Vrasidas Karalis
May. 18th, 2007 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricSay the name to yourself, in your best greek accent. Vrrraass-idas Karraleees. Now, say it again while holding your hand up in front of you and giving a little effete flourish. Vrrraass-idas Karraleees, of the Modern Greek Department. Ex-monk, once speech-writer to Bob Carr, now working for Morris Iemma.
Jenny: you're all dressed up just for a lecture, Vras!
Vras: Oh, i'm very ex-cited! I'm going to meet the premier after this.
Jenny: What for?
Vras, ignoring her question entirely: I have a tie in my car. It's lovely, it's got carnations on it, and it clashes horribly. *he's standing there in a rose pink shirt and blue-grey suit*
Expert in Byzantine art and literature.
The Emperor Justinian, and his very foxy wife Theodora. Not a very nice girl. She was one of these pole dancers, one of these strip tease girls you know. He saw her dancing, all that flesh, and he fell in llloooove with her.
*shows slide of mozaic showing the pair of them*
She's dead, believe it or not
*silence in the class*
This is the face of a dead woman looking at you. A magnificent representation of the absence of life!
This is my favourite picture...
*new slide, complete with power-point fade ins*
Do you like my effects? Aren't they prrretty?
*Slide shows a cat, wearing Theodora's imperial getup* It's my favourite, you know.
On Byzantium: For nine hundred years, it was the New York of the middle ages!
On the preservation of history:
It is the destiny of all castles, to become rrrrrestaurants!
On the difficulties of reading in the middle ages:
If you read the New Testament without punctuation, you will come out Confusians... instead of Christians!
In the "Vienna Genesis", the last MS made before the Iconoclasm, women are dominatn in the imagery. They aren't particularly well covered or demure either- even one nude. She's blonde you know. Blondes of the middle ages have one purpose: To be in brothels!
There was one Empress, they called her Zoe The Man Eater. She used to hold beauty contests, male beauty contests, between all her generals, to decide who she was going to marry next.
*Slide of Zoe and her husband*
This is Zoe The Man-Eater and her husband. Every time she married a new one, she had his face scratched off and a new one put on!
All of this in the one one-hour lecture, save for the two about books, which were from the second hour.
Jenny: you're all dressed up just for a lecture, Vras!
Vras: Oh, i'm very ex-cited! I'm going to meet the premier after this.
Jenny: What for?
Vras, ignoring her question entirely: I have a tie in my car. It's lovely, it's got carnations on it, and it clashes horribly. *he's standing there in a rose pink shirt and blue-grey suit*
Expert in Byzantine art and literature.
The Emperor Justinian, and his very foxy wife Theodora. Not a very nice girl. She was one of these pole dancers, one of these strip tease girls you know. He saw her dancing, all that flesh, and he fell in llloooove with her.
*shows slide of mozaic showing the pair of them*
She's dead, believe it or not
*silence in the class*
This is the face of a dead woman looking at you. A magnificent representation of the absence of life!
This is my favourite picture...
*new slide, complete with power-point fade ins*
Do you like my effects? Aren't they prrretty?
*Slide shows a cat, wearing Theodora's imperial getup* It's my favourite, you know.
On Byzantium: For nine hundred years, it was the New York of the middle ages!
On the preservation of history:
It is the destiny of all castles, to become rrrrrestaurants!
On the difficulties of reading in the middle ages:
If you read the New Testament without punctuation, you will come out Confusians... instead of Christians!
In the "Vienna Genesis", the last MS made before the Iconoclasm, women are dominatn in the imagery. They aren't particularly well covered or demure either- even one nude. She's blonde you know. Blondes of the middle ages have one purpose: To be in brothels!
There was one Empress, they called her Zoe The Man Eater. She used to hold beauty contests, male beauty contests, between all her generals, to decide who she was going to marry next.
*Slide of Zoe and her husband*
This is Zoe The Man-Eater and her husband. Every time she married a new one, she had his face scratched off and a new one put on!
All of this in the one one-hour lecture, save for the two about books, which were from the second hour.