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Thou that passest by

By TheophileEscargot (Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 02:20:14 AM EST) Reading, Watching, MLP (all tags)

Reading: "300". Watching. Web.

What I'm Reading
Read the comic 300 by Frank Miller. Liked it: seemed a lot better than the over-dramatic Sin City books. It's lavish, glossy, big, well-printed colour hardback. Very visual, not too much dialogue or exposition, pretty impressively composed.

Compared to the movie: as I suspected they stuck a bit too closely to the dialogue in some ways. The sub-plot with Leonidas' wife having an affair doesn't happen in the book, which did seem like a betrayal too far. Otherwise, the film stuck pretty closely to it, though the book has a bit more emphasis on the new age of reason that Greek thought will bring to the world.

Still not sure why the Spartans don't wear armour though. Or why they wander around naked or in underpants along with a cloak: doesn't seem very practical. I suppose it might keep the sun off in the day and let you wrap it around to keep the cold off at night. Random: apparently the symbol on the shield is authentic though: it's a Lambda standing for Laconia.

What I'm Watching
Saw "3:10 to Yuma" at the cinema. Western about a group escorting a captured gang leader to prison, while the gang members try to rescue him.

Thought it was really good. Good performances from Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, some snappy dialogue and nice touches. Also some good wobblycam action scenes (managed to follow them this time).

Had some minor niggles: could have been edited a bit tighter. Also the ending seemed a bit silly: didn't really seem to fit Wade's character. Really liked the touch where the train was late though.

Overall, well worth seeing.

Web
The Modern Claddagh Ring.

Economics. Great compression of middle-class incomes, response. Property rights most important development institution. Scholarship vs bloggership: Blog rank and academic citations weakly correlated.

Islamism is apparently as divided as the political left.

Clinically savage review of Exit Ghost by Philip Roth. Times profile.

< I can never get enough Bush! | BBC White season: 'Rivers of Blood' >

Thou that passest by | 34 comments (34 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Re: Ring by hulver (4.00 / 1) #1 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 02:54:53 AM EST

I Lolled.
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smart, pretty, sane. pick two - georgeha

: Ooohhhh I get it by nebbish (4.00 / 1) #15 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 10:44:14 AM EST

LOL!!!!!!!!!111111111
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It's political correctness gone mad!
[ Parent ]

I think the Islamism link is wrong by MohammedNiyalSayeed (4.00 / 1) #2 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 03:06:38 AM EST

as the result of a botched copy and paste maneuver. I say this, as I was hoping to read the Islamism division article, but found it to be identical to the blog rank vs. academic citation thingy.

Also, until they modernise the Claddagh itself, they shouldn't modernise the ring. Picture a little tear drop coming out of an.... ah, fuck it. Picture this.

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You can build the most elegant fountain in the world, but eventually a winged rat will be using it as a drinking bowl.

Aaargh by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #3 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 03:18:19 AM EST

Should be fixed now.
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Thanks, sir! by MohammedNiyalSayeed (4.00 / 1) #4 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 03:46:07 AM EST

All fixed, and a very interesting read. Really, the same basic ideological schizophrenia is commonplace at the extreme end of any given political movement. When people are devoted to their crackpot ideas, their tolerance for other people's crackpot ideas is eventually going to be a sore spot in conversation, at best, and a reason to exterminate all of the ${whoever}, at worst.

Ah, humanity. Heart warmed, I believe it's now my bedtime.

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You can build the most elegant fountain in the world, but eventually a winged rat will be using it as a drinking bowl.
[ Parent ]

: isn't that one of your campaign promises? by garlic (4.00 / 2) #32 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 10:47:23 AM EST

exterminate all the whoever?

[ Parent ]

the Spartans did wear armor by lm (4.00 / 3) #5 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:04:57 AM EST

They typical hoplite was decked out with a helmet, breastplate and greaves. This is one of the reasons they were so devastating against the Persians. Persian weaponry was very light being designed to be used against folks without heavy armor.

I suspect the 300 portrayed them without armor because the artists involved with the project are fond of drawing mostly naked men.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic

Minds think alike by anonimouse (4.00 / 1) #7 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:15:21 AM EST

The Spartans seemed to have had almost no nudity taboo and in fact seemed to have made today's society look quite tame in terms of mores.

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL
[ Parent ]

: Spartan mores certainly would offend moderns by lm (4.00 / 1) #8 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 08:44:13 AM EST

I don't think many modern societies would tolerate a system of public education where, in order to graduate, students had to sneak out of the dormitory, strangle a slave to death and sneak back in undetected.
Not to mention the young men stripping themselves naked, covering themselves with olive oil and wrestling each other.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

More artistic than historical by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #16 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:11:26 PM EST

It was drawn by Frank Miller, and I don't recall much male nudity in his other comics.

