by Greg Proops
He took a patch of riverbank at the head of the Nile and had it laid out in a grid with barley meal by his architect, Dinocrates, and had a modern sewage system designed by Crates. He planned for it to be his capital, Alexandria. It prospered and became the hub of learning where Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, and people from all over the Mediterranean and known world came to the university and library, which was a laboratory with the greatest collection of books, inventions, and tchotchkes in the ancient world. It became the seat of the Greek line of pharaohs known as the Ptolemies started by Alexander’s buddy and general, Ptolemy, which ended so splashily three hundred years later with that foxy political genius, Cleopatra.
Alexander and his troops were taken to see the Gordian Knot—a massive tangle of old cords tied to a wagon that could not be unwound. Legend stated that whoever could undo the knot would rule all of Asia. Alexander stepped up, and in one version of the story, pulled a peg and released the whole knot. In a more revealing version, he drew his sword and simply cut the bastard in two. Each version nods to an aspect of his duality: philosopher and student of Aristotle, or general with a big, hard weapon. He was both—and a restless conqueror, a dangerous threat to the safety of the world.
He brought Aristotle’s nephew, Callisthenes, with him as spin doctor and head propagandist. The retinue had physicians, engineers, scientists, and poets, as well as allies from the Balkans, Athens, and everywhere in Greece (except the Spartans, who wouldn’t join this mission). His was a curious mind contained in the perfectly formed body of a mad warrior. His favorite pastime in between battles was hunting wild animals to his own great physical danger. He thrived on danger and was convinced of his own place in the pantheon of immortals. He was what we would describe now as a maniac. Gods are sometimes scary.
While conquering, he met a hot Bactrian princess billed as the most beautiful Woman in all of Asia, Roxanne, and he married her forthwith. He was becoming a flaming Persian in dress and bearing. The Greeks he rode with found the Persians a bit prissy for their tastes. They had a custom called proskynesis, practiced when entering the presence of the king. It required kneeling and blowing kisses to your overlord. Alexander was wearing purple slippers, a white girdle, and a cape, and everyone had to bow. The men were doubtful. Trouble was brewing.
Drinking continued, cross words were exchanged. Alexander was insufferable, bragging that he did it all on his own as his companions argued they were there as well. Eventually, Cleitus got well loaded and said something like, “I saved your hide at Granicus.” Alexander ripped a spear from a guard and ran him through. Alexander was then overcome with remorse, but it is a bit tricky to unkill someone.
Alexander’s bedraggled army headed for India. His ambition to be king of Asia was all. But the troops had had enough. They’d been at this campaign of domination for eight years. They revolted and wouldn’t fight. Coenus, who commanded the far right of the infantry, the most exalted position on the battlefield, urged Alexander to stop, pull out, and head back to Macedon to rest in wealth and praise. (In Macedonia, Alexander would never have to buy a bowl of wine again.) Alexander himself went before the troops, but the old veterans broke down and would not yield. Alexander b’snitched out hard and threatened to go it alone if necessary—a proposal that was met with stony silence. Alexander became apoplectic and hid for days, but he relented. He never forgot or forgave his army for quitting on him, a fact that came back to haunt the army. Gods don’t dig being told no.
On the way out of India, they battled in a place now called Multan. The troops were not enthusiastic, so they dawdled and tarried. Alexander became fiercely impatient with their stalling, so he snagged a ladder and was the first one over the top into a horde of defenders. Now, alone at the top of the wall, beautiful and battered, white plume waving on his helmet, heedless of the extraordinary danger, he fights alone, for himself, for his mother, to best his father, to show up his men, for his wild dream of domination, for his vision of a Pan-Asian-Greek superworld, where he is worshiped as a deity. A magic place where he is vizier, chief philosopher, and timeless conqueror of Arabia, Carthage, and on and on. He was now by himself facing flurries of rocks and missiles. He took down his attackers, including the commander of the citadel. By now, his bodyguard Peucestas had made it over the wall, carrying Achilles’s shield from Troy. A rock struck Alexander in the head, and an arrow pierced his breastplate, going deep into his chest. Blood bubbling, he fought until he was overcome. His men had been scrambling up the wall after him, terrified of him facing the hordes alone. The ladders were breaking under their weight and men were boosting each other up on their shoulders. As they came up over the wall en masse and saw him prone, all fury broke loose. They sacked the town, killing everybody. He had his victory. Gods win big.
