Try to feel some sympathy...

Going radio silent for the next week.

I've been kidnapped and shipped off to the wilds of Coastal America where I'll be forced to drink wine, eat crab and spend time with people I love in a house that overlooks the sea.

Damnit.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me.

Inktopia brought this guy to my attention and now I keep seeing him all over the place.

How about you guys? Does he haunt your dreams, too?

He is the face of my madness. My obsession.

Tales told by idiots...

"...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Idiocy truly is the gift that keeps on giving. I wish it wouldn't, but it simply doesn't know how.

Today's collection is of statements that at face (almost) sound halfway decent, but disintegrate into nonsense when even the barest hint of scrutiny is applied.

"Not only is The Odyssey still read in schools to this day but the books have been read for over two-thousand years. Its themes are in- depth, well explained, and show up time after time in The Odyssey."

Um, yes? If they're still reading it, presumably they've been doing it for a long time, no? And your second point was that... the themes in the Odyssey are in fact present in the Odyssey. Nicely put. I cannot argue.

"Our nation is based on the individual ideas of each and every person. We took these ideas of democracy from ancient Greece and molded them into a more well-rounded form."

Yes, "America is great" and "anything Greece could do, we could do better" - fine. Now's not the time to burst your bubble on that front. My question for you now is - what the hell do you mean by "more well-rounded"? More of a republic? More of a vaguely representative democracy instead of a pseudo-direct one? I do not follow, good student.

"Ancient Greece is a cornerstone for the United States. We still turn to ancient Greece to grasp concepts and beliefs that would further better our nation's system. One such concept is money. Ancient Greece came up with the idea of money in the 7th century B.C. The united States looks at this and figures out ways to better their own finances in the 21st century."

There are so many things to say about this, so I'll limit myself to one. After this whole credit-crunch-holy-shit-what-happened-to-our-economy-cluster-fuck-to-the-poorhouse, you're going to tell me that the good ol' U.S. of A. is bettering its finances by looking back to Greek economic practices? Specifically their "idea of money"?! What in the hell does that even mean?

"Philosophy and tragedy are two of the most important things that came out of the ancient Greek society. Philosophy was more or less advances in art, science, and politics. Another reason why ancient Greece is important to western culture is because western civilization takes these ideas and what ancient Greece did with them and uses them as a cornerstone to build a more firm foundation."

Ah, yes. I love taking ideas and building more firm foundations out of them from my cornerstone.

"Tragedy is what students read about most in school in books such as Homer's Odyssey, Sophocles' plays such as Antigone and others, and Plato, etc."**

I'm not sure what you were going for here. Tragedy is important because students read them? Unfortunately, I'm guessing you haven't - the Odyssey is not a tragedy. Neither is Plato. He is, in fact, a person. A person who didn't really write tragedies...

"Antigone, Agamemnon and Ajax all have reocurring themes of tragedy which is present in most of ancient Greek plays that were written."

Those plays are all tragedies, yes. Glad you picked up on that. And yeah, most of the plays that survived are tragedies. Except for the comedies. What was your point again?

"Tragedies are examples of human suffering and are important to readers all over the world and western civilization because they give readers a great deal to think about and discuss."

Over tea, perhaps?

"Many different novels written today are based on human suffering and tragedy. Again, this proves the importance of epic poems like the Odyssey to be the cornerstone of modern literature. [sic]"

Who the hell taught you guys to throw "cornerstone" into every sentence? It isn't a magical word that makes your point for you. And the Odyssey hasn't become a tragedy, either. Also, I keep rereading that last sentence and still cannot make sense out of it. "Novels are based on suffering and tragedy, which proves that the importance of the Odyssey is the cornerstone of modern literature." My brain hurts.

"With the look back on the Odyssey it is important because it gives everyone a look back on ancient Greece, showed us our methods of learning and gave us an overlook of the world we live in today. [sic]"

What? We're looking back on the Odyssey that is looking back to show us methods of learning and overlooking?

"Ancient Greece and its developments of literature, art, science, and politics western civilization and the world would not have the same ideas or concepts. [sic]"

Waiter? The check, please.

**{Edit: Phil informs me that Plato did write tragedies, but none are extant! Where have I been? Is this common knowledge? My world just got rocked...}

Food gone horribly wrong!

