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june 30, 2003

Dialectics

I was going to begin today's blog entry with a quote from the German philosopher Emmanual Kant - but I don't think I will now - since I flicked through all his works this morning and discovered that he hasn't quoted me once!
Call me over sensitive, but I think philosophy should be a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" kind of discipline.
So. That's the last time I bring Critique of Pure Reason to the beach with me!
stephenb 13:57 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 29, 2003
The Human Condition

Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down upon us.
Pigs treat us as equals.
Goldfish do not believe in us.
stephenb 23:52 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 27, 2003
A Question of Upbringing

Should men wear flip-flops in public places? The answer is clearly "absolutely not!" Certainly, flip flops have their place, but that place is obviously somewhere hidden away, dark and embarrassing.
Why do people assume it is permissible to slouch around in a slovenly manner just because the summer months have arrived? So it happens to be ninety-five degrees outside - that is no reason to attire yourself as though you were spending a day at the beach, when in fact you are actually attending a top-level briefing on something extremely important to me.
How would the Gettysburg Address be remembered today, if the person delivering that great speech had worn flip-flops, crumpled shorts, and a grubby tee shirt? If it were remembered at all, it would be remembered as the Gettysburg Hey Dude How's It Hanging' Slack-Jawed Mumble.
Not the same thing at all.
Gentlemen should be adequately shod at all times, and flip flops are wholly inadequate. The visible, hairy toe and it's deformed toenail should remain strangers to the public gaze
stephenb 09:05 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 26, 2003
Can somebody please tell me who this Skip Intro guy is who everybody links to on their flash sites? I've tried clicking on his name, but it just takes me to another page of the site I'm already on. Help!
stephenb 17:01 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Ignorance
www.scifi.com has a small blurb about George Orwell to mark his centenary year. They describe him as the author of "Animal House"
Bloody idiots.
This is why science fiction in general is so awful.
stephenb 15:34 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Portable Library

On Saturday I will be enduring an extremely long plane flight, including extremely lengthy lay-overs at extremely dull airports. Consequently the question that most occupies my mind currently is, not what clothes should I pack for my trip, but what books do I bring with me?
Terrified of airborne boredom, and unsure what I will feel like reading once the journey begins, I will have to carry an extra suitcase for all my inflight books.
Here are the contents of my Library of the Air so far:
The Station by Robert Byron; travel classic about sleeping on Mount Athos which I haven't re-read for sometime - my old copy was a musty hardcover and I have just found a nice paperback edition.
Pagan Holiday by somebody called Perrottet or something, who follows the ancient Roman tourist route: Greece; Alexandrian Egypt; etc. It is supposed to be funny and also illuminating.
Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell. I always bring this with me because it's my favorite novel and I can always just re-read it if all else fails.
The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis - I have never been able to finish this huge satirical novel. It is unlikely that I will on this trip either. But you never know.
I will need to add at least another six books by tomorrow afternoon, just to be on the safe side.
Don't want to be trapped on the plane with nothing to read.

stephenb 12:20 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 25, 2003
Mob Scene

Last night, as a rather tame rendition of the National Anthem filled the evening air with song, I mingled with the baseball-hat clad, hot dog chomping multitude around the perimeter of "historic" Fenway Park, famous home of the infamous Boston Red Sox.
A small boy, his mouth stained with strawberry lollipop, clung to his father's hand, "Dad, can I have a Yankees Suck tee shirt?"
On Brookline Avenue, the surge of the crowd divided and eddied about a corpulent, red-faced man standing his ground on the heaving sidewalk: "Need tickets? Need tickets? Need tickets? Need tickets?"
"No, I need to get past. Will you move out of the way, please."
I pushed my way between two mounted policeman as their sleepy-eyed stallions unevenly distributed large heaps of steaming equine waste over the road, adding a rather rustic flavor to the proceedings.
Overall, despite the fact that they seldom seem to look where they are going and dispose of litter wherever it is most convenient for them to do so, the baseball crowd is generally well behaved.
But then, I have always found English soccer crowds to be relatively harmonious also. I remember waiting in an extremely orderly line outside the tube station next to West Ham United's Upton Park after they had just been beaten 5-1. In fact the only disturbance I have witnessed was at Elland Road in Leeds, and that was more funny than worrying. A fan of the opposing team threw a rock at the window of the bus I was traveling on, and then mooned the passengers. His team had lost the game and was therefore "relegated" - dropping to a lower, less salubrious league for the following season. Consequently I have always enjoyed the concept of "relegation" in sports. I wish we had it in America.

stephenb 09:54 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 24, 2003
Return Ticket Into The Mystic

I have been busy designing an entirely new pack of Tarot cards, which I intend to sell for enormous sums of money at street fairs and the like. Here is a brief list of the cards I have completed so far.

