Plutarch and Toy Story 3

Recently, for my "Golden Age of Greece" class, I have been reading Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives. Now, I must admit I feel VERY smart when I walk around with that book in my purse and pull it out in various situations, i.e. waiting rooms, Secretary of State, my bedroom. And it's very interesting. I think right now my favorite is Alcibiades, who was Athenian, came to power, fought for them, then when they kicked him out for being too awesome, he went to Sparta. The Spartans said "LIKE OMG IT'S ALCIBIADES LET'S GIVE HIM A SHIT TON OF POWER EVEN THOUGH HE USED TO WORK FOR OUR MORTAL ENEMIES". It's because he was so damn beautiful. I'm serious - Plutarch goes on for ages about how hot Alcibiades was. I think he totally had a man-crush on him. Also, did I mention he was a manwhore and cut his dog's tail off, took a ton of bribes and was basically a lifelong juvenile delinquent? Anyway, so A-Dogg fights for the Spartans for a while, then decides he misses Athens, so he goes back, and the Athenians are all "LIKE OMG WE ARE SO SORRY WE BANISHED YOU FOR BEING SO AWESOME WE MIIIIIISSSSED YOU!" And then Lysander from Sparta ends up kicking the shit out of him or something. But I have to write a paper about Pericles, an Athenian leader who rebuilt the Parthenon, gave his wife away (legally) to someone else, and took political advice from a prostitute.

There was just an earthquake. This beast of a building didn't let me feel it. Damn you Zeus.

On to Toy Story 3, as the title of this post promised. I loved it. I think it's the best of the 3. I love Toy Story. I love Toy Story 2. But this one - I was alternately laughing, terrified, and sobbing. I almost peed myself during the dump scenes. Ken cracked me up (LOVE YOU MICHAEL KEATON!). And the last 15 minutes . . . let me just say that I had to hold back the hysterical sobs. The best part of the whole thing is that I went to the 9:30pm showing, a packed theater, and no one was under the age of 16. There were these five 20-ish year old boys in front of me, looking like they had just got back from the gym/beat an old lady and stole her car, and they were joking around obnoxiously before the movie started. During the whole thing they were dead silent. At the end two of them stood up and started clapping, and the whole theater burst into applause. So poignant. Toy Story changes lives.