Mnemosyne, goddess and mother of the nine muses (Discursive Aside Page 15)
Tomorrow is the Moon Festival, or the Middle-of-Autumn Festival, 中秋节, zhong-qiu-jie. The 中 zhong means centre/middle, the 秋 qiu is autumn/fall, and 节 jie is festival/holiday. You see 中 zhong in the name for China by its own, 中國 zhong-guo, or the Middle Kingdom.
I think there´s a lot to say about the Middle-of-Autumn festival, what with mooncakes, Cháng'é (who lives on the moon with her rabbit), and all. But I kinda just want to talk instead about Ally McBeal.
Written brilliantly by David E. Kelley (a lawyer first, and his mastery of the law and its practices is everywhere in his Ally McBeal), the depth, the humanity, and the very particular manifestation of humor in the writing reminds me of Aaron Sorkin, different as they are. Maybe it´s the way on Ally McBeal, as on Sorkin´s The West Wing, there´s so much heart, so many places where I literally say out loud “Wow!”
I do that, I say out loud “Wow!” when I´m listening to Schumann, or Jay Chou, or watching Ally McBeal or Marc Cherry´s Desperate Housewives. I like the arts, old and new, and we live in some great current art times. I remember reading Homer, his Iliad and then his Odyssey.
The Iliad begins:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon--
The Greek warlord--and godlike Achilles.
That “Sing, Goddess” invokes the Muse. And it´s clear as the cerulean skies over ὁ Αἰγαῖος πόντος that Mnemosyne sings through Marc Cherry, through Aaron Sorkin, through David E. Kelley, and she sings Ally McBeal´s rage. For what is Achilles´rage of his loss and betrayal to Ally´s rage, despair, and song, of her losses and betrayals, in dating and love? Your Honor, I rest my case.
Discursive Aside page 16, Ally McBeal and Achilles, the full moonstruck