Platypus of Truth

Well, all my grad apps are in. This time around, it's Brown, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Wish me luck! I'll probably have news in February or early March. Best of luck to those of you out there applying to grad school this year!

Hi all! In an effort to declutter, I am now posting my thoughts on topics related to the Ancient World over at Old and Forgotten Ways . Currently, I am reposting my series on Shields and Ancient Witches from Eidos at Patheos but, in the future, I will have a new series posting there on the Greek invention of the "Barbarian". This doesn't mean that I'll be abandoning Platypus of Truth. All my thoughts on books, film, art, travel, and life will still be posting right here.

Adding some fine point pens to my collection and trying them out this week. Here, we have a illuminated manuscript doodle, a few doodles from Netflix's adaptation of Blame! and some fan art for Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle . October is almost over, and we will be watching the 2018 adaptation of We Have Always Lived in the Castle  along with staples Coroline and Over the Garden Wall.  We are, of course, waiting for The Haunting of Bly Manor  as The Haunting  series continues. Speaking of Netflix horror offerings, I particularly enjoyed watching the French series Marianne . Fair warning, it's a binger. Also an unexpected delight was the Korean zombie flick Train to Busan . Good horror is never about the horror, but about how the horror sheds a new light on something otherwise mundane. Art, after all, is a way of seeing.

All set for some Grand Alliance Death in Warhammer's Age of Sigmar.

At first I thought, all despairing: "This must crush my spirit now," But I bear it and am bearing, only do not ask me how. -George MacDonald, Translations From the German I'm at it again. All the recommenders are sorted, the letters of intent drafted, and I've opened applications to three schools: Brown, University of Chicago, and Princeton. The great graduate entry push has begun. I'm Irish enough to be cynical and Irish enough not to quit.

It's hard to grow up surrounded by at least 7 historic cemeteries and not be a "fraidy cat". In college, I set myself the task of tackling my fears by committing to watching X Files with the guys every Sunday for a year or two. It worked -a little. At some point, I discovered H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Williams, and Hellboy, and that helped more. I turned to writing my own supernatural thrillers for a number of years until a nervous breakdown and subsequent medication derailed my writing efforts. In an attempt to get re-started, my wife bought me a copy of "Save the Cat". So began my trek into Horror films as I attempted to master the ins and outs of the genre and its subfields. I've generally tried to avoid any obvious drek and keep only to the highlights. After a couple years, here are my favorites in no particular order: Alien - I saw this re-released in the theater during college and it still made me jump. More important is the way it uses the genre to hi...

Schematic drawing found in the apartment of Pickman the artist. Lately of Boston.

My discussion of ancient witches over at Eidos has reached its 10th post. Here is the link . The post contains the links to all of my prior posts on the subject and my series on shields and world-pictures. Even though I've only gotten one interaction (on the Shield of Achilles) because of the blog's no comment policy, it's still been fun to put my thoughts out their in a non-academic setting.

My Night Haunt grows with the addition of Harrow Blades and Lady Olynder.

This still cracks me up every time I see it. Some things you just had to be there for...

My nighthaunt takes on a life of its own during a power outage.

I quit teaching after 12 years spent in 3 private schools across 2 states. This article comes as close as any I've found to saying why . I'll add that my therapist also told me that it was quite literally killing me even though I was a rock star teacher and loved the kids. American education, K-Phd., public, private and homeschool, is thoroughly corrupt, predatory, and extremely damaging to most students and most teachers.

Getting back into the swing of painting with Warhammer's easy to build banshees.

I was reading Catullus XVII and reminded of the words of Utnapishtim, that wisest of men: As Utnapishtim stood at the crossroads, a man came by driving an ass. Now it chanced that, because of the rains, the ass became stuck in the mud. The man drew out a stick and began beating the ass and it cried after the manner of an ass: "yeah! yeah!" As it was beaten, the ass struggled forward, nor would the man for an instant let the animal back up or himself lead it back, and so it sank deeper and deeper into the mud. Even as the mud rose above its shoulders and filled its nostrils the man continued to beat it and the ass continued his cry of "yeah! yeah!" The sun traveled across the sky, and at last the ass was overcome with exhaustion and died. Utnapishtim spoke to the man and said: "Surely, if you had led the animal back or around or had given it its own head it would have lived!" At these words, the man grew incensed and struck Utnapishtim with his stick sayi...

At first I thought, all despairing This must crush my spirit now, But I bore it and am bearing, Only do not ask me how. George MacDonald, Translations from the German

My series of posts on Ancient Witches continues over at Eidos with parts 2 and 3 . I've worked my way from the Sons of Asclepius to Helen of Troy and now on to Circe. Euripides Medea is coming up, followed by Apollonius of Rhodes reboot. After that, it's on to Vergil and Ovid. I plan on applying to grad schools again in September, so hopefully this popular-level writing will still be a help in upping my academic game. Meantime, it is summer and that should mean some summer reading. I just finished volume 9 of Neil Gaiman's Sandman  as well as Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall  (a book that's way ahead of its time in discussing Fundamentalism, Alcoholism, Home-Schooling, and Gender. There's a popular biography of Catullus on the list, and we'll see where things go from there.

