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Today was apartment post-mortem. With my mother and brother, I drove down to New Haven and packed out the last of the paraphernalia of the past three years—dishes, dried roses, a bookcase, blankets. There were flurries of snow and inexplicably stopped traffic on the way down. Coming back, the sky and the roads were clear. This was the first apartment I've ever moved out of. It didn't look like empty rooms, just before I turned out the lights and locked up: it looked like home I was leaving.

There's no thermostat in the apartment, so my first winter there I'd heavily insulated all the radiators in an effort not to die from the furnace-blast heat; but we had to take off the insulation tonight, so I'd shed my jacket and sweater and shoved up my sleeves and I still felt deliquescent. There was nothing left to move except my laptop, which I'd brought down with me, and a cake pan with three miniature books and a bone panel of

erzebet's tucked inside in layers of paper towel. I walked into the bedroom with the lights out and only the streetlight in through the window, which used to fall right across my bed and the space above its head where I had a framed print of John William Waterhouse's A Mermaid, and now only on bare boards. And I wiped off my face with my hands, and with my finger I wrote on the wall, I love you. —Sonya Taaffe. It wasn't a gesture I'd planned. It felt important to the next tenant. And to me, I suppose. I hope there are pleasant memories for whoever lives there next.

I have a lot of boxes to unpack now. These are the dead days.

I did have a good Christmas. For the annual roundup of loot: I am now the proud possessor of the bilingual screenplay of Paul Apak Angilirq and Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (because my parents are book-ordering magicians: I'd tried multiple times for this one since January and more or less come to the conclusion that it could only be purchased in Nunavut), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest on DVD (because gift certificates are a wonderful thing and so is

sosostris2012), Tanith Lee's Piratica II: Return to Parrot Island (because I didn't even know a sequel existed until a Barnes & Noble run the day before Christmas), Margaret Atwood's The Penelopeiad (because

strange_selkie knows me and myths), Sting and Edin Karamazov's Songs from the Labyrinth (because I don't know what stations my brother listens to, but I'm thankful for them), and a pot of spiced rum butterscotch (because my brother's godparents are made of awesome). I also have a staggering cold, but I don't want to know whose gift that was.

fleurdelis28 gave me a Yule Goat, which in accordance with tradition she hid in the house for me to find (I wonder if the Yule Goat and the afikomen ever compare notes) and which was then photographed with the bat in a sort of holiday mashup of impressive cuteness. We made our traditional eggnog and figgy pudding, which this year burned like a volcano and had to be extinguished before it could be eaten; and for the first time, we cooked a Christmas goose. It was a success. Shlomo and

fleurdelis28 and I attempted to rot our brains with television, and since we caught the first half-hour of Constantine and the last fifteen minutes of Fantastic Four, I would say we succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. (We did enjoy Tilda Swinton and Michael Chiklis. Keanu Reeves, not so much.) And John Benson has accepted "Perdidit Spolia" for the annual not-Not One of Us one-off, which probably marks the shortest time elapsed between inspiration and acceptance of a piece of mine. None of this hurts.

I could have done without falling down the stairs two days before Christmas, because bits of my back are now unusually unhappy about the packing-out, but that will heal. It seems unfair: I didn't even fall down the whole flight of stairs, I caught myself on the banister about two-thirds of the way down, but I think that's what pulled whatever it is in my back that now twinges each time I breathe in. So much for reflexes.

And lastly, the latest addictive meme:

If I was a Sovay, a perfect Sovay, how would you know it was really me?

Which movie was this quote from?

(Cut for quotable cinema narcissism.)

Elementary, my dear Sovay.

Which movie was this quote from?

"You idiot! Someone's stolen our tent!"

If you are a minority of one, the Sovay is the Sovay.

Which movie was this quote from?

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, said my good friend Gertrude Stein . . .

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'Sovay' at will to old ladies.

Which movie was this quote from?

. . . nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus.

It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the Sovay.

Which movie was this quote from?

Lucky Luca Brasi.

I met Sovay today. We are playing chess.

Which movie was this quote from?

"You with your visions and your dreams . . ."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

if in order to make Penelope a sympathetic character, Odysseus needs to become a chauvinist jerk

I'm not sure they needed to make Odysseus a chauvinist jerk in order to make their Penelope sympathetic, though to some extent they certainly did. Though actually, they didn't, entirely -- Odysseus is largely still Odysseus (to the extent of my limited recollection); he's just surrounded by revisionist Odyssey fanfic full of self-actualized people, into which a traditional Greek hero doesn't really fit. He knows he's supposed to be the hero of the Odyssey, and he knows how the story's supposed to go, and he just can't figure out where the heck he's ended up instead, and wants to go home. Which may be behind a lot of chauvanism and conservatism too, but it's not an unsympathetic position -- who wouldn't be annoyed at abruptly ceasing to be the hero of their own epic? And the play makes clear that this is supposed to be one part of the great storytelling tradition of humanity, not "the real Odyssey," which would have driven me up the wall.

And the revisionist resolution, to the best of my recollection, is at least somewhat two-sided; Odysseus has to come to terms with some changes in the story, but Penelope has already had a total dressing-down by her nurse about how she needs to quit feeling sorry for herself and go do something about her situation (at which point she whips the suitors into a frenzied triumph at what manly men they are, and then sweetly suggests that then it shouldn't be too hard for them to prove their worthiness by performing a couple of impossible athletic feats, now, would it?) It's kind of Ragtime set in Ancient Greece.

(And rest assured that Antinoos makes Odysseus look like a model of sensitivity by comparison...)

