OT: Thank G-d for small favors…

HUGE day for me (and for the whole of the Obscurae really) this past Sunday.  After 18 months, my church successfully voted in a new pastor. (In the UCC, we make an offer…the candidate accepts it contingent upon congregational vote, so it really was in our hands)  Not a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned.  I love this church…I was raised in it…my mom was raised in it…my kids have been raised in it, but the past year, especially the last month, has tested my mettle, as the lay leadership (Lay leader?  Me?!  Yeah, I have no idea how the H#$L that happened either!!) has been called to do more and more. I was seriously close to being “churched out.”  I realized last Thursday – at the beginning of a monster weekend of activities – that the only time I have vertigo attacks anymore is when I’m at church or discussing church business.  Yeah…not good.

I met our new Pastor at about 8:30, with a G in my right hand and an F# in my left as he lead the chime choir in prayer before our performance.  I met him again at 8:40 when I hooked him up to the lapel mike and requested that he turn it off when he wasn’t actively speaking since it piggy backs on the audio port for any computer generated music.  Then we connected again at 9:06 when I handed him a handheld mike after said lapel mike sent up a horrendous cacophony when he switched it on…I am co-chair of the technology team.  When he officially begins in November, I imagine I’ll also “meet” him again as the Director of the K-6th Grade and 7-12th Grade youth group.

I’ve been “wearing so many hats.”   I’m tired, and I’ve begun to actively resent the time I spend…so has my family.  My commitment to service hasn’t wavered, but I was practically wriggling at the vote and the inspiration and rejuvenation that a charismatic new leader could bring to this place I care about so much.  It was like a load had been lifted from my shoulders.

That lightness has continued into the week…with hope for the future, I’ve finally found some time to launch into some seasonal “porch-scaping”

Needs more pumpkins…

Halloween is certainly not the most sacred of holidays, but for me it marks a seasonal transition…a precursor for a season that is around the corner.  For the first time in a long time, I’m really looking forward to it.

Beautiful Dreamers…Richard Armitage and Cupid

After a moment of uncertainty about Richard Armitage’s role, calm has been restored and I am good to go on another sleep themed foray into the classical tRAdition as shooting on Sleepwalker continues.  Today’s installment is the mythological story of Cupid (Eros) and Psyche.  In both the Greek and Roman pantheons, Cupid is a god associated with love…armed with a quiver of “love darts.”  Although he is often depicted as a roly poly winged baby, there are probably as many depictions of the god as a beautiful young man.  It is in this form that he appears the following story which survives only in the account of Apuleius within the 4th century AD novel The Golden Ass.  

The full story begins at the end of Book IV and continues through Books V and VI and is well worth a read.  I’m just going to highlight a small portion of it here:

“In a certain city there lived a king and queen, who had three daughters of surpassing beauty. Though the elder two were extremely pleasing, still it was thought they were only worthy of mortal praise; but the youngest girl’s looks were so delightful, so dazzling, no human speech in its poverty could celebrate them, or even rise to adequate description.“

Uh-oh.  In myth, it is never a good sign when a human is so remarkable in anything as to attract attention away from the gods, and that is exactly what happens here.  The beauty of the youngest daughter, Psyche, was so great that people began to slow down in their worship of Venus (the goddess of Love and Beauty) to instead pay homage to Psyche.  Word got back to Venus and she was predictably offended and outraged.  She sent Cupid as the instrument of her revenge, but instead of punishing the girl, he fell in love with her on sight and implemented a plan to have her for his own.

After a consult with the Delphic Oracle, Psyche’s father the king was told to prepare his youngest daughter for marriage to a monster…a dragon even.  So, Psyche was dressed up in funeral clothes and set out on a rock to take one for the home team.  Instead of her prophesized scaly groom, she was swept up by Zephyr (the West wind) and transported to a beautiful flowery field where she fell peacefully asleep.  When she woke she found herself on the edge of a carefully tended copse, and upon exploration, she found a beautiful palace.  It seems that her mysterious new husband planned to keep her in the lap of luxury.  She is treated to a delicious banquet that served serves itself accompanied by the music of an invisible lyre.

