This morning

Back in France

Yes, this is actually the sun rising this morning

The first snow

We're still in Bürchen, Switzerland; our chalet is located at 1,600 m above sea level

"I'm still a virgin" --- This is heaven --- teaser (4)

(The Happy Ending Is over now, was the title of the first chapter. But John is still with Alex---and the plot thickens already (go here for the previous teaser)---because Ben has called, the other guy John met last week. Here's the beginning of the next chapter. The boys are about to meet Juliette and Taylor, both pivotal characters to the plot of Part II:) 
  

We are about to turn the corner of Nick’s Restaurant but are held back by a bunch of kids coming from Georgia Avenue. Teens, mostly, tribal in appearance, piercings, pipe jeans, one or two Cherokee heads, overnighted mascara and a discordant air of nerdy-ness that I haven’t seen since I visited MIT once; some of them even wear oversized glasses. They look at us, we look at them, Alex’s arm is still on my shoulder. There’s something exploratory about their body talk, and one or two are homophobic (if I read them well (I’ll have to relativize this later)). “You know where the beach is?” a pale-faced girl without piercings asks Alex (we are standing on the boardwalk). Alex explains about the beach (“This is the beach”).

"This is the beach." (This is the beach of Rehoboth Beach,
DE, seen from the vantage point of Peggy Noonan's statue)

“You locals?” Yes we are. They’ve just arrived per overnight ride in second-hand passenger vans still misparked on the main street, they explain. “Where’s the festival?” The festival is on the grounds of Surfside Field, between Lake Gerard Park and the beach, half a mile to the north, at least that’s where it was in the past.

“That’s where the gay beach is?” one of the homophobes asks. He’s dressed for the occasion, black cape and artificial fangs that shine in the sun when he opens his mouth (if they are artificial, that is). The horn-rimmed, oversized glasses don’t fit; perhaps he need them.

"Taylor, come on, you can do your sodomy thing later."

“Taylor, come on,” his pal says, “you can do your sodomy thing later, when your penis is grown.” Alex is patient, he explains about the gay beach.

“You guys are gay?” the girl asks.
“You guys are vampires?” Alex asks back.
“Yup,” the second homophobe says.
“Real ones?” Alex asks.

There’s some tribal confusion, they haven’t decided yet.

“Yup,” Taylor insists.
“You should be lying in your coffin,” Alex says and points at the sun.
“That’s so yesterday,” the girl replies, “you should read Twilight.”“Twilight?”
“Yes, the saga.”
“Where are your fangs?”

“I’m still a virgin, “she says. “What’s your name?”
“Alex,” he replies, “What’s yours.”

“Juliette.” And, having said this, the virgin touches Alex’s pecs (he’s still top-naked, the T-shirt dangling from his right hand), makes a seductive step forward—she’s quite a bit over the top, perhaps the strain from the night ride or peer pressure from the tribe, this doesn’t look like her normal routine—and asks, the voice a bit slower: “Alex, will you buy me an ice cream.”

“Ice cream is not good for virgins,” Alex replies.
“I’ll do anything for ice cream.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he says. He turns to me: “Let’s see where this goes, let’s buy her an ice cream.”

“We have no money,” I say. “We didn’t bring any money.” The tribe erupts in laughter.

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Back in Switzerland

Guns don't kill people, I kill people --- with guns (Cathy U.)

Recently, my father and I discussed the shootings in Oregon, and I wondered how many more mass shootings it would take before we finally decide we need stricter gun control.

 My father: He got those guns legally, you know.
 Me: And if we had stricter gun control, maybe he wouldn't have been able to get them. 
 My father: Yeah, it's a tough deal. I don't know what we could do to make it better. 
 Me: Maybe stricter gun control? 
 My father: And I don't know why we have so much trouble with mass shootings compared to other civilized countries.
 Me: Uh, I think it's because of their stricter gun control laws.
 My father: Yup, it's just a problem that can't be solved.

