"I sing of warfare and a man at war. From the sea-coast of Troy in early days He came to Italy by destiny, To our Lavinian western shore, A fugitive, this"I sing of warfare and a man at war. From the sea-coast of Troy in early days He came to Italy by destiny, To our Lavinian western shore, A fugitive, this captain, buffeted Cruelly on land as on the sea By blows from powers of the air - behind them Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage. And cruel losses were his lot in war, Till he could found a city and bring home His gods to Latium, land of the Latin race, The Alban lords, and the high walls of Rome. Tell me the cause now, O Muse, how galled In her divine pride, and how sore at heart From her old wound, the queen of gods compelled him- A man apart, devoted to his mission- To undergo so many perilous days And enter on so many trials."
Years after finally reading The Illiad and The Odyssey (one of my high school classes went over the important bits of The Odyssey, but that was pretty much the beginning and end of my classical education), I got around to reading the Roman side of the story, at last.
Is it blasphemy to say that I like Virgil's version more? Granted, Odysseus is probably a more compelling character, since he's at least morally complex in comparison to Aeneas's bland nobility and piety, but I kind of preferred reading the adventures of a guy who manages to be a hero without also having to be a self-centered, cheating dickbag. Even though I prefer the Greeks to the Romans overall, I'm Team Aeneas on this one, because man, Odysseus sucks. (I have this whole theory that everything that happens in the Odyssey is actually one huge lie concocted by Odysseus to explain why he didn't come home for ten years after the Trojan War)
As in Homer's epics, some of the best parts of this book are the battle descriptions, which are exciting, detailed, and appropriately gory. There's also a lengthy description of the armor that the gods give one of the characters, and even though that sounds boring, it's actually beautiful. And I liked the supporting characters a lot more than I liked Homer's, especially Queen Dido and Camilla the warrior girl. Also Aeneas travels to the Underworld, which is always a fun time....more
I haven't read any Sherman Alexie since The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian back in college, and I had forgotten how much I missed him. AnI haven't read any Sherman Alexie since The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian back in college, and I had forgotten how much I missed him. Another reviewer, when writing about this book, called Alexie's work "honest", and I think that's really the best description of this little collection of short stories and poems (there's even a chapter where Alexie gives us a poem he wrote about his father and then deconstructs all the lies in it). Not all the stories are fantastic, but most are lovely and sad. Especially the last one, "Salt," which will stomp your heart into tiny little pieces and not apologize for it. I also loved the sections where an unknown interviewer asks questions, and Alexie's responses generally ignore the question completely and create something else entirely, like this exchange in "Big Bang Theory":
"After our earliest ancestors crawled out of the oceans, how soon did they feel the desire to crawl back in?
At age nine, I stepped into the pool at the YWCA. I didn't know how to swim, but the other Indian boys had grown salmon and eagle wings and could fly in water and sky.
Wouldn't the crow, that ubiquitous trickster, make a more compelling and accurate national symbol for the United States than the bald eagle?
Okay, that Indian-boy salmon-and-eagle-wings transformation thing is bullshit, but I'm trying to tell a creation story here, and by definition all creation stories are bullshit. Scientifically speaking, we all descend from one man and one woman who lived in what we now call Africa - yes, we are all African at our cores - but why should we all live with the same metaphorical creation story? The Kiowa think they were created when lightening struck the mud inside a log. I think the Hopis are crash-landed aliens who are still waiting for a rescue mission. Christians think God built everything in a week - well, in six days - and then rested. Yeah, like God created the universe in anticipation of the Sunday funny pages."
This was also my first time reading any of Alexie's poetry, having only read his novels and short stories before, and I decided that I was in love with it after the very first poem in the book, which goes like this:
"The Limited
I saw a man swerve his car And try to hit a stray dog, But the quick mutt dodged Between two parked cars
And made his escape. God, I thought, did I just see What I think I saw? At the next red light,
I pulled up beside the man And stared hard at him. He knew that'd I seen His murder attempt,
But he didn't care. He smiled and yelled loud Enough for me to hear him Through our closed windows:
"Don't give me that face Unless you're going to do Something about it. Come on, tough guy,
What are you going to do?" I didn't do anything. I turned right on the green. He turned left against traffic.
I don't know what happened To that man or the dog, But I drove home And wrote this poem.
