June 2009
58 posts
“The rise of Idiot America today reflects—for profit, mainly, but also, and more...”
– Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, by Charles P. Pierce (via You Don’t Say). I need to read this book now.
1 tag
“How good one feels when one is full—how satisfied with ourselves and with the...”
– From Three Men in a Boat. Apparently there was a BBC version of this, with Tim Curry as the narrator and Michael Palin as Harris—is it any good, if you’ve seen it?
2 tags
Steve Forbes Misunderstands Augustus, Caesar and... →
The Awl carves a place in my heart with this takedown of Steve Forbes’ book subtitled ‘The Stunning Parallels Between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today and the Lessons You Can Learn’.
File the book under:
A Failed (and Selective) Application of the Qualities of Classical Leaders to Today’s Business World (which, incidentally, is falling apart), and
Goddammit Why Does Every...
Japandroids - Wet Hair
This is a bit of a...
apollosraven:
unmodern:
Latin is so workmanlike, for all its ubiquity in medieval lit. Give me crunchy, crusty, curmudgeonly Greek every time.
Reblogged for truth.
“Goddamn baby boomers. Holden isn’t annoying because kids today don’t believe in...”
– barthel, in reaction to Get a Life, Holden Caulfield - NYTimes.com (via tristn)
Oh thank God I’m not the only one who feels this way. I will now appropriate a friend’s alternate motto for Oberlin, and say: ‘Yes, yes, you are a special snowflake. Now shut the hell up.’
1 tag
Yay, new music
First of all, thanks to everyone who answered my call for help in re: music. Funnily enough, Phoenix, M83, Los Campesinos!, and Cut Copy were some of the few albums I was able to listen to recently, and I loved them (I am taking this as a sign that we’re on the same wavelength, which is great). So here is what I will be listening to in the next few days or so:
The Chameleons’ 80’s output...
“Real friendship is based on saying halfway unacceptable things, normally of a...”
– (Fuck Yeah) Alain de Botton (via crowth)
4 tags
Ancient Athens on Five Drachmas a Day →
(thanks to Caitlin for pointing this out to me! Now adding to book wish list.)
Ancient Athens was not all art, intellect and politics. This well-researched yet irreverently unacademic handbook also plunges into the fun side of Athenian life, with wine-sodden symposiums, brothels and brawls, advising the reader to avoid inns where the beds are infested with bugs (and prostitutes) and warning...
1 tag
Book Review: Michael Dirda on 'The Greeks and... →
“By equating being in love with having sex, by confusing Greek sex with Greek Love, a courting couple with a couple in a relationship, Dover not only sexualized passionate eros, but made homosexual relationships look intrinsically impermanent, and by the same token trivial.”
I’m going to have to read this: my erstwhile thesis advisor, who specializes in ancient sexuality (and also just...
1 tag
I need new music. Help?
Because the last year has seen me actually being busy and stressed out, I haven’t had much time to take a break, chill out, and listen to a good album or 12. But it’s summer now, I’m rained in, and I got nothing better to do.
Anyone out there want to recommend anything? (This is what I listen to usually.)
“My advice regarding library organization is always unpopular and always ignored,...”
– Quisby, in response to cleversimon’s post. Read the whole thing.
This may be the best way to organize my music: my listening habit is to listen to several albums/songs nonstop for a few weeks, then get tired and change the rotation, only occasionally digging through the archives for specific...
1 tag
3 tags
in reference to my iPod touch case
friend: I like my gadgets like I like my women: naked.
me: Well *I* like my gadgets like I like my men: protected.
Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785 →
Grose and his assistant Tom Cocking took midnight walks through London, picking up slang words in slums, drinking dens and dockyards and adding them into their ‘knowledge-box’. ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ was recognised throughout the 19th century as one of the most important collections of slang in the English language, and it would strongly influence later dictionaries of this...
1 tag
Finding and Furnishing an Apartment
By the time you receive this Guide, every good apartment in Nashville will be
taken. You will be forced to live in a box by the Greyhound Bus Station on 8th
Avenue. Fortunately, the winters here are relatively mild.
