Muse Placement

Ok, here is my placement of the muses. For the record, I am writing this from memory. To be completely honest, the first time I thought this through I wrote it down. Unfortunately I still have lingering memories of how the words look in my handwriting on the page. It is unfortunate because I now have to isolate my memory palace (classroom) from my very real and material literate context. This is an attempt at keeping the palace clean. A little sweeping in the corners perhaps. However, as soon as I type these a little more debris will be added to my already cluttered brain. Here goes...


Thermostat - Of course, cannot be anything other than the great Erato. Yeah! Turn up the heat!!





Chalkboard - On the chalkboard sits Clio who is the muse of history. The chalkboard is one of those old technologies that we still see in our classroom. It is interesting that you can pull a screen down and project thousands of digital pixels onto it and still feed your nostalgia by coughing on a cloud of chalk dust. This technology is old enough to be in a HISTORY book.

Screen - On the projector screen sits Urania, the muse of astronomy. I think of my 'Mysteries of the Sky' class and the supernovas and galaxies that the professor would show us on the huge EPS projector screen every day.




"Quiet" desk - This muse would always be told to sit here during school. Thalia the muse of comedy sits atop the "quiet" desk.



Overhead Projector - Polyhymnia sits on the overhead projector. Back in the day when people actually used these things, there was one at my church and we would sing hymns that were printed on transparent paper and enlarged by this thing. Later, I would have to decipher poorly written math problems on a vis-a-vis smudged overhead in school, but it all started at church.



Brown desk - Terpsichore, the muse of song and dance holds up the muse of sacred songs. Under the more formal muse is one that is a bit more playful. The "chor" in Terpsichore makes me think of chords, like 7th and 9th chords which can be light and playful.


Bulletin Board - Calliope who is the chief of the muses relates to the bulletin board. She is the muse of speech and 'puts herself on display' just as if on a bulletin board.



Snowman Drawing - Snowmen are generally happy unless made by Calvin, examples here, therefore the good muse Euterpe who is associated with pleasing music sits here.






Double F symbol - This muse contrasts the other muse that is on the bulletin board. The double "f"s as mentioned by professor Sexson looks somewhat like a swastika and therefore this muse is Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. The "mel" beginning sounds like "mal" which of course means bad or wrong.



...and to all a good night.