But I do share your hatred of revisionism that pulls apart couples that were otherwise well-suited. Do you feel the same way about versions that imply that Penelope and Odysseus are both happier at home and abroad, respectively?

I'm not sure they needed to make Odysseus a chauvinist jerk in order to make their Penelope sympathetic, though to some extent they certainly did.

You clearly remember the play better than I do: I read the script one night in

kraada's room and my reaction was, I'm told, somewhat vehement. What I remember of its Odysseus was bewildered and resentful, as though it's all Penelope's fault that he isn't being celebrated with the hero's welcome he looked forward to, while he's neglected her for years and really shouldn't be surprised. And that got on my nerves.

but it's not an unsympathetic position -- who wouldn't be annoyed at abruptly ceasing to be the hero of their own epic?

Maybe he played better onstage than in the script . . .

self-actualized people, into which a traditional Greek hero doesn't really fit.

Explain: I find most of the protagonists of the Iliad and the Odyssey to be realistically characterized rather than collections of heroic attributes, which is why I suspect the stories have lasted; they may not be modern, but I believe them as people. Or do you mean that, within the play, the characters are aware of their own metafiction?

It's kind of Ragtime set in Ancient Greece.

Mother and Father?

. . . you have places to discover, oceans to conquer
You need to know I'll be there at the window
While you go your way—I accept that
But what of the people who stay where they're put
Planted like flowers with roots underfoot?
I know some of those people have hearts that would rather go journeying on the sea
Tell me, what of the people whose boundaries chafe?
Who marry so bravely and end up so safe?
Tell me how to be someone whose heart can explore while still staying here
Let this be the year we both travel . . .

I'm reminded also of Pleasantville (1998), if you've seen that.

Do you feel the same way about versions that imply that Penelope and Odysseus are both happier at home and abroad, respectively?

And only cross occasionally? They would have to be done very well, I think. (I was about to make a comparison, but you would need to read Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master first.) I can appreciate Kazantzakis' The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938), in which Odysseus arrives home to discover that he's bored out of his mind with family life and promptly runs off with Helen to jumpstart things, but it doesn't particularly agree with my view of the characters—on the other hand, since that epic includes God and ends in Antarctica, I'd venture to say it's not entirely traditional. And if Tennyson's "Ulysses" does not accord with the classical hero's end, it is a beautiful poem. Hm. What other examples were you thinking of?

Maybe he played better onstage than in the script . . .

He mostly struck me as kind of living in his own world, but I think he was largely right about how things in the story are supposed to go. He may be inaccurately eager to go off to war -- I don't remember how that goes in the originals -- and he may have had too much fun while he was there, but he's justifiably proud of the whole horse thing and winning, while the chorus just remembers all the boring hardships of war, and he gets home by hook and crook to his wife and defeats the evil suitors in a legitimate feat of prowess and cunning, tells his son all about his grand adventures, and orders the traitorous servants killed, only to discover that his wife is still mad at him for leaving (or such; I forget what the chief impediment is there), his son doesn't have his stomach for battle, and while everyone is really glad to see Antinoos knocked off, the servant girl who slept with him was really only acting off her then-unrequited love for Telemachus, and is really sorry about the whole thing and has learned her lesson and Telemachus is now in love with her too and refuses to have her killed. It's not entirely his fault that this all confuses him, though it looks more obvious to a modern audience.

Explain: I find most of the protagonists of the Iliad and the Odyssey to be realistically characterized rather than collections of heroic attributes, which is why I suspect the stories have lasted; they may not be modern, but I believe them as people. Or do you mean that, within the play, the characters are aware of their own metafiction?

Oh, just that they're all sort of self-aware and in control of their destinies in a very modern-mentality sort of way, not that they're more complex than their their traditional counterparts. The could all go on Oprah.

Mother and Father?

Both the departure scene, and her going from "Why are you out adventuring when I need you here to deal with problems?!" to "Hey, I can deal with problems myself!" And Father's "Say, was I away too long? Say...when did they change the song?" Except that there is the implication that Penelope and Odysseus do work things out in the end (or after the end).

He may be inaccurately eager to go off to war -- I don't remember how that goes in the originals

I'm not sure it's ever mentioned in the epic. According to Hyginus' Fabulae, he was a total draft dodger: he had learned from an oracle that if he went off to war at Troy, it would take him twenty years before returned (and all his crew would perish into the bargain), and anyway he was not eager to leave his wife and newborn child. So when the envoys from Agamemnon and Menelaos arrived, they found Odysseus wearing a funny hat and ploughing a field with a horse and an ox in harness, apparently stark staring bonkers. But one of them, Palamedes, took the infant Telemachos from his cradle and put him down in the way of the plough, and saw that Odysseus turned aside so as not to run right over the child—not the act of a madman, and Palamedes promptly told Odysseus to drop his pretenses and come with them, because he'd pledged himself to this cause years before when Tyndareus married Helen to Menelaos out of all the heroes of Greece. And Odysseus didn't have much he could say, so he kissed his wife goodbye and went off to war, but he was never Palamedes' friend after that.

They could all go on Oprah.

I'm not sure that's a recommendation . . .

I'm not sure that's a recommendation . . .

Did I say it was?

Have you ever seen the graphic adaptation of the Iliad, Age of Bronze? The utterly insanely madly dedicated author, Eric Shanower, did this bit nicely.

Have you ever seen the graphic adaptation of the Iliad, Age of Bronze?

I have not: I'll have to check it out. Along with Promethea.

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