(no subject)

Morning all.
Well, all that are having a morning. Anyone not having a morning when you read this can save up a 'good morning' for later.

I have been thinking about Really Annoying Cancelled Course. Also emailing places.
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So that should be simple. Go make new story.

Why am I not making new story?
*sigh*

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

I did my Myth & Med homework. I did the reading. I posted something long and thinky on the discussion board.
I did not make a backup of the long and thinky post, because why would I need to?
Well why I'd need to is because the Myth & Med Blackboard has now been deleted, and a course with the wrong code is up instead. With none of the documents. Or my thinky post.
I looked stuff up! With quotes! And managed to find a way to make Batman comics editorials of the distant past relevant and insightful in a cultural studies context!

*sigh*

Word fame never dies -> signals and degrees of immortality -> actors as famous for mutability -> most powerful stories about the perfectability of humans -> Change Is -> if celebrity is immortality it's a form that involves rebirth.

chain of thought reconstructed. post reconstructed later.


*looks again*
Course documents are back up. Some of them twice. So it's an ongoing work in progress thing. I'll check again this evening and see if my posts is doooomed.

(no subject)

Parodos
A "parodos" is either of two passages on each end of the orchestra in front of the skene of a Greek open-air amphitheater such as the theater at Epidaurus (See Gisela Richter's Handbook of Greek Art). Actors might enter through a parodos, and the Chorus would enter that way.
"Parodos" also refers to the section of the play following the prologue, in which the Chorus enters chanting or singing verses (alternating strophes and antistrophes) that provide background for the events of the play.

... it means two things? That explains a lot. *facepalm*

Skene
the skene was the background building which connected the platform stage, in which costumes were stored and to which the periaktoi (painted panels serving as the background) were connected.

oh, cool
http://people.hsc.edu/drjclassics/lectures/theater/ancient_greek_theater.shtm
Dr. J's Illustrated Greek Theater

pictures!

Skene and parodos again:
By the time of Aeschylus, the skene came complete with a painted (probably) facade representing the power source of the play, usually a palace or temple. The backdrop also included a door, through which actors could enter and exit the performance area. Murders and other violent scenes were usually performed out of sight of the audience, "behind closed doors." Therefore, classical theater often resorted to the use of a wheeled cart called an ekkyklema to divulge the activity acted out "behind the scenes." The most typical burdens of the ekkyklema was the corpse of a murdered individual.

The circular pathway that surrounds the orchestra is called the parodos and can be accessed from either side of the skene. The parodos is an important element of the Greek theater and serves a double purpose: first, it provides the audience with a way to access their seats. More importantly for the purpose of staging the play, though, it provides access to the chorus and some actors to the orchestra. The chorus never entered the orchestra from the skene, and some characters are denied access because they lack the might and right to be associated with the power structure represented by the skene: messengers, visitors, exiles, etc
It is not uncommon, however, for characters to move freely between the skene and the orchestra. In the case of human beings, ramps or stairways serve their purpose, but in the case of divine messengers or visitors, a mechane (crane) would lift them bodily into the air.

/quote

Deus ex machine = god on a stick.



Anapest is a poetry word. Di di dum. a-na-pest.
Changing poetry rhythm is a signal in the greek language versions of greek plays but not so much showing up in the translated ones, iirc, because greek can mess around with word order way easier than English.

A lot of this education lark is just vocabulary.

Going going gone elephants

The Norwich 'go elephants' project finished up yesterday, with a grand elephant parade and an auction. I went to see the elephants on the way home. They were very cool. And while it was cool seeing them all together, I'm glad they were scattered about Norwich before. It's much more interesting to have to go look for the elephants.

The auction raised a whole lot of money. The estimates in the brochure were, er, a little on the low side, on the whole. There's a full price list in the Norwich Evening News website. The brochure before the auction had as a high end estimate for the most expensive elephants about £3,000. Which sounds like quite a lot, for an elephant, but apparently is not much for an elephant shaped bit of art.

The most expensive elephant was £25,000.
Twenty five thousand pounds.
*blinks*

Woah.

That was a black and gold elephant by an artist with a Name. I liked the black and gold elephant, but not to the tune of £25,000.

The one I liked best was the mirrored one that so perfectly matched the architecture in the arcade. That one went for £16,000. Which is quite considerable a lot. It said in the paper the guy that bought it doesn't know what he'll do with it, he just doesn't want it to leave Norwich. Which is fair enough, but, well, also kind of amusing. £16,000 worth of silver-white elephant.
I hope it goes back in the arcade. It could look good elsewhere but it looked great there. Only trouble is, now it's worth £16,000. Parking that in a public place? Tricky.

The other one I liked best - yes I can too have two bests - was Teleportation, or tELEportation. It had a TARDIS on the back. It was awesome. It was in the bus station, which just makes you think about how the bus isn't bigger on the inside at all at all. I think it should go outside the Forum outside the shop that does the Doctor Who signings. I don't know where it's going to go. But it cost £6,000. The guide price reckoned £2250. They underestimated the power of the TARDIS there.

Some of the prices on those elephants make me wonder if they were serving bubbly at the auction. Even the one that looked like a giant elephant sized bee sold for as much as the cool complicated TARDIS one did. They all cost a bundle.

