quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est
Double take headline of the week was:
Catherine Keener Has A Baby With Zeus
… which now appears to have been “corrected” to:
Catherine Keener Has A Baby With Poseidon
I suspect the watery one is just covering up for the well-known proclivities of his brother, who probably just wants to avoid another Europa … Io … Semele … Callisto (etc.) type situation … Of course, given what Poseidon is said to have fathered, CK might be worried in either case …
I really wish our friends to the south would lobby the powers that be to change their tax-due-date from April 15 to something more sensible (say, April 30, like it is up here in the Great Overcast North). Every year, without fail, there will be some journalist who will write something along the lines of:
The prophets warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March (March 15), but most Americans shiver at the mention of the Ides of April. As other prophets have assured, only two things are certain: Death and taxes. The Ides of March assured Caesar’s death, and the Ides of April assures that we’ll be paying taxes up to and beyond our own final days.
… which keeps popping up in my box from the Valdosta Daily Times. Of course, non-American Classicists wonder why there might be this grave fear of April 13th (which is when the Ides of April falls), but we know better. Let’s all join hands Wholike and merrily chant:
In March July October May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day
… we’ll leave the Nones bit off and hope folks can figure out the Ides of April ain’t the fifteenth.
Assorted items which have caught my eye of late:
The headline says it all:
Some sort of 3d modelling project for the Acropolis was recently undertaken:
We linked to several of Suzan Mazur’s posts relating to Robert Hecht and Marion True a few years ago … her (excellent) articles are apparently now part of some Harvard Law syllabus:
The latest issue of the American Journal of Archaeology is out, with a number of online articles of interest available:
Short item on the Classical Studies Club at the College of New Jersey:
Feature on an historical reenactment group based in Rome called SPQR:
Bulgarian coverage of the recent returns by of a couple of thousand of purloined items from Bulgaria (includes a small slide show of various items):
The Classics folks at Warwick are venturing into the world of podcasting … here’s the first (I’ll hopefully get a chance to listen to it and review it in the near future):
The latest installment of Dear Socrates at Philosophy Now (I still don’t understand how there can be a viable philosophy magazine and there’s no Classics magazine on the newsstands):
Charlotte Higgins was talking about odd Classical etymologies:
The BBC had a feature on Albania trying to cash in on Butrint (and other sites):
Andrew Chugg is involved in a project to reconstruct Cleitarchus’ History of Alexander … the promo book site has a pile of interesting things (including videos and the like not necessarily connected to Cleitarchus) … worth a look:
If you haven’t downloaded the full Gnomon Bibliographical Databank yet:
Discovery News’ Jennifer Viegas recently interviewed Rachel Havrelock about the historical Jesus:
Latest from the Spoof:
A few details are starting to leak out … the incipit of a piece from Reuters:
Mads Mikkelsen, Gemma Arterton and Alexa Davalos are joining the cast of “Clash of the Titans,” the Greek-god epic being directed by Louis Leterrier.
Sam Worthington stars as Perseus, who embarks on a quest to save a princess and defeat Hades, the god of hell. Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay wrote the script.
Mikkelsen is playing Draco, a skilled fighter and leader of the Praetorian Guard that accompanies Perseus.
Screenrant adds:
Arterton’s character will be “lo” a demi-goddess who Perseus falls for (although I’m guessing the romance doesn’t work out). The character is a new addition to the story and did not appear in the original film – which is a good sign (IMHO) that the filmmakers are really trying to re-imagine the entire concept of Clash of The Titans, rather than trying to re-hash the original. We’ll see how it turns out.
Personally, I think they should get rid of the Kraken … there are enough monsters in Greek mythology they could use …
Here’s something I didn’t know … this well-known (to Classicists, anyway) painting of Cleopatra’s death by D. Pauvert:
… is currently owned by the monogloved-one. Somehow I always thought MJ would have some ‘connection’ to Cleo … whatever the case, he’s putting this one up for auction.
rogueclassicism 