Homer L. Twigg IV

This guy is my hero and role model.

From MIT Entrepreneur to Tea Party Leader: The Thomas Massie Story | Xconomy.

From the Brookland Listserv:

More than you might think.

Find out by coming to hear Brett Rogers discuss From Homer to Hip-Hop at the Watha T. Daniel Library this Wednesday at 7 PM. 

Participants will discuss how Homer and various Greek poets are, despite their distance in history, very similar to all sorts of modern storytellers and singers — in particular, filmmakers, writers of comic books and even hip-hop artists. For example, the heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes compete with each other in boasts and battle, whereas Homer’s Odysseus shows us how a crafty storyteller works and even outsmarts (and gets outsmarted by) his audiences.

Professor Rogers’ lecture at a DC Library branch last month drew a strong attendance and plenty of positive comments. This talk should too.

From Homer to Hip-Hop

Wednesday, May 16

7 pm

Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library

1630 7th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

727-1288

http://www.dclibrary.org/watha

The Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Library is located by the Howard University/Shaw Metro stop on the Green and Yellow lines. Take the 8th and R Street exit. The library is right across the street. 

From Homer to Hip-Hop is part of the Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives series that the DC Public Library system is hosting this spring. The series is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Participants will “read, see and think about how classical literature influences American culture.”

www.ancientgreeksmodernlives.org  

Additional funding provided by the Friends of the Georgetown Library, Friends of the Palisades Library, Friends of the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library, and Friends of the West End Library. 

Listen to a mix-of-a-mix I did for my neighbor. Play it loud.

Diachronic 2.0 (mp3) – Dropbox.

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The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.

It can seem like ‘harsh words’ at first glance– here the savior of the world is saying that Judas would have been better off without the option of salvation. That sort of policy flies in the face of, say, the Catholic opposition to capital punishment: if you kill the guy, you eliminate room for the Holy Spirit to convert his soul.

However, after some reflection with a friend of mine, I’ve decided it isn’t anger or warning, but empathy and a sad realization for Jesus: perhaps the most learned and close friend of Jesus is going to betray him, and Jesus already knows this. He has known since he laid eyes on Judas that here his friend was going to be the proximate cause of his crucifixion.

I don’t even think it was his betrayal that saddened Jesus the most; it was his eventual suicide. We are all Judas when we sin; we by our apathy request that Jesus get on the cross rather than us, even though we have been commanded to it, to stick to it with our own bloodied shirt. But Judas’ suicide was the salt that fatally infected the wound of betrayal: Judas began his betrayal by handing Jesus over, and ended his betrayal by forbidding Jesus to intervene for his soul. There were lots of people that contributed to the crucifixion that Jesus doesn’t seem to upset about. But his ‘woes’ are with Judas. It is because at the last Judgment, Jesus will have no option but to stand before one of his best friends and disciples once again, and to point him downward. While there will be no broken hearts among the Just on the last day (see Dante’s Paradisio for a poetic description of the souls in heaven, while rejoicing in God’s judgment, looking down unsympathetically at the souls in hell), while on earth Jesus still mourns the coming responsibility that he will have to bear. And so he says ‘woe’ not because Judas will crucify Jesus on earth, but because Jesus is forced into the position of condemning Judas for eternity.