1. The Big Fool This card usually represents the genre of person who will be having their fortune told and will believe every word of it. reversed A fool is easily parted with their money

2. The Scorned Woman Look out!! This card signifies that your life will become a living hell for the next three weeks. It is always reversed.

3. The Seven of Cigarettes Obviously you smoke too much and should consider quitting. reversed Pot is illegal and the Gods frown upon it, as do I. Please remove yourself and that horrible substance my interestingly decorated caravan at one. And please try to avoid knocking the crystal ball over as you leave.

4. Death Decides Not To Take A Holiday This card actually means the same as the original Death card in the tarot pack; I just like the name a lot more. And the picture on the card is better too. reversed Death goes on a walking tour of the Swiss Alps wearing uncomfortable shoes.

5. The Five of Computers Everything is going to break. You will not be able to connect to the internet. Perhaps you should consider upgrading your equipment. reversed Spam.

That's all I have so far. Obviously you can't really tell an accurate fortune with only five cards, but then, most people's lives are pretty much the same.
Anyway, if you do go and see a fortune teller, here is Quick Tip:
Have your cards read but don't pay. You can justify not paying by pointing out that the clairvoyant did not know that you were not going to pay, and therefore can't be very good.



stephenb 09:49 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 23, 2003
How To Explain The Loss Of A Candy To A Weeping Child

Do not weep, small being, for when we consider the Rolo as a unit of candy, we must conclude that is unsatisfactory.
An insipid glob of unadventurous, run-of-the-mill caramel, indifferently encased in a tissue thin layer of predictable, so-called "milk" chocolate, the wretched and forgettable Rolo is certainly no match for that celestial duo, the Milky Way and the Mars Bar. Alas, you are not yet old enough to grapple with these stout candies.
Moreover, as you have discovered for yourself, the tubular packaging of assembled Rolo's is banal, plain, tedious in the extreme, and easily collapses so that individual Rolo units fall down the back of the car seat and become lost forever.
Perhaps this is the best place for them? Even the briefest perusal of the evidence would seem to suggest this obvious truth.
So, snot-nosed brat, wail ye not and be merry else ye be confined to thy room without benefit of Bob The Builder.

stephenb 09:17 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 20, 2003
The Story of Honey
The script from my cancelled children's TV show

Hello children. I'm Boris the Beekeeper. Do you want to come and see my Magic Bee Hive? It's just down the garden path here, next to the foul smelling, worm-riddled compost heap. I want to see if I can collect some lovely honey from my Magic Bee Hive for sweetening that disgusting herbal tea which is the only kind my stupid wife buys.
But first we have to put on our protective clothing so that we don't get stung by the nasty possessive bees when we try to steal their honey.
That fool of a wife of mine got stung yesterday, which is why her head has swelled up like a beach ball and is full of pus. She might die because she's allergic. She can't eat peanuts either. Isn't she stupid, children!
Do you know how we collect the honey from the Magic Bee Hive? No? Because you are stupid too and cannot even wipe your noses properly? Oh well, I guess I shall have to demonstrate. What we do is, we spray poison on the bees so that they all die. When they have fallen on the ground, we stamp really hard on the ones that are not dead yet and shout "Die! Die!" at them in a funny German accent. Then we sweep them up into the big, black plastic garbage bag and burn them on a big bonfire that annoys the neighbors. Then we have a cigarette and a large scotch. Afterwards we smash the Magic Bee Hive with a heavy sledgehammer and pay the kid next door five cents per hour to scoop the honey up with his bare hands. And that is how Honeynut Cheerios are made!
Where is my sedative?
stephenb 13:08 - [Link] - Comments ()
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The Gold Standard

