Repost: Festival of Sleep Day!

January Third is a day of holidays.  It is Throw Out Fruitcake Day, Humiliation Day, and my favorite, Festival of Sleep Day.  So in celebration, we'll look briefly at Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.

He lives in Erebos.  Since Erebos is the land of perpetual darkness, he can catch a few extra winks.  He catches a ride on his mom's (Nyx) dress and floats around during night (much like Isabella's boyfriend).  He has a twin brother, Thanatos.  Thanatos is the incarnation of the peaceful death.  He has some regular brothers that make up the Oneiroi, or dreams.

To make people fall asleep, he has a variety of instruments, on being a branch that drips water from the river Lethe.  Another is an upside down torch, although I'm not altogether certain how that symbolizes sleep.

I don't know about you, but I've already taken my nap and celebrated this special day.  *yawn* Maybe we can stretch this one out to the twelve days of Sleep Festival....

Repost: Happy New Year

For a long time, the world celebrated the New Year's in March, as spring ushered in a time of renewal.  This makes pretty good sense.  Some cultures still do.  So why don't we?

Well, we need to go back to Roman times for that.  They too celebrated New Years in March, all the way up to 46 BC, that was when Julius Caesar made it January 1st.  He did this because the Romans made so many changes to the calendar (the reason that September, October, November, and December are no longer the same number of month that they claim to be).  By making it in January, he put the days back in order with the sun.  I'm not quite sure how that is, but the Egyptians and Celts thought it was a good idea, so they continued it. 

You can probably guess the mythological origin of Father Time, the scythe carrying old man.  That's right, Greek's very own Cronus, head titan and all around jerk (the guy wanted to keep humans stuck in caves scurrying around like bugs).  Cronus was much more likable to the Romans who called him Saturn and held festivals in his honor.

Using a baby to represent the new year is also Greek in origin.  They began doing so in 600 BC.  I can't seem to find any myth associated with it, but it seems odd that Cronus would fit in as Father Time and there not be a mythical baby for the new year.  I would think Eros, but I haven't found anything on that yet.  If anyone knows, please post a comment (you can post one even if you don't know -  I like reading them).

As far as making resolutions on New Year's Day goes, that came from Babylonian tradition.  It started with giving back things that were borrowed but forgotten to be returned.  Over time, it changed to making promises, possibly as lazy people probably didn't return things but instead promised to do so in the upcoming year.

So Happy New Year to all of you.  My resolution?  To try to keep this blog up to date - I did get a little netbook for Christmas which might make it easier, but with a new baby on the way, I'm not holding my breath.

How I Met Your Mother...

Here's a song about poor old Oedipus Rex that you might find funny.

From the Bible to the popular song,
There's one theme that we find right along.
Of all ideals they hail as good,
The most sublime is Motherhood.

There was a man, though, who it seems,
Once carried this ideal to extremes.
He loved his mother and she loved him,
And yet his story is rather grim.

There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex.
You may have heard about his odd complex.
His name appears in Freud's index
'Cause he loved his mother.

His rivals used to say quite a bit,
That as a monarch he was most unfit.
But still and all they had to admit
That he loved his mother.

Yes he loved his mother like no other.
His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother.
One thing on which you can depend is,
He sure knew who a boy's best friend is!

When he found what he had done,
He tore his eyes out one by one.
A tragic end to a loyal son
Who loved his mother.

So be sweet and kind to Mother,
Now and then have a chat.
Buy her candy or some flowers or a brand new hat.
But maybe you had better let it go at that!

Or you may find yourself with a quite complex complex,
And you may end up like Oedipus.
I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus,
Than end up like old Oedipus Rex. 

Don't Even Think About Touching His Stapler

Another gem from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

The 12 Labors of Hercules: Labor 6 - Angry Birds

Eurytheus was in a bind.  He was supposed to send Hercules on impossible tasks to get him killed or to at least make him commit suicide for failing, but so far he, not Hercules, had failed.  And when it is Hera who is your boss in these matters, failure is not a viable option.  I imagine he sat back and reviewed his previous ideas:

• Task 1 - kill a monster (Nemean Lion)
• Task 2 - kill a monster (Hydra)
• Task 3 - capture a sacred animal (Cerynean Hind)
• Task 4 - capture a crazy animal (Erymanthian Boar)
• Task 5 - clean the filthiest place in one day (Aegean Stables)

If he follows the pattern, he would need to create another failing cleaning idea, but no.  What does he do?  He falls back to the impossible task that Hercules is that absolute best at - killing things.

