Let's get the most important thing out of the way first: happy new year. It may not seem like much, but I assure you that your probability of a propitious year plummets without Prime's pronouncement of what, for all practical purposes, presents as a particularly pedestrian benison. Now that I've done all that I can do to ensure your success in 2008, let's get down to business.
For the last three weeks, I've been planning on publishing a posting that pertains to something worldly and weighty, a pressing issue burgeoning with relevance and import, an item ripped from the day's headlines. Alas, that sort of thing requires a great deal of thought and effort. Therefore, after a protracted period of procrastination, I'm postponing that piece of punditry, sticking to my strong suit and putting up a posting about something prurient and puerile.
Yes, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about immortality. Not true immortality, mind you, only faux immortality. On a metaphysical level, we may be numinous beings of eternal light but, for our brief years of terrestrial relevance, our gloriously radiant souls have been sentenced to roam the physical plane as gloriously mundane sausages. We've been placed on this mud ball with no way to circumvent our inevitable demise. Evanescent transience is the hallmark of our mortal coils. However, while true immortality eludes us, faux immortality is attainable. Though our bodies are ephemeral, we continue to live, in a sense, as long as we're remembered.
Unfortunately, memories belong to other impermanent, soul-encasing bags of meat who are similarly completing their journeys from ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Therefore, it follows that if one wishes to make an indelible mark on this world, and attain true faux immortality, one must leave a mnemonic for posterity: Great Deeds or Great Works.
The path of Great Deeds poses some difficulty. Typically, one is required to kill or conquer great multitudes of people to be etched in the collective memory of the human race. Pop quiz, hotshot, which of these people are you familiar with: Genghis Khan, Chester Arthur, Attila the Hun, Lyman Cutlar, Alexander the Great or David Rice Atchison? Even after you Wikipedia the three Americans, you'll have to concede that their lack of an impressive body count has diminished their stature in history. (1) Unfortunately, it's difficult, and rarely acceptable, to kill the hundreds of thousands of people required to be remembered for Great Deeds, so most consider this path to be fairly impractical.
That leaves the path of Great Works. Although there are many branches to this path, the ones that have, empirically, had the greatest chance at longevity are the ones involving things that can be expressed in writing. We still read Homer's "The Iliad", actors still perform Aristophanes' "Lysistrata", philosophers still study Plato's "The Republic" and, hell, Herodotus's "The Histories" was just turned into a major motion picture called "300". (2) Who were the great, ancient actors and musicians? No clue. They didn't leave a written record.
I've recently taken a stab at immortality by publishing a book called "Anal Sex Haiku, Lascivious Limericks & Other Drivel". (Oh, don't give me that look, you knew I was gonna plug it.) While it's premature to speculate on whether my book will ensure me a footnote in the history of the world for time immemorial, it's a good first step. With some luck, perhaps I'll be blessed enough to be a victim of rampant copyright infringement and one of my poems will travel through the eons and delight forthcoming generations. Perhaps people in countries yet unknown, speaking in tongues yet undevised, will be quoting the work of D.I. Prime. In that way, I could live forever. After all, as Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai relates in the Talmud, "If you credit a deceased author when you quote them, their lips move gently in the grave." (3) It's like simultaneously living in this life and the next.
In any event, as I was reading a book called "Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology" - research for a potential sequel - I was given some hope in my quest for immortality. Daryl Hine has taken erotic excerpts from 28 ancient Greek poets and translated them into English. Although these perverts have been dead for 2500 years, their work is still being read and enjoyed today. I want to get a piece of that kind of longevity. Sure, as far as Great Works go, a prurient poem has nothing on, say, the Great Pyramid of Giza, but no one knows who designed or built the Great Pyramid, whereas I can now say that I have an appreciation for the work of Scythinus. As the kids say, "Who's immortal now, bitch?"
While I'm rocking the mic, I might as well include a brief review of "Puerilities". There are 258 English translations of Greek epigrams spread out over 60 pages with the original Greek text on facing pages, bringing the page count to around 120. It was a decent read, but I can't unreservedly endorse this book. When viewed through the prism of 21st-century American mores, its contents are problematic. Most of the epigrams deal with grown men lusting after pre- and barely pubescent boys. Ancient Greek society permitted such inter-generational dalliances. Ours doesn't. (Three cheers for us!) Still, this book isn't NAMBLA propaganda. These pedophiles have been dead for 2500 years and are no longer capable of harming anyone. (4) That being the case, I was able to view the epigrams as a window to historical zeitgeist and appreciate them for what they were. Besides, many of the epigrams were kind of funny. I have a much higher tolerance for jokes about pedophilia than actual pedophilia.
If you can't get past, "Gay pedophilia? Ew!", avoid this book at all costs. Otherwise, hey, it's a classic.
Salivo ergo sum,
D.I. Prime
December 31, 2007
(1) Actually, Lyman Cutlar is famous for his body count. However, as it tallied up to precisely one pig, it wasn't impressive.
(2) Yes, I'm aware of Frank Miller's graphic novel, but I regard it with ambivalence. Herodotus is known as "The Father of History", in part, because he was the first to describe human events as human events, rather than placing them in a mythological context. Contrast that to, say, Homer's account of the Trojan war where the Olympian Gods intervened and took an active role in the conflict. I won't say that Miller was disrespectful to the source material, but adding fantastical elements into the mix seems to violate the spirit of the original work.
(3) Actually, R. Yohai was only talking about traditional statements made in the name of deceased Torah scholars, but it's the principle that's important. Normally, I would dismiss Talmudic lore out of hand, but the very next paragraph talks about how many pubic hairs a 20-year-old is required to have before they can be considered an adult. I'm no expert on semiotics, but I take the proximity of a passage on pube enumeration as a sign from the Cosmos that I was meant to pay attention to the preceding section.
(4) Indeed, given the cultural norms of ancient Greece, it's interesting to ponder (though well beyond the scope of this review) whether the boys were actually harmed or not. In a place where pedophilia predominates, perhaps it's the unmolested who are considered to be harmed.
