#because I have been both caesar and a member of a senate in those moments
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Justice Chapter 1: How?
This is a mini series (hahaha mini series... ok) about the MC in the ReWritten Series, now named Uesugi Yoko. What happens to her after she’s left in Japan by the Caesar Team and what challenges is she facing?
If you read, please leave me feedback! ^_^
Yoko Uesugi looked at her phone from the rumpled sheets in a black tank top and shorts. Tokyo was seven hours ahead of Rome so it would be midnight, ‘Caesar Time’. She’d cheekily texted ‘you up? >:P’, but got no response. He probably was awake, but Caesar was the worst texter and seemed to get worse the more she wanted to hear from him.
She imagined him still awake, smoking a cigar and drinking Champagne. In the Takamagahara he used to stay up all night long to work and sleep in the morning. Yoko still struggled to wake up in the morning and sleep at night, even now. Most of her studying she did at night by the light of a lamp, polishing her Japanese reading and script, studying history, and dragon genealogy. On the nightstand she had crossed off 35 assignments. But this was an accelerated pace she set for herself, not something required by the Japan branch. In fact, Anjou blithely told her that thanks to her performance on the mission, she could be excused from classes entirely.
But knowledge was power, and she needed power.
She made an effort not to bother Caesar. Her assignment in Tokyo was her business after all. He had nothing but full confidence in her ability to handle any difficulty that came her way. So it felt like she was doubting him when she suddenly wondered if what she was doing was going to end up well done in the end.
And now she wondered if she was going to end up dead.
Months ago, she’d awakened at Cassell College after experiencing the destruction of Black Swan Bay. The disorienting change in circumstances was made all the worse when she was subsequently shipped off to Japan to perform a dangerous mission. She learned that the man who had run the human experimental labs at Black Swan continued the cruelty in Japan. Dr. Herzog set up two organizations from a single family group of hybrids, splitting families apart by their bloodline heritage either the stable ‘good’ genes of Hydra or the ‘trash’ violent genes of the Devil Clan.
He ran experiments on both groups and used violent means to dispose of the undesirable results. When he finished his research, he launched a campaign to eliminate the Devil Clan by framing them for wanting to resurrect ‘god’ that is, the Light King. In less than a week, hundreds of people were dead, thousands were injured. And those who survived had their lives torn apart.
Herzog was dead by her hand, but his legacy lingered in the ruins of the Hybrid families of Japan. Yoko’s assignment was to help heal the fracture between the Devil Clan and the Hydra. Herzog’s legacy in Japan was connected to Black Swan Bay and she knew him intimately. It wasn’t enough to just kill Herzog and call it justice. She wanted to dismantle Herzog’s entire deadly philosophy that caused the slaughter in the first place and undo his legacy in Japan down to the foundation.
However, what needed to be done was going to run her up against some very powerful people. She wanted Caesar’s advice, but he wasn’t answering. Yoko put her phone down and got up to get ready for the day.
Yoko Uesugi wasn’t her actual name. Her real name was Russian because that’s where she was conceived. Her dark hair and eyes appeared Asian, however, only her square jaw and longer nose spoke to some other mixed heritage. It was easier to just adopt a Japanese name rather than have them struggle with her Russian one.
The light was already on in the bathroom. A girl with long red hair brushed her teeth in the mirror and moved aside to let Yoko in. Erii was the one who gave Yoko her last name, fully adopting her as an Uesugi sister. Like Yoko, Erii was the result of Herzog’s experimentation and should have been killed by him. She was the chosen vessel for the Light King parasite, the so-called Tsukiyomi-no-mikoto, who could fully assimilate the genes of the dragon into her own body at the cost of her mind.
She was horribly unstable. The dragonblood in her body was eating away at her. Yoko was in a similar state and together they bonded over their shared illness. Thankfully, they both ended up sharing the cure of the Light King’s fetal blood that saved their lives, but even this was at a great cost. The resurrection of the Light King provoked the eruption of Mt. Fuji, devastating earthquakes, and a large tsunami that killed hundreds of people. Erii and Yoko got their lives back but the scars on Tokyo were still very apparent.
Erii wrote in her notebook and held it up. “Sakura-Kun got promoted. He’s a big man in College now.”
“That’s good news. Tell him I said congrats.” Yoko runs a brush through her hair and yawns. “Hope it doesn’t get a big head.”
Erii lifted up the paper again. “He says he doesn’t know how he’ll manage.”
“I can sympathize with that.” Yoko looks down at her brush.
As soon as Caesar Gattuso, Chu Zihang and Lu Mingfei left Japan, Yoko was approached by the Clan Chief, Nanami Sakurai who had been placed over the Hydra Executive Board by Chisei Gen before his disappearance. Yoko didn’t know Nanami very well other than a brief encounter where she’d furiously slapped Caesar in the face, not knowing it was him. The cold, murderous look in her eyes frightened Yoko into fleeing the elevator she was in.
But after the events in Japan, Nanami was very different.
Nanami Sakurai had suffered from both sides of the War. Her relatives were members of the Devil Clan. Akira was less than ten years old when it was determined that his bloodline was dangerous and he was shipped off to the prison like schools for the violent. Kogure Sakurai was older, about fourteen when she was sent away. The two half siblings both died because they took Herzog’s poison and mutated. They were both killed by Chisei Gen.
Not only that, but two men she loved among Hydra died to the Devil Clan. The Kotaro of the Fuma Clan and Genichiro Ryoma.
Nanami took Yoko to an onsen and teahouse where they stayed for a week, talking and swapping stories. Yoko told Nanami the truth. The man who separated Kogure and Akira from her family was the same man who provided the poison that turned them into monsters and the same man who sent Chisei Gen to kill them. The man who did that was also the same man who drove Chime Gen to madness by converting him into Ruri Kazama. Ruri Kazama then killed Kotaru Fuma. This same man planted the Kanto Group in Hydra and induced them to rebel, an action that would lead to the death of Genichiro.
The men she loved in Hydra and her Devil Clan family were all victims of the same man who wanted to resurrect the ‘god’. Dr. Herzog.
Nanami Sakurai was silent and numb for a long time, her eyes dull. She didn’t speak again that night.
Once Yoko returned to her lodging in Genji Heavy Industries, she sent her a memo on how she thought the damage should be repaired. Yoko commented that it was important to listen to all the victims to get a full account of matters and collect evidence to document what happened first before making any decisions.
Kaguya the super computer had her core destroyed in the fighting and was still being rebuilt from a backup, but many of the records were held on personal devices and Nanami also sent out neutral representatives for witness testimony.
Yoko had spoken to a man of the Inuyama family named Chance who gave her a glimpse of the violence during that horrible week. His family was all killed and their apartment block set on fire. The young children were all orphaned and institutionalized. But even that was only the tip of the bloody iceberg.
The Devil Clan controlled eleven of the eighteen yakuza gangs in Osaka, and the seven gangs loyal to Hydra had always been peaceful to them. But overnight the world changed. The gates of the Genji Heavy Industries building opened, black vans drove out in a convoy and the top members of the Hydra poured out. The moment they arrived in Osaka, the seven Hydra gangs launched an attack on the Devil Clan. Never before in history had a yakuza war been fought so efficiently. It was no less than Hitler's blitzkrieg of Poland. The Devil Clan gangs were crushed one after another before they could organize themselves. Seven of the eleven Devil Clan gangs declared their allegiance to the Hydra Yakuza, three of Devil Clan hold out gangs were beaten to death with bats, and the last one was disbanded. Overnight, Osaka became the Osaka of the Hydra
Not only Osaka, but also from the south to the north, all the gangs loyal to the Hydra family took action and spared no effort to attack the gangs loyal to the Devil clan. Either the Devil Clan members surrendered or their bodies were left on the street.
Hydra had almost all the information about the Devil clan, including the illegal transactions of the clan's gangs and government officials who had dealings with them. The police department received anonymous emails with evidence of the Devil Clan’s crimes, and as soon as the judge accepted the evidence, more than half of the Devil Clan members would be sentenced to prison. The officials who covered up for them received death threats. A prefectural assemblyman was suddenly lifted by a helicopter on the highway in his car, flying 500 meters in the air. The terrified prefectural assemblyman received a phone call in the air from Zuo Shang, an old-timer in the Hydra family, expressing his cordial greetings. Ten minutes later, the helicopter dropped off the senator's car in front of the prefectural assembly building, and by then the senator had become a member of the Hydra family.
But the ‘ghosts’, the unstable hybrids, never even had the option to defect. Even though they had the blood of the Hydra family in their bodies, in order to escape, some of them used potions that forcibly purified their blood. In front of the Executive Board, which was created to kill people like them, they were just a bunch of desperate beasts. No matter how furiously they struggled, their hearts were pierced by explosive bullets filled with mercury. The aces that the Executive Board brought along with them were responsible for pouring the bodies of the ‘ghosts’ into the cement piles. The cement piles were driven into the bottom of the sea to form a neat array. The Maruyama Construction Institute, to which the Hydra family belonged, would build a shrine on that reclaimed land to commemorate the dead.
The ghosts who did surrender would be imprisoned for life. During the Heian period, the Hydra family set up a black prison in the hollow of Mount Kobe to imprison the ghosts that appeared in the family. After the Meiji Restoration, the family was exposed to Western ideas and felt that the black prison was not humane enough, so they closed it, but suddenly the rusted iron gate had opened again. Very few ghosts surrendered however, preferring death to an eternal prison and that prison filled with their children.
Yoko had stood on the shore of the sea, looking over the rows of concrete piles under the waves, knowing that each one contained the body of a man or woman who had chosen not to be imprisoned forever and a great cold came over her. Right behind her, the people assigned as her escort and guard were the same ones who had ended these lives. Unless there was an investigation, it would be impossible to tell who was acting in good faith to repair the damage and restore the Japan branch to harmony and who would much rather let all the former Devils serve as a building’s foundation elements.