Task # 6 - The Original Angry Birds

Hercules was in a bit of an irritated mood after having two additional tasks added on his list; however, being in a rare patient mood, he decided against killing his cousin - especially when he gets the next task to kill the Stymphalian birds.  What could be easier?  Birds rarely strike back and these lived at a lake.  He figured he would pack a grill, bring along a couple of babes and skis and have a nice day.

Fortunately he left the grill and babes at home because when he got to the lake at Stymphalos, he noticed what was going to make this tough.  It wasn't the fact that these are really mean birds.  By mean, I mean that they eat people, they are sacred to Ares, and they have poison poop.

Yes.  Poison poop.

Hercules regretted parking his car so close to the lake.

But these were not the worst things for Hercules.  The worst thing was that he did not have nearly enough arrows to shoot them all.  To make matters worse, he had no way of getting close to them in order to use a sword.  The surrounding swamp was just too mucky and he weighed too much.

He sat there pondering for a while (not his strong point), when Athena decided to help.  She gave him a rattle (a krotala, to be exact).  You remember the vuvuzelas of the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa?  These are louder. It seems that Hephaestus made these things (that guy can make anything).

When Hercules shook his rattle, this is what flew out of the marsh area of the lake:

Hercules shot down as many as he could, but like we mentioned before, he didn't have nearly enough arrows to kill them all.  No worries.  That loud rattle was enough to drive these birds away for good.

Where did they go?  They flew off to an island that was owned by Ares and stayed there for a little while.  Jason (jerk) and the Argonauts landed on the island for a little R and R only to get attacked by them.  they knew they were in trouble when one guy was kill when a feather flew off one of the birds and impaled him.  They too made a lot of noise and chased them off.  Where the birds went to after that, I cannot say for I do not know.

Hercules brought a few dead ones back to prove his kill to Eurytheus who couldn't believe it (not a smart one, this guy).

In 2 A.D., a guy named Pausanias tried to find the Stymphalian birds.  He found a bird in the Arabian desert known as a Stymphalian that was mean.  He described them as being as mean as lions and that they woudl come after you if you hunted them instead of flying away.  He pretty much figured that these were the birds.  This makes sense since the legend states that these birds originally came from the Arabian desert after being chased away by wolves.

O.K., six down and six to go.  I'm sure that Eurytheus will come up with a better plan next time.  Surely he wouldn't do something stupid like come up with killing another animal that is impossible to kill/catch/survive.  You know, something like a really mean cow or something.

Surely not.

Missed some?  Catch up on the other Labors of Hercules.

Artemis

Artemis (Diana to the Romans) - goddess of hunters and wild things, childbirth, crossroads, and sometimes the moon.  She is the sixth most popular deity on my highly scientific poll (just scroll down and look to the right to vote).  She has also taken on new life recently in the Wiccan beliefs.  I'm not well versed in Wicca, but I'm sure that some of my readers can explain her role in a comment to this post.

(link)

I find it very interesting that she is a childbirth goddess since she never had children.  Despite this, many females in Greek and Roman times spent quite a bit of time worshiping her.  She was fiercely protective of her virginity and if you happened to say, look in the wrong direction, or try to deflower her, you would be lucky if she used one of her Hephaestus-special arrows to strike you down.  don't believe me?  Just ask Actaeon.  Oh yeah, you can't.  He's dead.

(link)

She's so serious about her virginity that she only hangs out with virgins and even asked her father (Zeus) for eternal virginity.  She was three at the time.  Some stories say that Orion tried to rape her and she created Scorpio to kill him.  That's why you'll never see Orion and Scorpio constellations in the sky at the same time.  Orion is still running from him even in death.

(link)

There's another story involving Orion.  This one says that Artemis and Orion fell in love.  She was spending too much time with him, so Apollo tricked her with an archery contest.  They kept picking targets farther and farther away until Apollo picked Orion swimming about a mile away.   Artemis did not know it was a person she was shooting at much less her beloved, so she let loose an arrow and killed him instantly.

