Pathetic Fallacy

Greece is the word

This post is a companion piece to Sophomore Lit episode 187, Plato’s The Apology. Why not listen to that podcast before reading?

As we mentioned on our Apology episode, Marina and I recently traveled to Athens, Greece. The trip was a surprise birthday present she arranged for me. Marina is the planner of the two of us, and if there’s one piece of advice I would give to my fellow Autistics, it would be to marry a planner. Your life will be 256% better¹. The trip was something we had discussed for a long time as an intersection of our professions: hers as a philosopher specializing in Plato, and mine as an art historian. However, my areas of interest are 19th and 20th century art and popular culture, and my last formal study of ancient art was one of the final classes I took for my M.A. waaay back in 1993. But actually being on the Acropolis brought back a flood of memories of lectures about Phidean sculpture and the thesis I wrote about the Museum of Fine Art’s late classical fragmentary statue of Leda and the Swan (or perhaps Nemesis and the Swan, but that’s a story for another day). This essay is notes on our visits to the Acropolis and the Ancient Agora. We saw many other sites in and around Athens, but in this essay I’m focused on places that are relevant to Soph Lit listeners.

Panorama — The Acropolis, with the Parthenon to the left and the Erechtheion to the right. At the rear is the monumental gate to the Acropolis, the Propylaea. Photo by Marina McCoy.

While most people have heard the words Acropolis and Parthenon, it might be good to lay down a few terms: The Athenian Acropolis is a rocky plateau that was on the edge of the ancient city of Athens and is currently at the center of Athens, surrounded by the tourist district. The word “acropolis” actually means “highest point in the city,” and many cities had acropolises that were used for sacred spaces and citadels, not just Athens, but today when someone says “the Acropolis,” we know which one they mean. The Parthenon (447–432 B.C.E.) is one of several buildings that were built on the Acropolis in the 5th century BCE, and is the famous example of ancient Greek architecture, if not the most famous example of a building in the world. The Parthenon is a Doric temple that once housed an enormous chryselephantine (ivory and gold) statue of Athena, the patron god of Athens, designed by Phidias, the sculptor credited with developing the high classical style. He also designed the architectural statuary for the Parthenon, including the metopes, frieze, and most importantly the statues in the pediment which were stolen by the English nobleman Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, a.k.a. Lord Elgin in 1803 and for God’s sake, Britain, just give Greece their damn marbles back already. Sheesh.

The building of the Parthenon was designed by the architects Iktinos and Callicrates, and classicists since the 18th Century have lauded it as perhaps the greatest achievement of Western Civilization, and a testament to the uniquely mathematical aesthetics of the ancient Greeks. The Parthenon is very beautiful and its construction was a marvel. However, the oft-told story that the building’s proportions are based around the Golden Mean are largely the fabrication of 18th century German psychologist Adolf Zeising, who was obsessed with this proportion and saw it everywhere. The Golden Mean, denoted φ, is about 1: 1.618 (φ is irrational); it means that two numbers a and b, where a > b, have the the same ratio as the ratio of (a + b) to a. Look, it’s pretty heady, don’t worry about the specifics. The important thing is that Zeising saw this ratio in all kinds of things, and believed that it was the most beautiful mean and that it stirred a sense of awe and beauty in viewers even if they didn’t know the math, and Zeising was enormously influential to aesthetic theory at the time, and so people like to claim that φ is everywhere, from the Mona Lisa to tree growth and especially in the Parthenon. The trouble with this theory is that it is entirely made up and there’s no evidence that Greek architects of the fifth century had any concept of the Golden Mean, in spite of what Donald in Mathemagic Land would have you believe. It turns out it’s surprisingly easy to superimpose a diagram of the Golden Mean (or, for that matter, a Pythagorean Spiral, or a Fibonacci Sequence) over a photo of anything and claim that it’s proof of the Mathematical Basis of Everything.

Still from *Donald in Mathmagic Land* (1959). C’mon, Donald, that’s not even close to a Golden Mean.