Thoughts of financial reparations and placement of orphans were suddenly overshadowed by the names of famous courts like Nuremberg and the Hague and Gacaca…
The suggestion of an investigation and trial of cruel members of the executive board went over as poorly as she expected. Where in Japan could she find impartial judges? Hydra owned everything, all the officials in the courts. No witness would ever testify openly in such a situation. Outside judges would have to be brought in. Who could be trusted with compiling such a roster? Who would be in charge of protecting them from corruption and intimidation?
The pushback was immediate. The Executive board were respected and highly regarded members of the Hydra. How could they be prosecuted for sparing no effort in stopping the Devil Clan from resurrecting god? Nanami didn’t tell anyone that this was all a plot of one man. They all still believed it was 100% the Devils’ fault and they all deserved to die. Tachibana was their respected and dearly departed leader who died saving his son at Tokyo Tower! Why were the guardians of Japan being held accountable for a war that the Devils began?
On the way home from shopping, Yoko was researching the Meiji Restoration when a bullet shattered the window. Despite there being a clear blue sky and it was broad daylight, there was no evidence to be found regarding who fired that bullet. It was a warning shot. Only someone who was very high up in the Hydra rankings could have known where she was at that moment. The next bullet probably would not miss.
Yoko slipped on her shoes at the door and checked her phone one more time before stepping out into the hall of the Genji Heavy Industries building.
Caesar had still not texted her back.
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Coriolanus is a play that’s more respected than revered. Why does it have a rather difficult reputation?
Coriolanus is relentless, brutal, savage and serious, but that’s why I find it interesting. Shakespeare sets the play in ancient Rome: a far older place than the Rome more familiar to us – of Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra or the later Empire. This Rome is wild. A city-state wrestling with its identity. An early Rome of famine, war and tyranny.
In the central character, Caius Martius Coriolanus, Shakespeare shows how the power of unchecked rage corrodes, dehumanises and ultimately destroys its subject. I’ve read that some find Martius a hard character to like, or to relate to – less effective at evoking an audience’s sympathy than Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Rosalind, Othello or Lear. Yet there is a perverse integrity and purity to be found in his obstinacy and honour, which sits alongside his arrogance and contempt.
The play’s poetry is raw and visceral, quite different from the elegance, beauty, clarity and charm found elsewhere in Shakespeare’s work. The warmth and delight to be found in his comedies are absent here. But the unstinting seriousness and intensity of the play is what makes it fascinating.
youtube
How well did you know the play?
I didn’t know it well. I had seen an early screening of Ralph Fiennes’s terrific film adaptation at the Toronto film festival in September of 2011. I was fascinated by the visceral intensity of the play: the power, hubris, and force of the title character; its lasting political resonance; and the immediacy and profundity of the familial relationships, particularly between mother and son – Volumnia and Martius – which struck me as perhaps the most intense and psychologically complex presentation of that bond I had come across in Shakespeare.
What drew you to Coriolanus as a character?
I was fascinated by the evolution of Martius/Coriolanus as a character through the play. His arc is purely tragic. He begins the play as Rome’s most courageous warrior, is quickly celebrated as its most fearsome defender, then garlanded by the Senate and selected for the highest political office.
His clarity of focus, fearlessness and ferocity of spirit, all qualities that make him a great soldier, undo him as a politician. His honesty and pride forbid him from disguising his contempt for the people of Rome, whom he deems weak, cowardly and fickle in their loyalties and affections. He cannot lie. “His heart’s his mouth / What his breast forges that his tongue must vent.” He becomes a tyrant, branded a traitor, an enemy of the people: an uncontained vessel of blistering rage. He is banished, changed “from man to dragon”. Joining forces with his sworn enemy, Aufidius, he plots revenge against Rome: “There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” And then finally, at the very end, as he watches his own mother, wife and son kneel at his feet and beg for his mercy, he reveals – beneath the hardened exterior of contempt – a tenderness and vulnerability not seen before.
That shift, from splenetic warrior to merciless “dragon” to “boy of tears”, fascinated me – and the fact that his intransigence, valour and vulnerability all seem to be located in, and released by, his complex attachment to his mother.
How does this play about politics and people resonate in today’s society?
The play raises the question as to how much power should reside in the hands of any individual: a question that will never go out of date. “What is the city but the people?” cries the people’s tribune, Sicinius (in our production, brilliantly played by Helen Schlesinger). The people must have their voices. And, beneath that, I think the play also raises another complex question as to what degree any individual can withstand the intensity of idealisation and demonisation that comes with the mantle of unmoderated leadership or extraordinary responsibility.
It’s a physical role – how did you prepare for it with fight director Richard Ryan?
Josie Rourke and I knew it was important to the clarity of the play that Martius be credibly presented as a physical presence. As a warrior, we are told, he “struck Corioles like a planet”. Big boots to fill. Hadley Fraser, who plays Aufidius, and I began working with Richard Ryan three months before we started full rehearsals on the text of the play. The fight between Martius and Aufidius is a huge opportunity to explore their mutual obsession (“He is a lion that I am proud to hunt”).
We also hoped there would be something thrilling about presenting it at such close quarters in the confined space of the Donmar. We wanted to create a moment of combat that was visceral, brutal and relentless. We knew it would require skill, safety and endless practice. The fight choreography became something we drilled, every day. Hadley was amazing. So committed, so disciplined. It created a real bond of trust between us.
You previously starred in Othello at the Donmar. What’s special about that space?
The Donmar is one of the most intimate spaces in London. I must have seen at least a hundred productions there over the last 20 years, and as an audience member it always feels like a thrill and a privilege to feel so close to the action. There’s a forensic clarity to the space: the audience are so close that they see every movement, every look. For actors, there’s nowhere to hide. That’s exciting.
It’s what makes the Donmar special: the closeness, the proximity. Hard to imagine in the wake of Covid-19. Theatres everywhere need all the support they can get. But that’s what’s encouraging about National Theatre at Home. It’s keeping theatre going, but it’s also a reminder that the sector will need real support to stay alive: from the government and from us, the people who love and cherish it.
There is a rather bloody shower scene – what are your memories of that moment?
I remember that the water was extremely cold. But I was always grateful, because the preceding 20 minutes – scurrying up ladders, down fire escapes, into quick changes and sword fights – had been so physically intense that the cold water felt like a great relief. Martius says to Cominius just moments beforehand: “I will go wash / And when my face is fair you shall perceive / Whether I blush or no.” So I washed.
The scene did have a thematic significance. So much of the play, and the poetry of the play, is loaded with references and characters who are obsessed by the body of Martius as an object: how much blood he has shed for his city; how many scars he bears as emblems of his service. His mother, Volumnia (in our production played with such power and clarity by Deborah Findlay), says in a preceding scene that blood “more becomes a man than gilt his trophy”. Later, during the process of his election to the consulship, to the highest office, Martius is obliged by tradition to go out into the marketplace and display his wounds, in a bid to court public approval; to win the people’s voices. Martius refuses, in contempt for both practice and people.
In the shower scene, Josie wanted the audience to be able to see the wounds that he refuses to show the people later on, but we also wanted to suggest the reality of what those scars have cost him privately. We wanted to show him wincing, in deep pain: that these wounds and scars are not some highly prized commodity, but that beneath the exterior of the warrior-machine, idealised far beyond his sense of his own worth, is a human being who bleeds.
It’s an intense performance, in a three-hour play. How did you unwind after the show?
My first thought is that I was always unbelievably hungry. Thankfully, Covent Garden is not short of places to buy a hamburger. I will always be grateful to all of them.
How did you modify your performance for the NT Live filming?
The whole production for NT Live was very much the same as it was every night during our 12-week run. Naturally, as a company, we couldn’t help but be aware of cameras on all sides, especially in a space like the Donmar. We were all so grateful that the National Theatre Live team had come over the river to the Donmar. I always hoped the broadcast would capture the headlong intensity of the whole thing. The play opens with a riot, and does not stop.
What have you been watching during lockdown?
I was gripped, moved and inspired by The Last Dance, the documentary series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the mid-90s (Steve Kerr!). Normal People for its two extraordinary central performances from Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. I’ve rewatched old tennis matches, which somehow I have found very comforting: in particular, the 2014 Djokovic/Federer Wimbledon final. And – because we all need cheering up – Dirty Dancing.
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“Coriolanus” on National Theatre Live’s YouTube channel free this week
A NEW! interview with Tom Hiddleston from The Guardian:
Coriolanus is a play that’s more respected than revered. Why does it have a rather difficult reputation?
Coriolanus is relentless, brutal, savage and serious, but that’s why I find it interesting. Shakespeare sets the play in ancient Rome: a far older place than the Rome more familiar to us – of Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra or the later Empire. This Rome is wild. A city-state wrestling with its identity. An early Rome of famine, war and tyranny.
In the central character, Caius Martius Coriolanus, Shakespeare shows how the power of unchecked rage corrodes, dehumanises and ultimately destroys its subject. I’ve read that some find Martius a hard character to like, or to relate to – less effective at evoking an audience’s sympathy than Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Rosalind, Othello or Lear. Yet there is a perverse integrity and purity to be found in his obstinacy and honour, which sits alongside his arrogance and contempt.
The play’s poetry is raw and visceral, quite different from the elegance, beauty, clarity and charm found elsewhere in Shakespeare’s work. The warmth and delight to be found in his comedies are absent here. But the unstinting seriousness and intensity of the play is what makes it fascinating.
How well did you know the play?
I didn’t know it well. I had seen an early screening of Ralph Fiennes’s terrific film adaptation at the Toronto film festival in September of 2011. I was fascinated by the visceral intensity of the play: the power, hubris, and force of the title character; its lasting political resonance; and the immediacy and profundity of the familial relationships, particularly between mother and son – Volumnia and Martius – which struck me as perhaps the most intense and psychologically complex presentation of that bond I had come across in Shakespeare.