(link)

Niobe bragged to Artemis' mother, Leto, about having more children than Leto did.  Leto complained to her children so Apollo went out and shot all of Niobe's sons and Artemis shot all the daughters.  You would think people would have learned to stop bragging to gods and such, but well...

(link)

Agamemnon ticked her off by killing a deer in a place sacred to her.  She punished him by stopping the winds from blowing when he wanted to sail off and attack Troy.  In order to get favorable winds, she said he woudl have to sacrifice his daughter.  Agamemnon, being a great dad and all, refused.  So... wait a minute...  Scratch that.  Agamemnon, being a dead beat dad, killed her and got the wind he needed to go play with the Trojans.

(link)

In Sparta, they held a festival in her honor.  Cheese would be placed on the altar and young boys would try to sneak up and steal the cheese.  When they did so, they would get whipped. Nobody knows why anymore and for some strange reason, we don't still celebrate it.  What a shame.  Sounds like fun (of course speaking from the adult side, and not young whipped boy side).

Don't Fly Like My Brother

I love the radio show Car Talk on NPR.  They are supposed to say before a commercial break, This is NPR."  But since they are constantly making fun of themselves (and anything else they can find to laugh at), they usually say it in a way that shows people can't stand the fact that such an awful show would be on NPR.  For example, the other week they said, "Even though Van Gogh lops off the other ear when he hears us say it, this is NPR."

They had a mythology one recently, "And even though Icarus heads back for the sun when he hears us say it, this is NPR."

I love mythology allusions!

The Eleven Labors of Hercules - Labor # 5

Eurytheus is in a bind.  He has tried to come up with impossible tasks, but it seems that Hercules doesn't quite understand the whole point here.  When I think of Eurytheus constantly saying that this task is impossible, that task is impossible, etc, he really must look like this guy:

You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

However, I think Eurytheus is onto something this time.  Instead of having him kill this monster or catch that animal, tasks that Hercules is clearly good at, he gives him something completely different.  He must clean up the Augean Stables in one day.

Now, let's get a few ground rules set up here so that you understand the problem.  These stables had not been cleaned in 30 years.  The stables house 1,000 cattle.  Are you starting to see the problem?  Let's go even further.

The average cow produces 150 pounds of manure per day.  There are 365 days in a year, so we are looking at 150 x 365 = 54,750 pounds per year per cow.

Thirty years of not cleaning means that each cow has produced 1,642,500 pounds (because 54,750 pounds x 30 years = 1,642,500).

There are 1,000 cows each producing 1,642,500 pounds each which equals 1,642,500,000.  That's right - 1 trillion, six hundred forty-two billion, five hundred thousand pounds of manure.

If 1 ton = 2,000 pounds (which it does), then we are talking about 821,250 tons of crap (or for our metric friends - 745,025 metric tons).

Now I figure some of that weight is water which will drain out over time and some of it will disintegrate as well, so lets just say he probably has at least 700,000 tons of poop left to move.  I'm ballparking here.

Let's say that Hercules has access to his dad's 1952 Chevy truck.

It's possible that he had one of these.  This is mythology, you know.

Well, this truck can carry about 4 tons of manure.  That would be at least 175,000 loads.  Not to mention, where is he going to take this to dump it?

You see what I'm saying here?  This is obviously an impossible task.  However, Hercules, as arrogant as he is, not only thinks it is possible, but also asks King Augeas and tells him that he'll clean it out in one day if he gets a tenth of his cattle.  The king just laughs at him (usually a dangerous thing to do) an says sure.

As we have already stated, this is going to take a heck of a lot of truck loads.  However, Hercules has a different idea in mind, one that is going to be horrifying to you eco-friendly types out there.  He grabs a shovel and begins digging - not manure, though.  He digs trenches from the stables to two rivers close by and diverts their course so that they will wash out all the manure.  Then he just diverts the rivers back into their normal course.  This is all fine and dandy, but no myth book ever thinks of where all that water and manure went.  How many small villages were wiped out by the flood and the resulting diseases?  Oh well.  Those sorry saps are not our concern.  Hercules is.