"I'm going deaf, and also: I can't hear you! Neiner, neiner, neiner."

 And here's the clip that justifies the headline:

This post (minus the clip) appeared first on Cathy's U.'s site: Hollywood Hates Me

(Hat tip: Glenn)

Sunday school (Glenn)

Philippines (3) --- taxis are for the faint-hearted --- connubial bliss

We've arrived in Baguio yesterday, and this morning we decide on a stroll through the city. Let's go to Mine's View, which is a neighborhood in the northwestern part known for it residential vibes and views. "You know where it is?" Chang ask as we are leaving the hotel. Michael, flapping his internet maps, answers in the affirmative.

We stride past a terminal for Jeepeneys (a taxi-bus hybrid)...

and a construction site, where the construction crew reacts with
loud cheers to Chang's photographic efforts.

Otherwise, the first 15 minutes pass uneventfully, 
but then we get a repeat of yesterday.

Chang chokes on the traffic, the pollution, the noise (not shown). He covers his nose with the decollete of his T-shirt (as if this would help against the exhaust fumes). He then uncover's his nose and says: "Let's take a taxi."

("GOP" means grand old party, and refers to the American Republican Party. The elephant is their mascot)

Philippines (2)

"Lying with your beard" would be a more appropriate header, perhaps...

Philippines (1)

Note the dress code; background is the Thuner Lake (in Switzerland)
we haven't even arrived in Zurich.

Zurich Airport (reposted)

(This post was posted first in May 2012, when we were on our way to Thailand. Now we're heading for Baguio, in the Philippines, but again we're staying over for the night in Kloten, the town next to Zurich's airport. Little has changed in the meantime:)

Why Zurich, why zee airport? Well, we are en route to Thailand, and the plane will leave the next morning at 11:25am, and the counter will close 2 hours prior to departure, the website kindly informs us, and we would risk missing the plane if we take the early train from Visp, in the Valais, where we've started our summer sojourn in Switzerland, as we've vacated our house for the summer rentals. So we come a day early, and will spend the night in an airport hotel. And it's the Welcome Inn, located in Kloten, the suburb that gave the airport its name.

The receptionist looks stressed. She asks for our passport, then speaks Dutch (we have Dutch passports), asking whether we could speak Dutch. Sure, I reply in German. She looks stressed-er. We are handed the keys, and I like the room, especially the bed covers, and have a nap. I meet her (the receptionist) again in my dreams, and a theory develops. She's so stressed, I theorize, because "kloten" means "balls" in Dutch, and she was possibly raised by seven dominant sisters, who are all married now, and always ask her to explain to the nieces and nephews why she, the lonely spinster, works in Kloten, of all places. Dutch humor, I know it so well. 

Anyhow, when I return to the reception area after my nap, the camera ready, she eyes me suspiciously. Can I take a picture, I ask kindly in Dutch. It does not help. Yes, she replies, and flees the scene to hide behind a pillar that the architect must have put in place for that purpose. Here's the result:

Stay tuned.

Yesterday evening

A cheap motel for intercourse with a near stranger --- This is heaven --- fragment

Our friend Glenn sends this picture... 

Question: wouldn't "intercourse with a perfect stranger" be much funnier?

...while we are writing Chapter 28 about John and Taylor making out in a hotel room...so we simply had to post this post. There's a lot of sex in the chapter that we omit...some of the text overlaps with recent posts, apologies...what we are trying to do, give you an impression of the entire seduction sequence...seduction isn't possibly the right word, defloration might be a better word...although we're doing a bit more than just defloring Taylor who has just turned 18...

For more context go here, or here.


So we’ve been set free, and are now walking past the row of nervous aspen trees lining the Davis Canal, heading north in the direction of Georgia Avenue. We feel a bit experimental, both of us (I guess), so we make conversation that’s not centered on what happens between horny males in overheated bathrooms and decrepit trailers, or whether it’s accidental or providential (what happens there).