Leery, but still curious, she consented to be led to a bedroom where her groom visited her in darkness to consummate the marriage.  She quickly began to look forward to his visits, which always came in a darkness.  Although he was tender and indulgent with Psyche, he warned her that she must never look at him in the light.  Although Psyche seemed content with the arrangement, and even conceived a child, she was lonely and convinced her secretive husband to bring her sisters to the palace for a visit.  From here, things began to unravel for Psyche.  Jealous at the opulence in which Psyche lives, her sisters planted seeds of doubt about her attentive, but unseen husband.  They convinced her to uncover his true identity lest he actually a be a monster who was planning to consume both Psyche and her unborn child.

Young and insecure, Psyche was swayed, and carried out a plan cooked up by her sisters.  One night after her husband had fallen asleep, she retrieved a hidden lamp and a dagger to reveal and kill the monster in her bed.

Cupid and Psyche by Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Source

When she held the light closer, instead revealing a monster, she saw the most beautiful creature that she has ever seen – Cupid.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume he looked like this…*cough*

Where was I?  Oh, right…most beautiful creature and all.  Anyway, Psyche was so startled by the sight that she pricked herself on one of Cupid’s arrows and spilled hot lamp oil onto her beautiful dreamer.  Startled and angered by her mistrust, Cupid flew away from her.  Psyche tried to follow him (and who wouldn’t if he looked like that ^^ ?) but even wounded, he alluded her and she was left alone.

What follows for Psyche was a series of wanderings and labors that rival those of Odysseus, Aeneas and Hercules.  Despite the kindly wishes of Ceres and Juno on Psyche’s behalf, Venus remained unmoved and vindictively set her on a series of increasing impossible tasks until Cupid finally realized his love for Psyche was unchanged and intervened…cue super romantic reunion.

Psyche awakened by Cupid’s kiss by Canova
Source

This story is a like a greatest hits album of classical literary themes…myth, tragedy, epic…with a little Roman style happy ending worthy of a Disney princess tale thrown in!  So there you have it…in honor of Richard Armitage’s role in Sleepwalker, another slumber story from the classical tRAdition for your reading pleasure.

 

You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

I love this…let’s all try it!!

A Small Act Of Kindness Can Bring Smile On Million Faces

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Inter Alia: Results of Autumnal Wanderings

1.  Lots of leaves to peep…my photographic skills simply cannot capture the vibrancy of the scenery but I have a few shots

Fall is upon us

2. The weather has definitely turned, but the remnants of summer linger here and there…

3.  I have some odd fascination with sheep…

Aren’t they adorable?

4.   I can spend an hour searching the beach for “treasures”

I see earrings and pendants ….

5.  Despite one turkey induced near panic attack, I had a great day wandering with my husband…we should make time to do it more often!

 

 

Sleeping Beauties: Richard Armitage and Endymion

Given that I am almost never the first person to hear about Richard Armitage related news, I’m going to assume that everyone is aware of his new project, Sleepwalker…reportedly a suspenseful film about a somnambulist (Ahna O’Reilly) in which Richard Armitage plays a doctor specializing in sleep disorders.  The subject of this film called to mind several things.  One is that I need to have a sleep study done, but I have been putting it off…in part because of my schedule, but also because I am slightly uneasy with the vulnerability aspect of it all.  The notion of having people observe me while I’m asleep and not aware of my actions unnerves me quite a bit.

More interestingly, it got me thinking about how stories of sleep manifest in classical myth.  The Greek god Hypnos (Somnus in Latin) governed sleep…he was generally considered a benevolent deity who gifted mankind with the renewing benefits of sleep.  There is not a terrible lot of mythology surrounding this rather minor god, but there are several really interesting myths centered around a sleeping figure.  One of my favorites is the story of Endymion and Selene.

Like most Greek myths, there are variations to the story depending on which ancient source one reads.  This is a fact that is always kind of confusing to my students, who really seem to want there to be one right version of everything.  Ancient culture is rarely so simple.  It’s not particularly hard to see how variations in the myths evolved.  The Greeks had literacy (such as it existed in most of the ancient world) in the late Bronze Age, but then it was lost from about 1100 – 800 BC.  This means that mythological stories would have been transmitted orally during those centuries.  Oral traditions preserve the basic framework of stories very well, but it is not unusual for the details to vary from place to place over the centuries…kind of like the modern idiom of a “fish story” where the details change a bit every time the fisherman tells the tale.