But none of this should diminish the remarkable achievement of the Parthenon, or of the other buildings that were built on the Parthenon during the space of a few decades from about 440 to about 400 B.C.E. The Erechtheion (421–406 B.C.E.) is the site of the remarkable Caryatids, enormous sculptures of maidens supporting the weight of the porch roof². My own favorite is probably the tiny Temple of Athena Nike (c. 420 B.C.E.), a small square Ionic temple that sits on the very edge of the Acropolis, facing outwards. Long-time listeners to Sophomore Lit may remember the episode on Thucydides’s Peloponnesian War, in which Daniel Daughetee and I discussed the way the Athenian statesman and military leader, Pericles, used funds from the Delian League of cities to pay for all this marble and gold and ivory and whatnot. These funds had been pledged as a reserve to fund the League in case of further attacks by the Persian Empire, and Pericles’s appropriation of these funds to benefit Athens are often seen as one of the major complaints fueling the war. But when Marina and I visited the Acropolis Museum and saw the exhibitions focused on the Persian destruction of Athens in 480 B.C.E., we found ourselves for the first time sympathizing with Pericles, who I’d always imagined as something of a dudebro. The shame and despair of the loss of the previous Acropolis was still living memory. I can see how skimming some funds from the League would be appealing.

Caryatids — South porch (“the Porch of Maidens”) of Erechtheion. Photo by me.

As magnificent as the Acropolis is, I think it was more affecting for us both to visit the Ancient Agora, situated in the city below. The Agora was a common area of land and buildings that combined both city operations and commerce. Being a direct democracy (for free male Athenian citizens, at least) Athens did not have a government per se, but various councils and official functions had buildings in and among the stoæ, which were long covered colonnades where merchants could rent space. Then, as now, the political health of the polis was entwined with economic activity. It was in the Agora the Socrates did the majority of his work, engaging directly with people, posing questions, picking apart beliefs. And it was here in the Agora that he was jailed before execution. Today most of the Agora is crumbling rows of foundation stones, and no one knows where the courtroom in which Socrates was tried was, but archeologists have a pretty good guess of where his cell was, in a structure on the northeast side. Close by are the remains of a water clock: in the Apology, Socrates refers to the practice of timing a prisoner’s defense speech by such a device, although whether this one is the one to which he refers is unknown. If you are the type to get emotional over these things, you will get emotional there.

One final note—the Agora site is full of sleepy cats and flocking birds, including my favorite bird, the Eurasian Magpie, which is perhaps the smartest of the corvids (the family containing crows and ravens). This bird doesn’t inhabit North America, but in Europe and especially Greece they’re everywhere, and I spent much of my time trying to get a perfect picture of one, which to native Athenians would be like someone trying to photograph a pigeon.

And you have to believe this statistic because ASDers are so good at math. That’s how it works, don’t even. ↩︎
Or at least, reproductions of these statues. The originals are in the Acropolis Museum. All but one and guess who stole that one. ↩︎
Yes, I futzed with this in Photoshop, so sue me. ↩︎

Measure twice, cut once

In spite of my resolutions to write and podcast on something that more resembles an actual schedule, I have done neither recently. But my plea to the dozen of you that read this blog is to be forgiving: last week I had in-patient nose surgery to correct a deviated septum. In my case it was less deviated and more full-on deviant. Often, the septum can be corrected by septal resection: simply removing a portion of the cartilage and calling it a day; but my deviation was so extensive that doing this alone would cause my nose to collapse, and while that might be hilarious at first, it’s medically inadvisable; so my surgery was a septoplasty¹, which is like a rhinoplasty, but less sexy, in that the nose gets shored up, either with bits of the patient’s cartilage or with a donor’s².

I’m not over-sharing this out of a desire for sympathy while I convalesce (although flowers, chocolates, and bottles of scotch are welcome). Nor am I using solipsism as a crutch for not having other things to write about (not much, anyway). What I want to write about here is the way that, for all of the advancements in pharmaceuticals, imaging systems, and assistive robotics, surgery—and medicine in general—remains low-tech at heart.

