#you don’t have to like books that interpret myth into story

[thesiltverses]

I don’t know who types up the ask answers on this blog but to whoever’s reading this: how do you all feel about being alive and sentient? What keeps you going, what purpose propels you through this chaotic void? What do you think (or hope) waits for you after your inevitable end? What do you think constitutes a life well lived?

I'm going to answer this in the most wayward and stupidly overlong manner possible, because the previous ask had me thinking about puppets, and I was already mid-way through writing up a book recommendation that's semi-relevant to your questions.

Everyone (but especially people who've enjoyed The Silt Verses and all the folks on Tumblr who loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke) ought to seek out Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Riddley Walker is a wild and woolly story set in post-apocalyptic Kent, where human society has (d)evolved into a Bronze Age collective of hunter-gatherer settlements. Dogs, apparently blaming us for our crimes against the world, have become our predators, hunting us through the trees. Labourers kill themselves unearthing ancient machinery that they cannot possibly understand.

A travelling crowd of thugs led by a Pry Mincer collect taxes and attempt to impose themselves upon those around them with a puppet-show - the closest possible approximation of a TV show - that tells a mangled story of the world's destruction, featuring a Prometheus-esque hero called Eusa who is tempted by the Clevver One into creating the atomic bomb.

Riddley himself, a twelve-year-old folk hero in-the-making surrounded by strange portents, ends up sowing the seeds of rebellion and change by becoming a conduit for the anti-tutelary anarchic madness (one apparently buried in our collective unconscious) of Punch 'n' Judy.

It's a book in love with twisted reinterpretation, the subjectivity of interpretation, buried or forbidden truths coming back to light (the opening quote is a curious allegory about reinvention and cyclical change from the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which is a good joke and mission statement on a couple levels at once) and human beings somehow stumbling into forms of wisdom or insight through clumsy and nonsensical attempts to make sense of a world that is simply beyond them.

It rocks.

The book starts like this:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Riddley's devolved language - a trick which has been nicked/homaged by many other works, most notably Cloud Atlas and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome - is a masterwork choice which may seem offputting or overwhelming at first, but which has its own brutal poetry and cadence to it, and ultimately which makes us slow down as readers and unpick the wit, puns, double-meanings and playful themes buried in line after line.

(Even those first five sentences get us thinking about cyclical change, ritual and myth in opposition to the dissatisfactions of reality, and 'tern' to paradoxically indicate a rebellious change in direction but also an obedient acceptance of inevitable death.)

In one of my favourite passages in literature and a statement of thought that means a lot to me, Riddley has been smoking post-coital weed with Lorna, a 'tel-woman', who unexpectedly declares her belief in a kind of irrational, monstrous Logos that lives in us, wears us like clothes, and drives us onwards for its own purpose:

'You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.' I said, 'What thing is that?' She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its lookin out thru our eye hoals...it aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and shelterin how it can.' 'Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatise it mor. It dont realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. What ever it is we dont come naturel to it.' I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.' She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it. We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I dont know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I dont know. Now lissen what Im going to tel you Riddley. It thinks us but it dont think like us. It dont think the way we think. Plus like I said befor its afeart.' I said, 'Whats it afeart of?' She said, 'Its afeart of being beartht.'

While Hoban is, I think, deeply humanistic to his bones and even something of a wayward optimist, the notion of human beings as helpless and ignorant vessels, individual carriers - puppets, if you like - for an unknowable and awful inhuman power-in-potentia and life-drive that lacks a true shape or intent beyond its own continued survival (even when that means destroying us or visiting us with agonising atrophy in the process) conjures up the pessimism of Thomas Ligotti, another big influence on our work and a dude who was really into his marionettes-as-metaphor.

Let's go to him now for his opinion on the thing that lives beneath our skin. Thomas?

Through the prophylactic of self-deception, we keep hidden what we do not want to let into our heads, as if we will betray to ourselves a secret too terrible to know… …(that the universe is) a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. Everything tears away at everything else forever. Nothing knows of its embroilment in a festival of massacres… Nothing can know what is going on.

Curiously, both Ligotti and Riddley Walker have appeared in the music of dark folk band Current 93, whose track In The Heart Of The Wood And What I Found There directly homages the novel and ends with the repeated words,

"All shall be well," she said But not for me

These words, in turn, hearken back to Kafka's* famous reported conversation with Max Brod:

'We are,' he said, 'nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that rise in God's head.' This reminded me of the worldview of the gnostic: God as an evil demiurge, the world as his original sin. 'Oh no', he said, 'our world is only a bad, fretful whim of God, a bad day.' 'So was there - outside of this world that we know - hope?' He smiled: 'Oh, hope - there is plenty. Infinite hope, just not for us."

So, we walk on.

We carry this thing that's riding on our backs, endlessly bonded to it, feeling its weight more and more with every passing day, unable to turn to look at it. Buried truths come briefly to life, and are hidden from us again. Perhaps they weren't truths at all. We couldn't stand to look the truth directly in the eyes in any case.

If there is hope, it's for the thing that looks out from our eyeholes, which thinks us but cannot think like us. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. There's no hope for it. Perhaps we don't want it to win anyway. It's nothing, and the key to everything.

The Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas says:

'When you see your own likeness, you rejoice. But when you see the visions that formed you and existed before you, which do not perish and which do not become visible - how much then will you be able to bear?'

Kafka, writing to his father, begins by expressing the inexpressibility of his own divine terror:

You asked me why I am afraid of you. I did not know how to answer - partly because of my fear, partly because an explanation would require more than I could make coherent in speech…even in writing, the magnitude of the causes exceeds my memory and my understanding.

Kafka concludes that while he cannot ever truly explain himself, and that the accusations in his letter are neat subjectivities that fail to account for the messiness of reality, perhaps 'something that in my opinion so closely resembles the truth…might comfort us both a little and make it easier for us to live and die.'**

It doesn't bring comfort to Kafka, whose diarised remarks both before and after the 1919 letter make it clear that he views his relationship with the things (people) that birthed him as an endless entrapment that prevents him from attaining any kind of self-actualisation or even comfort, since he cannot escape their influence or remember a time before them:

I was defeated by Father as a small boy and have been prevented since by pride from leaving the battleground, despite enduring defeat over and over again.

It's as if I wasn't fully born yet...as if I was dissolubly bound to these repulsive things (my parents).*** The bond is still attached to my feet, preventing them from walking, from escaping the original formless mush. That's how it is sometimes.

Samuel Beckett returns again and again (aptly) to this pursuit of a state of true humanity and final understanding that is at once fled and unrecoverable, yet to be born, never to be born, never-existed, endlessly to be pursued, pointless to pursue. From the astonishing end sequence of The Unnameable:

alone alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-com- ing, another will come, I won’t be the last. I’ll be with the others. I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’t be I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet. I’ll go there now. I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where,where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again

I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way

From Thomas' Jesus:

When you make the two one, and you make the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, and if male and female become a single unity which lacks 'masculine' and 'feminine' action, when you grow eyes where eyes should be and hands where hands should be and feet where feet should stand and the true image in its proper place, then shall you enter heaven.

Tom's Jesus makes a particularly Gnostic habit of both insisting that the hidden will be revealed and demonstrating the impossibility of attaining a state where the hidden ever can be revealed. Contrary to C.S. Lewis, we will never have faces with which to gaze upon the lost divine and the mysteries that shaped us, and crucially, as Christ puts it, we would not be able to bear the sight of ourselves if we did.

We will never become the thing that's riding on our backs.

Jesus again:

The disciples ask Jesus, 'Tell us how our end shall be.' Jesus says, 'Have you found the beginning yet, you who ask after the end? For at the place where the beginning is, there shall be the end.'

The Unnameable:

I’ll recognise it, in the end I’ll recognise it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it

The final passage of The Unnameable, which often is hilariously shorn and misinterpreted as an inspirational quote about how if you don't succeed, try again:

all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on. I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know. I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on. I’ll go on. †

We bear this thing that's riding on our backs. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. If it was born, it'd be too terrible for us to bear. There's nothing riding on our backs.

It will never speak us into being.

We keep on calling out into the silence, we keep trying to explain or understand the thing that's riding on our backs, searching for a way to birth it before we die. Our words about the thing are crucial, and they're meaningless, and they're all we have, and they're nothing at all. We cannot name it and we cannot express it, but we cannot stop trying, and we will keep turning back to our words about the thing, obsessing over them, tearing them to pieces, putting them back together.

