Homer then and now

The Nation has an extensive report on the experiences of American veterans of the war in Iraq. An excerpt:

We heard a few reports, in one case corroborated by photographs, that some soldiers had so lost their moral compass that they'd mocked or desecrated Iraqi corpses. One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon. . . .

The scene, Sergeant [Camilo] Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins.

A reader of Homer's Iliad will find nothing surprising in such accounts. Achilles' character is undone in the course of the Iliad; the warrior who once displayed the greatest concern for his comrades and the greatest compassion toward the enemy descends into self-absorbed brutality. Here is Achilles speaking to the Trojan warrior Hector, before killing him and dragging his body behind a chariot:

               "I wish my stomach would let me
Cut off your flesh in strips and eat it raw
For what you've done to me. There is no one
And no way to keep the dogs off your head."

(Iliad 22, translated by Stanley Lombardo)

Standing on Troy's wall, Hector's father and mother witness Achilles' treatment of their son's body, groaning and screaming as they watch.

And here we are, twenty-seven centuries later, in the same story.

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness (The Nation, via Boing Boing)

Fermi

Another quality adding-a-URL-to-Google experience:

Enrico Fermi (Nobelprize.org)

Related posts
Barfs
Beret
Doped
Oveness

A noisy little "privilege"

One more thing I learned on my summer vacation: in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a historical marker at the birthplace of Laura Ingersoll Secord notes that her father Thomas Ingersoll had privilege on the nearby Housatonic River. Meaning? The Oxford English Dictionary explains:

A (section of) river capable of powering machinery, as for a mill, factory, etc.; = water-privilege.

This watery meaning is American in origin and now considered obsolete.

The OED gives three sample sentences. This one's my favorite, from C.M. Kirkland's Western Clearings (1845):

He paced the bank of the noisy little ‘privilege’ that turned the gristmill.

Tenuously related post
Things I learned on my summer vacation (2007)

Things I learned on my summer vacation (2007)

Solvent cups are great for packing vitamins, meds, and other small items.

*

Ashland, Ohio, claims to be "the world headquarters of nice people."

*

Jesse's Café (139 Brighton Ave, Long Branch, New Jersey) is a wonderful mostly-vegan restaurant. The baba ghanoush is spectacular.

*

Ratatouille is a noun made from two verbs: ratouiller (to disturb, shake) and tatouiller (to stir).

*

Manhattan Special is an espresso soda from Brooklyn, New York, bottled since 1895. It is everything Coke Black wants (and fails) to be.

*

Older wine — a 1989 Bordeaux, almost brown in color, earthy in taste — is very different from the 2005, 2006 stuff I buy.

*

Fuller's earth is a special-effects material used in simulating explosions. When you see the dirt flying up in a big plume, that's Fuller's earth.

*

Desert Spring is a house-brand imitation of Poland Spring.

*

"Oprah and her friends are just a call away." (Slogan on a cell-service kiosk in a New Jersey mall.)

*

Rob Zseleczky can play a note-perfect guitar part for "Scarborough Fair."

*

My sister-in-law Susie can draw manga characters.

*

Most events in one's life happened "fifteen or twenty years ago."

*

KARL BUSH EATS HOAGIES. (Painted on an overpass in Pennsylvania.)

*

Singing along with Pete Seeger while driving lightens and brightens all moods.

*

Coming back is so much nicer when the house is decluttered.

Related post
Things I learned on my summer vacation (2006)

Proust and the piano

If reading Proust is a habit, I've been clean for a week (while on vacation). But I'm going back on the stuff tomorrow morning. For now, a passage that I stashed away last week:

People, even those that we love the most, may, it is true, become saturated by the sadness or irritation that emanates from us. There is one thing, however, capable of a power of exasperation to which no human being will ever attain: a piano.

Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah, translated by John Sturrock (New York: Penguin, 2002), 187

All Proust posts (Pinboard)

The Proust habit

Chris Power on Proust:

Spend any length of time reading about Proust and you'll hear that his writing is addictive. In fact, the ubiquity of this claim was something I found off-putting. Novels aren't heroin or peanut M&Ms, after all. To me it sounded like so much hyperbole, and as a book reviewer I've sprayed around too much of that myself to fall for anyone else's. But after reading The Guermantes Way I'm beginning to see some sense in the claim.

Read the rest:

Getting the Proust habit (Guardian)

All Proust posts (via Pinboard)

(Thanks for the link, TH!)

Tom Waits on parenthood

"I didn't want to be the guy who woke when he was sixty-five, and said 'Gee, I forgot to have kids.' I mean, somebody took the time to have us, right?"

From a 1999 interview, quoted in Jay S. Jacobs' Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (ECW Press, 2006)

Out of This World

Decluttering my workspace and reading about the Collyer brothers led me to a 1953 book by Helen Worden Erskine, Out of This World (thanks, library). Erskine was a New York reporter who seems to have started working in the mid-1920s. She developed a niche as a chronicler of the lives of urban recluses and in 1938 "discovered" the Collyer brothers. The lives collected in Out of This World are those of men and women whose wealth enabled them to live on their own odd terms, in brownstones, mansions, and hotels; in dust, clutter, and unopened mail. Here's one passage, from the story of Gertrude Tredwell (1840-1933):

Mr. Van Nostrand walked over to a framed floral arrangement. "This is seaweed. Aunt Gertrude used to have it sent in from the Jersey coast, then she arranged it in the form of flowers and pasted it on heavy drawing paper."

"You'll find them all over the house," commented Mrs. Lonnberg.

"Making flowers out of seaweed was Aunt Gertrude's life," said Mr. Van Nostrand.

Related post
Decluttering: a book recommendation

Decluttering: a book recommendation

Reading Merlin Mann's post on clutter last month inspired me to see and clean up my clutter. Something that has helped tremendously: Peter Walsh's It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, a book with significant psychotropic power. The most important point Walsh makes is that "organizing" stuff — by buying more boxes and bookshelves — never solves the problem. The real solution is rethinking one's relationship to stuff, an activity that can feel quite freeing.

My own efforts in this regard are ongoing. But already my workspace, our house, and life in general are a lot more comfortable and inviting.

It's All Too Much (Amazon)
Peter Walsh Design

Related posts, on items rediscovered while decluttering
Covering v. uncovering
Notary Public

"thrifti"

Above, signage of the dowdy world. Note the note above the tam. My eyes too are rolling.

This image reminds me of the cartoonish Scot who graced the signage of a local supermarket food mart that offered "McThrifty" values (before selling out to a chain). The thrifty Scot seems to have been a familiar figure in grocerydom. Has anyone else seen him?

Illustrated Supermaket Signage (from Roadsidepictures, found via Mad Professor)
All "dowdy world" posts (via Pinboard)