Way back when in a course called Classical Mythology I learned the myth of Selene and Endymion following the version recounted by Apollonios of Rhodes which reads rather like a fairy tale…

Once upon a time, Selene, the goddess of the moon fell in love with a beautiful mortal named Endymion.  She loved him so much that she asked his father Zeus to grant him eternal youth so that Endymion could stay with her forever.  Zeus granted her wish, but there was a catch…he placed the youth into an eternal sleep.  Endymion would be eternally youthful and beautiful, but he would also be eternally asleep.

Selene & Endymion
by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini
Source

Apparently, this everlasting slumber wasn’t much of an obstacle to Selene’s love for him.  The story goes on to recount that she visited her sleeping beloved every night and the two of them had fifty daughters.

Good gravy – where to start with this one?!  Firstly, this version of the story is a perfect example of the English idiom, “be careful what you wish for…”  or at least be very specific.  The Greek gods had a tendency to be extremely capricious when granting this sort of wish (I’ve heard similar tales of the caprice of genies and leprachauns…you just can’t trust supernatural wish granters I guess!)  It’s fairly obvious that Selene might have preferred that Endymion be eternally youthful and awake, but she didn’t stipulate that specifically.

By now, everyone is probably aware of the element of coercion that so often plays a role in the sexual politics of Greek myth.  By modern understanding, what Selene does to generate fifty offspring by an unconscious partner would be considered sexual assault.  However, it would have only been unusual to the Greek’s in terms of the gender reversal of who is doing the coercing, but since Selene is a goddess and Endymion a mortal, it’s fair game.  This story reminds me distinctly, and I wonder if there is a trace connection, of tales of the medieval succubus…a female entity who preyed upon unsuspecting men – often by seducing them in their sleep.  (which also would be a convenient way to explain unsanctioned nocturnal activities…*cough*  “The succubus made me do it!” ).  

Roman Sarcophagus – 2nd century AD
Source

In later Roman antiquity the story of Selene and Endymion preserved all of its somnolent eroticism (note all of the little winged babies on the image above…they are Erotes (Amores in Latin), clear indicators that love is afoot.) but the persistent notion that Endymion never died, but rather was eternally asleep also made depictions of this story very popular on funerary pieces like the sarcophagus above.

Fragment of the group of Selene and Endymion.
Marble. Roman, after a Greek original of the 2nd century B.C.
Inv. No. A 23.
Saint-Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum.
Source

There is something really compelling to me about images of the sleeping Endymion.  He is always depicted as powerfully masculine, yet in sleep, he is also vulnerable.  The sculptural fragment above also conveys a kind of latent eroticism with his arm raised above his head, leaving him open and exposed and perhaps even inviting to Selene’s amorous advances.  As usual, I didn’t have to look terribly hard to find some equally enticing Armitaganda…

Lucas North sleeps…
Spooks 8.5
Source

Guy of Gisborne sleeps…fitfully
Robin Hood 3.6
Source

 

As Keats said in his poetic Endymion:

A thing of beauty is a joy forever…

 

 

Inter alia: It’s that time of year again…

I saw the phrase on FB…the pic is mine 🙂

I am off to soak up some autumnal splendor tomorrow…the husband and I are taking a leaf peeping road trip.  Of course, I wanted to know where the best peeping of leaves was to be found and lookee what I discovered…

Only a few counties have passed peak color (brown ones) and most are just out there waiting for us in all their polychrome glory.  

(I’ll bet I can find a caramel apple somewhere along the way too 😉  )

Have a splendidly colorful October 10th everyone!!

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Chicago Fan Event…round 1

After Gratiana of the Something About Love blog so graciously hosted the Into the Storm Chicago fan event in August, I volunteered to pitch in and help organize the next one in the hopper…The BotFA event (I really cannot be bothered to type out that entire title more than once)  Although work related commitments have put my actual attendance in question AGAIN!!,  I am pleased to be able to help coordinate the event in the digital world…there is a very helpful elf (I settled on “elf” since the movie opening is so close to Christmas…) on the ground in the Windy City who is doing the all real work.  Elf, if you are reading this… if at any time you want to be named and praised by me for saving my bacon, please let me know…until then, I will diligently guard your anonymity 🙂  .

So, I know it is still two months out, but we are trying to get a provisional idea the number of people who are at least planning to attend and what date is preferable so we can hit the planning ground running…

If you think you are likely to attend, please complete the poll below…

inter alia: S!$t my family says…

This could become a regular feature here since it happens so often.  Last night the spawn and I were at my parents for dinner.

