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Oedipus the King
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2436
And so presuming that perhaps not everyone is familiar with the myth of Oedipus the King, I'll direct you here for a brief summary of the plot.
Now there are a variety of interpretations as to Oedipus's tragic flaw - his pride, his ignorance of his own background, his disregard for the prophesy of the oracle.
But I'd like to propose a slightly different interpretation - not mine own, and I can't recall who precisely shared it with me, but it begins with the riddle posed by the Sphinx: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?", to which Oedipus answered: "Man—who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age.".
Now Oedipus's answer is, strictly speaking, correct, but he errs in his answer by saying "Man" - the answer should be "Myself". And in answering it in the general - as opposed to the specific, he is distancing himself from his own humanity, in a way placing himself above it. The Sphinx, riddle answered, has no choice but to destroy herself, and Oedipus is free to proceed, but in his refusal to acknowledge his own humanity, mortality and place in the world he fulfills the prophesy in the most heinous way possible - Pride, therefore, is the undoing of Oedipus.
Best Stolen iPhone Story Ever
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 2232
Even if this proves to be an April Fools Prank, this is one of the best - and most heartwarming - stories you'll read today. It concerns a guy who had his iPhone stolen from a cafe in New York, then starts receiving images taken from the phone and uploaded to the iCloud, from which he gathers his phone has made it's way to China. From here he goes on to use social media to track down his phone, and in the end flies to China where he's become something of a minor celebrity, to have the new owner of the stolen phone fete him, promote products, meet fans (!!??) and basically have the time of his life. Well worth the 10 minutes it'll take you to read it, and if you ever have your phone stolen, hold your breath and hope - it might not be as bad a thing as you think...
THE BALLAD OF GEESHIE AND ELVIE
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 2258
An excellent article at the NY Times that combines good writing, detective work, music and video to tell the story of how John Jeremiah Sullivan tracked down the identity of a couple of otherwise unknown blues artists - Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley.
Read the story here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html?_r=0
Dead Things
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 1856
Hiking about in fields looking for fossils, artifacts, no great finds, but a couple of rather grim images...
Of course, High noon and the stark light overhead, high contrast, no color, and I have only the camera on my phone (as the batteries in my other, I discover, have long since died.). But there is a certain beauty and grim architecture in death and these finds, and I'm tempted to grab the antlers and skull as this would be the belt buckle I've always wanted, but there's still some decomp. to be done and so I leave them...
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