The Immortals and the Brazen Bull

My partner and I just came back from the movies, having watched The Immortals 3D. It was probably one of the most gruesome displays of gratuitous violence I've ever seen. I do not have too much to complain about though. If you choose to go and watch a movie which is loosely based on the exploits of the mythical Greek King Theseus and the battles between gods of Olympus and the Titans and the Greeks and the Hyraklion Kingdom you should expect a certain degree of violence, blood and gore.

What was really disturbing was the depiction of the Brazen Bull. In the movie three of the Oracle Priestesses are put inside a Brazen Bull and roasted alive while their screams are channelled through a series of pipes, to mimic the painful cries of a bull.

Initially I thought that the concept of the brazen bull was something thought up by a very disturbed screenwriter. (In other words: WTF, what kind of sick person thought of this?)

But 5 minutes on the internet and I found out that the Brazen Bull was a torture device designed and used in Ancient Greece. So this time it was not Hollywood who thought of this, it was the Ancient Greeks.

According to the information on the public domain (i.e. Google which referred me to Wikipedia and a host of other sites. This was not really an in-depth study of reputable academic sources) a metal worker by the name of Perillos of Athens designed the Brazen Bull. Excitedly he ran to Phalaris, the ruler of Akragas, Sicily and suggested that Phalaris use the Brazen Bull as a new way of executing criminals. One of the selling points he used was that Phalaris would be able to hear the tortured screams of individuals put inside the Brazen Bull.

According to some sources, Phalaris was so disgusted by the device that he instructed that the Brazen Bull be tested and that Perillos would be the test subject. Perillos was put inside the Bull and a fire was lit underneath it.

We do not know how long Perillos was inside the Brazen Bull. One can only imagine what  thoughts went through his head, but the major ones probably had to do with Karma and what a bitch she can be .(This was Ancient Greece though so Karma most likely had a different name or was personified as one of the plethora of deities that were worshipped.) After a while, we do not know how long, Perillos was taken out and became one of the few to survive this method of torture. Phalaris then threw Perillos from a hill, killing him.

Perillos should have known that fraternising with tyrants usually leads to unpleasantness. Not that I have a lot of sympathy for either of them. It is good to know that when Telemachus overthrew Phalaris’ rule he executed him...in a Brazen Bull,

The sterile words of history leave the casual reader of Wikipedia with a couple of questions:

-     What moved Perillos to design such an inhumane and gruesome way of executing criminals? What happened to him to make him descent into probably the darkest caves of human depravity to design the Brazen Bull? It sounds as if he was a lone crusader and a mad inventor.  A man on a mission to right real or perceived wrongs. Did righteousness motivate and inspire him?

-      Why was Phalaris, who according to some accounts was a tyrant, so disgusted by this invention? Surely a tyrant would welcome new ways to torture criminals or political opponents or enemies? And if he was so disgusted, how did it happen that the Brazen Bull became a widely used torture device in the Mediterranean? Or did some of the scribes of ancient history have a soft spot for Phalaris and tried to portray him as a tyrant with a heart of gold, in a manner of speaking? Did the scribe add this story to garner sympathy for a devil?

But even more interesting for me is the need for humans to be so utterly cruel? Although some may argue that humans have become more civilised, more tolerant and more compassionate, one only has to look at the news to find enough evidence to dispel that argument: A woman shot dead on the way back from dropping her child at school, people set alight in their houses during a farm attack, suspected "witches" stoned, burnt and killed, corrective rape and the rape of toddlers, genocide, concentration camps. The list goes on and on.

We as the human race do have to admit that we are not really that different from the ancients who committed such horrendous atrocities. But we have better PR and publicists and in the end that makes a huge difference in how our deeds will be perceived by historians in the year 2064. Or not. Who knows?

School reunions

So about 5 years ago I received a very friendly email inviting me to the 20 year reunion of our matric group. I must admit, I lost contact with almost everyone from school. The only person that I see very occasionally is a girl that used to be one of my colleagues while I was still employed by the Department of Justice, yonks ago.

I went to the reunion, I saw people that I went to school with, I went to bed. Somehow all the best intentions to go for lunch and keep in contact went astray.

There is a very good reason why certain people, like me, are not friends with people they went to school with. It is because we changed and the past is, it is said, a foreign country.

During the last 5 years I thought about the reunion occasionally. It worked almost along the same principles as a sokkie at University, except that no-one gets laid afterwards. You go up to people that you vaguely recognise, exchange pleasantries, ask general questions, you smile and you move on to the next person.

The questions I faced were rather intrusive though:

- Q: Are you married? No...(Startled silence from the Questioner/Inquisitor. The woman is 40 you know.)