Alas! The sweet bird of youth has flown south from my life, and the shambolic prickly hedgehog of middle age makes his initial approach.
Next month I will be thirtjigglibum years of age: I wear clothes that fit me, do not dye hair, have no piercings, and don't like rap music, instead I scavenge my look from the stylepages of Scrapheap Pour Homme.
Was it only yesterday that I was young and naiive enough to believe that the etudes of Johannes Brahms were "cool" merely because he had played the piano in a brothel? Yes it was.
Was it only yesterday that I could stuff an entire box of Oreo cookies into my mouth, one and after the other, without pausing for breath as I lay on my couch flicking through the pages of The Spectator? No. That was today. I still do that. Somethings never change.
stephenb 10:07 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 19, 2003
College Graduations

The Stephenhead presents a handy cut, paste and print cod Latin citation for your next commencement speech ordeal

Collegium Dumba Downus et Studenti Moronico Graduata grantus Degree Honorium per Actore-Celebrita, Glorium Fado et Restus Betweeni Rolum. Actore-Celebrita deliverum Oratorio Commencia - banalus extremio et tedium prolongus agoni. Assemblia stiflex yawnum.
Concludi Non Eventus.
Exeunt Studenti paradum Cirriculum Vitae Null et Voidus et Parentum Bankrupta.
Er, Q.E.D

stephenb 09:06 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 18, 2003
Monsoon Season

"A tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." Hamlet - It is comforting to know that Shakespeare could accurately predict the content of modern TV shows. A bald genius, he was also able to forecast 2003 New England weather with remarkable prescience: "And the rain, it raineth everyday." Twelfth Night
It is the Year of the Waterproof Coat, and I find I am suddenly a resident in the City of Umbrellas; photographed from the air, Boston must look like a giant pin cushion.

stephenb 10:45 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 17, 2003
Meedja

We have two daily newspapers in Boston.
The Boston Herald For Readers Ages 3-9 Years, and the completely unreadable Boston John Kerry For President Newsletter With Some Other Stuff Thrown In Globe.
Did you know that Senator John Kerry was Superman? Neither did I.
Actually, Boston is hosting the Democratic National Party Convention next year. That should be fun. There is an old song, Doesn't Matter Who You Vote For Because The Government Always Gets In
It should be a public mantra rather than just an old song.
stephenb 10:06 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Sing!

I generally avoid Musicals like a fine, avocado-based, imported skin-moisturizer sales representative would shun a leper colony. However, I own several recorded versions of the Rodgers and Hart classic My Heart Stood Still, and I am not entirely satisfied with any of them, although my collection includes diverse efforts by such individual talents as Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, and even Tony Bennett.
Personally - others may disagree - I think I can perform this particular song better than these old crooners can, even though I cannot sing a note: all men are Caruso in the shower, are they not.
My Heart Stood Still is my favorite song, probably because it begins with an extremely odd image - comparing the eyes of the object of affection to a hilltop Spanish Castille - and ends with a tremendously ironic finale, "I never lived at all until the thrill of that moment when my heart stood still."
In other - more prosaic - words, he was not really alive until he died.
Apparently, Lorenz Hart quit collaborating with Richard Rodgers because he did not want to write the lyrics to what became Oklahoma.
Very wise. It is best to remain urbane.
There was a point to all this but I have forgotten what it was.

stephenb 09:59 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 16, 2003
Snob Value

I am one of those people who can never bring themselves to say the words "grande mocha" or "vente coolio-chocolatta" or whatever it is, and so the javanese plenty of Starbucks remains an uncharted mystery to me.
Consequently, I purchase all my coffee drinks from the eastern European looking gentleman in the subway station. I believe his barrow is called Vlad's Donut Shack - but I might just have dreamt that and the name stuck in my head. Anyway, the point is, I try to patronize my local independent bean grinder. The same is true of my local independent bookseller (a bookshop), and we are fortunate to have several good ones in the Greater Boston region. However - blush, stammer, inaudibly excuse myself - when I want to buy embarrassing non-weighty tome reading matter, I always slink into one of the large chains such as Barnes And Noble (a bookstore). The reason? Well, I don't want the literary folk who work the cash registers in independent bookshops to think I am just any old reader of pulp paperbacks. Snob? Most certainly. As one of the characters in Anthony Powell's books says - and I paraphrase since I am too stupid to remember exactly - "I don't see what is so wrong about being a snob, it seems a perfectly sensible thing to be." Indeed. You only have to glance at the tawdry tat around you to see the truth of those words.
By the way, I watched Fellini's Roma last night for the first time in about ten years. I had forgotten what a great film it is. I cannot recommend it too highly. Like his compatriot Pasolini, Fellini had a tremendous eye for that rich vein of human oddness that most film makers ignore in favor of dreary "themes" and heavy duty over-acted dramas.

