Last week, with spring break approaching for the Odyssean crew, we took stock of our episodes thus far, as we anticipate crafting them into an adequate vessel for performance.
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| Reviewing Odyssey's return to Ithaca |
Since last week was also the closing of the "
Armed and Dangerous" exhibit at the
Brooks Museum, and since the weather was unseasonably splendid, we took a field trip to learn more about Greek armor and weaponry.
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| Human chain crossing a street without a crosswalk |
We got to see a Greek helmet and sword, a vase decorated with
Heracles (whom we could identify because he was wearing a
lionskin), and (in the permanent collection)
Luca Giordano's rather placid
The Slaying of the Medusa. A favorite part of the exhibit was the interactive corner, where everyone tried on helmets as well as made decorative impressions with a stylus on strips of metal.
Some Homeric tidbits in the news over the break: Greek characters (via
Shakespeare) were used for
market commentary; a quixotic millionaire (redundant?) and author of
Odysseus Unbound (available in our crew's library!) is convinced that he has discovered the authentic
Ithaca; meanwhile, scholars continue to debate who (singular or plural) even composed the
Homeric epics. And in Chicago, a new
National Hellenic Museum opened with an exhibit on "
Gods, Myths and Mortals": "climb into a 12 foot tall Trojan Horse, journey through rocky caves, over open seas, into a Cyclops Cave and then a karaoke cave to sing like a Siren." Another field trip?