- Q: Do you have children? No... (Startled silence from the Inquisitor...What happened to her eggs then? Did she sell it on the black market? How come she did not procreate? After all, her best days are over and women over 40 who have children usually give birth to babies with five thumbs and three heads, a Zaphod Beeblebroxian creation)

....oh...

- Q: Who do you work for? I do forensic investigations.

- Q: Oh, like CSI. That must be very interesting? No, like accountants, we read through a lot of documents and draft many affidavits. Kinda boring sometimes.

....oh....

But I have a couple of tattoos and I have a 3rd Dan in Taekwon-Do. And I've seen the Pyramids and the Great Wall and the Eiffel Tower and the Tsar's Winter Palace...and, and I have dived with sharks and swam in the Blue Hole...and, and I am in love with the most amazing woman on earth.

.....oh.....You just have not met the right man yet.

And I really, really wanted to tell her that she and her friends made my life fucking hell for 5 years of my life....and... that I was really wondering why on earth we were having this conversation...and...who was she to still judge me, albeit in a friendlier way?

But I didn't. As so many times in the past, I turned around, cursing my cowardice for not saying anything, and walked away.

The realisation dawned that so many things have changed and so many things stayed the same.

In the company of my long lost school friends (and I used the term lightly), I realised that the Queen Bitch was still alive and kicking, albeit with a husband, three children and a standing appointment with her Scrapbooking class.

And her antithesis, the ghost of the girl who always wanted to please everyone was also there, hiding in the shadows. No one wants to be unpopular.  La Reine est mort, viva La Reine. 

A couple of months I received an invitation to our 25 year reunion. For a moment I doubted myself, thinking that maybe I was oversensitive it will be a good idea to go and reminisce about old times.

But after I while sense and sensibility kicked in. Ghosts which were exorcised are not supposed to be invited back for dinner.

Tori Amos - Johannesburg - 12 November 2011

Tori Amos

Tori Amos

It happens, every once in a while that you come across a piece of music or a painting or a photograph that somehow drives away the accumulated ice of a lifetime of cynicism and make you gasp out in surprise..and then the raw emotion takes over and makes you cry, as if for the first time in your life.

We are living in an age where we are spoilt for choice regarding the creative arts. But too easily do we attach the label "classic" or "art" or "unique" to whatever the commercial machine is throwing at us.

A person like Van Gogh was only honoured post mortem but nowadays teenagers with two cd's under their belts bring out autobiographies and try to convince an already gullible audience of their immortality.

About 20 years ago, I was listening to radio when I heard the following song for the first time, Crucify by Tori Amos. The song still strikes a nerve, using its religious imagery to describe a very human experience.

I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Just what God needs
One more victim

Why do we
Crucify ourselves
Every day
I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
Every day
And my heart is sick of being in chains

During that time, our collective psyche was ruled by church and state and family. I thoroughly believed that the norms that were prescribed by the christian nationalist misogynistic state, buoyed up by the flaming sermons of hell and damnation of the Dutch Reformed Church, were written in stone. They created God in their image, a vengeful, cruel god who, despite his omnipotent and omniscient nature, did not bother to understand the reasons why it was so difficult for individuals to follow his so-called written word. A god who created two distinct classes of people: A man who had to rule over the whole world and nature and a women who had to serve the man and be obedient.

But clearly I did not conform to what was expected of me. If I asked questions about the bible or christianity, I was told that it was the devil that made me doubt or that the "spirit of rebellion" took control of me. I was told that being a lawyer was a man's job. I was told if I did not conform to the rules regarding sexuality, that I was either possessed by the "spirit of Jezebel" or that I would go to hell.

And when people tell you often enough that you are not good enough, that you fall short of "their" standards, that you are weird or different or too tall or too short, that you do not dress as you are supposed to, that you are lazy and unappreciative of what people are trying to do for you, you start to believe it. And then you start to despise yourself and no matter how hard you try, you crucify yourself every day.

So when I started to listen to Tori's music, it just felt as if there is someone else out there who feels that they are not perfect according to society and who also struggles to speak, to breathe and to exist in their truth. I always thought I was the only one...

Twenty years later I had the extreme privilege to meet her in person. We had a brief conversation; she gave me a hug and signed my cd's. So surreal. And then I watched in awe as she sat on the stage, with a magnificent Bosendorfer piano and a keyboard, and took the audience on a magical journey. The passion was amazing: She sang Me and a Gun as if she was telling the story for that violent assault the first time; I felt her fear when she sang the words "He is gonna take my name"; I felt the sorrow when she sang "Sometimes I think you want me to touch you. How can I when you build this great wall around you".

Her music touches my soul in so many ways and always will.

Thanks Ms Amos. You are brilliant.