When I was in graduate school I had an internship on the movie Lethal Weapon, starring the great American actor Danny Glover and an up-and-coming Australian named Mel Gibson. I was shadowing the cinematographer, Stephen Goldblatt, so I spent a lot of time on set, watching the camera crew and director work together, learning how scenes are put together. Because actors spend a lot of time standing around, Mel and I struck up a friendly conversation. I made him laugh and he said, “You’re funny. You must have a lot of rage.” I wouldn’t have expressed it this way at the time, but I’d felt seen. It unnerved me. I think he must’ve noticed that and invited me to join him for a Budweiser in his trailer. It was there that he explained he hadn’t meant any harm, he just believed that comedy came from an angry place, a psychological wound. I remember drinking my beer and realizing that he was absolutely right, but at that time, I had no idea how the alchemical process of spinning rage and psychological damage into comedy worked.
Comedy can be a coping mechanism for dealing with unpleasant or dangerous emotions, it can be a way to defuse situations, and it also doesn’t have to have any serious function, it can be joyful, it can be fun. It speaks to the human condition in a deep and true way. Even if Aristotle writes it off as frivolous and the action of men worse than ourselves. I disagree. We are all worse than ourselves. So we might as well laugh about it.
Sitting on the balcony, in the shade of the tree, drinking a glass of wine and thinking about all these things, about the continuum of writers and readers and thinkers, and the con versation writing has been having with itself through time, I was interrupted by a connection to the real world. I heard a rumble and looked over to see a man in a cherry picker rising from the street, suddenly level with the balcony. He was wearing the hard hat and bright yellow safety vest of someone who had the authority to do whatever he was about to do. He flashed me a sheepish smile, fired up his chain saw, and began cutting the tree down.
I shouted, “I don’t need a fucking metaphor.” But he didn’t understand English and I couldn’t communicate in Greek, and so the tree was dismantled, branch by branch. I wish I could say I strode out into the street and battled the workmen like a true California tree hugger, but I didn’t. I was a guest in their city, an Airbnb tourist who had been told to fuck off.
As I watched the tree being butchered—the cool shade of the leaves falling away and the sun suddenly too hot, too bright—I thought about all the writers, comic and otherwise, whose work has been lost over time. Names I had come across in my research, writers like Phrynichus, Myrtilus, Ameipsias, Lysippus, Nicophon, and, of course, Ariphrades. I can imagine that these writers all had a lot of anger. If the fragments that survived are any indication, these were writers who lampooned the comfortable, explored sexual politics, mocked the imperial war machine, and basically made jokes at the expense of anyone and everyone who they felt deserved it. In a word, they raged. Maybe that’s why they’ve now become pruned from literary history. It makes me wonder if anyone’s work will be around in two thousand years. With our reliance on digital archives, are we just one solar flare away from having our entire written history obliterated?
The Buddha said, “Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.”9 Which is cheery. But the point is well taken. Nothing lasts forever. Try to enjoy the moment before the chain saw comes out. This is why what writers do is vital. We examine our wounds and we rage; we let our curiosity off leash and dive into the unknown and illuminate our humanness—the comedy and tragedy of existence, the inescapable presence of death—to give a voice to thoughts and feelings in a specific place and time and feel the interconnection between everything around us and everyone who came before us and everyone who will come after. The act of writing opens a conversation with the past and the present. And it gives us the opportunity to thumb our noses, make farting sounds, and do anything that humanizes a world that is increasingly dehumanizing and algorithmic. That’s meaningful. Even if the work doesn’t get published. Even if it gets lost.
After the tree was chopped into bits and hauled away, we learned that a man who lived across the street had paid for its removal over the protests of the other neighbors. It wasn’t even his tree, but he liked to park in the spot under it and was annoyed that he had to keep cleaning leaves off his car. Never in my life have I felt a desire to key somebody’s car—to lay a thick and juicy all-American rip down the side of his Peugeot—but I felt it now. Not that I did anything. Diana was equally angry but more sensible. Once night fell, she simply got a broom and swept the sawdust and leaves off the balcony onto his car below.
* I’d like to take a moment and give a shout-out to my wife. She is an excellent travel companion and research assistant: easygoing, enthusiastic, and fearless. She has braved a book signing at a nudist resort, climbed up the rigging of a sailing ship as it was crossing the Dardanelles, eaten very spicy food in Cuzco, and managed to find an espresso bar in Constanta, Romania, when we really needed a coffee. She is game for whatever is next and never leaves an unfinished bottle of wine on the table.
* Weird to think I have been in both Brixton and Los Angeles when major rioting occurred.
* That there isn’t a band with this name is baffling.
* Please note that, for the most part, I am talking about Eurocentric writers here. Comedy is a fundamental part of the human makeup and there are equally funny writers, playwrights, and poets in every culture around the world.
