The 2/10 One Big Happy, recently in my comics feed:
(#1) Bonus word play: the genie’s fabulous bottle and the idiom hit the bottle ‘drink heavily
Ruthie understands genealogy as genie-ology, or at least as a word with first element genie, the name of a mythological spirit that has come to play a significant role in American popular culture (and she recognizes both lamp genies and bottle genies). But genealogy is new to her.
The word. From NOAD:
noun genealogy: [a] a line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor: combing through the birth records and genealogies. [b] the study and tracing of lines of descent or development. [c] a plant’s or animal’s line of evolutionary development from earlier forms. ORIGIN Middle English: via Old French and late Latin from Greek genealogia, from genea‘race, generation’ + -logia(see –logy).
Ruthie’s dad is researching genealogy, sense a, so that he’s doing genealogy, sense b.
Genies. From Wikipedia on the background:
Jinn — also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirits or demons, depending on source) — are supernatural creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology.
And in popular culture:
Genies frequently occur as characters or plot elements in fictional works. They are often divided into different categories, of which the most prominent are marid, genie or jinn, and ifrit.
In particular, in the tale of Aladdin:
Aladdin is a folk tale most probably of Middle-Eastern origin. Despite not being part of the original Arabic text of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights), it is one of the best-known tales associated with that collection. It was actually … incorporated into the book Les mille et une nuits by its French translator, Antoine Galland … published in 1710.
… The story is often retold with variations. The following is a précis of the Burton translation of 1885.
Aladdin is an impoverished young ne’er-do-well, dwelling in “one of the cities of China”. He is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin’s late father, Mustapha the tailor, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his good will by pretending to set up the lad as a wealthy merchant. The sorcerer’s real motive is to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Aladdin is still wearing a magic ring the sorcerer has lent him. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring and a jinnī (or “genie”) appears and releases him from the cave, allowing him to return to his mother while in possession of the lamp. When his mother tries to clean the lamp, so they can sell it to buy food for their supper, a second far more powerful genie appears who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp.
With the aid of the genie of the lamp, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries Princess Badroulbadour, the sultan’s daughter (after magically foiling her marriage to the vizier’s son). The genie builds Aladdin and his bride a wonderful palace, far more magnificent than the sultan’s.
The sorcerer hears of Aladdin’s good fortune, and returns; he gets his hands on the lamp by tricking Aladdin’s wife (who is unaware of the lamp’s importance) by offering to exchange “new lamps for old”. He orders the genie of the lamp to take the palace, along with all its contents, to his home in the Maghreb. Aladdin still has the magic ring and is able to summon the lesser genie. The genie of the ring cannot directly undo any of the magic of the genie of the lamp, but he is able to transport Aladdin to the Maghreb where, with the help of the “woman’s wiles” of the princess, he recovers the lamp and slays the sorcerer, returning the palace to its proper place.
The sorcerer’s more powerful and evil brother plots to destroy Aladdin for killing his brother by disguising himself as an old woman known for her healing powers. Badroulbadour falls for his disguise and commands the “woman” to stay in her palace in case of any illnesses. Aladdin is warned of this danger by the genie of the lamp and slays the impostor.
Aladdin eventually succeeds to his father-in-law’s throne.
… The 1940 British movie The Thief of Bagdad borrows elements of the Aladdin story, although it also departs from the original story fairly freely: for instance the genie grants only three wishes and the minor character of the Emperor’s vizier is renamed Jaffar and becomes the main villain, replacing the sorcerer from the original plot.
… Arabian Nights is a 1942 adventure film directed by John Rawlins and starring Sabu, Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Leif Erickson. The film is derived from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights but owes more to the imagination of Universal Pictures than the original Arabian stories.
… A Thousand and One Nights (1945) is a tongue-in-cheek Technicolor fantasy film set in the Baghdad of the One Thousand and One Nights, starring Cornel Wilde as Aladdin, Evelyn Keyes as the genie of the magic lamp, Phil Silvers as Aladdin’s larcenous sidekick, and Adele Jergens as the princess Aladdin loves.
… Aladdin, the 1992 animated feature by Walt Disney Feature Animation (possibly currently the best-known retelling of the story). In this version several characters are renamed or amalgamated. For instance the Sorcerer and the Sultan’s vizier become one character named Jafar while the Princess is renamed Jasmine. They have new motivations for their actions. The Genie of the Lamp only grants three wishes and desires freedom from his role. A sentient magic carpet replaces the ring’s genie while Jafar uses a royal magic ring to find Aladdin. The names “Jafar” and “Abu”, the Sultan’s delight in toys, and their physical appearances are borrowed from the 1940 film, The Thief of Baghdad. The setting is moved from China to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah, and the structure of the plot is simplified.
The bottle genie of popular culture. From Wikipedia:
(#2) Jeannie out of her bottleI Dream of Jeannie is an American fantasy sitcom television series starring Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, and with whom she falls in love at first sight and eventually marries.
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