Homer – Page 3 – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #165 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Book XIII – XVI)

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #165 – Scott and Jesse talk, in the fourth of a six part series, about the books XIII, XIV, XV and XVI of The Odyssey.

Talked about on today’s show:
roman numerals, Ian McKellen’s narration, Genghis Khan And The Making Of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford, the host/guest relationship, Phaeacians vs. Phoenicians, Ithaca, the start is near the end, the loyal swineherd, sleeping Odysseus, Poseidon: “I’d like to avenge myself at once” (on the people of Scheria), a ship shaped rock, the generous Phaeacians tax the people to pay for their extravagant gifts, one 1%er helping another 1%er, why is Athena always in disguise?, lies and deception are Odysseus’ nature, a disguise for Odysseus, the cruel abuse of men, Eumaeus the loyal swineherd, the richness of Odysseus’s estate, the trickiest bastard who ever lived is also the richest bastard who ever lived, “In Eumaeus’ Hut”, Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, the cruelty to the pig, Athena’s plans and plots, Odysseus queries his son, the prince of Pylos, the wandering dude, Telemachus is the dutiful and well mannered, the lies parallel a truth, the parallels between the wooing of Helen and the problem of Penelope’s suitors, Odysseus will use a different method to solve this dilemma, “feats of strength”, you sometimes just have to kill a whole bunch of dudes, the stringing of the bow, extended metaphors, “Odysseus Goes To Town”, the genealogy of royal houses, the Robert Fagles translation.

Odysseus Lands In Ithaca

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #156 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Books IX – XII)

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #156 – Scott and Jesse talk, in the third of a six part series, about the books IX, X, XI, and XII of The Odyssey.

Talked about on today’s show:
What’s the plural of cyclops?, cyclopskin?, cyclopean, Charybdis and Scylla, from this book many books have come, Philip K. Dick’s early fantasies are peppered with Odysseian goodness, Upon The Dull Earth, On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Odysseus is a smart liar, “my fame has reached the skies”, Telemachus runs the first four books, Odysseus in third person runs in the second four books, Odysseus in the first person runs the third four books, Calypso vs. Circe, “deep in her arching caverns”, the land of the lotus eaters, lotus addiction, Piper In The Woods by Philip K. Dick, “I’m a plant, doctor”, the 1968 Italian miniseries adaptation of The Odyssey (L’Odissea), why does Odysseus listen to the Sirens?, Circe’s wand, Hermes’ wand, the origin of wizards and sorceresses, Polyphemus, cheeses!, Beowulf, Grendel’s attack in the hall, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, a bachelor’s home vs. a maiden’s home, the cyclops island is a libertarian utopia!, Zeus vs. Poseidon, twenty-power wine!, manifest destiny, the guest gift, “I’ll eat nobody”, “I have a cunning plan my lord”, Odysseus is always messing with the gods, “you shameless cannibal”, the prophecy that Odysseus would blind Polyphemus, raider of cities, swag, Odysseus is not a righting-wrongs kind of hero, Polyphemus’ prayer to his father, Poseidon doesn’t make an on-screen appearance in The Odyssey, what is Aquaman’s hair colour?, Circe (the bewitching queen), Ian McKellan‘s narration of the audiobook, “and so he mounted her bed”, “breeding” great trust, tame lions and wolves, Eurylochus goes on the “away mission”, Eurylochus was “unmanned”, Hermes and the moly, the Wikipedia entry for moly, potions and poison, “The Book Of The Dead”, Cimmeria, Robert E. Howard, “the original Fantasy”, Odysseus becomes the bard, “one death is enough for both men, but you shall now have two”, Hercules, Achilles, Agamemnon is bitter about Clytemnestra murdering him, Charybdis and Scylla is like an old fashioned version of The Cold Equations, O’ Brother Where Art Thou, Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer, The Aeneid, Strange Eden by Philip K. Dick, Star Trek (Who Mourns for Adonais?), Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, “oh boy”, Hyperion, Odysseus never takes the blame for anything, immortal zombie cows, how does Odysseus end up in that tree?, Ithaca at last!

