The Persian Boy...

Did I mention that my Bagoas icon is by the talented _ming? To whom I am very grateful.

At lunchtime, I started to reread The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. I know how I loved that book, but I haven't read it for a number of years, and what a treat to be immersed in it again. I remember how much I especially liked the beginning, the part about Bagoas' life before he met Alexander, about life in Persia. I had forgotten what horrible sexual abuse he underwent, but I remembered Oromedon very clearly.

I was reading again on the bus on the way home, and got so immersed I missed my bus stop and had to walk back a couple of blocks. It won't be the first time.

Among other things, I wanted to see (because I couldn't remember), how Mary Renault handled the language issue when Bagoas and Alexander met. This is something I was struggling with in the story I wrote. She had Bagoas already able to speak Greek, which he had learned from Greeks living in Susa. Is this plausible? Since she makes a case for a considerable Greek contingent in Persia, and in Bagoas' sphere of reference... I guess so. The more I think of it, the more unconvincing I think it is, but that's okay, she set it up skillfully and it removes a lot of story problems.

I can't use that route, though.

The Blue Dragon

I'm not sure why I did this, but dragons are dear to my heart.

No, I don't like to dance in the rain. But I had to do this because I like the graphics. I got this from weavinghugo... ( What colour of dragon are you? )

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Someone used this on one of the mailing lists I'm on today. I'd already passed on to another message when the double-take hit me and I laughed out loud. At work. I try not to do that too often.

"What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead." --Schrodinger's wife

I even tried to look up who said it, but it turns out to be everyone's old friend Anonymous.

Interesting link...

Just some depressing stuff about reason, chaos, and the end of the world as we know it, or at least as we want it to be.

http://www.alternet.org/story/20666/

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What I want is to hear a new theory about Lost. I was impressed by the list someone made of all the similarities between the latest episode ("Raised by Another") and Rosemary's Baby, which I hardly remember. Whether this is significant to the bigger picture or just a kind of in-joke is an open question.

Going back to work now. Really.

Aaaargh...

I got home, with the intent of looking at my e-mail while my dinner cooked. No luck. My Eurdora has gone mad and self-destructed. I rebooted. I poked and pried I can barely open my Eudora, and can't use it. It's holding all my e-mail hostage.

I can still use webmail, but that doesn't help me to look at what's already been downloaded, does it?

I haven't been able to reach Sheila, my computer guru friend.

It's like having a wound and no doctor in the house.

On a cold winter's night...

Sheila phoned me, and gave me moral support and a verbal hand-hold while I installed Thunderbird - gotta love the name, imagine having an e-mail program named after one of the X-Men? I installed a few other things too, and before I knew it the evening was over and I haven't written those Christmas cards or updated those web pages (erk!) or put up the Christmas tree - but I did fetch the Christmas stuff from the locker in the basement. It's a start.

I did read Action Comics #313 and wash the dishes. It wasn't entirely an unproductive evening.

Now I'm going to read more of The Persian Boy - let's see if I can get to the scene where Bagoas meets Alexander. I can't be too far from it. They're already leaving Babylon as the Greeks enter.

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An interesting link to an essay about Alexander the Great's sexual orientation and other matters - it seems pretty sensible:

Alexander's Sexuality

I love it that the movie has suddenly made a pile of info about Alexander more accessible, and that he's actually being talked about. History is being discussed. I love it.