Rusk Never Sleeps
I didn’t really know what a rusk was until I came to Greece. And when I first picked one up, I was unsure how to eat it without causing serious damage to my teeth. It’s an extremely hard piece of brown bread. Like if a stone was made out of barley flour. Throw it at a window and you’ll break the glass. It seems inedible, but drench it with fresh olive oil and some chunky tomatoes, letting the bread soften and absorb the liquid—maybe top it with a slice of cheese from Naxos and a grind of black pepper—and a rusk becomes one of those things you eat that is transformational. It is delicious: earthy and nutty and slightly burned. No wonder rusks have been eaten in Athens for thousands of years. Called paximadia in Greek, you can find them anywhere. They were in the supermarket, and Artofili, the local bakery, had an entire section of them. The closest thing to a rusk in the United States is melba toast, and that is something every American should be ashamed of. Compared with a rusk, melba toast is embarrassing.
In the ancient world this superhard double-baked bread was valuable because it had shelf life. How could something devoid of moisture go stale or mold? I’m guessing mice, without access to olive oil for dunking, probably wouldn’t eat it.
Why do I bring this up? Because paximadia was what writers in Athens in the fifth century BCE had for breakfast, although they dipped theirs into a small bowl of wine to soften them. But it’s not so different from what writers eat for breakfast today. I typically have toast with guava jelly and café con oat leche.
In many ways, I’m not sure that the life of a writer has changed all that much in the last two thousand years. The technology is different, obviously, because while I’m typing this on an eleven-year-old MacBook Pro, Ariphrades would’ve sat and scratched out his thoughts and ideas with a metal stylus on a piece of wood covered in wax. A more formal draft would require using a sharpened reed and ink made from ashes and oil on papyrus or parchment. But the essential process was the same: you use language to convey your thoughts and feelings in a way that you find interesting and entertaining. On a good day, your writing surprises you.
Sitting and scratching at wax or clacking on a keyboard isn’t the only thing about being a writer. A writer needs to get out in the world, to take the pulse of the street, to immerse themselves in what’s happening, to play that old Christopher Isherwood line—“I am a camera” —and observe the humans. This is especially true of comedy writers. To understand what’s funny, you actually have to interact with people. And if your style of humor has a political bent, then you’d
better keep up on the latest news.
Athenian comedy needed to be as topical as possible when the play went up. Fortunately for writers like Cratinus and Eupolis and Ariphrades, it wasn’t a twenty-four-hour news cycle. Maybe more like a twenty-four-month cycle. Things happened a bit slower back then.
With a tip of the hat to English writer Mary Renault, the author of The Last of the Wine and other novels set in ancient Athens, let’s imagine a day in the life of Ariphrades.
Ariphrades could hear his brother practicing the lyre in the courtyard as he dipped a chunk of barley bread into the terracotta bowl and let it soak up some wine. He looked out toward the music and saw Elpis, the slave girl, sweeping leaves into a pile. A few drops of wine squirted into his beard as he bit into the bread and chewed. Despite the wine at the symposium and his late night carousing in the Kerameikos, he’d slept well and felt energetic. Maybe he’d get some work done today.
His father, Automenes, sat down opposite him and rubbed his hands together. His mother carried a bowl of wine and a chunk of bread in from the kitchen and placed it in front of her husband. Automenes nodded in thanks and asked, “Are there any olives?”
She shook her head. “I’ll send someone to the market later.”
“I can get them. I have to buy some ink.”
Automenes smiled. “The writing must be going well.”
“I keep crossing things out.”
Automenes laughed. “I’m sure the right phrase will come to you.”
Ariphrades put the last of his bread into his mouth and wiped his beard with his hand as he chewed. It bothered him when people didn’t understand what it took to write, thinking it was easy, as if Thalia whispered words in his ear while he scribbled as fast as he could before the reed dulled. He knew it wasn’t because they didn’t value his work; they simply had no idea how hard it was, the effort it took to appear effortless. It wasn’t simply pratfalls and gags, but real characters conjured to life by his imagination.
He took the back way into the Agora, cutting past the fountain, the Tholos, his bare feet kicking up dust as he skirted the public toilets on his way to the marketplace. He could just begin to hear the clamor of the food sellers when he saw two older men sitting in the shade of a tree near the base of the Temple of Hephaestus. It was Antiphon and Gorgias, renowned teachers and orators, men he knew well as great drinkers of his father’s wine and guests often found shuffling around his house looking for a place to piss.
He tried to veer off toward the market, but they intercepted him. Antiphon was the first to wave his hand.
“Ariphrades! Slow down.”
The men were twice Ariphrades’s age and he didn’t want to appear rude. So he stopped and wiped some sweat off his fore head with the end of his chiton. “Antiphon. Gorgias. Greetings.” He gave a small bow to the men as they caught up to him.
“What’s the rush?” asked Gorgias.
Ariphrades shrugged and watched Gorgias tottering toward him, a lopsided grin visible through the tangle of his beard. Antiphon, who was only a few years younger than Gorgias, gave Ariphrades a strong embrace and said, “How goes the new play?”
Ariphrades didn’t know why, but he didn’t like talking about his work. Not until it was complete. “It is progressing. But I need to find a good choragus.”
Gorgias laughed. “I’m afraid that’s as impossible as Persians making cheese.”
Ariphrades didn’t know what Gorgias meant by that, but it was typical of him to spin out metaphors that were unusual, in-jokes and ironies that only he understood.
