Mental Telegraphy Again

1. Clara's softball season is over.  They just lost the one game (mentioned in an earlier post).  The scary thing is that this is a 5th/6th grade league and the whole team will be back next year--I suspect we are in for another undefeated season (yes, I know they lost one game this year and thus weren't undefeated--they were undefeated last year).

2. Friday night was Lily's birthday bash.  While on duty sitting on the deck making sure nobody drowned (I was successful in this endeavor, by the way--just in case you were worried), I discovered a nice use for my iPod Touch.  Using the Kindle application, I read some Mark Twain essays, including the one from which this post rips off the title.  It's nice to be able to read outside in the dark.  The little screen wasn't too bad--it was still readable.  Not the best way to read, of course, but having a lighted reading source in the dark is pretty convenient.  [Review of Twain--the essay giving this post the title was repetitive--one of Twain's hack job articles (he wrote a lot of those), but I did reread "How to Tell a Story" which is one of is best bits.]  I also played my app replicating the hand-held football game I had as a kid.  It's different on the iPod--for one thing the buttons are in the wrong place.  Didn't they notice that?

3. And a quick book review of a short book:  Euripides, The Phoenician Women.  I read this because Julius Caesar had a favorite line in the play, so I figured it might be interesting to see if he just liked the line or the whole play.  I suspect it was just the line.  The line:
"If one must do a wrong, it's best to do it
pursuing power--otherwise, let's have virtue"
(Before one goes leaping to conclusions about Caesar after reading this line, it is worth noting that our source for knowing Caesar liked this line is Cicero and Cicero opposed Caesar, investing some energy into proving he was a tyrant in the making--saying Caesar liked this bit of Euripides is a bit too cute to be perfectly believable.)
The play itself is one of those grand epic types which throws together far too many plot lines in one play--sort of like many a Hollywood epic in that respect.  The play takes place after we discover Oedipus' crime, and covers all the events which followed.  The title is a bit misleading--the women are the chorus, and not the central characters of the play.  On the whole, it's OK.  Not Euripides' best.