The Strand

The value of sequels today and in BCE EDITORS NOTE: May contain spoilers to Spiderman: Brand New Day A week ago, I spent 45 minutes bawling my eyes out with my friends and 30 strangers. Spiderman: Brand New Day was spectacular, despite having not watched the Spiderman franchise since Tom Holland was a fresh 21-year-old, oblivious to all the heartbreaking Zendaya-brainwiping context.

“These forgetful spirits hope for resurrection / into bodies. They start to want to see the sky.” – The Aeneid, Vergil, trans. Shadi Bartsch It is a well-known, undisputed, oft-discussed fact that it is easy to die at the University of Toronto. When each exam season draws near, you can feel the gloomy wisps of spectres floating in the brisk winter air, lingering on school grounds, trailing your stress like tendrils of warning smoke breaching any ease of mind.

Tell him, O Muses, of how I toiled and longed for thousands of days. Awaiting a battered figure, a king I  forget was crowned. Over the sea, I cast an empty gaze. Stories travel across the land about islands of innocents set ablaze. My son grows into something familiar, rising to the Dawn as I shrink to the ground. Tell him, O Muses, of how I toiled and longed for thousands of days. The bard sings of a warrior at sea—how his body remains, yet his mind decays.

Calliope Voice like a salved bruise, I sing atop the heavens, Chanting a sweet breeze Agalope Echoing the western sea, The victor of song mocks me Leucosia This golden goddess This winged sage to brave men, This pure counsellor, Ligeia Recites tales of our defeat, Voyagers breaking our siege Calliope Avert the poison, Seeped in those cold melodies, Await such tainted fangs Agalope She thunders above the ship, Laden with hungry bruisers Leucosia With our morphing skin, Deems us courtesans of...

Why the film adaptation’s “real-world” approach is an epic failure Requiring a box office revenue of at least $625 million just to break even, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is currently the most expensive film made this year. With a production budget of approximately $350 million CAD and a marketing budget of $175 million CAD, Nolan’s film has been met with huge anticipation. Its all-star cast is known for exceptional performances, and this film delivers on its promise of quality acting.

Does reading the text of Homer’s epic really help us Ody-See more clearly? Sing to me muse, of a buy-one-get-one-free hardcover book deal. Bookstore sales of The Odyssey have skyrocketed recently; overall annual print sales of Homer’s epic have increased by 76% in the United States. Sales for copies of The Odyssey, along with its brutality-laden brother, The Iliad, have contributed ￡980 000 (over $1.8 million CAD) in poetry sales so far this year in the United Kingdom.

To those who take an odyssey, five days a week Tell me about a complicated scholar. Tell me how they wandered and were lost when they departed from the campus of Saint George. Where they went, who they met, and how they worked to bring themselves back home. Now, Domesticus, resident of Saint George, learn of their troubles. Find the beginning. At nightfall, Commuterus set their course eastward to return to Scarborough.

Sing to me, oh Muse of a child so cherished in her world set to perish, Hades’ eyes dark and bruised. He watches, weeping, ignoring the man who stands still on black sand, her eyes closed, sleeping. Iron tears from a lyre sung — a lonely breath a time to come — shed for her, who has lost her sun. Her skin stays warm in her mother’s cooling sheets. This last time she feels her heat, with tomorrow’s wake, forlorn. Greeted by Charon, he cannot look her way — for the tears of Hades’ dismay.

Excerpts from an alternate ending to The Odyssey—found in a trailer, buried under SparkNotes sheets and Cheeto dust Odysseus lets the sound of the bow snapping back reverberate for a second too long before trying, again and again, to bend it in place. He can’t get it up. We close in on his fingers, all slippy and sweaty. Gross. Odysseus: I swear this has, like, never happened to me before. * * * Someone goes to get the bow and Odysseus kind of leans back. He laughs, but he’s also not letting go.

A professor and a student walk out of a movie theater Everyone’s talking about the latest Odyssey adaptation, and I’m here with the established Professor Squidward as well as Alex: aged 15, part-time high school student, full-time weightlifter, and 2023 national League of Legends semifinalist. Spoilers included. So, first question: How well does the movie adapt the source material? Professor S: It’s… not a good adaptation of The Odyssey. Nolan uses the text like using a car as a skateboard.