timeripple | Polin moi ennepe, Mousa, polutropon

There's a section from Life, the Universe, and Everything that's been running through my mind lately:

"‘The point is,’ he said, ‘that people like you and me, Slartibartfast, and Arthur-- particularly and especially Arthur-- are just dilettantes, eccentrics, layabouts if you like.’
Slartibartfast frowned, partly in puzzlement and partly in umbrage. He started to speak.
‘....’ is as far as he got.
‘We're not obsessed by anything, you see,’ insisted Ford.
‘....’
‘And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win.’
‘I care about lots of things,’ said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling with annoyance, but also partially with uncertainty.
‘Such as?’
‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords.’
‘Would you die for them?’
‘Fjords?’ blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. ‘No.’
‘Well then.’
'Wouldn't see the point, to be honest.'
'And I still can't see the connection,' said Arthur, 'with whelks.'"

I don't know why. Just thought I'd throw that up there.

Saturday: Palimpsest Event Evening. Earlier I hopped on the T up to Davis Square, walked around a bit with my sunglasses on feeling agoraphobic and claustrophobic at the same time. (Nope, no idea how that works.) Retreated to Porter Square and walked to Harvard, and thence home. Got wrapped up transcribing a new Swedish tune. Then I looked at the time, dismayed, and hurried to re-assemble my ribbon-strung jeans. My fingers kept shaking and I couldn’t see very well (the light bulb has burned out again). But it got done, and I swallowed a bite of my dinner before running out the door to catch the 47.

kayselkiemoon showed up at the event with some friends, and we sat together and enjoyed the show. My favorite song was the dirge. “Ah Hah,” I said to myself. “So that is what a dirge is. I think I see.”

In the signing line, the author looked at me and said, “Haven’t I seen you before?” I probably glowed. “Vericon,” I said. “Greek Girl.” And I showed her what I’d written on my hand on the bus on the way over. “It doesn’t really scan,” I said apologetically. “I got it,” she said, and laughed.

Kate and her friends were kind enough to invite me to join them for dinner. We ate at The Middle East, the exterior of which has always intrigued me.

Sunday I took the bus to the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain. It’s not very impressive yet, but give it another month and it’ll be gorgeous. I should go there at least once a season. Came back home in the unnaturally early-feeling evening. Transcribed another Swedish tune (Spelmansfällen, or “Fiddler’s Trap”), made soup, and settled in with Palimpsest.

Today I went down(up)town to Faneuil Hall, or however you spell it, for the first time. It was great! Sort of like the Granville Island Market, only more citified. Had tasty mac’n’cheese from a place where they kind of stir-fry the cheese and cooked macaroni together. Fun to watch!

Then I strolled all blissful along the harbor, crossed the bridge into Charlestown, walked past the U.S.S. Constitution museum (no sign of the ship) and Navy shipyards, and took the ferry back. Got a bubble tea at the Quincy Market building and walked around some more (it wasn’t very good tea, as it turned out. Oh well.) It was getting cold, so I came back home and stopped at the used bookstore down the street. I ended up with four books. Oops. I couldn’t resist Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology on the Super Cheap shelf, and it was all downhill from there to a book of Goethe’s poetry (in German), Catullus (in English, alas), and Robin Lane Fox’s Alexander the Great. *whimper* One of the two cats licked my hand a lot over by the Classics section. The owner spoke with an Irish accent and was knowledgeable about Catullus, which pleased me greatly. He suggested the Brattle Bookstore by Downtown Crossing for Latin.

Finally came home and read a chapter each from Fox and Campbell, and another few sections of my neglected Herodotus. Campbell gets a bit carried away with his metaphors, that’s for sure, and it’s kind of infuriating sometimes. But I guess they didn’t have Post-Colonialism yet in the ‘60s.

So few words, for such a day.