My series on shields as symbols in Greco-Roman literature concludes with these two posts on Quintus of Smyrna 1 and 2 . This week begins a new series on ancient witches .

More classics for the masses as I examine  Ovid's take on Achilles' shield in 500 words. Quintus of Smyrna should be next.

Continuing my work to bring Classical learning to the masses in 500 words are these two pieces on The Shield of Aeneas: 1 2 Up next should be Ovid and Quintus of Smyrna. We'll see where I go from there.

Thus I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a little glass jar, and the boys asked her: "Sybil, what will you?". She responded "I want to die". -Petronius* "April is the cruelest month." -T.S. Eliot Eliot opens his modernist masterpiece, The Wasteland , with a quote from the Roman satirist Petronius. The Sybil was granted one wish by the gods. She asked for eternal life, a gift not meant for mortals. The gods gave her her wish -but without eternal youth or strength. As Pertonius imagines her, she has withered away to point where she can be kept in a small (glass?) jar as a curio. Her response to the boys, in proper Greek, is to wish that her wish be taken back. Like a mortal possessor of one of Tolkien's Great Rings, mere existence cannot confer happiness. It means "merely to go on until every moment is weariness". *a rather free translation by the author of this post and the quote with which Eliot opens The Wasteland

I've been reaching out around the internet over the last few weeks trying to aid the cause of classical learning in 500 words: First , at Kathleen Vail's Reconstructing the Shield of Achilles Blog Second , at John-Mark Reynolds' Eidos I've got further articles planned, so we'll see how it goes.

Well, I've heard back from the last of the five programs I applied to and it looks like no Phd. program in Ancient History for me. Word on the street is that my age and marital status are against me but no school will ever say that as it's a Title IX violation. I also only have one M.A. at a time where two is becoming more and more the rule. Of course the real answer may simply be that my research doesn't match that of the professors in those programs with available slots this year. One way or another, it's time to re-plot and re-plan.

This post is edited from a letter on Hope Mirrlees' Lud in the Mist First, thanks for passing on "Lud in the Mist". It's the kind of book I'm constantly hunting for and have increased trouble finding lately (Phantasties, Idylls of the King, The Last Unicorn, Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, The Queen of Elfland's Daughter, anything by William Morris, and the short stories of Clark Ashton Smith having already been encountered). There are very few books that I read at a positively leisurely pace for pure pleasure anymore and this was one of them. Second, I'm a historian and connector by nature and training, so I often access a book by linking it in with everything I've already read and letting my thoughts whirl like the music of the spheres. It seems like to immediately jump in to discussing Lud like that does violence to the Art. I feel the same way about Phantastes. I don't even know if Phantastes can be discussed in that way. Hope Mirrlee...

My wife and I are reading Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" in preparation for eventually watching the Netflix TV series together. This is my second time through the book, and I am seeing more of the thousand links between the sparse and controlled world of the book and the sweeping scope of the series. Even though Flanagan radically changed the book in adapting it, it is clear that he knows his source cover to cover and has a fine appreciation of even the smallest details. I would love to see an adaptation theory class discuss the book and the series. In the meantime, my own horror offering was rejected, but once things settle down a little here I will have to try again.

An Epic Fragment Where now is Ahura Mazda When the kings of Commagne Go to war? Like the bridges of brave Artaxaca That lie on the cold ocean floor The name of the God is forgotten, The fires of the temple you seek, Are replaced with a piece of cold marble, Zeus, thunder god of the Greeks. But the gods of the Greeks shall All perish, The one God arise as before, The cross of the Christ of Armenia, Rides above the brave banners Of war. So sang the old hero bravely As his fingers warmed to the strings, And his music rang down in the valley, In the tents of the bold Roman kings.

Well, I have submitted a short story for potential publication. I have no idea what its chances are of being accepted, but it was fun to give it a try. I enjoy folklore, and this piece, The Devil and Cotton Mather  was fun to write and fun to read. If it doesn't find a home this time round, hopefully I can try again soon. Wish me luck!

2018 was a pretty difficult year. Then again, 2017, 2016, and 2015 weren't peaches either. As Counting Crows tells us long December, but there's reason to believe maybe next year will be better than the last . Looking at my Spotify-generated 2018 playlist, there was a lot of Counting Crows, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Boston, Kamelot, and Red Hot Chili Peppers -make of that what you will. My definitive reading experience was probably a re-engagement after 12 years with Neil Gaiman's Sandman and teaching Collins' The Hunger Games  to 7-9th graders. Oh, I guess there was a trip through Virgil that helped me appreciate the Man From Mantua a bit more. My definitive film experiences were Black Panther  and NetFlix's The Haunting of Hill House. I guess both are par for the course though none of my friends have seen Hill House  yet. So, a long December it's been here at Platypus of Truth, but there is reason to believe that this year may be better than the last or as...