THE PAGEANT OF LETTERS (c 402 B.C.) – Here is another examination of an ancient Greek comedy. This one deals with a subject that still affects a very large part of the world to this very day – our alphabet.
The Pageant of Letters (AKA The Tragedy of Letters and The Spectacle of Letters) was a comedy dealing with the Athenians officially adding four new letters to the Greek alphabet, making a grand total of twenty-four. Since twenty-four also happened to be the number of members in the all-important chorus of Attic Old Comedy, it presented an obvious subject for the Athenian stage.
The addition of the four new letters (eta, xi, psi and omega) was causing a certain amount of confusion, as could be expected. Imagine if we suddenly added four new letters to the alphabet now, say, possibly single characters to express sounds formerly covered by two letters together, like “th” or “ph”.
Naturally everyday usage and ESPECIALLY official documents would be subject to all manner of confusion for quite some time. The Pageant of Letters dealt with the confusion the Athenians were experiencing because of the change. There is disputed authorship of this comedy and I’ll address that below.
THE PLAY
Each member of the chorus was costumed as a letter of the newly-expanded alphabet. Individual costumes for each member represented an extravagance but always made a big impression on the audience and the judges. Since the comedies (like the tragedies) competed against each other at festivals to Dionysus that was a crucial consideration. Continue reading
Can they name at least 7 or 8 previous presidents and their political party affiliation without looking online? Can they trace the process through which a bill becomes a law? Can they name the sources where the general public can look up political contributions? Can they use their own words to explain their political opinions – if “political opinions” isn’t too strong a term for their childish “Trump is evil” babbling. 
TOWING (1978) – How obscure is this flick? As of this writing there are only 2 user reviews of it at IMDb. That actually makes Towing better known than some of the other flicks I’ve reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog, but the fact that Joe Mantegna, Sue Lyon, Dennis Franz, Mike Nussbaum, Jennifer Ashley and J.J. Johnston are in this movie make it worth examining. 
Towing is about that period in the 1970s when Chicago tow-truck operators scandalously began towing vehicles out of parking lots based on VERY questionable grounds of being in violation of city regulations. The sleazy towing companies would charge the vehicle owners much larger than reasonable fees to get them back. 
BIRD OF THE IRON FEATHER (1970) – This African American drama was produced for Chicago’s educational station WTTW. The storied black radio and television pioneer Richard Durham created and wrote this soap opera/ soul drama that originally was to air every weekday like network soap operas did. 
WTTW was approved for a $600,000 grant to produce one hundred 30-minute episodes of a series dramatizing the contemporary experiences of black Chicagoans. The title Bird of the Iron Feather was a reference to the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech in which he described African Americans as “birds of iron feathers unable to fly to freedom.”
*** What was supposed to be the inaugural game in the new league the NSAC – the ATLANTIS UNIVERSITY ATLANTEANS hosting the SOUTH FLORIDA TECHNICAL COLLEGE WILDCATS – was postponed yesterday over the weather. All of the NSAC teams will play next Saturday. 
MANHANDLED – The TYLER COLLEGE APACHES welcomed the DODGE CITY COLLEGE CONQUISTADORS in this game. The Apaches dominated Dodge City College on both sides of the ball and led by a score of 17-7 come Halftime. After the break, Tyler left the Conquistadors even further behind in an authoritative 27-7 rout. 
HI, CHAPARRALS! – This game saw the COLLEGE OF DUPAGE CHAPARRALS take on the visiting ROCHESTER (MN) TECHNICAL COLLEGE YELLOW JACKETS. Usually a close rivalry game, this year’s edition of their clash was all Chaparrals to a degree that Rochester TC should just burn the game tape and deny being in Illinois yesterday. The College of DuPage won SIXTY to FOURTEEN! 
THE THAMES VALLEY CATASTROPHE (1884) – Written by Grant Allen. The story is presented in the form of a memoir about the destruction of London as seen from “the futuristic” 20th Century. 
ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #25 (Aug 1974) 
Democrats flushed the justice system down the toilet in their unhinged political persecution of President Trump. The cases against him were clearly travesties all along. 
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