My Namèd Stick

I have a name for my stick.

I wanted to name it after one of the Furies (who - interesting historical sidebar - were born from the droplets of blood in the sea resulting from Cronos' castration of his father, Uranus, the separated appendage having been tossed into the ocean), so my options were Tisiphone, Megaera and Allecto.

Megaera would have, in my opinion, led to too many parallels being drawn with Hercules (the disney extravaganza), so that option was out.

Tisiphone did wage some righteous slaughter in Aeneid X, but Virgil described her as pale. My stick is predominantly black. That just wouldn't have meshed.

And thus, although J K Rowling got there first, my stick is named Allecto the Destroyer (because Monica suggested 'the Destroyer' and it had a nice ring to it).

Here's a photo. My stick's the black one.

The Week

There isn't much by way of the funnies this week due to the fact that I've been knitting and writing parody songs for AUJS (Australian Union of Jewish Students - it's a uni thing that Sarah's directing) Revue 2010: The Shulshank Rejewsion.

No, I jest. The likelihood of it being called that is minimal at best. Other name options are:
Jewno (Juno)
Jews (Jaws)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Jew (guess which movie we got that idea from)
No Country for Old Jews
Gentlemen Prefer Jews
The Jews Brothers (Blues Brothers)
etc. Basically if there's a Jew pun to be made, we've tried it.

And onto The Week!!!

We were in Latin, as we are wont to be when something funny happens. I had asked Sir when the song Mambo Number 5 had come out.
Sir: It would have been the late nineties. I remember it playing at my year 12 formal.
Soap: (in an amazed tone) You had formals back then??
Sir: (in that bitterly ironic tone he tends to use a lot around us) Yes, Sophia. We wore our best loincloths and draped the hide of a freshly slaughtered deer over our backs.
I laughed for a solid five minutes.

Later that lesson, Sophia put her headband over her eyes, turned to Elsa and whispered the following:
Soap: Elsa, I'm a cyborg.
She assumed none of us could hear her. Unfortunately for her, she whispered it at the exact moment our class was completely silent. So sir responded thus:
Sir: (stage whisper) Sophia, we can hear you.

And then on friday in LEX...
Sir: I can't afford to give you wine, you boozehound.
(That was the gist of a Horace poem about Virgil... Well my class found it funny.)

100 and a Blog Quiz

I was reading one of the blogs I follow and I decided to send in an application to be named Curmudgeon of the week.

This also allows me to do my 100th post in style.

Name: Adela (I've also been referred to as 'the doorbitch of Hades')

Age: 17

Provenance: Sydney, Australia

Occupation: Student

When did you first self-identify as a curmudgeon?
Last year, when as head of the school's student council, I told my counterpart at our brother school (all girls school - we have to collaborate) where he could shove it. That's also the moment I started being referred to as 'That evil psychotic bitch from St George' by some of the lovely (and I use that term loosely) boys from Sydney Tech.

Who’s the curmudgeon (living or dead, historical or contemporary) you most identify with and why?
Paul Keating. Anyone with that kind of vocabulary deserves to be deified.

What do you hate that other people inexplicably love?
Emoticons. They give me murder eyes. Instant messaging. Voicemail messages. Novelty ringtones (unless it's Verdi's Dies Irae).

You are Dante. What, in order from least to most excruciating, are your nine circles of hell?

I'm going to go one step further and do all the little facets of Dante's hell.

Vestibule: People who don't register to vote. Voting is a privilege. Use it.

Here we cross Acheron, the first of the five rivers in Hell. Charon, ferryman thereof, does Hades a favour here by weeding out the gullible (i.e. the people who pay him for their passage before they're on the other side). If you're gullible enough to fall for a ponzi scheme or any other type of fraud that turns up in your inbox, you deserved it.

1. Squealers. We all know at least one. Those people who erupt into ear-splittingly high-pitched squealing at the drop of a hat. Seriously, people. Curb your enthuasiasm. And take it down a few octaves.

And now into the realms of incontinence. Thanks Mr Alighieri. I couldn't have named it better myself.

2. Kitsch. Be afraid Hello Kitty. Be markedly afraid.

3. Popular music. If it has a drum beat created by a machine, it deserves to burn eternally. Also, if it's a boy who's waiting for his danglies to drop, he shouldn't be singing. Unless he's an a choir which only performs classical music. There's only one use for boy soprani: getting them to sing the castrato parts because the Catholic church outlawed castration.

4. Politicians (in democracies). They say that those who can't do, teach. Well, those who can't function in mainstream society as useful human beings go into politics. Even then...

5. Psychics, Astrologers and anyone else who works in the industry of flimflammery that is the 'supernatural'. Get a job.

The realms of incontinence are cut off at this point by the river Styx. Once we've crossed the Styx with its vile marsh choked with reeds (thanks Virgil), we enter the city of Dis.

6. Professional sports players who get injured and then whinge about it. I'm looking at you, soccer. Drink a cup of concrete and harden the fuck up.

In order to continue, we here cross Phlegethon, a river of FIRE!!!!!!!! I have to say that Pluto did a great job with the interior decorating.

7. Dictators. Let's face it, seizing control without an actual mandate from the masses (NB: the military don't count) just isn't very nice.

Here lies the Abyss. I'm assuming it's big, dark, possibly dank and empty inside. In other words it's a reality TV contestant.

The next 2 circles are the lands of fraud according to Dante. I suppose if you squint and tilt your head a little, my last two circles of hell could be interpreted to belong accordingly.

Circle 8, the Malebolge, is 'an ampitheatre-shaped pit of despair wholly of stone and of an iron colour' (Dante). Cheery place it is.

8. Plagiarisers. Interesting historical sidebar: counterfeiters are a kind of plagiariser. In medieval times, counterfeiters were punished by being boiled alive in hot oil. Guess what point I'm trying to get across...

There is then the Giants Well (reasonably self explanatory); followed by Tartarus. The ninth circle, reserved in my hell system for:

9. Genocide. The people who order it, the people who carry it out and the people who cover it up.

This is also where we find the river Cocytus, hateful with black slime and its sluggish flow... (Thanks again, Virgil)

If you had the power to sign into law an amendment prohibiting a specific human behavior (i.e. using a Bluetooth or singing karaoke), what would you outlaw? Protective sports gear. So you're playing a violent sport. Take it like a man and get on with it.

Let's lighten up. What makes you all warm and fuzzy inside? (Your heart can’t be COMPLETELY charred.)
Sleeping babies.

What's your favorite curse word/phrase?
Holy cock! (a marvellously versatile expletive)

Essay Question: Please write a 100 word open letter to an object, person, or other entity that has recently incurred your wrath.

I'll keep this one brief.

Germaine Greer:

Find something better to do with your time.

Also, eunuchs can't be female. There's paraphenalia lacking. It just doesn't work.

I Go To Be In America

Just like a Sondheim [and Bernstein] song that seems adorable and catchy the first few times you hear it, and after that becomes the bane of your existence because it's permanently entrenched in your head on a neverending loop... I'm going to the US tomorrow.

Don't ask how the extended metaphor relates. I don't even know.

But yeah. I'll be in San Jose CA for a week. Tagging along to a conference for some international organisation of...wait for it...commerce students.

At least I get to go (thankyou frequent flier system).

So yeah. I may or may not be able to access the internet during the next week, but I will be jotting down anything remarkable that happens and I'll post it eventually. Who knows. I might even get enough material to do The Week: US Edition.

But somehow I doubt it.

At least I have Cicero, Virgil, Catullus and Horace to keep me company.