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Every Ancient Greek knew their names: Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachas, Nestor, Helen, Menelaos, Ajax, Kalypso, Nausicaä, Polyphemos, Ailos… The trials and tribulations of these characters occupied the Greek mind so much that they found their way into ancient art, whether mosaics or ceramics, mirrors or sculpture. From heroic nudity to small visual cues in clothing, we present a brief slideshow of characters that appear in Barry B. Powell’s new free verse translation of The Odyssey.

• Head of Odysseus

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Picture51.jpg

  In the first century BC the Roman emperor Tiberius (42 BC-AD 37) built a villa at Sperlonga between Rome and Naples. There in a grotto sculptors from Rhodes created various scenes from Greek myth, including the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemos. Fragments of the sculptural group survive, including this evocative head of Odysseus, bearded and wearing a traveler’s cap (pilos), as he plunges a stake into the giant’s eye. Marble, c. AD 20. Museo Archeologico, Sperlonga, Italy; Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali / Art Resource, NY

• Penelope

   

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  Wearing a modest head cover (what Homer means by “veil”), she is seated on a stone wall, staring pensively at the ground, thinking of her husband. This is a typical posture in artistic representations of Penelope—legs crossed, looking downward, hand to her face (Figures 2.1, 19.1, 20.1). Roman copy (perhaps 1st century BC) of a lost Greek original, c. 460 BC. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican Museums, Vatican State; Scala / Art Resource, NY

• Telemachos and Nestor

   

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  Telemachos, holding his helmet in his right hand and two spears in his left, a shield suspended from his arm, greets Nestor. The bent old man supports himself with a knobby staff, and his white hair is partially veiled. Behind him stands his youngest daughter (probably), Polykastê, holding a basket filled with food for the guest. South-Italian wine-mixing bowl, c. 350 BC. Staatliche Museen, Berlin 3289

• Odysseus and Kalypso

   

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  The goddess presents a box of provisions for the hero’s voyage. The box is tied with a sash. The bearded Odysseus sits on a rock on the shore holding a sword and looking pensive. Athenian red-figure vase, c. 450 BC. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy; Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

• Nausicaä and a frightened attendant

   

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  ausicaa on the left holds her ground while one of her ladies runs away with laundry draped about her shoulders (this is the other side of the vase shown in Figure 6.1). Athenian red-figure water-jar from Vulci, Italy, c. 460 BC. Inv. 2322. Staatliche Antikensammlung, Munich, Germany; Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

• Polyphemos talks to his lead ram

   

  http://blog.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Picture61.jpg

  Blinded, holding his club, leaning against the cave wall, the giant reaches out to stroke his favorite ram under whom Odysseus clings. Athenian black-figure wine cup, c. 500 BC. National Archaeological Museum, Athens 1085

• Ailos, king of the winds

   

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  Roman mosaic from the House of Dionysos and the Four Seasons, 3rd century AD, Roman city of Volubilis, capital of the Berber King Juba II (50 BC - 24 AD) in the province of Mauretania, Morocco. The Romans loved to decorate their floors with themes taken from Greek myth, and many have survived. Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY

• Helen and Menelaos

   

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  Menelaos wears a helmet and breast-guard. His right hand is poised on top of a shield while his left, holding a spear, embraces Helen. She wears a cloth cap and a necklace with three pendants and a bangle around her arm. Her cloak slips down beneath her genital area, emphasizing her sexual attractiveness. Decoration on the back of an Etruscan mirror, c. 4th century BC. Townley Collection. Cat. 712. British Museum, London; Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

• The suicide of Ajax

   

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  The naked hero has fixed his sword in a pile of sand and thrown himself on it. His shield and breastplate are stacked on the left, his club and the scabbard to his sword on the right. His name AIWA is written above him. Athenian red-figure wine-mixing bowl, from Vulci, Italy. British Museum, London, Great Britain; © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY

Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new free verse translation of The Odyssey was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. His translation of The Iliad was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. See previous blog posts from Barry B. Powell.

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Related Stories

• Scenes from the Odyssey in Ancient Art
• A map of Odysseus’s journey
• Telemachos in Ithaca

 

Remember being a kid and getting so excited when your parents said you could have that giant empty box that packaged some newly-arrived-on-your-doorstep appliance-or-such? It's a fort! It's an elf castle! It's a giant dollhouse! It's a... whatever you could imagine it to be.

Take a listen to this, from last week on NPR: Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills.

Turns out you didn't need the latest and greatest toy after all. And with all that unstructured play time you were learning, too. Who knew?

