Breakfast with Pandora caters to everyone interested in ancient Greek and comparative mythology, good stories, the craft of writing, food, theology, education, and other humane things. Ask a question at teenage underscore heroes at yahoo dot com.
Greek mythology is popular. But how popular? And who is more popular than whom?
Breakfast with Pandora is here to tell you.
While working on my project on the Myers-Briggs personality system and Greek divinities, I googled Poseidon and noticed he had 33.6 million hits. I thought, well, that has to be among the most. Only Zeus would have more. Actually, not.
Herewith find a list of the 15 "official" Olympian divinities and their Google hits as of today. The results may surprise you.
I searched for the name alone. The numbers are in millions of hits.
Last night the beloved and I were out for a quick dinner on a lovely spring evening. We were talking about our day, and I asked her what time it was. She said she had no idea. Then she remembered she had an IPhone.
At a nearby table, a man and a woman were relaxing and having a drink. He had his feet up on the chair near him and was engrossed in the video screen on his phone. The woman managed to keep up a conversation with him, but he seldom made eye contact with her.
Two couples, one with little to no attention to the digital world, the other with that world squarely in the center.
Are either of them more virtuous?
This morning I received notice from a Facebook friend of a NYT article on the evils pitfalls of social networking, with the implication that, because of all our electronic communication devices, we are engaging less and less in one-on-one human face-to-face interactions (the "flight from conversation").
I read this article with a combination of skepticism and sympathy. On the one hand, I fully believe we are being distracted and dehumanized by video screens. On the other, I think we are not being changed much at all.
I believe that, from time immemorial, we have neglected to listen to the people next to us. It's just that, now, we have a more visible way of ignoring them.
I don't believe that there are that many of us who would rather noodle on a phone or laptop if we are really and truly interested in what the other person is saying.
Problem is, few of us are that compelling to our acquaintances, friends, and loved ones. We can be quite boring, in fact.
I say this as an experienced insider on the paying attention front lines. After all, I am a teacher.
I know when my students are interested. Their heads are up, eyes focused on me or someone else who is speaking. If they are taking notes, they're on topic. They themselves have opinions and other contributions. They react to the speaker with laughter, oohs and ahhs, booing, and other outbursts.
I know when I have held my students' attention. Someone will say, "Wow. This class went fast."
Could I compete successfully with cell phones? No. Thankfully, they are banned from my classroom. But I know that people-- adolescents, even-- pay attention when it is worthwhile to them.
The question of video screens or not in everyday interactions comes down to politeness. Given that we are always reconsidering whether to listen to someone or not, video screen or not, it is always more polite to put away the video screen and give the impression we are listening, even if our minds are in La-La land.
Way back in the dark ages, maybe 2004, I was in my office and my student assistant was training me on an instant messaging program. I had my desktop computer, and she had her laptop, and we were blessed with wireless Internet. Suddenly there was a chime on my computer. I had received an instant message. It was my assistant. I wrote her back and we had a virtual conversation while in the same room.
It was great fun. She was paying attention to me, and I to her.
The world is not going downhill because of electronics. It may be going downhill-- or downhill faster-- because we are not teaching children manners.
If I am out at a restaurant with the beloved, I never stare at video screens. That is, unless there is a TV just above me and my favorite team just scored a touchdown. I am just that virtuous.
My writing teachers in this life have been few. In fact, I count only 3 whom I would consider major influences on my writing. Doris Betts, acclaimed novelist and short story writer who has just gone to meet her great Author, was the last and most important.
My first writing teacher was Mrs. Mengel, in third grade. I wrote about her recently. She had an incalculable impact on my life.
My second writing teacher was Mrs. Holsing, in 7th through 9th grade. I took her creative writing class, which was more than writing-- it was reading, listening, and acting in plays as well-- and the next year I pined so much for it that I made a stink to drop my science class for it, and the indulgent administration of the school, incredibly, said yes. In ninth grade, we put out a student newspaper. I learned so much from her that I considered college writing classes superfluous.
My third writing teacher was Doris Betts. Doris came into my life almost 30 years after Mrs. Holsing, years into a terrible conviction that I had to keep writing, and that it was a kind of curse. But by some providence I got into a weeklong residency class with her, and I was never the same.
Doris Betts changed thousands of students' lives. She was a born creative writing teacher, or she became a stellar one soon after she was weaned. Every moment in class with her was pure joy and I wanted to write down every word from her mouth, every gem of wisdom.
Doris had the particular talent of acting as if she was challenging you to your limit, and criticizing you mercilessly, while at the same time nurturing and encouraging the hidden gift you always suspected you had but never had the guts to acknowledge openly.
She gave us Peaceniks (that's what she named us, after the college where we domiciled for that week) a crash course in technique. Mrs. Mengel and Mrs. Holsing, they rooted and cheered for their students and kept them writing, as is age-appropriate. But Doris taught me skills.
Doris taught us Peaceniks scene construction. She taught us source of light. She taught us point of view-- first, second, third person; limited, omniscient. She taught us how omniscient POV implied a moral component to a story. Third person tight was best for writing with a child as the main character (my first published fiction is in that POV, coming out 3 years after Doris' class). She taught us that writing well is among the hardest things you can do, and the most satisfying.
She taught us to revise.
She taught us that even if we are not writing full time, for a living, it is our obligation to be living full time.
At the end of the week, Doris bestowed upon me the office of President of the Peaceniks. I was to be in charge of all future reunions.
Well, Peaceniks, here it is: it is our privilege and responsibility to come together, one year's hence, to celebrate Doris' legacy. Exact time and place to be announced, but you can come to our house. We have extra beds.
Activities to be announced. But they will include enjoying ourselves, which Doris loved to do, too.
Via Bob Mustin, a link to a New York Times article about young people self-publishing their books with the help of parents, sometimes at considerable cost.
This quotation was telling:
“What’s next?” asked the novelist Tom Robbins. “Kiddie architects, juvenile dentists, 11-year-old rocket scientists? Any parent who thinks that the crafting of engrossing, meaningful, publishable fiction requires less talent and experience than designing a house, extracting a wisdom tooth, or supervising a lunar probe is, frankly, delusional.”
With all due respect, this is missing the point. The kids in the article are not-- as far as I can tell-- intending to write high literature, but stuff that they themselves like and are proud of. The impulse to spend money can be argued with, but not the drive to write and publish.
My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Mengel, was my inspiration for becoming a writer. She did something very simple: she encouraged us to write, told us what a good story had in it, and gave us lined paper, construction paper, and a stapler. We took the lined paper, stacked it evenly, put a jacket of construction paper over it, and stapled it three times on the side.
Ecce, published book.
Now all we had to do was write the thing.
Fill those bright, white, clean pages I did, starting about a dozen books (including one I still remember, "The Lost Key," which was from a writing prompt Mrs. Mengel gave to us) and from those, finished at least two. One of them became, in my teens, my first complete full-length novel written on a typewriter.
There is no reason to stop a writer from writing-- or publishing-- even if, as the article primly points out, though quoting no one who actually says this, "...[O]thers see the blurring of the line between publishing and self-publishing as a lost opportunity to teach children about adversity and perseverance."
I do not have the means to indulge my children with splashy book projects, and I wouldn't spend the money if I didn't think the book was a good one. But lulu.com will publish your book for free, and if you encourage your child to pursue the publishing project on their own, he or she can learn a lot.
There will be plenty of time for adversity later on in a writer's life, should the writer choose to continue. Lots and lots of adversity.
*
Some time ago under this rubric I suggested I was willing to review self-published books and that anyone interested should contact me. Then I thought, it's quite possible most self-publishers don't necessarily want a review from someone they don't know, especially if that unknown person doesn't like the book.
So I would like to modify my earlier offer and say, if you'd like me to read your self-published book and tell you what I thought, I'd be happy to do that, and if I like it I'll certainly be willing to give you a blog post about it.
*
There was no doubt about the quality of my most recent self-publish purchase, Bob Mustin's A Reason to Tremble. Bob is an award-winning writer dedicated to his craft, as I note in my review of his novella The Blue Bicycle.
A Reason to Tremble is a thriller that revolves around the death of 10-year old Emily Shane in rural Hope, Georgia. Since she was killed on the street while riding her bicycle, the initial focus is on identifying the hit-and-run driver. But from the beginning the father, Pat Shane, is bent on vengeance, and it's up to his brother, disabled Vietnam vet Jason, to try to find the killer before Pat takes vengeance on the wrong man.
A Reason to Tremble is a page-turner with an intricate plot that is well worth your time to unravel. As page-turners go, it's well-written and involving, though I have to admit the dialogue can get clunky and expositional, as characters sometimes seem to speak for the benefit of the reader rather than verisimilitude. At the same time, I see the exact same thing in most mainstream published popular novels. The plot's the thing in this type of read.
Bob also blogs helpfully about writing and the self-pubishing biz. Check out his work here.
For the past twenty years I've spent Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, firmly ensconced in the tenor section of a choir.
This year, not.
I have learned a few things from the experience.
I like feeling needed, and most of the time a church choir needs tenors. So for the last twenty years I have filled the need. Besides, in choir, you have something to do in church, and you don't have to talk to people you don't know.
Sometimes I didn't feel like going to choir, but choir guilt is powerful. You miss a week and you get The Look when you come up for communion. Miss two weeks, and you get The Talk. Miss three, and your choir robe is up for grabs.
This year, I have never been so swamped at work, and I have not mastered the skill of teaching Latin and Greek without talking. So at the end of a 10-12 hour workday, I have no legitimate singing voice left. It makes rehearsals close to useless. In fall, after several weeks of croaking through practices and slumped over with fatigue, I begged off.
I appreciated having my Wednesday nights free so that I could collapse at 8 PM, and throughout the year there were times when I had the greatest appreciation for those in the choir who were soldiering on, Sunday after Sunday, and sometimes for special services as well.
But Holy Week trumps all of that.
Choirs in traditional churches such as mine are on duty in Holy Week from Wednesday through Sunday, singing at least one and sometimes two services a day. The music is special, there is a lot of it, and it is often difficult. The maddening part: you can't rehearse enough for any one thing, and yet you're rehearsing hours for everything.
In my previous church, I felt compelled to do something extra that upped the ante considerably on my fatigue factor: the Vigil. This is a prayer time lasting from the end of the Maundy Thursday service through the night until Good Friday mid-morning. It is designed to let people have the experience of being in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus as he prays to his Father the night before he is to die.
I did the manly thing every year and took a shift somewhere between 2 and 5 in the morning. For many years a friend and I would take a 5 AM shift, then drive to the Farmer's Market and buy vegetables for our Easter dinner. Then we'd nap for a couple of hours and go sing in the noon Good Friday service.
By Saturday night, where the most emotional service is held and you go from deep depression to giddy elation, I would be so sick with exhaustion the only thing keeping me going would be Easter candy.
Easter Sunday could be comical. The twice-a-year crowd would be out, thinking it was such a terrible imposition to wrestle their children into dresses and suits and combing their hair. In my worst moments I would be, not humble and thankful, but scornful, sitting cocooned in the choir while the ushers set out chairs for the latecoming thousands.
But in better years all the rough edges got smoothed out by a grilled lamb dinner, wine, and a strong sense of accomplishment-- a sense that I had done something worthwhile. It was wicked fun most of the time, too.
This year I have bypassed all that, bypassed the fatigue and sweat and feeling of not measuring up musically, as well as the feelings of grand adventure. I got truly terrorized by the Tenebrae "great noise." I slept through the night Maundy Thursday. I went to a noon Good Friday service where we walked around the block with a big cross, in sunshine, with a lovely, cool breeze, and bearded irises nodding in the garden.
I had the energy to write a blog post.
I relaxed.
I meditated on the meaning of Holy Week.
I guess a sabbatical was long overdue.
I don't feel guilty. Much.
Next year I am hoping work will be less taxing, although there is no guarantee of that. I will be back in choir and see how it goes. I don't know that I have learned a great truth from all this.
Maybe I have learned that you don't need to grit your teeth and find a great truth in everything.
Image, what Christians celebrate at Easter, from here.
"Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls come tumbling down."
I sang this song as a child-- don't know where I first heard it-- but have very seldom read or heard the actual story, which is in the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament.
Today I heard the story, and I was struck with the contrast between the ethos of the ancient Hebrews, and that of the ancient Greeks.
Both cultures have their stories about walls and conquering cities, and they couldn't be more different.
The Hebrew story is about a group of refugees from Egypt who are looking for a place to settle, and who believe that their God has given them the slim corridor of land between the east coast of the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
There are already people who live here, and they must be conquered. So God sets out to let the Hebrews conquer these people, many of whom live in the city of Jericho.
God, being kind of weird, doesn't let the Hebrews take the city of Jericho by a conventional siege. Instead, he tells the priests of the religion to blow trumpets and walk around the city. After a certain number of ear-shattering blasts, the walls of Jericho fall down, and the warriors of the Hebrews can fight the city dwellers on equal footing.
In Greek mythology, there's another city that needs to be conquered, that has very high, unconquerable walls: Troy. In fact, the warriors of Greece take 10 long years before they realize these walls are not going to come tumbling down.
So instead, the Greeks devise a plan that involves faking their own departure from the beaches next to Troy, and leaving behind a trick, the Trojan Horse. This tall, wooden, hollow sculpture contains armed Greek warriors, and, when the Trojans ill-advisedly take the horse inside their walls, the Greeks inside wait till nightfall and then leap out, open the gates for their fellows, and Troy is lost.
Two great cities, two great ways to conquer them.
My sense is that these two methods of conquering cities show two strikingly different ways of looking at the world and at divinity.
The Hebrews knew in their bones that God was with them. Not all of them, of course, because theirs is a history of running after false gods and being called back by their prophets. But in their scriptures there is an unwavering sense that even and especially when the going is the roughest, God is with them.
In fact, it is when they rely on God that good things happen. The whole point of life is to be in communion and community with this (weird) God who creepily wants to be part of human life. Even in war, this God says, you've got to interface with me and highlight that you need me.
The Greeks had no such confidence. They looked at the world the way it appears: random. They were much more realistic than the Hebrews. Their gods had conflicting desires and their own agendas that sometimes included humans and sometimes not. They certainly prayed to their gods to help them, but then they went on and did what they had in mind to do.
The Greek gods-- by the admission of their own poets-- did not even have power always to help humans. Even Zeus, Mr. Sky and Lightning God, was not omnipotent, but bowed to the power of the Fates.
The Greeks relied on their ingenuity and hoped that Fate was on their side this time, because they knew that it often wasn't.
So the Hebrews had this sense of God as close by and caring, while the Greeks thought the gods were distant and (pretty much) uncaring.
It strikes me that most people today fall somewhere on the Greek-Hebrew confidence-in-God spectrum.
Many people live life as if it's random. A lot more really hope and pray God is on their side. And a few very confident people know God's in control.
I think it's extraordinary that any group of people such as the Hebrews could have cooked up such an idea that God is more interested in being with us than even we are in being with him. I love that idea and that's the type of God I believe in and think is real.
The Greeks get a gold star from me for perceiving the world as it empirically is. I love them for that. Their system of divinity really and truly gets it right for what seems to be occurring on the surface of life. The Hebrews get my vote for seeing something that seems to be under the surface and requires faith to believe.
This is a beautiful, spine-tingling performance of "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" arranged by the incomparable Moses Hogan.
I recently rediscovered a fun fact while doing some research for a new project on Myers-Briggs and Greek divinities: telling successful lies is considered a godlike quality in Greek mythology.
Honesty, in other words, is not the best policy when you're a participant in the Greek story culture.
Image: re-caption this in the comments if you wish. It's my own caption and a work in progress.
Makes sense, since the main ethical principle of the Greeks was, "Do good to your friends, and evil to your enemies." Unlike in Christianity, values are not generalized in the ancient Greek world. Everyone knew how to love their neighbor, and they mostly did-- until someone crossed them.
Divinities were not moral paragons, either. They lied to suit their aims, and took great pleasure in disguising themselves as humans and telling big whoppers to their mortal victims.
Of the heroes, however, the talent of lying was predominantly attributed to Odysseus. He was a fine prevaricator, and used lies to get out of various scrapes.
Which got me to thinking: which Myers-Briggs types make the best, shall we say, storytellers? Do those types correspond with the types of the divinities who are the best liars in Greek mythology?
I took a quick look at a thread here, where people seem to have discussed everything under the sun concerning Jungian personality. Who are the best liars? The results, over 6 pages of shooting the virtual breeze: ENFJ 2, INTJ 1, ENTP 7, ESTP 2, ENTJ 3, ENFP 3, ESFJ 1, ISTP 1, INFP 1.
Which should validate the post of a predictably fair-minded and justice-oriented ENFJ, who said,
All the answers here are going to reflect nothing more than personal experiences, and lying is a trait that has a lot to do with morality. Depending on how that line is drawn there for an individual, any type could fall into this category, and we do. Nobody in his or her life has told the truth 100% of the time.
Fair point. Still, the fact that ENTP won the sweepstakes is significant for Myers-Briggs and Greek mythology. That type is characterized by Hermes, Prince of Thieves and King of Deception. If you have read the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, you know that he loves to lie and gains great benefit from it.
Hermes: not your father's messenger of Zeus.
But to return briefly to our justice-minded ENFJ, if you are an ENTP reading this, does that mean I am going to pounce on the first thing you say and accuse you of lying? Is personality type destiny?
Hmmm, no. But if you claim to have invented flying boots, I will be, shall we say, skeptical.
Last night we were wracking our brains trying to figure out something that everyone, including stepson, could watch on Netflix instant streaming. Nothing was working. We finally settled on "The Man with One Red Shoe," an eighties remake of "The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe," but stepson went on strike and retreated to his room.
He was right. "Red Shoe," an early Tom Hanks vehicle, didn't take us anywhere, and we stopped watching after about an hour.
Photo from here. Click and see a bunch of other similar photos. Enjoy!
These movies resemble each other not at all: "The Third Man" is a British film noir based in post-World War II Vienna, starring Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, and the excellent Trevor Howard. I won't give anything away about the plot, just that an American investigates the death of his best friend, and suspense ensues. It is a great story written by novelist Graham Greene, and an absolutely breathtaking piece of art, a window to a lost world. I forget how charismatic Orson Welles was-- even in the first shot we see of him halfway through the film, he's riveting.
Everyone in "Third Man" turns in a terrific performance, including the people of Vienna, many of whom are used in speaking parts and as extras in the movie. The city itself, devastated as it was by the war, also stars as a character brought to life by the eccentric, vivid cinematography that revels in the city's shadows, textures, and crazy geometry.
Loved that there is plenty of German in the film with no subtitles. It allowed me to test my understanding of the language and feel as if I had been transported to a different place. Don't worry: all the essentials are in English.
See it.
"The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" is on the other side of the spectrum. It is a documentary about a flock of South American parrots-- origins not exactly known-- that lives in San Francisco and forages for food on the slopes of the famous hill that is also home to the iconic Coit Tower.
"Parrots" stars a number of birds that will steal your heart, as well as Mark Bittner, the school-of-hard-knocks caretaker of the birds who steals the heart of-- well, you should watch the movie to find out.
It is stepdaughter's firm statement that she likes pictures of birds better than actual birds, but "Parrots" may be the best of both worlds. The film lavishes its attention on close-ups of these gorgeous and very charming "cherry-crowned conures," neon red and green cuties described with loving gentleness by Bittner.
If you've never been to San Francisco or Telegraph Hill, you might be surprised to see the lush, jungle-like environment within San Francisco's concrete confines that the birds inhabit and where Bittner lives like some solo ornithologist in the trackless Amazon. The area is very small, however, as the filmmaker, Judy Irving, attempts to show with numerous shots of helicopter flybys. Still, when you are with Bittner feeding the birds, it seems as if the place is a world away.
A lovely film that will lower your blood pressure, unlike "The Third Man."
Late news flash: I am so going to crush my opposition in my fantasy baseball league.
And what's the reason for that? An Internet expert who calls himself Grey Albright.
Wait. Before you move on to the next blog in your queue, understand that this post is more than about fantasy baseball. It's about generosity in the digital age.
Image from here, with a chuckle for any of you trying to decide on a name for your fantasy baseball team.
For any who are new and still interested: Fantasy baseball is a sport where you and your friends pick a team of players you think will do well in the real world. The players accumulate their real statistics (home runs, batting average, stolen bases, etc.) and you count them in your fantasy world. The team with the best stats, and, in general, the player with the best predictive ability, wins.
Fantasy baseball is universally considered to be the most difficult of the fantasy sports to do well. There are so many games, so many players, so much unpredictability. You've got to spend quite a bit of time on research, daily, to do well.
Hence the need for experts who sum it all up for you, and hopefully in an entertaining way.
For my first four years of fantasy baseballdom, I was mostly a fan of Matthew Berry. He is the most recognizable star in the fantasy world, and he is a funny, opinionated guy who makes it fun to follow the game and the stats that go along with it. But he is now a happily married man, and he is kind of over being right about his predictions. He is, for this sport, an emeritus.
Enter Grey.
Grey is the owner of Razzball.com, a fantasy sports blog that showcases his considerable writing talents and his formidable fantasy baseball acumen.
Grey is hungry to get his predictions right and prove others wrong. He writes hilarious pieces that have a clear chip on the shoulder. To like Grey, you have to like outrageous puns, sly pop culture references, and name-drops of old-school ball players who were fun to watch back in the day.
You also have to like good advice.
In addition, Grey has developed a large tribe of contributors and followers who write, comment, and hand out fun apps and tools (such as Excel spreadsheets) to help the rest of the tribe win.
Even better-- probably the best part of the site-- Grey strives to answer every commenter's fantasy question himself. Even the dumb ones (as I raise my hand).
All of this, by the way, is free. There is a ton of fun, information, advice, entertainment, and enjoyment on the site, and Grey charges nothing for it except that there are some advertisements on the left and right column of the blog. A la public radio, you can make a contribution if you want, but it's not in your face.
I appreciate the heck out of that.
It is now widely becoming accepted that content, on the Internet, is king. The people who win in Internet business are those who actually have something interesting to say or show, rather than just sell. Gary Vaynerchuk, Internet marketing guru, just came out with his latest video saying, once again, that the people who are generous with their talent are going to succeed in the long term. If Mr. Vaynerchuk is right, I see big things for Grey.
So a slice of tiramisu goes out to Grey Albright, guy who still has something to prove. All fantasy baseballers (<-- his mom's term) are in your debt.