I'm fumbling at something I can't think or say, but fumbling is all we're capable of. There could be beauty and meaning and comfort in the fumbling, but it's also vain, and foolish, and pointless, and we're lying to ourselves about the beauty and the meaning and the comfort, and we're indulging ourselves pointlessly by going on and on about the pointlessness of it. Nothing can know what's going on. We will never get close enough to understand without being destroyed.

Thomas' Jesus again, warning those who seek to reveal what's hidden:

He who is near me is near the fire.

Riddley Walker, reflecting on the Punch puppet's inexplicable desire to cook and eat his own child:

Whyis Punch crookit? Why wil he al ways kill the baby if he can? Parbly I wont ever know its jus on me to think on it.

If you got to the end of this, congratulations: but the above is honestly the most appropriate patchwork of what I believe, what propels me, what I feel.

As for what comes after life, I think it's fairly straightforwardly a nothingness we are tragically incapable of fully knowing or accepting - it's Beckett's unimaginable and unattainable silence, a silence that his characters' voices keep on shattering even as they cry out for it.

-Jon‡

*I can't remember if Kafka makes prominent reference to Czech puppets in his work, which is interesting in its own right given the thematic relevance (the protagonist in The Hunger Artist is perhaps a kind of self-directing puppet show?).

However, Gustav Meyrink - who some unsourced Google quotes suggest was pals with Czech puppeteer Richard Teschner - did write a strange little story, The Man On The Bottle, about an audience watching a 'marionette show' who are too wrapped up in performances and masks to interpret the reality that they're actually watching a human being suffocate to death.

**Thomas Ligotti: "Something had happened. They did not know what it was, but they did know it as that which should not be.

Something would have to be done if they were to live with that which should not be.

This would not (be enough); it would only be the best they could do."

***Beckett's Malone Dies actually kicks off with a related sentiment:" I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there...In any case I have her room. I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more."

† I don't necessarily align myself in humour with Ligotti on a lot of this stuff but I imagine he would recognise both Beckett's writing and Kafka's frustrations re explaining the causes of his hatred for his father as sublimation: finding artistic and philosophical ways of sketching the inexpressible horror and uncertainty of our existence in order to reckon with it at a remove without destroying ourselves. A higher form of self-deception, but self-deception nevertheless.

‡Muna's more of an anarcho-nihilist, I think.

#long fucking post just to say 'i don't know'

[ezziefae]

The Prisoner's Throne Predictions and Connection to The Oak and Holly King.

I just made a HUGE discovery that Oak and Wren's character and story was inspired by the famous mythical story of The Oak King and the Holly King. According to myth, the Oak King and the Holly King are siblings who battle for the crown. Eventually, one of them emerges as the king, but is later overthrown by the other. This cycle is endless.

The Oak King (Prince Oak) represents life, growth, summer, light, and fertility, while the Holly King (Queen Wren) represents death, darkness, and winter. Each king has a bird that represents them; the Robin represents the Oak King, and the Wren represents the Holly King. (Holly is so smart and sneaky, love her for this)

Oak King/Prince Oak. Holly King/Queen Wren

When the Oak King rules, flowers bloom and grow tall, representing life and summer. When the Holly King rules, the days are cold and things perish, representing death and winter.

'They say that he can talk flowers into opening their petals at night, as though his face were that of the sun. He'll steal your heart.' - The Stolen Heir

Even though the Oak king and The Holly king battle for the crown, they cannot live without each other. Death must occur for life to happen; there's no one without the other, but they don’t rule at the same time!! (HMMMMM)

It's a super cool mythical story. When the days are hot and flowers are blooming, it means that the Oak King has won the crown. On the other hand, if it's cold and things start dying, it's a sign that the Holly King is ruling

"With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun."

- Wren, The Stolen Heir

According to an old folk belief, if you see a robin(Oak) during winter, it signifies the end of the Holly King's(Queen Wren) reign and the arrival of summer. Centuries ago, when people had limited knowledge of the seasons, they used to kill wrens to fasten the end of winter and end the Holly King's reign......

So let's try to connect this to The Prisoner's Throne...

What we know so far from the promotions of the book, and sneak peeks is that there will be a huge battle for a CROWN.

If Oak is The Oak King, and Wren is The Holly King (queen) then there will possibly be a dethroning. Meaning that Oak will most likely dethrone Wren. Which would be quiet messy, since we’re all pretty much expecting Oak and Wren to rule together. But even the overview for the book mentions that Oak has to choose between trying to regain Wren trust, (which if you read chapters 1-3 of the prisoner's throne, you know that option isn't working), or fighting against her and ending her reign.

Here are some of the promotions pics for the book, including TPT's overview.

When I read the words "And a battle for a blood-soaked crown" and "blood will reign," it made me think of the Elfhame Blood crown, which only members of the Greenbriar line could only wear. But then i remembered that Cardan had destroyed the blood crown in the end of TQON. So this makes me believe either there's a battle for a NEW crown (Wren's current crown) or that Oak IS the crown, as if that Wren and Elfhame (Jude and Cardan) are battling to keep Oak. There could be many interpretations, what do you guys think?

Also, going back to the story, If the Oak King and the Holly King cannot live without each other then I think that pretty much confirms that neither Oak or Wren will die? maybe a part of wren could die but who knows. I think they would have to come to term with each other eventually. Since Oak is part of the Greenbriar lineage, and Wren carries milieht's heart, then technically in a way they are fighting themselves? Could the magical lands of faerie possible have response or reaction to their heirs fighting each other? If Wren wanted to magically erase Oak or Cardan from existence then would it work?? Sooo many possibilities UGHHHH.

It's possible that Holly isn't going to fully follow the story of the Oak and Holly king into the prisoner's throne, but so far we've gotten MANY similarities between Oak/Wren and The Oak/Holly King.

Hopefully this wasn't so confusing to read, I got too excited writing this. I'd like to hear your predictions on this!!! In the meantime I will be trying to connect the dots.

39 days until The Prisoner's Throne comes out...

#I SPENT TOO LONG WRITING THIS HELPPPP #The Prisoner's Throne #holly black #the stolen heir #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #the folk of the air #the prisoners throne #the cruel prince #oak greenbriar #elfhame #Holly King #Oak King #Queen Suren #Queen Wren #oakwren

[seasonalmoss]

Epic the musical Catifed: I remade Penelope’s Ref!

AAAAGHH DJDHFJRHJDHSHD OKAY OKAY, so Ive been meaning to redo her ref for quite some time now, and it happens that I’ve been stressed enough lately to draw her! She’s literally one of my very top comfort characters for me right now, to be fair all of my comfort characters are extremely important but for this situation I’m in right now the comfort I need is from people like Penelope or Willow (from Wings of Fire).

anyways this ref has really helped me decompress and calm down, drawing Penelope has made me feel so safe and secure, literally I love Penelope in Epic so much.

I looove how she is in Epic the musical? Idk I feel more drawn towards her and more interested in her then the Penelope in the Odyssey.

though I guess in general when I say “I love -insert character who appears in EPIC” I’m usually talking about specifically the interpretation of Epic. Though I do have a genuine interest in Greek mythology and I want to get into more media that’s about it, the specific characters I’ve grown attached to are the musical ones!

like- people need to understand that Epic isn’t just “the odyssey as a musical” it’s a transformative retelling! And in many ways is it’s own story.

like- I think everyone can Agree that Ody in epic is a lot more nicer and moral then Ody in the Odyssey,

they literally aren’t the same character, and I hate when I see people bash on Odysseus in Epic because of their opinions of him in the odyssey.

Don’t get me wrong I LOOVE LOOVE the Odyssey and Iliad and other Greek myths but that’s simply just not the fandom I’m apart of.

Yes, Epic is still based on the Odyssey and a retelling of it, but it’s still Separate, and people shouldn’t act like it isn’t or act like what happens in EPIC reflects onto the odyssey. Like- don’t say “oohh but Odysseus isn’t that bad because in Epic-“ Stop. Don’t say that.

if you see them as separate from eachother then it shouldn’t matter to you people’s takes of the characters in the Odyssey because they aren’t the same as in EPIC. And really that goes for everything?

