I was looking through U.S. history in 1981 and 1982 to understand why the term “savage cuts” might have peaked around then. Interesting to wade again through this history of one’s early lifetime.

Ngrams: savage cuts… Feel like I hear this used to describe proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare a lot — “savage cuts.”

Savage comes from Latin Sylva — woods.

Just as I thought: “conflate” has really been enjoying an upsurge in recent decades. Came across it twice in the media yesterday.

ὄγδοος ( -η, -ον )– eighth . . .ἐν ὀγδόῳ τούτῳ συγγράμματι τὰ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς αὐτούς [*]

olla podrida: a hodgepodge.

quite a sentence:

And coming on the smithy of Hephaistos he snatched a child and setting him on his shoulders ordered him to lead him toward the east.

ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ Ἡφαίστου χαλκεῖον ἐλθὼν καὶ ἁρπάσας παῖδα ἕνα, ἐπὶ τῶν ὤμων ἐπιθέμενος ἐκέλευσε ποδηγεῖν πρὸς τὰς ἀνατολάς.

In the next sentence Orion “completely heals his blindness by staring into the rays of the sun.”

Interesting story about Athena alluded to in Apollodorus. How she threw away the pipes of Marysas on seeing how they disfigured her face — puffed out her cheeks — when she played them.

Phenomenon of checking your watch repeatedly over short intervals to see how much time has elapsed and yet you still don’t know what time it is.

Unfamiliar with “cussed” as an adjective. Post: “The curators present enough evidence, some 125 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, to give eccentric and cussed visitors permission to prefer the old style, even if they are loath to admit it in respectable company.”

L’amour-propre est le plus grand de tous les flatteurs.

Self love is the greatest of all flatterers.[*]

The Se e’rThe See’rThe See’r
la””; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”; “”;um
|s””; “”; “”; \B/ “”; “”; “”; C
…a;””; “”; “; t“”a” ; “”; “”;pCB
.d””; “”; “”;e…… c ” “”; “”;bse
..e “”; “” ; m……. h ” “; “”;eNol
l; “”; “” ; o……”” i ; “”; “”;rie
..a””; “”; ” r………” p”; “”; “Gslm
..n “”; “”; d………. a “; “”; eieie
..t”; “”; ” r……….. p; “”; “”usnt
.o “;””; “”i.. ……… e; “”; “”; E i
de”; “”; h………. … r”; “”; “”da
.enfrentamientos armados —
n………Mi &
e …….Suw8
..t…..–—–
…laXrie..

was you ever bit by a dead bee … maybe getting that now. Meaning (but a little more complicated than this) — did you ever have really really bad luck?

you don’t give a hoop what I do but when I do it you get sore

you know you don’t have to act with me. you don’t have to say anything or do anything.

the joke that niether of us knows the answer to: whether you’re going to hold together or not.

you almost figured me right, mama, except I still owe you that bill.

Seems that “tow” (the fiber) can be pronounced either like “toe,” the appendage of the foot, or like “tau,” the Ancient Greek letter.

The Feeling of Thinking One Knows.

(On the preceding question, chatgtp indicates that Weil engaged with Genealogy of Morals and other works of Nietzsche but not specifically with Genealogy at any length in her published writings. I’m guessing she very much had it in mind in the latter portion of Poem of Force.)

I wonder if Weil read Genealogy of Morals? It’s curious that just as squarely as Nietzsche locates the origins of Christianity in Judaism — in contrast with the Homeric tradition — Weil, in Poem of Force, finds it in the Homeric tradition as distinct from the Judaic.

Nietzsche thinks Christianity is the efflorescence of Jewish “resentment.” Weil finds Jewish ultranationalism at odds with the essentially pacific message of The Iliad and the Gospels.

Shadow of bird, actual bird;
shadow of wire, actual wire;
actual road, curb and grass.

Sight of the bug passing over speed limit sign;
thought of that image, as language, passing briefly in brain.

Strong sun, deep morning shade, gentle breeze, abundant recent grass clippings over walk; scent of these clippings; strange contrails in the evening: all the planes in the area seeming hastily to have converged toward the same Southwestern point.

Massive crane lowering dumpster full of rocks for the replenishment of riparian rip rap. Workers with ropes below giving direction to the crane operator. Tree, perfectly circumscribed by mulch, its dark browns offset by a child’s dress.

I’ve been a Dickens hater for years, but I had never read David Copperfield, and the last paragraph of the first chapter has entirely changed my mind about him. Beautiful.

αὐτόματοι δ’ ἀγαθοὶ ἀγαθῶν ἐπὶ δαῖτας ἵενται *