Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Heady Days

The last three days have seen much intellectual ferment, and I should put my thoughts to the pixels ere the hot winds of change wipe away the notes on my tabula erasura.

On Wednesday, I attended the SFSU Classical Students Association lecture, the last of the season, at which the topic was 'Religious War in the Ancient World'. Although it was argued that western monotheism allowed the full flowering of religious war, there are certain counterexamples of Buddhist kings no less military and missionary. Sadly, the lecturer omitted for reason of time, a comment on my beloved Donatists.

On Thursday, I went with Joan and Joe Sutton to Stanford that I might hear Patrick Hunt, vir illustris of the archeological world, speak on his expedition to the Alps and his seeking of the pass by which Hannibal, with his men and elephants, crossed the mountains. Hunt suggested that the choice of such an unfavorable route was not only plausible, but likely, for a member of Hannibal's lineage. Hannibal's god was Baal, a god of heights and storms; where better for the general to seek his god's protection than the place where he would choose to dwell?

On Friday, I joined Joan again unexpectedly for the reading of the 'phad' at the Asian Art Museum. The museum not only had borrowed a display of the art of the state of Mewar in Rajasthan, India, but it had also brought a bhopa and bhopi, indigenous storytellers specializing the reading of the phad, a painting and portable temple which aids the bhopa and bhopi in telling the stories of the local god Pabuji and the much more renowned Ramayana. For those who care to know, the bhopa and bhopi will be performing at 2:30 at the museum through the 15th. I strongly encourage those who can to go.

The 300

I finally saw the 300. I loved it. It was what a movie about a glorious last stand should feel like. I can forgive the abundant free license in the source material (courtesy of Frank Miller) if it encourages the appropriate katharsis. The one thing, however, which does worry me, is the vivd racial distinction in the film. Since the graphic novel from which the images were taken was intended to invoke the black, white, and red of Greek pottery, in that format it is logical. The portrayal of Xerxes as the big black menace, howver, is more provocative in a movie than a graphic novel.