Why do poets think They can change the world? The only life I can save Is my own."...more
Before buying a copy of this (Richard Lattimore's translation, fyi) in a secondhand bookstore, I had a passing familiarity with The Odyssey. My introdBefore buying a copy of this (Richard Lattimore's translation, fyi) in a secondhand bookstore, I had a passing familiarity with The Odyssey. My introduction to the story, as was the case with a lot of classic literature, was provided by the PBS show Wishbone (you have not lived until you've seen a Jack Russell terrier in a toga firing an arrow through twelve axe heads, trust me on this). Then in high school, one of my English classes read some selections from the poem - I remember reading the Cyclops part, and the stuff about Scylla and Charybdis, and I think also the stuff with Circe. But I had never read the entire story as a whole before now, and a couple things surprised me:
-First, like The Iliad, the timeframe of the story is actually very brief. The majority of the action - basically everything that happens to Odysseus right after leaving Troy - occurs as a flashbacks, told by Odysseus to his hosts after he washes up near his home after nine years. The majority of his adventures are recounted by him, rather thane being seen firsthand by the reader. And now that I think about it, that suggests that the majority of the quintessential action of The Odyssey - Cyclops, the sea monsters, Circe, Calypso, etc - might not have actually happened at all. Odysseus is constantly making up stories in the poem, mainly to protect his identity, but the stories he makes up are so detailed, and so similar to the rest of the adventures that he assures his audience really did happen, that I'm just now starting to wonder if maybe Odysseus just invented all of those adventures to explain why he was gone for ten years. For all we know, he spent the entire decade shacked up with Calypso and realized that he'd have to come up with a better reason for never writing. Thinking about it, I totally believe that he would do this, because honestly...
-Odysseus is kind of a dick. First there's the fact that he makes a big deal about how he was able to resist the charms of Calypso ("It was awful, Penelope! She kept trying to get me to marry her, but I was a good husband and so I just fucked her brains out for three years!") and then goes and murders the twelve maids who were stupid enough to sleep with/get raped by Penelope's suitors - but I knew about all of that already, and was prepared for it. What I wasn't prepared for, as hinted at above, was the fact that Odysseus seems to be a pathological liar. He technically had a reason to lie about his identity when he was making his way home - because, I don't know, the suitors might actually leave his wife alone when they found out that Odysseus was alive? - but he also tells these elaborate lies for no reason. At the end of the poem, after he's (spoiler!) killed all the suitors, he goes to visit his father to tell him that he's not dead. He finds his father, and since his dad doesn't recognize him, Odysseus is like, "Hi there! I'm so-and-so, and I knew your son. He came to visit me and told me all about his awesome adventures - hell of a guy, by the way - but then I heard that he died in battle or something. But he was really brave and really awesome" and then his dad starts crying and then Odysseus is like "AAH!I GOT YOU! I'm really Odysseus, I'm alive and everything. Oh man, you should have seen your face!" What the hell, man? What was the purpose of that?
-I realized while reading this that The Iliad hadn't really covered what happened to Helen after Troy was destroyed. I'd always assumed that she had been killed, but then, during The Odyssey, Telemachos is traveling to Sparta to find out if anyone's heard from his dad in the past seven years or whatever, and he goes to see Menelaus, and Helen's totally there, serving dinner and being like, "Hi sweetie! Remember that time you had to murder thousands of people and destroy a city because I was a shameless whore? That was so sweet of you. You're the best!" and I felt so bad for her. ...more
I don't know why I read this. It isn't on The List (I guess because it's technically a poem, not a novel), and it wasn't assigned reading or anything.I don't know why I read this. It isn't on The List (I guess because it's technically a poem, not a novel), and it wasn't assigned reading or anything. But for whatever reason, reading The Iliad has been on my mental to-do list for a while now, and last week I finally picked it up.
My first reaction: dude, this epic is epic. (thank you, I'll be here all week) It's full of dudes getting killed in really exquisite detail, dudes talking about killing or not killing dudes, dudes mourning dead dudes in a totally-not-homoerotic way, and dudes yelling at each other about the chicks who ruin everything. The battle sequences are long and action-packed, everybody is Zeus's kid or nephew, the men are men and the women are decoration. It's pretty awesome, is what I'm saying.
Second big reaction: I was surprised at how small the scope of this poem actually is. At the beginning, the Trojan War has already been going on for ten years, and the poem really only covers the last month or so. It's really interesting, because the poem seems to be about how the stupid actions of a few powerful people can have far-reaching and horrible consequences. The whole driving force in The Iliad is this: Menelaus takes Achilles's favorite chick Briseis (who, thanks to Movies in Fifteen Minutes, will always be known as Temple Babe in my head) for his own, and Achilles throws a massive snit fit and refuses to fight in the Trojan War until the king stops raping Achilles's girlfriend and lets Achilles go back to raping her instead. Because of this, loads and loads of people die, and the gods are no help whatsoever because they're all on different sides and keep messing things up.