The army was convinced he was dead, and they knew that if he died and other generals took over that they were screwed. The troops were frightened as to their future, but Alexander wouldn’t allow this. Weak as a kitten, he was taken on a barge to where the troops were camped by the river. On his signal, the awning of his tent was thrown back and he thrust his arm into the air in salute, and the army cheered in wild relief. He was offered a stretcher, but he made a show of having his horse brought to him. He mounted up and rode off. Ptolemy, the future pharaoh of Egypt, actually chided him for being so reckless in a battle that meant nothing. Alexander reminded everyone that he was divine and made his mother, Olympias, into a goddess. He was as mad as ever.
The man-god had his revenge on the army for being so willfully disobedient. He took them homeward through the horrible desert of Gedrosia, where they lost tens of thousands. Once they made it back to Babylon, Alexander made his officers marry into Asian royalty; this mass wedding sealed the deal on his dream of a Greco-Asian empire. Hephaestion died suddenly. Alexander was devastated—he cut his hair and wept for days. The god-king was apparently not invulnerable. After a series of epic drinking parties, Alexander succumbed perhaps to malaria, perhaps to poisoning (no one seems to know), and went into a sort of coma. Men filed past him in his tent, and though he was too weak to talk to them, he nodded as they went by. His generals desperately pressed him to know who would take over this vast kingdom. “The strongest,” he whispered. He was thirty-two. Dead. And immortal.
A giant rolling mausoleum was built and pulled by hundreds of mules. Ptolemy hijacked it and took it to Egypt. There Alexander lay in a crystal coffin for hundreds of years. (Julius Caesar visited it in his thirties and wept, as he felt he had accomplished so little.)
Alexander is a national hero to Macedonians, a puzzlement to the Greeks, and a scourge to everyone else. His tactics are the basis for much military theory. But his own frailty despite his insistence on godhood did him in. Alexandria, Egypt, stood as a learning center for centuries and still stands. His empire broke up, and his wives and kids were assassinated in the aftermath, so that did not work out well at all. He ended like his hero Achilles—quite dead, quite young, still a rock star.
POETRY II
Charles Baudelaire
(1821–1867)
The bohemian’s bohemian, the romantic’s Romantic, Baudelaire led the life. After he was thrown out of military school, his mom, whom he adored, and his stepdad, a French army major, packed him off to India to cure him of being a free spirit, but he jumped ship and came back to Paris. When he eventually got his inheritance, he happily became a dandy and druggie. Baudelaire reinvented Romanticism with an eye to inflame and shock. He translated Poe (whom he worshiped) and wrote his own book of poetry, The Flowers of Evil. Some of the poems were labeled obscene and banned by the government for almost a hundred years. You will easily dig why: “When she had sucked the pith from my bones” is hot in any century. Monsieur B certainly loves mysterious cats. To him the cat is both an angel, or seraphim, and devil, or familiar. His rhyme catches the dance, the aroma, the spirituality, the feel, the fire of the little beast. Saucy mad poet waxing in the velvet recess of the dark; saucy you pouring an absi
nthe into a jade tumbler, easing onto a beaded cushion, and wearing reading gloves to pore over this. From the crypt to the bedroom, Baudelaire does it all. Come downstairs and see what was once forbidden. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest of all. Forbidden poetry almost has to be good.
