30 April 2009

Old and cheap

No, this post isn't about your mom (zing!). It's about the chocolate I just ate.

I'm sitting up at my client site waiting for a relatively simple task to be performed that will enable me to finish up my work here in about ten minutes and go back to where I'm supposed to work (and where I have personal email access, incidentally). I ate my lunch, I've been catching up on blog reading... still no movement on the simple task I'm awaiting. I've walked up and down the hallway a couple of times and I keep passing this bowl of Easter candy. Chocolate is one of my few weaknesses, but it's that terribly cheap brand that comes in large coin shapes (for Easter and Halloween) as well as eggs (Easter only). I kept telling myself that cheap chocolate simply isn't worth it, and that held me at bay for the first five hours today.

But I just walked by the bowl again and I couldn't resist the siren song of chocolate any more. I took an egg. I unwrapped it. I ate it. I felt sick. Not only is it cheap chocolate--it's old chocolate. Probably from last Easter. Urgl.

My resolve is renewed.

08 April 2009

Rush Write 3.23 (on 4.08)

In response to this post:

1. Artists gratify men’s urge for immortality by demonstrating that it is possible. An artist may not necessarily capture my visage in oils, or my deeds in verse, etc. (let alone become famous enough to make his rendering of me known to the world). However. The fact that some Italian lady who once sat for Da Vinci can capture the heart of the world, inspire songs, and cause all to bemusedly wonder about her smirk, that tells me that some of us are immortal. That some of us do live forever. And if it’s possible for some Italian lady, then why not me? Why not all of us?

2. “Joyce” is telling us that Homer’s art (specifically the Iliad and the Odyssey) , and the myriad works of art that it inspired did more to preserve the memory of Troy and the war that brought Greece to it than any formal history ever did. That without Homer’s works, Troy would be insignificant and unremembered. I must agree. What other evidence do we have, aside from ruins that were only discovered and identified centuries after the fact and recognized because we knew what Homer told us?

3. I would say that according to “Joyce,” Homer’s telling of the Trojan War is even more valuable/valid because of its inaccuracies. And here I mostly agree with him. The inaccuracies are, arguably, the artistic license of Homer. The myths that are mixed with the history are the things that enrich us, in “Joyce’s” view. The embellishments of Ulysses’ character are what make us relate to him and treasure his tale. Accuracy may affect a work of art’s value as a history, but since when has historical worth been the ultimate standard of value?