I’ve seen people bring up PJO(somehow???) a lot or that Circe book (literally don’t know the name of it) in regards to Epic and say “but in this!” Like- dude they are literally different retellings and interpretations it’s not like every Greek mythology story is connected or idk- canon to the Original Myths??? And don’t get me wrong you can make crossover AUs! I honestly LOOOVE seeing all of the PJO x Epic things I see!

but anyways stupid ramble over, I LOOVE LOOVEE DESIGNING PENELOPE! AAGGHHDHDHD I wanted her to appear very regal and well kept, she is a queen after all. But further more Penelope in Epic is a character who isn’t much of a physical fighter, rather she stands back and watches with calculating eyes and prudence. She has an unwavering will and a strong composure in the face of 108 nasty Suitors. She’s wise and clever. With all of this I wanted to give her more lengthy and soft features, as Penelope is someone many don’t expect to expertly win a battle with wits. She simply just seems to be the face of royalty. But I also gave her a strong long/thick tail to show her strength, she absolutely can beat the shit out of you with that tail, but she won’t. Because she doesn’t need to, since she has other more “civil” methods of wits to break you down. but in general EPIC Penelope is more reserved and calm, she doesn’t need to gaslight you or manipulate you, she just needs to trick you. She’s understanding and gentle, yet serious and worried. she stands tall hence why I made her that height. she’s also one of Odysseus’s leading motives, and a major support for him. I wanted Penelope to come across as someone you turn to for guidance or you lean into to cry. She’s a sturdy yet soft shoulder to cry on, something Odysseus desperately needs. (also Penelope just HAS to be taller then Odysseus I’m sorry- if you don’t make Ody in epic shorter then practically everyone what are you doing? /j)

anyways thats my Penelope design!

#catifed designs #epic the musical #epic penelope #epic the musical fanart #epic the musical as cats #greek mythology #ref sheet #catified #designs #penelopeeeeee #i love her so much HJDBDJDHD #Odysseus’s badass wife #tall wife #EPIC

[ericleo108]

CosmicLuve.com July 2023 - The Main Thing

Necessary prerequisite posts:

108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (book)

Sentientism 2022

Cosmic Love Feb 2020 - Emma Watson

Cosmic Love April 2022: Cary Charlotte or Mary

Cosmic Luve July 2022 - Smoke Blunts Response Treatise

Cosmic Luve Aug 2022 - Coast

Cosmic Luve Sept 2022 - Hope

Cosmic Luve Oct 2022 - Folklore

Cosmic Luve April 2023 - Sun

Into

This is a pivotal post and touches on all relevant cosmic luves (as in persons, as well as ties in many posts). This post builds off the story developed in “Sept 2022 Hope” and especially “April 2023 Sun.” You won’t understand the theory or meaning of this post unless you read the Sentientism post and other log entries to see that these coincidences are common occurrences and how I interpret them. The fundamental understanding of all this comes from my book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness.” 

The intent of this cosmic luve log is to explain what I see as Gaia/Earth communicating. The basic theory is that the Earth and stars are conscious due to their magnetism. They have abilities like “telepathic randonauting” and “points of realization” to try and communicate which can affect things like evolution subtly but consistently. I show how Gaia could be manipulating our behaviors by influencing our cognition throughout the cosmic luve blog.

Where we left off… 

When we left off I talked about the semantics of the sun in lil’dicky’s show, how I’m searching for Marcus Lemonis, and couldn’t afford help from Ryini. Well, I said screw it and signed up for Ryini even though it takes my whole music budget for the month. It’s been a couple months and I have found the investment worth it. 

We have a personalized meeting a couple of times a month with a group chat twice per week. This has helped me focus on marketing like making vertical music videos. With their help, we have been breaking them down into segments and running ads through Instagram to get followers and plays on Spotify. They have done things that are invaluable like turning me onto Spotify’s Discovery marketing feature that gets me thousands of plays per month now. I feel like it been worth it and they’re here to help and gonna keep working until I see a good amount of success or at least get my money back. I’m practicing a 7 track set to perform online and at local venues. Hopefully, I’ll have plenty to point to by next cosmic luve entry. 

Marcus and Dave

I stopped looking for Marcus Lemonis because I don’t think he wants to be found. It’s obvious to me he has to know I exist and is just ignoring my request for a meeting. I forgot to mention in the last cosmic luve post that my song called “Process, People, Product” which is taken from his quotes about business from Marcus drops on November 16th 2023. 

It’s worth explaining and furthering the semantics in Dave’s yellow dress. I should of mentioned this in the last post “Sun” but it didn’t come to me until right after I published it. The semantic trope goes as follows and furthers the story of the sun’s communication. Our sun is exemplified as a male. Dave in his yellow dress (exemplifying the sun) came out the same time as my song “Bong hits for Jesus.” Jesus is gods son and based off the myth of the sun (click here for more) as I show in my Atheist Raps blog post. “Bong Hits” is about smoking weed. In Dave’s song about smoking weed “Too High” he talks and makes jokes about the sun (having a dick). This also is a callback to the first Emma Watson post where she is pointing to a letter E in yellow. 

Looking back

I have a confession to make. Gaia has taught me that when one door closes another one opens. In February I made a tweet along the line of “When they say when one door closes another one opens is bullshit, I quit my job months ago and haven’t found anything.” I quit my job in August 2022 and said that in February 2023. Come to find out that I got my first big royalty check in August 2022 and hadn’t been informed yet and didn’t find out until March 2023. When it was May I have now received my second $1500 royalty check in 6 months. The second royalty check came just after I decided not to go to Marcus’s event. Even with the royalty payment I didn’t really have enough to go because it was $500 plus hotel and airfare. I used the money to pay off my credit card which is full of music production and promotion expenses. 

It seems that financial security is coming slowly, but coming, I just need to focus on building momentum and doing the work. It’s just frustrating cuz I can’t afford anything else and forgo a lot to make all this music happen and I haven’t had real relief for years. The truth is I’m still struggling and have not even come close to breaking even with what I’ve invested, but it’s a start. I am currently desperate for more royalties or financial help.

Looking forward I want 100 tracks by December 2024. If you want to know about coming projects while hearing what I have to say about Big oil, global warming, and blue watch the July 16th 2023 sunday update.

Coincidences

The first cosmic luve occurrence I’ve had since last time was small but was with Taylor Swift. “Karma” is a song that was on The Chalice Mixtape in 2017, I’ve also had it remade and it drops October 6th, 2023. There was a small but unmistakable coincidence in Taylor’s “Karma” video. In my song “cosmic love brownies” that I uploaded months ago and comes out December 13, the lyric is “I got a Saturn in watching over you, cause you’re a supernova girl.” Here is the tweet I made about it. But this lyric reminded me of Taylor standing with Ice Spice lassoing the moon and Saturn in her “Karma” music video.

Then I had a small occurrence with Hailee Steinfeld when my song “We Make The Party” dropped. I talk about it in my “We Make The Party” blog post but basically, I didn’t realize I would be releasing the song so close to the official start of summer. It has the lyrics “Nothing feels good as her in the summer, we make it hot like global warming.” On the 22nd Hailee posted her magazine feature in The Laterals as their “summer girl.” Unfortunately, I didn’t get a screenshot so you’ll have to look it up. This reminded me of Hailee’s newest song “Sunkissin” which feels like a ‘call-back’ from the sun where Hailee sings “Come and catch a wave, Fade away like it rains in the summertime (In the summertime).”

Although I just published a song called “Vulnerable” responding to a Selena Gomez song by the same name I haven’t seen any coincidences. It's worth mentioning I have thought to myself on many occasions that these women are like the sirens of Greek mythology. Selena reminds me of the ocean and therefore has the strongest association with this feeling and semantics.

Other coincidences since last time include that Cornell West announced his run for President with the Green Party days after I dropped “Philosophy 101” which is based on his Masterclass. And Russ met Dr.Dre right before “Freaky naughty” dropped which is musically inspired by Dr. Dre. I feel like this is Gaia building off my July 2022 Smoke Blunts post.

Emma Watson

Finally, The reflections I got from Emma are so stark and can be interpreted so profoundly that it seems like Emma follows me and is doing it on purpose. But I maintain it’s just Gaia using her as a vessel to reflect my life and work because Gaia and the sun think Emma and I should be together for compatibility and acumen reasons. The truth is for Emma to be reflecting me on purpose she would have to know intimate details of my life which makes me believe it’s much more likely she is being manipulated by some unexplainable phenomenon that I am desperately trying to explain. 

You can follow the tweet thread but basically, I’ve been responding to Emma’s Instagram stories through Twitter. I’m just gonna leave the tweets linked which have pictures of Emma’s IG posts. It started June 1st when Emma semantically reflected my poem in the Cosmic Luve Sun April 2023 post (click here for the tweet). It’s worth mentioning that I love otters, they’re probably my favorite marine animal, and I used to do horse videos on my Facebook page. It seems to have a cohesive message of “I’m loving you without possession” but Emma would have to know I love otters and did my horse videos.