That's the whole story: a bunch of guys who are fighting a war because of some guy stealing somebody's girlfriend all die horrible deaths because some other guys are having a fight over somebody's girlfriend. The lesson, of course, is that women ruin everything.
Normally this would be cause for me to get out my Feminist Rage Hat, except for the fact that the goddesses in this story kick so much ass I can't even get that angry about how lame Helen and Briseis are. (even Andromache isn't too bad, because she gets some really lovely scenes with Hector)
All in all, a pretty awesome, fast-paced action story with enough gore and bromance to keep everybody happy. I'm glad I took the time to read it.
(also if anyone's curious, I read the Richard Lattimore translation and found it very readable and well-done)...more
Yes, I did read this because John Green told me to in Paper Towns. If I didn't have cooler people advising me what to read/watch/listen to, I'd never Yes, I did read this because John Green told me to in Paper Towns. If I didn't have cooler people advising me what to read/watch/listen to, I'd never do anything at all.
In any case, I was pleasantly surprised at how I wanted to continue reading once I finished Song of Myself, considering that it's the only Whitman poem I was familiar with (since it's the one that's quoted in both Paper Towns and The Dead Poets Society. I liked most of the poems, although Whitman is a fan of listing things. Over and over and over. But he's nice.
As an added bonus, one of his poems is super racy and includes, delightfully, the words "man-root" and "man-balls", which just makes me giggle every time I see it. Poetry is fun, kids!...more
Lovely stuff. One of my favorites is a poem he wrote for Sigmund Freud after his death - it's long, so here's a bit of it:
"In Memory of Sigmund Freud
WLovely stuff. One of my favorites is a poem he wrote for Sigmund Freud after his death - it's long, so here's a bit of it:
"In Memory of Sigmund Freud
When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of a whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and anguish,
of whom shall we speak? For every day they die among us, those who were doing us some good, who knew it was never enough but hoped to improve a little by living.
...
but he would have us remember most of all to be enthusiastic over the night, not only for the sense of wonder it alone has to offer, but also
because it needs our love. With large sad eyes its delectable creatures look up and beg us dumbly to ask them to follow: they are exiles who long for the future
that lives in our power, they too would rejoice if allowed to serve enlightenment like him, even to bear our cry of 'Judas', as he did and all must bear who serve it."
Awesome and passionate and stirring and lovely, all in ways a 21st century Midwestern white girl probably isn't fully qualified to appreciate.
"JusticAwesome and passionate and stirring and lovely, all in ways a 21st century Midwestern white girl probably isn't fully qualified to appreciate.
"Justice
That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes."
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human rivers My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset
William Carlos Williams frustrates me. I just don't get him, and that makes me mad.
He writes stuff like this:
"so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
gWilliam Carlos Williams frustrates me. I just don't get him, and that makes me mad.
He writes stuff like this:
"so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens"
and I don't know what the hell he's talking about. In my poetry class we spent at least 45 minutes discussing those four stanzas and we still have no idea what the damn poem is even trying to be about.
Marianne Moore is delightful, and one of the few poets I know that I'd actually enjoy hanging out with. It'd be great - we'd sit around drinking tea aMarianne Moore is delightful, and one of the few poets I know that I'd actually enjoy hanging out with. It'd be great - we'd sit around drinking tea and talking about art, and then she'd be like, "Hey, do you want to hear about squids?" And then she would tell me all about squids and then share the poem she wrote about them, and it would be lovely.
Marianne Moore studied biology, so she really does write about stuff like that - nautiluses and fish and pelicans and buffalo, and it's all really good. She wrote a six-page poem just about an octopus!
"An Octopus
of ice. Deceptively reserved and flat, it lies "in grandeur and in mass" beneath a sea of shifting snow-dunes; dots of cyclamen-red and maroon on its clearly defined pseudo-podia made of glass that will bend - a much needed invention - comprising twenty-eight ice-fields from fifty to five hundred feet thick, of unimagined delicacy."
That is so cool. And then she wrote this one, which I also love:
"I May, I Might, I Must
If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can get across it if I try."
