Is this what it meant to be myself? There are arrows that exist at some points and occasionally others—there are swings of swords and finishing strikes with a vaguely Eastern flourish (not to say that the Greeks are not capable of flourish, they certainly are the sons and daughters of Helen), there are reasons to fight these mythical creatures, these Persians with their long hair and their golden hooks and beliefs that they are gods of all of these places, that our god is worth more than theirs. Not once have I lost blood in slow motion and I am not certain if the loss of it requires all of this detail—time already stops when there is blood on my football jersey and I have to rub whatever spattered flourish into itself (we wear whites when we are away) to turn everything pink, and certainly there is no pink in Sparta: there is nothing but men here—we fuck (yes! fuck!) our women who could best any man not from here, we laugh at anyone who is not a soldier, and so there is no room for a culture that means anything but what shield we used. The boy washing his blood away to get back into battle would’ve loved this—he would’ve screamed ‘This is Sparta!’ despite this not being Sparta or Spartan—he would’ve used more exclamation points—he would’ve marveled at how the body separates from itself when metal is introduced to skin—he would’ve thought he learned something about history, about what it is like to write a Letter in November, about courage and Laconophilia, and he would’ve listened to something industrial, something with the sounds of labor, and he would’ve run back onto the field of battle knocked out on his feet.
[...] review of the movie 300 is, ironically (or purposefully, you be the judge!) is on 300 [...]
[...] contributed a great deal, so if you want to hear my take on the movie 300, New Jersey's own George Washington Annual Christmas Crossing Reenactment, Acqua di Giò pour [...]