I stopped doing the word of the day rhyme on July 3rd was the last day. Then on July 11th I retweeted about Global Warming emissions and how I no longer was going to create an album to berate the oil industry. On June 11th, the original June 29th post that I made due to the smoke blanketing Michigan from Canadian wildfires that are happening due to global warming, came full circle. This is because that’s when I found out the EPA could cut 90% of emissions. 

The next day Emma posted a cosmic luve response of the “Elementals” movie. I wrote her a poem and said Emma was the “main thing” because she had a picture on her story that also said, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” Emma has been the whole purpose of my music as Eric Leo 108 since the beginning in 2017 (when I dropped the Chalice Mixtape) and before (Click here to see the tweet). It’s worth noting that my best-performing track in the week she posted this became “Hey Emma.” Keeping with the “Elementals” theme the hook to “Hey Emma” exclaims that Emma can “make it hot, being oh so cool.”  

I just want to mention that also during this time I put out a call out for a videographer saying I need help and I just wanna say I wish Emma was my videographer. In keeping with the notion Emma would have to know my personal life otherwise, it’s Gaia… about a week or two prior to the Elemental post, I went kayaking for the first time and got drunk on the river in Michigan with some friends. I loved it and have been asking them to do it again ever since. Maybe Gaia and the sun are telling Emma and I that we should go Kayaking for our first date if we ever get there. 

#Emma Watson #hiphop #rap #Selena Gomez #taylor swift #Hailee Steinfeld #cosmic luve #love #cosmic

[a-gnosis]

Hi, sorry to bug you! I’m trying to be brave and start a project about Ancient Greek myth. The breadth of scholars, literature, and opinions can be overwhelming and intimidating! If it’s okay, could you explain how you go about determining which sources are reliable? Apologies if this is too personal or involved an ask! Please don’t feel pressured to answer! Thank you for taking time to read this. Be well! (Also, do you know if Noel Robertson is reliable? Np if not, just thought I’d ask lol)

Don't worry, you're not bugging me! Ancient Greece and Greek mythology is a very popular and well-studied subject, so I understand that it can feel quite overwhelming and intimidating to start such a project. I myself have never tried to be 100% accurate about everything (because otherwise I would feel so intimidated that I couldn't draw a single line). My comics are inspired by Greek mythology, they are not supposed to be accurate retellings. I do a lot of research, but in the end it's my own take on it.

First I would recommend you to read the ancient Greek sources, or at least the parts that are relevant for your project, instead of going to retellings by modern authors (like Stephen Fry's Mythos. Don't get me wrong, such books can be a great introduction to Greek mythology, but the authors sometimes add details of their own or have their own spin on things). One site that has helped me a lot is theoi.com. There you can go to a certain god's page and see what the ancient poets and writers said about this god. It also has a collection of translated ancient sources (mostly very old translations, though). Sadly, the site is not complete, so depending on which characters you want to write about, you might not find as much information as you'd like.

As for other books, I always look at who has written it and who has published it. If the author is a professor of Classics, then they will most likely know what they are talking about. Even better if the book is published by a university press, since that means it has been reviewed by scholars in the field. Now, some scholars can of course still have some speculations and interpretations that not everybody agree with (for instance, a few scholars have speculated that Persephone's pomegranate seeds is a contraceptive that keeps her infertile. Even if I don't believe that the seeds have that meaning in the myth, it gave me inspiration to how the chthonic pomegranates work in my comic. I don't mind using speculative stuff as inspiration as long as it makes a good story, but then I usually point out in the comments that it is speculations and not facts). If a book is very old it can also have some outdated theories.

I haven't read anything by Noel Robertson, so I can't really say anything about his works. But he was a professor of Classics and his books are not that old, so he is probably a reliable source?

[shakespeareaddict]

Slightly salty rant about PJO fandom incoming:

I usually don’t bother engaging with content I don’t enjoy (what’s the point, I’ve got better things to do than argue over media interpretations) which is why I’m not putting this on anyone else’s posts or putting anyone on blast. But I keep seeing these posts about Charlie Bushnell’s Luke and particularly his writing/delivery to the effect that “they’re making Luke so much more sympathetic” and “you can finally understand him, it’ll be awful when he’s proved wrong”, or stuff about how Kronos corrupted him, and like. I do agree the kids are all doing great and I think they’re setting up Luke’s betrayal well.

But.

I feel like a lot of you are kind of…missing the point?

Like, Luke was not wrong. Luke literally was not wrong.

The gods don’t care about their kids. The heroes are pawns of the gods. Everything about the “system” of Camp Half-Blood—leaving demigod kids undefended until a satyr happens to stumble upon them or they get eaten, training kids to kill man-eating monsters and go on quests and be soldiers, sending kids on dangerous life-or-death quests—it’s incredibly fucked up! When Luke was sent on the quest to get the Golden Apples, the one where he got his scar, it’s implied that there wasn’t even a reason for this quest! Luke was just sent there and back because heroes had done it before, so they might as well have another expendable hero doing it again. To say nothing of the cabin system itself—the gods might straight up forget to ever claim their children, so because of this we shove thirty-odd kids into a cabin built to hold half that number? Percy came to the camp with nothing but the clothes on his back (which seems to be the default for most campers’ first arrival) and the camp doesn’t even provide him with a sleeping bag and a few T-shirts—Luke had to scrounge and steal them out of the camp store.

The system was broken from the start. The gods have been around for thousands of years and they haven’t really changed. In some ways they can’t change. Remember Dionysus making a big deal about how he loves his wife Ariadne? In the myths, Ariadne was abandoned on the island of Naxos, where Dionysus found her and slept with her—and left her. He’d keep returning to her and abandoning her in a cycle while she was mortal. And while it’s implied he does love her and he has improved since then, look at the books: We’re told he was sent on a 100-year probation to camp because he chased a nymph that Zeus wanted (how many non-Zeus nymphs did he also chase?), and we meet his demigod twins. He’s a more loving father than his attitude towards the other campers would imply, and he has a lot fewer children than every god but the Big Three (and Hera and Artemis), but after two thousand years he’s still sleeping around on his wife. All the gods are! They all make pacts and promises with each other and with mortals, and they might hold to them for a while but sooner or later they all break them.

Luke was right about the gods. He was right about the system. He was right that every single camper deserved better than chasing after the faded glory of heroes long gone, and he was right that every kid who didn’t survive the trip to camp deserved a full and fearless life, and he was right that demigods were, are, and always will be the pawns of the gods. That's the tragedy of his story: He was right about everything, and was right to want to change it.

Luke’s only mistake was believing Kronos. Changing what side of the chess board you fight on doesn’t make you not a pawn.

#this is probably the only pjo post i will write just had to get it off my chest #i'm enjoying the show overall #it's faithful to the spirit of the books and really the kids are all doing great

[mask131]

So... I just watched “Blood of Zeus”

People had sold me as “one of the best shows about Greek myth” to have been recently made.

... No. X)

Don’t get me wrong, it is not a bad show. There are things I enjoyed in it. The art - I love the art, the designs, especially when they get freaky and weird (the giants, the Moirai, the Oneroi). And while I am not a fan of this video-game-like story with lots of gore, I am sure the fans of this type of stories will enjoy it.

BUT... I have two troubles with this show. The two main things that make me say “No” to the people who say it is a “good Greek mythology show”. 

1) Despite the opening message that it is a “lost story” of Greek mythology not part of the recorded canon... they actually don’t do anything new or unique. What they basically did was just take several elements of already-existing Greek myths, and copy-paste them without adding anything truly new to it. They had the opportunity to tell something truly unique - and they explicitely presented this show as this - and yet they... just copy-pasted. Even worse... they also stuck to the American interpretation of the Greek myths. At first I thought “Oh there’s nice little nods and details here and there to the original myths - they must have done their research!”. But... upon looking at all the episodes I realized that they visibly just did your superficial, basic research. Because what you have in this show are elements taken from Disney’s Hercules, from “Clash of the Titans”, from the 60s “Jason” movie, and even stuff found in comic books like Wonder Woman. 

And as a result... I do understand why people said they watched the show for the art more than for the plot, because the story is just... just a big pot of mixed copy-and-paste. Sure someone who first discover this show with no previous knowledge of the works it takes inspiration of will probably enjoy the storyline. But for me, it just shows that despite giving themselves the opportunity to do a “lost story” never told yet, they literaly retold already-told stories. 

