https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dAY6xI87wQ&t=5s

SEND IN A CLOUD, by Cheng Tsung-lung, 2022.

A performing piece (contemporary dance) by the Cloud Gate, produced by Cheng Tsu-lung. 

Somehow in relation with the continued content of expressionism, connect with symbols, a collage expression of emotion, senses, journey, experiences. These performances inspire and tend to express human emotions through the use of body movements, the voice of visuals, the sound collages.

We had our first group conversation yesterday!

Firstly, it’s a lot easier to tolerate Hesiod when you realize he’s a republican. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps? Be good to your neighbor? Dislikes brother for going to government to redo inheritance? Thinks “he who trusts womankind trusts deceivers” but feels entitled to a sweet wife?

I’m also going to go on a tangent about the actual texts in English. First of all, the book makes zero effort to keep the line breaks of poetry. Given that these were poems, I feel like we’re losing something there, but it’s something that is perhaps impossible to translate so why bother?

I’m thinking about the girl who commented on reading the Iliad in Spanish and how much easier it was to read. And I feel like that’s part of our issue. Why did they put womankind instead of “women”? Because it sounds cooler? Is this equivalent to the formality the poem was written in or were these more casual things, like what you’d read in a newspaper? Like how Jane Eyre is tedious to read but in the past that was how people spoke. Except that’s inexcusable here because I’m not convinced it’s representative of the poetry. After all, they don’t bother to keep the line breaks and I’m to think they stick with the formality?

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is what books I’d give someone in 500 years to learn about today. The “How to talk to anyone: 93 tips and tricks” is a) idealized and b) already a bit outdated in its anecdotes. Now, we have the ready defense that the world is more globalized and it’s the age of information. But if so, shouldn’t there be something we can point to?

To continue on my tangent: a few weeks ago I did some editing for someone online. What I read was science fiction, so perhaps not applicable. But it was bad. It was cliche`. It was sexist (see, something for Hesiod in there!). What if someone took that and thought that attitude was representative of us? Worse, what if it is and I don’t realize? 

Anyway, moving on. Homer writing about the theoretical Mycenean heroes through the modern lens! Imposing today’s social structure with ancient stories and assuming that’s how it always is! 

HELLO GRRM. Probably one of the easiest comparisons. I’d be curious about the word count different. (For reference, the Illiad+Odyssey are a little shy of 300k words, about the length of A Game of Thrones, the shortest of his) (but also when I was looking up something about learning Greek, the first thing you find is always ancient Greek. (Even at tufts, we have a “Greek” major and fun fact I would not have applied if Tufts had, like EVERY OTHER SCHOOL I APPLIED TO, posted their entire course catalog so I could see they don’t offer MODERN Greek) and they were talking about how much more efficient words were in ancient Greek).

Anyway. This is my real world connection. The metric ton of sexism, rape, and childrape is defended as being historically accurate. TLDR is it’s not, it’s just assuming since we had feminism in the 1900s which made things better for women (and were fought every step of the way, because at every point it’s “don’t you have enough”) that things must have been linearly bad in the past. But the actual evidence doesn’t support that.

But Homer can get a pass I guess. He may not have even been a person so meh. 

Pool was shot with an underwater camera using a macro lens in the tide pools of Salt Point State Park in northern California. Circling the projection, there are six unique pools with a central pool of incessant ocean waves. The fine detail of the life in the tide pools, along with their watery disruptions, evoke both the fragility and the resiliency of these miniature worlds at the border of sea and land.

Honey

glass, steel, ultrasound sensors, electronics, radio, honey, human brain              54" x 30"c.              1999            

A human brain rests in honey, encased in a giant glass transistor. Embedded in the glass and steel structure, a radio scans local stations, pausing for a few seconds when it finds a clear signal. Barely audible at a distance, as the brain is barely visible in its bath of honey, sensors cause the radio to grow uncomfortably loud as one approaches for a clearer view.