Along similar lines-- an excellent commentary over at Finding Wonderland, for those of us that are tired of the endless marketing of "stuff" to children (and everyone, for that matter...)

To say that Austrian playwright, Peter Handke is a man of few words is truly an understatement.

In fact he has written a play entitled, "The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other" to be performed at the National Theatre from March 31 to April 12 for 30 performances. What makes his play "special" is that not one word will be spoken by the actors.

For 1 hour and 40 minutes, 450 characters will be silent.

According to a blurb on the National Theatre site:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/thehour

The play is best described: "For a moment, a bright, empty town square. And then a figure darts across, and another and another – businesspeople, roller-bladers, a cowboy, several street-sweepers, a halfdressed bride, a film crew, a line of old men, a tourist, a beauty in a mirrored dress, Abraham and Isaac, a family of refugees, a fool – more and more people, the bizarre and the humdrum, fleetingly connected by proximity alone."

The idea apparently came to Handke as he sat at a cafe on an Italian piazza watching strangers come and go. Even if not a word is spoken, the play is not sound-less. The silence is punctuated by snatches of music, the occasional scream and the recorded sounds of an aeroplane or workmen drilling.

A National Theatre spokeswoman said: "It is a great piece of work, challenging and something that we should be doing. Tickets are selling well - not like hotcakes, but they are doing well. It is appealing to younger people. We think our more traditional audiences will wait until the reviews."

If this is a success, I shall re-read and re-edit my plays with the possibility of eliminating the dialogue. Perhaps I'll re-name the wedding play, "Make Me a Wedding and Let's Keep It Between Ourselves." Given that it's a comedy, there will be lots of body language and gesturing. Since my play has a mere 9 characters, it shouldn't be too difficult to fill the various roles.

If anyone attends this play, please pass on your impressions and review.


Writers & Friends
www.jrslater.com/forum

Solo Collective (BC) invites entries for the 5th Annual Emerging Writers Competition. Open to all playwrights in Canada. Winning monologues will receive feedback, a two-hour workshop with dramaturg and a professional actor, and a public reading. Submissions should be double-spaced with pages numbered and include a title page with contact info. Send to: Solo Collective, 344 West 16th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V5Y 1Y9. Entry fee: $20 plus $5 membership fee (cheques payable to Solo Collective Theatre Society). Deadline: February 11, 2008.

BARBIE, KEN AND THE REST IN PLASTICVILLE
(The continuing story about life among the plastic people)
BY ELEANOR TYLBOR

SCENE: A WAREHOUSE… SOMEWHERE. ROWS AND ROWS OF BOXES COVER THE FLOOR SPACE. HANGING LIGHT BULBS CAST SHADOWS ON THE WALLS. IT IS THE PLACE OF SOLITUDE AND EXILE FOR BARBIE, KEN, G.I. JOE AND OTHER DOLLS, WHO HAVE HAD TO ADJUST TO LIFE IN A CARDBOARD BOX


BARBIE
(muffled voice)
Hel-lo? Like…can anybody hear me?

G.I. JOE
Yeah – me babe! Your best buddy and boyfriend and love of your life, G.I. Joe, here to save and serve you! Is the enemy near? I can smell the bad guys!

BARBIE
First of all I’m not your girlfriend…why am I bothering when we’ve gone through this a zillion times, already. Like…we are friends. Just friends. Got that? Gee whiz I hate this place!

G.I. JOE
(laughing)
…just friends. Sure babe. I get it! You don’t wanna tell that douche bag, Ken, we’re shacked up. Right?

BARBIE
Say what? How can we be shacked up when we’re living in boxes?

G.I. JOE
Well…see… Uh-oh…I hear something!

BARBIE
(sighing)
You’re always hearing something…

KEN
(sobbing)
Is…that…you…Barbie? I-I’m so scared!

G.I. JOE
Ten-shun! Get a grip, sissy boy! You’re a marine!

BARBIE
Like…G.I. – it’s Ken! Think back! Ken? Surfer dude? The summer house?

G.I. JOE
Ken…Ken… I knew a Ken. Always walked around wearing underwear. A filthy pervert

BARBIE
That’s him. I mean – he’s not a pervert! He’s always prepared for the next big wave

KEN
When are they coming to get us? I’m sure surf’s up!

BARBIE
There are more important things in life than surfing, Ken!

KEN
Oh? Like what?

BARBIE
Well… like getting out of here. I’m so sick of living in a box. Like…my outfit is soooo passé and those Bratz have probably taken my place opening night clubs and everything. Ohhhhhh I’m so depressed!

