Evanston: Ulysses as role model; a different Blade Runner; open windows
Evanston: Ulysses as role model; a different Blade Runner; open windows
I had forgotten that Dante’s Ulysses is like Tennyson’s and Nikos Kazantzakis’: a voyager whose restless, questing spirit cannot remain in Ithaca, but who in old age sets off again. Dante has him drown in a storm after passing through The Pillars of Hercules--The Strait of Gibraltar--and consigns him to one of the deeper circles of Hell for fraud. The Trojan Horse was his idea.
I was reminded of this having just reread THE INFERNO in an excellent modern translation by Robert Pinsky in a hardcover edition with equally excellent, imaginative and horrifying, black and white illustrations by Michael Mazur, published in 1994 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. If you have any interest in Dante, the illustrations are worth tracking down this edition.
Tennyson’s Ulysses is probably the best known, after of course Homer’s original, to English speaking peoples. I just paused to reread it online, and it is a very great poem, better even than I remembered. (That’s twice.)
Dante’s poem dates from about 1300. Tennyson’s 1842. Nikos Kazantzakis’ THE ODYSSEY; A MODERN SEQUEL, was first published in 1938. It is three times longer than Homer’s ODYSSEY, and takes Ulysses from Ithaca through the length of Africa on foot until he reaches land’s end, where he builds a skiff and sets sail for the South Pole.
I happened to have just finished writing an article about age and sailing, so I have been thinking about it. When I sailed back to New Zealand from Fiji in September 2005, I thought that might be my last ocean passage. I still love New Zealand’s Bay of Islands and still believe that it is as fine a place to keep a boat as any in the world. But I have gotten restless and next year I will set out again at least part way around the world. That knowledge colors everything and brings a smile to my face daily.
Motivation can from without or within. Maybe both. I think mine comes mostly from within. This is what I was designed to do. But one could do worse than model himself after the three poets’ Ulysses.
BLADE RUNNER would appear somewhere on my all time favorite movie list. I have quoted the dying replicant in articles and books, “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments lost in time. Like tears in rain." So this morning when I noticed a WIRED (http://www.wired.com) article, “The Fastest Blade Runner,” it caught my attention.
This Blade Runner has nothing to do with the movie, but is a South African runner, Oscar Pistorius, who is a double amputee and runs on carbon fiber legs at speeds that may qualify him for the Olympics. A fascinating piece.
A few inches of snow last week. A few inches of snow due later this week. Today the temperature may reach 72ºF, which would be a record for the date, and I have the windows open for the first time since last year.
March in Chicago.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007