Berserker

discs that compliment the image. Early examples include Devo’s “Beautiful World” which was shaped like an astronaut head, Guns N Roses “Nighttrain” which was in the shape of a suitcase, Joe Strummer “Love Kills” shaped like a gun and Gary Numan’s “Berserker” which was shaped like Gary Numan’s…

Satire in Monty Python’s Holy Grail In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a group of knights, led by King Arthur, go on a quest, given to them by God, to find the Holy Grail. After a little debate, they split up, going on their own way, but eventually find each other again, where they approached the Bridge of Death. Once getting past the guardian of the Bridge, King Arthur and Sir Bedevere the Wise find the Grail, just to have the police apprehend them. This movie is a significant,…

Beowulf and a Beast: The Epic Hero in Beowulf and Grendel “Ah, ah, it must be a terrible burden, though, being a hero-glory reaper, harvester of monsters!” Grendel proclaimed (Gardner 84). From this quote, Gardner certainly does not seem to have much reverence for the epic hero. On the surface, this appears to be just one of the many differences between John Gardner’s Grendel and Beowulf, the sixth century epic poem that inspired Gardner’s novel. Beowulf, the namesake and protagonist of the…

Adventure, combat, talking swords, gods, giants, and other worlds all come together (to be continued). If one is looking for the previously stated in a book, then The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan is a fantastic reading choice, for it takes one into another world, a world of myths that are reality, problems humans are unaware of, but must be solved to save them. In this book, Thor’s hammer has been lost, and must be recovered by Magnus Chase and his friends. If the hammer is not recovered,…

Johnathan Shay’s book Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character compares the Vietnam soldier’s experience of war with Achilles experience in Homer’s Iliad. Shay's argument is that "the nature of catastrophic war experiences not only cause lifelong disabling psychiatric symptoms but can ruin a good character." Both the Vietnam War and Trojan War changed the psyche of the soldiers that had experienced traumatic events. These soldiers from two distinct time periods…

commotion. Still naked from their first night of union, Joth peaked outside the leather tent flap. “What did we miss?” he remarked. Rinka pulled him back inside. “Can’t the war wait a few more minutes?” she teased. “I like to have you inside me once again.” Joth returned a loving smile and then threw his tunic over his head. “Oh, how I’d like that but I think something really important is happening.” She shook her head and returned the smile. “Oh, go ahead,” she sighed.…

A Comparison Between Authors from Vastly Different Eras At first glance, you might assume that authors living and writing on topics existing over 150 years apart would be so vastly different with no realistic chance of sharing a common message. Each author lived in distinct time periods with marked differences in writing styles, religious backgrounds, and motivations. The daily habits and obstacles of each would be entirely foreign to the other had they ever had the opportunity to meet. One…

Captivity in Different Eras At first glance, one might assume that an author publishing her works in 1682 would have no realistic chance of sharing a common message as a man publishing his story one hundred and seventy-three years later in 1855. However, captivity narratives have been popular topics throughout history which enjoyed a wide readership. Despite their separation in in the gulf of time, Mary Rowlandson and Herman Melville shared similar experiences in witnessing captivity at the…

Irish and Scandinavian myths intertwine, in terms of legendary heroes. In the Irish myth:Cuchulain of Ireland, the Ulster Cycle contains one of the most important stories such as The Cattle Raid at Cooley, which celebrates the deeds of the semi divine Cuchulain. Cuchulain becomes a legendary war hero, who overcomes many adverse figures as well as the characters he challenges himself, and whose prophecy is to one day dye by another individual. In the Scandinavian myths, The Volsungs or…

Between 1916 and 1949 a few other companies offered colored shellac discs, including a blue-shellacked series from Columbia during the 1930s and chocolate colored pressings from a budget label “Perfect Records” prior to the 1930s. In 1949 when RCA Victor launched their 45-RPM format they began color-coding their records based on genre calcification. They classifications are as follows: Black Vinyl – Pop Pressings (Prefix 47) Green Vinyl – Country Music (Prefix 48) Red Vinyl - “Red Seal”…