And speaking of Hercules, he has a little problem collecting his reward.  It seems the King Augeas started citing EPA regulations and what not and refused to pay.  Hercules took the matter to a judge and the King's own son testified that Augeas promised to pay him.  The judge sided with Hercules and the King, in a rage, paid Hercules and kicked him and his own son out of the kingdom.

This is actually one of Hercules' best showings.  Unfortunately, Eurytheus claimed that since he got paid for his work, it doesn't count.  So, what was once ten labors is now up to twelve.

By the way, if you've ever want to practice shoveling manure like Hercules but you don't have a cow hanging around, here is how to make cow manure without a cow - http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1978-07-01/How-To-Make-Cow-Manure-Without-a-Cow.aspx

Till next time!

The Eleven Labors of Hercules - Labor # 4

Eurytheus is not doing so well in the picking of impossible tasks so far.  Let's have a quick run-down:

1. Kill a lion with nigh-impenetrable skin
2. Kill a monster that regrows decapitated heads
3. Catch a goddess protected deer

So what does he have up his sleeve for number 4?  Robot ninja dinosaurs with laser eyes?  That would have been cool.

Instead, Eurytheus chooses to have him capture alive the Erymanthian boar.  That's right a pig.  We can look back in past movies and books and recall in horror all the evil, scary pigs that pop up in them.

Actually, I still have nightmares over this horror story.  All those baby spiders crawling everywhere, floating on strands of webbing...    Uggh!

In his defense, the boar was supposedly a really mean pig.

Anyway, Hercules has very little problems with this.  It was harder finding the little sucker than it was catching it.  All he really does is chase it into a snow bank so that it gets stuck.  In fact, the pig scares him so much that he hides in a big vase until Hercules takes it away and then says that Hercules cannot bring any more creatures into his palace.  He practically wets himself in fear.  At this point Hera is probably smacking her forehead wondering what in the name of Zeus was she thinking when she picked this bozo to torture Hercules?

The big thing about this labor was a rest stop he made on the way to find the beast.  He stopped at a friend of his that just so happened to be a centaur (not that there's anything wrong with that) and had a bite to eat.  He then saw a cask of wine and went to open it.  His friend said that it would be a bad move to do so, but Hercules said, "Ah, what's the worst that could happen?"  Upon uttering these words, he opened the cask and the worst happened.  Every centaur in the tri-state area came wanting to know who opened their wine.  Hercules was forced to kill all of them, including Chiron, teacher of heroes.

In honor of the fallen ones, I'm posting up several pictures of centaurs for your viewing pleasure.

(http://ancieastro.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/sagittarius/)

(http://caseyparkhurst.blogspot.com/2011/03/grasslands-centaur.html)

(http://elvire.deviantart.com/art/Centaur-108595716)

(http://www.everypicture.com/prints/ray-harryhausen/4500/sinbad-and-the-centaur-canvas.html)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur)

(http://www.neatorama.com/2011/05/31/anatomy-of-the-centaur/)

Random horse trivia - a horse's rear end is also known as a curple, which is the only legitimate English word that rhymes with 'purple' ('nurple' doesn't count).

If you want to read the labor in more detail, try this:  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/boar.html

The Eleven Labors of Hercules - Labor # 3

O.K., so we're finally on the third labor.  Finding time to write these is a labor in itself!

For Hercules' third task, he is assigned a very boring one.  I say boring from my point of view.  Researching this was meh at best.  Hercules' has to capture the Cerynean Hind.  For you deer hunters out there, this is the ultimate hunt.  This deer has antlers made of pure gold and hooves of brass.  The problem with this task for Hercules is that the hind is sacred to Artemis, goddess of wild things.

Hercules, in a rare display of intelligence, decides NOT to kill the hind, as he task is to bring it back.  So he decides to catch it.  He chases this animal for a whole year until finally just shooting it with an arrow.  He aimed only to wound it, not to kill it.  It's a good thing he didn't accidentally use one of those Hydra blood arrows he got on the last trip.

This, however gets the attention of Artemis, who comes down ready to kill Hercules for this affront, but gives him a chance to explain.  Once she hears the story and can clearly see that he did not shoot to kill, she heals the deer and lets him take the animal with him as long as he promises to let it go.

