They Might Be Giants.

I recently had an art show here at Bridget Dolan's Pub...

Below is the work-in-progress...

Followed by the installation...

Viola!

Doesn't my Cyclops look happy in and amongst the flowers and next to that yellow-eyed demon? I sense that love is in the air...

I wanted to somehow relate this post about the Hard Knocks Cyclops to the San Francisco Giants, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out how the two link up.

Umm... The San Francisco Giants won on the night I drew this, although they had a hard knock yesterday...

That's all I can come up with right now.

Oh! And Cyclopes are a kind of giant! Good one, Jen!

Maybe if I review the Cyclops mythology, I can forge a better Giants / Cyclopes link...

Cyclopes were one-eyed giants. They were blacksmiths in the times before the Greek gods, when the universe was ruled by the Titans. These one-eyed giants were so terrifying to the Titans, they locked them up in Tartarus – a dungeon of torment in the underworld even lower and more miserable than Hades. When Zeus made his move to unseat the Titans, one of the first things he did was to release the Cyclopes. To help Zeus overthrow the Titans, the Cyclopes made some thunderbolts for Zeus, a helmet of invisibility for Hades, and a trident for Poseidon.

Hmmm... I wonder if the San Francisco Giants can glean any sort of motivation or encouragement from this actual "Clash of the Titans?" I dunno. Since these Cyclopes were killed by Apollo as revenge for the murder of his son, maybe this part of the myth isn’t the best example.

Perhaps I should look at Homer’s Odyssey instead.

This story gives us probably the most famous Cyclops of all time, Polyphemus. In Book 9, Odysseus lands on the Island of the Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War. The resident Cyclops, Polyphemus, traps Odysseus and twelve of his men in his cave, where he promptly begins crushing and eating Odysseus’ sailors and getting drunk on the wine Odysseus has brought. Once the Cyclops is plastered, however, Odysseus stabs out his eye with a flaming spear. After Odysseus and his men escape, Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon, for revenge. Poseidon curses Odysseus with massive storms and howling winds, and Odysseus struggles against the sea for a decade before he finally makes it home to Ithaca.

I'm still not sure I see the connection to the Giants. I like the “revenge” part, though...

Maybe I should see what I can glean from a real classic of mythology.

And by that I mean Nathan Juran’s 1958 classic film, The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad.

This clip seems to imply that the San Francisco Giants will need a magic lamp and a creepy cartwheeling genie to win in Philly.

Things turn out a little better for the Cyclops in this one...

I like the tree-crushings. I do not, however, like the torch to the eye at the end. What is with people blinding Cyclopes?

After all, if you only have one eye to keep on the ball, then you really, really need that one eye.

GO GIANTS!