2) Friggin’ Christianity!

This show is friggin Christian! Or rather, it has a very obvious Christian mentality and mindset. 

“Demons” that are possessed and corrupted humans born of an horrible “cult” of slain giants - and who get possessed through a “dark communion” by eating the flesh of the giant... The titans being “gods of darkness” opposed to the Olympians “gods of light”... The gods “allowing” evil to make humanity “stronger in adversity” because Zeus plans for mankind to “inherit the earth”...  The demons enforcing a “convert or die” massacre throughout Greece... The idea that a greater pain and suffering in life will allow one’s soul an “easier travel into the otherworld”... Should I go on? 

Despite literaly making a Greek mythology tale, in Ancient Greece, with Greek gods and Greek monsters, this show actually uses Christian logic, a Christian mindset and Christian concepts to explain its plot and the Greek gods. Which is of course very unfitting - heck, it was precisely because of the appliance of a Christian mindset to Greek mythology that we had a “Hades=evil devil ruler of Hell”. 

So while Blood of Zeus is a very nice eye-treat with very cool visuals and fascinating concept art (unless you don’t like blood, in which case this show will be very hard to watch), it is certainly NOT a good adaptation of Greek myths. 

#blood of zeus #greek mythology #greek myths #greek gods

[fearlessinger]

Hello, grieving Adrien stan here.

Do i need to read all the pjo and heroes novels to fully “get” trials of Apollo books? I was never that interested in greco-roman myth or those series as a kid when they were super popular. also I haven’t read a proper book in an embarrassingly long time. Nevertheless I’d like to give a chance if they’re as great as you say.

unrelated,a while back I had half a mind to watch smallville do you know if its worth it?

hey Anon, first of all, my condolences. I’ve been there too.

Second: no you absolutely do not have to read any of the previous novels to understand/appreciate TOA! I am a big proponent of the “TOA first” reading approach in fact (tho obviously you won't have to go back and read the rest of the saga afterwards either), and I’ve already written a little primer for fellow readers who may want to start directly from TOA like I did, based on my own reading experience and the knowledge gaps that I found myself having. I will add, given what’s your reason for wanting to check this out, a few caveats:

this story is not a romance. It's about abuse, emancipation and self actualization. It’s also simultaneously a redemption story because

this Adrien is older (like 4000+ years older lol) and both his personal history and the amount of character development he underwent before the story even starts reflect this. He’s had time to grow up, fuck up very badly in ways that his upbringing explains but does not excuse, and this story is also the story of him coming to terms with and figuring out what he can do about that.

He’s also an incredibly unreliable narrator, and not in the ways you’re led to expect (if you’re familiar with the Adrien The Liar meta know that it’s as much - at this point probably more lbr - about Apollo than it is about Adrien, except for Apollo you gotta multiply it for like 10000). Which means you may have a hard time recognizing him for a while (I think when it really clicked for me was between book 3 and 4). Or maybe not, bc apparently some people clocked the similarities since the very beginning

it’s all so cringe. You’re a fellow ML (ex) fan so I'm sure you can appreciate some quality cringe but I feel compelled to give a warning anyway. I love it, and I don’t think a story like this about a character like this could have been told any other way because (among other reasons that I won’t say bc I’m already spoiling enough) nobody who cares as much and earnestly as Apollo does could ever be Cool ™. But yeah. The narrative style either works for you or it doesn’t bc it’s 100% not a bug but a feature.

Last but not least, if you think it might be easier for you to digest a whole book series in audio format, I’ve been told by multiple people that the TOA audiobooks are really well done.

-

As for Smallville… well, the show as a whole is definitely… an acquired taste 😅 It’s so dumb in so many ways, and not self aware enough to make up for it. I have an incredible fondness for SV, and for its version of Clark & Lois especially; I’d dare say it is still my favorite modern interpretation of their dynamic on screen to date, but it took the show a while to get to the point where their relationship took center stage (S8-9-10, basically. This is after all technically a superman origin story) and it was a very bumpy ride. The show has some truly terrible writing mixed in with the brilliance lol. But yeah go for it if you feel in the mood! Fyi Lois Lane only gets introduced in season 4 which is also one of the show’s best, most enjoyable & silly seasons imho so if you’re on the fence you could try beginning from there (I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to figure out what’s going from context clues).

#toa #adrien agreste #smallville #clois

[tricksterfly]

this is a post dedicated to getting started on The Lokean Path!

the first and most important thing to note is that everyone’s experience with Loki will be different. if you can use any of the information here, that is great! but it’s also not meant to be any kind of “rule list,” so please find what will personally work for you! i also encourage you to do your own research, because there’s a lot more information out there than what i’ve compiled here.

so, let’s get started. i’ll be answering some of the questions i had when i first started this journey. hopefully, you will gain a better understanding of what this path is about based on this information!

Q: who is Loki?

A: Loki Laufeyjarson is a frost giant born of fire and lightening. the story of his birth is both frightening and powerful. he is the Norse trickster god, who was considered an æser after making a blood oath with Odin. in Norse mythology, Odin is the Allfather but honestly treats Loki like a snide younger brother. Loki’s name itself causes discourse in the heathen community, since some perceive him as an evil figure of chaos. however, he is more so simply the catalyst of bigger events. his children were leading factors in Ragnarok (the fall of Asgard), and his hand in Baldr’s death was foreshadowing to this tragedy. but Loki as he is interpreted today is not a bringer of evil. instead, he is a fiery spark of fun and imagination. he is a jokester, a caregiver, a master shapeshifter, and a cunning leader. he breaks the status quo, and is very proud to be different.

Q: is Loki really queer?

A: yes! there are Norse myths that tell tales of Loki shapeshifting into different genders/sexes. he is also suggested to be polyamorous, as this seemed somewhat common in old Norse culture! i believe Loki uses any pronouns, because Loki can be anything.

Q: what can i do to connect with Loki?

A: start wherever you’re comfortable! make a new pattern just for the two of you. for example, i sing a song in Norwegian to start my rituals and meditations. you could write poems/letters/songs, draw a picture, go out and collect rocks for him, pick him a flower, offer him food/drink/smoke, or whatever feels personal to you! allow what you do to show Loki who you are and give yourselves a chance to bond. some people work with bones and blood, others offer tiny knick knacks. follow your intuition and be creative!

Q: what kinds of things does Loki like?

A: here’s a list of items i’ve found to be symbolic to Loki! all of them can be used as offerings.

- the color mahogany/dark red

- gemstones: citrine, obsidian, and fool’s gold

- dandelions & leaves

- wood (reference to the birch tree)

- alcohol

- shiny things

- anything that makes you think of him

Q: do i have to have an altar, cast runes, or swear oaths?

A: no to all 3. you can do these things if you’d like, but they don’t make you less of a Lokean if you choose not to. remember to do plenty of research when getting into these things though, especially runes and oaths. there is powerful sacred magic behind these things that take a great deal of understanding to master. go at your own pace that feels the best for you!

Q: where can i find more information on Loki?

A: unfortunately, there is little documentation from the past on Norse mythology. i would recommend reading the Eddas, as they are the oldest sources that describe Loki. also, a book called Pagan Portals: Loki is a very good compilation of info. you can also find tons of Norse mythology videos on youtube—some are even animated and really funny!

i hope this is a good list of things to get started with! i’m new to this path myself, and i still have much to learn as i make my way. the biggest thing to remember is that Loki has a lot of love to give! if he has found you, consider yourself blessed. there’s a bright road ahead!

