Seven Against Thebes

Some time however many months ago I picked up a copy of Seven Against Thebes, a translation of the Aeschylus play at the local Goodwill. I put it on the bookshelf where the books go that I haven't read yet. Earlier today I needed something to read while I was taking a bath, because otherwise I would be left to my thoughts, and allah knows where they might roam. So I grabbed the book off the shelf and almost made it all the way through the introduction before the water began to get cold and it was time to get out. None of which means anything until I found myself with a couple of hours to kill before school got out, so I decided to treat myself to a movie (I am working nights these days, with more free time to myself during the day).

Our TV options are limited to the Roku box attached to our television. Luckily I live with an academic-in-training so we're eligible for Kanopy, a site that...well, hell, I'll just let them tell you. 

Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video platform for public libraries and educational institutions that offers viewers a large collection of award-winning films and documentaries.

And life being what passes for life during this our lifetimes, I've got over 100 movies in our watchlist that I haven't seen. Today, with two hours to waste, I decided to dive into the first part of the Out series, a 1971 film directed by Jacques Rivette that, in its entirety lasts nearly 13 hours, or about the time it takes to walk from Boston, Massachusetts to Worcester., or drive from Tucson, Arizona to San Francisco. Anyway, the opening scene features a group of actors rehearsing a scene from a play. And the play is Seven Against Thebes. The world we live in is meaningful, in the sense that seemingly random events can coalesce into something that resembles coherence.  And it is meaningless in the sense that this coherence ultimately isn't worth shit. Here's a trailer for the film, if you're interested. I'm about a half hour in, and I can say it's perfectly fine so far. Though it is jarringly uncanny watching a 1971 film in HD (my partner's dad got us a new TV when our TV broke!), but that's a post for another time.