trabajamos!

I am taking a class at Lincoln Center this summer. I park my car near where I used to live during my stint at Columbia, where I walk past the friendly-familiar buildings. Much more preferrable to the Bronx. Ehh – The Bronx is still OK.

Still, I'd rather be in da boogie-down than in Tallahassee or in Omaha or that godforsaken country they call New Mexico – the Bronx has flavor – grit mixed with bus fumes – if we can call that flavor.

So Lincoln Center is nicey nice.

Am also working on conference papers and thinking about going to L'anse aux meadow in August.

Oh and also have been doing some private tutoring which I do enjoy. I believe the class is on SAT prep and writing, but we focus our attention on word etymology.

so – how is everyone else doing?

"THE REVOLUTION WILL BE FABULOUS"

“I will show you the life of the mind!” – Barton Fink

“Optimism is cowardice” – Nietzsche

OK – what has late4antiquity been up to these days? Well, I have actually been cultivating this near-obsession with indo-european semantics, a field which I have learned is quite different from pragmatics – which is what words mean within their social context.

Here's a bit on some indo-european root-verbs, to demonstrate what it is that I do:

**to catch your attention, think of the words “wardrobe”, “bereft”, and “bankrupt”**

All of these words stem from the IR-S root: REU / REUP / REUM = tear, rip, seize,

– the word “robe” is from the French equiv.= meaning “that which has been torn or seized” – which was I guess clothes in most cases. Like early man stealing your fucking Air Force Ones.

-the word bereft = be + reft = reup = that which has been taken, torn

– the word bankrupt – Italian for “banca rotta” – is a direct descendent of silver latin (s. L.) = “rumpere” = to break, sever – apparently in Renaissance italy, where modern banking itself was invented, those bankers who couldn't pay their bills were subject to having their benches broken by angry patrons

Here is a bit of provenance:

REUP = tear, break; s. lat. rupes; rupex; rumpere

s. G. raubon – raufjan *rauba, raubaz = vlg. L. – raubja

reu- rip, dig
-reub; reud; rudlo; reuk; reup; reuk; raupa; rupEIs; reus; erEU = Grk. rhykane

vlg. L. rubus, rudus, rubidus, rubeta, rudix

rumpere: V., brechen, zerreiSSen

vlg. mlat. rutta, rupta, ruspari; G. reuban / raubon (berauban) – [N.B – see how this = bereft?]

berauben = plundern = “got”

I also went on the Hermitage Museum's website and found fantastic Roman jeweled portraits:

MEDUSA:

ATHENA:

COCKFIGHT:

JULIO-CLAUDIAN?:

Salvete omnes.

COEM.

BROWN PANTS & MEDIEVAL CHANTS

It has been brought to my attention that I've been wearing brown pants for most of the Spring and Summer. Corduroy's I respond. Still are brown. Brown Brown Brown. Color of my life. Brown pants and medieval chants, knights on horseback stabbed with lance. An ornery glance.

So Today will be Recovery Day. I have to get on these scholarships. I have to begin studying Hebrew and Greek. I have to buy some new brightly-colored pants.

“Don't listen to dogma – which is living with the results of other peoples' thinking” – Steve Jobs

Joyce Beats Mallon

Read something by James Joyce that, erstwhile not attached to anything late antique in the least, is still worth considering:

“Stephen brooded
hit the skids
did some things the church forbids
waxed the rosewood,
taught the kids”

I just love it!

check out john stewart on crossfire: “YOU'RE HURTING AMERICA”; “STOP HURTING AMERICA”; “PARTISAN HACKS”

Jeopardy

Question: Who was the longest reigning Roman Emperor?

Are you surprised when I tell you that it's Theodosius II – who reigned from 408 – 450?

Although it has been said that Justinian never really had a childhood, in that he was an Emperor from the get-go, if you had to answer the question on a test, you would be obliged to write down Theodosius.

Today's Carmena is provided by imagining about the eighty's:

Carm. I, 1, 7.