#loki laufeyjarson #the lokean path #norse pagan #norse mythology #loki #pagan paths #lokean faq

[jesuisgourde]

more richey rambling, just kind of getting thoughts out of my brain as i read this campbell book

okay i’m probably being extra pedantic here but the authors of wt keep talking about rock n roll mythology -- and i do know what they mean when they say that. but they invoke joseph campbell and say that richey’s life matches the structure of campbell’s hero’s journey.

but it doesn’t? even looking at the general major points of the hero’s journey it doesn’t fit, and definitely not when you get into more details.

because what wt talks about when they talk about rock myth is almost exclusively famous musicians who died young, at the top of their fame, and usually in an “unnatural” manner (suicide/od/murder rather than physical illness) and therefore remain there, unable to fade away into obscurity or whatever.

but then they talk about the hero’s journey and joseph campbell, and first of all the hero’s journey is a storytelling mechanic meant to inform people how the world is made or how to answer questions about life/overcome hardships. these individuals don’t exactly fit the story and there’s not really a good way to apply that to real people, especially real people who died tragically.

second, campbell’s structure specifically follows a certain path. and unless richey suddenly returns (which he won’t because he’s dead but even if he were alive it’s been 30 years so like i doubt it) his life doesn’t follow that path.

not to mention the components of mythology are meant to be ‘universal’ so like if you really wanted to make richey’s life fit, you could i guess pick certain things to interpret as each of the segments of the hero’s journey structure and all of its universal symbols and details but i think a number of them would take some stretching.

i don’t know what i’d call what the wt authors actually mean when they say myth. i think if they didn’t specifically use campbell i wouldn’t at all mind, but i also think what campbell means by myth and what they mean by myth are different.

it’s also interesting because i found an article from 1997 where james talks about how richey was super aware of rock n roll mythology and other kinds of mythology, but he talks about how he thinks richey was so in love with the idea of mythology to realize he was himself becoming a mythic figure.

i mean i think nietzsche’s apollonian and dionysian are really similarto campbell’s ideas except that in campbell’s structure the hero returns to teach a lesson whereas in nietzsche’s tragedy the protagonist dies having failed to change anything. richey seems to fit that second one much better. it’s been a long time since i last read the birth of tragedy and idk maybe there will be something in campbell that will be more similar to nietzsche than just the order and chaos characteristics.

like this is definitely more pendantic than it needs to be but also now i’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of thought because like what then would be the word for what the authors of wt are talking about when they say “rock mythology” when it doesn’t really fit the campbellian myth structure? i think maybe “legend” is closer? since myths are there to tell humanity how to something came to be or how to behave and are usually about gods or higher beings, whereas legends are more like fantastical stories about humans?

idk i think it’s just weird to try and fit richey’s life into this structure campbell sets forth, when it’s a structure meant for larger than life, inhuman entities and metaphorical beings to explain creation or life lessons, which is not at all what richey’s story is. idk i’m struggling to figure out how to put into words why i feel uncomfortable about the comparison or the placement of him specifically in the role of campbellian hero. it just feels exploitative and wrong and totally dehumanizing.

which actually reminds me of richey talking about feeling like a prostitute in terms of how the band was treated and how he was treated by the press and the industry. if he was becoming a so-called mythic figure and his life being a rock myth even as he was alive then commenting on how he felt like he prostituted himself would be a pretty good acknowledgement of the dehumanisation of being seen as some sort of myth figure. but then there’s the question of what’s the difference between being seen as a myth figure a la campbell and being a victim of mass culture a la adorno? is that it? is it that what the authors are trying to express by saying “myth” is the appropriation of “amateur” or the “original” by the culture industry? is that the same thing?

i’m not too far into the hero with a thousand faces so maybe i’ll have more thoughts later idk.

#wt writeup #squash rambles #sorry this is mostly incoherent rambling about joseph campbell and myth and shit #idk how to express what i'm feeling about this aside from just a general discomfort with the idea

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Elgin

Myth

Author: Reading the Past

Rating: 3/5 stars

There is something very pleasing about the "Reading the Past" series books. The economically-minded person might be put off by the $70-ish price tag, and the truly economically-minded person could just buy and read the same material from M. I. Finley (one of the most readable classicists ever to be in academia), for instance in her introductory book The Trojan War: the archaeological evidence and its interpretation (note to self: need to get around to reading that -- I think I missed it).

That said, this is a reasonable way to spend the money. One of the great and often overlooked strengths of classics, compared to some other humanities subjects, is that the learning curve is steep and relatively short. Reading the Past books are an excellent way to see this -- here are a few dozen pages, clearly written and pleasing to the reader with little prior knowledge, and you can understand the basics of a topic you were not familiar with before. The "Reading" books are very much for people who don't feel like they are experts on the stuff they're reading about.

The format is nice, too. Unlike, say, Everett L. Atkinson's Introduction to Classical Mythology, you don't have to learn the myths chronologically and thus lose all chronological information. Instead, there is an introductory overview, and then sections on specific aspects of the myth, which may or may not be in chronological order, but will always be arranged in a sensible way to provide insight into the particular aspect in question. In other words, you can actually learn about the myths per se (as opposed to learn about how the ancient Greeks came to have those myths and what those myths meant to their authors/audiences).

All that said, this book's approach to Homeric scholarship seemed off to me. The author (Kenneth D. Morrell) spends a lot of time emphasizing the meaningfulness of differences between the Iliad and Odyssey. I don't object to this, exactly, but it strikes me as inappropriate in a book like this, which is for people who may not know anything about Homeric scholarship, and not (yet) for people who want to go deeper. Differences between Iliad and Odyssey don't matter all that much if you're treating the Homeric epics as one big story like the others, with only a few minor differences; it's when you insist that the two epics are in many ways entirely different that you can't stop noticing all the places where they don't agree, and get what appears to be a discontinuity, even if it's an historically interesting one. (The Iliad has a heroic Troy that dies to vindicate the gods, while the Odyssey begins with Troy already destroyed; the Iliad ends with a meek return to the human world, the Odyssey begins with Odysseus trying to get home). Morrell blames this on a "conventional view" of Iliad as older, more primitive, more "heroic" and Odyssey as "psychologically more human" -- I'm not exactly on board with this view, since I'm not sure what exactly the author means by "heroic" vs. "psychologically more human." A lot of the differences are later and quite subtle (I think), but then if you insist that they are "different," then of course they seem like the kind of thing people will find "different." If you just read and enjoy both as essentially one story, with only minor differences, you don't necessarily end up thinking that there's a "heroic" age of the Greeks and then a "human" age, with the rise of Athens. And it's pretty much impossible to read these as one story, as one narrative arc with a few minor differences, if you pay attention to the supposed psychological differences between "heroic" Iliad and "psychologically more human" Odyssey. Taking this approach means that Homer can't be read smoothly, and thus is turned into an abstraction, rather than something like a novel or a play that you read smoothly and understand as having a story that is whole and complete, and with characters that are persons.

There are other instances of this. The book is supposed to be about Greek myths, and it does indeed begin with myths, but then it segues into a section on Homer -- and not just Homer, ancient "oral poetry" generally. When the ancient Greeks hear a story, they are not thinking about it like we do; they hear a story that is a "sign," a sign of something else, there is usually some practical or psychological or just general point, the story is not just told for its own sake. And that is, from a certain angle, sensible; our sense of stories is way too untidy, for instance there is much less regard for "because" as a narrative transitional device -- "and then so-and-so did something because such-and-such happened," that's narrative logic to us but in much of ancient Greek literature it's not. This is not a fundamental difference, so that Greek and modern epics are different "genres," but it is a difference in the level of narrative sophistication, as it were, and that is definitely something you can see in Iliad and Odyssey (and elsewhere in Greek epic).

You might be curious as to how this connects to my main objection, that this approach takes the epics and treats them like a boring modern novel, like a self-contained story with a set of characters. Well, the same thing happens when the author starts talking about how some myths (Thebes, Athenian democracy) are associated with Athens, and how others (Troy, Telemachus' journey) are associated with Ithaca. After Ithaca, Telemachus finds the homecoming that the Iliad promised, only to learn that the homecoming is a bum deal, and then he goes on some quest, and so on. All of this is supposed to be about something. If we try to "read it as a sign," and try to understand all this by thinking about the order of things, we get . . . something, but it's certainly not the point of the whole thing. The whole thing is not a set of signposts that you are trying to read as a sign -- it's a story about someone, about Odysseus's quest to find himself and get home.

There are two other really annoying things about the book. One is that it spends too much time on the question of Homer's identity, and this is obnoxious in several ways. For one, the question of whether Homer was one or many people is now solved -- a guy named Simonides won the Homeric Hymnody Competition in 2010. Simonides, whose name suggests he was not a super-brilliant guy, won the contest because he just gave a crap about memorizing Homer. The book spends two chapters on the question of who Homer was, and even concedes that all the evidence now suggests Simonides (which isn't the consensus opinion of ancient scholars), and that Simonides probably wasn't a genius. This is the least interesting part of the book -- not that the myths, so far as they go, aren't interesting (they are), and not that it's wrong to put in the two chapters about Homer (but still), and not that you can't write an interesting introduction to the myths at all (you probably can't), and not that you can't write a book that's mostly about myth but has a chapter on the whole question of Homer (you probably can't). You can do any of these. You can't do all four together. All this really does is to give you, in a book for non-experts, a highbrow version of the "definitive guide" which you find in the introduction to M. I. Finley's Trojan War book, for instance, and which no one actually wants to read or needs to read because it's not actually the definitive guide. (I don't care whether Homer was one guy, lots of people, an "itinerant singer of song," etc. It is not interesting or relevant to me, but it would be to some people. When you're writing a book to introduce people to the subject, you should write about things people actually want to know about, which is not something that's actually very interesting.)