Considering how Ezra Pound and TS Eliot's poetry styles are so similar, and the two were total BFFs, and considering that I love Eliot, I probably shoConsidering how Ezra Pound and TS Eliot's poetry styles are so similar, and the two were total BFFs, and considering that I love Eliot, I probably should have liked Pound's poetry a lot more than I did. But this was not the case, and I think I know why.
The reason I love TS Eliot so much, as I explained in my review of The Wasteland, is that even though his poetry makes no logical sense to me, I've always felt like that's not really the point. Even though I don't understand a word of Eliot's work, I can at least recognize that it is beautifully and masterfully written, and that alone makes it enjoyable for me.
Pound, on the other hand, just makes me feel like a moron for not understanding poems like this:
"The Return
See, they return; ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering!
See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened; As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back; These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe," inviolable.
Gods of that wingèd shoe! With them the silver hounds, sniffing the trace of air!
Haie! Haie! These were the swift to harry; These the keen-scented; These were the souls of blood.
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to p"A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading."
...okay.
Gertrude Stein was once quoted as saying that Ernest Hemingway was "all bullfights and bullshit."
That may be true, but you, madam, are just bullshit. At least Hemingway threw some bullfighting in every now and then.
Very few reviews of Hilda Doolittle here on Goodreads. This makes me sad, because thanks to my poetry class I discovered two very important things aboVery few reviews of Hilda Doolittle here on Goodreads. This makes me sad, because thanks to my poetry class I discovered two very important things about her: a) she exists, and b) When she's not being weird and confusing I really, really like her poetry.
This one's my favorite.
"Sheltered Garden
I have had enough. I gasp for breath.
Every way ends, every road, every foot-path leads at last to the hill-crest -- then you retrace your steps, or find the same slope on the other side, precipitate.
I have had enough -- border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies, herbs, sweet-cress.
O for some sharp swish of a branch -- there is no scent of resin in this place, no taste of bark, of coarse weeds, aromatic, astringent -- only border on border of scented pinks.
Have you seen fruit under cover that wanted light -- pears wadded in cloth, protected from the frost, melons, almost ripe, smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling to the empty branch? All your coaxing will only make a bitter fruit -- let them cling, ripen of themselves, test their own worth, nipped, shrivelled by the frost, to fall at last but fair with a russet coat
Or the melon -- let it bleach yellow in the winter light, even tart to the taste -- it is better to taste of frost -- the exquisite frost -- than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty, beauty without strength, chokes out life. I want wind to break, scatter these pink-stalks, snap off their spiced heads, fling them about with dead leaves -- spread the paths with twigs, limbs broken off, trail great pine branches, hurled from some far wood right across the melon-patch, break pear and quince -- leave half-trees, torn, twisted but showing the fight was valiant.
O to blot out this garden to forget, to find a new beauty in some terrible wind-tortured place."
I like Yeats, I think. Mostly because he likes Irish mythology and writes lots of poems about it - a basic knowledge of Irish myths is helpful, but noI like Yeats, I think. Mostly because he likes Irish mythology and writes lots of poems about it - a basic knowledge of Irish myths is helpful, but not totally necessary.
One of my favorites, for sheer Icky But Awesome Factor, is Leda and the Swan. My class spent nearly an hour discussing it and I almost understand it.
"LEDA AND THE SWAN
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?"
I liked Robert Frost a lot more when I thought he was just writing about farms, and taking nice walks, and stopping in various wooded areas on nights I liked Robert Frost a lot more when I thought he was just writing about farms, and taking nice walks, and stopping in various wooded areas on nights of inclement weather.
After three class discussions of his poems, I am dismayed to learn that it's all a hell of a lot more complicated than that. Dammit.
But he's nice when I don't have to worry about the deep philosophical meaning of birches and can just enjoy the nice comfortable feeling his poems give me. Here, have a random excerpt.
From "Birches":
"I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better."
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden,"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning how the heav'ns and earth Rose out of Chaos, or if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme."
So begins Paradise Lost. That up there? All one sentence. If you're anything like me, you read it (or just skimmed it) and your response was a long, dejected, "oy vey." That's what I thought anyway when I was assigned to read this for an English class, and was glad that we only had to read about three books from the work total. But - I started sort of liking the story, and vowed to finish it one day, if just to say that I did. Nearly a year later, and I've done it.
So, in brief: Milton has a lot to say. Many parts of this book are drawn-out and requiring footnoted explanations every few sentences. But, BUT: the writing really is incredible, and even if I had no idea what was going on in some sections of the book, I could at least recognize that the poetry was beautiful. My favorite parts: the council in Hell between Satan and several other demons to debate how they should wage war against Heaven, and the seduction of Eve. Satan's speeches are amazing, and Milton's version of the fall of Eve is infinitely better than the Bible's.