G.I. JOE
Hey! I can do something ‘bout that with this here hand grenade I just happen to have on me. If I can just…get…at…it… I’ll just pull the string and blow our lids off

BARBIE
Oh fer… You do realize you’ll blow us up, too

G.I. JOE
…if I can just move my arm across here and…almost there…

(lights suddenly go on. There is the muffled sound of voices getting closer)

BARBIE
They’ve come to get us! I knew they’d find us sooner or later! Better fix myself up for the press… Hello? It’s us! Thank goodness you’re here!

VOICE
…yeah. These are them. Been here for a while now… We need the space so we better bring in the big shovels.

BARBIE
What do you mean, ‘big shovels’? You-you can’t do that…

G.I. JOE
…just a little more…I can feel the side of the grenade…the string is right on top…

(WILL THE GANG BE RESCUED FROM THE WAREHOUSE OR WILL THEY FACE A FATAL FATE?)

TO BE CONTINUED…

Writers & Friends

www.jrslater.com/forum

No, not toe-tagged. Though that would be interesting, because that would mean I was writing from the grave. Nope, I've been tagged by Rachel to provide five random things about myself. Here we go!

1. In high school, I was an assistant manager at a fast food and as such, I got free food. I drank one milkshake of each of their four flavors every single day I worked. I gained fifteen pounds that summer.

2. I sat on David Cassidy's lap in the 1990s. I hung the photo on my bulletin board at work and told everyone he was my boyfriend.

3. When I saw Brian Regan this September, I made my husband hang outside the stage door with me until Brian came out. Brian gave me a hug, signed my program, and let me take a picture with him. It's all here.

4. In junior high, I signed up for the play just to get out of classes. I was the turkey.

5. I played drums starting in fourth grade. My career ended in eighth grade when I was constantly relegated to the bass drum or the cymbals, while the boys got to play the snares. I'd lost interest by that time, anyway--my drumroll was rather staccato, and those 10 lb cymbals were awfully hard to hold ("Hold them UP, Danette!) at football games.

In other news, my little mommy is leaving earlier than expected--she and new hubby have found houses on Florida's west coast they like. So, she leaves in the morning, but if all goes well, it'll then just be a two hour drive instead of that 24 hour drive to Michigan!

Hmm, almost forgot . . . who to tag, who to tag? So many victims friends to choose from. TAG! You're it: Courtney, Church Lady, Ello, Charles Gramlich, and Stephen Parrish. You'll still be my friends, right?

A Christmas play and story for children and families

Sometimes things happen for a reason although you may not know or realize it at the time. Only later on do you see some type of plan in the works. Or perhaps fate taking a hand.

As a youngster attending afternoon Hebrew School, it was an activity I dreaded or at least disliked. After a full day of regular classes at school, an hour of having to learn a new language wasn't something I relished. Watching TV was definitely a more interesting option. However, go I did, balking all the way and trying to come up with new and creative excuses to stay home. Most didn't work.

In addition to my mother's determination to ensure that I get some type of Jewish educational background, my teacher who also happened to be the school's principal, did everything in his power to make sure I attended classes. This included the actual physical act of coming to our home to find out the reason for my absence, on occasion unbeknownst to my mother. In restrospect I thought it was a conspiracy between them to prevent me from enjoying life as a kid.

Obviously, the experience left a lasting impression since I wrote and sold a number of short stories based on my experience.

Every year I bring out my favorite story, "The Dreidel King" a.k.a. "The Chanukah King" and post it in the various forums. For me it's a "feel good" story that transcends religion. Another story about how the simplest act of lighting Chanukah candles brought an unexpected response from seniors, comes a close second.

It occurred at this stage of my life that I have the makings of a children's/family play and will use the content of both stories to this end. There are few plays that I'm aware of focusing on Chanukah, especially aimed at children so it's a labor of love.

As I wrote - sometimes things happen for a reason. At least I'd like to believe it.

You know, sometimes you just have to call it a tiara day. There is something about wearing a tiara that lifts your spirits and sends you out into life with an entirely new attitude. I have several tiaras in my collection, but the silver one with the pink boa trim is my favorite.

Nancy, in Fancy Nancy written by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, is just the sort of girl who internalizes the tiara philosophy of life. From the tip of her tiara to the toes of her pink high heels she is the epitome of "fancy" and makes it her mission to transform her family from plain to fancy. Obviously good sports and full of playful indulgence to their fancy daughter, they dress up to the nines and descend upon the local diner in full regalia. Glasser's illustrations are fabulous and carry the story well, but the one that will make you laugh out loud is turning the page to see Nancy and her family burst through the door of "The King's Crown" with sunglasses, feathers, tiaras, canes, ruffles, bows, fans and attitude firmly in place. Of course they are greeted with gasps from the assembled diners "who probably think we're movie stars". It is a terrific moment with a priceless illustration.