Reconstructing a septum has many similarities to carpentry: it’s a matter of cutting, positioning, and tacking. My surgeon had to use a hammer and chisel (or whatever they’re called in a surgical context) to pop my septum’s cartilage free from the bone. To allow my nostrils to heal in the proper open shape, I have had stents stuck in my sinuses like tiny cannoli tubes. Similarly, my post-surgery care has also been humble: flushing my nose with salt and water, and strapping a bit of gauze under the nostrils to soak up whatever falls out on its own due to gravity.

Back in the early 90s, when cable television kept adding odd networks in an attempt to convince viewers they were getting a bargain, there was a channel that consisted almost entirely of videos of surgical procedures, and since as I child I had wanted to be a surgeon, I watched these late at night³ with fascination. The one I remembered most vividly was a hip replacement in which the head of the femur was to be replaced with a polyethylene and steel prosthetic. The surgeons popped the bone free from its joint so that it stuck out like a rib in a rack of lamb, and then used a hacksaw to remove to worn-out part.

But the part of the procedure that was most memorable was when they hollowed the upper shaft of the femur so that the stem of the prosthetic could be inserted and cemented in place. One of the surgeons reamed out the femur using a long hand rasp, the kind you might have kicking around in a toolbox in the garage. I was shocked that such an imprecise tool, powered entirely by hand, was being used on a person. Recently I discussed this video with my son, who is his fourth year of med school, and he seemed unfazed, saying that it was about par for an orthopedic surgery, where so many involve mallets, saws, and screws.

Actually, I find it oddly comforting that at the end of the day we are made of physical stuff, and that there are people who have developed the skills to repair that stuff physically. It takes an enormous amount of knowledge, it takes substantial resources, and it takes procedures that have been developed painstakingly through generations. But it also takes a skilled, steady hand, patience, and pride of craft. It takes someone breaking things and sticking them together with stitches, screws, and glue. And I am lucky to have had the opportunity to get broken and fixed by a pro.

Because nothing is ever easy, “Septoplasty” is sometimes used to refer to the removal of cartilage alone, or to the harvesting of said cartilage, or to the subsequent reconstruction, or to the whole enchilada of these procedures. And here I thought medical terms were all about precision. ↩︎
In my case, my own cartilage was enough, so sadly I can’t now lay claim to a Frankenose. ↩︎
I worked second shift. The joys of grad school! ↩︎

Never the same game twice

My last essay was a critique of nostalgia, and so to mix things up this post will be a discussion of something from my youth for which I have a great deal of affection, and that is Parker Brothers graphic design from the 1970s. This is admittedly a niche interest, even for me, but I hope you’ll be indulgent. Perhaps you, too, will come to love these beautiful and strange designs.

From around 1970 to 1980, the Salem, Massachusetts-based Parker Brothers (now a brand of Hasbro) published games whose innovative and fanciful designs drew inspiration from Pop Art, Op Art, and Madison Avenue advertising. They had boxes, boards, and components that reflected the most current techniques of printing and plastics molding. They were witty, silly, and weird. The other main players in American games at the time were Milton-Bradley, whose art tended towards cartoony, corny, and flat designs, and Ideal, whose games (like Mousetrap) were mostly showcases for their novel plastic components.

Parker Brothers design stood out for its style and sophistication, and even as a young nerd I could see that it was special. In fact, I believe they were my introduction, at the age of seven, to the whole concept of graphic design. This isn’t to say that the games were good in the sense of being fun or engaging to play; a lot of them were re-skinned versions of the basic race-around-the-board type that had been popular since the Uncle Wiggly Game. But they looked amazing and they were different.

There’s not a lot of sources of information about the company, but there is one very interesting book, The Game Makers : the Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit, which was written by Philip Orbanes in 2004 and published by Harvard Business School Press. From this book I learned that starting with its founding in 1883, Parker Brothers was a family owned operation, and its ethos was decidedly conservative. It produced child-friendly tabletop games that it purchased from independent creators, with little to no research and development and with a small factory that printed simple boards and boxes and made components from simple materials.