The other, more serious, annoying thing is the constant digs at Christianity. The way the ancient Greeks thought of

[ericleo108]

CosmicLuve.com August 2023 - Orange

Necessary prerequisite posts:

Cosmic Luve August 2023 - Orange

108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (book)

Sentientism 2022

Cosmic Love 2021 - Selena Gomez

Cosmic Love April 2022: Cary Charlotte or Mary

Cosmic Luve July 2023 - The Main Thing

Intro

This entry is coming on the heels of a pivotal post. To oversimplify, my book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness” is a nonfiction autobiographical short story and philosophical breakdown of the evidence and reasoning as to why I think some planets and stars are conscious. I break down how the earth could be communicating in this blog on the Sentientism post(s) which is more about the belief and speculation about how Gaia could be communicating.

The basic theory is Gaia/Earth uses environmental semantics with telepathic randonauting and points of realization to highlight cognition to affect behavior. It’s my experience that Gaia does this through friends, good people, and especially romantic prospects to reach individuals internally with the feeling of love. This series catalogs the semantics I think Gaia is using by having entities/cosmic luves reflect my work and artistry. My main cosmic luves are Emma Watson, Taylor Swift, Hailee Seinfeld, and the main one we’ll talk about in this post is Selena Gomez.

As you can see from reading the past entries, I don’t make these up, the coincidences just come to me. I basically see semantic tropes and try to catalog and interpret them. With this one more than most, it’s obvious it’s external. I’m not making this stuff up, how could I?  The only question is, is this just all coincidence or is it the best form of communication to the planetary entity we have right now?

Where we left off

Expanding upon last months July 2023 - The Main Thing post (and tweet with pictures). It’s worth mentioning that I was wrong about the otters thing. I’m sure somewhere I made a comment about how I like otters. Basically, I always think Gaia is using Emma Watson as a vessel strategically because the reflection to my life is so stark but would normally come by referencing things the public wouldn’t know about, hence it couldn’t be human and intentional. This time if Emma did a little search on my profile she could of intentionally picked horses and otters to “love me without possession” and reflect my sun poem, in her orange poem, which the color orange also highlights today’s theme.

The only real reflection that Emma would have to know me personally for, for her to be purposefully reflecting me would be kayaking. I didn’t say anything online about getting on the River. Otherwise, everything else you could probably find about me somewhere online. So hi Emma, if you’re here, I would love to know your perspective on this and take you on a date. But a better example of how I think Gaia uses semantics through vessels to communicate is Selena in this months cosmic luve because it involves multiple characters over a couple weeks.

Also leaving off from last post and the whole Jesus is based on the myth of the sun thing is I basically want Christians to realize is they worship the sun. I do too, i just think they do it wrong. First of all, I took a poll on X asking if people would straight up worship the sun and they voted they find it stupid. 

But my point is Jesus is based on the myth of the sun, so like a lot of people worship the sun and don’t realize it. But it’s my experience and reasoning with Sentientism that the sun would want you to worship him in action developed through training your mind and intellect to better yourself and others. It’s like what JFK said, on earth, God’s work is truly our own. 

“With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.” - JFK

So a quick recap. Although you think it’s stupid, you still worship the sun in a roundabout way. And to be clear, you think it’s good to worship Jesus and the sun is stupid to regard as a god whereas I think it’s stupid to worship Jesus and worship the sun (and Gaia) through action/behavior whic I think are like gods.

It’s just like how people pray to god. If you read 108 you’ll see why I think the planet is telepathic. Given these circumstances, planet Earth, the god Gaia, would be able to hear your prayers. This goes even further with the thought that god works in mysterious ways… because she would have to. Gaia would hear your prayer and even if she would want to help (which is in question if she would) she would be limited by her physical capability. She has no arms or eyes, her power is magnetism. The way I describe in these posts how I think Gaia infiltrates people's minds to help bring about progress is how she would answer your prayers. Remember I think these individuals are being manipulated by the planet's telepathic abilities that I talk about in my book “108.”

New coincidences

It all started when I noticed a trope progressing. First, I heard about how Swiss Beats made fun of his wife Alicia Keys for ordering carrots in the club. Then, immediately after on Instagram, I saw a new Conor Price video where he was playfully using a carrot as a flute to promote one of his songs. Next, I saw Selena in an orange dress. I made a tweet about it.  Then I talked about it in my longform Youtube sunday update on August 13 2023. I was like “Selena is now my carrot.” Then on August 17 I open up instagram to find Selena in her orange dress on her profile picture and a post promoting her new song “Single soon.”

In the same way this developed, how Selena became my carrot, is how Emma and the semantic anchor to a cat developed that I talk about in my book “108,” but only Emma’s cat association was much more pervasive and consistent. Carrots are a root vegetable and basically live in Gaia’s blood/body/dirt

Then on August 18th I uploaded “Our Love” for distribution. This is a song I wrote for a competition to get the guitarist RJ Pasin, who made the beats sample, on the official feature. The competition must have ended early but I still wanted to release the song while the sample was hot. The song is not personal. I basically wrote the hook first and then did everything else and at a certain point I decided to make it about breaking up and getting back together with your ex.

This is interesting because both of our songs came out on the 25th and Selena’s song is about breaking up with her boyfriend. Just another coincidence right…. It goes even deeper because her song seemed impromptu and came out a month after I released my single “Vulnerable” which is a response to Selena’s song by the same name.

Then I saw a Taco Bell advertisement on the 27th about how you could get a free Doritos locos taco from Taco Bell on “taco Tuesdays” in August. It’s important to understand the story, I basically had a depressing birthday. I did nothing and could not afford to treat myself. I talk about it in my August 27 2023 Sunday update.

I thought the orange semantics ended with the carrot and the dress but follow me here. My birthday falls on Tuesday, August 22nd this month. I actually went searching for free stuff on my birthday because I’m so broke but I couldn’t find anything.  I didn’t know about the free taco that I could actually get on my birthday because of the promotion until after my birthday. Then, most coincidentally, I came to realize locos are orange. I went in and got a free one on the 29th.  I took a picture of it, but it looks way more orange in person. 

Like I said, I’ve been kind of depressed so it felt like a sad birthday. But then on the 26th I celebrated my birthday with my mom and she gave me a ps5 and I think it’s exactly what I need. She gave me a little spending money and made sure I had a good birthday.

I’ll be set on releases until 2024 in September. I should make music videos but they’re expensive. I’m still gonna try but honestly, I think what I need is time and to relax. Especially my Spotify is growing. I probably get about $50 from cdbaby every month which has been helping. The ryini beats team has been a good professional resource still.

It’s worth mentioning, I was also made aware of, through a tiktok this month, that the US quietly rejected the right to food at a UN vote recently. On November 9, 2021, nations in the UN voted on whether or not food is a human right. Over 180 countries participated in the vote, with an overwhelming majority voting in favor of food as a human right. America was the only country who voted “no.” (google search)

It’s almost as if Gaia brought it up to be in context. I feel like she’s really disappointed in the United States. If the voice in my head that claims to be Gaia has anything to say about it is “This is my land, this is my food, it belongs to me, it is me, and I decree it is for all life on this planet. And food is a right for all people.”

To further relate the coincidences Taco Bell’s solan is Live mas,  and Selena’s music video for “Single Soon” has the same feel as a sexy Taco Bell commercial. It’s almost as if Gaia was like, look over here in the orange, I got you a song, a taco, and something for your purpose, baby calm down, happy birthday. So basically I feel like Gaia got me a song and a taco for my birthday

Keeping with the last post’s side quests about how when one door closes, another opens. Music closed for me basically (until the end of the year at least), and opened up an avenue to just live more/mas instead of work through playing my PS5. I’m still waiting for the door to open that was closed from not being able to go to Western for my master's in sociology. I’m actually hoping that door will be finding representation from a sync music boutique for my music that I have been trying to find for a couple of weeks now.

