Sita Sings the Blues

Here is a wonderful example of a modern adaptation of a mythological tale.  It's called "Sita Sings the Blues and is Nina Paley's retelling of the Hindu epic The Ramayana. It is a musical, using jazz from the 1920's and blends a variety of animation styles to tell the story of the Ramayana from the perspective of the hero Rama's wife, Sita.

Check it out.  It remains one of my very favorite examples of 'modern mythology.'

Pepsi celebrates the Year of the Monkey with a tribute to the Monkey King

Just in case you had any doubt about how pervasive Monkey is in Chinese culture here is another example.  Yes, it is ostensibly an ad for Pepsi, but beyond that there is a truly remarkable story about four generations of one family who have portrayed the Monkey King.  Check it out here. It really is  a bit touching and pretty cool to see a major worldwide brand making use of everyone's favorite monkey.

Monkey Resources

If you're struggling to get into Monkey or are confused about what's going on and what it all means, you can check out the links below for some helpful information.

Chapter by chapter breakdowns as well as many, many beautiful illustrations for Monkey can be found here:

http://www.innerjourneytothewest.com/english/en-resource.html


For summaries, info on the author, character descriptions, historical info and a bit on modern takes on the story, you can check out World Literature Compass. NOTE: Some of the links are broken but there is still a fair amount of available information in the sections that are working.

http://rocket.csusb.edu/~dmarshall/World_Literature_Compass/journey/journey_home.html

"A Norse Temple for the 21st Century"

Here's an article about the new Norse Temple being built in Iceland.  Included in the article is a link to the founder chanting The Voluspa in old Icelandic -- certainly worth checking out if you want to hear what the poem may have sounded like coming out of the mouth of a skald 1000+ years ago.  Also covered in the article is the connections between Norse paganism and Nazis-ism and how the modern Asatru movement handles it.