From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V2 #73 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Wednesday, March 20 2002 Volume 02 : Number 073 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Trivia question [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] <> [cr ] [chakram-refugees] <> [] Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question [cjlnh@webtv.net (Cheryl LaScola)] [chakram-refugees] OT: NY Times Article - Fumes and Visions Were Not a Myth for Oracle at Delphi ["bookd] Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question [mirrordrum ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question [Mark & Denise Subject: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question I've been discussing a trivia question on another list and I thought I'd pose it to this list to see if anyone wants to try answering it. Warning: As with every apparently simple question in the Xenaverse, there is no indisputably correct hard-and-fast answer. So 'answers' are more likely to be 'discussions'. However, here goes - in the Chakram newsletter, RT says (pre-Friend In Need) "we've killed Xena five times and Gabrielle three times, Iolaus eight times and Herc a couple of times". Questions: 1. Was RT keeping count, or just guessing? 2. What were the occasions when X and G were killed? 3. (Harder) Ditto for Herc and Iolaus. 4. Why didn't they just give Iolaus a red shirt and call him Kenny? Thelonius ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 01:36:19 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] <> On Tuesday 19 March 2002 07:52, cande@sunlink.net wrote: > # > # > > # > # > # > > # > # > # > # > > The Lost Mariner is one of my favorite episodes. There is a wonderful > performance by Tony Todd as Ceropes. He is perfectly cast as the lost > mariner - larger than life with a nice sense of melencholoy. A good man > who is actually loved by the crew he has imprisioned on his cursed ship. > He also I think is the first charcter to comment on Xena's and Gabrielle's > love for one another. This episode was I assume must have been orginally > slated to air after Ulysiss - smart choice to put The Price in between. The > charismatic Ceropes would have made the tepid Ulysiss seem evn more bland. I loved Cecrops' disgust at being landed with Gabs _and- Xena - "Oh well, that's good. That's _real_ good. So now I have _both_ of you!" And he doesn't sound pleased about it. But the way he saluted Xena's arrival on his ship - with a sort of ironical bow - was beautifully done. In fact I think Tony Todd played the role perfectly - a mixture of resignation, weariness and annoyance at being stuck on the ship for 300 years. And just a hint of ironical amusement at his own predicament. He had charisma, boy did he have charisma. > Anyway a great episode. One odd thing however. Hasim keeps referring to > Ceropes as Rama the legendary Indian hero. In The Way Xena seems to never > have heard of hime the monkey guy mentions him. Even I remembered the > Ceropes Rama connection - I thought Xena would have at least said "yeah I > heard of him who is he." Perhaps the writers didn't see this episode ;-). I think 'Rama' was just a name the writers thought up, no connection to the India episodes. If they hadn't decided to do the India arc later on, the point wouldn't have come up. Hmm, it was written by Steve Sears - one of his many good episodes, I think. Thelonius ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 10:42:21 -0500 From: Subject: [chakram-refugees] <> @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A Comedy of Eros is the final episode of season 2. The season ended with very funny episode. There are nice performances by Jay Lai'garia (bad speller here) as Draco the bemused object of Xena's affections and then randy persurer of Gabrielle and Carl Urban as Curpid who loses track of his arrow shooting son. Also I think this the first appearance of the Hestian Virgins. Lucy Lawless is in fine form as the love-struck Xena. She is very funny as Xena tries to cope with her out of control libido by strengous exercise and cold swims. Not to mention Xena horror at calling Draco cute. Gabrielle is at first the picture of shocked concer over friends behaior until cupids arrow and Joxer becomes her obsession. Xena and Gabrielle's little tift over the merits of their respect boy friends is very funny as Xena sneers at Joxer and Gabrielle is disparages Draco's charms. Some other memorable moments: Gabrielle and Drac discuss cherries at great length; the Hestians are continually referred to by Draco in livestock terms - virgin rustling, rounding-up the virgins, corraling the virgins. The panic flight of the would be slavers as the love-struck virgins turn on them and then the door slaming temple chase. Also I love Draco's declaration to turn over a new leaf in order to win Gabrielle - he will only kill men over 50 when raiding a village err maybe just the livestock since Gabby doesn't appreciate the over 50 pledge. The episode ends with a touch of bitter-sweetness when we learn that Joxer was not under any love spell but truly loves Gabrielle, wich be an ongoing theme for the show. There was lot post after this episode about Gabrielle being callous towards Joxer's feelings in the end but she obviously