N.C. Wyeth - Circe

Odysseus Performing The Nekyia

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #151 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Books V – VIII)

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #151 – Scott, Jesse, and Julie Davis talk, in the second of a six part series, about the books V, VI, VII and VIII of The Odyssey.

Talked about on today’s show:
We join Odysseus crying into the wine dark sea, it’s all about marriage (and homecomings), my wise Penelope, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Captain Kirk of the Mediterranean, the Samuel Butler translation, Calyspo vs. Circe, Ogygia vs. Scheria, Nausicaa, the role of women in Ancient Greece, adornments to the men, Nausicaa will later marry Telemachus, Odysseus is always being gifts and then losing them into the sea, the LibriVox edition, Poseidon and the other gods are easily distracted, Demodocus may be Homer putting himself into the poem, telling the story from the middle outwards, Memento, a television show inside a television show (a story within a story), Inception, Ino, “oh myself”, an extra god (named “River”), animism, Shinto, does Athena actually seal Odysseus’ eyelids?, Ehren Ziegler’s Chop Bard podcast, rosy fingered Dawn (the goddess), does Dawn work on multiple planets, Apollo worship has really slacked off since Copernicus, crying like a woman, carrying an olive branch like a mountain lion, “tell the one about Odysseus”.

Odysseus and Calypso - illustration by N.C. Wyeth
Odysseus and the raft - illustration by N.C. Wyeth

Odysseus And Nausicaa

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #148 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Books I – IV)

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #148 – Scott and Jesse, in the first of a six part series, discuss the first four books of The Odyssey by Homer (books I, II, III and IV).

Talked about on today’s show:
Odysseus doesn’t appear in the first four books of The Odyssey, planting the seeds for the end of the story, The Iliad, and the missing epics, why not read The Iliad first?, novel vs. tragedy, Robert Fagles, E.V. Rieu, Ian Mckellan’s narration, The Apology Of Socrates by Plato, Telemachus’ dilemma, The Teaching Company, The Telemache (the first four books of The Odyssey), xenia, xenos (guest, host, foreigner, and friend), hospitality and the ancient world, an exploration of the concept of xenia, Pallas Athena, disguised, “he’s a suitor”, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, war orphans, embracing the stranger, xenophilia, the recurring turns of phrase, “the wine dark sea” and “bright eyed Athena”, the wise don’t lie, Basil Fawlty is not a very wise man, gearing down, Dan Simmons’s Hyperion, a story for a nation of city states, Nestor’s son was the fastest runner, wisdom comes in many flavours, Helen as a host, was Helen complicit with her kidnapping?, how should we read Helen?, dosing the household, the status of women in ancient Greece, the Entitled Opinions podcast (on Homer And Homeric Epics), The Odyssey is the story of a marriage, adventure with gods, the role of The Odyssey in ancient Greek religion, Socrates was convicted (in part) of denying the gods, miracles as an intervention, why do the gods disguise themselves?, are the gods simply external manifestations of human thought?, were the ancient Greeks more gullible than we?, the editorial introduction by E.V. Rieu, one of the greatest books ever, next time will be books V, VI, VII and VIII.

The World Of Homer - illustrated by Ernie Chan

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #145 – READALONG: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #145 – Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Jesse, Tamahome, Professor Eric S. Rabkin and Jenny discuss Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. |ETEXT|