The Girlfriend and I have taken to sending out cookies and candies for Christmas/Chanukah.

Each year we pick six or seven recipes, bake several batches apiece and ship them out to friends and loved ones. It's a good system: we get to bake, we get to sample all sorts of tasty treats, and at the end of the ordeal we no longer have several dozen cookies sitting around in our kitchen waiting to hop into our mouths at any given moment.

I'll go ahead and say it - we can bake fairly well. We're certainly not going to win any awards here, but we know our way around the kitchen and it's rare that we find a recipe and think, "Oh God, how on earth would we manage that?"

That said, this was a year of epic failure.

At one point we threw up our hands and declared that if we had one more cockup, we were done. Finished. Throw in the towel, ditch the cookies, send them some nice fucking cards and call it over.

Our first taste of disaster came with some coconut candies we were attempting for the first time.

The recipe was remarkably simple:

Stir together 1 1/2 cups of milk and 4 cups of sugar. Heat until it reaches the soft-ball stage. Sure, easy enough. I've got my candy thermometer, I've got my glass of cold water just for testing... Jesus but that is a shit-ton of sugar. Man.

Mix in 4 cups of flaked coconut. Great. No problem. One cup? Looking fine. Kinda soupy. Two cups? A little firmer, a bit like candy. Three cups? Okay, okay, this is still pretty wet here... Four cups? What the fuck? I just made candied sawdust.

Drop by rounded teaspoon onto waxed paper. How the hell am I supposed to make rounded spoonfuls out of this shit? Individual flakes won't even stick together, let alone enough to create a mound. Oh, oh wait... I suppose that there is a cement-like mass in one corner of the pan. That'll be nice on the teeth.

Maybe if we put some in another bowl and pour a little water in there, try to reconstitute it a bit? Yeah... that's nice. I just made coconut cereal. Yum. It's like a bowl full of granola but instead of granola there's crispy flakes of sugar-infused coconut.

Fuck it. I'm microwaving the damned thing. We'll re-melt the sugar and maybe get some of this crap to glom together.

Huh. That kinda worked. Sort of. Whatever, just save what you can and never speak of this again.

Then we made tea-cookies (or thumbprint cookies, I'm told). They were delicious. We pulled one batch out of the oven and they slid effortlessly off the sheet and onto the cooling racks. Great. The other batch, though prepared in exactly the same manner, refused to budge from its cookie sheet. I'm guessing it had something to do with placement in the oven. Regardless, they absolutely would not move. We spatula'ed them - they crumbled to bits. We gently twisted them - they crumbled to bits. We applied sudden, direct force - they crumbled to bits. We begged and pleaded - they crumbled to bits.

This was not something we could send to friends and family.

I may have come very close to throwing some of those damnable (yet so tasty!) cookie bits across the room out of a potent mixture of rage and frustration.

Then, of course, was the almond brittle incident. I still don't know what the hell happened with this, but it pissed me the hell off, whatever it was.

I had my butter/sugar mixture doing just what it needed to be doing. It had reached the hard-crack stage, it was turning a lovely shade of light brown and I poured in my toasted almonds only to watch the entire mixture completely change consistency on me.

The butter immediately separated, the sugar settled to the bottom and the almonds resolutely refused to mix in. Of course the continued heat necessary to coax everything back into solution just burned the whole damned thing anyway. Goddamned candy. Into the trash with you.

It was right around then that the Girlfriend and I made our pact.

I wish I could say that the universe perked up and let us get on with our cooking in peace, but this was not the case. Our failures simply downgraded from epic to marginal.

Our shortbread cookies were to be partially dipped in melted chocolate, then sprinkled with crushed pistachios. Now I'm not a shortbread fan, but anything dipped in chocolate and pistachios is A-OK in my book.

And I was imagining that these cookies would turn out looking classy as hell. Maybe like this?

These are from JV-Foodie. Not me. I only wish. But what the hell is up with that dish?

Heh. Not a chance. The chocolate gooped, the pistachios clumped and our little short bread men looked rather like lepers or elephantitis patients. They were admittedly tasty lepers, but not the most appealing creations ever to leave our kitchen.

Look what your careless hands have wrought!

But then! Then we had leftover chocolate and pistachios.

