BS: DeJah Thoris

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 06:29 PM

Yeah, Shimrod, I asked that question back in the thread The Shambles kicked the discussion out of.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 01:38 AM

"There is no reason why an egg-laying species cannot also suckle their young. "

Well, of course. Look at women of the genus Man. (You thought babies were formed of sperm alone?)

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 01:50 AM

LOL Ebbie! Howevuh, up until the 19th century, that's exactly what lotsa people thought. Wombs were a sort of a storage facility where the sperm developed into a person.

Elmer

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 03:05 AM

I think he means like the duck billed platypus and the spiny anteater, Ebbie.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: skipy
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 07:05 AM

Monotremes.
Skipy
(who was a zoo keeper for three years!)

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:00 PM

But should they be allowed to marry?

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 01:53 AM

LOL. Cluin. Not if it is defined as being "between one man and one woman," eh?

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 09:38 PM

Hey you guuuys! *

I'm not even gonna mention that some folks who posted to the Stupid Thread
were having a discussion about mating which reminded me of this thread, but I'm trying to get them to change the subject and talk about stupid things.

* This sentence is from that very creative & much too short lived 1970s series The Electric Company

Click Electric Company TV show theme for the lyrics to that song.


**

Btw, speaking of Dejah [I know I haven't mentioned her yet, but I'm about to do so now],I've been meaning to mention that the name Dejah {pronounced DAY-jah} is a not that common contemporary African American female name.

I bet that most of those people who gave this name to their baby girls thought they made it up.

There's nothing new under the sun-or so I've heard.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 10:04 PM

Somewhat off topic, and of a more serious nature than some might like for this BS thread:

It just occurred to me that the source for the contemporary African American female name DeJah is probably Djenne, Mali.

I've known elementary school age girls name Dejanae and other variants of the name Djenne, including Dejah.

Here's information about Djenne:

Djenné, the oldest known city in sub-Saharan Africa is situated on the floodlands of the Niger and Bani rivers, 354 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of Timbuktu. Founded by merchants around 800 AD (near the site of an older city dating from 250BC), Djenné flourished as a meeting place for traders from the deserts of Sudan and the tropical forests of Guinea. Captured by the Songhai emperor Sonni 'Ali in 1468, it developed into Mali's most important trading center during the 16th century. The city thrived because of its direct connection by river with Timbuktu and from its situation at the head of trade routes leading to gold and salt mines. Between 1591 and 1780, Djenné was controlled by Moroccan kings and during these years its markets further expanded, featuring products from throughout the vast regions of North and Central Africa. In 1861 the city was conquered by the Tukulor emperor al-Hajj 'Umar and was then occupied by the French in 1893. Thereafter, its commercial functions were taken over by the town of Mopti, which is situated at the confluence of the Niger and Bani rivers, 90 kilometers to the northeast. Djenné is now an agricultural trade center, of diminished importance, with several beautiful examples of Muslim architecture, including its Great Mosque.

In addition to its commercial importance, Djenné, was also known as a center of Islamic learning and pilgrimage, attracting students and pilgrims from all over West Africa. Its Great Mosque dominates the large market square of Djenné...

"Every spring Djenné's mosque is replastered. This is a festival at once awesome, messy, meticulous, and fun. For weeks beforehand mud is cured. Low vats of the sticky mixture are periodically churned by barefoot boys. The night before the plastering, moonlit streets echo with chants, switch-pitch drums, and lilting flutes. A high whistle blows three short beats. On the fourth, perfectly cued, a hundred voices roar, and the throng sets off on a massive mud-fetch. By dawn the actual replastering has been underway for some time. Crowds of young women, heads erect under the burden of buckets brimming with water, approach the mosque. Other teams, bringing mud, charge shouting through the huge main square and swarm across the mosque's terrace. Mixing work and play, young boys dash everywhere, some caked with mud from head to toe...

In 1988, the old Town of Djenné and its Great Mosque were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site."

-snip-

Visit http://www.sacredsites.com/africa/mali/djenne.html for the complete text, which seems like it could have been incorporated into an other world science fiction book such as those featuring DeJah Thoris.

As a matter of fact, Djenne might be the source of Burrough's character's name.

But whenever I see the name DeJah Thoris, I think of a thesarus
[or however you spell those dictionary like books which give you examples of words that have the same or similar meaning as another word]...

Maybe that's where Burrough got DeJah's last name {because she was like a human woman but not wasn't really human}?

What do you think? Am I off my rocker?

Do I need to find a rocking chair and just rock around the clock tonight?

Anyway this post turned out not to be off topic.

So there!

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 02:09 PM

This thread is an insult to the noble Deja Thoris, and should John Carter ever come back once again to Earth, I promise to send him after every one of you.

Thousands of Martians would gladly lay down their lives for her, and you are discussing her as if she were a platypus. It is not to be borne. (or even hatched).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 03:14 PM

Steady on, Peter. It's obvious that Dejah Thoris ain't no platypus (I can tell the difference; vive la, and all that).

But speaking of duckbills, considering that Helen of Troy was the offspring of Leda and Zeus in the form of a swan, have you ever noticed the beak on that woman?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 04:10 PM

I think, Azizi, that Burroughs was trying to draw on Arabic or African phonetics to createw an exotic name. But he might as well been thinking of djinn (an Arabic sprite or powerful spirit) just to name one other possible example. I doubt he was thinking of the actual semantics or etymology of the syllables he chose, anyway, as long as it sounded exotic and sexy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 05:11 PM

Brilliant, Don. The beak that launched a thousand ships.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 06:50 PM

I cannot tell a lie. I must give credit where credit is due.

The idea about Helen of Troy came from cartoonist Larry Gonick's series of graphic novels (let's face it:   comic books), The Cartoon History of the Universe. A friend of mine who's heavily into comic books loaned the series to me. I've heard that some fairly open-minded history teachers use Gonick's comics to supplement the standard history textbooks, and the result is that a lot of kids who normally couldn't care less about history suddenly develop an interest.

Vol. 1 starts with the Big Bang and takes us up through the Trojan War. Gonick's drawings of Helen of Troy cracked me up! Gonick took her rather peculiar family history and lineage into consideration and drew her with a nice bod, but a face that looks not unlike Daisy Duck.

I went googling to see if I could find a drawing of her, but unfortunately not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Peace
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 06:58 PM

When I was a kid, if I liked these I read the originals.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:09 PM

But Peace, when we were kids the only classics they had available to adapt were Beowulf and the Canturbury Tales...

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Peace
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:48 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 10:32 PM

I, also, Peace.

I wonder how many book reports in high school lit classes came from Classic Comics.

Now, I wouldn't know about that, of course. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 07:38 AM

My favourite was the Classics Comic of Hamlet, with the "To Be..." soliloquy in one huge balloon over Hamlet's head on one full page.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 01:13 PM

Hmm. I think I would have done that a bit differently. Hamlet is going through a bit of a personal crisis there. Calls for five panels at least. The general path of the soliloquy is, "Yes? No? Maybe? Well . . . maybe not. Aw, screw it!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: DeJah Thoris
From: Cluin
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 07:02 AM

I had one of those Classics Illustrated comics when I was a kid that I remember. It was "The Odyssey". I just remember the illustrator making Circe look like Joan Crawford.

I spent more time engrossed in the struggles of Turok, Son of Stone against the honkers.