From this interview it seems to be partly drawn from the heroic nudity convention of Greek vases:

The real Spartans, for instance, wore heavy body armor, clunky stuff that weighed about half as much as they did: handy in a pitched battle, but hardly sexy or eye-grabbing, certainly not for an action comic.
"My first versions of the soldiers looked like beetles," he said. "They looked like they couldn’t move faster than two miles an hour."
So Mr. Miller ditched the armor in favor of a more natural look. In his series, Leonidas and his warriors wear red capes and little else; when in battle, they cover their privates in what appear to be leather Speedos. "When you look at the ancient Greek vase paintings, you’ll see that soldiers are drawn nude, for the same reason I did," Mr. Miller said.

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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Miller makes my point by lm (4.00 / 1) #21 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:58:40 PM EST

``When you look at the ancient Greek vase paintings, you’ll see that soldiers are drawn nude, for the same reason I did''

Assuming that Mr. Miller really knows why the Greeks painted naked hoplites on their vases, the beetle bit is a cover up.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Meh by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #22 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 02:14:33 PM EST

I doubt the proportion of homosexuals in ancient Greece was much different to modern Europe or America, but it's a widespread convention on all the artifacts. I suppose you could argue that only gay men bought decorated pottery and heterosexuals used biodegradable wood or something.
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Where did I say `homosexual'? by lm (2.00 / 0) #23 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 03:12:04 PM EST

You seem to be under the impression that homosexuality is the only reason that a man might like to draw (or paint) naked men.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

OK, I give up by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #24 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 03:17:25 PM EST

If it's not homoeroticism and it's not an artistic convention, what is the reason?
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Since when does homoeroticism == homosexuality? by lm (4.00 / 1) #25 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 04:03:13 PM EST

I'd argue that homosexuality as its understood in the present day is a relatively recent concept. To conflate various forms of homoeroticism in the past with the modern notion of homosexuality is to make a categorical error. There may have been some relationships in the past that were like the modern idea of homosexuality, but they were almost certainly few and far between even in societies where various sorts of homoeroticism were widespread.

To take a repugnant example, consider the practice spread throughout some parts of antiquity portions of the victors in battle ritually raping the vanquished soldiers. This is clearly homoerotic. Can we say that it make the victors in battle gay? I'm not convinced that it does.

What I'm suggesting is that Frank Miller, and the artisans of ancient Greece, get a bit of a thrill out of drawing and painting naked (or nearly naked) men. If you think that makes Frank Miller gay, power to you. But I think the evidence of his marriage to Lynn Varley is fairly good (albeit not indisputable) evidence that he isn't gay.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Well by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #26 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 04:46:23 PM EST

Dictionary.com says homosexuality is "sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one's own sex", while homoeroticism is " a tendency to be sexually aroused by a member of the same sex".

They're certainly pretty closely related concepts. I don't think the subtle distinction is of much relevance here.

I suspect that virtually no ancient Greek artisan got a thrill out of depicting naked men.

Similarly, I suspect you get very little thrill out of looking a woman's bare ankle, though a Victorian male might have found it highly erotic. Ancient Greece had almost no nudity taboo, and nudity was very common. No taboo, no thrill from busting the taboo. Also, you can't really get sexually aroused by something you're surrounded by all the time anyway.
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

ooh, a dictionary troll by lm (2.00 / 0) #27 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:00:23 PM EST

Quite a few straight monogamous men would be turned on by a picture of an orgy. That doesn't make them polyamorous by any stretch of the imagination. Pardon me if I'm not impressed by redefining homosexuality into being excited (regardless of the extent) by naked men.

As for your other point, I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Neither mores regarding nudity nor the depictions of nude warriors on vases in ancient Greece were constant. Further, the vases in question were primarily a product made to order for exporters.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Heh by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #29 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 01:39:26 AM EST

I'm not redefining any terms. Homosexuality is just a broader term than homoeroticism, since it can refer to physical sexual activity as well as sexual desire. They're not different things.

If you're a man, and you find other men sexually exciting, then you're homosexual or bisexual. I think it's getting a bit Larry Craig to think a man can be turned on by naked men and still be purely heterosexual...
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Here's the problem by lm (4.00 / 1) #33 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 12:53:39 PM EST

You're taking one sense of a word for which the dictionary gives multiple senses and then alleging that every usage of that word has to use that sense. If you aren't trolling me on purpose over that, you're being rather hard-headed. This kind of surprises me because you don't usually act so willfully ignorant.

I qualified my language with enough precision to communicate what I intended to communicate. I don't have any real desire over the `real' definition when the dictionary gives many different senses, most of which you've ignored. I fully accept that there are nuances to words. If you don't, there isn't any reason to continue this conversation.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

: (Comment Deleted) by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #34 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 03:10:53 PM EST

This comment has been deleted by TheophileEscargot

[ Parent ]

Spartan Armor by anonimouse (4.00 / 2) #6 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 07:09:12 AM EST

It's unlikely that any of the 300 were poorly armoured peasant troops, carrying little more than a spear and a shield.

