Metameat

Threescore and Ten

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:00:11 -0800

In Boston; went to the Museum of Fine Arts.

Tintoretto, self-portrait circa 1546 ...

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:19:49 -0800

Late at night I said to J., “I need to s-e-l-p-s,” then collapsed into incomprehension over such a brain type—I wish I could say this was the endpoint of grading, but in fact the work is barely begun. “For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”

Berkeley has an enlightened new policy where your kitchen scraps and yard clippings can decay peacefully together in big green bins; so taking out the new load of coffee grounds and tangelo peels this morning, we flipped open the lid and discovered a tiny glistening salamander inside, breathing through wee neck vents and taking in the world with alert black eyes. We dumped our refuse and closed the lid carefully; then I had an attack of worry over what might become of the salamander when the organic waste truck showed up, so I went back out and used a bit of Tupperware to transfer it to the temperate jungle growing alongside our house. It was quite cooperative about being moved and even helped matters out by clinging to the Tupperware with its tiny prehensile tail—who knew?! I believe it must have been a half-grown Aneides lugubrus. When we went back out to check up it had skedaddled, I hope to a more salamander-appropriate habitat. ...

eure sanscreed into oure eryan

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:03:18 -0800

Happy Guinness Whisky Milkshake day, or however you mark it—

Tue, 3 Mar 2009 20:09:45 -0800

Pica pica nuttalli, your old favorite and mine, is back with some handy hints!

Geisteswissenschaften

Fri, 9 Jan 2009 12:26:59 -0800

Last night J. brought home, along with her bad self, a package from the doorstep which turned out to be The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry, rev. ed., by some learned dudes. It’s a sensibly priced alternative to M.L. West’s Greek Metre or Bruno Snell’s Griechische Metrik, for which one can only pine in the specialty bookshop; and I swear on my honor, it is the first guide I’ve seen that actually makes sense of this stuff. I’ve been practicing on the beginning of the Odyssey and finding all kinds of things I didn’t remember, like the gratuitous slam at the beginning against Odysseus’s men—

...

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:22:05 -0800

For Christmas I gave myself some time to read the Life of Johnson; the moral Tory Boswell is a funny fellow to encounter after getting to know him through all the juvenile boozing and whoring in his 1762 London journal. Poor Boswell, striving for respectability and having to come out against female inheritance and the abolition of the slave trade; poor Dr. Johnson, condemned to take every conversation as a contest in which one man must prove superior; and poor Dr. William Dodd too. ...

The Kind Old Sun

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:29:33 -0800

Just in time for the Holidays of Change I have some CDs to give the world, or sell to the world with the sale ported to a donation, because I’m unequipped to run benefit marathons. Cheers.