That's it.  There's no great back story about why there is a deer with golden antlers.  There's no constellation.  There's no alternative version.  I did find a blog titled this, but it had absolutely nothing to do with mythology.  The author refers to herself as the Fifth Cerynean Hind.  I have no clue what that means.  See!  I told you.  Meh at best.

The only thing remotely interesting is the picture, which I only find interesting because I am a nerd.  I found it on http://artwars52.blogspot.com/ and it is a storm trooper helmet with antlers attached to it painted gold.

I'm positive that the next labor will be better.

The Ten Labors of Hercules - Labor # 2

Hercules, now stylishly dressed in his new lion's fur coat and cap, is given a new monster to kill.  His second labor is to kill the Hydra, a nine headed monster who lives in the swamp of Lerna.  Not having heard of the Hydra, Hercules just shrugged and took off for it.  It wouldn't have mattered if he knew what kind of danger he was facing anyway.  That's just the kind of guy he is.

Hercules' nephew, Iolaus, came along for the ride.  They did practically everything together.  Athena went too, although nobody knew it.  She developed a fondness for her half brother and decided to help him out some.  She did this time by leading him to the right place to find the monster.  Of course, we are very familiar with this story.  Hercules cuts off a head, two more grow back.  He cuts off another one.  Two more grow back.  he cuts off another one, two more grow back.  This would have happened forever, if Iolaus wasn't with him.  Cleverness isn't Hercules' strength.  Iolaus ran in with a torch and burned the stumps as soon as the neck was chopped in two.  This way, the new necks couldn't grow back.  The center head is immortal, so Hercules just dropped a big rock on that one and called it a day.  He then coated his arrow heads in the hydra's blood since it is poisonous to any living creature.  On his way out of the swamp, he kills Cancer the crab just for kicks (and crab legs).

When he gets back, Eurytheus refuses to count this one as a successful labor since he had help.  Thus, the title of these posts will become "The Eleven Labors of Hercules."

The Hydra has many allusions to it.  Here are a few:

The Hydra - this little animal lives in streams and lakes in temperate and tropical zones.  It has amazing regenerative abilities and never grows old.

Hydra - This is a bad guy group in Marvel comics.  This gang was started by a guy named Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.  They always go around shouting about how you can't stop Hydra, cut off one head and two more grow back.  They usually say this right before they get killed.

THC-Hydra - this is some login hacker program.  I didn't want to search too much for this.  I figured I was making myself a target for being hacked.

Hydra was the name of a multichannel digital ad platform.  I don't really know what that encompasses, but I like the idea that they are playing on the many heads idea and connecting it with their mulitchannels.  However, they ditched the cool name and replaced it with the name Adknowledge.  Oh well.

Hydra - a made for TV movie in 2009 that stars, well, nobody I recognize.  The big tag line for this movie - "Prepare to be consumed."  IMDB doesn't even bother to add a summary for this movie.  Here's the trailer for it!  Scratch that.  I can't seem to get onto YouTube right now. I bet it was that stinking login hacker thing above!  It's probably best that we not see this trailer anyway.







But wait!  There's more!  We have:

The Hydra Project

And about 12,000,000 other results on Google.  Geez!  Everyone loves Hydra.

Next labor - no more killing monsters!  That's not working well anyway.

The Ten Labors of Hercules - Labor # 1

The first impossible task given to Hercules was to slay a lion.  Not just any lion, mind you.  This lion is the son of Enchinda (mother of monsters) and the 100 headed titan Typhon.  This lion was nursed by the moon goddess Selene (why she thought to nurse a lion is beyond my capacity to understand).

This was the . . . Nemean Lion. (Cue dramatic music!)

I don't know why Hercules thought fighting naked was a good idea.
He's probably one of those guys who thinks taking his shirt off at parties is the thing to do.

Hercules was fine with this task.  In fact, he thought, "Hmmpft!  I thought this would be harder."  And off he went, grabbing weapons along the way.  He grabbed a bronze sword.  He grabbed some arrows with bronze tips.  He grabbed an olive tree, pulled it up by the roots, and made it into a club.  He was ready.