More likely is that the 300 would be wearing "heavy hoplite" armour, which at least consisted of crested helmet, leather/bronze breastplate (cuirass), leather skirt, bronze greaves to above the knee, plus a largish shield. Armoured shoulders were possible too. No doubt if Mr 'borg were here he could tell you better, though his schtick appears to be 12-15century AD.

They were probably much better armoured (and organised) than the opposing Persians, which partly explained why they held out against incredible odds. They were highly trained and extremely tough, and only thing that would be able to take them on even terms would really be a Roman army legion (but you'd have to wait 300 years or so!)

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL

The Persians mostly had light weaponry by lm (4.00 / 2) #9 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 08:56:48 AM EST

Both the Persian cavalry and infantry were armed with lightweight bows and javelins that were reasonably effective for the wicker army of neighboring lands. These projectiles were relatively light and didn't do much damage against the Greek wood or leather backed bronze armor. From a distance, unless they got a lucky shot through the eye hole, they might as well been farting in the Spartans general direction.

The Spartan hoplites, on the other hand, used heavy spears designed to fight other hoplites as their main weapons. These cut right through the wicker armor of the Persians.

It also helped that the 300 Spartans (and about 10000 other Greeks) chose a spot (a narrow pass between the sea and a mountain) to defend where the Persians could neither use their cavalry nor their overwhelming numbers. The Persians had great tactics for fighting on open plains. But you can't use those tactics in a narrow mountain pass.

It also helped that the Greeks were fighting in well disciplined phalanx formation while most of the Persians were rag tag conscripts. The Persians did send in their `immortals' (heavy-infantry shock forces) but they still had still had wicker armor and no heavy weapons with the reach of the Greek spears.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

I saw the movie by cam (4.00 / 3) #12 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 10:07:06 AM EST

even though the persians had wicker armour they had devil and other world armies, plus they had elephants, X-Wings and Battlestar Galacticas. They should have won.

cam
Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic
[ Parent ]

: But what you don't know is that ... by lm (2.00 / 0) #20 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:47:34 PM EST

Yoda was from Sparta. 'Tis a shame he summoned back to appear before a committee chaired by Senator Palpatine just before the last two days of battle.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Philip Roth by johnny (4.00 / 1) #10 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 09:32:12 AM EST

An obnoxious bore. Portnoy's Complaint is great; everything afterwards --27 books' worth -- is regurgitated. This "America's Greatest Novelist" stuff is absurd and annoying. I don't know if I would put him in the top 1000, and certainly I would rank him below my own bad self.
... this is dreamworld after all... it isn't? Shit.

The Plot Against America by nebbish (4.00 / 1) #13 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 10:22:43 AM EST

Is superb I think, up until the end when it gets pointlessly silly. It's the only Roth I've read.

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It's political correctness gone mad!
[ Parent ]

IAWTP by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #17 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:12:12 PM EST

I thought "The Plot Against America" was superb. Maybe because it wasn't about the love life of an aging academic though.
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

: I can think of nothing more tedious by nebbish (4.00 / 1) #30 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 07:16:22 AM EST

Maybe I'll avoid Roth's other work (a friend has leant me one I suppose I'll have to read, but I really don't like the look of it).
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It's political correctness gone mad!
[ Parent ]

The Blog Rank story by yicky yacky (4.00 / 2) #11 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 09:37:48 AM EST

is painfully, painfully flimsy.

I started to write a detailed comment as to why this should be, but realized I don't give anywhere near enough of a toss to write that much expositionary text about a shockingly poor piece of work that affects me not one iota and does more by itself to castigate certain styles of research in the so-called "soft" sciences than any rebuttal ever could.

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Done.

: Why? by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 1) #18 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:12:37 PM EST

He claims the correlation has a 99% confidence interval (raw data here). It's not a published article, just a quick analysis, but it seems pretty reasonable to me that there's a weak correlation between academic fame and blog fame.
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

WIPO: is the cloak made of wool? by nebbish (4.00 / 1) #14 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 10:23:46 AM EST

If so, too itchy. Also, rough material would lead to nipple chafing.

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It's political correctness gone mad!

: Yes by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #19 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 01:17:40 PM EST

Apparently they had heard of the exotic "tree wool" of cotton, but I don't think it wasn't really in use in Greece.
I suppose that's what being a Spartan is all about though...
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Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]
: It's a question of the spinning. by ambrosen (2.00 / 0) #28 Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 06:49:57 PM EST

Not the material. Some of my softest and favourite clothes are wool, and some of my roughest cotton. But I'd guess they'd got harder skin than us anyway.

[ Parent ]

3:10 to yuma by garlic (4.00 / 1) #31 Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 10:44:31 AM EST

the ending was terrible. The rest of the movie was good. they probably should have had everybody, or everybody but wade get killed in the end. Getting back on the train was ridiculous.

Thou that passest by | 34 comments (34 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback