Eros in a Speedo

The costume designer outfitted the winged god Eros in a Speedo and made sure the other costumes didn't become see-through when the actors emerged from the water. She also gave one actor a pair of aqua socks to keep him from slipping on the wooden deck. (They were eventually abandoned because they made distracting slurpy noises.)

Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses is playing in Des Moines.

Food of the Gods

Slashfood reports that Greek Gods are introducing some new yogurt flavors. The containers look spiffy, but the choice of flavors is rather ordinary. Whatever happened to nectar and ambrosia?

(Thanks to Donna for finding this!)


Poseidon

Diana - princess or goddess?

"In the case of Diana, Princess of Wales this was an obvious culmination. As her brother pointed out at her funeral, Diana — or Artemis, if we are going to stick to the Greeks — was the goddess of hunting, herself hunted to death.

Or you could say that, pursued by the Furies for much of her public life, those foul harpies finally got their girl. She could be Prometheus, stealing fire (or fame) from the gods (or the royal firm), and giving it to mortals for their own use; or Cassandra, predicting her own fate in a series of tapes and telephone calls; a female Narcissus, gazing doomed and entranced upon her own reflection in magazines."

India Knight makes some observations about the use of mythic imagery in discussing Princess Diana, insults Catholics, uses the strange construct half-Muslim, and gets the readers quite irate.


Diana

The Ascent of Dionysos

Athena has consistently shown herself to be one of the most powerful Olympians, but was overthrown by Hades in the closest struggle for Mount Olympus to date. Defeated and ashamed, Athena steps down from Mount Olympus to make room for Dionysus.

Forget about getting the house cleaned in time for Christmas. I'm playing Mythos!

Artemis and Santa

"There are several humorous cameos in this film, including an uncredited actress who plays the Greek Goddess Artemis working undercover on Earth as a gym teacher. This actress is gut-bustingly funny in a role that is far too brief when compared to the time spent on Heat-miser and Snowmiser. In fact, her role is part of the underlying, richer story about the role that myth and story plays in cultures, even modern ones."

Belinda Acosta reviews The Year Without Santa Claus

Building the Trojan Horse

Radio 4 airs Alick Rowe's The Horse, "an account of what might have happened during the construction of the Trojan Horse and what follows when it’s finally loaded up with twelve valiant Greeks". Listen to it on the BBC web site.

Also, don't miss this Neatorama post about a modern version of the horse.


Tiepolo's Trojan horse

Quilted legends

Marilyn Belford is in the middle of her series on women of legends. This series stemmed from her work on biblical tales and now include women from mythology. She brought a work in progress on Medea, a women in Greek mythology who killed her two children.

Read more in The Citizen.

I thought quilting was something you did with boring old squares of leftover fabric. Silly me. Having visited Marilyn Belford's web site I now know better. Quilting is an art form. Don't miss the Women of Legend and Legends of the Bible galleries!


Circe by Marilyn Belford

Spirituality in a handbag

Some things are so silly that I simply cannot resist commenting.

Psychotherapeutic counselor Teresa Dane Marcel teaches women how to make handbags and understand their own feminine selves using exemples from Greek mythology.

“The Greek goddesses are fascinating, not as idols, but as aspects of ourselves. You can see characteristics of the goddesses in yourself and others. For instance, if you are a direct person, you may identify with Artemis, known for her ability to get straight to the point while remaining true to herself,” said Marcel.

"The myths and stories will inspire the group to ask what particular resources they always carry with them in their handbags," she continued.

Actually, Artemis is known for her ability to get straight to the point with her arrows, killing men who offend her - though using that fact as a source of inspiration when you decide what to carry in your handbag is probably not what Marcel has in mind.


Artemis and Actaeon

Olympus on my mind

Until I read this article about a community college production of Olympus on my Mind I had no idea that such a musical existed. You can read the synopsis here, or listen to some samples at Amazon. (Personally, I'm not impressed. It sounds very generic, somehow.)

Argonautika

"Mary Zimmerman brings us Argonautika. An older story and a stranger one than The Odyssey, Argonautika recounts the adventures of Jason and his crew aboard the Argo on a perilous mission to cross the forbidden ocean in their quest for the Golden Fleece. There is danger at every turn as they encounter sea-monsters and water nymphs, wicked and savage kings, a city of women and an army of warriors sprung from the earth. But no danger proves as great as the overwhelming love of a young sorceress named Medea. Join Jason and his crew aboard the Argo for the world's first sea voyage."