The ensuing adventure is a bit predictable for adults, but still very fun because of our heroine and her wonderful family. This family has such a great sense of play, you really want to be IN her family.Dress up girls of all ages will love this book. ISBN 978-0-06-054209, Harper Collins.

we started out the morning by playing “reverse scavenger hunt” (we are soooo playing this at GLLS2008!)

Amy Jo Kim - Putting the Fun in Functional
http://shufflebrain.com/

game design principles have been finding their way onto websites more and more
“social media” for her
1. player-created content (she likes to talk about the people who use your software as “players,” not customers) +
2. social features (profiles, reputation, groups, etc.) +
3. tools for sharing

“game” = a structured experience with rules and goals that’s fun (which includes things like “The Sims”)
stretches what can be considered a “game”
games tap into our primal response patterns
game payoffs are like slot machines - random, unpredictable, not always controlled by your behavior
games engage us in “flow” (that space between apathy and boredom, anxiety and boredom)
the tricky part is that the game has to adjust as you play it

game mechanics for social media
1. collecting - you’re going to show off your stuff (stuff in WoW, friends in Facebook, etc.); so when you’re designing, look at what can be collected to drive player behavior; downside is who has the most friends
2. points - point systems give you leaderboards, give you something sticky over time; great way to introduce new features, new areas to explore; social points are given by other points (different from system points); eg, flickr interestingness, ebay reputation, etc.
3. feedback - accelerates mastery; eg, Guitar Hero; this is probably the lowest hanging fruit of all these; it’s one of the easiest ways to make something compelling and fun and to help people master the curve
4. exchanges - back and forth interactions between two people; implicit (not built into the system, but comes out in other ways, eg The Wall in Facebook or the social pressure to provide feedback on exchanges in ebay) vs. explicit exchanges (codified in the system, eg adding a friend in Facebook); so leave room for implicit exchanges
5. customization - of the interface, your character, your identity, your experience; makes the person more invested and just makes it more fun; Gaia Online lets you customize your avatar before you even start playing

power to the players (trends)
1. the rise of content sharing networks - Flickr, YouTube, etc. that create the network but the players exchange the content
2. accessible tech - much simpler UIs, open APIs, cross-platform services; seeing these things in games, too
3. syndication - not just having your content-sharing network, but also to be able to take bits of it and place it on other sites (feeds, widgets, embed code); integrating with the rest of the web and accessible there

some of this change is because of the change in the audience (new demographics for gaming, both up and down); broadening of the audience has transformed game design into something that reaches beyond the hardcore
happening on the web, too

game mechanics + social media = the future of networked entertainment?

gave some tips that can be found on her website

points don’t have to be explicit - views on a picture, how many times it was emailed, etc.
points are not always the right thing to use

Merci Hammon - PMOG
launched in March before having to take the game down for improvements due to new funding
Firefox extension
game environments, the environment levels you up
in passively multiplayer, you don’t get to choose your class; you get assigned a role
in PMOG, two of them represent order and two represent chaos
you can purchase things that are bizarre
lightposts are used to create “quests” (they “illuminate” your context or something about the site)
“portals” transported you from one site to another seamlessly, but became a problem because of where you might end up
Merci’s favorite object was a mine - could leave one on a site and then the next PMOG player hitting a site would encounter it; an anonymous weapon that spreads havoc for the other players
had to develop “armor” at the end because popular sites would obviously get mined quickly

they were shut out by del.icio.us, open directory didn’t work, so they created their own tags
you get points for erasing other peoples’ tags and for adding your own
so users are determining the scope of the universe

hoping to test the new version in early 2008
http://www.pmog.com/

they don’t monitor gameplay to see if players are gaming the system
passive because of class characterizations and point collection

