dans le bois, joli bois
Oct. 28th, 2006 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleI have decided that I shall be an Intellectual Dilettante. Thanks, Ferrari! (see shiny new icon) Despite all your cute talk about pederasty, you have provided me with my true calling in life. I can be incredibly geeky about almost anything, but only for about ten minutes.
Thursday, October 26
Ancient Egyptian Baguettes, and Mortise-and-tenon planks, with little copper fastenings still in! I have just been to a talk by Dr. Bard of BU about an Egyptian port on the way to the land of Punt. Specifically, the one used by Hatshepsut’s famous expedition (the one where they brought back probably-frankincense trees in little pots). So cool! They found six caves, and there may be more, and one of them was full of preserved papyrus rope! Amazing pictures of the floor covered in coils of this grey, sturdy-looking rope. Also some cedar planks (from Lebanon and Syria, obviously), and a fragment of mortise-and-tenon hull with little copper fastenings still attached. I remember nothing about little copper fasteny-bits, and now must go look it up in Casson. Also a steering oar, which would have projected down into the water and been attached to the really big ropes holding the whole boat together. SQUEE!
Oh, and the baguettes: long clay tubes, lined with a different kind of clay, that Dr. Bard originally thought were for copper smelting (or copper something, anyway), but they found no crucibles. So eventually it turns out that they were really fancy bread molds. Voila! Baguettes! In Sudan! In 1900 BC! Pass the Brie, please. Or rather, as would be more likely, the garum.
Tuesday, October 24 (yes, I realize this is out of sequence, but it makes slightly less narrative non-sense)
Okay, so I’m fickle. Plato starts referencing Parmenides, and suddenly I hate him slightly less. Also, Cicero totally copied the bit about the motion of the arche word for word. Which is great, because I read it in Latin, so that section took 15 minutes instead of 45. Woot! I am put out, however, because I missed a lecture by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd because I couldn’t find the building! Sigh. At least I got to read about Plato and Parmenides. It was interesting, although I always thought Parmenides' description of the place beyond the gates of night and day was more metaphorical than physical, as Plato’s metaphorical place is.
That made no sense. I realize this, but am too lazy to do anything about it.
Friday, October 27, 12:12 am
I think the Token Fratboys across the street are reenacting the turning of the Titanic. To wit:
Some Guy, Loudly: To the right! More power!
Token Fratboys: *gabble*
Some Girl: WOO!
Token Fratboys: WOO!
Some Girl, Loudly: Hi, Officer!
Me: Clearly my next work of genius will be The Adventures of Fratboy and Some Girl: The Graphic Novel. Or possibly not The Graphic Novel, since I can’t actually see these people, and anyway there would probably be much misunderstanding of where in a bookstore it should go. Maybe more like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Drunk, Starring Fratboy and Some Girl: A Dialog in Parts Consisting Almost Entirely of Thursday Nights.
Saturday, October 28
I have just finished typing a rather short and doubtless very grammatically incorrect email to my former Latin instructor, mostly complaining that 1) we’re reading something about which I have already read, and b) we don’t do anything, reading at a ridiculously slow rate and being asked the most ridiculous grammatical questions. I also may have mentioned being nostalgic for monkeys and pirates. In Latin. Which is more difficult than it sounds, considering Latin isn’t all that hard to read.
I also put up posters (finally). It was kind of odd to be decorating all alone, but I thought of y’all (specifically, poster-tape-peeling parties), and the place looks better now.
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Marie Antoinette”. It was... odd. There was almost no dialog. But by the end, she did seem like the type of person whose last words, such as they were, could be taken as highly symbolic. At least, I always assume people refer to them symbolically. Well – not symbolically really, but. Applying of the specific to the general, maybe?
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “King Kong” (the new version). There were quite a few moments during which I hit ffwd and thought, “Okay, WETA Digital, we know you rock. Can we have plot now, please?” For some reason I burst into tears when they were watching the sunset. I’m not sure why. At any rate the Social Conscience has been taken for an environmental spin.
I shall console myself this evening by watching “Sleepy Hollow” and “Yes, Prime Minister”.