Brief aside….I didn’t realize how much I missed spaghetti with meat sauce.  Since my husband and my son are meatball guys, and I’m not terribly picky, I hadn’t eaten it in a while.  My dad knocked it out of the park!

So anyway, we are sitting at dinner and I asked my mother if she’d seen the obituary for a distant acquaintance.  I remarked that it was quite brief and learned that it is fairly expensive to publish a lengthy obit in the local newspaper.  I guess I didn’t realize that.  At this point, my normally laconic father says,

“Don’t bother…here’s mine:  ‘I’m dead.  Bye.’ “

I thought my son was going to have a fit he was laughing so hard.  My sister wipes her eyes and assures my dad that we’ll take him up on it!  So goes a fairly average conversation chez moi.

RAnathenaia?

*trumpet fanfare*  Welcome to my 201st blog post as a primarily Richard Armitage centered blogger!  (*ahem* see, I was planning this post to mark the 200 milestone, but then s’mores happened and I forgot…).  A little backstory might be useful at this point.  Over the summer, my dear pal Guytly was in London to see some play…I forget the name.  😉  During her sojourn, she visited the renowned British Museum and sent me a picture that sent my Classics and Armitage brain cranking.

Sculpted Marble Fragment
Shot by Guylty at the British Museum

One look at this told me that it came from the Parthenon…the fifth century Temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis.   From there the sleuthing began.  Although every student of classical archaeology is familiar with the Parthenon, widely considered the most perfected example of the Doric Order, some are more familiar than others.  My specialty focus is on periods earlier than the High Classical to which the Parthenon belongs, so this image presented me with an opportunity to look at some details of the building that I haven’t looked at in a very long time…if ever.  Just a cursory inspection suggested to me that this comes from the Panathenaic frieze which was located on the interior of the structure.  This fragment of architectural sculpture may or may not belong to a larger group of material from the Parthenon known colloquially at The Elgin Marbles.

Red indicates the location of the frieze on the structure

A sculpted frieze course was not typically part of the canonical scheme of a Doric temple, so its presence here is one of the unique features of the Parthenon.  The frieze depicts scenes from the a sacred Athenian festival known as the Panathenaia...specifically, scenes from the Panathenaic Procession.   The goddess Athena was the patron divinity of the city of Athens, and a great deal of Athenian cult practice centered around her worship.  The Athenians celebrated both annual (Lesser Panathenaia) and every fourth year (Greater Panathenaia) festivals to honor Athena.  The Panathenaia included a variety of competitions from atheletic games to musical competitions and culminated in a grand procession during which a new peplos (basically a dress) was presented to the goddess.  It is this procession that is depicted on the Parthenon frieze.

View of West and SW frieze in Acropolis Museum, Athens
Source

I’ve seen many parts of this frieze many times over the years, but I had some difficulty placing the specific fragment that Guylty had photographed.  The indication of a wheel placed it within the “chariot” sections on the north and south stretches of the frieze.  As is clear from the condition of the fragment, this is a section of the frieze that was heavily damaged…damage incurred by a 1687 bombardment of Athens by Venetian forces.  Fortunately, Jacques Carrey, a French draftsman and painter had been in Athens in 1674 and drawn a great many of the sculptures.  His drawings of the sections of the structure damaged by the Venetian bombardment are the only remaining record of the lost material.

Drawing from Connolly and Dodge, The Ancient City. (after Carrey)
Source

There he is…placed back into context.  It seems pretty likely that the fragment Guylty photographed comes from the long north side of the frieze in a section of the chariot races that is depicting a specialty event called the Apobates.  This was a contest where a fully armed hoplite jumped out of a chariot and ran alongside it before jumping back in…a while the chariot was moving at full speed.

While this is all a very interesting trip into an ancient Athenian festival, you might well be wondering what in the world it might have to do with Richard Armitage.  Allow me to elucidate…with a snapshot of our conversation:

Sure enough…a side by side comparison is very telling:

Lucas North (Richard Armitage) Spooks 7.1
Source: richardarmitagenet.com

Guess what I’m doing today?

I really hope it stops raining soon! 
HAPPY WEEKEND ARMITAGEWORLD!