When he found the beast, it immediately ran towards him. Hercules calmly shot three arrows at it in rapid succession (archery class had kept Hercules' GPA out of the 2.0 range in school - that and killing his music teacher).  The arrows merely bent their tips and bounced harmlessly off.  The lion leaped and Hercules hit it with his tree/club.  The lion was pushed out of the way, but otherwise unharmed.  At this point, it probably would have been wise to just run away, but then again, Hercules was never known for his wisdom.

The lion charged again.  This time Hercules dropped the club and grabbed the lion around his neck and held him.  The lion struggled, but he could not break the head lock Hercules had put on him.  Finally, the lion was dead.

Hercules then looked at the beast and thought, "That would be one cool cloak to wear!  I ought to skin it and wear it."  Upon which he replied to himself, "Cool idea, Herc!  Let's do it!"  He grabbed his knife and began cutting...

... only to remember that weapons don't seem to penetrate this hide.  So he brought out his heavy duty Bronze Sword 2000, which also didn't work.  Hercules sat, much like Winnie the Pooh does when he is thinking.  He may have even sang the "Rumbly in my Tumbly" song like Pooh occasionally does.

So then Hercules did something quite clever, although it was probably quite an accident.  He used the claws of the lion to skin the beast.  It worked.  So now Hercules goes around wearing the lion's head as a helmet and the skin draped down his back as armor.  It's quite impressive and pretty impressive to look at. Most times that is.

One of the better things about Disney's Hercules movie was having Scar be the Nemean Lion.

The lion can be seen still today, as it was immortalized in the constellation Leo.  The stars look more like a mouse than a lion and are pretty easily spotted if you are looking in the right direction.  That direction would be south in April (about 9:00).  Here's what you'll be looking for:

So, one down, nine to go!

See all of the Labors of Hercules Posts

Sissyphus - Again

I'm swamped right now with swim team coaching, watching my sons wrestle and play basketball, and of course trying to fit work into the mix, so I've been a bit slack of late.  To tide you over until I can get some good posts in, here is a video I found on You Tube that is evidently from a video game about Sissyphus called Rock of Ages.

You can see Prometheus and Tantalus in the background on his first try, but the heck is the guy int he wheel on the second try?  If you know, please post a comment.  I'm sure when you do I'll slap my head in embarrassment for not recognizing it the first time.

By the way, if you've played this game, let me know if it is any good.

It's All Fun and Games until Someone Gets an Eye Poked Out

O.K., anyone who has followed this blog any knows that I was not going to actually follow up the first post in my Hercules series with the second post.  I will get to it, I promise.

However, until then, I found this old movie poster and I thought it just looked cool and wanted to share it with you.

Look at the apostrophe on Homer's.  It looks like the artist was doodling and just randomly drew a spear sticking through it.  I especially like the red stuff shooting upwards.  Is that fire or blood?  Either way, looks painful.  And speaking of painful, here is the actual movie, or part of it.  It is a 1911 silent movie and I could only find the Italian version.  

I will, of course, show my class part of it.  They got frustrated when I showed them the wonders of the original Clash of the Titans special effects.  I can't wait until they see these.

If anyone wants to take the time to find an English version of the movie, please post the link in the comments section for me.

The 10 Labors of Hercules

I know, you're thinking that I can't count, but trust me, this series of posts should be titled the 10 Labors of Hercules.  You'll see as this theme progresses.  Before we start, we need to give a little explanation.  It all starts with Zeus being a little horny (as many Greek myth do).

Zeus was sitting on his Olympus throne one day, looking down at the many people traveling to and fro when he noticed a beautiful young lady and decided that it was his sworn duty, as a god, to bless this young woman.  However, since his sister/wife was a jealous sort, he decided to take a disguise.  He ran through a list of options: bull, rain shower, swan...  No.  These just would not do.  He needed something different.  The it came to him and off he went.

Meanwhile, the young woman was going about her household chores to get the house prepared for when her husband came home from battle.  Suddenly the door opened and she heard, "Alcmene!  I'm home!  I missed you so much, let's [hold hands]."

She was surprised to see him home so early but very pleased by the best [hand holding] she ever had.  Then he abruptly got up and said, "well, I must be off."  Just like that he left.