Cats
All ardent lovers and all sages prize,
As ripening years incline upon their brows
The mild and mighty cats pride of the house
That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,
They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;
The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,
Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
When musing, they display those outlines chaste,
Of the great sphinxes stretched o’er the sandy waste,
That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,
And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,
Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
—Baudelaire, Cyril Scott, trans.,
The Flowers of Evil
MUSIC I
Soul and R&B
There is no greater musical achievement than soul. Unless you like polka, in which case, get up and get me a cabbage roll. Jazz swings and rock rolls, but soul is to-the-bone convincing. You can play it on the dance floor and the boudoir, and it works like medicine. From the blues comes the pain and from jazz and rhythm come all the zest. If you have to ask what soul is, you work for a giant cartel and like it.
Sometimes you might have the blues. Life is like that. We find that blues don’t cure the blues, soul does. Light up and dance as Sam Cooke sings “the cokes are in the icebox.”
WHAT’S GOIN’ ON
Marvin Gaye, 1971
The cover is the epitome of cool. Marvin, standing pensive in the rain, in a groovy leather jacket, thinking about God, war, mankind, and Womankind and whatnot. He is so good-looking it is movie star time. Marvin Gaye had been a soul star for years, the fair child at Berry Gordy’s Motown (he even married the boss’s sister), that amazing label that dominated the charts. But he got depressed after Tammi Terrell died, and then the Supremes took over his top spot with their unstoppable hit machine. He needed a change. Obie Benson from the Four Tops saw cops beating an antiwar protestor at the People’s Park riot in Berkeley, and it inspired him to react with “What’s Goin’ On.” He took the song to Marvin Gaye, and Marvin reworked it into his own thing. It was a hit and from there Marvin made his opus. The songs form a free-flowing soul symphony. The beat evolved from jam to jam, but the theme is one of love and togetherness. “What’s Goin’ On” and “Inner City Blues” lay down the law. Berry Gordy did not dig it on first hearing. He was confused by the word ecology in “Mercy Mercy Me,” as are all people who don’t believe in global warming. Being a record boss, he was not overly concerned with a movement that was trying to save the natural environment. Gordy thought everything could be solved with a tambourine and background singers.
Now Gordy claims it is the greatest album ever released on Motown, which is a big jump. If there is a soul symphony that catches the love and dread of the late ’60s, it is this record. Race riots, the Vietnam War, heroin use, and the civil war between the generations were blazing all over America. Marvin Gaye had the grace and taste to take it all on and make something groovy and beautiful. This album shouldn’t be on wax. It should be chiseled in marble. Painted in the sky by turquoise birds. Or maybe strung on a wreath of flowers.
GOLD
Ohio Players, 1976
The Ohio Players did not sit down and write songs; they got up and jammed them. Normally greatest-hits collections are not all that, but if you want it funky, this rips. Sugarfoot, the guitar player and singer, is the St. Sebastian of funk. His jacked-up teeth, two-necked axe, and beaded denim hat announce the cool. Tortured by fine ladies in skintight britches, unprepared for the heat of lovemaking, overwhelmed by the motion of the “Love Rollercoaster,” his cries of “Ow,” “Yow,” and decisively “Say what” will prove what many had simply guessed at: the funk can and will preside. “Love Rollercoaster” features what were thought at the time to be the screams of a Woman being killed in the studio; subsequently, we have ascertained this was not true (and at the least is a faulty business model). “Sweet Sticky Thing” is a slow jam you can coalesce to, if you follow my innuendo. Take the opportunity and make your life better. And if this all doesn’t sell you, many Ohio Players albums feature a naked lady on the cover artfully arranged. Say what, indeed.
