by Helena Iulia on Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:12 pm
Salvete,
While the best of entertainment, these days, is very good, much of it is mind-numbingly boring. Pre-mass media, people either viewed live entertainment or had to supply their own diversions. While studying Catullus, I realized that poetry was a Roman version of performance art and that poets, writers, politicians and so on were valued dinner guests largely because of their ability to entertain and to have intelligent conversation (even, or especially) when insulting someone (at which the Romans were especially good!). Therefore, I wish to bring back the idea that those engaged in public discourse (politicians/entertainers/talking heads of whatever sort) must throw away the prepared speeches, fire the speech writers and hone their rhetorical skills. As a corollary, those of us who live in the subura, rather than on the Palatine, also must come up to the mark. We must be intelligent analysists of the news of the day so that when we hit the local taberna we have more to discuss than last night's episode of "who watches this nonsense?"
See you at the Taberna, I hear there will be a poetry slam tonight.