stephenb 11:03 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 13, 2003
Updating the Mermaid

I had a dream last night: an ancient bearded man told me that wary travelers on roads at night should beware the Carmaid - a beautiful half human, half four-wheel-drive creature - singing siren songs to passing motorists from her mysterious cavern cut deep in a magical traffic isle. Her songs are sweet enchantments, offering a quick oil change and muffler check if only the motorist stops, pulls over and and turns his windscreen wipers on. Extremely tempting since she also promises fully automated car wash facilities, satellite TV, and freshly ground coffee "to go" - although, of course, you never actually leave. There is no exit ramp from the Carmaid's asphalty grip. They say you can see the ghostly skid marks of doomed motorists when the moon is bright.

Memo to David Cronenberg: Frankly I think this would make a better movie than that JG Ballard Crash thing you did.
stephenb 13:27 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 12, 2003
Orwellian Grocery Shopping

A brand new chrome-plated, lettuce-stuffed, soup can-walled, cathedral-aisled Megamarket has cut the tape and opened it's electronic sliding doors to the public near my house. Huge mountain ranges of apples and pears stretch far into the distance. High speed shopping carts flash by alongside deep canals of spring water, soda and fruit juice. A comitern of butchers and a parliament of fishmongers pass judgement on hunks of fresh meat and sea food. A vast army of shelf-stockers scuttle past bringing reinforcements. There is also something called a "Servery". What - in the name of God - is a Servery?
I have no idea because I fled immediately. Where there is something called a servery is somewhere I do not wish to be.
stephenb 09:44 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 11, 2003
A Short, Brutal Assessment

The only thing I like about the movie The Hours is that Virginia Woolf's nose is now more famous than her books.
stephenb 11:43 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Beaux Arts In The Rain

As a lover of ruins, I always feel a conspicuous absence where I live, since the city of Boston has none. There is, I suppose, the Paul Revere House, but it is unfortunately "maintained". Why not just let the thing fall in on itself, as it obviously wants to. The house would be vastly more interesting and poignant if the interior was exposed to the elements.
Boston Garden - our old sporting arena - scene of as much debauched excess as ancient Rome's Colosseum, was torn down and replaced by the vapid, named-after-a-bank, Fleet Center. Why couldn't they just let that decay and crumble into the Earth? Surely tourists would love to amble and wander across the weather-beaten, creaking parquet floor, listening for the ghostly thump of a phantom basketball.
Apparently, ruins are only considered a valid consumption of real estate if they possess some important archeological and ancient historical association - and very rarely, even then.
Nevertheless, whether they are a thousand years old or merely a hundred, ruins remain important as a reminder of the transitory and ephemeral nature of human ambition - "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair", as long-haired, puffy-sleeved poet Percy B. Shelley once wrote. And they also retain a tragic, haunting beauty. The city is a much poorer place without them.

stephenb 11:15 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 10, 2003
Indian Food For Thought

Above the table hangs a lacquered portrait depicting a lumbering, ruby-eyed elephant dressed in the kind of spangley costume that Cher usually wears to the Oscars.
I duck beneath the novelty model clay tandoor suspended from the ceiling and sit, flap my napkin with an expert flourish, and order confidently since I am the sort of diner who "always gets the same thing" in ethnic restaurants - in this case: vegetable samosa, lamb saag, garlic smothered nan bread, and a mango juice.
Actually, I know next to nothing about the conventions of Indian cuisine. In fact, I always worry that my order is comparable to someone entering an American restaurant in New Delhi and demanding a plate oysters with heavily-ketchup'd french fries on the side, two boiled eggs and a glass of chocolate milk.

stephenb 09:30 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 09, 2003
Books Do Furnish A Room

