This is the last assembly you’re going to have from me, a thought that might fill you with disappointment, or relief, simple joy or just a sense of time quietly passing. Today we’re going on a cultural journey of one piece of art linking to the next – listen closely, you might just learn something. We start with a song lyric from Lazlo Bane: “I can’t do it all on my own, I know that I’m no Superman.” You might recognise the lyric without having heard of Lazlo Bane – I know I did, because this song, and in fact just this hook, are used as the theme tune to a sitcom called Scrubs with which you may be familiar. This assembly is going to depart from the example set by TLC in their authoritative text, “No Scrubs”, by returning to the sitcom in a moment, but first a little about Lazlo Bane who are an alternative rock band from Santa Monica in California. I’m not a big fan of their musical output is like except for “Superman” which seems to be their claim to fame but I’m extremely charmed by their artistry for two reasons – firstly they take their band name from the main character in an extremely obscure book called Theme Park Roadkill. I’ll get to the second reason in a minute but I just want to pause for a moment because I’m not entirely sure that last statement is true: it’s stated in Wikipedia who reference the sleeve notes on one of the band’s albums and I have found this reference attested to elsewhere. What I haven’t found is any record at all of the book they are referring to. You can’t buy it on Amazon and if you google it all you get is Lazlo Bane. I’m not sure, but I suspect that they made up the name, made up the book, maybe even made up Rachel Andrews, the author they credit it to. If that’s true then I would love them even more for their mischievous shenanigans than for the excellent intertextuality. The second thing that delights me about Lazlo Bane – and which makes me suspect that shenanigans may be their idiom of choice – is that they have an alter-ego band called The (Silent) Rage for which they switch instruments and play heavy metal.
Back to Scrubs – not the guys who sit on the passenger side of their best friend’s ride, but the sitcom in which junior doctors JD, Eliot and Turk try to survive their internship under the beady eyes of head nurse Carla and the attending physician Dr Perry Cox. Dr Cox is extremely competent, world-weary, sarcastic and pragmatic in a way that contrasts spectacularly with JD’s idealism. He is also universally agreed among my doctor friends both to be doing a great job and to be the most realistic depiction of life as a hospital doctor in modern television.
I was reminded of the theme tune to Scrubs whilst sitting in Ms Baukuma’s assembly last week – she told you not to try to be Superman and do it all by yourself and echoing that advice is my first serious point – there will be others, but first I’d like to pick up on another reference made in that assembly, because as well as hinting at Lazlo Bane’s most famous lyric Ms Baukuma directly referenced Homer’s Odyssey. Homer is the greatest author of the archaic period of Greek antiquity – the seventh and eighth centuries BC. Actually, I’m going to have to stop again because I’m not sure that statement’s true either despite, again, it being well attested on the internet. There are a couple of problems with it: first we have almost no literature left to us from this period and whilst Homer’s great poems the Iliad and the Odyssey may be the best that’s survived that doesn’t mean they were the best of the time. Second, and this is even more worrying, it’s quite possible that he didn’t exist – not as one person, not as a poet who composed these stories. His works could be created by a collection of people, assembled and written down over years and merely attributed to a mythical wordsmith.
However it might be, the Iliad tells the story of the end of the Trojan War and introduces us to the character of wily Odysseus, sacker of cities, hotheaded, wise and loved by Zeus. Those descriptions are what is called “epithets”, phrases used by Homer to fill out the metre of his poem – those of you studying Keats may have come across a sonnet called “On Opening Chapman’s Homer” in which he (Keats) writes about deep-browed Homer, both filling out his pentameter and subtly tipping his hat by awarding Homer an epithet of his own.
I digress. The Trojan war lasted for ten years and ended with a win for the Greeks who now had to return home across the Aegean sea. For most of them this was pretty straightforward, but Odysseus managed to annoy Poseidon, God of the sea. You might think that this was a pretty stupid thing for a sailor to do and that someone as wily and wise as Odysseus would have avoided such a rookie error. It’s a fair criticism but you need to understand that Odysseus and his crew were taken prisoner by a cyclops called Polyphemus who, as is the way of gigantic one-eyed monsters, had a taste for sailor and munched his way through about half of the crew before Odysseus got him drunk, blinded him with a hot stick and then escaped by disguising himself and the remaining crew as sheep. Limited choice, self defence and, you have to say, pretty smart. Unfortunately for our hero, Polyphemus was one of Poseidon’s children and despite not being the most attentive father, he took umbrage at the actual murder of his son and so Odysseus’ journey home was longer and more eventful than would otherwise have been the case. They were shipwrecked on the island of the cannibalistic Laestrygonians – quite a lot more sailors got eaten but Odysseus escaped, phew. Twice he found himself captured by beautiful women, Circe and Calypso, who kept him prisoner for his, erm, let’s say company. Eventually he got home to his own island of Ithaca, twenty years after setting out for war. There’s still a lot more of the story and I recommend you read it, or listen to Natalie Haynes talk about it (there’s an excellent podcast in which she stands up for the classics), or read one of many modern books that have been inspired by the myth – maybe Margaret Attwood’s Penelopiad if you think Odysseus’ long-suffering wife might have an interesting viewpoint on his twenty years away from home (eight of which were spent, erm, let’s say entertaining voluptuous nymphs).
There are two pieces of art inspired by the Odyssey that I’m particularly fond of – the first is a painting by Turner, which you can see in the National Gallery if you take a bus up town. It shows Odysseus taunting Polyphemus having escaped from his island. Again, though, I’m not sure that’s true – it’s what Turner named the painting, but really I think it shows a sunset of red and orange light falling on a sea scape dominated by a large sailing ship. Neither Odysseus nor Polyphemus are the focus of the piece – but it is brilliant and you should see it. The other is a poem by a Greek poet called Cavafy. It is called Ithaka and goes like this:
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelkous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
The end of that poem brings me to the end of my chain of cultural references and onto the second serious point I’d like to make. The first was the advice that you can’t do it all on your own, no you’re no superman (by which I mean that you should come to my maths intervention after school today). The second is this: the world is full of brilliant songs and poems and tv shows and stories and paintings and books. In your time here we’ve introduced you to some of them but there’s far more out there to be enjoyed if you are open to the opportunities, take recommendations and allow one artist to lead you onto the next. It’s a long voyage – one that you shouldn’t try to hurry but which will mean that you become full of experience, wise and wily.
My next point takes us back to Scrubs and the experience of JD, Eliot and Turk – being a junior doctor is pretty full on, they get tired and overwhelmed, lean on each other and on Doctor Cox (also, in Turk’s case, on Carla). The reason this is our last assembly together is that you have exams to take – it’s the last month or so of study before you finish school and if you’re doing it right you’re going to find it hard work. You need to prioritise your study, prioritise sleep, prioritise looking after yourself and cut out the obstacles you put in front of yourself: I recommend that you delete as many social media apps as possible from your phones and I recommend that you do it this afternoon.
I won’t say good luck for your exams – those are a question of hard work and knowing things rather than luck: the vast majority of you will get the grades that your efforts deserve. I will, however, say “May the Force be with you”. Exams, revision, wild alarm clocks – do not be afraid of them – this part of your road is a short one, but still full of adventure, full of discovery. And my final advice is to make the most of this month: keep your thoughts raised high and let a rare excitement stir your spirit and your body.
Footnotes:
1. On Opening Chapman's Homer gets a whole assembly to itself in Hiking in Darien.
2. Cavafy's Ithaca shares space with Wordsworth's Prelude in Look Deeper
3.