Still, as you might imagine, it’s on my mind whether there’s a follow-up to this, a Taylor-closure, as it were, some full sexual act with this youth played out in some convenient location, like, say, my bedroom---which would be the least convenient location in all of Georgia Beach with Maurice and Ben and everybody else around. Taylor doesn’t know about Maurice and Ben, of course, although he’s possibly assuming that Alex could be a roadblock, the only person who isn’t available as a roadblock at this juncture, sadly. Perhaps we could apply my overcharged credit cards to the reservation roster of the Lupo di Mare, the hotel-restaurant around the corner, or consider the Atlantic Sands Hotel, where we would bump into a wisened Juliette who’d figure us out immediately, the way providence (and female instinct) works.

A propos roadblocks

We’re about to reach the corner of Canal Street and Georgia Avenue. We would have to turn left here (and then left again) to get to my apartment with its bed chamber and other ingredients of supposed privacy, or turn right in the downtown direction and return to the Surfside Field, supposedly. Another round of green-room sex is out of the question, of course, not to mention trailers and police tape. We’ve painted us into a corner. Where do we go from here?
“Where do we go from here?” I ask (one of my better lines today).
“You go home now?” he asks.

The first (new) snow

Sept. 11, 2015

John Dunno of Wichita Falls --- This is heaven --- teaser (3)

Tee time for Teaser 3 of This Is Heaven, the sequel to the GREEN EYES. It's short and sweet, this teaser, true balm for our challenged attention spans.

(The Happy Ending Is over now, is the title of the second (ie. the first) chapter, and John will know it. He's picking himself up, dusting himself off after yet another morning triangle in the gay dunes, and the plot thickens already. John is with Alex of course---so much is still left of the happy ending (go here for the previous teaser)---but in the meantime Ben has called, the other guy John met last week, and Alex was all-ear. "What was Ben's last name?" Alex has just asked:) 
  

“Ben is his pet name,” I say.
“He has a real name?”
“John.”
“Ben is John. Cool. John and John. Could be a bit confusing, though. Glad his real name isn’t Alex. You sure?”
“How do you mean?”
“Alex. He’s not another Alex. You sure?”
“Yes.”
“And his last name?”
“Dunno,” I lie.
“John Dunno, funny.”
“It’s not Dunno. It’s ‘I-don’t-know’.”
“How do you know it’s not ‘Dunno’ if you don’t know?”
“I mean,” I say.
“John Dunno of Witchita Falls, Texas. Not likely I would know the guy.”
“Yes.”
“Not likely you would know the guy.”

John Dunno of Wichita Falls, Texas

Is he playing with me? Will he be always like this? It’s not too late to explain. I could have met Ben a few weeks ago, days, eons before I met Alex. Met him a few weeks ago, introduced him to Luke, Luke needs a hand for the festival. Ben has my number, of course he calls. Explain, John, explain.

You need to know this --- acyrologia (Glenn)

For the people in the know

On the cover of the Green Eyes (2)

(The entire jacket, now:)

Look at it this way---how to make it to fame inside less than a week?

Kim Davis, County Clerk, Rowan County, Kentucky

(PS:)

The view this morning

The Donald, Paul Krugman, and the GREEN EYES

I.

"Scroll down"

II.

You've possibly had a chance already to notice that the GREEN EYES are about more than gay sex or romance. Worse, they are mostly about everything else. And so they are also about the Republican Base (e.g., John's father (John---the narrator of the GREEN EYES)), or about Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist. But since we are the GREEN EYES, our most pressing concerns are frivolous. So we wonder "What is Paul Krugman's penis size?" (that's actually the title of Chapter 38).

You need to know?

So, here's a fragment from Chapter 38 (John has an appointment with Trevor Howard, the assistant DA whom he is trying to convince that something needs to be done about Dick Benson, the resident murder-psychopath of the piece; John is also thinking about starting an escort service, and so on):

III.