"Well," thought the Girlfriend, "what if you reheat the chocolate and just make little dollops of chocolate with pistachios sprinkled on top?" Sounds easy, I said. Easy and delicious.

Off to reheat the chocolate, do-be-doo... Just pop it in the microwave, do-ba-doo...

Motherfucker!

Have you ever smelled chocolate not only burning but carbonizing? I have, and it smells like ass.

But it is a generous odor. It does not want you, or anyone else in your home, to miss out on experiencing its splendor - so it sticks around for a good long while to ensure that it is fully appreciated.

After a solid round of cursing and a sheepish call to the Girlfriend at work, "Uh, sweetie, just so you know... it might reek like something climbed out of Hell at home..." I rallied and sallied forth yet again to do battle.

Yeah, yeah - I used a halved pistachio for the picture. Sue me.

Finally, things went alright. But I think we've had enough baking for the season.

Deep, but not too deep.

My students strove, really strove, to dive deep with their papers, to say something truly profound about the effect ancient literature has on us as modern readers. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.

Have a little taste.

After all, if the Odyssey did not survive we would be without a way to say 'An epic adventure' using a single word.

Bravo, gentle student, bra-vo. You have struck to the very heart of the issue.

One difference between the Odyssey and a contemporary work is that someone who reads the Odyssey can quickly tell it was not written in our time. It has a different 'feeling' to it.

I'm going to hazard that maybe this "different 'feeling' " (and I have no idea why you've scare-quoted feeling) has something to do with the fact that the Odyssey was composed in ancient Greek and set over three thousand years ago in a foreign country with largely foreign customs. Good job on picking up on that. But hey, we read it in English, so how different can it be, right?

A modern story would not be able to give us this almost alien world. Yet at the time of its creation this was the norm in society. And the fact that the reader knows that this is actually how it was in ancient Greece gives it an extra level of awe. A similar example of feeling is in the movie Jurassic Park when they explain how they created the dinosaurs. The science they use seems so real and is largely factual.

Two points. Number one, this wasn't "actually how it was in ancient Greece."

Trojan War = Historical Fiction
Athena's Costume Changes = Fiction
Self-Propelled, Self-Guided Ships and Living Metal Dogs = Fiction
The Cyclops, Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis = Fantasy
Sailboats, Swineherds, Warriors = Realistic

Number two. Did you seriously reference Jurassic Park as a 'largely factual' and realistic example? Do you see any dinosaur theme parks around here?!

When Zeus [tells Poseidon to wall off the island of the Phaeacians], it is as if we have just seen the president of a modern super power give the order to annihilate a small country and we know nothing can stop the Phaeacians' coming misfortune.

Sometimes (but not often) I wonder why some people are so violently anti-American. Thanks for the reminder.

And so the world is thankful for the stroke of chance that was the Odyssey's survival into our time.

There are conclusions and there are conclusions. This is the former.

Nowadays we would probably call it karma, to Odysseus it would be hubris, or the will of the god.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. Then again, neither do you.

The main antagonists are the suitors; they use the hosts' house while he is gone, eat all his food and court his wife. In modern western society, this would be compared to a neighbor hosting a rowdy football party at your house without permission.

Only if your neighbor then emptied your bank accounts, repeatedly tried to fuck your wife and convince her of your death and took a break from all that only to plot your son's betrayal and murder. Then yes, it would be just like a neighbor hosting a rowdy football party at your place.

The season of the festival of light!

The Kitchen Witch hosted a little give-away contest the other day to see who could come up the the most "brilliant idea for a holiday gift--one that would make your life or your job or your day a little easier... in the spirit of the Valium Salt Lick" which she'd suggested a few posts ago.

My entry rather surprisingly won and I suddenly found myself the soon-to-be recipient of a ZhuZhu. I'd heard tell of these things, of their magical allure this holiday season and the attendant joy that follows them everywhere.

Being a male in my mid twenties with no children, however, I was not sure I was the creature's target audience. Not that I'm an ungrateful cad, mind you, but what the hell am I going to do with a wiggling hampster? So, I politely requested that the Witch send its chunky little butt to one of the local children's hospitals that are participating in the annual Child's Play Charity instead of me.

Which gets me round to my point.