Along the way they picked up some major properties, like Monopoly and Cluedo, which was rebranded in America as Clue, but they didn’t develop these in-house and they didn’t really have a marketing strategy of any kind. But all that changed in 1968 when the company was sold to General Mills—yes, that General Mills, of Cheerios fame. After the departure of one president who wanted to cash out and retire, and the death of another who died of lung cancer, executive vice president Ranny Barton took the helm, and he immediately replaced the head of manufacturing and the head of sales. Orbanes writes:

In one fell swoop, Ranny Barton had changed Parker Brothers from a family-run, conservative operation to one now seeking high-flying M.B.A;s and marketing wizards in a quest to again double sales. Ranny […] would oversee a group of executives who were experts (165-166).

For the first time, the company had project leaders and marketing staff (largely on loan from General Mills). They brought in professionals in design, production, and printing. They bought a new state-of-the art press capable of much finer detail and vibrant colors, and they switched to making their components out of injection molded plastic. They were out to compete, and that meant to advertise on the new medium of television, and to be distinctive.

Okay, that’s more than enough backstory. Let’s look at some of the games from this time.

Waterworks (1972)

I remember coming across a used copy of this game at a school tag sale when I was in first grade. It looked like nothing else I’d ever seen. The cover art was sparse and focused on its photography. The text was set in Blippo, which seemed shockingly futuristic (it was actually designed in 1969). Most of all, the diegetic title on the manhole cover felt absolutely tangible. I splurged on the 30-cent purchase (my allowance at the time was a quarter).

Inside, the cards were wonderful, featuring detailed, photorealistic depictions of pipe fittings, handles, and spouts. They came in a draw/discard bathtub. And there were tiny brass monkey wrenches (perhaps using the existing Clue wrench molds). Everything was designed to be tactile and engaging.

Waterworks was designed by Mattiene Moustakas, although whether she designed the gameplay and components, or illustrated the cards, or both, is unclear. She certainly has a crazy resume. As for the play, a modern gamer will recognize it as a tile placing game such as Carcassonne; one chained one’s cards together to make a line from handle to spout, while playing pipe junctions and leaks on the opponent’s spread. It was…ok. It was certainly different from the card games I’d played, which were basically War and Solitaire¹.

The Inventors (1974)

I’ve mentioned before that the 1970s had a strange retro fad for “old-timey” things, by which I mean Americana from about 1890 to 1905. I am at a loss to explain this. It was a time of serious social problems, from race relations to stagflation. Perhaps there was a longing for a mythical past. The counterculture had drawn heavily on Art Nouveau in poster design, and maybe this trend was breaking into the wider culture. In any case, The Inventors was themed around patenting odd Victorian-looking inventions. The cover art was a highly staged studio shot with models in costumes with props. It featured many of the gadgets referenced in the game, as well as an inventor holding the game itself on his lap, and that kind of self-referentiality was catnip for me. (By the way, the text on the bottom right is in a typeface called Desdemona, which originated in Vienna and has always sounds drama club to me.)

The board features a pastiche of Victorian typography and day-glo colors. It features two different tracks to circle the board, but the filigrees and other ornamentation make it seem much more complex. There are handsome cards that feature descriptions of the various inventions to be patented. But the real star of the show is the centerpiece, “the incredible patent picker, move maker machine.”

This chunky bad boy held the metal clip-on numbers that were the game’s patents, and the “push-pull” dispenser never really worked because the invention cards would bend and fray when you stuck them in. But that didn’t matter, because the real attraction was the dice chute. You placed the dice into the hopper and hit a plunger and they would roll into the tub below, all while ringing a bell.

The Inventors was designed by Jeffrey Breslow, who was a student of Marvin Glass, a powerhouse designer that has created many of the most recognizable toys of the 20th century. Breslow, working with Glass, also designed Ants in the Pants. As for The Inventors’ gameplay: meh. It vaguely resembles Monopoly in that players attempt to succeed financially by developing their properties. But for the most part it’s circling the board in parallel to one’s opponents, with perishingly few actions that directly affect the other players.