I see two tables being cleared next to the central window on the street side, very good tables indeed, when I notice two people to my left, who have replaced the beefy guy. I’ve seen the face of the man before, on my blog, actually. We’re famous in Georgia Beach, seriously, folks. Will I tell Trevor? You think Trevor would be interested in politics, or the New York Times, or economics, or Nobel prizes? Possibly not—you have other problems when you’re a confirmed bachelor without a future. Trevor, who must be looking right into the eyes of Paul Krugman behind me, shows no signs of recognition what-so-ever. It’s crystal-clear, he’s not attracted to the fifty-nine year old Nobel laureate.

"Hi Sunshine" --- This is heaven --- teaser (2)

Part I of the GREEN EYES is out, and so we've started a rerun of what we got of Part II so far. We have ca 60% of the text, but there are some problems with the plotting, how the various story lines of this soap opera will come together...

...The Happy Ending Is over now, is the title of the second (ie. the first) chapter, and John will know it. He's picking himself up, dusting himself off after yet another morning triangle in the gay dunes, and the plot thickens already.  John is with Alex of course---so much is still left of the happy ending (go here for the previous teaser)---but now Ben is calling, the other guy John met last week:
  

My cell rings.

“Hi, Sunshine,” a male black voice speaks into my right ear. It’s the ear next to Alex’s left ear. I’d almost forgotten about Ben. Well, no, I didn’t forget, I've been too busy. ‘Sunshine?’ I think.
“This is me. Can you hear me?” Ben says. I can hear him loud and clear. Perhaps I should lower the sound. Where’s the button? I hate my cell-phone.
 “This is me. Can you hear me?” Ben repeats. Alex softens his grip.
“Yes,” I answer, the phone now on my left ear.
“John?” Ben asks, or retreats.
“Yes,” I say.

I should say ‘Ben’ now, or ‘Hi Ben,’ or ‘Is that you, Ben,’ mention his name at least (his name is “John,” by the way, like mine, Ben is his pet name).
“Is that you,” I say.
“John,” Ben answers, the voice more relaxed.
“Yes,” I say.
“Where are you?”
“On the beach, more or less.”
“All by yourself?”
“With a friend,” I say.
“Cool,” Ben says, “you know what?”
“No.”

The Bietschhorn this morning

It's almost 4,000 meter high, the Bietschhorn, but not quite. A full 4k would attract too much tourism, and our quiet little place would degenerate into a second Zermatt.

The happy ending is over now --- This is heaven --- teaser (1)

Part I of the GREEN EYES is out, and so we are starting with a rerun of what we got of Part II so far. We have ca 60% of the text, but there are some problems with the plotting, how the various story lines of this soap opera will come together...

Anyhow, PART II ("This is heaven") resumes the thread where Part I dropped it, in the dunes of the gay beach of Georgia Beach. "I'm ticklish," Albert the beach bear had said in the last line of Part I, and the consequence is an unprintable chapter of yet another triangle in the dunes. So we repeat the trick of Part I, replace the first chapter by a short prologue, and find ourselves in our habitual, post-coital position: we are trying to go home. "We," that's Alex and John, of course, and one thing you need to know about Alex: he labored under a clinical depression in his former life. There was a suicide attempt (on Thursday last week). Alex recovered, but with serious amnesia. He lost the memory of his depression, but also the memory of his sexual orientation (the left column provides an introduction to the main characters of the GREEN EYES)...

Let me think. ‘The happy ending is over now,’ I think. I look askance at Alex’s rippled abs (he’s still holding the T-shirt in his hand, it’s sizzling hot already, we’re oiled in sweat), let my eyes travel to his pelvis region, then back up along the lithe, sleekly muscled torso, the strong neck, the clear, boyish profile. He has grown an inch or two since his failed suicide. He feels my eyes on his Latino skin, I know.

The gay beach of Rehoboth Beach, DE, the model for Georgia Beach

“The happy ending is over now,” I say after a while.