If you're a huge dork and you don't already have a hojillion charities you're donating to, I heartily recommend Child's Play. It's an annual drive to get toys/games/entertainment to kids who are stuck in children's hospitals around the world with (typically) fairly little to keep them occupied/distracted/happy during what can be a fairly hellish experience.

I say "if you're a huge dork" because Child's Play was created by the gaming webcomic Penny Arcade a few years back as a bit of a casting of the gauntlet in response to the frequent cries of "Gamers are useless, violent psychopaths who care nothing for their fellow man." So they started a charity to help kids.

Their first year I believe they raised something like $400,000.

This year they're already over $1.3 million.

So if you've got a few spare bucks, maybe you'd consider tossing some their way?

'Tis the season, bitches.

(Very Special) Thoughts on Love

I couldn't bring myself to talk about this paper in the context of others. This one is special. It deserves to be savored and mulled over in peace, so its own particular qualities may truly be appreciated.

Let us begin gently.

A woman like Penelope would be admired in our world today...

Sure. She is an intelligent, cunning woman - the only mortal in the Odyssey to outwit Odysseus himself. While still the typical submissive Greek wife in many ways, there are several moments where she asserts her authority and we can see a glimmer of feminine independence and power.

... because she waited faithfully for 20 years for Odysseus to return home.

Oh. That's why she's admirable. Because she "stayed true" to her man in some hyperbolic display of chastity and dependence that even the Greeks thought was overboard. Hm. Okay. I can't really argue with that, I suppose. Not as fun, but fine - she was super-committed to Odysseus. Commitment is swell.

Some women today cannot stay faithful if there [sic] husband goes to work for eight hours.

Whoa! Hang on a second there. There's a story here, but now is not the right time for it. No, sir. Wow. Really? Man, I'm sorry, I think? What the hell am I even supposed to do with something like this? I'm just going to keep reading, okay?

... The sad part about this is Odysseus did not return the favor. While on his journey he slept with many different women.

True enough. There was a major double-standard for the Greeks when it came to sex. Women only get to sleep with their husbands where men can freely sleep with a whole host of available partners ranging from prostitutes to adolescent men.

This is the common conception in the world today as well.

To some extent, I guess... I might argue that things have progressed a fair ways since the days of keeping our women-folk locked in the house, but sure - promiscuous men are still lauded for their sexual victories while women are typically vilified for them. I can agree to that.

When men go away for periods of time, they have mistresses.

Wait, what? Like, always? Wha... I can't even get my head wrapped around this. "When men go away..." Not some men. Not many men. Men. All of them.

"When men go away for periods of time..." Presumably more than a long weekend, but hey, "periods of time" is pretty general. Maybe that qualifies? How about a long lunch? Is that a 'period of time'? I don't even know. I am so confused right now.

"When men go away for periods of time, they have mistresses." Again, no qualifier. Not "they sometimes have mistresses." Not "they often have mistresses." Just "they have mistresses."

I don't know what to say. Except to suggest that perhaps your view on men and their mistresses might inform your statement about "some women" and their capability of remaining faithful while their husbands are at work. Just a thought.

(Not My) Thoughts on Love

With the quarter's end, it is now open season on idiotic papers and this year the herd is abundant.

Today's theme is love. Love in all its myriad expressions, as seen through the eyes of undergraduate students at a large university who've been reading far too much Greek literature for their taste. And to these students I often found myself asking the same questions, "What century are we living in?" "How can you possibly think like this?" and "What in the name of all that is good and holy is wrong with you?"

And so it is without further ado that I present to you:

Thoughts On Love

"Calypso loves having men around. Then again, why would she not. [sic] She lives on an island all by herself with no men around. If she could have a man with her at all time [sic] she would."

Really, sweetie? Is this really how Calypso feels or are you perhaps projecting some of your own emotions onto her character? Remember that it is not every woman's stated desire to have a big, strong man by her side forever and always. That said, she was pretty fond of Odysseus. I'll give you that. But try not to make the both of you seem like man-crazy floozies, hmm?

"Helen's biggest problem is that she just loves men."