What drew you to Coriolanus as a character?
I was fascinated by the evolution of Martius/Coriolanus as a character through the play. His arc is purely tragic. He begins the play as Rome’s most courageous warrior, is quickly celebrated as its most fearsome defender, then garlanded by the Senate and selected for the highest political office.
His clarity of focus, fearlessness and ferocity of spirit, all qualities that make him a great soldier, undo him as a politician. His honesty and pride forbid him from disguising his contempt for the people of Rome, whom he deems weak, cowardly and fickle in their loyalties and affections. He cannot lie. “His heart’s his mouth / What his breast forges that his tongue must vent.” He becomes a tyrant, branded a traitor, an enemy of the people: an uncontained vessel of blistering rage. He is banished, changed “from man to dragon”. Joining forces with his sworn enemy, Aufidius, he plots revenge against Rome: “There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” And then finally, at the very end, as he watches his own mother, wife and son kneel at his feet and beg for his mercy, he reveals – beneath the hardened exterior of contempt – a tenderness and vulnerability not seen before.
That shift, from splenetic warrior to merciless “dragon” to “boy of tears”, fascinated me – and the fact that his intransigence, valour and vulnerability all seem to be located in, and released by, his complex attachment to his mother.
How does this play about politics and people resonate in today’s society?
The play raises the question as to how much power should reside in the hands of any individual: a question that will never go out of date. “What is the city but the people?” cries the people’s tribune, Sicinius (in our production, brilliantly played by Helen Schlesinger). The people must have their voices. And, beneath that, I think the play also raises another complex question as to what degree any individual can withstand the intensity of idealisation and demonisation that comes with the mantle of unmoderated leadership or extraordinary responsibility.
It’s a physical role – how did you prepare for it with fight director Richard Ryan?
Josie Rourke and I knew it was important to the clarity of the play that Martius be credibly presented as a physical presence. As a warrior, we are told, he “struck Corioles like a planet”. Big boots to fill. Hadley Fraser, who plays Aufidius, and I began working with Richard Ryan three months before we started full rehearsals on the text of the play. The fight between Martius and Aufidius is a huge opportunity to explore their mutual obsession (“He is a lion that I am proud to hunt”).
We also hoped there would be something thrilling about presenting it at such close quarters in the confined space of the Donmar. We wanted to create a moment of combat that was visceral, brutal and relentless. We knew it would require skill, safety and endless practice. The fight choreography became something we drilled, every day. Hadley was amazing. So committed, so disciplined. It created a real bond of trust between us.
You previously starred in Othello at the Donmar. What’s special about that space?
The Donmar is one of the most intimate spaces in London. I must have seen at least a hundred productions there over the last 20 years, and as an audience member it always feels like a thrill and a privilege to feel so close to the action. There’s a forensic clarity to the space: the audience are so close that they see every movement, every look. For actors, there’s nowhere to hide. That’s exciting.
It’s what makes the Donmar special: the closeness, the proximity. Hard to imagine in the wake of Covid-19. Theatres everywhere need all the support they can get. But that’s what’s encouraging about National Theatre at Home. It’s keeping theatre going, but it’s also a reminder that the sector will need real support to stay alive: from the government and from us, the people who love and cherish it.
You previously starred in Othello at the Donmar. What’s special about that space?
The Donmar is one of the most intimate spaces in London. I must have seen at least a hundred productions there over the last 20 years, and as an audience member it always feels like a thrill and a privilege to feel so close to the action. There’s a forensic clarity to the space: the audience are so close that they see every movement, every look. For actors, there’s nowhere to hide. That’s exciting.
It’s what makes the Donmar special: the closeness, the proximity. Hard to imagine in the wake of Covid-19. Theatres everywhere need all the support they can get. But that’s what’s encouraging about National Theatre at Home. It’s keeping theatre going, but it’s also a reminder that the sector will need real support to stay alive: from the government and from us, the people who love and cherish it.
There is a rather bloody shower scene – what are your memories of that moment?
I remember that the water was extremely cold. But I was always grateful, because the preceding 20 minutes – scurrying up ladders, down fire escapes, into quick changes and sword fights – had been so physically intense that the cold water felt like a great relief. Martius says to Cominius just moments beforehand: “I will go wash / And when my face is fair you shall perceive / Whether I blush or no.” So I washed.
The scene did have a thematic significance. So much of the play, and the poetry of the play, is loaded with references and characters who are obsessed by the body of Martius as an object: how much blood he has shed for his city; how many scars he bears as emblems of his service. His mother, Volumnia (in our production played with such power and clarity by Deborah Findlay), says in a preceding scene that blood “more becomes a man than gilt his trophy”. Later, during the process of his election to the consulship, to the highest office, Martius is obliged by tradition to go out into the marketplace and display his wounds, in a bid to court public approval; to win the people’s voices. Martius refuses, in contempt for both practice and people.
In the shower scene, Josie wanted the audience to be able to see the wounds that he refuses to show the people later on, but we also wanted to suggest the reality of what those scars have cost him privately. We wanted to show him wincing, in deep pain: that these wounds and scars are not some highly prized commodity, but that beneath the exterior of the warrior-machine, idealised far beyond his sense of his own worth, is a human being who bleeds.
It’s an intense performance, in a three-hour play. How did you unwind after the show?
My first thought is that I was always unbelievably hungry. Thankfully, Covent Garden is not short of places to buy a hamburger. I will always be grateful to all of them.
How did you modify your performance for the NT Live filming?
The whole production for NT Live was very much the same as it was every night during our 12-week run. Naturally, as a company, we couldn’t help but be aware of cameras on all sides, especially in a space like the Donmar. We were all so grateful that the National Theatre Live team had come over the river to the Donmar. I always hoped the broadcast would capture the headlong intensity of the whole thing. The play opens with a riot, and does not stop.
What have you been watching during lockdown?
I was gripped, moved and inspired by The Last Dance, the documentary series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the mid-90s (Steve Kerr!). Normal People for its two extraordinary central performances from Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. I’ve rewatched old tennis matches, which somehow I have found very comforting: in particular, the 2014 Djokovic/Federer Wimbledon final. And – because we all need cheering up – Dirty Dancing.
Coriolanus streams on YouTube from 7pm on 4 June as part of National Theatre at Home. Available until 11 June. How to make a donation to the National Theatre. How to make a donation to the Donmar Warehouse.
#tom hiddleston#coriolanus#national theatre live#he used 'raise the question' and not 'beg the question'
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Spartacus (1960); AFI #81
Our next film that we reviewed is the bleak but powerful story of Spartacus, (1960) the Kirk Douglas answer to missing out on Ben Hur. According to some background viewing on the DVD and on YouTube, Kirk Douglas wanted to be the lead in Ben Hur and was angry when his part was given to Charlton Heston. He bought the rites to his own Roman Empire epic that he believed would rival his missed opportunity and Spartacus was adapted for the screen. Although Spartacus did not win the awards that Ben Hur did, the film won a Golden Globe for best Drama as well as 3 technical Oscars and a Best Supporting Oscar for Peter Ustinov. Spartacus is now generally considered the superior film (OK, specifically by me), mainly because it does not go in the direction that the viewer would expect for a movie of the time. Before I go any further, let’s spoil the story for those who just want to talk about the film without having seen it:
SPOILER WARNING! THIS MOVIE DOES NOT END LIKE ONE WOULD EXPECT SO THIS IS A LEGITIMATE WARNING! THIS REVIEW WILL RUIN THE ENDING SO WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST!
The movie starts with eight minutes of music and establishing shots, making sure that the viewer knows this is an epic. We see our main character, a slave named Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), is so uncooperative in his position in a mining pit that he is sentenced to death by starvation. By chance, he is displayed to a sniveling Roman businessman named Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov), who – impressed by his ferocity – purchases Spartacus for his gladiatorial school. He tells his instructor Marcellus (Charles McGraw) to watch over Spartacus specifically because he thinks "he has quality". Amid the “training”, Spartacus forms a quiet relationship with a female slave named Varinia (Jean Simmons). She falls for Spartacus when he refuses to rape her for the entertainment of the guards claiming that he is not an animal. When she says “neither am I,” he respects her and realizes that she is kept for her physical abilities just as he is. Spartacus and Varinia are subsequently forced to endure numerous humiliations for defying the conditions of servitude, but their bond grows stronger as they suffer together.
Batiatus receives a visit from the immensely wealthy Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), who aims to become dictator of the stagnant Roman republic. Crassus buys Varinia on a whim and, for the amusement of his companions; arranges for Spartacus and three others to fight in pairs to the death. It was promised to the training gladiators that these death battles would only happen at the Colosseum. Crassus offers enough money that Batiatus can’t refuse, but this sets the rebellious attitude of the gladiators. During his fight, Spartacus is disarmed and his opponent, an African named Draba (Woody Strode), spares his life in a burst of defiance and instead attacks the Roman audience, but is speared by an arena guard and then finished off by Crassus. The next day, with the atmosphere still tense over this episode, Batiatus takes Varinia away to Crassus's house in Rome. Spartacus kills Marcellus, who was taunting him about his love, and the fight escalates into a full blown riot. The gladiators overwhelm their guards and escape into the Italian countryside.
Spartacus is chosen as leader of the fugitives and he decides to lead them out of Italy to the sea where they can leave the country. The growing army of slaves and gladiators plunders Roman estates all over the countryside, collecting enough money to buy sea transport from the pirates of Cilicia. Spartacus and his group encounter numerous other slaves who wish to join, making the procession towards the sea as large as an army. One of the new arrivals is Varinia, who escaped while being delivered to Crassus. Another is a slave entertainer named Antoninus (Tony Curtis), who also fled Crassus's service. Spartacus feels mentally inadequate because he is uneducated, but he proves an excellent leader and organizes his diverse followers into a tough and self-sufficient community. Varinia, now his informal wife, becomes pregnant by him, and he also comes to regard the spirited Antoninus as a sort of son.
