| Tuesday, September 18, 2001 |
 | A double-take moment. This Slate article talks about "the new war", as one might "the new album" or "the new fragrance" - a new and particular expression of an old and understood concept.
"The new war" is what the name Neoptolemus means. Son of Achilles, killer of Priam. Who inherited his father's armour, and levelled Troy and its royal house in it. The "new war" was a savage one, without respect for age, home or divinity.
Neoptolemus, for what it's worth , was also known as Pyrrhus, for his red hair, which is also the UK title of "An Arrow's Flight", by Mark Merlis, in which Neoptolemus is a male stripper in a fusion of the ancient and modern worlds, a kind of queer Arcadia. Read a passage here. You can probably imagine what Philoctetes' never-healing wound comingles with.
It's a mess of associations. Old woundsand open sores. Achilles' heel. Poisoned arrows, topless towers and the fall of cities. The manifestations of illness and wars of elimination. Dialogues of power and helplessness. And in the end, blood. Innocent, fresh and, most of all, bad.
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