Libation Bearers, 380-381 (English):

τοῦτο διαμπερὲς οὖς
ἵκεθ᾽ ἅπερ τι βέλος.

[ ἅπερ = ὥσπερ, as, so as.]

(Loeb, translation Haines. Book 9, 42,4) —

But above all, when thou findest fault with a man for faithlessness and ingratitude, turn thy thoughts to thyself. For evidently that fault is thine own, whether thou hadst faith that a man with such a character would keep faith with thee, or if in bestowing a kindness thou did not bestow it absolutely and as from the very doing of having at once received the full complete fruit. For when thou hast done a kindness, what more would thou have?

Greek:

μάλιστα δέ, ὅταν ὡς ἀπίστῳ ἢ ἀχαρίστῳ μέμφῃ, εἰς σεαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφου: προδήλως γὰρ σὸν τὸ ἁμάρτημα, εἴτε περὶ τοῦ τοιαύτην τὴν διάθεσιν ἔχοντος ἐπίστευσας ὅτι τὴν πίστιν φυλάξει, εἴτε τὴν χάριν διδοὺς μὴ καταληκτικῶς ἔδωκας μηδὲ ὥστε ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς πράξεως εὐθὺς ἀπειληφέναι πάντα τὸν καρπόν. τί γὰρ πλέον θέλεις εὖ ποιήσας ἄνθρωπον;

Forever Overhead — to be noted that this story doesn’t seem to end in quite the same spirit with which it begins. The spirit it begins with seems autobiographical and exhibits an incredible descriptive power, bringing together in a very small space pretty much all the sensations one will ever have at a public swimming pool. The spirit it concludes with seems philosophical and perhaps more reaching and abstruse in what it says…. Not uninteresting but I can’t decide on the extent to which it follows from what’s come before. The scenario it most suggests for me is one in which Wallace “found an end” for an interesting fragment, and the end serves, but imperfectly.

Stupid thing: I noticed in this story the phrase “coins of light” which he also uses in the beautiful opening to The Pale King. Also, Infinite Jest.

He has a terrible fear of dying because he has not yet lived. By this I do not mean that wife and child, fields and cattle are essential to living. The only essential thing for life is forgoing smugness, moving into the house instead of admiring it and hanging garlands around it. One might argue that this is a matter of fate and is not given to anyone’s hand. But then why this sense of remorse; why does the remorse never stop? To become finer and more savoury? That, too. But why do such nights always end on this note: I could live and I do not live. The second major reason – perhaps it is all really one, I don’t seem to be able to sort them apart now – is the idea: ‘What I have toyed with is really going to happen. I have not bought myself off by my writing. I died my whole life long and now I will really die. My life was sweeter than other people’s and my death will be all the more terrible.’…. [KAFKA]

« J’ai su tout cela quand je ne savais encore rien. » *

Reading Wings of The Dove I find James having used the word beautifully (and related forms) quite a bit again. (In Golden Bowl (1904) the word occurred about 180 times, in Wings (1902) 150, in The Ambassadors (1903) more like 80…. Wow: could he have really written these books over three years? It appears so.) First number below is occurrences in first volume; second in the second; third is the total; in paren is the ratio of occurrences in the first volume (which is about 3/4ths the length of the second) to those of the second.

Beaut–: 67/ 83 ……… 150 (.8)

wonder–: 92 /124 ………. 216 (.74)

wondrous: 4 /4 ……….. 8 (1)

“The anterior or front part of your lower leg is comprised of the tibialis anterior, extensor hallucis longus, extensor digitorum longus and peroneous tertius muscles. The tibialis anterior runs along the tibia or shin bone, and is most easily seen when you flex your foot”… *

Example showing inversion and eversion of the foot, Abduction and adduction, Flexion and extension

……lo.ho.lo……
….ob..yt..ob….
om…..pm…..om
lo…….ou…….lo
1t……..ge……..1t
.n………pC B……….n
e …….bse …….e
..t…..eNol…..t..
….la…rie…la….
……lo.ho.lo……
….ob..yt..ob….
om…..pm…..om
lo…….ou…….lo
1t……..ge……..1t
.n………pC B……….n
e …….bse …….e
..t…..eNol…..t..
….la…rie…la….
……lo.ho.lo……
….ob..yt..ob….
om…..pm…..om
lo…….ou…….lo
1t……..ge……..1t
.n………pC B……….n
e …….bse …….e
..t…..eNol…..t..
….la…rie…la….

Just a quick look at the repetitions of “everything” in Wings of the Dove (1, 329 pp.s) vol (2, 439, pp.s), which first caught my eye in a passage from volume one book two part three (“What has he done if no one can name it?” “He has done everything.” “Oh — everything! Everything’s nothing.” “Well then,” said Kate, “he has done some particular thing.) Everything goes on to be mentioned 191 times, and nothing 331. See also.

