciate the richness of one of England’s foremost Gothic and Romantic tales, I’d like to share two themes from the

Knowing There are so many ways of Knowing: Oedipus cut out his eyes and placed them on a table so he could see himself. "Know Thyself," the Oracle commands, and The Socrates knew he was the wisest man for knowing nothing. Is cutting out one's eyes a confession of not knowing? if thine eye offend...? what if thy head offend? O Galilean Teacher who healed the blind, do you bid us pluck out our eyes that we might see?

Second Snow Day 2018 There is a poetry of Depression, But not all days are sad. Sometimes the Universe upends and sends Sudden snowfall on Houston. Even gloomy Aeschylus At Marathon or Salamis Broke into mock hexameter When Xerxes turned his posterior And fled. Just so, some Yankee farmer As Yorktown's disarm-er Told a passing redcoat As a side-note That he liked their band's selection. It's true that many times we lose But we can choose To endure Till God sends snow On Houston.

Jane Eyre Before Mother was Mother she hid with Bewick's Birds behind the curtain and was glad there could be no possability of a walk to Friendly's I learned to hide like her, though for different reasons, and Jane sat with me behind the curtain that shut the World out. Mother, I met Helen Burns at camp. Her hair had fallen out, but her face was glad, and she turned to books for consolation. Resurgam I plowed the field of thorns and if I was no good as ploughman at least I had a tongue inside my head to furiously insist that I am me. "Oh why am I always to be sent away! At least here I have not been trampled, and if I was as beautiful as a Northern European I would make it as hard for you to leave me as it is for me to leave!" I tried to tell them that at the party where we buried our hopes and dreams in the ashes of a haunted mansion. Resurgam I am as much a Man as you and will defend my right to be the self that G

Alien Covenant I've been pouring over pieces of this one as well as trailers, additional content, and fan fights since it came out this summer. Even after watching the film for the first time at Thanksgiving, I've gone back and watched specific scenes for closer study. So what have I found? The opening scene tells us right off the bat that Ridley Scott wants to have a serious conversation about Creation (just like he wanted to talk seriously about the corporate dehumanization of American workers when he shot Alien ). Each item in Mr. Weyland's collection is a creative masterpiece. This is the beginning of the film's world as it is the beginning of connecting character David's world. I've had the privileged over the years of encountering almost all of the creative pieces on display (Wagner's Das Rheingold  in performance at HGO, a Buggati throne at the MFAH, a concert Steinway at the Forsche Studio, and the David in Florence -if I saw Paolo Francesca'

I was too busy to see this one in the theater when it came out and it seemed so very far from Herodotus' account that it didn't seem worth it. That was a lost opportunity as my students did go see it and, as with its predecessor , they were ready talk about the Persians and the Greeks. To begin, I've used clips from both 300 movies in class to generate discussion on Herodotus to great effect (the fact that the students thought our admin looked like Artemisia aside ... not sure how that works...). Even when Hollywood is grossly inaccurate, there is often useful material that can throw students back into the text with a keener eye for detail. Hollywood's preoccupations with gender performance, violence, and orientalism also ensure that concerns at the core of the Greek world picture are front and center. Both 300 movies keep the connection between invasion, masculinity, and rape (explicit in Herodotus' narrative) at the forefront of the drama. The problem with 300