Spiders, Myths, and Burt Lancaster's Teeth

Random noun: Spiderling

I was not familiar with this word. It means “young spider.” They have spider age differentials? Is there a “spiderteen”? Do mothers warn their spiderlings not to wander off because there’s a monster out there holding a giant broom?

Some bestselling books among spiders:
Web of Lies
The Lizard Next Door
Crawl the President’s Men

Fear of spiders is arachnophobia. It's called that because of an ancient myth about a woman named Arachne. (I don't know what baby name scroll was popular in those days, but they sure could have used another one.) According to the Roman poet Ovid, Arachne was a weaver of surpassing skill, and wasn't shy about saying so. She boasted she could out-weave Minerva herself.

Minerva was a goddess who had several domains to look after, like poetry, medicine, website design, and weaving. “Who does this little strumpet think she is?” Minerva said to

herself one day. (Editorial note: This is drawn from the JSB translation of the Ovid poem, based on a complete inability to read Latin.)

Minerva disguised herself as an old crone (which is the only kind of crone there is; their young are called cronelings) and warned Arachne that insulting the gods was not a good career move. But if she were to confess her sin, Minerva was prepared to forgive her.

Minerva and Arachne (René-Antione Houasse, 1709)

Arachne scoffed at this, and said if Minerva thought she was so great she ought to come down and have a weaving contest. Minerva whipped off her old crone outfit and said, “Game on, sweetie!” [JSB trans.]

They immediately sat at their looms and started weaving tapestries. Minerva chose to depict scenes of gods punishing mortals for various sins, like pride, hubris, and letting man buns become a fashion.

Arachne’s tapestry was like a tabloid TV show. It depicted Zeus deflowering various maidens, as he was wont to do. And it was one beautiful piece of art.

Minerva had to admit as much, but she was enraged about this insult to the king of the gods. Not being a good sport, Minerva took her shuttle—a wooden tool used on a loom—and slammed it over Arachne’s dome, and then destroyed the tapestry.

This was too much shaming for Arachne. She hanged herself. When Minerva found out, she felt some pity for the girl (from which we get the Latin phrase Tibi gratias ago pro nihilo—“Thanks for nothing.”)

And how did Minerva demonstrate her compassion? She turned Arachne into a spider (the Romans had odd ideas about compassion in those days).

In this way, the spawn of Arachne would go on weaving forever. And it's a pretty incredible thing that spiders do, when you realize they can put up a web overnight and the thing is as beautiful and symmetrical as Burt Lancaster's teeth.

Lancaster is one of my favorite actors. He started out as a circus acrobat, which is why he did most of his own stunts in the movies. See The Crimson Pirate sometime. He was 39 when he did that, and he was flipping and trapezing like a man half his age. That was in 1952.

In 1966 he made a great film called The Professionals. He was 53 then and climbed up a sheer rock face, ascending with a fixed rope. Think Brad Pitt could do that?

Lancaster had what can’t be taught or bought—charisma. The camera loved him. He dominates every scene he’s in. Among my favorite Lancaster movies:

The Killers
From Here to Eternity
Criss Cross
Elmer Gantry
The Professionals
Valdez is Coming
Seven Days in May

That last one was written by the great Rod Serling, and co-starred Lancaster’s friend Kirk Douglas. Burt plays a four-star general, a military hero and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kirk is his assistant. Kirk begins to suspect that Burt is planning a military coup. The movie is taut and suspenseful all the way through, and has one of the best closing lines ever.

**Spoiler Alert**

By the end, the coup has been squelched. Burt is through. As he’s walking out of the Pentagon, Kirk is coming in. Kirk, without any pleasure, hands him an official letter.

Burt: Are you sufficiently up on your Bible to know who Judas was?

Kirk: I suggest you read that letter, sir. It’s from the president.

Burt: I asked you a question.

Kirk: Are you ordering me to answer, sir?

Burt: I am!

Kirk: Yes, I know who Judas was. He was a man I worked for and admired, until he disgraced the four stars on his uniform.

Boom!

For a writer, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as great last line. I work on mine more than any other part of a novel. Rumor has it that in the first draft of Gone With the Wind, the last line was: “Tomorrow will probably suck, too.” Good thing Margaret Mitchell thought it through.

Some of my favorite last lines:

He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning. (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. (Animal Farm by George Orwell)

It's funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. (The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger)

I leaned forward and raised her tiny fists and held them against my closed eyes. In that moment I knew all the mysteries were solved. That I was home. That I was saved. (Lost Light by Michael Connelly)

I never saw any of them again — except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them. (The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler)

But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. (The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis)

And what I am writing here is the last line of this Whimsical Wandering.