Hahaha, very funny (I reserve my real laughter until I actually have an apartment).
1 tag
Confessions of an Introverted Traveler →
Oh, I’m always happy enough when interesting people stumble into my path. It’s a lagniappe, and I’m capable of connecting with people when the opportunity arises. And when the chemistry is right, I enjoy it.
But I don’t seek people out, I am terrible at striking up conversations with strangers and I am happy exploring a strange city alone. I don’t seek out political discourse with...
1 tag
A litany of woes, received via text message, from...
Waaah my teacher is treating us like infants
Waaah I can’t use my laptop to write essays
Waaah I could not answer a single question in the Tagalog diagnostic exam (while my sister and I are fluent speakers, neither of us can write in the language for shit, or have had any formal education in it since, oh, 1999)
Waaah everybody in Econ-H is a nerd
Waaah I was super stuck in traffic today
How does our language shape the way we think? →
dailymeh:
I think language affects thought, but I think thought affects language far more. So far, the evidence for the opposite has been underwhelming.
The Smiths - William, It Was Really Nothing
...
1 tag
A few things I’d rather not think about when I’m... →
The smell. One of the creators of HBO’s Rome says ‘You would smell Rome before you saw it.’ Open sewers, dung in the street, smoke from oil-lamps, pine-pitch torches, urine from the fullers, rotting fish entrails from the garum factory, blood from hundreds of daily sacrifices, frying onions and sausage from fast-food joints, etc…
Rome looks so much cleaner in I, Claudius.
1 tag
@geekyrappinghood
geekyrappinghood:
I live in Olongapo, actually. 2 lang kami as far as I know, si superelectroninja yung isa.
We lived in Olongapo until just this year, too. Aim High Olongapo!
2 tags
On Greek Prose Composition
Robert F. Murray, A Song of Greek Prose:
Thrice happy are those
Who ne’er heard of Greek Prose
Or Greek Poetry either, as far as that goes;
For Liddell and Scott
Shall cumber them not,
Nor Sargent nor Sidgwick shall break their repose.
But I, late at night,
By the very bad light
Of very bad gas, must painfully write
Some stuff that a Greek
With his...
http://www.facebook.com/tayco →
Stupid Facebook won’t let me take ‘eush’, because they want at least 5 characters, and ‘etayco’ sounds like a Web 2.0 venture, so ‘tayco’ it is.
I have just run across a Greek restaurant in...
It rather took me by surprise. This is practically the equivalent of finding a Filipino restaurant in Athens.
Yay, tzatziki and gyros! It’s been so long…
kbkarma:
eush:
kbkarma:
Is college secondary or tertiary level? My brother’s going to going into third-level education. In the same place I’m stuck in for another year.
That really makes ME feel old…
It’s tertiary level (she’s going for a bachelor’s degree).
Same with my brother. In which case, I can sympathise. What’s she going for?
Economics. She’s a lot more practical than I...
kbkarma:
Is college secondary or tertiary level? My brother’s going to going into third-level education. In the same place I’m stuck in for another year.
That really makes ME feel old…
It’s tertiary level (she’s going for a bachelor’s degree).
Neil Finn - Sexual Healing (acoustic)
“The millionth word is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Their hand...”
– a disturbing tweet from Prof. Warren Rice at Miskatonic Community College about the spurious ‘English approaches 1 million words’ news item that’s been making the rounds lately.
via Language Log
They just misspelled ‘Philippines’ on that keynote...
Lame.
EDIT: And apparently, Colombia shows up here as Columbia. Come on, Apple, it’s not that hard.
I have really boring dreams
Once, I dreamt I was in line for a bagel. I was really getting into it, wondering what sort of bagel I should get, and if I could get regular cream cheese instead of the low-fat bullshit, when my dog woke me up for lunch.
I wanted to go back to sleep so I could get my dream bagel.
1 tag
Do you need a better classical education? Take our... →
Yay, another “Classics is still relevant” article, but at least this one is really more of a blurb for a book.
Luciano Michelini - Frolic
Perhaps better known...