Shortly after, she heard, "Alcmene!  I'm home!  I missed you so much, let's [hold hands]."  Alcmene was a smart woman and realized that the man who just came to her house was not her husband after all.  She kept her mouth shut to avoid attracting Hera's attention.  This would have worked, however, when she gave birth, she gave birth to twins.  One was a scrawny little kid.  The mid-wife named him Iphicles.  Then out came another baby.  The mid-wife remarked how big and healthy this one was.  She said that they should praise Hera for such a healthy baby.  She named him Herakles (we know him better by his Roman name of Hercules).  Alcmene knew it was all over then.  Sure enough, this got the attention of Hera and she vowed to destroy the baby.  This proved harder than it looked.  She sent snakes to kill the infant, but he just picked them up and tied them in knots.  Hera, however, was patient.  She waited for the right time to strike.

That time was after Herakles was married and had a few kids.  One day he just went berserk and thoguht he saw enemies all around trying to hurt his family.  Herakles tore them apart.  Then his madness went away and he saw his family in a bloody mess.  He had killed them.  Now Hera was responsible for this madness and she wasn't through playing with him yet.

After trying to come to terms with his guilt in various fashions, Herakles finally goes to an oracle.  The oracle, unfortunately, was mislead by Hera to reveal the wrong thing for him to do.  She said that he must report to the King of Tiryns, who just so happened to by Herakles' half brother who also hated him.  She said that Herakles must serve him for one full year.  Herakles, intent on getting forgiveness for his murderous behavior, goes willingly.

Once there, Eurytheus gets all excited and with the help of Hera, comes up with ten impossible tasks that Herakles must do to save his soul.

That, my friends, is where we stop for today.  In this series of posts, we will look at each labor and see how much fun Hercules had.  Oh, and I'm writing Hercules from now on because I like it better than Herakles.  So there.  I know I'm mixing Roman names with Greek, but hey!  Call it Blogger License.

Which of These Things Do Not Belong?

I am teaching my ninth graders The Odyssey.  To introduce the mythology unit, we are watching The Lightning Thief.  It is also a good jumping on point to introduce The Olympian books for free read.  I was so proud of my students for their observation of Persephone.

In the movie, Rosario Dawson plays a slutty and disenchanted Persephone who hates her Hades abode.  She makes reference to the fact that she has time above ground that she looks forward to.

My students, though, remember me telling them that she lives in Hades during winter and one student pointed out that the movie takes place in the summer (the week of June 21st to be exact).  I was so proud!  I'm sharing it with you since many teachers read this and it could be a fun quiz question or extra credit question.

Now, to be fair to Rick Riordin, he gets it right.  In the book, Persephone is no where to be seen.  What you do get in the book that is absent from the movie is the wonderful scene of Percy trying to get past Cerberus by playing fetch with him using a nice red bouncy ball.

I'm not sure why Chris Columbus chose to drop Cerberus and use Persephone instead.  I don't think it added to the movie any and all it does it irritate myth nerds like myself.  I don't know if Riordin had any veto power over the movie script or not.  I do know that he never has watched the movie.  Why?  He says that he never watches movies based on books he's read as he likes the picture in his mind better.

The Flash is a well known superhero.  He got his start, however, in mythology.  The original character was inspired by the swift feet of Hermes, Greek messenger god and all around great guy to know.  You can see the inspiration from the winged helmet and the winged sandals.  The Flash that we know of now has no direct mythology allusion, but was inspired by the original Flash, so the allusion is indirect.

Here are a few of the fastest gods and goddesses around.


Hermes - Greek fast messenger god. He is so fast that he sometimes uses his speed to steal.  He stole all of Apollo's cows the day he was born.  He had to give them back.  He has been used to promote Goodyear Tires and FTD Floral delivery.  There is a car named after his Roman counter-part, Mercury.  There is a great commercial that shows that he's not quite that fast, though.

Iris - Greek rainbow goddess.  She also travels super fast and as such delivers messages like Hermes does.  In fact she may have been even faster than Hermes at the job and it is quite possible that she is, in fact, the true mother of Eros, but that may just be a nasty rumor.

Julana - Australian deity who travels fast by burrowing underground.  Sounds pretty neat until you realize that he uses his power of fast travel to surprise women and, er, take advantage of them by "holding their hands" very aggressively and without their permission.

Ashvins - These Indian gods were like mythological ambulances.  These doctor gods rode around in golden chariots drawn by flying horses to get where they were needed.  When not healing someone, they stand on guards at the gates of death.