We're going here? You're taking the "Helen must have wanted it" stance? Next you're going to tell me that she shouldn't have dressed so slutty, right? Maybe Helen's biggest problem was being a woman in a completely male-dominated society where pretty young wives were treated like baby-making, wool-spinning trophies. I think that's more on point. Then again, I read the Odyssey and I'm pretty sure that you just watched Troy. And yeah, that one was about the Iliad, asshat.

"Killing your husband is not a good thing and the gods tend to frown upon it."

Stop the fucking presses. The gods don't approve of spousal slaughter? Where have I been? Next you're going to tell me that if your wife kills you, it's a pretty clear sign she doesn't like you...

"It is pretty clear that Clytaemnestra does not honor her husband, for she kills him."

Son of a...!

"Now a day [sic], women can strut around in high heels and skimpy outfits and make all the men drool. This allows women to have control over men in at least one way, sexually. In the epic poem, women have to manage without high heels to seduce the men, but still are able to use sex appeal in their favor."

I see where you're going, I do. I just... I don't want to go to that place. This isn't a fruitful discussion about feminine sexual weaponry or politics. This is a spray-on tan and one too many cosmos shrieking "Girl Power!!" before puking under the bar. Here's a towel. Wipe yourself up and come back in a few years when you're ready to talk with the grown ups. Wait, what's that? You want to say something else? Fine. One last chance.

"Odysseus sleeps with the 'lustrous goddess' with no lament. Calypso appeals to his desire for lust and more than fulfills it. This phrase of being a 'lustrous goddess' appears many times in the text to reiterate the fact. With this lust, Calypso is able to manipulate Odysseus and get what she wanted, his love and company."

Oh, yeah. That was thirty seconds I'll never get back. Two things:

1) Calypso is divine. She says 'Jump!' Odysseus says, "How high?" She doesn't need to use her sexuality to manipulate the man. She wants sex + they're on an island in the middle of nowhere + she's a friggin' demigod = Calypso and Odysseus fuck like bunnies.

2) "Lustrous." In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

A Public Service Announcement

*ahem*

Students. Orestes was chased by the Furies and not, as so many of you have eloquently written on your final, the Furries.

I only wish I could make this shit up.

"Mathematically impossible" is the phrase.

I had a lovely meeting with a student this morning.

"I really screwed up this quarter. If I turn in my paper to you now and do really well on the final, can I still pass your class?"

Well, student, I don't think so. Your paper is two and a half weeks late. And since it lost 10% every day, it's now worth... negative points, I guess? I'm not sure how that works, really. But don't turn it in, whatever you do.

Actually, let me rephrase that. Don't furiously write a paper in two hours and then turn it in out of some desperate last-minute hope for redemption. Your grade is fucked, son. Proper fucked.

"But I need this class to graduate."

Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? I guess I do, if I think about it. On the level of basic human compassion, I'm genuinely sorry that you've so thoroughly managed to cock up what should have been an easy class. A cakewalk, as it were. But not coming to class for five weeks has a tendency to do that. And yeah, not writing the paper that's worth a quarter of your grade certainly helped, too.

"Great. Do you have any advice for telling my parents I won't be graduating?"

You're trying to guilt me here, aren't you? Not working. Sorry. Anyhow, my advice? Have a really good reason for why you 'screwed up this quarter.' Come to think of it, this is an odd time to graduate. Why the hell are you graduating in this unorthodox season?

"Uh, that's how the credits worked out."

Credits rarely work themselves out in this fashion. You're either planning to graduate early, in which case I can almost sympathize. Or you're graduating several quarters late, in which case this isn't your first time to the rodeo.

"Well I was supposed to graduate last spring. But I screwed up that quarter, too."

Ah. There we are. Not only have you screwed up this time, but you've got at least two other quarters of shenanigans under your belt. That takes moxy, kid. On the plus side, it looks like you've already practiced your "I'm not graduating" speech a couple times. Third time's a charm, right? But hey, at least you don't have to bother about getting up early for the final. Sure, you can take it if you'd like, but I can guarantee you your time would be better spent doing pretty much anything else.

If I could give you some pity points for not bawling your eyes out or yelling at me, I would. But I can't. So I won't. I hope things go better for you next time around.

My meaning must be endlessly retreating

Literary theory has its uses. I can admit that.

And sometimes, literary theory is the academic equivalent of fishing around in the garage, pulling out your old pair of skates and slapping on a new coat of paint in the hopes that now, twenty years later, they'll magically fit.

