What's in a name?

Some of you may not be familiar with the Roman Comedy of "Lysistrata".

First, Romans liked their comedies. They also liked blood, gore, and sex. As they were fans of the coliseum and gladiator fights, they were also fans of funny plays with lots of phalluses (phalluses? phalli?). Lysistrata is one of these plays. Here is an excerpt from one translation, at the very beginning of the play:

LYSISTRATA
But I tell you, the business that calls them here
is far and away more urgent.
CLEONICE
And why do you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What
is it all about?
LYSISTRATA
About a big thing.
CLEONICE (taking this in a different sense; with
great interest) And is it thick too?
LYSISTRATA
Yes, very thick.
CLEONICE
And we are not all on the spot! Imagine!
LYSISTRATA (wearily)
Oh! if it were what you suppose, there would be never
an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned
about and about this way and that so many sleepless nights.
CLEONICE (still unable to be serious)
It must be something mighty fine and subtle for
you to have turned it about so!
LYSISTRATA
So fine, it means just this, Greece saved by the women!


And another excerpt...


LYSISTRATA
Yes, that is best.... Ah! here comes Lampito. (LAMPITO,
a husky Spartan damsel, enters with three others, two
from Boeotia and one from Corinth.) Good day, Lampito,
dear friend from Lacedaemon. How well and handsome
you look! what a rosy complexion! and how strong you
seem; why, you could strangle a bull surely!
LAMPITO
Yes, indeed, I really think I could. It's because I do
gymnastics and practise the bottom-kicking dance.
CLEONICE (opening LAMPITO'S robe and baring her bosom)
And what superb breasts!
LAMPITO
La! you are feeling me as if I were a beast for sacrifice.
LYSISTRATA
And this young woman, where is she from?
LAMPITO
She is a noble lady from Boeotia.
LYSISTRATA
Ah! my pretty Boeotian friend, you are as blooming as a garden.
CLEONICE (making another inspection)
Yes, on my word! and her "garden" is so thoroughly weeded too!


So yes. The Romans were quite a bunch.


This play is about a soldier's wife (named Lysistrata) who doesn't want her husband going off to war because she misses the sex. Nor does she want the rest of her friends' husbands going off to war. So they all bind together and decide that (no matter how hard it will be) they will withhold sex from their husbands. If the husbands force them, they will lay there like dead fish, since they know men don't like sex if the women don't also have a good time.

This play is one of those "I am woman, hear me roar" shows, but just with a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) sexual innuendo. At any rate, a rockin' good time.


I named my car Lysistrata.


I had my reasons. I wanted something that had theatrical roots. I didn't want Stella, because some Polish, working-class car would beat her up. Not Mrs. Lovett, because I don't want to drive a canniballistic car. Not Juliet, because I don't need her falling in love with a sports car and committing suicide. As she is a minivan, and therefore a female, I decided on Lysistrata. She is a woman (soccer mom van, as some call her) but don't make her mad. If you ignore her needs, she will get very angry. But if you treat her well, she will put out. I decided that would be okay.



This week, I put $1400 to her repairs. That doesn't count the hassle of getting new license plates because her old ones were stolen. And she's still angry, so she's going back to the shop tonight. Who knows how much more she will require me to spend on her.


Maybe Stella would have been better. At least she stayed loyal and fertile after she got beaten up.