Talked about on today’s show:
Tam can’t trust anyone over 25, Jesse’s review in 2008, re-reading Little Brother in 2012, South Carolina, did Jenny vote Herman Cain (Stephen Colbert)?, SOPA/PIPA, non-fiction essay combined with YA, cliche, didacticism vs. propaganda vs. agitprop, we loved the infodumping, the underlying Oedipal structure, Robert A. Heinlein, libertarian bent, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, ‘this book has well devolved mythic structure’, levers vs. buttons, relevance, Homer, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the future of money, Luke Burrage’s review of Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, money is hard to understand, Little Brother is a call to arms, National Defense Authorization Act (suspending habeous corpus as outlined in Article One of the United States Constitution), Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, Ms. Galvez’s Social Studies class, history, Heinleinian straw men vs. Doctorowan straw men, DHS, TSA, pebbles in your shoes, gait recognition, Oedipus = lame-foot, Charles Walker, the yippies, “this is a masterwork”, Jesse hates sequels, will the sequel to Little Brother deliver anything like what we might expect?, idea based writing vs. character based writing, w1n5t0n, trust, Marcus’ moral problem (RFID cloning without consent for the “greater good”), what act of violence is allowable?, moral relativism, the ends vs. the means, adolescence, “when is it time to overthrow the government?”, treason, Jenny makes “a gorgeous point”, Cory Doctorow’s choice to set Little Brother in, Law & Order (Lenny Briscoe), British North American Act, Canada didn’t have a bill of rights until 1981, The Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, Canada’s founding fathers are not demi-gods, Byron Sonne, G-20, is Little Brother a libertarian book?, “freedom is something you have to take for yourself”, Friedrich Hayek, Prometheus Award, the government of California is the hero (or the CHP), authority tries to perpetuate itself, UC Berkley, sex, juvenile vs. YA, “we live on Mars but we keep our houses extremely hot”, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, The Dervish House, Ready Player One, The Diamond Age, Eric makes a minor discovery, Big Brother -> Little Brother, Star-Begotten by H.G. Wells has the origin of “Big Brother”, Olaf Stapledon, “man is the boy who won’t grow up”, Spanish Civil War, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (aka The Children Of The Damned), The Iron Heel by Jack London, comparing Doctorow with London, what is propaganda?, pamphleteering, Joseph Goebbels, Eric thinks etymologically, propagation and ideology, the Wikipedia entry on propaganda, is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress propaganda?, “Oceania is now”, more strawful men, Sinclair Lewis, agitprop fiction, Science Fiction, “it’s a call to arms”, being a hacker, “go forth and hack my children”, “pay attention”, Gitmo by the bay, Iraq, Hacking The X-Box, Mac vs. PC ads, the hacker ethic is the science ethic, LARPing, “just to be smarter about the world around me”, alternative schooling, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), SkyTrain, The People Mover (The DPM), jitney, first person perspective, how to care, the terrorism detector and super-AIDS, Jane Jacobs, Jenny’s favourite character was Andrew, crystallizing the Oedipal issues, the Scoville scale, “the word is mister”, Ange vs. mom, The Tempest, severe haircut lady’s sadism, The Dark Knight Returns, is there a hero-normative angle?, The Puppet Masters, Friday, Have Spaceship-Will Travel, the ideal audience, Good Night Moon, Kirby Heybourne’s narration, transitional objects, Cory’s analogies are wonderful, taking a hiatus from Science Fiction, a pleased (but silent) smile, Jesse still has all his LEGO, a balding grey haired kid, Paranoid Linux, Jenny is ambivalent about whether she is of two minds, that couldn’t really happen here … could it?, Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, the closer you get to power the more obvious it becomes, idelogical blindness, Drew wants to be able to believe, “He loved big brother.”

Kaiser Wilhelm II biting the world

Posted by Jesse Willis

Entitled Opinions: Homer and Homeric Epics with Richard Martin

SFFaudio Online Audio

I don’t listen to every episode of Entitled Opinions but my excuse for that is that some of them are conducted entirely in French, or Italian! The program, when I understand it, is wonderful. It’s a show operating on the very highest level of scholarship, deep subjects, discussed by a knowledgeable host (most often with an equally thoughtful guest). When a show topic is one that interests me, and in a language I understand, I come away enriched and inspired. The latest to do this was the November 16, 2011 episode. In it the host, Robert Harrison, spoke with Stanford professor of Classics, Richard Martin, about Homer and his two greatest works, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

|MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis