ALLUSION: Orpheus & Eurdice meet Jay-Z, Beyonce and the New York City Subway!
Interesting from the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section...
by Alec WilkinsonLet’s say you’re a screenwriter planning to pitch Harvey Weinstein on a movie about Orpheus and Eurydice. You’re trying to think modern. And it comes to you: Orpheus, the musician so gifted that his playing charmed Hades into allowing Eurydice to return to life, is Jay-Z, and Eurydice is Beyoncé. Where do they live? Brooklyn. Where are the gates to the underworld? The subway. (Jay-Z named himself after the J and Z lines.) How does Orpheus find them? A map. And now you have room for John Tauranac, the historian who oversaw the design of the M.T.A. subway map, in 1979, and has now designed a new version, easier to read, far more helpful, with more information, printed on very nice stock
UNDERGROUND
MR. SUBWAY
by Alec WilkinsonLet’s say you’re a screenwriter planning to pitch Harvey Weinstein on a movie about Orpheus and Eurydice. You’re trying to think modern. And it comes to you: Orpheus, the musician so gifted that his playing charmed Hades into allowing Eurydice to return to life, is Jay-Z, and Eurydice is Beyoncé. Where do they live? Brooklyn. Where are the gates to the underworld? The subway. (Jay-Z named himself after the J and Z lines.) How does Orpheus find them? A map. And now you have room for John Tauranac, the historian who oversaw the design of the M.T.A. subway map, in 1979, and has now designed a new version, easier to read, far more helpful, with more information, printed on very nice stock
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/01/19/090119ta_talk_wilkinson#ix...
Views: 12
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Sean on
-
Hahaha, that's good.
One song I use with the myth is a traditional (12-1300s) Celtic tune revived with my favorite band Malinky. It takes the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and fuses it with Irish faerie tales. King Orfeo loses his wife Lady Liza Bell to the Elfin Kin, who pierces her heart with a dart and takes her to the Underworld. Orfeo searches the forests for seven years for the Liza Bell's body and runs across the Elfin King and Liza Bell and plays the harp to win Lady Liza Bell back. The story ends there though, so we don't know if Liza Bell ends up returning with Orfeo. But I'm a fan of the song. Malinky's is in Scots-English, so I use other versions easier for them to understand. -
-
Permalink Reply by Ryan Goble on
-
Sean - do you have a hyperlink to the track - is it online or in iTunes?
-
-
-
I do not have a link to the actual song. I'm sure it's on iTunes in one of its many forms (surely Malinky is, from The Unseen Hours). My Mac crashed, and I don't have iTunes on this computer, so I couldn't tell you.
This is the version I use by Andrew Calhoun, more old-timey folksy, but simpler.
Steeleye Span does a version too.
I think it's important to point out the effect that the Classics have had on literature and culture, even up through today, not just in Italian or Greek culture either. -
-
-
I agree. It is a large continuum / dialogue between texts, eh?
-
© 2024 Created by Ryan Goble.
Powered by
