Kestrell

Since the summer, I've been trying to find ways to deal with severe chronic fatigue, which has really cut down on the activities I've felt up to doing. It has, however, upped my intake of audiobooks and other things I can listen to. I recently discovered Audiobooks.com, which seems to have the largest selection of audiobooks and podcasts to search from, while also being very accessible and, as in the following instance, if it is a podcast, you have the option of either purchasing it to download or listening to it for free through the app.

So yesterday, while searching for new audiobooks, I came across this BBC Radio 4 series by Natalie Haynes and, being the classics and myth geek that I am, I listened to her Series 5, which began with Aristotle. I'm always interested in hearing more about Aristotle due to my obsession with _The Name of the Rose_. Since I've read a number of her books, I was quite prepared for Natalie Haynes to be witty and fascinating, but I had no idea that she was so *funny*!!! In addition, she has other classicists as guests who are *also* funny!

Haynes also makes it a point to feature as her subjects women of the classical world and recent archeological discoveries which support broadening our ideas regarding diversity in Western Europe. I can see how this show led her to write _Pandora's Jar_, in which she explores ideas regarding the role of women in Greek epic and drama, including lost and obscure works (note that _Pandora's Jar_ and other books by Haynes are available on NLS and on Bookshare).

Two episodes which I absolutely must recommend are "The Amazons" and "homer." During the latter, she announces that, since we really don't know anything about Homer, she will, instead, give a summary of all twenty-four books of "The Iliad" in the next twenty-four minutes and this turns out to have so many insights and poetic highlight that I am feeling excited about rereading the entire thing again.

You can find Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics online, including an episode list here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b077x8pc/episodes/player

and you can also ask Alexa "Alexa, play Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.," although I'm not sure if Alexa has access to all the episodes that are available on the BBC website.

It's definitely a very cool app, and I know we have lots of different kinds of birds around our house, including wild turkeys, crows, owls, and cardinals.

However, whenever I start recording with the Merlin app the only bird sounds it picks up are house sparrows.

Yes, we have flocks of house sparrows, and they just never get tired of twittering along.

There are some outside my window right now, mocking me.

Alexx and I were sitting outside in the patio furniture, listening to that other sound of the great outdoors, lawn equipment, and I have to admit, I was impressed that the sparrows were not at all cowed (can birds be cowed?) by the roar of lawn mowers. I think they even upped the volume to eleven. They really seemed to be projecting the message "There are more of us than there are of you, and we can do. this. All. DAY!"

So now they are even popping up during my Internet browsing, per the following webpage:

The Meaning of Sparrows: Symbolism and Identification
JENNIFER STONE
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Meaning-of-Sparrows-Identification-and-Folklore

According to sparrow symbolism, I live in either a very lucky house or the house of the dead.

Now, anyone who saw the very awesome movie "The Dark Half," directed by George Romero and based on the book by Stephen King, knows that sparrows are psychopomps, and I do love psychopomps. If only they didn't sound as if they were providing the soundtrack to a Disney movie, and I'm not talking about "Night on Bald Mountain."

Anyway, here are some other sparrow facts from that page:


According to the Audobon Society, a common superstition states that sparrows carry the souls of the dead, and as such, it is bad luck to kill them. This superstition closely resembles the ancient Egyptian view of sparrows and that of traditional sailors, some of whom would get sparrow tattoos in hopes that the birds would catch and carry their souls should they die at sea. Modern authors have also shared
systems for interpreting sparrows and other birds as omens.
https://exemplore.com/spirit-animals/birds-as-omens-and-signs

Alternatively, sparrow tattoos can represent joy, freedom and inhibition. A popular example of this meaning is Jack Sparrow's sparrow tattoo in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. In addition to being a tribute to the infamous pirate's last name, Jack's tattoo also points to the counterculture of freedom, expression and self-determination prized by those who choose to live outside of the bounds of structured society....

According to the ancient Egyptians, sparrows would catch the souls of the recently deceased and carry them to heaven. (Years later, it became common for sailors to get sparrow tattoos in hopes that the birds would catch their souls if they died at sea.) The ancient Egyptians used a hieroglyph that represented the house sparrow. It was used as a determinative in the words "small," "narrow," or "bad."

Alexx and I went out for a walk--it's currently 61 degrees here in Boston--and, as I stepped off the last step onto the front walk, Alexx said I had just stepped over two small garden snakes.

I turned my head to the heavens and thanked the goddesses and gods for kindly not turning me into a man because frankly, this week was hectic enough already.

For those that don't get that really bad mythological joke, you can Google Tiresias, who was a blind prophet and know-it-all who shows up everywhere in Greek myth and plays, and I do mean *everywhere*. Those ancient Greeks must have had an *amazing* para-transit system but, then, Hermes was probably the patron god of that, too.

You know how much I love Coyote stories, and how much I love the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, so the following made my day:
"Skinwalker, Fast-Talker" by Darcie Little Badger, from the anthology _No Shit, There I Was_
read by LeVar Burton on LeVar Burton Reads
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/

The story features a queer female journalist who goes nose-to-nose with Coyote and, while it is a very amusing story, LeVar has some very poignant things to say in his afterword.

