DAILY PHOTO: Palace in the Evening Sun, Udaipur
Reply
Apocalypse, Soon [Sonnet]
When time stopped behaving, I should have known that war was coming - perhaps, something worse. Those who saw themselves sinless grabbed their stones, and started chanting bile -- their wicked curse. The hopeless cried with wide eyes, but in vain as they were huddled around burning fires. The best of us opted to go insane, and build crude armor from old belts and tires. We'd flank a castle that did not exist like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. Better to charge a false monster and miss than to have Folly chase one to the hills. Who says it's worse to slouch to lunacy than suffer the world's fury lucidly?
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Bonsai [Haiku]
a potted bonsai -- twisted, knobbed, and deformed -- stony mountain mind
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Kuala Lumpur Limerick
There was a durian seller from K.L. asked to leave the market 'cause of the smell. "Buyers 'll find you with ease from the scent of bad cheese," said the contrite landlord in his farewell.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
DAILY PHOTO: Boulder & Mountain
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: The Medea by Euripides [Trans. Gilbert Murray]
The Medea of Euripides by Gilbert MurrayMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Project Gutenberg
This tragedy follows up the myth of “The Golden Fleece.” That hero’s journey culminated in three trials which Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) must complete in order to acquire the golden MacGuffin. Jason succeeds in large part because (arguably, entirely because) Medea, daughter of the fleece’s owner, i.e. King Aeetes, gives Jason some potions to make the trials a cinch. She does this in exchange for Jason’s everlasting love.
And, herein, lies the heart of this play’s conflict. Jason – like many heroes of Greek Mythology – is kind of a jerk. In flashing forward to the beginning of this play, we find Jason has traded Medea in for a younger and higher stature wife (i.e. a princess whose father doesn’t despise and disown her). [Note: Technically, Medea may not be married to Jason because of legalities, but she did bear him two boys.] To add insult to injury, Jason’s new father-in-law (King Creon) insists that Medea and her two boys be exiled, effective immediately.
What makes this play so fascinating is that we have sympathy for Medea’s plight, but then her inner monologue turns to the nuclear option she will employ – killing Jason’s new princess-wife and, more disconcertingly, her own children. Medea goes back and forth about her plan, showing reluctance to kill her boys, at least. So, the reader (viewer) ends up finding Jason loathsome because he steadfastly refuses to accept any blame for how poorly things have gone, but – on the other hand – he’s being more reasonable. (i.e. He talks kindly and isn’t murdering anyone.) It’s a fascinating reflection on the battle between rationality and passion.
I’d highly recommend this play. It’s a short and straightforward story, but it does present a great deal of food-for-thought.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Retort to “Arise, fair sun…” [Poem]
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Romeo & juliet: act 2, scene 2
Oh, moon, slip cautiously across the night. They whispered to the sun to murder you. So, slink way down before the sun takes flight, 'fore that proud body can make much ado.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
DAILY PHOTO: Indo-Saracenic Arches
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: Miracles: A Very Short Introduction by Yujin Nagasawa
Miracles: A Very Short Introduction by Yujin NagasawaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
This concise guide to miracles is built around the intriguing observation that, according to polls, a majority of people believe in miracles, and yet we don’t witness supernatural events [at least not ones that can be confirmed by objective investigation.] There are coincidences (boosted in salience by selection bias and / or a lack of intuitive grasp of probability,) there are patterns that our minds turn into significant images (e.g. the Madonna on a taco shell,) and there are cases of spontaneous remission in which a serious medical condition disappears where treatments haven’t worked or weren’t tried (experienced by the devoutly religious, the marginally religious, the agnostic, and the atheistic, alike.) But those events can be explained more simply without resorting to the supernatural (i.e. probability, the human brain’s great skill at pattern recognition [re: which is so good that it often becomes pattern creation,] and the fact that under the right circumstances the human body’s immune system does a bang-up job of self-repair.)
The five chapters of this book are built around five questions. First, what are miracles – i.e. what criteria should be used, and what events that people call miracles fail to meet these criteria? Second, what are the categories of miracles seen among the various religious traditions [note: the book uses examples from both Eastern and Western religions, though generally sticks to the major world religions?] Third, how can one explain the fact that so many believe despite a lack of evidence? This chapter presents hypotheses suggesting we’re neurologically wired to believe. Fourth, is it rational to believe? Here, philosophers’ arguments (most notably and extensively, that of Hume) are discussed and critiqued. The last chapter asks whether non-supernatural events can (or should) be regarded as miraculous, specifically acts of altruism in which someone sacrificed their life for strangers.
I found this book to be incredibly thought-provoking, and it changed my way of thinking about the subject. I’d highly recommend it.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Trotting Bull [Haiku]
the bull starts to trot down the middle of the road, and the road clears
Tiger Riding for Beginners 