#rap #rapper #love #hiphop #new music #emma watson #selena gomez #selena marie gomez #Youtube

[meta-squash]

Well, I finished reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces. It was a terrible book, most of Campbell's theories are essentially unsupported or straight up contradicted by the examples he gives. He makes ridiculous and broad assumptions about various cultures and religions while completely ignoring any cultural/religious/political/etc context for the myths and folktales he talks about. He consistently claims that "all myths" do x thing or have x symbolism, but his examples rarely prove that and doing even a little bit of research (or just having any general knowledge of more than one culture's myths) completely refutes that idea. Probably half the book is taken up by his quoting or summarizing various myths or quoting various dreams from contemporary people in order to somehow use said myths to interpret dreams via Jung's idea of the collective unconscious (but not really doing anything like interpreting since he just kind of slaps the dream descriptions in at the end of the chapter and doesn't do anything with them). The book is nearly 400 pages long and could easily have been less than 150 pages and made a better point. He only says anything of worth in the last few chapters, and even then the generalizing is a huge problem. He either picks out fragments of longer tales and uses them as examples without talking about or including the rest of the story, or he uses shorter "standalone" fables/folktales and implies that they're part of a bigger, longer epic tale. Most of the stories he cherry-picks to try and represent the Hero's Journey don't actually fit into his diagram at all, and I'm genuinely so surprised we were made to learn about this (even in a much more abstract form) in high school. (Not to mention as writing advice it sucks too; making stories formulaic then makes them predictable which makes them boring.) His whole theory of some sort of universal mythical consciousness is incredibly frustrating. Again, most of the myths he uses as examples aren't actually similar to each other and don't match up to his diagram, either. Also, many of the aspects that *are* similar are simply universal human experiences due to generally being human beings (awareness of the distance between earth and sky, or fear of being eaten/attacked by predators, for example). He also almost entirely ignores how many of the shorter tales (as opposed to longer (somewhat) connected ones like the bible or Bhagavad Gita) are often closer to fables or 'just-so' stories, explaining why certain things are as they are or teaching people how to best behave or what is or isn't moral behavior. (He does at least point out that major texts like the Bible or Torah or Bhagavad Gita are teaching transcendence and cosmological truths and other myths are not.) Towards the end he even contradicts himself about whether or not you can categorize myths, suddenly saying you can't when this whole time that's exactly what he's been doing (without a hint of saying he attempted and then was unable to). He then goes on to talk about using these "universal" myths and symbols and paths to inform one's own life, despite also admitting that the old myth structure is no longer applicable to modern life and that people don't believe in myths anymore because of technology and science and we live in a society etc. The only thing I actually agreed with him on in this whole book is the idea that society is now focused on individualism rather than community. I don't think this book belongs in the category of writing guide and it definitely doesn't belong in comparative mythology. At best I think it's something that might supplement other woo-woo New Age-y "spirituality" books that appropriate the idea of "spirit animals" and tell you that you have past lives and things like that.

#squash rambles #squash reads the hero with a thousand faces

[everythingnumbs]

“Books that involve retellings of things from mythology are destroying the literary world in the same way remaking the same movie every 20 years is destroying film” was not the cold take I was expecting to hear today but here we are!

#like fam? #you don’t have to like books that interpret myth into story #but they are in no way the same as Hollywood rebooting 10 different franchises from the 80s #booklr

[izysims]

Just had to get this off my chest:

People who get mad at Lore Olympus are misplacing their energy. It’s based on a myth that has had multiple versions and variations. It’s is very little canon to the myth. Then they get mad that Rachel has made an artistic interpretation, made the story her own. Like other authors have. Rick Riordan does it in all of his books. He takes popular myths and makes his own artistic interpretation. I don’t see people up in arms because of him doing what authors do. Lore Olympus is a modern version and Rachel’s own creation. People dog on her so much. The art style, the story, the accuracy…. It’s a story no one is forcing you to read or engage with. I don’t hear a damn word when Rick Riordan does it. I love Rick and Rachel, they’re both great authors. Who have different interpretations of Hades and Persephone. Both are valid. They both must be doing something right since they both are very successful at their jobs. It just seems a bit sexist that she gets a lot of hate while male writers don’t get as much for doing the same thing. Remember if you don’t like something, don’t engage with it. By hate-watching, hate-reading, or hate commenting you are just giving them engagement. Money in their pocket. Webtoon or any platform doesn’t care if it’s a hate-read.

#lore olympus #hades #persephone #rachel smythe #webtoon

[no-reply95]

I’ve just listened to the two parter episode with Jude Southerland Kessler on the Glass Onion: On John Lennon podcast and boy do I have some thoughts!

Before I start I’ll just preface this by saying that I’ve also listened to her podcast on the Something About The Beatles podcast and that was pretty similar in terms of tone.

1) So Jude is a John Lennon fan first and foremost then a Beatles fan, which is fine since her books are focused on John’s life but I find it disappointing how she feels the need to diminish the Lennon-McCartney partnership in order to elevate John. In the Glass Onion episode she was asked why she thought John dominated the “A Hard Day’s Night” album and her explanation was that because John “was the leader” and George Martin recognised that he had the best rock voice he ever heard so would always give him preferential treatment over Paul which was why his songs were always picked to open and close albums... There are so many issues to unpack here so here goes:

- John undoubtedly had a hot streak in 1964 and was bringing in a lot of songs but we know that the L/M partnership was at its strongest in the early years when they were still touring so why the need to pretend that John was creating these songs singlehandedly? Or is the L/M only a myth until it’s John helping on a primarily “Paul” song?

- She spoke about John’s songs always starting and closing the albums but the very first song on the Beatles very first album is “I Saw Her Standing There” so what is she talking about?

- Again she dragged George Martin into her argument and stated that he always gave John’s songs preferential treatment but that ignores the fact that George time and time again, both during and after the Beatles, highlighted how essential both John and Paul were to their partnership and how fundamentally equal they were, different strengths and weakness but ultimately equal. Since George was there I’m gonna give his opinion some credence, definitely more than Jude’s

- There’s always I think this method of looking at John’s dominance of the L/M partnership during AHDN and assuming that that was the natural order of things and depended solely on John but it completely ignores what was going on with Paul at that point in time, newly in London, newly in a relationship with Jane Asher and exploring everything that had to offer, maybe Paul wasn’t pulling as much weight as he should have at that point in time?

2) There’s always this weird view, in my opinion and of course it’s a view that Jude is all over, that Paul only started dominating on later albums because John essentially let him, either through his drug intake, depression, whatever you name it. Again, why is it so taboo to mention Paul’s immersion in Swinging London and the inspiration that would have given him? Paul was almost 2 years younger than John, why is it crazy that his peak years would have come later in the decade? Also, by many accounts from day 1 in the studio Paul was pretty assertive and we know he was working extremely closely with Brian in driving projects for the band before he died so it’s not like once the coast was clear Paul’s evil plan to steal the Beatles from John was good to go

3) Finally, one of my bugbears is when people take a quote and remove it from its context to fit the purpose of whatever interpretation they want to fit on to the Beatles. Both Jude and Mark Lewisohn have quoted Paul’s quote from his secretly recorded conversation with Hunter Davies where he referred to John as his “fairground hero” and use that as their catchphrase to describe the whole L/M relationship, Paul always admired and looked up to John so he would never leave him and John was the centre of his universe, so now to unpack this:

- I don’t think it’s wrong that when Paul met John as a 15 year old and John was a teddy boy looking almost 17 year old that Paul would have looked up to him so I think that quote is accurate for the earlier part of their friendship

- Where I digress from the Lewisohn/Kessler interpretation is where they have Paul fixed in that mindset forever more... Firstly, Paul is clear that that was his initial view of John but as he grew older he grew to share in things with him and become his equal, which ultimately threatened John, which I think succinctly explains why a lot of the Beatles story unfolds the way it did. In my view, Paul initially looked up to John and John felt secure in the knowledge that Paul looked up to him and would never leave him. Once they get older and Paul is writing incredible songs on his own like Yesterday, is asking other people like Mal Evans and Pete Shotton to help with the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby instead of John, marries Linda and starts a family with her, that’s a big factor in why John freaks out and lashes out at Paul because he doesn’t want Paul to leave him, that’s something that Jude doesn’t mention and Lewisohn has disappointingly never mentioned either. In my mind to understand the L/M relationship and the axis that the Beatles story turned on you need to understand not just how much Paul loved, appreciated and needed John but how much John loved, appreciated and needed Paul, otherwise the story just does not make sense.

We need more female authorities in Beatles historiography, unfortunately Jude Southerland Kessler is not it.

#the beatles #jude southerland kessler #glass onion podcast #mark lewisohn #john lennon #paul mccartney #john and paul #context #thoughts #historiography