The Roman Senate becomes increasingly alarmed as Spartacus defeats the multiple armies sent against him. Crassus's populist opponent Gracchus (Charles Laughton) knows that his rival will try to use the crisis as a justification for seizing control of the Roman army. To try and prevent this, Gracchus channels as much military power as possible into the hands of his own protege, a young senator named Julius Caesar (John Gavin). Although Caesar lacks Crassus's contempt for the lower classes of Rome, he mistakes the man's rigid outlook for nobility. Thus, when Gracchus reveals that he has bribed the pirates to get Spartacus out of Italy and rid Rome of the slave army, Caesar regards such tactics as beneath him and goes over to Crassus.
Crassus uses a bribe of his own to make the pirates abandon Spartacus and has the Roman army secretly force the rebels away from the coastline towards Rome. Amid panic that Spartacus means to sack the city, the Senate gives Crassus absolute power. Now surrounded by Romans, Spartacus convinces his men to die fighting. Just by rebelling and proving themselves human, he says that they have struck a blow against slavery. In the ensuing battle, after initially breaking the ranks of Crassus's legions, the slave army ends up trapped between Crassus and two other forces advancing from behind, and most of them are massacred. Afterward, the Romans try to locate the rebel leader for special punishment by offering a pardon (and return to enslavement) if the men will identify Spartacus, living or dead. Every surviving man responds by shouting "I'm Spartacus!". As a result, Crassus has them all sentenced to death by crucifixion along the Via Appia between Rome and Capua, where the revolt began.
After the battle, Crassus finds Varinia and Spartacus's newborn son hiding amongst the dead and takes them prisoner. He is disturbed by the idea that Spartacus can command more love and loyalty than he can and hopes to compensate by making Varinia as devoted to him as she was to her former husband. When she rejects him, he furiously seeks out Spartacus (whom he recognizes from having watched him at Batiatus' school) and forces him to fight Antoninus to the death. The survivor is to be crucified, along with all the other men captured after the great battle. Spartacus kills Antoninus to spare him this terrible fate. The incident leaves Crassus worried about Spartacus's potential to live in legend as a martyr. In other matters, he is also worried about Caesar, whom he senses will someday eclipse him.
Gracchus, having seen Rome fall into tyranny, commits suicide. Before doing so, he bribes his friend Batiatus to rescue Spartacus's family from Crassus and carry them away to freedom. On the way out of Rome, the group passes under Spartacus's cross. Varinia is able to comfort him in his dying moments by showing him his little son, who will grow up free and knowing who his father was.
So just to really hit this spoiler home: the slaves who escape are all slaughtered in battle or crucified along the road into Rome, the senator who tries to help them commits suicide, and Spartacus kills his close friend and is himself crucified to the sound of his slowly dying army. His one consolation is he sees his wife leaving with his child under the same man who turned him into a gladiator in the first place. Kubrick really knows how to end on an up note (sarcasm). This is not that surprising since Trumbo adapted it and he was not feeling like a happy ending was in his future. It was probably very cathartic for him to write out the script.
This movie brags of having a cast of thousands and that is no lie. My mom commented during the battle scene when all the armies are marching out that “nobody was unemployed during the making of this movie.” There was no green screen or CG effects, just 8000 members of the Spanish military dressed up like Roman soldiers and marching in formation. There were apparently many gory scenes that were cut out of battle towards the end and only a shot of Spartacus cutting off a man’s arm remained. When envisioning the project, Kubrick had no intention of holding back.
I did learn from the DVD extras (this is released through Criterion so there are tons of bonus extras and commentary) that Kubrick considered this the only film in which he felt he did not have complete creative control. He fought with Trumbo about the lead character being too perfect. Spartacus was a rebellious slave with no formal education and a huge chip on his shoulder. Why would he be so nice and understanding when so few people had shown him any kindness? The studios also did not like that somebody who had been shown to be so good would end up dying so badly. Kubrick really distanced himself from this film as he got old because he considered it the one example of a movie that he helped create that wasn’t really his.
One specific scene that both Kubrick and Trumbo agreed on but the studios did not like was the famous “snails and oysters” moment between Crassus and Antoninus. This is a famous moment in the history of homosexual representation in American film and involves two of the most well known actors of the time, Sir Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis. Antoninus is tending to Crassus during a bath and Crassus asks a series of questions about moral actions. He asks if Antoninus eats oysters and snails and asks if eating one is morally superior to the other. Crassus concludes that it is a matter of taste and not a question of morality. During the questioning, Antoninus continually refers to Crassus as master while oiling up the man in a bath. Crassus is blatantly hitting on Antoninus and the only reason it got past the studio censors is that it was the villainous Roman tyrant. This scene would have been cut at the time if it would have gone any further, I think. Very interesting moment in movie history.
More than any single scene, Kubrick was constantly fighting about his need to put in his special touch of over perfectionism which translated to demanding a lot of takes. This really slows down production when you are trying to direct and you are dealing with so many people. He is reported to have done a dozen or more takes for each dolly shot of the dead bodies on the battle field with specific instructions for every single extra that lay on the field. I am all about sticking to your vision, but that might be going a little bit too far when you are using studio money. I do love the final product, however, so I am probably not allowed to complain too much about the director’s process.
So does this movie belong on the AFI list? Of course. It is an epic historical drama that won 4 Academy Awards. It stars some of the biggest names in movie history including the great Kirk Douglas in possibly his most memorable role, it was directed by the iconic Stanley Kubrick, and this movie marks the end of the blacklisting of writers who had been accused of being communists. This is a piece of cinema that strongly represents the time of its creation and should definitely be studied by groups like the AFI. Would I recommend it? Across the board. It is a great movie that actually moves through its 3+ hours. I found myself taking less notes during the movie and simply enjoying the entire viewing. I even watched again with commentary without a single gripe. Fantastic movie and a real tribute to the great actor Kirk Douglas. RIP and thank you for the entertainment. I am Spartacus!
#spartacus#Kirk Douglas#award winner#academy award#Stanley Kubrick#roman empire#afi films#60s#golden age of hollywood#introvert#introverts#movie review#spoilers
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February: Once You Were The Year’s Ending
Written By: Anonymous
I don’t know that I’d accept as being truthful anyone who told me he or she had never really tried to simply “start over”. And I’m sure those supposed new beginnings usually began on some type of meaningful day – meaningful that is to the one attempting the new realignment of customs, routines, and priorities.
But I’m also confident that before anyone embarked upon any wished for new lifestyle, that one probably felt best prepared after he or she had finally absolved past infringements upon that one’s life as it had been then. And God! There had been so many! So many times as children, teenagers, young adults, and even then into one’s mid-life, one had committed acts looked back upon in wishfulness that they’d not occurred. Yet, they were real; and today if one really wished a new beginning, it couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t be initiated in phoniness, denial, or acceptance of non-truth – or could or should it?
No, it couldn’t or shouldn’t. But should we cut through the protocol of right writing now? I think so. So, here are ten things our new beginning can’t accept: 1. The packing of the U. S. Supreme Court with more new members – all liberals of course, 2. The addition of new liberal areas as U.S. states, to give the Democratic Party a perpetual majority in the Senate, 3. The termination of the electoral college, 4. The banning of conservative speech and writing, 5. The banning of talk radio, 6. The banning of the Republican Party or any other conservative political party, 7. The illegal entry into the U.S. of anyone who wishes to come here – and stay here, 8. The allowance of cheating in any election – local, state or national, 9. The continuance of the policy which blames white males for all current American problems – especially such problems as are dominantly concerned with gender and race, and 10. The establishment of a dictatorship in the U.S., to be administered by the Democratic Party.
No, we won’t accept the above mentioned “things”. But here’s the remainder of our February story. Once upon a time, on the first day of the month which for many years had been Earth’s final yearly division of days, but which now for many years has been its second, a time traveler asked me “Why are they always searching for something they’ll never find?”
And I answered “It may be that the answer is multi-reasoned. Some were probably looking in the wrong place or places. Others were likely afraid of finding that thing because they feared that with its discovery they’d be subjected to emotions, responsibilities, or alterations of lifestyle which they knew they’d not be able to handle. And still others simply never thought about why they were doing what they were doing. Their life searches were real; yet perhaps not actually understood or recognized.”
“But all who were questioned concerning goals said they needed money; and they needed to carry on in such a fashion as they believed to be societally constructive. Still, most said they’d never force others to support them or, in times of real or imagined peril, cross a river and then dump their problems off on to the people living to what had previously been their north.”
And the traveler replied “When it comes to universal credibility, one fact which should always be considered is that the group cannot, and never will surpass the individual for importance in any matter.”
And I answered “I think that’s right. But doesn’t it seem as though most humans only want to follow the crowd? And if they’re not living so-called ‘normal existences’, or advocating for evil and/or violence, then they’re struggling to keep pace with what I guess were God’s best created humans – the Joneses. Yes, we must follow the Joneses.”
And at that point the time traveler said “Farewell my friend. I’m off to follow the Joneses.”
Well, some may question the truth of what’s been written here thus far. And they may not believe in time travel. But had they lived in the city I’ve lived in, they’d know very little is beyond possibility there. And personally, I’ve always tried to use that city’s freedom from what would normally be considered “the constrictions of everyday real life” to my personal advantage – and mental advancement.
Therefore, I’ve come to learn that some dispute whether the passage of time should demand as high a recognition as it does. I even remember someone telling me once that time is like a switch which switches itself on or off. But when it’s off, we as mortals don’t know it’s stopped. Yet, inanimate life continues on then. And thus, when time begins again, all animate life needs then to face the reality of all that may have occurred and/or changed during time’s cessation. Oh, but here’s something even more important! Time controls itself. It’s devoid of human influence, yet under God’s directive sends out light or darkness.
