Doctor Maria

Pros: good acting, very cool cinematography and practical effects, good music with period instruments. That one scene where Clytaemnestra kills Agamemnon. The sack of Troy. The test of the bow was great. Also, though horrifying, Circe turning men into pigs was fantastic. Argos 😭.

Cons: not an adaptation of the Odyssey. In addition, I just couldn't unsee Matt Damon as himself. He just felt like a modern dude stuck in a fever dream of ancient Greece. That's basically what the whole movie felt like. The internal logic was not clear - are there gods or aren't there? And I'm tired of skeptical protagonists, especially in a setting like ancient Greece where no one would even have considered "believing" in the gods as a choice. The lack of obvious gods was the biggest weakness of the movie after the complete change to Odysseus' character. I said this when Troy came out and this is making the same exact mistake. JUST OWN THE GODS IF YOU'RE MAKING A HOMERIC ADAPTATION D&MMIT.

Additional cons: the armor was atrocious, the costuming not good in general. What was the deal with the Sea Peoples being brought up? Who says "our age of bronze is collapsing" sir you're not wearing bronze age armor.

On its own, not as an adaptation of the Odyssey, the movie was about a man dealing with the trauma of war and afraid to come home lest he deal the same damage there. But he was also causing damage by not returning, and then he caused damage anyway by returning so... There wasn't really a point?

(in addition, though I'm happy they included the concept of xenia, Zeus' law of hospitality, they did not understand it. Xenia doesn't apply in war. It also doesn't apply if you're punishing people who already violated it. eg, suitors in your house eating all your food.)

Spoiler below:

by John Crowe Ransom

There was such speed in her little body,

And such lightness in her footfall,

It is no wonder her brown study

Astonishes us all.

Her wars were bruited in our high window.

We looked among orchard trees and beyond

Where she took arms against her shadow,

Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud

Dripping their snow on the green grass,

Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,

Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little

Lady with rod that made them rise

From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle

Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready,

In one house we are sternly stopped

To say we are vexed at her brown study,

By Emily Jungmin

I love you; I don’t know how else to begin.

How we began, though, was almost as if

it were already written. The details of how we arrived

at each other, to say I love you even as we fall asleep,

to let each other’s name be the first sound

we utter every morning, can only be a gift of careful construction,

a design of an elsewhere where we were already together.

Saying nothing, you make me want to live

more meaningfully. The world is so wild, beautiful,

and terrifying, and everywhere we turn, a new atrocity.

Then, I close my eyes and picture joy.

Among things, there is this day. Among faces,

there is yours. And I am no longer afraid.

I watch you in your own, quiet moments,

and I want this life. I want this life

to be longer. All I want is more time with you.

I love you.

By Jane Hirshfield

The world asks, as it asks daily:

And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured?

I count, this first day of another year, what remains.

I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands.

Can admire with two eyes the mountain,

actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles.

Can make black-eyed peas and collards.

Can make, from last year's late-ripening persimmons, a pudding.

Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light.

For years, I woke each day first to the mountain,

then to the question.

The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old,

and still they surprised.

I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea,

brought postcards and stamps. For years, each day, something.

Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace.

Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder.

Today, I woke without answer.

The day answers, unpockets a thought as though from a friend-

don't despair of this falling world, not yet

So my 8th period class is a bunch of 9th graders, including some pretty funny boys that I have a good rapport with.

Today I have two of these jokesters seated at the back table by the door, and I notice as I'm lecturing that every time I turn around their table is in a slightly different spot in the room, like a couple of teenage boy Weeping Angels.

Pretty soon it's right at the door.

Then it's partway out the door.

At this point I say, "ok guys, that's too far." Everyone laughs.

The next time I turn around, the table is gone, the boys are gone, and there's just two empty chairs sitting there like the Rapture of 14-yr old jokesters has suddenly happened.

I tell the boy by the door to lock the door, and they suddenly appear at the window (our school doors have windows in them looking into the hall).

I ignore their piteous looks and keep teaching, so they start taking notes through the window. The next time I turn around, they've grabbed two other chairs from down the hallway, set up their table near the door, and are following class through the window.

...

I let them stay out there for a good five to ten minutes before I let them back in.