Seagulls won't help you find your way when sea girls will take you to your grave

[sovay]

Tonight on the bus from Davis Square I saw a girl who looked like a marble by Praxiteles—the leonine nose, the small, full mouth, the rounded chin—with bright fair hair under a baseball cap, thumb-scrolling through her phone with earbuds in. She was wearing a teal windbreaker and a T-shirt the color of brick dust. She looked very much like that art project that went around the internet a couple of years ago, with classical statues photo-dressed in contemporary clothes. I believe I could have non-creepily said, "Just so you know, you look like a fourth-century head of Aphrodite," but the distribution of other bus riders was such that I would have had to move past several people in order to get her attention at all, and I thought that might have been unnecessarily awkward. I got off the bus at my usual stop. I hope someone tells her. She was blue-eyed or grey-eyed, but definitely Aphrodite.

Comments

[nineweaving]

Wow. I once saw a Botticelli in Rome, a street kid wearing a Godzilla T-shirt.

Nine

[asakiyume]

The photo-essay book Family of Man had a photo of a girl from Italy who was also the spitting image of Botticelli's Venus.

[sovay]

I once saw a Botticelli in Rome, a street kid wearing a Godzilla T-shirt.

I think that shows good taste in any century!

[thisbluespirit]

I believe I could have non-creepily said, "Just so you know, you look like a fourth-century head of Aphrodite," but the distribution of other bus riders was such that I would have had to move past several people in order to get her attention at all, and I thought that might have been unnecessarily awkward.

LOL, I think it would have been! It would have made for a tale to hand down, though, for the Aphrodite in question.

[sovay]

It would have made for a tale to hand down, though, for the Aphrodite in question.

All right: next time I will embrace the awkwardness!

[davidgillon]

She was blue-eyed or grey-eyed, but definitely Aphrodite.

That encounter sounds like it needs to be a poem.

Though Sappho's might be misinterpreted.
Iridescent-throned Aphrodite, deathless
Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I now implore you,
Don't--I beg you, Lady--with pains and torments
Crush down my spirit,

[sovay]

That encounter sounds like it needs to be a poem.

I will see what I can do. It would be different from the last Aphrodite poem I wrote.

[davidgillon]

the last Aphrodite poem I wrote.

Oh god(ess), that's gorgeous!

[moon_custafer]

I knew a woman at university who had the sort of profile (long jaw, large, straight, tilted nose) seldom seen outside Art Deco-era fashion illustration. I never had the nerve to say anything.

[sovay]

I knew a woman at university who had the sort of profile (long jaw, large, straight, tilted nose) seldom seen outside Art Deco-era fashion illustration.

I have not often seen that in the wild, either.

I really don't think there are good social models for saying this sort of thing. I wish there were.

[asakiyume]

Gods and goddesses still walk the earth.

[sovay]

Gods and goddesses still walk the earth.

The strangest part was that she was blonde. I don't expect that of my Greek gods, Homeric epic notwithstanding.

[kore]

That is really neat. I'm six feet tall, so I tend to notice people taller than me, and at the Santa Fe Community College there was this girl who was a dead ringer for Athena: six two, grey eyes, corn-blond hair and she looked not just taller but bigger than everyone -- like how Peter Beagle describes the Robin Hood figures in Last Unicorn. And she kind of glided down the halls. I think she was a soccer player.

[sovay]

a dead ringer for Athena: six two, grey eyes, corn-blond hair and she looked not just taller but bigger than everyone -- like how Peter Beagle describes the Robin Hood figures in Last Unicorn. And she kind of glided down the halls. I think she was a soccer player.

I'm just really happy to know this.

[ethelmay]

I often find myself assigning people centuries. I used to have a boss who was absolutely eighteenth-century, or possibly very early nineteenth: black hair, a little scrawny, odd but attractive face -- you could just imagine him in snuff-colored breeches and tailcoat, with a bit of lace (not a lot -- he wasn't the dandy type). One of my daughters is also eighteenth-century: it's very easy to imagine her with powdered hair contrasting with her dark eyebrows and eyes. (Though when she was about ten and had bobbed hair, she looked extremely 1920s.) A friend of mine is a medieval angel. My son when he was small was straight out of an Ernest Shepard drawing (especially in shorts and sandals).

[sovay]

I used to have a boss who was absolutely eighteenth-century, or possibly very early nineteenth: black hair, a little scrawny, odd but attractive face -- you could just imagine him in snuff-colored breeches and tailcoat, with a bit of lace (not a lot -- he wasn't the dandy type).

You describe people beautifully. I am now picturing him as a painted cameo. Thank you for the other sketches as well, one of which is a painting and another a statue.

[ashlyme]

I like the thought goddesses catch the bus too.

[sovay]

I like the thought goddesses catch the bus too.

It's commonplace numinous. Everyone needs more of that.