And it may not surprise you that when I submitted this written piece to our city’s mayor George Jennifer, he wasn’t entirely pleased with it. His actual wish had been that I should write an article concerning the recent riot at the American capitol. And after he made me aware of his “moderate” disapproval of this piece I said “Like the Caesars of old, what I’ve written, I’ve written.”
So, sure, I and many others could have said, and could still say a lot more about the recent riot in Washington D.C.. But then we also could have said, and could still say a lot about a lot of other things as well. Still, one thing that perhaps should be remembered about the attack on the capitol, is that while some members of the law enforcement squads involved in quelling the riot received praise for their efforts, some others were criticized. And recently there has even been a request to increase security for members of Congress. To me it seems rather strange that only months ago all we heard were calls for police defunding and police elimination. Yet, suddenly we now apparently need more police protection. It must be that while someone else’s security is at risk, then it’s alright to defund and cut back on police services, but when the well-being of certain people is threatened, then members of law enforcement can’t do enough for them.
Nevertheless, we’ll never refute the truth of the fact that every moment that’s lived is one less that remains to be lived. And that fact alone, no doubt spurns some mortals on to commit acts of anger, hatred, and destruction. And today, on the social landscape, we’re seeing both a lot of new and old would be controllers vying for mankind’s conscience of the moment. And they‘re assigning a great amount of concern to some matters of questionable importance which they say now demand our immediate attention. Still, I believe perceptions perceived by mortals of limited, or no common sense are eventually found out not to have been as significant as non-intellectuals would have had us believe.
And I for one can, and will live on as I please. And I’ll support your right to hold your own beliefs and criticisms. Yet, please don’t hide in your basement, or behind your new hairdo, or within your three letter abbreviation. Be as courageous as one of your colleagues was recently when he acknowledged that America’s former president had been able to incite an erection at the capitol riot.
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Thoughts On: Total War Rome 2 Rise of the Republic
Rise of the Republic is an expansion for Total War Rome 2. It covers the very early history of the Roman republic.
I started this expansion's campaign some months ago. I was listening to The History of Ancient Rome audio book and was eager to play some more Rome 2.
I wish hadn't.
Difficult in All the Wrong Ways
I'm certainly not a Total War master but I know my way around the games. Yet I found this expansion brutally hard at the start.
Spoils of War
Gold is tight early-game, which isn't implausible as a fledgling nation-state. It forces you to make do with lesser units, and to play cautiously and defensively.
That is, until you research Spoils of War, which gives you a flat 3,500 income boost. That's huge early game.
My strategy became clear. Live long enough to research this. That would let me field a second army, which would let me start conquering while still defending Rome.
I had to restart once or twice before I knew this. But knowing that wasn't enough...
Doctore Evilius brought his extended pinky finger to the corner of his smirking mouth as he watched the city burn. “I guess you could say... they’re Histri.”
Politics
The next problem I ran into was the power and politics system. This system sounds great in theory: you have to remain in favour with the politicians, using rumours, diplomacy, bribes, promotions, policies, flattery and so on. The whole system even got an overhaul in the recent past.
In Rise of the Republic, it sucks. Especially on harder difficulties, where the in-built penalties to loyalty are big.
You are "immune" to disfavour for the very early game. But then, the system flicks on full power. You are given a little warning, but unless you are experienced you won't realise how brutal it is: you're fine one turn then up to your Palatine Hills in secessionists one turn later. I had to start again at least once because of this.
I think a more gradual introduction would've been better: a massive early-game bonus that slowly dwindles over time.
Camillus the Home-Wrecker
What's more foolish though is how you deal with the politics system. Despite giving you a truck-load of options they all basically amount to the same thing: spend gold to reduce disloyalty for a short time. All the choice is an illusion, really.
So many options, so little choice.
As I've said, gold is very scarce early-game. As far as I know, there's really only one cost-effective way to "win" at politics, which I discovered only through research. And it's silly:
Pick a general from your political family.
Level up the general, and increase his "Cunning".
Once at a mid level, bring home your general from military service into politics.
Recruit new politicians, picking only ones from rival factions.
Pay a little gold to have these rival politicians seek a spouse, and give them a few easy political missions to gain a scrap of "Gravitas".
Use your super-cunning family member to "Entice" one half of each marriage into your faction.
Each cross-faction marriage gives a bonus to loyalty as long as both husband and wife live.
That's much more cost effective than any alternative. I did a few other little things to secure loyalty, but the vast majority of my loyalty was gained by breaking up families.
It's a shame, because the politics system is a great idea, just very lacking in execution. (And it may work better in other expansions, for all I know.)
These are all the wives I “collected” while deploying this strategy. Forget Desperate Housewives; coming soon: Enticed Senator’s Wives.
What's Wrong With a Challenge?
I did play on Very Hard. So shouldn't I want things to be Very Hard?
Yes, but:
I'd like to figure out a winning strategy that's right for me, out of a number of viable choices. I don't want to have to research and then leverage very specific "gimmicks".
I'd prefer my challenge to be historical. I don't remember Rome's desperate hold-out until they suddenly got rich. And I don't remember Camillus going about stealing senator's wives.
I'd rather difficulty came more broadly and through the AI getting smarter. Not applied in one place using a big arbitrary penalty.
How did Camillus woo all those wives? I think it’s the metallic nipples. Ancient Rome had yet to see the look ruined.
Late Game Steam-Roll
Once you struggle out of early game things get easier and easier until you win. That's a hallmark of Total War games but they have managed to solve it:
Caesar in Gaul had a relaxed early game, where the barbarians were more interested in killing each other than you. As you took more land, they started to unite against you. Mid-to-late game was hard.
Warhammer Total War games have factions slowly band together in confederations. While you're conquering, they're merging, so you have to fight larger factions later-game. The Chaos Invasion and Eye of the Vortex story-lines add later-game spice to things as well.
Alas, nothing like that is on play here. Success snowballs: gold means armies, which means territory, which means even more gold. Enemies who relished kicking you about when you were small suddenly are content to you leave you alone. Late game becomes a tedious affair of conquering town after town with your mighty Legions.
It may be historically accurate (sort-of) but it isn't especially fun.
This kind of spectacle is why Rome 2 still delights even during its worst expansions.
Base Game Delights
I didn't dislike every moment playing this expansion, but I didn't like anything from the expansion.
Instead, I liked the usual Rome 2 stuff: the spectacle and sounds of clashing armies, the tactical battles, the historic(ish) setting and feel.
I still strongly recommend Rome 2. Just not this expansion. Try the base campaigns or Caesar in Gaul.
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Seeds of thought : Wicdiv 455AD
Hey everyone ! Fair warning, this month’s analysis is a bit heavy on the History lesson side. I try not to go all nerdy on here because I want to emphasize that this is only my opinion/thoughts and not “10 things you need to know to understand this issue” but the further we go back in time, the harder it gets to analyse things without putting them in context first. So yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, as usual spoilers under the cut. Enjoy !
FOUND ROME IN MARBLE, LEFT IT IN SHAMBLES
What in G-O-D’s name did poor Eleanor Rigby have on her face that made Ananke so pissed ? Because let’s face it, between 1831’s wannabe necromancer and 455AD’s emperor in training, her double murder ranks maybe a 3 on the Lucifers-are-a-pain-in-the-ass-o-meter. Having been a main character in the comic and both specials, Lucifer is at this stage the god we’re the most familiar with in the grand scheme of the Recurrence. And while our data is inevitably skewed because we haven’t seen enough incarnations of the other gods, it means that using him, we can begin to talk about gods not only throughout one specific incarnation, but as a succession of incarnations, and analyse their recurring traits – and their evolution – both as a character and a religious/mythological figure.
A few hours before the special came out, I wrote this short analysis of the various wheel symbols of Lucifer in which I saw a common theme of both religious inadequacy and performative value. I observed that according to their symbols Lucifers were not mystic leaders, but performers, closer to the popular idea of themselves than to themselves. Turns out I was accidentally dead on, at least when it comes to the 455AD special. This time, Lucifer is literally an actor, and although it’s unclear whether or not he was one before becoming a god, I think we can assume it is the case, seeing how vindictive “Julius” is about making people respect actors.
Contrary to Greek traditions, actors in Rome were considered the lowest part of society, barely superior to slaves ; in fact many of them came from families of former slaves. A lot of them were basically courtesans who occasionally acted. And of course, the profession was associated with “shameful” sexual practices, homosexuality first and foremost.
Furthermore, Roman theatres are not a place of worship. It is rare to see gods in plays, and there is no religious meaning behind attending a play – something that is hinted at in Dionysus’ choice of calling himself Bacchus. So when “a catamite actor boy” reveals himself to be a god, should the tables turn ? Not as much as it would have seemed : in his flashbacks with Dionysus, Lucifer’s clothes and housing remain shabby, his tone bitter. Divine or not, Lucifer is just an actor. He cannot make History, only resurrect it onstage while Rome is falling. He is loved, but not respected, hated but not feared, brilliant but not enlightening. Who he was is in constant tension with who he became and what he wants to accomplish. Can you blame him for deciding to put on his stage costume permanently ?
In fact, this entire pantheon seems to have faced the same problem : who must you be to inspire people when you have so little time ? In later centuries, and especially in modern times, the answer will be much easier : be a performer. But in 455AD, inspiring figures are not onstage, they’re in the forum or on a battlefield. Those are political times. The answers the gods gave are varied : Baal is a city leader, Inanna arranges a political wedding, Mithras is a general of some sort, Minerva is linked to a place of knowledge. But as for Lucifer, a roman actor, who better to be than the ultimate junction of man, god, acting and political power ? He will be emperor.
