orichalcum

Scarily enough, this is the 7th year that I have been keeping a .plan and .project file on Unix and saved each entry. This is also the 7th year that I present, at this time, the best of the year's entries. It's a way to reflect on the ups and downs of the year, and usually to laugh a lot.

1/14/03: Weird from the New Orleans American Philological Assocation Conference:
The exhibit at the New Orleans Aquarium on "How Oil Rigs make perfect marine
ecosystems," sponsored by Exxon.
1/18: I would kill for muscles and frites. --SS
1/27: "I do all the petting while you get all the licking, is that it?" --SMK
"There is a sad lack of indiscriminate sex in Quest...wait, I don't mean that." --SMK

2/6: Weirdest new piece of knowledge of the day: Jeremy Bentham left a
lot of money to the Royal Society of the University College, London, in his
will, on the condition that every ten years his embalmed corpse be brought
out to dinner and seated at the dais with the other Fellows, where he
was recorded at meetings as "present but not voting." It still is on
view in a glass cabinet at the college.

"Each person has his own custom, his own practice; the Divine Mind has
distributed various guardians to the various cities; as particular souls
are given to mortals at birth, so, too are heavenly geniuses divided
among peoples. Utility, which is the clearest proof of the existence of
the gods to mortals, adds to this argument. For as all human reason moves
about in the dark, whence can knowledge of the gods come better than from
the memory and documents of favors done in the past? If the long passage
of time adds authority to religion, faith must be kept with so many
centuries...What does it matter by what rational system the truth is
sought? It is not possible to come by one path to so great a truth."
--Senator Symmachus, 384 CE, in a speech
trying to save the altar of Victory
in Rome from Christians

"Second campaign - lost right hand, in two campaigns was wounded 23
times; yet, disabled, served in numerous subsequent campaigns; twice taken
prisoner by Hannibal, twice escaped, fought four times with only his left
hand, having two horses stabbed under him..."
--Campaign speech of Marcus Sergius for praetor, 201 BCE
(Compare this to the Clark ad "Story,".)

"To sum up so far: in Roman history the salient fact in the earlier half
appears to be the assembling of an empire, and in the latter half the
decorating of it." --Ramsay Mcmullen

2/26: "America represents a greater force for peace, pluralism and prosperity
than the world has ever known. --Will Bailey
Yeah, well, that'll go over great except for the ancient Romans in the
first few rows. --Toby, West Wing

Abraham to Sarah: "How long is your son going to be tied to your apron
strings? He is already thirty-seven years old and he has not been to
school yet." --Midrash ha-Gadhol, trying to explain why Sarah doesn't
object to Isaac being taken away for the Sacrifice.

3/7/03: "The ultimate product of this tradition [about Roman circus factions] is
the 600 page of J. Jarry's _Heresies et factions_ (1968), a book whose
spectacular marriage of traditional falsehood with original fantasy has
put it beyond the reach of ordinary criticism." --Alan Cameron,
_Circus Factions_, pg 2

"L'histoire est faite pour amuser les historiens, c'est tout." --P. Veyne

Sign on a Columbia bulletin board: LOST RING
Handwriting beneath the sign: Answers to "My Precious."

"You look like you belong in the Bloomsbury set. Or on PBS." --Random
woman to me today.

"I am a gazelle with a broken leg, and you all are trying to eat me." --RLS

"Visit scenic Joel." --JEY

3/18: Favorite LIRR Stops: Locust Manor. Followed narrowly by Speonk.

3/29:
"Why are young minds so completely stultified in college? Because
they neither hear nor see anything they can use: instead they study
pirates wielding chains on a beach, tyrants ordering sons to decapitate
their own fathers, oracles that require the sacrifice of at least three
virgins to fend off a plague - sticky gobs of speech, every word and deed
slathered with poppy and sesame seeds." --Petronius, the _Satyricon_

Cool thing of day: The Hebrews have a grave, that of Helen, a
native woman, in the city of Jerusalem, which the Roman Emperor razed to
the ground. There is a contrivance in the grave whereby the door, which
like all the grave is of stone, does not open until the year brings back
the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the
door, which, after a short interval, shuts itself. This happens at that
time, but should you at any other try to open the door you cannot do so;
force will not open it, but only break it down. --Pausanias, _Description
of Greece_

4/01: Quotes from professors:
It's not that they're unlikable. It's that they're boring. Young
people are boring. -James Zetzel

"Someday we're really going to have to grow up. But not today."
-Natalie Kampen

"Screed: it's such a fabulous word. It sounds exactly like what it is."

"There's nothing more daunting than coming across a giant finger, though."

Emperor sacrificing small depressed pig. "Not the pig of yore." --more Tally

4/03: All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame. --W.H. Auden

4/3: Hermione, about Helen of Troy:
When you returned I went to meet you -
I tell the truth - but I did not know your face.
You were the most beautiful woman
I had ever seen, you had to be Helen,
but you asked which one was your daughter. --Ovid, _Heroides_

4/9: Favorite crazy execution charge of the day: Gemellus, executed by the Emperor Tiberius on charges of taking an antidote to poison.

Unfortunate translation choice of the day: Under Agrippa's aedileship, 170
gratuitous bathing places were opened to the public.

4/25:
Favorite new title: Most beloved tax deduction.

SR20 quotes:
I taught Meredith how to do the thing with the cherry! --RLS
I see. How exactly? --me
By pulling it out a lot and demonstrating. Because I need to pass on the
mantle of the sweet and innocent person who has the trick that proves
she's not. --RLS

"See, this song used to be called "French." --MJH, on "Freedom."

"I've totally lost my sense of orientation." --me
"Yes, well, we all knew that years ago." --JAB

"I'm plain, and easy, and casual, and cuddly, and phony, and fabulous."
--JAB, on her Apple to Apple Cards
"You're not plain!" --me

"Anise is Art and Adam's Architecture." --LEW
"Because he's structurally sound. And well built." --CEH

"Writing history is like nailing jelly to a wall." --Robin Winks

5/1: "Joel has a plan for reconciliation between Meloch [his character] and Heilyn [SS's character.]" --me
"What, he's going to impale himself on Heilyn's big hammer? Um..." --AHM

5/19:
"This is totally different. The first thing they told us to do
was to aim for the face. That isn't something you do as a police officer. The
first thing the police told us to do was talk to people." --Warrior
Challenge, on PBS,a group of soldiers/police re-enacting Roman legionaries on
Hadrian's Wall.

6/10:
Weird tidbit of the day: "Similar flute-heroes to Adonis are
found in South America. Many years ago, the Yahuma tell us, there was a young
boy called Milo-Maki, who sang so beautifully that all the people came to
listen to him. But those who had heard him sing and then ate fish died
instantly. So they decided to burn him, and the Paxiuba palm grew from
his ashes. Flutes are made from the wood of this tree, and these repeat
the beautiful songs of Milo-maki."


End of First Six Months.