Pheme - Greek goddess of gossip.  She flies at great speed.  Her feathers are always moving.  Beneath some is a eye, looking for problems, beneath some is an ear, always listening for juicy details, and beneath others is a tongue, ready to tell stories (always with some truth) to others.

O.K., who did I miss?  Let me know and I'll add them to the list.

What Are You Going to Do When Zeus Runs Wild Over you?

It takes a special actor to be able to pull off playing Zeus, King of the Gods. We have had several take the role in past movies.  An obvious example for this blog would be the two who took the role in Clash of the Titans.

Laurence Olivier, who plays the classic look of the bearded old looking guy.

Liam Neeson in the remake who takes a younger approach.

Then in the Percy Jackson movie, we have Sean Bean who has taken an even younger look and a more tidy beard approach.

I actually think that the younger approach works.  Zeus is the youngest of the original six gods, after all.  To have him looking like an old man but having Hades and Poseidon looking younger seems a bit off to me.

You can see a complete list of Zeus actors at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489210/

There is a another actor to take the mantle of Zeus that I have yet to mention.  In fact, he is the purpose of this post.  In a movie that defies logic in casting, we now have ...

Wait for it . . .

Terry "Hulk" Hogan stars as the big man himself.

Really?

Come on, I'm as much a Hulkamaniac as the next guy, but really?  I got to say, though, in the picture above, it looks like Hera is doing a pretty good job fussing him out.  The movie is titled Little Hercules 3D and I doubt I'll be using one of my Netflix DVD mailings for it.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe it is a masterpiece.  I have been known to be wrong once before (my freshman year in college when I dated . . ., well let's just say that was a mistake).  

Here's the trailer for it:

Anybody out there see this movie?

The Odyssey Graphic Novel

Those who have followed Bubo's Blog for any length of time know that I love a good comic book.  I especially love a good comic book with mythological allusions.  That's why it pains me to give this review for The Odyssey graphic novel by Gareth Hinds.

It pains me because I just do not like it.  It is not that it doesn't have good information. It's not that it changes the story to where it can't be used in class.  It is because I do not like the art.  I do not like the word type.  I also do not like the amount of words in each panel.  Hinds both writes and draws the book as far as I can tell.  This is usually a bad combo.  A graphic novel writer must do more than put words on a page.  He/she must know how to put the words.  One of the benefits of the graphic novel format is that the picture tells the story as much as the words.  The words are there for what the picture cannot convey and the picture is there for what the words cannot tell.  Without this distinction, all you have is an illustrated story.  With that in mind, look at a page I scanned below:

It reads much too slowly with all the long speech bubbles.  Whoever did the word balloons should have at least used multiple bubbles to break it up.  As it is, it feels like reading prose without paragraph breaks.  Gareth Hinds writes and draws graphic novels for several classics.  My thought is this.  He has gained some success in this market because schools are eager to bring in  more graphic novels and feel that they can justify the money expenditure if the graphic novel is a classic.  Thus, they don't read them themselves, they just put them on the shelves.

Hinds does take a full 248 pages to tell his tale, so there is a lot of story here.  One of my students, however, does not share my dislike of this graphic novel.  He was excited when he found this in our school library and gave it to me to read as soon as he finished.  Since he was so excited, I guess it has potential for its intended audience.  

Now, if you'd like to know what a graphic novel can be, I suggest that you check out The Pride of Baghdad at your local library.  It is not mythological in nature, but it is an excellent blending of word and image.

Since my student did like it, I'll raise my rating from 2 lightning bolts to 3 lightning bolts.

You can buy this book at Amazon.

Medusa's Shampoo Revisited

Not too terribly long ago I added the most viewed posts widget to the side.  I find it interesting to see what is being looked at.  Some come and some go.  The Medusa shampoo post is a consistently top ranking one.  Recently, when doing a You Tube search, I ran across a longer version of that same commercial.  So I am going to post both of them here so that you can see the difference in the two.

The Short Version

The Long Version

Which do you like better?  I'm kind of partial to the short one, but that is the one that inspired me to begin with.

While we're at it, I might as well throw in this little Red Vines Medusa commercial:

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