NEURONNORUEN

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Steamed spareribs with rice flower

Some notes on Odyssey

I think the Iliad and Odyssey are epics on human evolution. First, we get kleos in Iliad, and then we get both kleos and nostos in Odyssey. It's a bible to direct human progress. Oblios from these heroes will benefit the human in some way. That said, we can see Achilles''s kleos is obtained relatively easily, decided by his fate, in a modern word, by his gene; whereas Odysseus's kleos is decided not only by his gene, but also by his determination for nostos. He could have given up his will at any moment during his Odyssey on the sea, but he fought till the end, of course also helped by the Gods. This is how human species grow up on the Earth. We still believe today, the heroes are those stand out from ordinary people and finish a great deed before their death, and it's not only up to their nature, but also their nurture, where hard work and determination matter.

Stevens Creek Trail Mar 2016

Fremontodendron (Flannel bush)

Cercis occidentalis (Western redbud)

SF botanical garden Mar 2016

Malus x purpurea lemoinei (Lemoine crab)

Limnanthes Douglashii (Meadowfoam)

Greyia radlkoferi (Natal bottlebrush)

Greyia sutherlandii

Foot hill ride Mar 2016

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The bloody war in Iliad and some thoughts

The HBO popular series "Game of thrones" are full of bloody scenes. After reading Iliad, I found this tradition of violence in literature is in fact originated from the epics 3000 years ago. Here are some examples:

"The blade sank so deep that the head was held on by nothing but the skin..."

"the bronze point of the spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among the white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them knockout out and the blood came gushing in stream from both his eyes; it also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils..."

"The stone hit him on the forehead and drove his brows into his head for the bone was smashed, and his eyes fell to the ground at his feet."

"...so that the bloody brain came oozing out through the crest-socket."

"...hit him on the jaw under the ear; the end of the spear drove out his teeth and cut his tongue in two pieces..."

If you think the cause of the war is the jealousy of women, you will see the Trojan war absurd, but that is the human history. When I finished reading the epic as a moderner, I have more compassion goes to Hector and Trojan people; on the contrary, I couldn't like Achilles as the great Iliad hero, for his arrogant and brutal, selfish personality. Also, the epic 3000 years ago made it clear that heroes are unequal, the heroes from god family tree are more important than the heroes from human descendent. How can I like it this way in 3000 years later?