Overheard Starbuck

"Was there only one Trojan Horse?"
---"Do you mean figuratively or literally?"
"I don't know. I'm asking if the Greeks had built an actual wooden horse shouldn't there be drawings, mosaics or pottery designs of other versions, models and prototypes from around that time? It sounds like a fairly sophisticated device to be engineered without a precedent."
---"An Athenian Ass? Spartan Helmet? Persian Cat?"
"I guess the singularity of the Trojan Horse illustrates just how sparse the records are from those centuries. Maybe it wasn't a horse at all but a left-over siege device that the Trojans believed they were plundering from the battlefield?"
---"Burning libraries back then is like bombing power-grids nowadays. --Targets the American and Israeli armies are sure to destroy in the first hour of every peacekeeping mission."

...

"Is there any way of knowing if Helen of Troy was an real person?"
---"Kidnapping was the earliest form of courtship. Throughout human history there've been more kidnapped brides than engagements and bridal showers."
"Reminds me what Mormons do to marry their teenage wives."
---"Helen of Troy is an archetype present in some form or another in every culture and every age."
"Like the Easter Bunny, the Mother of God, Osama bin Laden and Elvis."
---"If there wasn't a Helen of Troy we'ld have to invent her."
"Debbie of Des Moines. Madison of Madison, Anne of Ann Arbor! (laughs)"
---"Remember the babies pulled from their incubators? The Davidian children saved from molestation by incineration at Waco?"
"What are you talking about?"