so long and thanks for all the fish

In The Odyssey, Odysseus is extraordinary for the flexibility with which he can inhabit many different names, or no name at all. It is this quality of being multinamed and nameless that enables him to survive. By contrast, almost all the warriors of The Iliad yearn to have a name and a story that lasts forever. Their many names and titles, as sons and brothers and comrades and fathers and rulers, are essential to their identities, their connections with one another, and their fame after death. They fear, above all, being humiliated (cursed with a negative name), or forgotten and nameless. The lists and catalogs of names are essential to the poem’s own work, of memorializing and mourning the dead. Once the bodies return to dust, these syllables are all that remain.

how it feels to be slightly tipsy while someone explains the rules of a board game that takes months to understand

watched a sheep-shearing demo yesterday and the sheep do this thing. where they kick and struggle and bleat as the farmer drags them into place for clipping and wrestles them onto their back. the sheep hate it so much because they don't know what's happening.

when the characters you like get beat the fuck up