O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou is a movie that is like the Odyssey and The Three Stooges combined in Mississippi during the 1930's.  It's about three convicts who escape from a chain gang in search of a treasure that's buried underneath a lake.  The three convicts are Everette, Delmar, and Pete.  They do some good and some bad things while on their journey.  The three convicts crashed a KKK lynch mob, helped a man rob three banks in two hours, and put out a best selling record as "The Soggy Bottom Boys."  There were a few connections to the Odyssey.  There were Sirens, a cyclops, and a blind prophet.  The film also ended with divine intervention.  O Brother, Where Art Thou was a pretty good movie in my opinion.  There was a lot of humor and the movie had me thinking whether or not they were going to get caught or find the treasure.  I never heard of this movie before but I'm glad I saw it.  The blind prophet was right when he said, "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."

Odysseus' Revenge

After being away from home for 20 years, Odysseus found his way back to Ithaca.  Odysseus didn't receive a welcome home surprise party, instead he came home to a bunch of suitors trying to replace him.  The suitors ate his food, drank his wine, and tried to steal his wife.  On top of all of that, they were planning o killing Telemachus.  These things got Odysseus really mad, just like it would have made us mad if we were in his shoes.  To get revenge, Odysseus and Telemachus rounded up the suitors and trapped them in a room with only one way out.  At that point, Odysseus began to kill each suitor one by one with his bow.  Odysseus even killed a beggar that didn't do anything, and the women that loved the suitors.  Some say that Odysseus went too far and didn't have to do any of this.  I believe Odysseus did what most of us would do.  Who could blame him for killing a bunch of cowards and thieves?  Odysseus did what he does best, kill.  the suitors paid for what they did.  I know we talked a little bit about this in class, but what is you opinion on what Odysseus did?

Dante's Inferno

The next book that my English class is going to read is Dante's Inferno.  Dante's Inferno is the first part of an epic poem called Divine Comedy.  The other two parts are Purgatorio and Paradiso.  This epic poem is about Dante's journey through Hell.  Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth.  Inferno describes the recognition and rejection of sin.  The nine circles of Hell are: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery.  Dante's Inferno caught my attention once I heard about it.  It seems like the kind of book that will have me wondering and thinking the whole time.  I feel like I will be able to expand my mind and think deeply about afterlife.  This epic poem will have me painting a picture in my head the entire time I'm reading it.  After reading part one, I will definitly have to read the other two parts.

Pangrams and Lipograms

A pangram is a sentence that uses all of the letters of the alphabet. Pangram in Greek means "every letter".  Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding.  Pangrams are fun, but hard to make.  I have tried to make one up on my own but it became a mess. An example of a pangram is, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".  Another one is, "Brown jars prevented the mixture from freezing too quickly".  If you get time, you should try to make your own pangram.
A lipogram is a text that purposefully excludes a particular letter of the alphabet.  Lipogram in Greek means "missing letter".  I think lipograms are a lot harder to make than pangrams because you can't use a particular letter in the whole text. "A Void" is an example of a lipogram that is a 300 page novel that doesn't contain the letter e.  The novel "Gadsby: Champion of youth" is a story of more than 50,000 words and does not contain the letter e.  I find it amazing how people can create lipograms and pangrams.