LEISURE LETTER Nº8
Editor of D&D’s Sunday Paper
SPRING INTO GEAR
Lots of things were invented by accident. The post-it note. The ice-cream cone. The corn flake. The slinky. The inventor of post-it notes was aiming for a super strong adhesive glue and wound up with a flimsy one. The ice-cream cone was courtesy of the 1904 World Fair, when the guy selling ice-cream ran out of paper cups but was (FORTUNATELY) sat beside a waffle-stand. Corn Flakes began as a bunch of stale grains left out, and from what I can tell they just kinda went with it. The slinky was some coiled spring intended for something to do with the Navy, I think, which fell from a shelf and tumbled gracefully, end over end. And then there’s Spring. The season. The one that Persephone - mythological goddess and inspiration for D&D’s namesake print - inadvertently invented, by sheer chance of being, well, abducted. Let’s paint the scene.
So, Hades (ruler of the underworld and bit of a shady bugger), had a crush on Persephone, who was by all accounts quite bloody fit. But Persephone’s mother-slash-momager, Demeter, is like “absolutely NOT!!!! a chance bro, do not go there” (but, like, actually, “bro”, because he was literally Demeter’s brother and therefore Persephone’s uncle. Gross, yes, but that’s just how it rolled in mythological times). Anyway. Hades ignores all of the above and instead opts to WOO Persephone using a technique that for obvious reasons has since fallen out of practice, and which, in fairness, is not so much a “wooing” as it is a “bursting through the earth while she innocently gathers flowers and whisking her away to the underworld in a dark and sleazy chariot”.
Anyway, Demeter catches wind of the situation and is naturally livid, and while getting her knickers in an absolute twist, kicks up a storm but, like, actually a storm, with her being the Goddess of the Harvest and everything AND, as one does (going against all modern psychological advice re Responding Not Reacting), freezes the entire earth. A bit of a pickle, really, because nothing can grow and everyone’s starving. But meanwhile in the underworld, Persephone is really leaning into the idea of being Queen. Some say she’s just super into bad dudes (hi!!) some say she was held hostage. Who knows? But the earth is frozen, remember? Something must be done. And plans for Persephone to return home are thwarted by the earliest recorded fruit-related custody battle - in which Persephone has eaten a couple of pomegranate seeds in the underworld (she took a sip, just a sip, from the devil’s cup*) (*pomegranate), thus bounding her to her captor for eternity (we’ve all been there). An imperfect compromise ensues: she will spend half the year below ground (during which the earth will remain quilted in ice) and ascend to the upper world for the other, where it will bloom and be SPRING!! (and SUMMER!! ETC.) And yeah, there you have it, a happy accident and Spring according to the Greeks.
Please forgive me for scattering this week’s recommendations like easter eggs and seemingly without context in the above^^^. But they’re good and real recs (click them!), I swear, I just love mythology and get carried away. Happy (nearly!) spring, happy Sunday x
SUNDAY UNIFORM SUGGESTIONS
