Writing about drawing feels like dancing about art, so until I unveil my “Final Project” at the end of the month, I shall serve up bonnes bouches of esoterica (interspersed with hot takes) collected throughout the week. That should work.
Old news: I never had any chance of escaping a continued self-inflicted Classical education and I’m happy not to fight it, especially with the assistance of Isaac Asimov. Thanks go to him for any Shakespeare-related morsels for the foreseeable future. I’m only just beginning his two-volume-in-one brick of a book, and I’m up to Troilus and Cressida, which is an entire Trojan horse packed with ancient Greek mythology factoids.
Achilles—that problematic hero who’d rather chill in his tent with his boyfriend Patroclus than fight the Trojans for any number of reasons depending on who you read—is the leader of his island’s great soldiers called Myrmidons. Ovid tells us that the island Aegina was named for one of Zeus’ myriad lovers, which naturally led his long-suffering wife Hera to send a plague there. King Aeacus prayed to his father Zeus to intervene, and Zeus obliged by turning all the ants into humans. They were said to be hardy and fierce and super loyal, so they were awesome for battle. Myrmicinae, of course, is a Subfamily in biological taxonomy that includes ANTS. Scientists are whores for Greek mythology, as we all know.
Speaking of scientists--medical ones anyway--we need to talk about the caduceus. Americans have been using it improperly and I’m so excited to judge right now. Many moons ago, I learned from Agent Scully that the winged spiral snake symbol we see associated with medical subjects is called a caduceus. This is the staff of Hermes—Apollo’s brother and the FedEx of the Gods—and apropos to Hermes’ image as a speedy messenger, it is usually representative of commerce and negotiation and indicates neutrality. It’s similar to the true Greek symbol of medicine and healing—the Rod of Asclepius—which is a single snake wrapped around a staff. Snakes, with their ability to slough off old skin and “renew” themselves, are a traditional symbol of rejuvenation. Also, snake parts were often employed in ancient medicines, so certain species came to be associated with healers. BTW, Asclepius is a son of Apollo and father to many daughters, including Hygiea (hygiene) and Panacea (universal remedy). These facts alone make my geeky heart sing.
How did Americans fuck this one up, you ask? 16th century publishers tended to use the caduceus as their printer’s mark, since they were in the business of disseminating information. A British medical publisher in the 19th century used it as well, even though other medical publishers did not, and American medical professionals started associating the dang thing with medicine. Also, during the Civil War, stretcher-bearers wore the caduceus to (correctly) indicate their neutrality so they wouldn’t be shot, but everyone (without a classics degree) just saw it as a symbol of doctors tending to the injured. The US Army even formally adopted the caduceus into its coat of arms for its medical corps to show non-combatant status, which just made the association even stronger. The rest of the world does NOT do this and tend to use the Rod of Asclepius in their iconography for medical arts or medical corps.
We also still use Fahrenheit and won’t adopt metric measurements for lots of things, so basically, we’re dumb. I’ve been only using Celsius on my weather apps for years now and you know what? It’s not hard. All our liquor is in milliliters, and we love that shit. Let’s get with it already, before another conversion error sends yet another multi-million-dollar space probe hurtling to its death on a planet’s surface.
HOT TAKE: Max von Sydow is made of boyfriend material. I've been back to watching more Ingmar Bergman stuff when I can find it (the Almodóvar kick is still going strong though) and I recently watched The Touch (1971) also starring Elliot Gould and Bibi Anderson. I had a hard time imagining someone would cheat on Max with Elliot Gould. Nothing against Elliot--he was actually strangely attractive back in the day--but his character was so fucking bizarre and Bibi's character was even more bizarre for getting into such an affair with him, I just don't get it. The movie was juicy and fascinating though. Not Ingmar's best, but still very Ingmar.
And guess what? I did a drawing after all. In honor of the late Christopher Plummer, also boyfriend material forever. Live on in our eternal hearts, sir.
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