Temple of Sulis Minerva 

Last week I traveled to Bath. I needed more time there: my trip south-west to Somerset was a gorgeous, Georgian blur. Fortunate to have been there at all I won't complain about the brisk tour, however. I missed the town before I had left, and the water temple gave me ideas to ponder.

Notably, in times when Bath belonged to the Romans, curses were folded or rolled and thrown with purpose into their healing spring, that sulfuric, milky green mossy Celadon of The Great Bath all lead-lined and sulphate ions and geothermal energy.

"To Minerva the goddess of Sulis I have given the thief who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether slave or free, whether man or woman. He is not to buy back this gift unless with his own blood."


And so the incensed Roman would send his curses into the cloud. Before you think it seems quaint, or laughable, or a little extreme for a cloak:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Xzibit C

And before you go saying, "Well yes, but, Jessica Mae, dear, Twitter is different because people actually read Twitter," let me remind you that we are reading the Romans' curses. There was just a bit of a delay, is all. And they were written in a different language. Oh, and perhaps a bit soggy. Except they were engraved on thin sheets of lead (curse tablets) so not really.

Maybe the Romans were using sarcasm, hyperbole, overstatement and other techniques for humor. You don't know. One day your tweets are going to be misread by future humans and talking dinosaurs from another planet. They are going to think you worshiped cats and thought said cats could speak to you about cheeseburgers and won't know that "lol" means you weren't being awful and were j/k j/k all the way. Together the humans and dinos will study the vocal chords of cat fossils, deduce that cats could not speak and surmise that you were in a mental lolcult. After that there will probably be a dino-human war. Just because.

So back in the day in Bath the waters were their Internets, the tablets, their tweets, and they were @-ing the Gods. Then they'd get wasted off some sulfuric acid water, do a few laps, rock around naked and nearly get driven out by Boadicea. Then infinity years later I'd see a statue of Boadicea in Westminster and would be all, "sweet!"

(For any dinosaurs from the future by "sweet" I mean "impressive." Not "sugary." Also give us some of your fossil fuels we're addicted kthx lol lol--oh, was that dinosaur-racist? No way I said "lol"! You future dinos just don't get our humors.)

Maybe the future dino-human war will be about fossil fuels. Humans already have practice at that war so we might win. In the meantime, here's another curse:

"May he who has stolen VILBIA from me become as liquid as water ... who has stolen it or her. Velvinna, Exspercus, Verianus, Severinus, A(u)gustalis, Comitianus, Minianus, Canis, Germanilla, Jovina."

This is way worse than getting your name written on the blackboard for talking in class. Trust.

. . .

There is one place I have always been set on since I was a child and that place was and remains England. For that reason I went, unflinchingly, to study at Cambridge. I was fortunate to stay, work and shoot in London as well.

If I hadn't been so set on getting to LA permanently to master my motion picture crafts and participate in an industry which I now understand is illogical and ridiculous (but at the time thought was workable), and if the expense of living in London weren't so discouraging, then it's highly likely that I would have moved there already. When someone asks me what would be ideal for me in life, I respond something to the effect of: Living in London but retaining a space in LA so that I could do production business here when I need to, and of course visiting VA between. I hadn't been to London in a few years, however, so the memory had worn thin. Now it's fresh and I'm well past learning what LA has to say about film craft, directing, writing and drama.

So I'm basically just looking for an excuse, is all.


"To he who has perpetuated Hollywood stupidity and mediocrity, and robbed this house of sanity, whether he be agent, production executive, The Associated Press or Michael Bay, Latin, gods, curse, may he be forced to watch The Hills "Best of Spencer" on repeat for infinity, until he returns honor to the ArcLight of my divinity, pays for it in blood, more gods and curse, middle finger, sotheretakethat, curse renewed, triple sow cow, moonwalk, legal and binding. ps: blood!"

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