The Magnificent Race (1975)

Another old-timey game, The Magnificent Race obviously takes inspiration from Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. The players must circumnavigate the globe using cars, ships, planes, and balloons. The gimmick of the game is a non-player-character (before there even were NPCs) called Dastardly Dan, represented by a purple marble, who can interfere in, and even win, the titular race.

The game’s board shares its typography, color palette, and even curvilinear forms with the Inventors’ board, and I’m pretty sure the same designer did both. One innovation to this board is the paths are not directional, and players may move there arrows in any direction. This may not seem like a particularly distinctive feature today, but it was unusual in 1975.

The components here pull out all the stops. There are big chunky arrows used as player markers, layout cards on which to place “advantages,” a pegboard to track overall progress around the world, and a spinner with colored marbles (including Dastardly Dan) that determines the winner of each of the series of small races that make up the game. Each player drops in a number of marbles based upon their advantages, the device is spun, and the first to drop into a divot near the center wins.

When everything is set up it’s pretty impressive. Fun fact: the groovy fake money for the game is printed on green and purple paper that isn’t shelf-stable. I know this because the bills in the copy I purchased for my kids many decades later crumble apart at the slightest touch.

The game was designed by Bill Cooke, who co-designed Boggle (also originally published by Parker Brothers). On his Facebook page Cooke has photos including the original schematic drawings for the spinner. But for me the real attraction is the scratchy, cartoony pen drawings, which recall some of the more elaborate designs of Milton Glaser. I would dearly love to know who the illustrator was for these.

As for the gameplay…this one’s a real let-down. All of the bells and whistles can’t hide that at its core it’s a random chase around the board. However, the spinner is a lot of fun, especially when the Dastardly Dan marble wins.

Bonkers (1978)

Or to refer to it by its full name as printed on the box, This Game is Bonkers. This was not a game my family owned but I played it at friends’ houses and it had an earworm-y television commercial that probably most Americans in their 50s can still sing today.

In the Bonkers graphic design Parker Brothers reached an apotheosis. For years they had been cribbing from the cheekier parts of Madison Avenue; here they went full-on Peter Max with shooting stars, lightning bolts, volumetric arrows, and exclamation points everywhere. The board starts pretty empty, but players fill in the spaces with U-shaped cards that change the flow of movement, directing tokens forwards and backwards and eventually into spaces that score or remove points.

The design couldn’t be more frenetic or bold. Unfortunately, the graphics promise a zanier time than the gameplay delivers. The mechanic of players altering the rules of the game as they go is a good one (see modern games like Fluxx), but that’s not really what’s happening here; instead, the normal clockwise race around the board is being lengthened by digressions. It’s still a fixed track. But man, does it look great.

Bonkers was designed by local boy Paul J. Gruen, who lived in West Newbury, just a half-hour drive from Parker Brothers. He also designed Pay Day (1972) for Parker Brothers, another game whose original graphics had pop art origins—in this case with illustrations resembling those of Heinz Edelmann, character designer for the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine (1968).

That’s enough

I could go on for hours, and it probably feels like I have already. There’s so many wonderful designs from this period: Vertigo (1970), Masterpiece (1970), 10-Four Good Buddy (1976), The Mad Magazine Game (1979). Even the original Boggle (1973) cover art is a crazy snapshot of a time of weird innovation: it didn’t actually feature the game².

As the 70s ended, Parker Brothers swung heavily into electronics with toys like Merlin (1978) and their own line of cartridges for the Atari 2600. And in 1985, General Mills merged the company with Kenner, then sold it to Tonka in 1987, before everything eventually got bought up by Hasbro in 1991. But for a brief time in the 70s, Parker Brothers was the one game company that was distinctive, brassy, different. The games themselves were hit-or-miss, but the design always landed.

As an aside, I learned the version of Solitaire I knew from my mom, which was a hard-as-nails version that I have never seen anyone else play, so I don’t even know what it would be called. Years later I would learn that most kids played Klondike, which I would scoff at as a baby game. ↩︎
Also it was set in Optima! ↩︎