Rebecca Roanhorse also writes about Coyote and Native American legend in her book _Trail of Lightning_
https://medium.com/anomalyblog/native-women-personify-ass-kicking-in-trail-of-lightning-and-deer-woman-an-anthology-59326cfbb87a
and I recently heard her read her story from _Deer Woman: An Anthology_
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
Here is a list of fiction and nonfiction, including her new book
https://rebeccaroanhorse.com/fiction-non-fiction/#jp-carousel-1042
Lastly, because I just love the theme for this Kickstarter anthology, is
_Trans-Galactic Bike Ride_, a Queer Feminist SFF collection of transgender and nonbinary led science fiction and fantasy stories about bicycling.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microcosmpublishing/trans-galactic-bike-ride-queer-feminist-sff-anthology?ref=13zdah

LJ user tinybuffalo came over to watch "Behind the Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon" (which is tied with "Scream" as my favorite meta-horror movie) and then A. and I watched "Cabin in the Woods" for the first time.

I have to say: Marty, I love you!

Other than Marty, however, I didn't feel that there was a lot of fun in "Cabin." There is a really fine line between creating parody but still conveying a love of the genre (as, I think, "Scream" manages to do) and creating something which is just a montage of mean-spirited snark. Yes, the second category can still be witty, but it's like hanging out with the Algonquin Circle--intellectually stimulating but not really a positive social experience.

Something which I did find intriguing about "Cabin" was the character of Marty, who, like Randy in "Scream" is not only a fan knowledgeable about what genre he is in ("Okay, I am drawing a fucking line in the sand here and saying, do *not* read the Latin!"), but also a Cassandra figure. By Cassandra figure I mean that, like Randy, he that certain actions will doom other characters's fates. At the same time, however, he conveys a tiny sliver of (Pandora-like?) hope, not for his future, but for a future, something else's future, something else that might get a chance.

Overall, though, "Cabin" seemed just a little too much like the paint-by-numbers horror movies it was pointing the finger at, but I'm still intrigued by the dynamic of the story where, if the final girl actively picks up the phallic knife/gun/ax (though really, mythically I would think an ax/labris would be a female symbol), a male character becomes the passive prophet and wise fool/advisor.

I'm currently reading _Hermes and His Children_ (2003) by Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, which is an exploration of Hermes as a Jungian archetype, and ran across this phrase, which I love.

[Walter] Otto describes another way in which Hermes makes his epiphany:
But the marvelous and mysterious which is peculiar to night may also appear by day as a sudden darkening or an enigmatic-smile. This mystery of night seen by day, this magic darkness in the bright sunlight, is the realm of Hermes, whom, in later ages, magic with good reason revered as its master. In popular feeling this makes itself felt in the remarkable silence that may intervene in the midst of the liveliest conversations; it was said, at such times, that Hermes had entered the room... The strange moment might signify bad luck or a friendly offer, some wonderful and happy coincidence.'
p. 27

Kes: This book is available to blind readers through Bookshare.org, as is a modern short story collection loosely based upon Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, Kate Atkinson's highly enjoyable _Not the End of the World_
review at
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article861914.ece

"Eurydicey," a play by Sarah Ruhl (Samuel French, 2008)

A retelling of the Eurydice myth from Eurydice's point of view, this version presents Eurydice as someone who is more than just Orpheus's dead wife who serves as the instigating element for his adventure to the underworld.

Sarah Ruhl is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard in her ability to create characters who can be funny, petulant, witty, weird, scared, clueless, confused, and compassionate--namely, fully human--within the small interval of time measured by a play's length, and yet remain completely believable.

This retelling reminds us that Eurydice was young, a teenage girl who was just beginning to find out who she was, and just beginning to wish to be something other than Orpheus's girlfriend, when her life was cut short by the whim of a god. Finding herself in the underworld and once more with only the vaguest sense of who she had been, Eurydice must recreate herself despite the mockery and the seeming senselessness she finds in her new world and, just as she appears to have created a life for herself and her father, Orpheus shows up to bring her back to her previous daylife life as his wife. Eurydice's conflicting desires result in what may be a tragedy, or may merely be the myth of the eternal return.

In many ways, this is not a complex play. It is brief, to be performed without intermission; it has only a handful of characters; it has almost no props beyond an imaginatively used ball of twine (a clew, perhaps?) and a few sound effects.

Yet, in other ways, this is a fascinating puzzle of a play which concerns itself with that most puzzling of questions, who am I?, a question which is perhaps, even more confusing for young women who are so often pressured to see themselves as the girlfriend of some significant male, be it the local football hero or an international rock star. Ironically, it is the twilight world of the dead which provides Eurydice with the tools she needs to discover herself, although those tools seem to be nothing more than a ball of twine, a book containing the complete works of Shakespeare, and the space within which she can be herself.

Eurydice will be produced here in Boston by the
Independent Drama Society
April 22-30
The Boston Center for the Arts
Plaza Black Box Theatre
more info at
http://sites.google.com/site/independentdrama/