“Don’t say that,” he replies, “Happy endings can’t end.”

“I wish it were true.”

“It is true. It’s true for the best of all possibly reasons.”

“I’d settle for any reason at this moment.”

“The power of subsumption.”

“Huh?”

“Happy endings can’t end since endings ended already. They are part and parcel of endings in general.”

“Sheer semantics,” I say.

“Exactly,” he says, “sheer semantics. Rooted in meaning of the word ‘end’.”

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“Okay,” he says and puts his arm around my shoulder. He’s conceding the point. For once. 

Well, no. “The power of subsumption,” he regroups, rolls his head, and gives me this new look with his emerald eyes, the bad-boy-post-felo-de-se-look that signals the defeat of his depression.

A brief note on homosexuality

We haven't studied this, of course, not in a serious way, but when you are standing with one leg in the classical-antique period, as we did for a while, working on Plato's Symposium or studying Hadrian's life, you can't help but observe that the classical attitude vis à vis homosexuality was very different, very different from the attitudes my generation grew up with during the latter part of the last century. Not only attitudes, in fact, but facts, or perceived facts. The perceived facts were that there's a fairly sharp divide between gay and straight behavior, separating anything between 90-95% of the population from the rest---the overwhelming majority being straight, a small minority being gay or lesbian, with a few bisexuals in between.

Antiquity wasn't like this at all. There wasn't a single male deity in the Greek Pantheon that's wasn't bisexual, for example. Out of the first fifteen Roman emperors 14 "made" (to put it in Gibbon's words) "incorrect sexual choices," (at least according to the author of Decline and Fall...). Etc.

"What I believe," (1947) Paul Cadmus

We are not the first to observe this, and helpful theories in re have been proffered for quite some time, the dominant ones putting the onus on Christianity. How these theories will fare in the future remains to be seen, there's some historical research now showing that gay marriage was tolerated during Roman times and accommodated by the Christian Church (one of the funny things in the debate about gay marriage is that practically everybody making historical claims (i.e., the conservatives) is ignoring the fact that the institution didn't require sacral input then. Marriage was a matter of private contracts, and it took the Roman law quite some time to adapt to the Judaeo-Christian claims as to its sanctity (marriage still is, in Islam, a private affair). Anyhow, with the advent of Christianity, the screws on sexuality started to tighten, which wasn't particularly helpful for the gay cause.)

(Hat tip: Glenn)

Quantitative metaphysics --- scribble, scribble, scribble, Mr. Ampersant (4) (reposted)

The GREEN EYES (Part I) have finally been published, and we are starting to re-post earlier material regarding the book. Find underneath the Amazon link...

Barbette Bienpensant, professor of quantitative metaphysics

knowings We knew beforehand that This Is Heaven (the sequel to the Green Eyes) wouldn't be a picnic, because marketing has replaced logic at all levels.the earth world Yes, that's what This Is Heaven is all about.relivings  It's about bullshit, or, more precisely, about the substitution of bullshit for other residues of meaning left on this planet.subchannel John with his addiction to Alex, Alex with his humongous dick, Godehart with his crotch shorts?guardians  It's all very well, we're not lying on anything, but it's just a ploy to keep your attention span spun while we are milking Professor Barbette Bienpensant and her Armageddon-nonsense, or taking cheap digs at vampire crazes, or the Wall Street Journal, or FOX news, or...

Click & buy --- it's up, it's out on Amazon: the ebook

Artwork by Joe Phillips 

Design by Phil Haxo

"Dinner is ready, Sir!" (Glenn)

There you sit and munch on your pen --- The Donald, reality, and so on

Yere you sit and munch on your pen and try to think up something funny, something hilarious---it doesn't matter, reality will always beat you. Here's a fragment from The New Yorker about last night's Republican primary debate:


Trump did make it clear that, if Trump were the nominee of the Republican Party, he would support Trump. The debate opened with a call for candidates to raise their hands if they couldn’t commit to supporting whomever the Republican nominee might be and who might consider running as an independent. It yielded what was, no doubt, the intended result: Trump, stage center, standing alone, hand raised, wondering why he should “respect” anyone given his position in the race. (“I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage.”)

