Polyphemus must be the most misunderstood character in all of Homer’s Odyssey. The poor one-eyed fool was minding his own business, tending to his flock, eating people that had broken into his lair, when BAM! He gets a stake to the eye. His only eye! Suddenly, his life is turned upside down all thanks to Odysseus and his merry band of backstabbers.
I’m talking about godlike Odysseus’s showdown with the cyclops that takes place in Book 9 of the Odyssey. The first time I read that chapter was while sitting on a beach in Taormina, Sicily. I’ll never forget closing my Stanley Lombardo verse-translation of the book, sucking in the salty air, and heading back up the sun-soaked hill to Corso Umberto I. It was there on that street named after the second king of the Kingdom of Italy where I stumbled upon a car. I remember a chill running up my spine…
Unlike that moment, which we’ll get back to later, most chills in Sicily can be attributed to the Malocchio, or the evil eye. The Malocchio is so malicious, so dangerous, it’s said you can get it just by a look. It’s a curse that runs rampant in every town, every village, every corner of society. It’s every Italian’s worst fear realized.
The worst part is this: the curse of the Malocchio doesn’t begin with some sort of demonic possession or a supernatural trickster that decided you were the one that would get the evil eye put on you. No. It’s even worse. The power of the Malocchio can be harnessed by anyone—if they’re jealous enough.
The idea of good and bad energy isn’t some newfound concept that Pilates instructors use to gain new Instagram followers. It’s been around since antiquity. In the Malocchio, our ancestors believed anyone can put out bad energy and direct it right at you. If the eyes are the window to the soul, when someone bad opens their eyes, they might let that evil out.
“Don’t tell anyone!”
My grandmother shouts this out anytime she hears me mention good news. We’ll be sitting over espresso and cookies in her cramped basement, a smile across her pretty face.
“Nonna, don’t worry,” I try to explain.
“John, you never know what other people think.”
She came to New York when she was sixteen. Now over eighty, she still uses the ancient defense mechanisms to protect us from the guise of the Malocchio. It makes sense. That thing is real, and us simple humans need protecting. There’s gotta be something to it. Those ancient ways have stuck around much longer than any of us will.
Who knows why this stuff still exists, in a skyscraper-filled city so far away from the rocky island where it came from. Maybe there’s actually something to it. Maybe it’s more than a feeling. When bad things start happening to you, maybe it could be from the malocchio. That’s why it’s better to play it safe than sorry. It’s why whenever I get a funny feeling creep up my back, I make the sign of the horns with my pointer and pinky finger and jab it toward whichever direction feels right.
You know the sign, the one Ronnie James Dio made famous during his time in Black Sabbath and Dio. That indelible symbol of metal was popularized by Ronnie in the 80s and has since become a universal symbol for ROCK. Dio had stolen the sign from his own Sicilian grandmother, who used it to ward off the Malocchio on the streets of Cortland, New York when he was growing up.
The reason I’m talking about that wretched and accursed thing is because this: Malocchio was set to be the name of my new Substack publication, before I settled on Blown Off Course. There was a logo, it had branding. Polyphemus, the cyclops from the Odyssey, was set to be the mascot of the newsletter; his one eye would act as a representation of that evil eye. I thought it was brilliant.
But something strange happened. The night before the launch I woke up in a cold sweat after a bout of bad dreams. I had spent my entire life being warned to do whatever it took to ward off the evil eye. How could I possibly invite it into my own home, my own writing? I had to change the name. Plus, I couldn’t bear to think of the negative reactions my family would have when hearing the name. Malocchio was scrapped the next day.
Thus, Blown Off Course was born!
For those of you who have read my work on Thinking Man, I thank you. For those that haven’t read any of my stuff, this post touches on all the things I do (figuratively, not literally) in my writing. We have half-baked thoughts on all things from classic works of literature to heavy metal to (probably bad) humor to superstition to Italian heritage to book club ramblings to Stanley Lombardo sightings to familial complaints. If you like that kind of stuff, you’re in luck. Here’s a bonus Lombardo sighting (him reading from his translation of the Odyssey) if you’re hungry for one:
The only thing I haven’t mentioned is Melissa, who is awesome. And I’m not just saying that because she’s my wife and has a gun pointed to my head (we moved out of the city, they’re legal now). She’s officially taking back the helm of Thinking Man as it was originally intended to be: Thinking Man by a thinking woman. I’ll be back there for some guest posts, and Melissa will be featured here plenty, so if you only liked me because of her, please stick around because she’ll show up here, too. With me starting my MFA program, we thought it best to separate our work on here so that we can each point towards our own writing in one place. My posts from Thinking Man (the good ones anyway) will be republished here in their original formats. Melissa and I still work together and will look at the publications we run as a joint effort under one creative umbrella. If you liked the Thinking Man Book Club, it’s shifting to Blown Off Course as Polyphemus’s Book Club. So, unless you want to be cyclops food, I suggest you join in. That being said, I hope to see you again.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to finish the story that I started in the beginning.
The car I saw on Corso Umberto was painted on all sides with the scenes of Book 9 of the Odyssey. Polyphemus eating Odysseus’s crew, the stake to the eye, and the cyclops launching a boulder at their ship as it sailed away. I couldn’t believe the coincidence, spotting it moments after closing the book on that chapter. Later I’d sit down for drinks at Il Ciclope, a bar along the same street.
Since then, after reading the Odyssey in my ancestral homeland, I’ve felt a strange kinship to the wandering Odysseus. His mythical journey home, constantly getting blown off course again and again and again reminded me of my own hero’s journey. Writing feverishly from ten to seventeen, giving it up for six years, and attempting to come back to it ever since, while constantly getting blown of course again and again and again.
It was odd, I had been in Italy carrying the Odyssey for over a week but never got around to reading it until that morning on Sicily’s shore. In the myth, Polyphemus the cyclops was supposedly from the east side of Sicily, sitting at the base of the towering volcano, Mount Etna. Within the span of a few hours, I had read the epic chapter, stumbled upon the car painted in its honor, and gotten drinks at the bar named after the beast. Looking up at Etna, smoke billowing out of its giant top as I stood on the crowded stone street, I wondered if it had meant something more.
Creating my own Substack has been a long time coming. I’ve found it so hard to be true to myself, to really accept what I want out of my work. The journey back home has been a rewarding one, and I look forward to getting blown off course time and time again in a never ending search for answers. It always seemed easier to hide behind a different publication than to make my own. Finally making the jump has been something I’ve put off for so long. Now, I couldn’t be happier to call this place home. I’d be honored for you to stick with me as I continue to find my way.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
You can also buy me a coffee.
Good move & OK, no a half thinking man jokes. ;-)
I'm glad you did not go with that name John! Sicily is so interesting and what synchronicity!