I'm collapsing most of my blogs into Motley Kamuka.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Greek To Me by Mary Norris
Greek To Me is a lovely book, by a former copy editor from the New Yorker, a magazine that I absolutely love, since my senior high school English teacher passed out a stack and said read this magazine today, it's the best magazine, with pristine English. She wrote a book on the comma, and the book says it is "adventures of the Comma Queen".
When I came to NYC I read the New Yorker all the time. I don't currently subscribe because I'm poor but you can be assured that when I get back into the solvent zone and have some discretionary funds, I'll be subscribing again. It's OK to take a break from the New Yorker because it's such an intense magazine to subscribe to, even if they lighten it with cartoons.
She talks about the horror of suggestibility (and empathy) at reading Sylvia Plath who committed suicide despite being a published author and married to a handsome English poet, with lovely children (and her Catholic taboo against it). I'm suggestable in that when she keeps talking about Ouzo, I want to drink some.
Speaking of mythology, Norris has a lovely chapter on Athena, whom she seems to be attracted to. She also put a poster of a gorgon on her desk to try and channel the fierceness needed to survive in the New Yorker offices.
I did not know that Edith Hamilton began writing when she was 55. That gives me hope, not so much to be a writer, but to be a late bloomer in life.
Norris got to study with Froma Zeitlin at Rutgers before she moved onto Princeton. I quickly looked up her books but nothing called out to me, like an earlier mention of a book called Why Homer Matters.
There are lots of interesting insights, like "dawn's rosy fingers" means not rays of red fingers, but the touching of early sunlight on things. Also wine like waters mean they are dark, not that they are red colored. Her miscommunications while traveling are funny.
This book was a mixed bag of many interesting items. There is lots of interesting etymology of English word parallels with Greek, and reflections on language. The saddest thing in the book is how her father wouldn't let her study Latin when it was offered to her. She obviously would have thrived learning Latin. The gossip from the New Yorker is also interesting. She has a chapter on acting in 2 plays in ancient Greek. The last two fifths of the book are on travel in Greece.
Her travel on the Sacred Way was good travel writing. (I want to read more: "Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries" by Mara Lynn Keller.)
She has a beautiful description of Petra tou Romiou that had me looking up photos on Google. (You can read The Story of Aphrodite’s Rock, it's only a page)
She has a chapter on the Acropolis. She goes to the real one thrice, and the one in Nashville with an Athena statue completed in 1990. I wish I could remember the complicated mathematics that makes the Parthenon look like it's even when it's not. Of course a photo is not the same thing as being there in person, but there are some stunning photos of the Acropolis and the Parthenon. The Acropolis is the hill, and the Parthenon is the building.
I read a review that slightly slut shamed Norris. I had no problem with her ownership of her sexuality and indeed her individualism to travel alone. She was a bit like the author of Wild, who hiked alone, and Bill Bryson who traveled Europe without any language skills.
When she discussed the icons of the Greek Orthodox Church, I thought back to the amazing Greek Orthodox Church in Santa Fe that my pop compared to a museum.
The end of the book was about Patrick Leigh Fermor. He walked across Europe and wrote a lot of cool books that I put on my reading list.
I think it's really cool she mentions how her gratitude at these experiences has made her easier to get along with, twice. I have gratitude for Mary Norris' lovely book.
One bit of errata for Bobby Baird, the fact checker in the acknowledgements: The hotel with the Eiffel Tower on top is not off the BQE, it's off the Long Island Expressway. It's closer to where the Grand Central Parkway crosses the LIE, than it is to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
When I came to NYC I read the New Yorker all the time. I don't currently subscribe because I'm poor but you can be assured that when I get back into the solvent zone and have some discretionary funds, I'll be subscribing again. It's OK to take a break from the New Yorker because it's such an intense magazine to subscribe to, even if they lighten it with cartoons.
She talks about the horror of suggestibility (and empathy) at reading Sylvia Plath who committed suicide despite being a published author and married to a handsome English poet, with lovely children (and her Catholic taboo against it). I'm suggestable in that when she keeps talking about Ouzo, I want to drink some.
Speaking of mythology, Norris has a lovely chapter on Athena, whom she seems to be attracted to. She also put a poster of a gorgon on her desk to try and channel the fierceness needed to survive in the New Yorker offices.
I did not know that Edith Hamilton began writing when she was 55. That gives me hope, not so much to be a writer, but to be a late bloomer in life.
Norris got to study with Froma Zeitlin at Rutgers before she moved onto Princeton. I quickly looked up her books but nothing called out to me, like an earlier mention of a book called Why Homer Matters.
There are lots of interesting insights, like "dawn's rosy fingers" means not rays of red fingers, but the touching of early sunlight on things. Also wine like waters mean they are dark, not that they are red colored. Her miscommunications while traveling are funny.