You know what? They don't fit. They never did. That's why they're hiding in a box in the garage.

So please, please stop throwing "discourse" into your book in the hopes that it'll make everything better. Foucault can't save your pathetic arguments or weak logic. Neither can post-colonialism. Or post-modernism, for that matter. "There is no outside of the text"? Fuck you. If I want a hotdog, I guess I'll have to navigate that linguistic minefield all on my own, won't I? I can tell you now that all it takes is about a buck seventy five and a longing for indigestion. Guess that "maze of signifiers" wasn't so hard to deal with after all. Or was it? Once you realize you'll never pin down my authorial intent, I suppose you can decide what it meant all by yourself.

And for God's sake when the hell did "othering" become a verb? And who the fuck decided we needed to capitalize it right along with "self"? You make me want to Other my Self from your Shitty Book.

Plagiarism, an update

All in all, I only had to meet with three students about plagiarizing. Thank God it wasn't, as some of you predicted, in the dozens.

Each meeting was remarkably different, yet often very, very similar.

Student A all but confessed before I could even say hello. He wept. He offered me an updated version of his paper (prepared before our meeting, I'll add) that cited the website the entirety of his essay essentially paraphrased. I declined to accept it. "So all this extra work was useless?" he sighed plaintively. I gave an apologetic shrug. "Pretty much." He cried a little more. I haven't seen him in class since.

Student B was initially very, very shocked to hear there was a problem with his paper. He ardently defended himself and the originality of his work until I showed him several pages from the internet with remarkably similar ideas and phrases. His eyes got misty. There were profound apologies. "I never meant to pull the wool over your eyes, sir."

There were bargains. "What can I do to make it up to you, sir? Can I write another paper, sir?"

Why would I want to read yet another paper? Why are you suddenly calling me 'sir'? And why do you think that if you royally fucked up one paper (and believe me, plagiarizing was the least of your worries) that you suddenly get a reprieve and the chance to do it all over again? If you bomb the final, should I let you take a second one?**

There was anger. "I really tried to write a good paper and answer the prompt creatively. I guess in the future I just shouldn't try so hard."

No. That's not the lesson here. The lesson here is that if someone else's ideas influence your own, you should acknowledge that. The other lesson is that you should really make sure the different sources you're using actually talk about the same play you are. Yours don't. It's kind of a problem.

There was blame. "You never told us we had to have a certain number of citations, so I didn't include them. I've written lots of other papers just like this and never had a problem."

Two things. Number one? I told you that you didn't have to bring in outside sources, but if you did, you had to cite them. We're not in grade school anymore. Read the fucking instructions. Number two? "Lots of other papers just like this"? Yeah. If I'd been on the fence about reporting this to the academic misconduct committee, this little remark clinched it.

Student C's paper was fresh off whatever site or smuggling ring that employs decent writers to do other students' work. The thesis was vague, yet appropriate. The sort of canned hash you'd expect would pass in any basic Greek Lit class, but bore little resemblance to anything discussed in class. All his sources were web-based, as were his translations. Everything was perfectly cited and any errors were miniscule. A far cry from his other written work where communicating in even basic English seems to be a stretch.

But, none of this really meant anything as it was absolutely impossible to prove. Still, I wanted to talk with the student, just to get an idea of whether he knew anything about the paper, where the ideas came from, something.

It went great. Within minutes of speaking, it was absolutely clear that it was this guy's work. His explanations were cogent and unforced (Oh, I got the idea when we discussed x, y & z in recitation - here are my notes from that day...), he wasn't defensive in the least and he answered a number of our questions before we even got around to asking them (I have x disability which is why my writing in class is so poor...).

It was good to be proven wrong. A) It meant that one less student had screwed up and B) it was a fantastic display of innocence. It's useful to see how students react when they know ahead of time they've done something questionable, but I think it was more useful to see a student's reaction who hadn't done a damned thing wrong.

I felt bad for putting Student C in such an awkward position and admitted as much halfway through our meeting. He took it extremely well and was thoroughly understanding and cooperative, but it was a unique experience. One I'll not soon forget.

**Anything in italics is definitely my own internal monologue. None of it actually escaped the gate of my teeth.