The end of January

 Cold snap, eh? Worst time for the fire alarm to go off at work. Horrible time for the kids until the fire truck arrived to save the afternoon. Meanwhile, the smoke alarms at the complex have been checked. All is well... sorta. On the literary front, I've been getting into Rilke. Good, introspective stuff. Now I've moved on to summat absurdist.

  Been thinking about a dude I went to school with. He died when I was in 11th grade. Every now and then, I think about the dude and wonder what he might have done had the Crab not moved in. Now I'm 45 and he would have been 47 had Grimmie not had other plans. He was a fantastic artist. Would he have continued down that creative path? Maybe settled down and started a family.

  Or maybe he would have joined the group Springsteen sang of in 'Glory Days'. What might have been, amirite? Anyway, I hope my viewers are doing well and keeping warm.

BYE.

Seeking creativity

 But instead I thought about limericks. Next blog post I'll try my hand at the worst limericks I could think of. I promise that these will be horrible. You, my few followers, have been warned. Nice outside. The Ides of March approacheth. Oh, and mi hermana wished me Happy Mar10 day.

 Hey, have-a some pasta! Meanwhile, prices are going up. We know what's to blame. Does not even deserve a 'who'. Simming continues. Reading continues. Life continues.

BYE.

Testing... tap... tap...

     I am going to give the new format a shot, as it's going to become the main format by the end of June. Just a bit of drivel about my thoughts and what I've been doing.

     I have a shiny new lappy with a touchpad and this raised-by-mouse old crone is feeling crazy disoriented with the new setup. I have a wireless mouse I could transfer back and forth from compy to lappy but I guess I should at least TRY and get used to the touchpad. Apparently I am not the only one who has dealt with this ageless struggle. Don't you love 'first world problems'? Anyway, I have also been reading more because of the pandemic. My current exploration is 'The works of Matthew Arnold'.

    I have loved Matthew Arnold since I first heard 'Dover Beach' being read aloud. Of late, I've been studying his poetry and loving every moment of it. He's melancholic without being too bitter (Hello, Souster!) and the imagery is stunning. This guy was very fond of the ancient Greeks as well. Now I want to read Sophocles and his compatriots. I have to wonder if Arnold was a looker in the 1800s. Side-whiskers were considered attractive, iirc. This school inspector travelled England looking at the various schools. And he wrote poems.

 

     Nothing new on the cooking horizon though I did buy some instant rice vermicelli. Rice noodle ramen? I have plans. It's pretty grim-looking outside and Arnold's poetry just makes sense. But enough of that. The month is coming to an end.

BYE.

On the Literary Front #3

Wrapped up a day and a bit of Book Fair and spent the weekend recuperating from standing much more than is good for me. My ankle ached relentlessly from all the abuse and I had to wear a Tensor bandage all yesterday. Things are improved now, and I can actually walk without whimpering at every laboured step. This post is more about what I'm reading than what I'm writing, but it counts as literary in my book. I finished reading one version on Homer's 'Iliad' recently and I have a few things to meander through concerning this legended saga and its players. I didn't come across the Trojan Horse while I read, so I have to figure that it will come up elsewhere. Maybe in 'Aeneid', eh? I have a collection of works by Virgil warming up, and the 'Aeneid' is part of this collection. Anyway, I have another version of 'Iliad' waiting in the wings, which I will eventually pull out and read.
It's part of my plan to compare the two versions and see what difference and similarities come up. The first of the two I read was translated by a fellow by the name of Butler. It was set up in a prose format rather than a poetry format, which I found unusual. I enjoyed the story and characters, but it was the writing that I paid attention to. Well-written to say the least. Rich with details I don't recall from past readings, which I figure were added to flesh out the story. This is needed for prose compared to poetry, which does not always need many words to get its point across. This time I also paid closer attention to the characters. During past readings, I could rarely determine which heroes fought for which side. Were Aeneas and Achilles compatriots or something? They fought on opposite sides, to be honest with you. This was something I did not know. Now I'll probably never forget.
What really blew me away was Homer's treatment of the gods and goddesses. They prove to be as flawed as us foolish mortals, and this makes Them even worse than we are, in my considered opinion. Hera rooted for the Greeks, Aphrodite rooted for the Trojans, and Zeus had to play judge between the two warring factions. Reminds me of the gladiator games, where the wealthy figures had their favourites and bet big money on them. The gods and goddess of Olympus were just big shots playing with thousands of lives, which makes Them far worse than those wealthy figures of later years. Like pieces on a vast chessboard; or, to use a 20th century comparison, like warriors in a video game, battling for dominance in a pixellated universe. No wonder companies make video games, mining the myths and sagas for inspiration.
I'll be back before long, and maybe with more myths to discuss. BYE.