MODULE 2: ISLAND OF THE CYCLOPS
Assignments:
ASSIGNMENT 1
Watch Stickman: Odysseus vs. Cyclops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gGFYy3Qa9w
Write a poem as if it were a cartoon. Write it in the form of a sonnet. It should include both comedy and danger. Here is a responsible explanation of how to write a sonnet:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/sonnet-poetic-form
ASSIGNMENT 2
Homer and Blind Lemon Jefferson had a lot more than blindness in common. Both worked out of an oral tradition in which a simple poetic form with clear, vivid descriptions of daily life combined with powerful psychological and emotional complexity. They cast a brilliant light on themes such as solitude and the pain associated with erotic love. Yet both also know how to temper these contemplations with humor. Odysseus is the original smart-mouth, one who after he has escaped the Cyclops’ cave, can’t help smarting off about his prowess and then getting punished. Blind Lemon Jefferson, like many bluesmen, studs his songs with sexual double entendre about his prowess, and makes the listener smile, even as Jefferson complains about his love woes.
Read the Polyphemus episode of the Odyssey, and listen to “Black Snake Moan.” Write a blues lyric, riffing off what you have read and heard. Here is a responsible explanation of how to write a blues poem:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/blues-poem-poetic-form
ASSIGNMENT 3
Listen to Marilyn Manson’s “Cyclops.” Write a poetic response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcb_4y_TBKs
ASSIGNMENT 4
Watch this to earn a coin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d39VrPwBGkQ
Watch Stickman: Odysseus vs. Cyclops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gGFYy3Qa9w
Write a poem as if it were a cartoon. Write it in the form of a sonnet. It should include both comedy and danger. Here is a responsible explanation of how to write a sonnet:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/sonnet-poetic-form
ASSIGNMENT 2
Homer and Blind Lemon Jefferson had a lot more than blindness in common. Both worked out of an oral tradition in which a simple poetic form with clear, vivid descriptions of daily life combined with powerful psychological and emotional complexity. They cast a brilliant light on themes such as solitude and the pain associated with erotic love. Yet both also know how to temper these contemplations with humor. Odysseus is the original smart-mouth, one who after he has escaped the Cyclops’ cave, can’t help smarting off about his prowess and then getting punished. Blind Lemon Jefferson, like many bluesmen, studs his songs with sexual double entendre about his prowess, and makes the listener smile, even as Jefferson complains about his love woes.
Read the Polyphemus episode of the Odyssey, and listen to “Black Snake Moan.” Write a blues lyric, riffing off what you have read and heard. Here is a responsible explanation of how to write a blues poem:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/blues-poem-poetic-form
ASSIGNMENT 3
Listen to Marilyn Manson’s “Cyclops.” Write a poetic response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcb_4y_TBKs
ASSIGNMENT 4
Watch this to earn a coin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d39VrPwBGkQ
Concepts and inspirations
Map of Cyclops Cave
Background wall illustrations
Part 1 Interactives
PART 1: Locked in the Cave
Graphics:
1-table with food
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "You are trapped. Your men will die"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-Entrance narration 1: Our party quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find our host himself inside; he was off in his pasture, ranging his sleek flocks. So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all...
-Trigger 1 narration: Then to close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous, massive slab— no twenty-two wagons, rugged and four-wheeled, could budge that boulder off the ground, I tell you, such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave!
WALL QUOTES:
PART 1: GETTING TRAPPED AND PANICING
Graphics:
1-table with food
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "You are trapped. Your men will die"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-Entrance narration 1: Our party quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find our host himself inside; he was off in his pasture, ranging his sleek flocks. So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all...
-Trigger 1 narration: Then to close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous, massive slab— no twenty-two wagons, rugged and four-wheeled, could budge that boulder off the ground, I tell you, such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave!
WALL QUOTES:
PART 1: GETTING TRAPPED AND PANICING
- ‘Men of Achaea we are and bound now from Troy! Driven far off course by the warring winds, over the vast gulf of the sea—battling home on a strange tack, a route that’s off the map, and so we’ve come to you … so it must please King Zeus’s plotting heart.
- We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zeus’s shield of storm and thunder, or any other blessed god— we’ve got more force by far.
- Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground he knocked them dead like pups — their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor — and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal...
PART 2 INTERACTIVES
PART 1: Locked in the Cave
Graphics:
6-3D barrels of wine
1-fire to harden the stake (particle effects)
1-wooden stake
1 bulls's eye (cyclop's eye)
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "If you kill him you'll never be able to get our of this cave"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-sheep bleating
-snoring
-"How dry I am" song
-Entrance narration 1: (Hermes appears to inspire hope for escape): needs dialog (re. find barrels of wine in the cave)
-Trigger 1 narration: (Blinding Polyphemus): needs dialog
PART 2 WALL QUOTES: GETTING POLYPHEMUS DRUNK AND BLINDING
Graphics:
6-3D barrels of wine
1-fire to harden the stake (particle effects)
1-wooden stake
1 bulls's eye (cyclop's eye)
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "If you kill him you'll never be able to get our of this cave"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-sheep bleating
-snoring
-"How dry I am" song
-Entrance narration 1: (Hermes appears to inspire hope for escape): needs dialog (re. find barrels of wine in the cave)
-Trigger 1 narration: (Blinding Polyphemus): needs dialog
PART 2 WALL QUOTES: GETTING POLYPHEMUS DRUNK AND BLINDING
- ...I bent and shaved the tip to a stabbing point. I turned it over the blazing fire to char it good and hard, then hid it well...
- ...I ordered my shipmates all to cast lots—who’d brave it out with me to hoist our stake and grind it into his eye when sleep had overcome him...
- ...I lifted a carved wooden bowl, brimful of my ruddy wine, and went right up to the Cyclops, enticing, ‘Here, Cyclops, try this wine—to top off the banquet of human flesh you’ve bolted down!
PART 3 INTERACTIVES
PART 1: Locked in the Cave
Graphics:
10-3D sheep
-3D rope coils (www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/rope-coil-3d-model-1143102)
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "You are trapped. Your men will die"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-Entrance narration 1: (Hermes appears to inspire hope for escape): needs dialog (re. find rope and sheep in the cave)
-Trigger 1 narration: (Blinding Polyphemus)
PART 3 WALL QUOTES: ESCAPING
Graphics:
10-3D sheep
-3D rope coils (www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/rope-coil-3d-model-1143102)
3- quotes on the wall
1-message: "You are trapped. Your men will die"
1-Assignment graphic scroll
Audio:
-bats
-heart beating
-racing heart
-ambient sound
-Entrance narration 1: (Hermes appears to inspire hope for escape): needs dialog (re. find rope and sheep in the cave)
-Trigger 1 narration: (Blinding Polyphemus)
PART 3 WALL QUOTES: ESCAPING
- ...‘So, you ask me the name I’m known by, Cyclops? I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift as you’ve promised. Nobody—that’s my name. Nobody—so my mother and father call me, all my friends.’
- ...I dragged it from the flames, my men clustering round as some god breathed enormous courage through us all. Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point, straight into the monster’s eye they rammed it hard...
- ...I took them three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man while the two rams either side would shield him well. So three beasts to bear each man...