Maybe that’s when he decided that the moderators didn’t like him. Megyn Kelly asked about his tendency toward misogynistic insults: “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ ” Trump interrupted to say that it was “only Rosie O’Donnell”—an unparalleled moment in drive-by ad-hominem debate attacks. But O’Donnell (who tweeted, “try explaining that 2 ur kids”) wasn’t the woman in front of him, and so, after barking something about political correctness, he said, “And honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me.”

I work in PR --- Tristan Verran

ANGRY WOMAN AT HOLLAND PARK TUBE: - 'I work in PR and, like, sometimes I have to work weekends, like, I mean, I wouldn't go on strike. I think it's just, like, sOOOOOOooo selfish!"

ME: "That's because if you went on strike nobody would care..."

ANGRY WOMAN AT HOLLAND PARK TUBE: - "Actually, I play, like, a pivotal role in cosmetic marketing, so, like, yeah..."

ME: "HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!"

Take it easy

Phaedrus in the Symposium

This is the Phaedrus part of our version of the Symposium, which we put up here temporarily (we'll explain later):

(Phaedrus)

Panel 2:

PH, in upper corner (half-stylized?), blending into the next panel

PH: Eros is a great and wonderful god…

Panel 3:

Chaos as background, Gaia rising, Eros hovering overhead

Pictures

PH (cut into the panel, speechifying (arms raised)): Eros is a great and wonderful god, for he is one of the oldest gods. Hesiod says that Chaos came first---followed by Gaia, and Eros…

CAPTION (bottom): Hesiod goes on: “…who is the most beautiful among the immortal gods. He is the dissolver of care, he who overpowers the mind and the thoughtful council of gods and humans alike.”

Panel 4:

Dark background, PH stylized (black and white), holding on to a canted erastes-eromenos scene that borders into the next panel.

PH: Eros is also the source of the greatest benefits. I know of no greater blessing for a young man than to have a good lover, and for a lover, to have a beloved.

The Green Eyes (Part I) will be published by Lust Spiel Books in late September

Making last changes to the manuscript

PS: It's now available as Kindle Book under this link:

The analysis of the psycho

This is just for the record. There's a new neologism, finally, sort-of, and we need to justify it by a fragment, yes, a fragment of some text where it appears, the neologism.

And here it is. Michael answered a anthology call for Jules Verne fan fiction with an erotic twist----nothing to do with the Green Eyes, so far, but he'll somehow manage that the

Analysis of the Psycho

will somehow appear on the pages of a forthcoming installment of the Green Eyes. 

For the time being, however, you have to do with a few paragraphs from our short story The Darker Side of Lunar Engineering.

Here goes:

(Hold on, let's explain...The call was for Jules Verne fan fiction with an erotic twist. So we're in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, and one of the main characters of that story, Michel Ardan, sets the record straight:) 

(Hold on, Michel Ardan managed to happen upon Dr. Sigmund Freud in the meantime, whom he has invited to Haussner's, a historic Baltimore restaurant (now closed), in the vicinity of the Baltimore Gun Club, the originator of the plan of a lunar voyage:)

We walked the twenty minutes to the restaurant, Freud still holding on to the pointer, and when we arrived thither he knew everything about my mother, father, penis, gardener Hérault, Hérault’s penis, and (my) refractory period (the minimal lapse time between two male ejaculations—Freud made appreciative noises).