We will now give closing remarks to Professor Jennings of Faber College: "Don't write this down, but I find Milton probably as boring as you find Milton. Mrs. Milton found him boring too. He's a little bit long-winded, he doesn't translate very well into our generation, and his jokes are terrible. But that doesn't relieve you of your responsibility for this material!"
I'm trying to write a term paper on this poem (key word is "trying") and then I realized, hey, I should waste some time by writing a review of the poeI'm trying to write a term paper on this poem (key word is "trying") and then I realized, hey, I should waste some time by writing a review of the poem on Goodreads! So here we are.
Here's my thing about T.S. Eliot: the man is ungodly brilliant and I love almost everything he's written. Does this mean I understand a single goddamn word of it? Of course not. But (and this is the great part) that doesn't matter. Eliot has been quoted as saying he's perfectly aware that no one has any idea what his poems are about, and he's perfectly cool with that. Understanding Eliot's poems is not the point; the point is to recognize that he writes with incredible skill and to just lose yourself in the words. My Lit book, How to Read a Poem, said it best: "Eliot is often see as an intellectually difficult, fearfully elitist writer, and so in some ways he was. But he was also the kind of poet who put little store by erudite allusions, and professed himself quite content to have his poetry read by those who had little idea what it meant. It was form - the material stuff of language itself, its archaic resonances and tentacular roots - which mattered most to him. In fact, he once claimed to have enjoyed reading Dante in the original even before he could understand Italian...In some ways a semi-literate would have been Eliot's ideal reader. He was more of a primitivist than a sophisticate. He was interested in what a poem did, not what it said - in the resonances of the signifier, the lures of its music, the hauntings of its grains and textures, the subterranean workings of what one can only call the poem's unconscious."
Translation: in Eliot's eyes, we are all uncultured idiots, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
So, for those of you struggling to get through the wordy, allusion-tastic, multiple-language maze that is The Waste Land, I can only tell you this: Relax and just enjoy the ride. You have nothing to fear. T.S. Eliot loves you.
Not bad, I spose. But I should have read the modern translation instead of trying to struggle through the Middle English version, which is just close Not bad, I spose. But I should have read the modern translation instead of trying to struggle through the Middle English version, which is just close enough to modern English to be readable, but far enough away to require footnotes every five words just to help the reader figure out what the hell they just read. After twenty pages or so, this got very, very old.
Much better than I expected it to be. The story moves quickly, with only a few annoying breaks to rehash past battles that have no effect on the plot,Much better than I expected it to be. The story moves quickly, with only a few annoying breaks to rehash past battles that have no effect on the plot, and the main characters and monsters are all really interesting. Through the course of the story Beowulf fights Grendel (good luck guessing exactly what he is, by the way - the text never spells it out and my class spent forty-five minutes just trying to figure out if he was a monster or a human), Grendel's demon mother, a dragon, plus a few dozen assorted sea monsters. Each battle scene is exciting, easy to understand, and unique. I think if someone were to make a movie of this story and do it correctly, it would be completely awesome.
Notice: I said "correctly." I am aware that some complete idiot decided it would be a good idea to take the Beowulf story and turn it into a movie that looks like a CG lab vomited all over the screen. This movie, as far as I'm concerned, does not exist. Also, to anyone who may have actually seen this movie and wants to read the original poem: first, slap yourself across the face. Second, just so you're not disappointed, I need to tell you that in the poem, Grendel's mother bears no resemblence whatsoever to a naked, gold-dipped Angelina Jolie. Sorry to get your hopes up.
A very nice collection of poems, and by a good mix of modern and contemporary authors. Most of them are deep, beautiful, touching, etc, and then some A very nice collection of poems, and by a good mix of modern and contemporary authors. Most of them are deep, beautiful, touching, etc, and then some are about oatmeal.
"I am aware that is is not good to eat oatmeal alone. Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if somebody eats it with you. That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with. Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion. Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal with John Keats."
As is the case with most poetry, a good chunk of this book went over my head, but I really liked the parts I understood.
"Oh threats of Hell and HopesAs is the case with most poetry, a good chunk of this book went over my head, but I really liked the parts I understood.
"Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain - This life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too."
Good stuff. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did read this because I remembered the Rocky and Bullwinkle episode where they look for the Ruby Yacht of Omar Khayham. Also good stuff. ...more