assumed Joxer was also under the spell. Only Xena knows the truth. We will meet Draco and his love spell again in Lyre, Lyre Hearts On Fire where it appears Xena will be proven wrong - loves doesn't fit Draco well. One quick moment of speculation. When Gabrielle is struck by Cupid's arrow, it is a toss up as to whom she will see first Xena or Joxer. I always wondered if it wouldn't have benn funny for Gabrielle to be smitten with an indifferent Xena but then that would have put TPTB in a bind. First if Xena rebuffs Gabrielle or after the spell is broken and Xena or Gabrielle see the attraction as absurd - there goes subtext and very important path for developing these characters for the future. If the two acknowledge the attraction then basically we have ruined the enigmatic nature of their relationship and the audience is left with no romantic tension. It also closes off any further romantic entanglements for the two heroines in the future. So I guess Joxer was the best choice. Next week into the dark with season 3 CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 21:16:35 -0500 (EST) From: cjlnh@webtv.net (Cheryl LaScola) Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question I don't usually reply but the trivia questions just beg to be answered...... 1. Did RT know or guess at the # times our heroes died??? Don't know about Herc and Iolus but he was accurate with X & G... 2. Xena died 5 times: Greater Good, Destiny, Ides, Coming Home and FIN. Gabs died 3 times: Doctor in the House, Sacrafice II, Ides. 3. Herc and Iolus, I never really followed so I have no clue here. 4. Why not put a red shirt on Iolus and call him Kenny.......now that would have been an excellent idea, but was South Park even on the air when HTLJ went off the air?? Cheryl J ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:29:40 -0500 From: "bookdaft" Subject: [chakram-refugees] OT: NY Times Article - Fumes and Visions Were Not a Myth for Oracle at Delphi I ran across this story in the New York Times. While we only saw the Oracle a Delphi once on the show, it seems a bit pertinent. Fumes and Visions Were Not a Myth for Oracle at Delphi March 19, 2002 By WILLIAM J. BROAD For at least 12 centuries, the oracle at Delphi spoke on behalf of the gods, advising rulers, citizens and philosophers on everything from their sex lives to affairs of state. The oracle was always a woman, her divine utterances made in response to a petitioner's request. In a trance, at times in a frenzy, she would answer questions, give orders and make prophecies. Modern scholarship long ago dismissed as false the explanation that the ancient Greeks gave for the oracle's inspiration, vapors rising from the temple's floor. They found no underlying fissure or possible source of intoxicants. Experts concluded that the vapors were mythical, like much else about the site. Now, however, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist have teamed up to produce a wealth of evidence suggesting the ancients had it exactly right. The region's underlying rocks turn out to be composed of oily limestone fractured by two hidden faults that cross exactly under the ruined temple, creating a path by which petrochemical fumes could rise to the surface to help induce visions. In particular, the team found that the oracle probably came under the influence of ethylene - a sweet-smelling gas once used as an anesthetic. In light doses, it produces feelings of aloof euphoria. "What we set out to do was simple: to see if there was geological truth to the testimony of Plutarch and the others," said Dr. Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, a geologist at Wesleyan University, who began the Delphic investigations more than two decades ago. As is often the case in science, the find was rooted in serendipity, hard work and productive dreaming. At one point, not unlike the oracle herself, the scientists were stimulated in their musings by a bottle of Dco, a Portuguese red wine. The team's work was described last year in Geology, a publication of the Geological Society of America, and at the annual meeting in January of the Archaeological Institute of America. It will also be reported in the April issue of Clinical Toxicology. Over the years, scholarly doubt about the thesis has given way to wide acceptance and praise. "I was very, very skeptical at first," said Dr. Andrew Szegedy- Maszak, a Wesleyan colleague and classicist, who specializes in Greek studies. "But they seem to have it nailed. I came to scoff but stayed to pray." Near the Gulf of Corinth on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, the religious shrine was founded before 1200 B.C. and the temple eventually built there became the most sacred sanctuary for the ancient Greeks. They considered it the center of the world, marking the site with a large conical stone, the omphalos (meaning navel or center). Originally a shrine to Gaea, the earth goddess, the temple at Delphi by the eighth century B.C. was dedicated to Apollo, the god of prophecy. His oracle spoke out, often deliriously, and exerted wide influence. One of her admired pronouncements named Socrates the wisest of men. Before a prophetic session, the oracle would descend into a basement cell and breathe in the sacred fumes. Some scholars say her divine communications