This sullen Ajax & Cassandra:
Punch-drunk on gin and marijuana.
She softly whistles “Help Me Rhonda”
And how she’d like, in time, to meet
Jane Fonda.

(I’m smothered by this anaconda)

For while I try to rev her hatchback Honda
From amongst the angst and pachysandra
Descends élan from God’s Veranda
And we catch the matinee:
A Fish Called Wanda.

I have a final paper due at 10 AM. Going to be a long sordird and hectic night. Must rally!

puer improbus est!

This certainly would not have flown in late antiquity:

there is a youtube video wherein a TV anchor reports on a 7 year old child who stole his mother's SUV and drove for a few miles.

His reply as to why he took the car?

“Because I wanted to do hood-rat things with my friends..it's fun to do bad things”

Link is here:

Makes you think of Bulworth:

To quote Senator J. Billington Bullworth, upon being asked by the Angry black woman, who decries: “are you sayin' the Democratic Party don't care about the African-American community?

Bullworth: Isn't that OBVIOUS? You got half your kids are out of work and the other half are in jail. Do you see ANY Democrat doing anything about it? Certainly not me! So what're you gonna do, vote Republican? Come on! Come on, you're not gonna vote Republican! Let's call a spade a spade!
[Loud, angry booing]

Bullworth: I mean – come on! You can have a Billion Man March! If you don't put down that malt liquor and chicken wings, and get behind someone other than a running back who stabs his wife, you're NEVER gonna get rid of somebody like me!”

Whatever happens – it's not of much import to me, personally. Until my human rights are infringed to the extent that I can't enter a library without peeing in a dixie cup, I'm going to sit back and watch it all happen.

Jeez – wasn't planning on writing this – and I also think I have carpal tunnel syndrome from a test I took today.

C U L8R.

EMBIGGEN YOUR CREATIVE LICENSE

Which is what I'm doing here, eschewing the impending doom and fear which awaits me in the next two days of what will surely be a no-sleep fest. Writing a historiographical essay. The Title:

Historiography: An exercise in plagiarism.

Am thinking about attending Brooklyn's Institute of Increased Human Potential.

De Gustibus.

Carm. I, 1, 6.

I shall not abet the martinet who insists on pithy
Etiquette.
I will repeat: in me you meet no ligneous
Marionette.
In lieu: a raw
Stone parapet (perhaps it is the percocet?)
Or rather yet
This cigarette
Dipped in tears and anisette;
But which blooms in full
Like an alphabet.

Made non compos mentis.

I also saw CNBC's Jim Cramer trashing around violently on 9W today; nearly walking along the non-extant median and gripping the vestiges of his hair as if he were about to lose his network endorsement.

Ciao.

EXPRESSIFY YOUR SOUL

First paper done. I want this to get published. Title of the work might be “Pirates & Emperors: Power & Authority in Late Antiquity”

But here I present you with useless things which you shouldn't read. Salvete omnes.

Carm., I, 1, 4.

With you in mind, my cadence stilts
and laurel wreaths unfurl to wilt;
my canvas lame grisaille, and spilt
acrylic mars our patchwork quilt.

Made in NJ.

This image of wilted laurels keeps coming to mind.

Carm., I, 1, 5.

Gnarled beautiful ruins from ancient littorals;
like spoiled bronze wreaths or pale wilted laurels
sing ex silencio sed in potior quam choral
scholars bereft of the naturally aural.

Made in NJ.

5/4/08

still gotta keep it light-hearted a lil bit: three important ideas for you to consider:

but what's more:

and finally:

werd.

COMPLEXIFY YOUR MIND

I believe we need to return some videotapes.

“The Theodosian Code should be considered as a polaroid of the later Roman Empire, and not as a collection of videotapes”, cf.;Mallon, Kevin T. M., Radices, pg.18.

Am thinking about going to Oktoberfest, where the beer will flow freely out of geysers and the beautiful native women generously offer themselves before men in awe of the manliness.

Ciao.