Dead Man

After hearing all the talk of the movie Dead Man in class today, all the mythological undertones and outstanding plot, I've most currently taken it upon myself to view this insatiable cinema in order to further understand death, afterlife, and eschatology. This movie has proven to be most mythological in a great many ways, first of which is the protagonist, William Blake, at the start of this movie. He sat in a train, on his way out west hoping to take the job of accountant in the small mountain town of Machine. Before even exchanging pleasantries, he talks of the scenery that passes in relation to his stillness. As if the world were passing by us, and moving beneath us. Which most sounds like fate or destiny to me. The stranger then sits down across from Blake and inquires him of his destination. Blake goes on to say he's Machine-bound. His response is of great shock and tells exclaims to Blake, "Machine? That's the end of the line.." Which to me just foreshadows that his destination is ultimately death, but that he must first realize that destination is inevitable. That scene to me stood out the most.

If you haven't seen Dead Man I highly recommend it to anyone. It's violent, its comical, its mythological, and it's one goddamn entertaining show....also it's on Netflix.

W.B. Yeats

 THE SECOND COMING
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Test II Reveiw

Calasso Material:

Pg. 209-212: The Quaterntiy/Myers-Briggs Personality Test:

Zeus: (up) Thinking action

Athena: (out) Satisfaction, City, civic, Pollus (Political)

Demetre: (down) Intuition

Dyonisus: (In) not thinking, pure unadulterated feeling

When Kore was taken by Hades she was looking at a Narcissus flower (rather the act of looking). The pupil, the part of the eye which sees, meaning to know thyself, or look at thyself. Kore was about to look at that which is invisible (Hades/Underworld) when she turned from looking at the Narcissus, to meet Hades’ gaze. The irreversible recognition of the ‘pupil’. Vision was the prey. The passage to the soul.

Pg. 225-226

Dual-Births: Zeus had consumed Metis, who was pregnant with Athena. Athena was born from Zeus’ skull by the ax of Hephaestus, in full armor with a javelin. The beginning of the New era of Olypmus.

Pg. 244, Why the greeks respected Eleusis most.

The greeks respected Eleusis most because of his ability to simultaneously have the presence of both Death, and perfection. Because in perfection is a completion of the circle, which signals death.

Pg. 336: What is Homeric theology?

Homeric theology is the idea of the supremacy of that which is visible, what is visible has more power than that which isn’t.  Light vs Dark, Mystical opposed to real.

Pg. 359: Zeus’ woeful destiny for man. Why we suffer?

We weren’t explained why we suffer, we were only submissive to it. “We have a future prepared, by Zeus, for us so that we might be sung of by the Bards.” –Helen.

Pg 383-391: Definition of Myth, The marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, End of myth.

Visitation turns Invasion, to invite the gods brings about disaster and ruin, but offers a hope for history. A life in which the Gods are not invited isn’t worth living. Cadmus gives Greece “gifts of the mind” vowels, and consanants, in tiny signs, “etched model of a silence that speaks.” The alphabet.

From Primitives to Zen:

“The Great Pan is Dead”

“The Second Coming” W.B. Yeats

“Elusinian Mysteries”

“The Tarboleum”

Dionysian Material-Bachae

M.C.

1.) Spiritus-Mundii? Spirit of the world/earth

2.) Which two animals draw Cadmus and Harmony’s chariot? Boar/Lion

3.) What country are Nacirema’s from? The America’s

4.) Of the Eleusinian Mysteries, where does drama/theater originate? Dromenon: Things Done; Things seen, done, or said

5.) What is the study of the soul? Psychology, as opposed to mind

6.) At birth, whose beauty is only appreciated by her father? Persephone

7.) What is the story of the origin of the Judicial system? Athena acquits Orestes for killing her mother and institutes a jury. (Patriarchal)

8.) Term which describes the night in which women have free reign over men? Tote-Tage: Day of the Dead

9.) Which animal is associated with the Tarboleum? Taurus/Bull

10.) What makes something sacred? The ritual in which it is only acknowledged as sacred, only saying it is.

11.) According to Sexson, Who are the real heroes in myth? We are. I am.

12.)  In James Joyce’s novel where an ordinary man goes about an ordinary day, which greek is modeled? Odysseus

13.) According to W.B. Yeats: history is composed of a 2,000 year cycle which begins with the visitation of a (BIRD) who impregnates a (WOMAN). Plato’s implantation of an idea in a mind.

14.) What is the greek image of the soul? Butterfly

15.) How did Zeus overcome the cycle of knowledge? Eating Metis, meaning knowledge.

16.) Which word best exemplifies a place carved from the earth in which rituals take place? Temenos

17.) Who is the God of the ‘double-door’? What does that mean?

Dionysus, born twice of Zeus and Athena (Dithyramb(os))

18.) What was said to end the Pagan world? “The great Pan is dead!” death of myth and origin of religion

19.) What seperates the God’s from the Heroe’s? mortality

20.) What angers the Fury’s most? Killing within your own bloodline, especially you mother.

21.) What’s the religious significance of Cupid and Psyche?  Symbolizes the psychological development of the woman.

22.) Which was the most repeated ritual in presentations? The Australlian rain-making ritual

23.) Who was the peasant that the King threw the sandal at? Charilla

24.) Which greek play displays the clash between tradition and the state? Antigone, young woman must decide wether to bury her brother (tradition) or not to (state).

25.) The latin word for Senator? Senex

26.) Definition of Archetype? Primordial image or symbol found in language or myth/fantasy

27.) Which Eleusinian mystery is associated with the month of fertility? Maypole (phallic symbol)

28.) Hero Formula? 22 points, closest to following it completely: Oedipus

29.) What is the Christian ritual associated with death and rebirth? Baptism

30.) Demetre puts the baby in the fire, why? To make it immortal

31.) Who is the archetypal ‘daddy’s girl’? Athena