“What is your problem, then,” he asked while we were being seated (he had deposited the pointer in the corner) at yesterday’s table below Franklin’s portrait. “You have no need for sexual amnesty.” So I explained about my crush on Barbicane—the flood-gates were open anyhow—interrupting myself only when the waiter approached or the lady at the next table adjusted her ear trumpet (which was often). During those intervals I learned that Freud had traveled hither in the footsteps of Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet who had built his career on the notoriety afforded him by a lecture tour across the New World. “I want to make a name for myself,” Freud said, “I have designs for a revolutionary theory of the human psyche based on sexuality. They are on the drawing board, my plans, but one day they shall bloom, and the analysis of the psycho shall rule the world.” As he said this his stare rose to the Franklin above us, and—you guessed right—the founding father returned the attention, impatient lips softening, eyes smiling, head cocking a bit. He even managed to effect a minor toss with his bad-hair-day hair, Franklin, I swear.

Freud, unimpressed, lowered his gaze back to me and resumed the conversation. “I am still in the exploratory phase of my work, but I can advise you that sexuality is not only fundamental, it is also malleable. The sex drive, libido I call it, is best compared to hunger, a faceless urge that will consume anything and everything when starved, like a ravenous beast. A ravenous beast.”

“We have supped well,” Freud continued after an introspective pause—his stare now directed at the empty plates of the afters course—“but we have not”—the stare wandering to the pointer in the corner which, under his attention, appeared to grow in girth and size—“we have not fucked for hours. Would you not say?”

I motioned the waiter and settled the bill.

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Why Conservatives are wrong --- because they are always wrong (2)

Let's not forget:

Ku Klux Klan

For anybody born after 1970: this was a Southern Lynch Brigade in full armor.

And, yes, God's word worked to protect them (we quote):

"After two non-consecutive terms as governor, Bilbo won a U.S. Senate seat campaigning against “farmer murderers, corrupters of Southern womanhood, [skunks] who steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms” and a host of other, equally colorful foes. In a year where just 47 Mississippi voters cast a ballot for a communist candidate, Bilbo railed against a looming communist takeover of the state — and offered himself up as the solution to this red onslaught.

Spot the difference --- Plato's Symposium (3)

By popular demand: here's the next painting, one that's spot on when it comes to Plato's Symposium. It's by Raphael and depicts The School of Athens, i.e., Plato's Academy, the first university in the world.

"How I tried to seduce Socrates" --- Plato's Symposium (1)

Michael is working on the text side of a comic strip/graphic novel about Plato's Symposium. Yes, the philosopher, and, yes, the canonical text on male homosexuality since more than 2,000 years. 


Not easy, actually, the work. You have to condense the text ruthlessly (19 k words in English translations) and somehow maintain authenticity. Deep thoughts are occasionally expressed and need to be conveyed---the text also provides, ironically, the basis (or pretext) for the Renaissance-idea of Platonic love.

You know about the Symposium ("banquet"), right? A choice of Athenian characters---including Aristophanes (the leading antique writer of comedy), Agathon (a writer of tragedies) Alcibiades (the city's leading bad boy cum politician at the time), and Socrates---gather to celebrate Agathon's victory in the drama competition of 416 BC two days ago. They had partied all night the previous day, they are laboring under a serious hangover, and somebody thinks it would be wise to drink less. How do you do that? Eryximachus, the attending physician, has the idea that you should praise Eros; everybody should give and encomium about the God of Love. And so they do.

Anselm Feuerbach: Alcibiades arrives at the banquet, Agathon welcoming him (click for a larger image, please)

Here's our condensed rendering of the arrival of Alcibiades, Socrates is about to finish his speech (this is done per panel, so the same speaker may appear sequentially): 

Socrates: This is what I wanted to say, O Phaedrus; call it an encomium of love, or anything else. (Applause)

Aristophanes gets up, wants to say something, is interrupted by…

WHERE IS AGATHON!  (Big EXPANDING letters (voice)):

Alcibiades (appears in door): Hail friends.

Alcibiades: I’m excessively drunk already, but I’ll drink with you, if you will.

Alcibiades (removing ribands from his hair fillet): If not, I’ll leave after I crowned Agathon, for which purpose I came.

(Everybody): Stay, stay.