Antiphon smiled at Ariphrades and said, “I hope you have more songs in your play. It’s too much ranting these days. Politics are taking over everything. It’s exhausting.”
Gorgias disagreed. “Audiences love to watch the shit fly.”
Antiphon waggled his finger at Gorgias. “Turd flinging is not entertainment.”
“I’m not sure the prize jury will agree.”
“They like it so long as it’s not aimed at them,” Ariphrades said. He didn’t mean for it to come out so loudly, but discussions of the festival juries sometimes caused his anger to rise.
Antiphon put his arm around Ariphrades and turned him back toward the shade of the trees. “Explain to these old men what you are planning. We want to help.”
Ariphrades walked with them to the trees and sat on the ground, letting the shade and a soft breeze cool him off. Gorgias and Antiphon sat on a bench and looked down at him. The two men shared a look, as if trying to decide who should speak first.
Finally Antiphon spoke. “Just because you don’t have a tripod doesn’t mean you are not respected.”
Gorgias nodded in agreement. “I never trust anything with three legs. It’s unnatural.”
“And don’t let Aristophanes’s mocking bother you,” Antiphon added.
Ariphrades turned to Gorgias. “He mocked you as well. He spares no one.”*
“He doesn’t like my accent.” Gorgias said this in a way that highlighted his light Sicilian accent.
Antiphon chuckled. “Or anything else about you for that matter.”
Gorgias laughed. “I am in good company. I would rather be mocked with Cratinus and Ariphrades than be so full of hubris.”
Antiphon cocked an eyebrow. “It’s hubris he’s full of?”
The two men laughed heartily for a moment, and Ariphrades couldn’t help himself and chuckled along with them.
Antiphon turned to Ariphrades, suddenly serious. “Listen well, young Ariphrades, the noble families are concerned about some of the conversations they’ve heard at the assembly.”
Ariphrades blinked.
Gorgias tugged on his beard. “They are also full of it. But it is money they’re stuffed with.”
Antiphon continued. “Some of them don’t believe that the people really know what’s best for themselves.”
Ariphrades laughed. “And they do?”
Gorgias nodded. “The rich always know what’s best because they are rich.”
“And desire to become richer still,” Antiphon said, before adding, “How very wise they are.”
“That’s why they fear you, young Ariphrades.” Gorgias patted Ariphrades on the shoulder. “You have the ear of the demos.”
“I think they fear his tongue,” said Antiphon.
Ariphrades smiled good-naturedly. “I bear no grudge against the noble families. I am merely writing about a playwright whose sword has lost its edge.”
The two Sophists burst out laughing.
Ariphrades continued: “If someone wants to talk about my sex life, then it is only fair I talk about his. Or the lack thereof.”
“I imagine this poor writer is losing his hair.” Gorgias chuckled. “With the insults he has hurled over the years, I don’t think you’ll have a problem finding a choragus after all. In fact, I know someone who will jump at the chance.”
Aristotle and Aristophanes have achieved a kind of immortality, but why should Ariphrades all but disappear? Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying, “When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.”1 Ariphrades doesn’t get a taste of immortality, he doesn’t become a book, because his writings are lost. His incarnation is a small brown Panamanian moth.
* In both Birds and Clouds, Aristophanes mocks the Sophists relentlessly, referring to Gorgias as a barbarian and an opportunist who abuses honest Athenians with his rhetorical skills.
The Name of the Moth
There are no physical descriptions of Ariphrades. We don’t know what he looked like. There are no busts of him in the British Museum in London or the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu. It’s safe to assume he was near the same age as his contemporaries, which would mean he was around twenty-two years old when Aristophanes first called him out in Knights.
When I searched for his name online, aside from the mentions in Aristophanes’s plays, all I found was a reference to an obscure moth first identified by English ento
mologist Herbert Druce in his contribution to the Biologia Centrali-Americana in 1891.1
I find it a bit of a mystery why Druce chose to use Ariphrades as the moniker for this particular insect. Did he lose a bet?
An education in the classics was part of a good education at the time, so we can assume Druce was familiar with the works of Aristophanes, he must’ve known that the name carried some baggage. Still, can you imagine sailing across the Atlantic; trekking through Central America, battling swarms of malarial mosquitos and amoebic dysentery, hacking your way through the jungle in the heat and humidity, the mud and the afternoon thunderstorms, and climbing up the side of a volcano—basically venturing far outside your comfort zone—and then after all this, all the trials and tribulations, the malaria and cholera and weird tropical fevers, after everything, you discover a heretofore unknown species of insect and name it after an obscure cunnilinguist?
It’s not like he took a helicopter to the top of Chiriquí with his butterfly net in his hand. This was old school, late 1880s-style explorer trekking. He could’ve named the bug after the Queen, or after his parents or a favorite character from history.
And yet, for whatever reason, Herbert Druce dubbed the moth Ariphrades.
It’s just weird.
Could it be that Druce named this humble Panamanian moth2 after a scandalized Greek writer as some kind of in-joke between himself and his fellow lepidopterists? Do lepidopterists go in for that kind of thing? I mean, maybe; Nabokov was a butterfly enthusiast.
Rude Talk in Athens Page 6