I think though this is what happens when you put stuff in front of people for months, so it's accessible and they pass by some of it often yet it needs to be actively sought out for full benefit. That gets them involved and invested. And it's pretty and interesting and unique, so they do seek it out. And then they can go buy it. There's only one of it, and one chance to get it, and they've had all summer to think about it and for it to work its way into their lives somehow. So when they finally do get sold... spectacular response.

It's a bit like convention auctions, where people are, yes, usually a bit drunk, but mostly are going oooooh because these are one of a kind things and they wants them and they're from things they've been watching every week and putting work into seeking out and all that good stuff.

If you just sell stuff in shops it doesn't hold the same place in a life at all. In a shop or an art museum I don't reckon big elephants would have the same response at all. What people are buying here isn't just the pretty but also the place in the narrative.

Every elephants has a story.

Pretty cool.

(no subject)

I'm reading "Stagecraft in Euripides", because it's the skinniest hardback book ever, and skinny books to study are clearly of win. But I'm only up to page 18, because it's full of fiddly details, examples and counterexamples and exceptions and why they aren't really exceptions and... I've already ate a tub of chocolate goo, and checked my email, and rearranged the books on my shelves. I know I'm not usually little miss focus, but this one is not helping.

Greek tragedy had a basic structure:
actors do talking, then leave. Chorus does singing. Actors come back on and do more talking, then leave. Chorus does singing again. Rinse and repeat.

So if actors are leaving or coming back in that pattern, with the lyric bits between, then they're not announced. If they're leaving or coming on in the middle of the talking bits, they're announced. Except for sometimes they're announced even if there has just been a chorus lyric bit. In these cases often they're a corpse or a condemned prisoner and there's a particular anapest rhythm to the announcing. The rhythm connects the situations. It's for talking about dead men moving around, apparently.

There's also a bit about how gods don't talk to mortals in this dude's plays, they just turn up and do some talking and leave before the mortals get there.



Okay, assuming I've understood what he's getting at... I read 18 pages of that? Yes. *sigh*


I think I'll go read about Medea instead. It seems a shame when it's a tiny skinny book, but it's so fiddly I think, even though it's being interesting in its way, I'm going to have to come back to it later. Er, if at all.

(no subject)

Dear writing about Greek Tragedy people: Could you please stop using the actual greek when there's perfectly good English words available?

What's oikos and polis when it's at home?
*googles*
Ah. Oikos is home. ... the pun was on accident, honest.

Wiki sez:
An oikos (ancient Greek: οίκος, plural: οίκοι) is the ancient Greek equivalent of a household, house, or family.

In Ancient Greek literature, the nature of the Oikos was prevalent, and indeed, the cornerstone of this ancient society. However, in the 5th century B.C., ancient Greek writers orientated the nature of the Oikos with the Polis (the city state); the conflict between these two was addressed in Greek Tragic theatre. The conflicting interests with both the Oikos and Polis lead to the structural decay of the society.

An oikos was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states, and included the head of the oikos (usually the oldest male), his extended family (wife and children), and slaves living together in one domestic setting. Large oikoi also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the ancient economy.

/wiki

hmm, so, no, home is not an exact equivalent. It's a socio-economic unit we don't exactly use any more. Right, fair enough then.
*Adds to list*

Wiki:
A polis is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens.
/wiki

okay, another set of nuances that actually don't translate.


... fine, okay, fair enough, use greek.


... where's a better place than wiki to look these up?
Maybe one of the more general books I haven't finished or made notes on.

well at least I finished one thing I started reading today

I read 'A Woman's Place in Euripides Medea' , Margaret Williamson, in Euripedes, Women, and Sexuality, Ed Anton Powell, Routledge. from 1990.
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(no subject)

I tried that Stagecraft book again, but this time I looked up Medea in the index and only read those bits. That worked much better. Also whoever bent the corners and did underlining was studying Medea too, which simplifies things somewhat, irritating though the habit may be. So now I've read it making some specific points about unusual or surprise entrances and exits in Medea, of which there are many, but all constructed carefully to stick together and make points.

The Nurse announces the children at the start, which wouldn't usually be so, but she's saying she's worried about them, so now we all know what to worry about. The dude from Athens turns up a bit fortuitously, but the problem that he's the required solution to has been set up pretty clearly when she's worrying about where she'll go, and his concern about getting children ties in to and possibly suggests to Medea her course of action. The chorus sing about how the children will surely die now and then their teacher comes home oblivious saying how they'll be saved from exile, which is ironically true, because they're not sent away when they're dead. And at the end when Jason turns up and heads for the main doors it's really quite a lot of a surprise how she turns up flying above everyone. Especially when you might expect her and the kids to be wheeled out on the corpse trolley with the special name. There's another story just been mentioned where the mother commits suicide after the gods drove her mad so she'd do such a bad thing, and then Jason heads for the doors and you think you're getting another one of those, but no, Medea is all in control of herself and flying like gods do. Big surprise.

Very skinny book. All done.
I think I'll remember this one as 'pay attention to the ins and outs' and send it back to library again.