Why do Penguin Classic paperbacks cost so much money? The prices on the back covers are comparable to those of modern books by living authors, even though many of the Penguin Classics were written well over a thousand years ago, and are surely in the public domain. There are no royalties to pay and no reading tours to sponsor, and yet you have to cough up $14 for a copy of Herodotus' The Histories.
Well, I suppose they often have to pay the translator, and Penguin are forever publishing new translations.
Unfortunately, modern translators seem to enjoy introducing "modern themes" into their translations, and reference current events as though the Siege of Troy is not relevant or interesting enough by itself.
Directors love doing the same thing in the theater: Shakespeare updated to Bosnia - Marcellus portrayed as a UN commander.
Some clever playwright once rightfully said, "Just play the text, not what you think it means." But no-one does. This is why films and plays of Kafka's works are always located in dark, shadowy, expressionistic corridors, even though there are no descriptions of such places in his actual novels.
Anyway, Penguin Classics should take a long cool look at the way
Dover Publications do things. You can buy a copy of Paradise Lost from Dover for a single dollar, or collect the complete works of Henry James for about $10.
Sure, they are printed on cheap paper and lack decent cover art, but who cares. So why not risk buying something by Tolstoy, Gogol, or Montaigne. It does not matter if you can't finish them - they only cost a few bucks.

stephenb 09:36 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 06, 2003
Laundromathead Revisted

Question: Do you think that laundry is:
a) A Herculean task.
b) A Biblical struggle
c) A Sisyphian nightmare
d) A torment of the damned
e) A Chinese festival
f) A "all of the above" type thing.

The correct answer is of course answer B - a Biblical struggle.
How do we arrive at this conclusion? Well, I will now illustrate my work:
Just as there is only one true Messiah, there is only one laundromat currently serving the Coin-Op disciples in Boston's Back Bay. And as is always the case with such laundromats, it has eight million washers and only three dryers, and two of these dryers are usually out of order - "they toil not neither do they spin" - so it's rather like feeding the five thousand with only two filets of haddock and a stale baguette. The people flock from miles around but there is no hope.
And so the Pharisees can offer a drop-off, wash, fold and rip-off service for thirty pieces of silver per 5lb bag: Money-changers in the Temple? Yep.
stephenb 13:27 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 05, 2003
Follow Apollo

Not that I am one to disparage the cherished beliefs of environmental scientists, but could many of the world's climate problems have something to do with the fact that we no longer make sacrificial offerings to the Sun God?
Yes. I think they can.
Seems our heavily educated environmental scientist friends have overlooked this very important ritual - something that was plainly obvious to even the most ignorant of ancient savages.
I mean, the Sun God looks down on Earth and what does he see: Does he see a goat with it's throat slit? No. Does he see virgins stretched out on stone slabs with the sacred dagger of Helios hovering above their breasts and the golden goblet of Re below? No he does not.
What he actually sees are obese, pink heretics rubbing sun block factor 100 into their unholy flesh. No wonder there is famine and floods every other week.

stephenb 16:28 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Amongst Women Only

I borrowed the title of this post from an autobiographical novel written by the Italian author Cesare Pavese. He killed himself shortly after the book was completed - some might consider a not unreasonable reaction considering his circumstances ;)
Anyway, until the proprietor installed a new laundry system in the basement of the building where I live, I was unaware that I lived Amongst Women Only also.
Now - like the doors to the Temple of Janus - the doors to the laundry room are always open in times of war - and it is a war: the women constantly battle and elbow each other to get a load in before somebody else does. They line the stairs down to the basement clutching baskets and bags overflowing with clothes, sheets and towels. Like the sound of allied bombers over the city of Dresden, the washer and dryer constantly drone and hum every morning and night. I really had no idea so many women lived in my building. Sometimes I fear I might drown in an ocean of detergent, bleach and fabric softener.
It seems to me that if you want to pick-up women - rather than park your Porsche outside the bar - you would be more successful if you simply wheel in your washer and dryer combination: "Hey girls, look what I've got!"
You can be the Pied Laundryman.

stephenb 09:51 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 04, 2003
And Speaking of Barbarians

Standing at the back of a crowded subway train this morning, I saw a blind woman embark. Not one single person stood up to let her sit down. Not one!
I wonder who is the bigger barbarian - the people who stare at the floor pretending they do not notice, or those who just don't even understand that they should offer up their seat? And then, of course, there is me, since perhaps I should have said something but did not.


stephenb 15:16 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 03, 2003
Mine Own Mythology That I Made Up