Playful Programming, Competitive Code - Ned Gully (The MathWorks, Inc.)
“the big brain has many legs”
“competitive wikipedia” - imagine if the system could award points if your edit was an improvement and your picture then appeared on the page?
would wikipedia be better for having a system like this?
his contests run like this:
- entries are automatically scored, ranked, and displayed immediately
- code, author, and score are visible at all times
- anyone can modify anyone else’s code and resubmit it as their own

means you have to put your code into the public domain to get rewarded
are they encouraging collaboration or theft?
will this make you so angry that you won’t play anymore?
having been tweaked, some people delight in tweaking right back
“tweaking is the nickel slots of their contest” - teaches people to open up (their wallets, in the case of the slots)

participation
showed a graph of improving game play scores which resulted in a final entry that was code no one could have written on their own

phase transitions (Jenny: can actually illustrate reflection?)
lots of interesting graphs and an animation of the tweaks
innovation uptake - can see it happen in convultion-based algorithm
social signaling - it’s just code, but thousands of entires have to be named; became fun exchange of communication
code genomics
personal glory or collaboration? the code is the one interested in collaboration
the coder wants to block code propagation while the code wants to propagate - use this to shape the contest design
for the coder, make participation easy, reward vanity, many cheap prizes, and darkness period
for the code, encourage copying, highlight changes, punish complexity, anti-obfuscation tools

think of the code as genomic in a biological sense
liberating to think of the code as an entity with its own agenda
well-written code is manipulating you to make more code like it
“a chicken is only an egg’s way of making another egg” –> “a hacker is only a code’s way of making more code”

fitness function is how fast did it run, but performance, too; blending them at a cost function
how would you evaluate future recyclability

A Creative Community for Young Programmers and Game Designers: Boku - Matt Maclaurin
he tried to figure out what computers are for
- creating new worlds
- inventing new languages
- udnerstanding cognition
- evoking wonder
more

software as an expressive medium
code as a medium
- the only truly modern medium

simulation is the fundamental basis of cognition
it’s a good description of how we think; we don’t think like a text engine
playing magical stuff makes you want to make magical stuff
then they get exposed to code - ugh

some history about programming environments (logo, etc.)

Boku’s approach
- start with a working simulation
- real-world objects and verbs
- throw out everything (loops, variables, most control structures)
- no typing (uses an XBox controller instead)
- make the exerpience fluid and immediate

could debate whether or not this is really programming

start off in a blank world where nothing is going on until you participate

demoed Boku - very cool, don’t ever see the code

adding actions adds the narrative; just having one bot eat an apple while the other one tries to kick made it into a contest without even adding any contest code
lets you easily create barriers and boundaries (like mountains)

early testing:
- 11 is a great age for this
- some as young as 7 can program
- community is critical (inspiration, learning)
- kids really dig shooting
- world editing

questions?
- is programming a core literacy?
- is computation a core literacy, and is programming the only manifestation of it?
- do we need conflict?
- is it okay for kids to act out violent fantasies?
- what “verbs” should boku have?
- what is the intersection between storytelling and game design?
- how to define authorship?

Alternate Realities - Susan Bonds
“42 Entertainment creates trans-media narratives for highly participatory experiences through a variety of both online and offline mechanisms”

distributed narrative
i love bees
one of the biggest rewards for this type of entertainment is just playing it
world as platform
- everything can be used to tell a piece of the story, which takes the pressure off any one piece to carry the whole tale

levels of audience (inverse triangle)
- casual, level 1 (more and more people entering here); modest level of interaction, mostly online participation, broadest audience reach
- active, level 2 (significant level of interaction, online and some offline)
- enthusiast, level 3 (very high level of interaction, participation across media into the real world, “tip of the wedge” super-engaged audience that can create entertainment for the other two levels)

has found that the community will form on its own
- the power of one can fuel the power of the many
- “hive mind” - people will collaborate based on shared goals and interests

can take traditional marketing materials and doing something different with it
“hide in plain sight”

used “Year Zero” example from Nine Inch Nails (http://iamtryingtobelieve.com/)
even giving out buttons at listening parties became clues

how can you make people think? how can it used for social experience?
an important part of the ARG was mpowering players to make the themes of themusic their own. this was facilitated through two sites - Art is Resistance and Open Source Resistance, the latter of which accepts user generated art and has even published in magazines and online.

www.ninwiki.com
opensourceresistance.com
www.artisresistance.com

when a story starts coming at you through the channels of your “real” life you start to see your life through the lens of that story
at the end, you saw a file of the players with “case numbers” as accomplices

all of their communities are organic and set up by the communities themselves

audience question: can you use these systems to engender positive/normative behavior?
“it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you speak up”
people are looking for a roadmap to activism

I've been working on updating the way I draw children. Here's a sketch I was finally able to finish last week.

© crystal driedger 2007. All rights reserved.

and other theater poems by Ruth Krauss Something Else Press 1968 First you put an image in your head of Ruth Krauss, author of children's classics The Carrot Seed and Open House for Butterflies. Now you paint a picture in your mind of the late 1960's with hippies performing experimental theatre. Superimpose those two images and you get this odd collection of poetic playlets. Clearly some of

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