1092

Homer used two adjectives to describe aspects of the colour blue: kuaneos, to denote a dark shade of blue merging into black; and glaukos, to describe a sort of ‘blue-grey’, notably used in Athena’s epithet glaukopis, her ‘grey-gleaming eyes’. He describes the sky as big, starry, or of iron or bronze (because of its solid fixity). The tints of a rough sea range from ‘whitish’ (polios) and ‘blue-grey’ (glaukos) to deep blue and almost black (kuaneos, melas). The sea in its calm expanse is said to be ‘pansy-like’ (ioeides), ‘wine-like’ (oinops), or purple (porphureos). But whether sea or sky, it is never just ‘blue’. In fact, within the entirety of Ancient Greek literature you cannot find a single pure blue sea or sky.

Yellow, too, seems strangely absent from the Greek lexicon. The simple word xanthos covers the most various shades of yellow, from the shining blond hair of the gods, to amber, to the reddish blaze of fire. Chloros, since it’s related to chloe (grass), suggests the colour green but can also itself convey a vivid yellow, like honey.

The Ancient Greek experience of colour does not seem to match our own. In a well-known aphorism, Friedrich Nietzsche captures the strangeness of the Greek colour vocabulary:

How differently the Greeks must have viewed their natural world, since their eyes were blind to blue and green, and they would see instead of the former a deeper brown, and yellow instead of the latter (and for instance they also would use the same word for the colour of dark hair, that of the corn-flower, and that of the southern sea; and again, they would employ exactly the same word for the colour of the greenest plants and of the human skin, of honey and of the yellow resins: so that their greatest painters reproduced the world they lived in only in black, white, red, and yellow).
[My translation]

How is this possible? Did the Greeks really see the colours of the world differently from the way we do?    read more:

The Sea Was Never Blue

By Maria Michela Sassi

1083 – The Wind (2018)

timespace coordinates: the Western frontier of the late 1800’s

The Wind is a 2018 American supernatural western horror film directed by Emma Tammi in her directorial debut. The film was written by Teresa Sutherland. It stars Caitlin Gerard, Ashley Zukerman, Julia Goldani Telles and Miles Anderson. (wiki)

The character Emma seems to enjoy Gothic literature. Among the books from her collection that read aloud at various points in the film are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ann Radcliffe‘s The Mysteries of Udolpho.

imdb   /   rt

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“Towards evening, they wound down precipices, black with forest of cypress, pine and cedar, into a glen so savage and secluded, that, if Solicitude ever had local habitation, this might have been “her place of dearest residence”  (Ann Radcliffe)

1073

You turn to… tune in… and you drop out…

1055

“As in the 16th century Tupinambá bellico­sociological cannibalism as well as in  the Araweté funerary cannibalism, the crucial question is “What is it that is eaten?”. Because it is neither the objectified body nor the subject of the enemy that is being eaten, but the enemy’s  point of view.”

The Second Body and the Multiple Outside (PDF)

 Alina Popa   /   @alinap0pa 

1054 – Staying Connected (a practical book)

Staying Connected: How to Continue Your Relationships with Those Who Have Died is a collection of selected talks and meditations (1905-1924) by Rudolf Steiner, edited by Christopher Bamford.

“We are the books the dead read. Our thoughts and feelings are the works of art that brighten and instruct their lives.”

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goodreads   /   rudolfsteineraudio

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1048 – Enemy (2013)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Mississauga, Ontario

“Chaos is order yet undeciphered”

Enemy is a 2013 Canadian-Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve, produced by M. A. Faura and Niv Fichman and written by Javier Gullón, loosely adapted from José Saramago‘s 2002 novel The Double.  The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as two men who are physically identical, but different in personality. Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, and Isabella Rossellini co-star. (wiki)

Analysis    /   Analysis

imdb

1025 – Jeanne d’Arc (1999)

timespace coordinates: France 1429 – 1431 (Hundred Years’ War)

Percival, about the Maid of Orleans:
The girl is of appealing beauty and manly bearing; she speaks little and shows remarkable sagacity; when she speaks she has a pleasing, delicately feminine voice. :{…} her tears often overflow; she loves a happy face, endures unheard of toil, and is so assiduous in the manipulation and bearing of weapons that she remains uninterruptedly for six days — day and night — in full armour.

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d’Arc) is a 1999 French epic historical drama film directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Milla Jovovich, John Malkovich, Faye Dunaway and Dustin Hoffman. The screenplay was written by Besson and Andrew Birkin.

http://www.kommunicera.umea.se/hemma/mathias/

The Messenger portrays the story of St. Joan of Arc, the French war heroine and religious martyr of the 15th century. The story begins with young Joan as she witnesses the atrocities of the English against her family, and she is portrayed as having visions that inspire her to lead the French in battle against the occupying English forces. Her success in routing the English allows Charles VII to take the throne. Eventually Joan is captured by the English, tried and executed for heresy.

Luc Besson stated that he was not interested in narrating the history of Joan of Arc; rather, he wanted to pull a message out of history that is relevant for today. (read more: Themes)

Historical accuracy

imdb

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“Regardless of what Joan of Arc said about the appearance of the higher beings in her visions, the occultist who is able to investigate these things knows that it was always the genius of the French nation who stood behind them.” (rs)