But adding a third facet to himself – actor, god, and now emperor – doesn’t solve his paradoxes and inadequacies ; it aggravates them. This special weaves a complex web of references linking all those facets, all of which ripe with tragic irony. There is of course the figure of Julius Caesar, who never technically became emperor and died trying, which Lucifer turns into some grand saviour of Rome. Then we have the usual suspects, Caligula and Nero, the madman and the artist, both of which wanted to succeed to the “great” emperors Julius Caesar and Augustus only to fail, finding a new incarnation in Lucifer. But I see two more emperors eluded to in this issue. First there is Tiberius, who started the practice of throwing criminals in the Tiber, and also famously forbade higher-class citizens to entertain relationships with actors. And even more interestingly, there was another emperor who straight-up forbade his priests and senators to set foot in a theatre : Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor.
Holding Christian beliefs became legal in the Roman Empire in 313 under Constantine, who also became the first emperor to convert. Christianity then quickly became the dominant religion all over the empire, extending to the various Germanic tribes who had started integrating themselves to Eastern territories in search for cultivable lands, and had adopted roman culture for sometimes more than a century at the time of the special (if anyone was confused by Genseric being a Christian, here’s the explanation). But in 362, Emperor Julian briefly tried to restore paganism before dying from a battle wound. Only a few years after his death, paganism was outlawed for good in the Roman Empire.
If there’s one invader hovering over this entire special, it’s not Genseric, it’s Christianity. A subject I find fascinating but hadn’t been touched much before by the comic is the relationship between the worshipping of the pantheon and the status of monotheistic, worldwide religions. In modern times, the two seemed to coexist in relative peace, as the cult of the pantheon didn’t seem able to transcend its members’ death. The Pantheon is an event, Religion an institution. But here, four centuries after the birth of Christianism, we are at the end of a cultural shift : Christianism has become the dominant religion while paganism is quickly disappearing. What this means is that this generation of pagan gods is experiencing, maybe for the first time, what it’s like to exist in a world that no longer worships you. Paradoxically, as these gods get farther away from the times they were actually dominant figures, they’ll have an easier time drawing from those sources and adapting them to match the current taste. But in 455AD ? The Pantheon is suffocating in the shadow of the Christ, not relevant enough anymore to sustain a cult on their own, not syncretised enough to resonate within the context of Christian culture.
And this brings us to our poor Lucifer. Of all the members of this pantheon that we know of, he’s the one that will be assimilated most directly and most textually to Christianity. You could argue that Inanna found some sort of syncretism with the Virgin Mary, but if only by their names, all of them save for Lucifer will remain decidedly more pagan than Christian. Lucifer, on the other hand, will see his pagan origin completely erased by his Christian recuperation. From a minor god presumed to be the divine incarnation of Venus, he will gradually become one of the most important figures in Christian iconography, a position that will allow him a degree of changeability in concepts and role that will make for an incredibly rich series of incarnations. Eleanor drew from the evolution of mores and morality to create a supremely cool and even areligious devil, yet one that had the tang of a crisis of faith ; XIXth century Lucifer was both the devil of Romantic artists, a tragic incarnation of creativity and also the remnants of popular beliefs, the grotesque figure of evil philosophy quickly being replaced by higher concepts.
But in 455AD, Lucifer is a difficult one, “this time most of all”, because he finds himself in the middle of an identity crisis. He is being robbed of his traditional divinity and turned into something else. Something that, according to most interpretations, is not even divine, just “a dog shivering from the Divine’s whip”.
Taking the mantle of the emperor is not just an act of hubris, it’s an act of desperation, not only to stay alive as a member of the pantheon past two years, but as a divine figure past his time of worship. It’s interesting to note that if some emperors were indeed deified, they were so after their death ; to Lucifer, they are the proof you can retain divinity even after your time is over.
But of course, you cannot escape programmed death, in more ways than one. Christianity is pertaining at every corner of this issue, dooming the gods to obscurity. The final destruction of the library of Alexandria is said to have been ordered by Pope Theophilus ; the figure of Ildico, the wife suspected to have assassinated Attila, will get overshadowed by Saint Genevieve, said to have stopped the Huns’ march in Gallia. As for Mithras feeding his army with his own flesh, I’m afraid we’ll only remember its famous precedent.
Ananke herself seems to incarnate the unstoppable march of Christianity : draped in a blue shawl reminiscent of the Virgin Mary herself, she is referred to by Lucifer as “the most necessitous mother”.
And as for Lucifer himself… he might try to be an actor, a pagan god, an emperor all at once, but at every turn, he is Christian. I joked that his own symbol, the upside-down Chi Rho, has never been associated with him, but indeed, his own symbol has never been associated with him. Upside-down or not, a Chi Rho is a Chi Rho, and it only ever refers to the Christ. In 455AD, you cannot even signify Lucifer anymore without using the Christ. And then we have Lucifer’s last moments. Like the actor he is, the builds his scene to evoke both his pagan origin (with Jupiter as his father) and his chosen personality Julius Caesar with his last words a direct reference. But while Caesar’s last words “Et tu, Brute ?” were addressing his son, in this context “Et tu, Jupiter” is addressing the father. A father who has abandoned him while he was trying to sacrifice himself for a people. Father, why hast thou forsaken me.
Lucifer dies closer to a failed Christ as he does to his own pagan roots. But how could he have not failed ? It wasn’t that he was bad, or powerless, but he was inadequate. As an actor and as a god, in a time that had no use for the old him anymore and no use for the new him yet. More than anything else, Lucifer is battling the invincible push and pull of History. Being born in the wrong time and place, practicing the wrong profession, loving the wrong person. Being the wrong god. When you’re out of place in History, there is no changing the stage. You can’t create your own atmosphere. When you’re not in tune, you’re not in tune.
And through Lucifer, it’s the death of Rome itself that’s told. Deified emperors were not just additions to the pantheon ; they were the divinities most closely associated to Rome as a political entity. In pagan times, when they invaded other regions, Romans famously let people keep their religion, but all had to be present on the days of celebration of deified emperors. They served as a unifying cultural fabric throughout the Empire. The emperors were the gods of Rome. Lucifer, like Julian the Apostate, tries to reinstate paganism, but with a particular target : the very spirit of the greatness of Rome. He vows a cult to the idea of the Empire more than its gods.
But the Empire is done. And so will be, in barely 70 years, the Vandal kingdom, reconquered by the Eastern Roman Empire. As for what vandal will come to mean… In her final speech to Genseric, is Ananke purposely lying or is she just as ignorant of the future as he is ? Most of all, I think she does not care. In her own words, gods are meant to burn bright to light humanity’s path, but each and every god of this pantheon accompanied the end of an era. If the gods serve any purpose, they do not ensure that the path will remain the same, only that there is a path to continue on. Failure is just as significant as victory ; the pantheon walks alongside History, they do not shape it. The 455AD pantheon’s purpose was to bear witness to the fall of the old world, of their world, and Ananke would not let them deviate from it.
In fact, we are two specials in, and so far have we witnessed anything but endings and falsification ? The events of the summer of 1831 did not just remain a mystery as Ananke destroyed Inanna’s journal, they also coincided with the end of the golden age of the Romantics. 455AD does not simply marks another step towards Rome’s rapid fall, but what really happened is now mere “wilder theories” according to David Blake. So far, it seems a successful pantheon to Ananke’s standards is one she managed to almost erase from History. Once again, ironically, this special IS our Sulla : we’ve seen Ananke rewrite History once, we know she can do it again. How many times HAS she done it ?
“Lucifer was only an actor made great by History” and, as Ananke hints, so is everyone. But Lucifer in the History she rewrote is neither great nor part of History. If truly we are all actors on the stage of History, then every generation is playing for the future ones. The actors do not know their role and the audience does not know the truth. And if the play goes wrong, Ananke will there to sweep the stage after each performance. Alea falsata est.
WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUE
So, before anything else, can we agree that if Wicdiv ever gets to make figurines of its characters, Lucifer with his homemade harp needs to be one ? Because I have a figurine of the Hieronymus Bosch knife-penis from The Garden of Delights that needs a friend. Cool ? Cool.
I do admire the wicdiv team’s will to have the special be their own thing instead of a simple extension of the normal wicdiv canon. They read like a completely different series, with its own language and rhythm. This one had even fewer kieronisms than the last one and the style is almost antithetic to McKelvie’s. But what this also means is that this reads like the issue #2 of a series more than an outgrowth of the main one. Meaning, it’s a series that’s still finding its footing.
Wicdiv 455AD is much better than its predecessor Wicdiv 1831, but as part of its series I have a feeling it’s not quite what it has the potential of being yet. The story 1831 was trying to tell simply didn’t work for the one-shot format : it felt rushed, with stakes minimal, and its referencing didn’t seem to add up to anything. 455AD, despite technically happening on a grander scale, tells a much more personal story. The limited number of pages certainly works better with one character and a straight timeline than it does with four on multiple storytelling levels. And if the references forced me to take maybe one too many trips by Wikipedialand, it felt purposeful, adding to the text instead of subtracting from it.
So the most obvious problems from 1831 have clearly been fixed. The story of 455AD works wonderfully as a one-shot, albeit one that requires a decent baggage on both the Wicdiv canon and ancient History. This is one of those “the less you know about the character, the better” cases, and reading the reviews I find it very telling that everyone seems to have different levels of empathy for the main character. Over the course of the one-shot, he appears both extremely sympathetic and insufferable. But the shortness of the plot never allows us to form a meaningful connexion with him, meaning we always keep a certain distance from the story, which in this case is a good thing : this special is about the movement of history, the towering feeling of hindsight, the spectacle of failure. Having such distance to the characters allows us to seize the foolishness of his quest while also finding room for sympathy ; if we were more involved, we’d resent his failure. In that perspective, we are more on Ananke’s side than his. We come from a place so far away in History that we cannot possibly root for his success, because we cannot envision the dramatic change that would mean for our own history. Just like Wicdiv #27 took a time limit and turned this limitations into an asset by embracing frenzy and confusion, Wicdiv 455AD took its limited number of pages and used it to tell a story on ineluctability. It had just the right level of story not told to get us just as involved as we need to be.
However, the format of the one-shot still feels a bit too short for its story. It focuses on the character, which was the most important element, but to the detriment of the rest. Rome is falling, but we barely see it ; the most we get is burning rooftops and murdered courtiers. It’s hard to feel the toll and stakes of it all when the camera is zooming so closely on the main character. And call me greedy, but I would have liked to see more of Araùjo’s depiction of Rome. I just love this style so much. I’m not sure if that’s a common type of style in Anglo-Saxon media, but for me in Europe it’s a huge nostalgia bomb. I grew up on French/Belgian comics and this kind of super detailed, expressive and somewhat cartoonish style is basically my childhood. Plus, coincidentally, this type of comics was obsessed with Ancient Rome. Here however, the story happens mostly in geometrical interiors, and save for the triumph scene, the city feels almost empty. Of course, part of it is intentional : Ananke’s walk to the Tiber, from the magnificent streets though walls too small to be intimidating, to a dirty river under dirty stone exudes maybe the most powerful pathos Wicdiv has ever wrung out. But as a whole, the setting lacks scale and life. I think I’ve already said before that locations are maybe the least interesting graphic aspect of Wicdiv, but goddamn, if you give me Rome before the fall and I don’t get a little bit whiplashed by the setting, I feel robbed. Clearly the décor had to be kind of sacrificed for the characters, and the expressions here are just fantastic. They achieve a level of ugliness that’s completely foreign to McKelvie’s style ; even when his characters are pissed, they never stop looking like perfect cut-outs from magazines. The expressiveness of Araùjo’s drawings immediately plunges us in something realer, more tangible and grounded. I just wish there had been more of a balance between character and background.
As for the writing, it still occasionally feels like there was way too much going on in those scripts and what made it onto the pages is what won at eeny meeny miny moe but as a whole there’s much more breathing room in the dialogues. Lucifer and Ananke’s discussion is the one bordering the most on overbearing, but it’s too much of a delight to see Ananke’s manipulative ways to really mind. Of Gillen’s habitual writing style, this special retains its disjointedness (which as usual works when it works and lets you roll with it if not) but adds a substantial touch of natural that’s not that common in the main wicdiv run : bizarrely, despite the complex speech patterns of Antique Rome, this special feels more intimate and direct than the average Wicdiv issue.
Overall, I did really like this special. I think it was starting with a bit of an advantage given how interested I am in Ancient Rome. The Art is to die for, even though it still felt like it could have been showcased even better. The story is purposeful and all the googling didn’t feel like a waste of time. Still, I feel like there’s still some wiggle room to make a truly great one-shot in which the limited space and the conceptuality won’t hinder the emotional connexion. I’d also like to see the specials mix it up by maybe getting away from the “end of the pantheon” motive, and given the next special should be the modernist pantheon and we’ve already seen their end, it feels like the perfect place to do it.
Yeah, I’m aware my opinion is not all that interesting this time, as for me this special falls in the “very good but not great” category, and I’m not that clear on what could have been done to make it great. Most of all, I think it tells us that standalone issues are hard, and when they have to do with a completely different historical context and revelations on the main canon to cram in somewhere, it’s not every day you’ll get something as rich and enjoyable as this.
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Did Jesus Rise Physically from the Dead? Dale B Martin
COMMENTARY:
Christian theology exists because Jesus rose from the dead.
Martin doesn't even demolish the historical elements of the Gospels and Acts, much less the witness arising from the risen Christ. In fact, this particular lecture is a case study in the preferred paradigm for anti-theists, Jews for Judaism, Muslims who cling to the heresy of Sura 4:157, the applied sophistry of the Jesus seminar and the Evangelical "spiritual warrior" business model. . In this regards, Martin is less a historian than a polemicist if not propagandist. It's a frivilous presentation.
The Gospel of Mark was written by Cornelius, the centurion who confronts Jesus in Matthew 8/Luke 7 and who debriefs Peter in Acts 10. John Mark, the consensus namesake of the Gospel, was the publisher, so to speak, of the gospel in Alexandria. The gospel became know as the Gospel of Mark because he became associated with its distribution, but he didn't write it. John Mark did write The Gospel of John, which can be seen as a companion anthology to the more intimate conversations and discourses of Jesus. It is called the Gospel of John to disambiguate it from the Gospel of Mark.
Tne Gospel of Mark was written in 40 by Cornelius after his debriefing with Peter described in Acts 10 as a follow-on intelligence assessment to whatever intelligence Tiberius received from Palestine before 37 which informed his proposal to elevate Jesus as a legal Roman deity. This event is reported in Tertullian's Apology, chapter 5.
As Tertullian notes, the nomeclature "Christian" was first introduced in Rome at that time although it doesn't show up in Antioch until 10 years later, which it was imported from Rome into this cosmopolitin seaport. Like "Picts" and "Britains", "Christian'' is an invention of the Roman soldiers in Palestine in the eternal irreverant commentary of soldiers on the world around them. Herod Aggrippa II and Bernice illustrate the currency of this label in the Roman culture in Acts 26:28 "Then Agrippa said to Paul, 'Can you persuade me in such a short time to become a Christian?' "
The Gospel of Mark begins when Jesus appears above the Roman and Herodian military horizon as a potential insurgent with His baptism, when both intelligence services begin to compile a file on Him. These spy reports, the intelligence product, become the basis for the narrative arc of Mark and the Synoptic Gospels, generally. Mark is probably the most faithful to the actual chronology of Jesus's ministry from baptism to the cross because it was prepared as an intelligence briefing that went up the chain of command of the Praetorian Guard in Rome.
Both Cornelius and Pilate were creatures of the Praetors. Pilate had a similar career path as Julius Caesar when he was given the Palestine portfolio and Cornelius was a career soldier who had attained his climax strata and came to Palestine with Pilate to be his Chief of Staff or a similar function. The Magistrates, generally represented an executive branch of the Roman Republic and Empire and a combination of the American civil service and, in the Praetorian Guard, a general staff function that ensured the uniform training and doctrine of the legions through the centurionate. Whereas the warriors of the rest of the world (including Greece/Macedonia/Sparta) were responding to an aesthetic more or less identical to the Japanese samurai, the centurions were creatures of the rule of law and, like the modern NCOs from E-7 to E-9 (Sergeant First Class to Command Sergeant Major), they functioned as gyroscopic flywheels for the legions and the stability of the Empire. When Constantine dismantled the Praetorian Guards after Milvian Bridge, Rome, as a cohesive political enterprise, began to fall apart as a theocracy.
What Pauline-centric historians like Martin ignore (and this applies, generally, to everyone) is the impact of Jesus's resurrection on the Roman soldiers who were witness to the actual moment of resurrection. It's useful to note that Matthew is the only Gospel to describe these events while Mark/Cornelius, Luke and John photo shop the Roman participation out of the narrative once the legal chain of custody ends with Pilate's authorization for Joseph of Arimathea taking possession of the corpse. This is where the Gospel of Peter comes in: According to Bart Ehrman, something like this was circulating as an oral tradition before the canon was even available and, as I say, the Roman content got to Tiberius' ears before his death in 37. The common wisdom is that the Gospel of Peter is derivative of Matthew and Luke, but, again, that is an ideological tail wagging the dog.
Now, we know that the Romans had an excellent intelligence capacity and that Tiberius, in particular, was able to uncover the Sejanus plot for his remove in Capri. Luke mentions that that both Felix "... was well informed about the Way (Acts 24:22) and Herod Agrippa II "...(was) acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies (Acts 26:3)" associated with the Christians (Acts 26:28).
And we know that Cornelius was engaged in the Synagogue at Capernaum, knew Jarius, the president of the synagogue, personally, (Acts 7: 3 When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to ask Him to come and heal his servant...) and, according to Matthew, had met Jesus, personally, with a petition to heal his slave (Mt 8:5 -13) duing which time Jesus justifies him by faith (Not in all of Israel have I found such faith), with the consequence that Cornelius and his family are the only people in the Bible to be baptized in the spirit before being baptized in water.
Cornelius, in his role as Pilate's senior NCO/Administrator, maintained the Jesus archives in the Roman intelligence bureaucracy, which included Herod's spy file on Jesus, produced by Levi, Herod's mole in the Jesus movement. Matthew produced all the red-letter verses in the Gospels except those occuring during Jesus's custody by the Romans. This combined archive became the Q source Matthew and Luke drew upon to compose their version of events, but it was Cornelius that maintained the archive.
I could say that these elements are ignored by polemicists such as Dale Martin, Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman, but the fact is, ALL Christian commentary ignores these elements. But there ar two far more compelling elements that left out more or less universally and that is the response of the private soldiers to their experience and the tribal communication system characteristic of all military organizations forever and that is scuttlebutt: Not only did the term "Christian" get to Rome 10 years before Paul set off on his first missionary, but the legend of Jesus's resurrection spread through the Roman legions like grass through a goose. Before 30/33 CE, "resurrection" wasn't a concept of anybody but the Jews as doctrine, but, according to NT Wright (and Martin can confirm this) Roman novels with themes of resurrection were being circulated across the Empire. There is no group of people more spiritually available than combat troops and Jesus represents big medicine to anyone intimately familiar with death and the improbability of reversing the process.
Which is why the intelligence surronding Jesus's resurrection went up the chain of command from Palestine to Capri and ended up in the archives of the Roman Senate (according to Tertullian's Apology chapter 5). The idea that Jesus survived crucifixion is a null set (go view what the forensics performed on the Shroud of Turin reveal as to what they did to Jesus before He could give up the ghost like a Zen master at the end of his life). Jesus didn't walk away from that process. Instead, a superior process restored Him to life. And that was a subject of considerable interest not just to the powers to be in Rome, but to Willy and Joe in the ranks, upon whose shoulders the Empire ultimately rested.
When Jesus arose from the grave, everything began to move to Rome. Immediately. Gary Habermas believes that Christian doctrine began to emerge within a year of the cross. Not only do I agree, but it's apparent to me it began to emerge immediately after the Accension and was put on hyper-drive by Pentacost. It may have taken another 300 odd years before the Nicean Creed is composed, but Peter pretty well summarizes the issue in Acts 10:34 - 43, again, nearly a decade before Paul sets off on his first missionary and 12 years before Paul composes Romans, which he would defend before the Praetorian Guard, successfully, as intimated by Phillipians 1:13. sometime around 62. The Gospel of Luke and Acts were commissioned by an equistrian, Theophilus, and a member to the house church of the Praetorian Guards, as an amicus brief for Paul's pending trial in Rome. Mark. Luke/Acts and John are all written to satisfy the intelligence imperatives of the Praetorian Guards.
Finally, Matthew is the outlier of the Gospels. It is a polemic that Matthew prepared to support the position of the Judaizers that opposed Paul's substitution of baptism for circumcision for gentiles. Luke takes a pretty blatant swipe at Matthew's ideological position in his opening to comments to Theophilus (" ...having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account..." orderly account being the active element. Lk 1:3). and, much of what he surfaces in his interview of the eyewitnesses reflects the sort of details women share with each other in the waiting room of their OB/GYN. Luke's gospel is far more sympathetic to women than a Jewish male would have been because, as a Greek physician, there was nothing unclean about women and their nether region, as Amy Farrah Fowler is wont to say.
All this is ignored by those with a Pauline orientation, which is ironic, given that the only reason Paul goes to Rome is to essentially petition the Praetorian Guard to elevate Christianity to the same status as Judaism with Romans.
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Mother’s Day, 14 May 2017, has come and gone. It is beautiful how mothers give unconditional love to their children and most children return that love unconditionally. Mother is the doctor, teacher, nurse, cook, referee, heroine, provider, housekeeper, defender, disciplinarian - the real Superwoman. Wear your cape proudly, dear mother. A lot has been written about mothers dating back to the Greeks and Romans. Julia Ward Howe brought attention to mothers’ contribution to society in 1870 but she did not have the vision of a day like today’s Mother’s Day. The woman who had the vision, the strength, the energy, the determination and the tenaciousness was Anna Jarvis. On 8 May 1914 Congress passed a law declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. On the next day President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation declaring the first Mother’s Day. The proclamation is copied at the end of this blog. Jarvis’ relentless effort had reached a successful conclusion. But that is not the end of the story. To get to the end, we should start at the beginning. Anna Jarvis’ mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, was a tireless advocate for women’s rights. She was a peace advocate and cared for solders on both sides of the civil war. She created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. When she died in 1905, her daughter, Anna, wanted to continue her work and establish a day to honor all mothers because she believed that there was no greater service to humanity than that of mothers. She chose the second Sunday in May because it was near the day her mother died. She became relentless in writing letters to governors to persuade them to declare that day as Mother’s Day. She wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt, prominent people, congressmen, anyone she thought could help with the cause. So, finally, on 8 May 1914 her dream came true. But she quickly became disillusioned by the crass commercialism that soon overwhelmed the Day. She spent decades attacking this commercialism any way that she could. She even went so far as to trademark Mother’s Day phrases. So, Anna’s life’s passion had two phases. The successful phase, creating Mother’s Day, taking aboubt nine years. The second and unsuccessful phase, taking over thirty years, was a war against the commercialism of Mother’s Day. In the 1940s with her resources dwindling, her eyesight fading, her general health ebbing, friends and associates put her in a sanitarium in West Chester PA where she died on 24 November 1948. She was no match for MassMarketAmerica.
However, I think most of us overlook the crass commercialism of Mother’s Day and celebrate it just the way Anna Jarvis envisioned it.
I have always been curious as to the status mother had in our ancient, prehistoric society - when we were in the hunter - gatherer period. In the period before man knew that he had something to do with the creation of a new member of the clan. Even though she doesn’t get equal pay for equal work these days, we do hold mom in great esteem and her view of us is very important. When Warren Buffet was asked what advice he gave the presidents of the many companies he owns regarding ethics and morality in business decisions, he replied “I tell them to imagine that their mother would see their decision in the newspaper the next day.”
Every year at this time our local newspaper, Reno Gazette - Journal, gives participants the opportunity to post in the newspaper a “haiku” to their mother. Those who wish to participate in the event are encouraged to submit their haikus to the RGJ and many of them are printed in the Mother’s Day edition.
A haiku is a form of poetry developed by the Japanese. The poems are three lines with a 5 - 7 - 5 syllable structure. In Japan they are usually inspired by nature. The form has been adopted and adapted by virtually every modern language. They are often inspired by nature, a moment of beauty, a poignant experience, etc. Japanese poets traditionally used haiku to capture a fleeting natural image or experience. Many Japanese people go for nature walks to find new poetry inspiration, and these walks are called ginko walks. Ginko is the Japanese word for bank. Get it? No? Well they are going to the bank seeking treasure. In this case the treasure is the new haiku. The Japanese language is very colorful in this regard, as well as very imprecise.
Perhaps the most famous Japanese haiku is by Matsuo Basho.
Furuike ya Translation: The old pond
Kawazu tobikomu a frog jumps in
Mizu no oto sound of water
Of course the translation does not follow the traditional structure. An example of the structure in English:
very deep pow-der snow 5 a sum-mer eve-ning
its deep blue sky all a-round 7 a mos-qui-to comes my way
my skis make no sound 5 wham, I’m at peace again
Here are some examples from our Mother’s Day RGJ edition:
Mom you are the best
You shine like a diamond
you are my flower Jeriah, 5th grader
You are the best mom
you mean the world to me, mom
Happy Mother’s Day Faithlynn, 5th grader
In good times and bad
my mother’s love was constant
she is my hero Julie Gourley
My mom, my soulmate
I treasure the memories
Always in my heart Julie Gourley
Always there for me
she loved me like no other
showed me how to love Karen Rosselli
Doctor, cook, teacher
hug to give, ear to listen
there’s no one like mom James Umbach
Through joy and laughter
heartache, tears - a mother’s love
unconditional Ruth VanDyke
Cancer took my mom
missing you on Mother’s Day
love you forever Franke Weintz
Somebody’s mother
all alone and sad today
a phone call away Ruth VanDyke
I will pen one myself:
Her name was Mary
yes, she was quite contrary
we loved her anyhow
Here are a few for fun:
Adopt a highway
It seemed simple enough
Then the tourists came by Vince Nobrega
Sausage, bacon, eggs
mushrooms, tomatoes, green tea
Atkins breakfast joy by Paul Trafferd
Football is my game
don’t call me on Sat or Sun
TV addiction
This year down the drain
where did the one before go
next year I’ll do it
It’s John three sixteen
that’s the plan for all of us
better get on board
To eat, not to eat
it is a nice red apple
just one little worm
To make a great stew
take a limerick or two
mix well with haiku
Rain, rain, go away
boots leak, umbrella kaput
can’t stand here all day
Bikini summer
my glasses and walker, please
I’ll take a good look
Apple of my eye
Joanne had the sweetest smile
for another guy
A very loud noise
started ringing from my clock
who will fix breakfast
They said golden years
can’t dance, can’t hear, cannot see
did they pass me by
Pepperoni is ready
add that to lots of cheese bits
pizza is my dish
Electricity
can make your hair stand on end
warden told me so
You ask for my plan
well, think I will save the world
when I finish my beer
Basketball is fine
college game has the spirit
pros have the money
What do we know now
baby steps forward we go
where does this take us
A gentle snowfall
covering everything
no sound can be heard
Here’s my adaptation of Basho’s haiku to English while retaining the 5-7-5 structure:
The pond, still water
A frog leaps into the air
The sound of water
This precise and simple method of expression reminds me of another example of the beauty and art of brevity in expression. And that is the writer’s task of telling a story in six words. The origin or the time of origin of this art is not clear.
One of the most famous is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, however it cannot be authenticated: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”
Perhaps the oldest is attributed to Julius Caesar when he was a Roman general. He sent a letter to the Roman Senate in 47 BC reporting a quick victory against Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zela:
“I came. I saw. I conquered.” Of course in the original Latin it is: Veni. Vidi. Vici. I can sadly pen one regarding contemporary life where millions of people die needlessly every year. I suppose you could say by a horrible suicide: I smoked, I suffered, I died. And a horrible suffering it can be.
Here are a few others:
Wrong number says a familiar voice.
You’re not a good artist, Adolph
Torched the haystack, found the needle.
Strangers. Friends. Best friends. Lovers. Strangers.
Painfully he changes is to was.
Born a twin, graduated only child.
We’re lying in bed. She’s lying.
Sorry soldier, shoes sold in pairs.
I’m beside myself. Cloning machine works.
Reading for Dummies. Somehow never sold.
Home early? Whose car is that?
We were. And then we weren’t.
You win some. You lose some.
Nothing to declare. Much to remember.
Three blind mice. Cat had lunch.
An only son. A folded flag.
Alzheimer’s advantage: new friends every day.
Logged out. Pulled plug. Found life.
Passengers, this isn’t your captain speaking.
Being offended doesn't make you right.
Left handed woman seeks Mr. Right.
What’s your return policy on rings?
Goodby mission control. Thanks for trying.
Eventually we all face the storm.
He loved, she didn’t. How typical.
She loved, he didn’t. Still typical.
Used vice grip. Now in hot water.
THC, LSD, DUI, CPR, DOA, RIP.
Wind blows. Sails fill. Journey begins.
I’ll close by returning to the haiku, 5-7-5. Remember? I salute two family members who are going to Europe for the month of June, 2017.
Mikonos, Skyros
Going to the Greek islands
London and Paris, too
Try writing both a ‘haiku’ and a ‘six word story.’ Put your imagination and your creativity to work. You’ll enjoy it. It’ll be fun. I guarantee it.
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