SUPERFLY
Curtis Mayfield, 1972
Blaxploitation was a movie genre in the ’70s. They were low-budget action pictures written, directed, and starring black people. This was very new to American cinema—movies about black people that had content and real situations. Black men and Women as heroes and white people as ruthless bad guys. After decades playing maids, butlers, and eye-rolling comic relief, it was a pivotal moment for movies. Suddenly, the pictures had to catch up to the changing face of America. One of the best parts of any blaxploitation picture, aside from the plaid and tan coats and maxi jackets and huge cars and wild hats, is the soundtrack. Marvin Gaye did Trouble Man, James Brown did Black Caesar, Willie Hutch, The Mack, Bobby Womack, Across 110th Street, and so on. Curtis Mayfield was an established star when he did this score. Propulsive and urban and hip and all about life in the ghetto. Our hero, Priest, is a handsome drug dealer who is complicated like Shaft but wants to pull one more score so he can live his life. His theme is “Superfly.” The cops and the gangsters are out to get him, and he loves a Woman, but it is all so complex. Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack echoes all the action and hits all the emotions of the characters making this movie like a gangster operetta set in back rooms and streets with burning trash cans. Superfly is not the best blaxploitation movie, but this score is. Timeless. We can deal with rockets and dreams, but reality—what does it mean?
LADY SOUL
Aretha Franklin, 1968
She is a torrent of song, a mighty diva, activist, superstar, and maybe the greatest singer ever. She is the link between Ella and Whitney, between Esther Phillips and Chaka Khan, Odetta and Beyoncé. She did it all for herself and carries on being one big diva who earned the right through great work and sheer awesome vocal talent. It is hard to pick one Aretha Franklin album. Indeed, there cannot be a list of soul records without her. A church-trained singer with her sisters, her father was a minister and family friends with Dr. King. She had been recording since she was a teen. This record follows I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, which had the tide-turning smash hit “Respect,” the soul song she purloined from Otis Redding and turned into an enduring international anthem of female empowerment. The shouted “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” bridge and “Sock it to me” were her and her sisters’ ideas. Lady Soul has much to love with funky-stomping “Chain of Fools” and the breathtaking “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.” She takes the most anodyne material and, like Ray Charles, reinvents it.
ANTHOLOGY
Sly & the Family Stone, 1981
There has never been a cooler group. Ever. Polysexual, pansexual, funk-rock, psychedelic gospel with groovy multiracial positivity all up in the place. They had Women playing and singing, black people and white people throwing down together shortly after desegregation. Sly pioneered fur boots and giant goggle shades, the Family Stone sports capes and plumed Musketeer hats. Rose, his sister, shouts at the world under a series of electrifying wigs, and Cynthia is the first black Woman to start at trumpet in the majors working a vest and a tight Afro. They changed how everyone from Herbie Hancock to Diana Ross to the Jackson 5 made records. All of a sudden it was de rigueur to push the beat and share the vocals. Social issues and personal worth get a big going-over, and you are in rock church the whole while. The easiest-listening band that don’t play easy listening. Never mind the d
rugs and paranoia that befell Sly, they glow and shine and pull on your heart. Of everything The Smartest Book insists upon, this is the one suggestion you will never regret taking. “Dance to the Music” propels you onto the floor, “Stand!” puts you in front of your destiny, “I Want to Take You Higher” forces you to make some calls to some dudes you haven’t felt like calling in a while, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” is a call to all to shake. Every jam will have you dancing and singing along—isn’t that what music is for, to cure your lame ass?
THE PROOPTIONARY II
Punctuate with Purpose
Between the conventions of email and the stupidity of texting, it has become acceptable to use punctuation in place of finding the right words to express your pitiful thoughts. This must stop. Punctuation is meant only to clarify. And fruit off with the little smiley faces. Woman up and crack open a thesaurus for your salutations and laudations. Punctuate with care and at your own risk. You. Have Been. Warned:okay?(!):)
Exclamation Point!
The most overused and useless of all punctuation. We get the point! You really mean it! If you mean to be emphatic, put weight on the part of the sentence that you mean to be insistent about. Use italics or bold or even crack out a thesaurus or any tiny dinosaur and discover a word that makes your point with vigorous precision. Astonish us with usage, not backloading. Importance is in the context of a sentence! Multiple exclamation points are for the very young, those who write with a colored marker, the terminally inexpressive, or the habitually unheard.