SOUNDTRACK: DANNY WEINKAUF-“Archaeology” (2014).
Danny Weinkauf is one of the Band of Dans that plays with They Might Be Giants. In 2014 he successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign to create his solo album, No School Today. (I knew nothing about the Kickstarter campaign).
Danny also wrote “I am a Paleontologist” from They Might Be Giants Here Comes Science album, so his bona fides are good. And the lyrics are clever and smart, too:
Archaeology It’s human evolution From the Caveman to you and me analyzing their solutions (yeah now)
/Archaeology the secrets they left for us We can study activities Of those who came before us
[READ: April 7, 2014] Stickman Odyssey, Book 1
While I was looking for Stickdog books for C., I came across Stickman. There are two books in this series (with book two being set up for a third, but no sign of it yet).
This book is a kind of spoof of Homer’s Odyssey, but not really. It is set in the time of the ancient Greek gods and some of those gods make appearances. Even the style is done in a generically Homeric epic storytelling style. But none of the characters from Homer appear. This is an alternate reality of sorts. The Great Whirlpool exists (shades of Scylla and Charybdis), but so does Candy Island and a place called Odonoros and Stickman’s home world of Sticatha (which made me laugh once I pronounced it correctly). So, you don’t need familiarity with Homer to appreciate this, indeed, it kind of confused me at first because I wasn’t sure if I should be looking for parallels.
Stickman’s name is the awkward Zozimos (which I want to be significant but can’t figure out any reason why it would be).
The gods do play with the humans, though. On the second page we see that Athena wields a giant pen and makes Zozimos a raft while he is struggling in the ocean. Days later he lands on what he thinks is Sticatha, but no, he lands on an island with fair maidens. He tries to charm one of them, Asteria, but is immediately grabbed by a golem and dragged to jail. The evil King Marnox imprisons every castaway who lands on the island–he has his reasons.
But Asteria is mad that her father is locking up all of these eligible men, so he brings Zozimos out of the jail for him to tell his story. And it is…epic! (more…)
I Just Read About That... 