Neanderpundit

Mr Porretto has an excellent post about the role of poetry in music. He mentions one of my all time favorites, Al Stewart. Al had the ability to write lyric poetry and put it to music that few have today.

Francis also speaks of his personal love for Glass Hammer and many of the other Progrock bands, and while I understand the complexity, I appreciate the work involved, it might as well be bagpipe music. It physically hurts me to listen
to it.

No, I’m not a fan of bubblegum music or heavy metal hairbands, I appreciate the labor involved when someone creates a lyric masterpiece but my tastes run in different directions.

I LOVE Shakespeare, for instance. Though I have an excellent collection, I cannot open them, it KILLS me to read them.
They bore me senseless on the paper because that’s not how they were meant to be experienced. On the stage, well done, Shakespeare may be the most wonderful experience in my life, outside of sex and peanut-butter and honey sandwiches on whole grain bread. To hear it done, especially by someone with some real talent, is an incredible treasure. I have recently been reading THe Odyssey of Homer again, which I haven’t done in nearly ten years. It’s slow going, reading it in greek, because my greek is horrid- I have to keep turning back to my reference books and dictionaries and I manage about ten pages a week, which takes me around four hours. it gets better as it goes, and by the time I get to the end (in about eight more months!!!) I will have refreshed my poor greek skills somewhat.

Yes, there are a lot of wonderful translations, the best of which do an OK job of capturing the lyric spirit of the original, but the original itself, especially if you take the trouble to read it out loud IN greek, is a lyric masterpiece. Here’s a sample:(from the Iliad, I couldn’t find one from the odyssey)

ΜΗΝΙΝ ΑΕΙΔΕ ΘΕΑ ΠΗΛΙΑΔΕΩ ΑΧΙΛΛΗΟΣ,
ΟΥΛΟΜΕΝΗΝ Ή ΜΥΡΙΑ ΑΧΑΙΟΙΣ ΑΛΓΕ’ ΕΘΗΚΕ,

Sorry if the greek characters don’t come across well, or if you don’t have the font it will look odd. The link, which is a small MP3 sample, is the way you might have experienced it as it was intended to be experienced. Here’s the english translation, somewhat less lyrical and flowing:

Sing, O goddess,
the perilous wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles,
that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans
and many brave souls sent to Hades,

Mr Porretto’s tastes overlap mine in some areas, in other areas not so much. My tastes overlap the wife’s pretty well, in that we can drive the 680 miles to her hometown in Canada and never run out of music we both like.

You’re not a philistine if you don’t like The Odyssey of Homer. You’re not a philistine if you don’t like Glass Hammer. You’re not a philistine if you don’t like Al Stewart or Shakespeare.

You’re a philistine if you don’t TRY.

Love, apparently, is the answer. Along with rats and vermin.

Now, I have to say, dropping rats and vermin on Al Quaeda? would probably not be noticed. Let’s be serious. They’re related.

Making them gay? Well, the entire religion was made-up by a pederast.

Making them horny, on the other hand, could be, well, if not an answer to the terrorism question, a great deal of fun to watch.

Money quote:
“But as irritating as a swarm of bees or rats might be, it’s nothing compared to the distraction generated by a man in heat. No wonder, then, that the Air Force document calls for “chemicals that affect human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected. One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

I just want to watch.

And I get to go out in it to clear the driveway of snow so the wife can get out&get to work.

We were supposed to get 12″ today, but that hasn’t materialized. IN fact, the only reason I’m using the snowblower is to eliminate some of the deeper drifts; there can’t be more than 2″ overall.

In other news, the gig has taken a turn for the better; we’re implementing a “team” concept that should allow everyone to work more efficiently together and I will be the only person “outside” the teams, doing special engineering projects. I think it’s gonna be a blast.