It seems I am ordained to ride the plastic, rearing zebra on Fortune's relentless, dazzling, yet still creaking carousel.
I sacrifice two hundred toffee apples to the great god Pretzel who appears in the form of a giant Pretzel. Then I consult the Delphic Candy Floss. It portends that the world would be a much less stickier and smellier place if I based my mythology on a one-way system rotary traffic island with clearly marked Stop signs instead.

stephenb 12:39 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Plebeius Magazine

Odd how we are so accustomed to reading graphic descriptions of depravity that we almost feel cheated when they are missing, even if we are not particularly interested.
I have recently been reading the works of Seutonius - that is to say, reading the paperback edition of The Twelve Caesars translated by Robert "I'm as mad as a hatter" Graves, and published by Penguin Classics.
The book begins with admirably concise biographies of the great and noble Caesars, namely Julius and Augustus. There is a good deal of material about invading Gaul, erecting temples to Mars, political chicanery with Senators and Consuls and Tribunes, sailing to Alexandria and Byzantium. But then there is the sharp and sudden decline into the sordid worlds of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, etc.
Although Seutonius remarks on the unpleasantness of these later Caesars, he never provides the sensational details the modern reader expects: Romans are condemned to "cruel deaths", but Seutonius fails to explain how these were carried out; the imperial households are accused of "horrible perversions", but again, Seutonius does not describe what they were.
There is probably no literal Latin phrase meaning "juicy bits", but they have most definitely been suppressed - perhaps because they are usually ipse dixit as Tacitus would say.
Seutonius does refer to crucifixions, beheadings, and people being torn apart by wild beasts, and he also writes of a method of execution that sounds much more terrible, he calls it "execution in the ancient manner".
What on Earth was that?!

Trivia
Interestingly enough, one of the reasons Julius Caesar often wore a laurel crown was to cover up his baldness. In fact, most of the Caesars appear to have been bald men.

stephenb 11:05 - [Link] - Comments ()
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june 02, 2003
Ancestral Vices

I often wonder what mongrel mix of Barbarian uncivilizations I am descended from. My surname is Anglo-Norman: those elegant figures who appear on the Bayeux Tapestry defeating the House Carls at the battle of Hastings. But that was only a thousand years ago and obviously tells me nothing at all.
I'm actually interested in who my really, really ancient ancestors were - especially the ones who wore hats made out of sheep bowels, painted their buttocks blue, and hacked off the genitals of those they killed in battle, then decapitated them and hung the severed heads over the sides of their chariots.
These are the ancestors I would really like to invite to dinner:
"Just leave your axe by the door and pull up a chair. Yes, that is called a fork and that is a finger bowl. There is no need to crack the waiter's skull. Now, Engwulf, tell me about yourself."
The people I feel sorry for are the poor Roman Legionnaires who had to subdue these barbarians: posted from the Mediterranean sun to some far flung corner of Europe and forced to fight the blue-assed maniacs in hand to hand combat; standing on a wall in the cold, far from home, wrapped in layers of sheepskin, forced to eat some horrible mutton-based gruel instead of the olives and pomegranates they were accustomed to.
It must have been a dog's life civilizing my ancestors.


stephenb 12:56 - [Link] - Comments ()
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Historia Nonsensica

The Kloopian Heresy: will anyone ever know the true facts?
It seems unlikely. A discreet shroud of silence has been secretively drawn over these mysterious and clandestine events by those who claim - truly or falsely - that they were indirectly involved. And indeed, alas, we do not even know who they are or were. Most of these remote and anonymous characters died many years ago, and are buried in unmarked graves in inaccessible cemeteries long since lost beneath the plough.
So what exactly was the Kloopian Heresy? For better or worse, we are not sure. We do know that there is a fragment of water damaged parchment kept in an old and rusty tin, and upon this parchment are vague and unreadable scratches made by an unsteady and unreliable hand with a quill dipped in invisible ink that was already running out when the first untranslatable words were being inscribed upon this untrustworthy document. But this is all we really know for certain.
Many so-called experts have claimed that there was no such thing as the Kloopian Heresy, and they aver that I simply made it up hoping to sell a documentary about it to Public Television.
But we will never know for sure, since I have drawn a discreet shroud of silence over this mysterious and clandestine Kloopian Heresy and will never speak of it again unless I get the money.

stephenb 10:45 - [Link] - Comments ()
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