Theodora Elucubrare

This paper is now about Väinamöinen. Once upon a time there was a man named Väinamöinen who lived in Finland. He really didn’t have all that much to do with Vergil except that their names start with the same letter and also a crazy Italian man said that the Homeric epics really took place in Finland. Väinamöinen is kind of like Odysseus in a way because they’re both smart but Väinamöinen didn’t do well with women like that time when he married a girl and then she jumped into the North Sea and then he tried to make a wife out of gold and it didn’t work. They are also very different because at the end Väinamöinen represents the old gods and that does not happen with Odysseus, because there was no Christianity in archaic Greece. Also Odysseus didn’t have an illegitimate son who he then abandoned and then had some issues involving marrying his sister by mistake and then she killed herself and then he killed himself too. But that didn’t happen in Homer because he was not Balkan.

[The paper is really about the motivation of Athena in the Odyssey and Venus in the Aeneid. Thesis: the motivations of the goddesses reflect the overall goal of their epics: Athena likes Odysseus personally, while Aeneas, although he is Venus' son, is more important to her as the founder of the empire than as a person. Unfortunately I am having some (that is, a lot) trouble coming up with a good beginning]

(other option for starting this paper: “on a bright day in semi-historic semi-Greece…”)

My favorite icon is relevant! And is a total lie, because I am trying to play montana on this site.

Here is how to play: Look at the rules. Don't fully understand them; that would make it no fun. Move some cards around. Look at the rules again. They are hard. Move some more cards around. Decide that goddamn it, this shouldn't be this hard. Move yourself into a corner. Lose. Repeat. Share link to inflict misery upon others.

But not to worry, there are other games to play! Clock, which is the easiest game ever devised, and aces up, which gives it a run for its money. (You still don't win either of them, but at least you don't have to think while you're losing.)

(Oh irony, the card-game scene from Rake's Progress just came on random. At least winning doesn't do Tom Rakewell any good.)