More at the Lookingglass Theatre Company web site.

Eos on wheels

This is the new Volkswagen Eos, "named for the Greek goddess of the dawn who every morning rises of the eastern sea to bring daylight to the world". Well, yawn?


Eos

Mythos

"Registration is now open for Age 6 of Mythos, the free online RPG/Strategy game based around Greek Mythology. Age 6 will actually start on Tuesday, October 31, 2006.

As always, several improvements have been made to the game for Age 6, such as the severe altering of the Plunder attack type to help out small cities, and the addition and change of several skills."

Visit www.MythicWars.com to join the world of Mythos!

Source: Multiplayer Online Games Directory

I'm sort of tempted to sign up, but knowing myself I'd become completely absorbed and cease having a life for the duration of the game. Must resist...

The Fall of Troy

An archeologist arrives at Hissarlik, convinced that he has found the mythical Troy of the Iliad. He's determined to prove that the Trojan war was a historical reality, and he won't let anyone or anything get in his way.

Sound familiar? Heinrich Obermann, the protagonist of Peter Ackroyd's The Fall of Troy, is, of course, based on German amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Add some drama (hardly necessary!) and supernatural elements to the original story, and you have the reason I fear my book budget for November will be spent before October has ended.

More mythological names

"It’s no secret that Google has long replaced Open Source as Enemy Number 1 within Microsoft’s Redmond HQ and beyond. In their quest to thwart Google, and given their appetite for mythological names, maybe Messrs Gates and co should consider Nemesis - the Goddess of Retribution and Vengeance – as its new name for the long-awaited Microsoft adCenter. That’s if they ever get round to a full launch."

Linus Gregoriadis offers some (mostly) helpful advice in What digital giants can learn from Greek mythology.

What's in a name?

There exists a dominatrix called Hera. This fact boggles my mind. Why a domme would name herself after the Greek goddess of marriage is beyond me. I mean, what does she do? Flog single men until they vow to marry? Whip married men until they promise to be faithful to their wives?

I understand the allure of using names from mythology, but the effect is completely ruined when you don't bother to read the myths and learn about their significance. Would you fly with Icarus Airlines? Yes, they really did exist.

On the other hand, sometimes a carefully selected name gives away too much of the game. I'm hardly the only one who watched the first season of HBO's Rome wondering what dreadful fate would befall the lovely Niobe. (No idea what I'm referring to? Read this Mythography entry that explains it all.)


Niobe

Folding Medusa

Origamiwolf's Medusa might be the most impressive origami creation I have ever seen.


Medusa

Starstruck

This is probably only moderately interesting if you don't live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but it made me happy so I'm posting it anyway. The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh Science Outreach will present a show called “Monsters of the Sky” at the Buckstaff Planetarium Oct. 20, with shows at 7 and 8 p.m, telling the myths behind the constellations. More information is available at the Advance Titan.

So why did this make me happy? My introduction to Greek mythology was a children's show that told the myths of how Orion, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and various monsters and animals ended up in the sky. Twenty-four years later I'm still hooked.


Orion, courtesy of the U.S.
Naval Observatory Library

I don't watch CSI:NY...

...but that might change. Being geographically challenged I'll have to wait a while for Hung out to dry, the episode shown the other day, but I hear Greek mythology played an important part, in the form of t-shirts with divine motifs and encoded messages.

The tees are made by edoc laundry, a clothing company that's part of the alternate reality gaming scene. From their web site:

"Woven into everything we make are hidden messages and codes most people can’t see. Edoc clothes break across the traditional categories of street, skate/surf, and classic by creating a new category that spans our entire line: Covert. Every piece of gear is a trapdoor into a hidden world. Check it out. We’ve got nothing to hide."

It does sound fairly entertaining, the t-shirts don't look bad at all, and solving a puzzle would give me something to do while I wait for Hung out to dry to reach this side of the pond and hopefully provide me with some snark material. The deities and monsters involved are Hades, Hypnos, Argus, and the hydra, meaning, of course, that the foobar potential is infinite.


The original hydra