Random Weekend Thoughts

Ok, don't ask me how these are connected to Latin---I just know they are! It is because Latin showed me how to think and examine the world around me that I was able to register the following as the 'highlights' of the weekend---I bracketed the word because I think of these moments not as 'fun,' but as instances that made that lightbulb go on...

1) Saturday morning: the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, for the n-th time in the past two years, and always something new (the current exhibition on paintings of Venice is superb)---have you been there yet? Stop reading this, get up, and GO already! Bigger and nicer than the Tampa museum of art, especially if you like Rennaissance stuff (and the Greco-Roman collection ain't too shabby either). The layout of the garden as a Roman villa is not exactly Getty, but it still gets you. And it's only $5! Seriously, I am thinking of incorporating Ringling as extra credit work for Latin 2220. So. Go. You won't regret it.

http://ringling.org/

2) Saturday afternoon: Grocery shopping in Tarpon Springs. I should be able to get over the camp, the kitch, the sheer cheesiness of the place, but I can't do it! I mean, this is the worst of touristy Greece combined with the worst of touristy Florida---it's a monster! Look at the 'best gyro in town' served by an *Egyptian*, right behind a plastic cut out of Achilles in full body armor, surrounded by the Greek key pattern, in case you missed the point. Ack!!! I got my yogurts and pastas and I was OUTTa there! Note to self, before I get too pious about this: I own a plastic miniature colosseum, a coffee mug with Nero fiddling and Rome burning in the background, and a face towel featuring the Late Pope John Paul II---all of which I purchased last year in Rome. But why is *that* a post modern insider joke with myself, while its Greek equivalent offends me so deeply? What is it about our past that bears so heavily on the shoulders of modern Greeks? I wonder if there is a more healthy relationship we could develop with it, between the extremes of reverence and contempt. Something with more humor would be a good start.

3) Sunday afternoon: study break to see the latest Harry Potter. I think I might be growing too old for it--it didn't captivate me as the one before, which hadn't wowed me as the one before it, which hadn't...well, you get the picture. Anyway, I came back and read a little more on it, and lo and behold, I find this wii trailer, whereby kids can 'practice their magic moves' through the wii remote and 'play' Harry (looking all square and digital)...I am shocked. There goes magical thinking, just like that (Jordan, what would Phaedrus say about this?!). No need to imagine it anymore, you can simply buy it! I don't know what gets me more: the fact that books and movies are entire corporate events now, or the fact that I am already at this point in life where I can say things like 'when I was growing up, 20 years ago, we didn't have that!'. Here is the accursed wii trailer:

http://gametrailers.com/player/21243.html

I wonder, does wii conserve all the Latin references and dictions of the books? I mean, aren't the spells successful ONLY when the Latin is produced correctly? Isn't that the whole point of the power of the spell, in the books at least? Flailing one's arms in front of a TV set is supposed to 'recreate' the magical experience??!

4) Ah, the power of words...which brings me to Sunday evening. Reading this poem by Yeats made me think about the supremacy of the written word, of poetry, and of literary exchange, as the ultimate and most long lasting love affair of one's life:

After Long Silence (or: Long After)

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

I hope y' all have had restful, joyfyl, and thoughtful weekends. Missing you all---come by the office when you have time!

Vestra,

EM

PS. Rachael, thank you so much for posting the information on Queen Ann's lace. What a story! I am afraid the Greek name for this plant is much less glamorous, although I wonder (after reading on its connection with silphium), whether the Greeks were on to something. They call it 'selino,' the exact same name they use for the regular celery, that looks nothing like this plant...hmmm....