“HADES—With no boatmen to take them across the dark stygian waters to the dry, sunless lands of the dead, millions of newly deceased souls were reportedly backed up on the banks of the River Styx during a transit strike by the Underworld Ferry Workers Union, sources confirmed Friday. ‘Yeah, I get it—Charon, Phlegyas, and the rest are expected to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week for all of eternity and have never seen their wages raise beyond one golden obol per passenger, but souls still need to journey into the afterlife, you know,’ said former St. Paul, MN resident Rick Hoffman, who has not advanced in line since succumbing to congenital heart failure five weeks ago. 
‘It’s like, I can physically see Cerberus standing on the other side. Someone needs to paddle us over there, and I don’t care if he’s organized labor or not.’ Hoffman added that he hoped the strike would end soon, as he was ‘getting pretty creeped out’ by the keening souls who, unable to pay the fare, are forced to wander the shores weeping and crying out for a hundred years.” –“Deceased Souls Backed Up At River Styx Ferry Crossing During Underworld Transit Strike,” The Onion, April 27, 2018
Paulo De Tarso Souza, “Charon’s Boat” and “The 9th Circle” (2018)
Parenting Circles of Hell: The Supermarket
“It is a well known fact that The Supermarket is in fact the seventh circle of hell for parents of toddlers. And pre-schoolers. And primary, secondary… oh stuff it, most kids. Shopping with kids full stop is a particular pain that most of us dread but for some reason, The Supermarket is a special, fire-burning hell that should only be braved by the thick of skin and girded of loin.” — Kate Dyson, The Motherload, February 9, 2018
Read the full article here.
Campo di Marte, Florence (Italy), March 2018
Tweeting with Dante (2018)
On January 1, 2018, Pablo Maurette tweeted an invitation to a “massive, open, simultaneous reading” of the Divine Comedy, one canto each day, for the beginning of the year 2018. #Dante2018 sparked a viral phenomenon, in which readers across Latin America posted quotes, images, photos, reflections, and other comments on their reading as they kept up with the canto-per-day challenge.
See the tweets at #dante2018.
See also this article in La Stampa about the phenomenon, especially in Latin America and with Spanish speakers (in Italian).
And see Jorge Carrión’s reflections on the viral phenomenon in the NYTimes Spanish edition (essay in Spanish).
