Idle Chatter -- Nothing About The Bakken -- October 7, 2016

Friday night. Listening to Jerry Jeff Walker and Todd Snider. Reading about brisket in the WSJ. It's nice. Not as nice as it would be in my dad's house in Williston, North Dakota, in the Bakken. But nice.

For the first time in months, May and I have the weekend completely free. Neither of the two older granddaughters have any sports activities this weekend. Soccer was canceled due to the heavy rain today and the water polo folks had their tournament in Houston last weekend, so they have this weekend free.

And then on top of that, I learn that Monday is a holiday for the granddaughters, so I have a 3-day weekend.

There's a coin show in McKinney, TX, tomorrow. I try to go to a coin show once every month to buy ten silver dollars. The coin shows in the area alternate among Grapevine, McKinney, and Plano. Years ago I bought "collectible" US silver dollars ("walking Liberty dollars" and "Morgan silver dollars") but lost interest long ago. Now I buy shiny new silver dollars from Canada, or South Africa, or Australia or China. As someone said, we live in a magpie culture.

I had an epiphany earlier today. I assume others have had the same epiphany but a brief google search wasn't helpful.

I'm reading a great book, Helen of Troy: The Story Behind The Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Bettany Hughes, c. 2005.

I probably know as much about the Iliad and the Odyssey as the next guy at the bar, but I never really gave this much thought, until today. This truly made my day. In her book, on page 220:

The Trojan Horse is mentioned only once in the Odyssey and does not feature at all in the Iliad; the fullest account of it is given by Virgil in the Aeneid. The earlier poem  (the Iliad) terminates with the death of Hector before Troy is sacked; however, with the help of Greek vase paintings, plays, and the snatches of the lost epics that resurface in later works of antiquity, we can see the drama to its conclusion.

And then on page 222:

“And what of Paris? Neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey graces his death with a single line. We hear from the Little Iliad that he is killed by an arrow ….”

Wow. The Iliad is very, very long, and very, very important, setting the stage for the climax, the sacking of Troy, but Homer does not tell that story. We have the Odyssey, which is important, but it’s a “comic book” story whereas the Iliad was a serious drama. Why would Homer not “do” the sacking of Troy? This would be like Quentin Tarantino writing the first half of Kill Bill 2, filming it, and releasing it, but never completing the second half.

The last big scene in the Iliad was the killing of Hector, the big brother of Paris -- Paris was the guy who "kidnapped" Helen which led to the Trojan War. Killing Hector in the Iliad was the cliff-hanger. The analogy is "who shot J.R.?" -- the huge cliff-hanger in Dallas.

This simply does not make sense, that Homer would compose an epic poem, the Iliad, leading up to the sacking of Troy, and the cliff-hanger, the killing of Hector. And then no "sacking of Troy." The next thing we get is the Greeks sailing home, having successfully sacked Troy.

We know the Trojan horse and the sacking of Troy, as Bettany Hughes says, through other sources, but that misses the point. Homer recites two long epic poems, but doesn't recite the biggest story of all, the "Sacking of Troy." Give me a break.

I am absolutely convinced, Homer wrote a trilogy. Poets and authors don't write duologies; they write trilogies. Even the Star Wars epic was a series of three trilogies (nine parts altogether). Even Lord of the Rings was artificially made into a trilogy.

I am absolutely convinced we are missing Homer's second book of the trilogy: Iliad, Equus (Hippos), Odyssey.

So, I'm in a great mood.

I don’t get it. I think Homer “wrote” a trilogy and we’re missing the second volume.

Again, this simply does not make sense, the Iliad and the Odyssey without Equus (Hippos).

Mr Lonely, Bobby Vinton For all the heroes serving overseas tonight.