This book was a mixed bag of many interesting items. There is lots of interesting etymology of English word parallels with Greek, and reflections on language. The saddest thing in the book is how her father wouldn't let her study Latin when it was offered to her. She obviously would have thrived learning Latin. The gossip from the New Yorker is also interesting. She has a chapter on acting in 2 plays in ancient Greek. The last two fifths of the book are on travel in Greece.
Her travel on the Sacred Way was good travel writing. (I want to read more: "Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries" by Mara Lynn Keller.)
She has a beautiful description of Petra tou Romiou that had me looking up photos on Google. (You can read The Story of Aphrodite’s Rock, it's only a page)
She has a chapter on the Acropolis. She goes to the real one thrice, and the one in Nashville with an Athena statue completed in 1990. I wish I could remember the complicated mathematics that makes the Parthenon look like it's even when it's not. Of course a photo is not the same thing as being there in person, but there are some stunning photos of the Acropolis and the Parthenon. The Acropolis is the hill, and the Parthenon is the building.
I read a review that slightly slut shamed Norris. I had no problem with her ownership of her sexuality and indeed her individualism to travel alone. She was a bit like the author of Wild, who hiked alone, and Bill Bryson who traveled Europe without any language skills.
When she discussed the icons of the Greek Orthodox Church, I thought back to the amazing Greek Orthodox Church in Santa Fe that my pop compared to a museum.
The end of the book was about Patrick Leigh Fermor. He walked across Europe and wrote a lot of cool books that I put on my reading list.
I think it's really cool she mentions how her gratitude at these experiences has made her easier to get along with, twice. I have gratitude for Mary Norris' lovely book.
One bit of errata for Bobby Baird, the fact checker in the acknowledgements: The hotel with the Eiffel Tower on top is not off the BQE, it's off the Long Island Expressway. It's closer to where the Grand Central Parkway crosses the LIE, than it is to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Recent Readings
I'm reading Madeline Miller's Circe. I loved her first book, and this one isn't bad. It's harder in a way.
To balance it out I'm also reading The Trojan War by Strauss. This one is about what we know historically, with archaeology.
The Netflix series Troy: Fall of a City helps me to imagine Ipiphigenia's situation, understand how historical, how mythological and what choices they made. Strauss gives the option of substituting a deer for Ipiphigenia. In the BBC series they don't do that. They slit her throat. Watching it you wonder if the guy is crazy, but Strauss points out it shows Aggemenon's commitment to the war.
Here's a quote from the Strauss book I liked that is a description of the skills of a warrior king from Sparta (p.34-35):
They could break an enemy's lance or deceive him with words. They knew how much flour it took to feed an army and how much wood was needed to burn a corpse. They knew how to pitch a camp or launch a fleet, how to debrief a spy or sent out an informer. They could draw a bow and split a copper ingot like a reed or hurl a spear and pierce the seam of in an enemy's armor. They shrugged off mud and snow, towering waves or buckets of rain. They could appraise lapis lazuli with a jeweler's eye or break a merchant's neck with hangman's hands. They could court a milkmaid or rape a princess. They feared the gods and liked the smell of death.
To balance it out I'm also reading The Trojan War by Strauss. This one is about what we know historically, with archaeology.
The Netflix series Troy: Fall of a City helps me to imagine Ipiphigenia's situation, understand how historical, how mythological and what choices they made. Strauss gives the option of substituting a deer for Ipiphigenia. In the BBC series they don't do that. They slit her throat. Watching it you wonder if the guy is crazy, but Strauss points out it shows Aggemenon's commitment to the war.
Here's a quote from the Strauss book I liked that is a description of the skills of a warrior king from Sparta (p.34-35):
They could break an enemy's lance or deceive him with words. They knew how much flour it took to feed an army and how much wood was needed to burn a corpse. They knew how to pitch a camp or launch a fleet, how to debrief a spy or sent out an informer. They could draw a bow and split a copper ingot like a reed or hurl a spear and pierce the seam of in an enemy's armor. They shrugged off mud and snow, towering waves or buckets of rain. They could appraise lapis lazuli with a jeweler's eye or break a merchant's neck with hangman's hands. They could court a milkmaid or rape a princess. They feared the gods and liked the smell of death.
Battlestar Gallactica
I've been watching Battlestar Gallactica, one of my favorite shows. The humans believe in the ancient Greek mythical gods, and the Cylons believe in the "one true God".
The Pythian prophecies help guide the humans back to Kobol.
The Pythian prophecies help guide the humans back to Kobol.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
hospitality
Daniel Mendelsohn's An Odyssey explores various cultural aspects that rub us wrong today. It seems overboard to kill all the men who courted his wife the 20 years he was gone. The boring early books of Telemachy set up the evolution of man through young adult hood in Telemachus to the life of the elderly in Laertes, with Odysseus as the hero. You can bring all your modern sentiments to viewing his life, some are astonished that Odysseus can pretend to be someone else when reunited with his wife. Agamemnon came home and was slaughtered by the his wife's lover Aegisthus. Odysseus is trying to avoid that fate, so he can't just walk in. He has to see if his wife's lover will kill him.
I was wondering why Telemachus couldn't just tell the kitchen to stop slaughtering and giving out wine, say we are out? That's what I'd do, but that must mean that hosting a guest is more sacred in those days than it is now.
I remember I was in the Amazonian rain-forest and we visited an inhabitant. He was very kind. The tour must give him a kickback for these visits, but it seemed very genuine. I sometimes wonder if these tribesmen are keys to our ancestral past. I've read Clan and the Cave Bear, and it's almost of form of science fiction except it's archaeology not technology oriented. Does this kindness to visitors tell us something about our ancestral past. It was a time when there was no smart phones, TV, video games, internet, iPads, e-mail, YouTube... I could go on and on. In those days it was an oral tradition, they didn't even really have books for the mass public, my favorite technology. A visitor must have been like the way I feel when I come upon a channel on YouTube that I like, or Netflix releases a season of a show I like. All the stories about all the people they know. And everyone is an oral story teller.
So Telemachus can't just dismiss them, and when he finally does try to do that. He says give me a ship and if I hear he's dead, I'll bury him and you can have my mother. Odysseus doesn't know everyone will kill him when he gets home like Agamemnon, and he hides to suss out the situation, to see if his wife has been faithful. Odysseus is a cunning man who like batman has the superpower of strategizing and self control.
I'm reading a graphic novel of Odyssey, and the above became clear to me. The more you get to know the story, the more complex it is, the more enjoyable it is.
I was wondering why Telemachus couldn't just tell the kitchen to stop slaughtering and giving out wine, say we are out? That's what I'd do, but that must mean that hosting a guest is more sacred in those days than it is now.
I remember I was in the Amazonian rain-forest and we visited an inhabitant. He was very kind. The tour must give him a kickback for these visits, but it seemed very genuine. I sometimes wonder if these tribesmen are keys to our ancestral past. I've read Clan and the Cave Bear, and it's almost of form of science fiction except it's archaeology not technology oriented. Does this kindness to visitors tell us something about our ancestral past. It was a time when there was no smart phones, TV, video games, internet, iPads, e-mail, YouTube... I could go on and on. In those days it was an oral tradition, they didn't even really have books for the mass public, my favorite technology. A visitor must have been like the way I feel when I come upon a channel on YouTube that I like, or Netflix releases a season of a show I like. All the stories about all the people they know. And everyone is an oral story teller.
So Telemachus can't just dismiss them, and when he finally does try to do that. He says give me a ship and if I hear he's dead, I'll bury him and you can have my mother. Odysseus doesn't know everyone will kill him when he gets home like Agamemnon, and he hides to suss out the situation, to see if his wife has been faithful. Odysseus is a cunning man who like batman has the superpower of strategizing and self control.
I'm reading a graphic novel of Odyssey, and the above became clear to me. The more you get to know the story, the more complex it is, the more enjoyable it is.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Problem
Just back from the newfangled doohickey museum.
I did the 4th week quiz and got them all right, and somehow Coursera did not register it. I didn't take a screen shot of it. So I recommend now that everyone take a screen shot of their quiz results. I won't get credit for this course, but wait, I wasn't going to get credit for it anyway. I think that's the apathy that keeps Coursera from fixing the situation.
I did the 4th week quiz and got them all right, and somehow Coursera did not register it. I didn't take a screen shot of it. So I recommend now that everyone take a screen shot of their quiz results. I won't get credit for this course, but wait, I wasn't going to get credit for it anyway. I think that's the apathy that keeps Coursera from fixing the situation.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
reading the signs
The stupid suitors don't notice the signs.
It's an appealing idea to "read the signs", not in the sneezing means someone said the truth sense, but in the sense that I've made mistakes and I wished I'd read the signs.
In leadership you need to go against the signs sometimes. In a way, you never know whether to read the signs or not. In the end, I think the "signs" are just things that make you think one way or another. Rationalizations are ad hock. But you have to make decisions somehow.
It's an appealing idea to "read the signs", not in the sneezing means someone said the truth sense, but in the sense that I've made mistakes and I wished I'd read the signs.
In leadership you need to go against the signs sometimes. In a way, you never know whether to read the signs or not. In the end, I think the "signs" are just things that make you think one way or another. Rationalizations are ad hock. But you have to make decisions somehow.
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