Myth Into History, Week 5: Classical History I [Thurs/1st Period, Danger Shop]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

As soon as students entered the Danger Shop today, they would find themselves just inside the gates of a city under siege. Burned-out buildings, armed battlements, the works. Most notable, however, was the presence of a giant wooden horse (that for some reason looked more like wicker) in the center of the courtyard; the students' tables were set up under the looming watchful . . . lack of eyes in the horse's head. Yes, it's a huge f**k-off horse, okay?

Janice was leaning against the horse's foreleg, smoking a cigar. "Welcome to Troy," she said once everyone had arrived. "Ancient accounts are filled with stories of great battles, and the Trojan War is one of them. Probably the most famous. Now, women really got screwed over by most versions of the story."

Under her breath, she added, "You'd think that Gabrielle would've set her buddy Homer straight on the record, but nooooo . . ." Annoyed, she jabbed her cigar into the Horse, completely forgetting the stogey was lit, and didn't notice the growing wisps of smoke as she turned back around to address the class.

"If you've ever heard the phrase 'the face that launched a thousand ships,' you've pretty much heard of Helen of Troy. They say the Trojan War started because of her, and more scheming on the parts of Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite. The three goddesses had Paris judge who was the fairest of all of them, and Helen -- a mere mortal -- beat all three of them in his opinion. So of course they couldn't have this, and had her run off and ditch her husband Menelaus to go to Troy with Paris. Menelaus wouldn't stand for it, naturally, and went after her -- but of course then it stopped being about Helen, and turned into a big stupid pissing contest. Men. Go figure . . ."

That was when Janice realized the Horse was on fire. "Dammit! It's a war tactic, not a -- wrong culture!" She went into a flurry of remote-button punching and finally, somehow, managed to put the fire out and reset the Horse.

Which, for some reason now had a small army of carpet sweepers standing next to it.

Several Greek soldiers popped out of the horse, grabbed the carpet sweepers, and clambered back inside. Shortly after, muffled choruses of voices could be heard from within. "Hod-d-d-d-d-d, hod-d-d-d-d-d," they seemed to be saying.

Janice stared. "What the hell?"

Two soldiers hopped out again. "Hello!" said one of them, waving. "I'm Agamemnon. This is Ajax. We were just doing a spot of cleaning."

"What. The. Hell?" Janice said again, gesturing wildly with the remote as she jabbed the buttons to send them away. "Greeks with British accents . . . stupid computer. Anyway. Take a few minutes to read the chapter in your books about the Trojan War, and then you get to do a brainstorming session to prep for next week's activity."

Once everyone had finished reading, she hit the remote again and transformed the room into what appeared to be a small, well-stocked, but very rustic sort of warehouse. Racks of barrels lined two of the walls, worktables and benches were set up and decently spaced out even though this was long before ergonomics studies and OSHA regulations, and large wicker baskets packed with bottles and corks were scattered across the floor.

"You all get to be villagers from a small place that makes its living bottling seltzer water. You're going to be attacked by a warlord any day now, and there aren't any warriors in the area to help bail you out." She very pointedly didn't mention that this would be because Callisto had poisoned Xena. She didn't need the inevitable headache that would result. "All you have is a warehouse full of soda, bottles, and whatever other ordinary village items are around. Improvise yourselves a battle plan, and we'll see how it works out next week."

[OOC: Class Info Post. OCD is up!]

Comments

Sign In [MiH, Week 5]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"Bye, we're leaving now, you've won, bye!"

Re: Sign In [MiH, Week 5]

[grenfelzer.livejournal.com]

Carmela Rodriguez

Re: Sign In [MiH, Week 5]

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

Evelyn Carnahan

Re: Sign In [MiH, Week 5]

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack Addy

During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"This! This is what we think of you! You bastards!"

Talk, take notes, you know the drill.

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

Evie watched Janice's stogie with the hypnotized fascination of a swallow for a snake after that first fire. Also, she realized she had another reason to never learn to smoke: she was ever so likely to set fire to something and end up destroying whatever was around her.

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack stood next to Evie. "Hey."

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

Evie wrenched her gaze away from the cigar, and smiled at Zack. "Hullo! How have you been, Zack?"

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[sensethevisions]

Okay, so Phoebe did think she was ready to be back in class... right?

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"I've heard a few different versions of what happened actually." Billy said.

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

Cedric took notes. And drew pictures to hopefully better help him with a battle plan.

Re: During The Lecture/Reading Time [MiH, Week 5]

[likethegun]

Sam took quite a few notes as the lecture went on.

Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"Helen, are you still in there? You bastard!"

Mod whatever perfectly ordinary, mundane bits of equipment you want: there's the obvious bottles and corks, barrels of soda, rope, tables and chairs, sewing equipment, ancient kitchen utensils, etc.

. . . no, you can't use the carpet sweepers, unless you think you can drive off a warlord by going "Hod-d-d-d-d!"

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"Warlords attacking. Well. Um." Evie looked at what they had, feeling a tad desperate. This class did that to her. "Perhaps we can make Greek fire from this lot? Somehow?"

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[likethegun]

"Can we do that?" Sam asked. "Make fire like that, I mean. Because that would be awesome...and I sound too much like my brother so I'm going to shut up now."

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack picked up a pitchfork and weighed it in his hands. "This might be useful."

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

"Are you thinking that we could throw it?" Evie reached out for one of the tines, then very smartly put both hands behind her back.

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[joxertehmighty.livejournal.com]

Joxer shrugged. "I don't think I really need a plan. I can probably fend them all off just improvising and being my usual mighty self."

Re: Brainstorming: Fizzy Battle Plans [MiH, Week 5]

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Improvising would make harder for them to figure out your plan."

Talk to Janice [MiH, Week 5]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"Tap tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap. Tap tap TAP TAP TAP. Hey! This one's hollow! Get it open!"

Talk to the crazy teacher if you are really that masochistic so desire.

Re: Talk to Janice [MiH, Week 5]

[grenfelzer.livejournal.com]

Carmela would like to be working on the assignment, really. It's just that...

"Uh, Dr. Covington?" she says, raising her hand while staring down at her right foot looking somewhat perplexed.

Re: Talk to Janice [MiH, Week 5]

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, Carmela, what is --" Janice follows her gaze down and makes a face whose contortions really can't be described in terms that follow the laws of physics. "There's a concrete block on your foot. Why is there a concrete block on your foot?"

OOC

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

"No Oversized Polynesian-Style Bamboo Horses were harmed during the production of this motion picture. However, many wicker lawn chairs gave their lives. "

Seriously, this kind of strayed badly from Xena canon, but I started writing up the lesson on the Trojan War and it proved physically impossible for me to resist the urge to borrow from Eddie Izzard's Trojan War (http://www.auntiemomo.com/cakeordeath/glorioustranscript.html#trojan) routine. Which is from his show Glorious, and I highly recommend it.

Interaction from me may be a bit low during the daytime this week since my computer at work died AGAIN (and maybe this time, three blown hard drives later, the IT guys will finally believe me when I tell them it's a motherboard issue) and I am once again stuck with a slow temporary machine.

Re: OOC

[sensethevisions]

BTW, you so rock for being able to incorporate Eddie Izzard into an FH class. :)

*looks forward to "Do you have a flag?" routines*

Re: OOC

[drjcovington.livejournal.com]

I haven't been thinking about that, nooooOOOOOooooo . . .