I don’t know how I, a peace enthused person, intellectually got here, I suppose because I follow the news, but the U.S. needs to be on more of a war-footing, in my opinion: focus for starters on ship-building.

This reminds of the passage in Book 5, I think it is, in which Athena gives Diomedes the power to see gods.

“For I easily recognized the prints from his feet and legs As he was leaving. The gods are really conspicuous.” (*)

Seems that Dart Drug and Toys R Us were started in Adams Morgan. The name, “once hyphenated, is derived from the names of two formerly segregated area elementary schools.”

No, Sanctuary is not a mere potboiler but you do see something in it of Faulkner the yarn-teller, who is usually more submerged beneath other things.

… I must have read this years ago, for while I encounter the plot as something new (probably having not previously understood it) certain sentences throughout it will ring out as familiar — e.g. “a careful coal.”

Came across the expression “seated on his spine” a couple times in Sanctuary but am unable to find out what that means. I’d imagine it means “upright” but it could as easily mean “reclined.”

So in the southern United States a loblolly can be a mudhole. The wiktionary entry quotes the very passenge from Faulkner’s Sanctuary that induced me to look it up.

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hl……………..,,,,,a i
..Limbs. of the. horse
..e. c …………,,,,,.v a
.m h ……….,,,,,.i r
Bis .o. i v airvairBis
ournour. A. a Iournou
swin…ang…ines …………
ging..siron.. sand ……………
Maryof Egypthami ……………….
rrida bashitru Mar ………………..
gUAr dnnelS o-da …………………
—————— …………………
ρ θ᾽258 259, (0) ……………….
ὕδ ((1))166(1);t ……………..
ατι 1545462it’s……………
λια (0)awhere Fsi………….
ρῷ 1we are but ………..
ῥέειnow, R but………
, ἀand whe A\ t…….
μw e ha ve b.……
6 φὶbeen fo Zr.
δὲ κfive ye .Aa
swin…ang…ines
..e a …..,,,,.v a v
hl……………..,,,,,a i
..Limbs. of the. horse
..e. c …………,,,,,.v a
.m h ……….,,,,,.i r
.o. i v airvair
.. A. a I

The obviously very speculative idea that Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Wallace’s Infinite Jest both began as plays-within-plays but without the exterior play, which they then tried retrospectively to build an exterior play (or novel) around.

In Pale Fire‘s case, the play-within-the-play is its extraordinary but perhaps somewhat anachronistic poem; that was great but didn’t work on its own as a poem, so what could he build around to make it work? In Infinite Jest‘s case, it is the experimental films of the genius father that didn’t work as pieces on their own, so what setting could Wallace give them that would make them work?

ngrams: rappahannock,occoquan,potomac,susquehanna,anacostia…. a little surprised by Rappahannock’s increase since 2010.

Thinking of my post from yesterday, I feel like Thucydides envisions a world in which, not only is the community of Greek city states split between Sparta and Athens, but individual city-states are themselves split into democratic and oligarchic factions. So when I see large voting blocks of NATO countries supporting countries that are opposed to NATO, for example, that is what comes to mind.

Wondering tonight if there is an analogy between the Greek city-states of the fifth century B.C., of Thucydides’ Greece, and the nation states of the Modern World — how closely do their interactions track and how would you measure.

Seems like so much of world history is about whether it’s the rich or poor or middle class who hold power, which I guess was a big part of Karl Marx’s point.

In case this should come up, the Ancient Greek word ὅρκος has nothing directly to do with the name of the U.S. pest control company Orkin, which was the American-Latvian company founder’s last name.

Did I read somewhere that some people think this song, The Orioles’ Tell Me So 1949, was the first rock song? Must be on account of the guitar sound… Maybe first guitar distortion was what I’d read. Anyway.

Majority: the masses are dreaming

Kind of extraordinary passage from the Libation Bearers, at least as translated by Smyth (582-605). (Forgive the odd formatting.)

Tweet speculating about why the two Iberias share a name.

Hadn’t realized that “polymorphously perverse” was a Freudian term. I came across perversely polymorphous in Barth’s Anonymiad and wondered if Allen might have borrowed the phrase for Annie Hall. Definitely not.