(In my copy, the first volume is 329 pages while the second is 439. The ratio of the former to the latter is about .75. Thus, if the words below were evenly distributed, you’d expect those also to have .75 ratio between the two volumes. That’s the fourth number, and it’s pretty close. Note that the -thing- number is not quite entirely reliable as it undoubtedly includes in its count –generated by Chrome’s ‘find’ function– words in it like mou-thing and ba-thing. However, if you assume every -thing- is a thing then there are 475 of them, that is, of things, once you subtract the everythings and nothings and somethings and anythings. That means the total of the everythings and nothings and somethings and anythings comes to an even one thousand.

-Thing-: 659/816 …. 1475…… (.8)

Everything: 91 /100……. 191….. (.9)

Nothing: 141 / 190…….. 331….. (.74)

Something: 100 /157….. 257…… (.63)

Anything: 100/ 121….. 221……… (.82)

(great thing) 6/8 ….. 14…….. (.75)

In syllogistic lock-step with Mount Everest – which was climbed simply “because it was there” – they are there … simply because… meaning of skyscrapers

[English]

Pausanias 1.21.2:

ἔφη δὲ Αἰσχύλος μειράκιον ὢν καθεύδειν ἐν ἀγρῷ φυλάσσων σταφυλάς, καί οἱ Διόνυσον ἐπιστάντα κελεῦσαι τραγῳδίαν ποιεῖν: ὡς δὲ ἦν ἡμέρα— πείθεσθαι γὰρ ἐθέλειν—ῥᾷστα ἤδη πειρώμενος ποιεῖν.

la nappe…. “la nappe miroitante se tachait de plaques livides.” (x)

Thought this was interesting from Mueller: that, with respect to obstruction laws, it doesn’t matter whether witness tampering occurs in a public rather than private forum (on Twitter say, instead of in a darkened room):

Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the Obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system’s integrity is the same.

Global CO2 Emissions Hit an All-Time High in 2018; is a Hothouse Earth in our Future? Jeff Masters

How ‘stream bed‘ might work theatrically. A very short one person one act play maybe with instrumentation (flute, drums) or other exterior effects.

First paragraph: something strange but understandable; second paragraph, something totally strange and incomprehensible; third paragraph: a return to the somewhat comprehensible from the outlandishly strange (so that the tension and release of the audience concerns whether or not this is going to be totally incomprehensible and how long it will last.)

To tell the actor(s): “You’re a voice in your head trying to speak to the you in your head who is capable of speech outside your head. The you who speaks is the audience of this voice in your head.”

To the flute player, the percussionist: “you floutist, you are not the water, you are the floutist walking down the street wondering how water may sound. You, drummer, are not the stone and not sounding like stones, you are not the sound the stone makes when the flute drops fall and plash upon you, you are the experimenter within yourself wondering as to the microscopic sound of stones as you walk down the busy street.”

< parch / parchment >

I wrapped my tears in an ellum leaf 25
And left them under a stone

[Pound]

Preferred participants of this blog: retired people. People who are retired because they have finished their working life. People who are retired in the sense they wish they were retired. People who are retired in their nature, who are perpetually in retirement. People who are retiring in their nature (which is something only slightly different).

Other preferred participants: young people. Young people who are anxious to attain to the better elements of the old people. Young people who are patient with others of all types. All young people. (Anybody young or old is hereby admitted and preferred.)

Other preferred participants: teachers who are students, students who are teachers, long-winded talkers who, after a painful period of conversion, are now “the world’s greatest listeners”, who won’t say a word, and such like.

Other preferred participants: everyone. (Everyone is hereby admitted).

Preferred activities: polite civil dispassionate discourse (policy preferred over politics, and “what’s truly enjoyed” over pop or high culture); solid jokes, involuntary poems –sincerity/ logic/ mockery / wit– comments that reflect an earnest wish for the improvement of mankind, for the dismantlement of its delusiveness; for the improvement of the individual before one; for the improvement of the group of which one is a part; — anything effusively positive or constructively negative is hereby preferred. Anything — Your personal best, is hereby preferred.

Seeing a character who falls on the floor or who is knocked against a wall described as having been struck by the wall or floor in Hammett’s work a couple times, my ears perked up when I saw it in Faulkner’s Pylon too, knowing he and Hammett to have been friendly. But probably it is not so uncommon to express things like that. Pylon (originally published 1935) page 103:

“Yes!” he cried. “Yes!” flinging himself backward and crossing his arms before his face at the same time; at first he did not even realize that it was only the floor which struck him until he lay prone again, his arms above his face and head and looking between them at the feet of the parachute jumper who had not moved.

Refreshing or otherwise enhancing my understanding of the difference here, seems that with inevitable the suggestion is you can’t get out of the way of it, of something impending, while with ineluctable (eluctor) you can’t get yourself out of it, out of a situation you’re already in the midst of. (Ngrams shows ineluctable to be not very frequently used relatively.)