Rumor has it

such an interesting task to select one story from an entire book of stories-it's almost daunting. there are so many strange, twisted, and intriguing stories to choose from, but i found one that struck my fancy immediately-well not quick immediately, as it is on pages 398-399. several hundred of pages of reading and i found the short story of Rumor...rumor has it she lives atop a mountain gathering the world's secrets and sharing them with the swarms of people "forever coming, going-fills the; mingling with the true, the false reports." perhaps my favorite line is "no quiet and no silence can be found; and yet there is no clamor-just the soft murmur of voices, as of rolling waves when heard from far away." i tried to desparately to find a painting or some kind of artistic representation of this beautiful image, but alas, no luck. instead a scanned a picture of a child i nanny for-she is at the top of a slide-it is difficult to see-not a quality scan, but you can still get the idea that rumor's house "is built of sounding brass, each word that's spoken in the world rebounds; the brass vibrates, repeating every sound." such a silly concept but it struck my interest because it is such a pretty allusion and an interesting way to view rumors...

oldies but goodies...

after reading lysistrata, i have been quite intrigued about the whole concept of women out-smarting the men by using the power they have to get what they want. the women want peace, and peace they shall get when they combine power numbers and ideals. i was conversing with a fellow student about the idea and he mentioned to me that he heard of some nowaday parallels to the play. i did some research and the best example i found was recently in Brazil. nearly 30000 lives have been cut short in Brazil from urban violence and gang trends. in 2001, on Mother's day, how apporpriate, Viva Rio, an organization not associated with the government, decided to launch a campaign to combat the violence and called on the women of Brazil to step it up by using this slogan "Choose gun-free! It's your weapon or me!"
I also stumbled upon this site: http://www.lysistrataproject.org/aboutus.htm it is a great website-very interesting, informative, and even hopeful. the project began just after 9/11 and is going strong, please check it out, i think you'll enjoy it. it just goes to show the impact of such an amazing concept. yes-it's a comedy, but the idea is serious and people are applying it to serious current events and making changes.

wheat!

well i happened to look at the television last night, it was completely by accident...anyway-to the point. i caught sight of a movie preview for a film called 300. this film is about the Battle of Thermopylae and follows the struggles of the lowly 300 spartans-i haven't seen it yet, but this is what i got from the trailer. the point is, in the trailer there were many images flashed quickly past the screen that included a women, the mother, and her child, the maiden, in a field of brightly lit wheat grain. then i recalled the film 'the gladiator' and it struck me that the gladiator's memories of his wife and child are always set in a brightly lit field of grain-well needless to say...i put the two together and dememter just popped her grainly little head right into mine...all that is past emcompasses the present-well even though the films are sent in antient greece, they aren't about demeter, yet she somehow is all tied up within them and now within me. perhaps ill watch the film 300, although most likely not, as i'm not the biggest fan of extreme violence. okay that's all