Greek Mythology 201: What the Movies Miss

Posted on November 16, 2014November 16, 2014 by blablablaandgabbler

This. SO this.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve likely noticed this by now. Flashy visuals, postmodern takes on how god (or in this case the gods) don’t care/may as well be dead, trying to be hyper historical without a sense of what makes the story what it is, extreme fashion choices or drab all-white ensembles that look like they came directly out of Party City, and twenty new takes on Zeus that all seem to ignore one of the most fundamental (and disturbing and thus understandingly ignorable) pieces of his character.

The Greek Myth movie.

Between every strange, well-meaning, or outright deviating interpretation, Hollywood has hit the books again and again with entirely mixed results. I hesitate to say that there have been any interpretations of film myth that have really hit the mark, but there are things heading in the right direction, and things I wish we’d avoided entirely.

So…

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We are now on Ello beta. Please come say hello!

Posted on November 15, 2014December 13, 2014 by blablablaandgabbler

We have no idea what we're doing, but we look cool doing it. We're @blablablaandgabbler — We have no idea what we’re doing, but we look cool doing it, right? Right. We’re @blablablaandgabbler

How the internet is changing art:

Posted on November 13, 2014December 13, 2014 by blablablaandgabbler

Miller: As someone who is primarily interested in books, this idea does trouble me. The form of the book hasn’t changed. It might be delivered electronically but it is still a text narrative, good or bad. I don’t really care whether a novelist is charming or is adept at pitching their work in a video or website. When it comes to the David Foster Wallaces of the future, what I want is their books. That’s it. I’m concerned that I won’t get those books if the authors also have to be good at marketing themselves to have any career at all.

Doctorow: But that’s always been the case. It’s just who you’re marketing yourself to, and how you conduct yourself. My one certainty is that there is and always have been so many people who want to make art for reasons that are innate to the human condition. Whatever factors favor which artists, there will be more art than I can ever consume that I will love and that will uplift me. That just seems axiomatic to me. There is more beautiful, wonderful work being published today than ever before. And I can access it more readily than ever before. My concern as a working artist and someone who cares about the fortunes of the people who make the art that I love is that whatever money is in the system preferentially is diverted to them. And that in the process of making marketplaces for art we don’t set up the conditions for totalitarianism.

From here.

We will say it would be much harder to do our own art if we could not maintain a veil of anonymity. It is kind of the point.

In other news, we have a giveaway going on for the above book (^^^) and Ursula K. Le Guin’s THE LATHE OF HEAVEN. (Enter here!)

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, and goodreads.]

This comes up a lot in our DIVINE household cough, cough

Posted on November 13, 2014July 3, 2015 by blablablaandgabbler

Once again, BLA and I are having a debate over who the better mythologist is: Bulfinch, Campbell, Ovid, etc. (BLA keeps saying “ME!”)

— GB Gabbler & BLA (@CircoFootnotes) November 13, 2014