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amari_zBwaaahhaha. I don't normally bother much with these things, but with a title like "Which Historical Lunatic Are You?" how could I resist? The questions themselves were enough to induce choking ("Were your final days replete with vast quantities of fruit or wigs?"--I have to figure out what that is about).
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Hey, I'd be Caligula if it meant I got to sail around on those Nemi pleasure ships.
Here's their amusing bio of Caligula:
Third Emperor of Rome and ruler of one of the most powerful empires of all time, your common name means "little boots". Although you only reigned for four years, brief even by Roman standards, you still managed to garner a reputation as a cruel, extravagant and downright insane despot. Your father died in suspicious circumstances, you were not the intended heir, and one of your first acts as Emperor was to force the suicide of your father-in-law. Your sister Drusilla died that same year; faced with allegations that your relationship with her had been incestuous, you responded, bafflingly, by declaring her a god.
You revived a number of unpopular traditions, including auctions of properties left over from public shows. When a senator fell asleep at one such auction, you took each of his nods as bids, selling him 13 gladiators for a vast sum. You attempted to have your horse, Incitatus, made into a consul and hence one of the most powerful figures in Rome. It was granted a marble stable with jewels and a staff of servants. At one point you forced your comrade Macro to kill himself - in much the same vein as your father-in-law - accusing him of being his wife's pimp. You, of course, were having an affair with said wife at the time.
Things went from bad to worse. When supplies of condemned men ran short in the circus, you had innocent spectators dragged into the arena with the lions to fill their place. You claimed mastery of the sea by walking across a three-mile bridge of boats in the Bay of Naples; kissed the necks of your lovers, whispering sweet nothings like "This lovely neck will be chopped as soon as I say so,"; dallied with your sister's lover and made her pull her unborn child out of her womb prematurely. Towards the end of your reign, you had a golden statue of yourself made and dressed each day in the same clothes you yourself wore. When you eventually died, the terrified people of Rome refused to believe that such a cruel reign could ever end, and believed you to be alive for years afterwards.
****
To illustrate that I'm also a present day lunatic, and speaking of fruit, I was trying to recall some Malory from the dim recesses of my brain, and wasn't there a story where someone tries to murder Gawain by poisoning apples? Apples were selected as the murder weapon because Gawain was apparently a notorious fancier of fruit. As I recall, Guinevere was throwing a party (to pretend she wasn't upset that she'd had yet another row with Lancelot--accusing him of being a slut because he was avoiding her after the Grail quest and rescuing damsels--and thrown him out of Camelot?). In an attempt to win over Gawain she had a lot of fruit on hand for him, which gave the cunning murderer his opportunity (but alas, there was at least one other knight who liked apples, so murder plot foiled again (and didn't the poor fruit-eater actually explode?) ).
I could be making all this up, but if I'm not, I wonder why it wasn't Gawain eating the apple in the movie? I don't recall any stories of Tristan and fruit. I suppose I could check the book, but as much as I love the stories, and as much as I love making fun of the language and pure crack-headedness of it all, the thought of wading through all 300 bazillion pages of Malory again is not appealing presently. And I guess all this would be supposing the filmmakers had gotten even the basic historical facts of their theory right, much less had the presence of mind to tease us with such references (but it still would have been cool to have Gawain eating the apple).
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Hey, I'd be Caligula if it meant I got to sail around on those Nemi pleasure ships.
Here's their amusing bio of Caligula:
Third Emperor of Rome and ruler of one of the most powerful empires of all time, your common name means "little boots". Although you only reigned for four years, brief even by Roman standards, you still managed to garner a reputation as a cruel, extravagant and downright insane despot. Your father died in suspicious circumstances, you were not the intended heir, and one of your first acts as Emperor was to force the suicide of your father-in-law. Your sister Drusilla died that same year; faced with allegations that your relationship with her had been incestuous, you responded, bafflingly, by declaring her a god.
You revived a number of unpopular traditions, including auctions of properties left over from public shows. When a senator fell asleep at one such auction, you took each of his nods as bids, selling him 13 gladiators for a vast sum. You attempted to have your horse, Incitatus, made into a consul and hence one of the most powerful figures in Rome. It was granted a marble stable with jewels and a staff of servants. At one point you forced your comrade Macro to kill himself - in much the same vein as your father-in-law - accusing him of being his wife's pimp. You, of course, were having an affair with said wife at the time.
Things went from bad to worse. When supplies of condemned men ran short in the circus, you had innocent spectators dragged into the arena with the lions to fill their place. You claimed mastery of the sea by walking across a three-mile bridge of boats in the Bay of Naples; kissed the necks of your lovers, whispering sweet nothings like "This lovely neck will be chopped as soon as I say so,"; dallied with your sister's lover and made her pull her unborn child out of her womb prematurely. Towards the end of your reign, you had a golden statue of yourself made and dressed each day in the same clothes you yourself wore. When you eventually died, the terrified people of Rome refused to believe that such a cruel reign could ever end, and believed you to be alive for years afterwards.
****
To illustrate that I'm also a present day lunatic, and speaking of fruit, I was trying to recall some Malory from the dim recesses of my brain, and wasn't there a story where someone tries to murder Gawain by poisoning apples? Apples were selected as the murder weapon because Gawain was apparently a notorious fancier of fruit. As I recall, Guinevere was throwing a party (to pretend she wasn't upset that she'd had yet another row with Lancelot--accusing him of being a slut because he was avoiding her after the Grail quest and rescuing damsels--and thrown him out of Camelot?). In an attempt to win over Gawain she had a lot of fruit on hand for him, which gave the cunning murderer his opportunity (but alas, there was at least one other knight who liked apples, so murder plot foiled again (and didn't the poor fruit-eater actually explode?) ).
I could be making all this up, but if I'm not, I wonder why it wasn't Gawain eating the apple in the movie? I don't recall any stories of Tristan and fruit. I suppose I could check the book, but as much as I love the stories, and as much as I love making fun of the language and pure crack-headedness of it all, the thought of wading through all 300 bazillion pages of Malory again is not appealing presently. And I guess all this would be supposing the filmmakers had gotten even the basic historical facts of their theory right, much less had the presence of mind to tease us with such references (but it still would have been cool to have Gawain eating the apple).