were then interpreted and written down by male priests, often in ambiguous verse. But others say the oracle communicated directly with petitioners. With the rise of Christianity, the temple decayed. The Roman emperor Julian the Apostate tried to restore it in the fourth century A.D., but the oracle wailed that her powers had vanished. French archaeologists began excavating the ruins in 1892, in time digging down to the temple's foundations. No cleft or large fissure was found. By 1904, a visiting English scholar, A. P. Oppi, declared that ancient beliefs in temple fumes were the result of myth, mistake or fraud. The Oxford Classical Dictionary in 1948 voiced the prevailing view: "Excavation has rendered improbable the postclassical theory of a chasm with mephitic vapours." Another round of myth-busting came in 1950 when Pierre Amandry, the French archaeologist who helped lead the temple excavations, declared in a book on Delphi that the region had no volcanism and that the ground was thus unable to produce intoxicating vapors. Three decades later, in 1981, Dr. de Boer went to Delphi not to study old puzzles but to help the Greek government assess the region's suitability for building nuclear reactors. His main work was searching out hidden faults and judging the likelihood of tremors and earthquakes. "A lucky thing happened," he recalled. Heavy tour traffic had prompted the government to carve in the hills east of Delphi a wide spot in the road where buses could turn around, exposing "a beautiful fault," he said. It looked young and active. On foot, Dr. de Boer traced it for days, moving east to west over miles of mountainous terrain, around thorny bushes. The fault was plainly visible, rising as much as 30 feet. West of Delphi, he found that it linked up to a known fault. In the middle, however, it was hidden by rocky debris. Yet the fault appeared to run right under the temple. "I had read Plutarch and the Greek stories," Dr. de Boer recalled. "And I started thinking, `Hey, this could have been the fracture along which these fumes rose.' " Dr. de Boer put the idea aside. Knowing little of the archaeological literature, he assumed that someone else must have made the same observation years earlier and come to the same conclusion. In 1995, he discovered his mistake. While visiting a Roman ruin in Portugal, he met Dr. John R. Hale, an archaeologist from the University of Louisville, who was studying the Portuguese site. At sunset, the two men shared a bottle of wine, and the geologist began telling the archaeologist of the Delphi fault. "I said, `There is no such fault,' " Dr. Hale recalled. But Dr. de Boer convinced him otherwise. He cited both Plutarch, a Greek philosopher who served as a priest at Delphi, and Strabo, an ancient geographer. Each told of geologic fumes that inspired divine frenzies, with Plutarch noting that the gases had a sweet smell. By the end of the evening, the geologist and archaeologist had decided to work together to find the truth. Back in the United States, Dr. Hale tracked down the original French reports on the temple excavation and discovered to his surprise notations that the bedrock on which the temple was built was "fissured by the action of the waters." The French archaeologists, expecting a yawning chasm, had apparently overlooked the importance of the small cracks. "What I had been taught was wrong," Dr. Hale recalled. "The French had not ruled it out." By 1996, the two men had traveled to Greece to resurvey the fault at Delphi and study the regional maps of Greek geologists. These revealed that underlying strata were bituminous limestone containing up to 20 percent blackish oils. "I remember him throwing the map at me," Dr. Hale said of Dr. de Boer. " `It's petrochemicals!' " No volcanism was needed, contrary to the previous speculation. Simple geologic action, Dr. de Boer insisted, could heat the bitumen, releasing chemicals into temple ground waters. During a field trip in 1998, the vent notion grew more plausible still as the two men discovered a second fault, which they named Kerna after a well-known spring, going north- south under the temple. The intersecting faults now marked a provocative X. As intriguing, the second fault appeared to be aligned with a series of ancient dry and modern wet springs, one directly beneath the temple. The scientists found that the dry springs were coated with travertine, a rocky clue suggesting that the waters had come from deep below. When hot water seeps through limestone, it leaches out calcium carbonate that stays in solution until it rises to the surface and cools quickly. The calcium carbonate can then precipitate to form rocky layers of travertine. Increasingly excited, the two men won permission from the Greek authorities to sample the travertine. At this point, Dr. Jeffrey P. Chanton, a geochemist at Florida State University, joined the team. He analyzed the travertine samples gathered from dry springs near the temple and in its foundation, finding methane and ethane. Each can produce altered mental states. But a better candidate soon arose. "A small light went off in my mind," Dr. de Boer recalled. Perhaps, he speculated, ethylene had been there as well. Ethylene is significantly less stable than ethane and methane, so its absence in old rocks was understandable. Yet psychoactively, ethylene is quite potent, more so than ethane, methane or even nitrous oxide. From the 1930's to the 1970's, it was used for general anesthesia. Dr. Chanton went to Greece, sampling an active spring near the temple. The team waited. Days passed. Then his call came in. He had found ethylene, as well as methane and ethane. To all appearances, the ancient riddle had been solved. In late 2000, Dr. Henry A. Spiller, the toxicologist who directs the Kentucky Regional Poison Center, joined the team to help with the pharmacological analysis. "There's a fair amount of data on the effects of ethylene," Dr. Spiller said. "In the first stages, it produces disembodied euphoria, an altered mental status and a pleasant sensation. It's what street people would call getting high. The greater the dose, the deeper you go." Once a person stops breathing ethylene, he added, the effects wear off quickly. Modern teenagers know of such intoxicants, including ones that in overdoses can kill. Experts say that youths who breathe fumes from gas, glue, paint thinner and other petrochemicals are toying with hydrocarbon gases. Of late, Dr. Hale has been widening his focus, investigating other ancient Greek temples that he believes were built intentionally on geologically active sites. And Dr. de Boer, now 67, is still concentrating on Delphi. On March 9, he and some students left for Greece to drill out rocky samples from the fault zones and illuminate them under a special light to try to establish dates of seismic activity. Such geologic shocks, he said, may have influenced fume production over the ages, causing the intoxicating gases to wax and wane. "You never know if it will work," he said of any research project shortly before the Delphi trip. "With the fumes, it did. With this, we don't know. But it's worth a try." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/19/science/19DELP.html?ex=1017555253&ei=1&en= 26acbcfb136b90be Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:52:51 -0500 From: mirrordrum Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question At 09:16 PM 3/19/2002 -0500, Cheryl LaScola wrote: >I don't usually reply but the trivia questions just beg to be >answered...... > >1. Did RT know or guess at the # times our heroes died??? Don't know >about Herc and Iolus but he was accurate with X & G... ah, but there's a problem with the logic here. even if he were correct, which i question, that wouldn't tell us whether he actually knew or merely guessed accurately. we can say that the answer is correct, but knowing that doesn't tell us anything about how it got to be correct just as the winner of a lottery wins not because s/he knew the correct number but b/c s/he guessed correctly (well, not exactly parallel, but you get my drift). indeed, even if he were asked and said that he knew, we still wouldn't actually know whether he knew or not. we might believe that he was telling the truth--and we may guess that he knew--but we don't and can't know either that, or what, he knew. which is not to say i wouldn't take his word for it one way or the other. > 2. Xena died 5 times: Greater Good, Destiny, Ides, Coming Home and FIN. >Gabs died 3 times: Doctor in the House, Sacrafice II, Ides. in any event, i disagree with both his count and yours. gabrielle died 4 times, possibly 5. she died in , , , and conceivably in . she *didn't* die in . she either fell into a convenient niche and/or got saved by ares as a "bargaining chip"--depending on which version you dislike least. ;-> xena even tells us in that she knows gabrielle's alive b/c of her vision of gabrielle's crucifixion. also i've never thought xena actually died in "greater good." remember, she says something to gabrielle like "i'm sorry i scared you. . .i just had to go under with it so i could fight the fx"--you know how she does that. and i was never sure that i wouldn't count her crossing of the river styx as tantamount to being dead. i mean, how much deader can you be than crossing the styx and hanging out in tartarus? as thelo says, these things are really more matters of opinion and grist for the mill than fact. >3. Herc and Iolus, I never really followed so I have no clue here. me too neither. md ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 23:03:58 -0600 From: Mark & Denise Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Trivia question Like the other posters, I have no idea about the Herc & Iolaus deaths.... Cheryl LaScola wrote: > 2. Xena died 5 times: Greater Good, Destiny, Ides, Coming Home and FIN. > Gabs died 3 times: Doctor in the House, Sacrafice II, Ides. I cussed and discussed with some buddies and here's what we came up with: Gabrielle -- 'Doctor in The House', 'Ides of March', 'Been There, Done That', 'Motherhood' Xena -- 'Destiny', 'Ides of March' 'Been There, Done That', Coming Home We also had a couple of 'Gee, do these count' eps too: In Bitter Suite, do X&G die and come back? For that matter, when X stabs G in Illusia with her sword --- does that count??? Did X actually die in 'When Fates Collide'? Could G's destroying the tapestry of the Fates have negated that death? Do you want to count 'Greater Good' when Xena 'dies'?? Mark ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V2 #73 *************************************