Thursday, October 26
Ancient Egyptian Baguettes, and Mortise-and-tenon planks, with little copper fastenings still in! I have just been to a talk by Dr. Bard of BU about an Egyptian port on the way to the land of Punt. Specifically, the one used by Hatshepsut’s famous expedition (the one where they brought back probably-frankincense trees in little pots). So cool! They found six caves, and there may be more, and one of them was full of preserved papyrus rope! Amazing pictures of the floor covered in coils of this grey, sturdy-looking rope. Also some cedar planks (from Lebanon and Syria, obviously), and a fragment of mortise-and-tenon hull with little copper fastenings still attached. I remember nothing about little copper fasteny-bits, and now must go look it up in Casson. Also a steering oar, which would have projected down into the water and been attached to the really big ropes holding the whole boat together. SQUEE!
Oh, and the baguettes: long clay tubes, lined with a different kind of clay, that Dr. Bard originally thought were for copper smelting (or copper something, anyway), but they found no crucibles. So eventually it turns out that they were really fancy bread molds. Voila! Baguettes! In Sudan! In 1900 BC! Pass the Brie, please. Or rather, as would be more likely, the garum.
Tuesday, October 24 (yes, I realize this is out of sequence, but it makes slightly less narrative non-sense)
Okay, so I’m fickle. Plato starts referencing Parmenides, and suddenly I hate him slightly less. Also, Cicero totally copied the bit about the motion of the arche word for word. Which is great, because I read it in Latin, so that section took 15 minutes instead of 45. Woot! I am put out, however, because I missed a lecture by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd because I couldn’t find the building! Sigh. At least I got to read about Plato and Parmenides. It was interesting, although I always thought Parmenides' description of the place beyond the gates of night and day was more metaphorical than physical, as Plato’s metaphorical place is.
That made no sense. I realize this, but am too lazy to do anything about it.
Friday, October 27, 12:12 am
I think the Token Fratboys across the street are reenacting the turning of the Titanic. To wit:
Some Guy, Loudly: To the right! More power!
Token Fratboys: *gabble*
Some Girl: WOO!
Token Fratboys: WOO!
Some Girl, Loudly: Hi, Officer!
Me: Clearly my next work of genius will be The Adventures of Fratboy and Some Girl: The Graphic Novel. Or possibly not The Graphic Novel, since I can’t actually see these people, and anyway there would probably be much misunderstanding of where in a bookstore it should go. Maybe more like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Drunk, Starring Fratboy and Some Girl: A Dialog in Parts Consisting Almost Entirely of Thursday Nights.
Saturday, October 28
I have just finished typing a rather short and doubtless very grammatically incorrect email to my former Latin instructor, mostly complaining that 1) we’re reading something about which I have already read, and b) we don’t do anything, reading at a ridiculously slow rate and being asked the most ridiculous grammatical questions. I also may have mentioned being nostalgic for monkeys and pirates. In Latin. Which is more difficult than it sounds, considering Latin isn’t all that hard to read.
I also put up posters (finally). It was kind of odd to be decorating all alone, but I thought of y’all (specifically, poster-tape-peeling parties), and the place looks better now.
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “Marie Antoinette”. It was... odd. There was almost no dialog. But by the end, she did seem like the type of person whose last words, such as they were, could be taken as highly symbolic. At least, I always assume people refer to them symbolically. Well – not symbolically really, but. Applying of the specific to the general, maybe?
Ye Olde Movie Reviewe: “King Kong” (the new version). There were quite a few moments during which I hit ffwd and thought, “Okay, WETA Digital, we know you rock. Can we have plot now, please?” For some reason I burst into tears when they were watching the sunset. I’m not sure why. At any rate the Social Conscience has been taken for an environmental spin.
I shall console myself this evening by watching “Sleepy Hollow” and “Yes, Prime Minister”.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 05:25 am (UTC)Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Drunk
Who says they weren't? They must have been on something. Or Stoppard was. I love the play, but it definitely has a few common denominators with "Octopus's Garden." :D
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 06:28 am (UTC)greetings from Sunny Ithaca
Date: 2006-11-05 07:18 pm (UTC)I just wanted to say hi and to tell you that it was great talking w/ you last week. I'm glad that you and your magnetic philosopher with his . . .promiscuously colored toga are well. I'm now on livejournal, so I thought I'd let you know.
I miss you!
--me
Re: greetings from Sunny Ithaca
Date: 2006-11-06 05:18 am (UTC)