Comments on: killing icarus http://www.zacharychartkoff.com/2006/11/20/killing-icarus/ poetry: a curious look at this 21st century pleasure Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:40:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: Zachary Chartkoff http://www.zacharychartkoff.com/2006/11/20/killing-icarus/#comment-12585 Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:37:12 +0000 http://www.zacharychartkoff.com/2006/11/20/killing-icarus/#comment-12585 It's an interesting question. Usually I hear that it is "the gods" (Zeus, I suppose) who punish the boy for flying too high. I was thinking a lot of 9/11 after I posted this ... those still images of people falling, caught in mid-air. You know what is about to happen to them, you can already hear it in your mind, and yet, like Icarus, they are frozen. Paint wings onto their bodies and they become myth. But if you pause at those images, and say it is different than the story of Icarus, I would ask why? Can we argue that they have reached same juncture that the falling boy found? (I do not know, but I ask any way) It’s an interesting question. Usually I hear that it is “the gods” (Zeus, I suppose) who punish the boy for flying too high. I was thinking a lot of 9/11 after I posted this … those still images of people falling, caught in mid-air. You know what is about to happen to them, you can already hear it in your mind, and yet, like Icarus, they are frozen. Paint wings onto their bodies and they become myth. But if you pause at those images, and say it is different than the story of Icarus, I would ask why? Can we argue that they have reached same juncture that the falling boy found? (I do not know, but I ask any way)

]]> by: Erin http://www.zacharychartkoff.com/2006/11/20/killing-icarus/#comment-12410 Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:27:38 +0000 http://www.zacharychartkoff.com/2006/11/20/killing-icarus/#comment-12410 For me, though who killed Icarus? is an important question, the pull toward the myth, as seen in painting & poems alike, is less the body in pain about to die aspect of it, & far more the pinnacle of his flight & fall, that turning point, that almost invisible juncture between bliss & terror. That's why I keep looking. Why do you keep looking? You'll have mail in your in box real soon. For me, though who killed Icarus? is an important question, the pull toward the myth, as seen in painting & poems alike, is less the body in pain about to die aspect of it, & far more the pinnacle of his flight & fall, that turning point, that almost invisible juncture between bliss & terror.

That’s why I keep looking. Why do you keep looking? You’ll have mail in your in box real soon.

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