Teleconference: Stanley Lombardo reads Homer

Classicist and translator Stanley Lombardo will read from his translation of Homer’s Odyssey in a live teleconference, December 14, 2009, 8:00 PM EST.

Lombardo is a brilliant translator and masterful reader. What Homer says of the poet Demodocus in the Odyssey — “He made them see it happen” — is true, I’d say, of Lombardo.

Tickets are free. Follow the link:

Stanley Lombardo: A Performance from Homer’s Odyssey (The Reading Odyssey)

Related reading
Stanley Lombardo interview (Jacket)
Whose Homer? (Lattimore? Fitzgerald? Fagles? Lombardo?)
Wonderland of voices, a review of Lombardo’s recordings of the Iliad and Odyssey (Jacket)

Glenn Gould’s last interview?

Jordan Sayle, from WNYC Radio:

I am writing from Studio 360, the public radio show devoted to the arts and culture. On our blog, we recently posted an audio clip of Glenn Gould talking to music critic Tim Page. . . . The clip is of an interview recorded for WNYC six weeks before Gould’s fatal stroke. It is most likely his last interview ever. With Gould assuming the part of the fictional movie actor Sir John, it’s very bizarre. But Gould also talks at great length (fifty minutes) about his music. Perhaps your readers will enjoy hearing it.

I hope so! This interview is also available as part of the three-CD set A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (Sony). Listen:

James Dean of classical music (Studio 360 Blog)

Thanks, Jordan.

ML + EF

Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I
    am possible
then marriage would be possible —

Gregory Corso, from the poem “Marriage” (1960)

There was. There is. It was. It is.

Twenty-five years ago today, Elaine and I were married. Looking at the photographs, I am convinced that we were in our mid-teens. (Though we were in fact in Massachusetts.) How could we have known what we were doing? Who knows. But we were and are so lucky to have found one another.

Happy anniversary, Elaine!

George Clooney and yogurt

Gregor Reid, director of the Canadian Research and Development Center for Probiotics:

“To say a product contains Lactobacillus is like saying you’re bringing George Clooney to a party. It may be the actor, or it may be an 85-year-old guy from Atlanta who just happens to be named George Clooney. With probiotics, there are strain-to-strain differences.”

From an article on yogurt and health:

Probiotics: Looking Underneath the Yogurt Label (New York Times)

Guess the crime

Here’s an icon from an online map of local criminality. Can you guess the crime?

[The answer’s in the comments.]

Paul McCartney’s handwriting

Paul McCartney’s handwriting, 1953.

Note the circled B. But of course you can begin a sentence with a conjunction.

“Sound-testing a MONGOL”

[Life, May 6, 1940.]

Some may believe this advertisement to be mere gimmickry, but I believe every word. My Mongols purr-r as the ad promises. They even speak the occasional Mkgnao!, like Leopold and Molly Bloom’s cat in Ulysses. Cheap, nondescript pencils? They just cough and sputter everywhere. It’s a mess.

See the Brooklyn address? Forgotten NY reports that Eberhard Faber was in Greenpoint (“Greenpernt”) from 1872 to 1956. FNY has photographs of Eberhard Faber buildings on Greenpoint Avenue and Franklin Street (scroll about a quarter of the way down the page). Mongol fans: note the Diamond Star in the second photograph.

A related post
Mongol No. 2 3/8

Strawberry stream of dialogue

“The best fruit in England — every body's favourite — always wholesome. — These the finest beds and finest sorts. — Delightful to gather for one’s self — the only way of really enjoying them. — Morning decidedly the best time — never tired — every sort good — hautboy infinitely superior — no comparison — the others hardly eatable — hautboys very scarce — Chili preferred — white wood finest flavour of all — price of strawberries in London — abundance about Bristol — Maple Grove — cultivation — beds when to be renewed — gardeners thinking exactly different — no general rule — gardeners never to be put out of their way — delicious fruit — only too rich to be eaten much of — inferior to cherries — currants more refreshing — only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping — glaring sun— tired to death—could bear it no longer — must go and sit in the shade.”

From Jane Austen’s Emma (1816), a blur of conversation from a strawberry-picking expedition, sounding like the stream of consciousness of Mr Leopold Bloom: “Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer.”

[That bit of Bloom is from the Laestrygonians episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922).]

The Staffordshire Hoard

Introducing the Staffordshire Hoard, 1500+ items, found in July 2009: “This hoard is perhaps the most important collection of Anglo-Saxon objects found in England.”

(Thanks, George!)

How to use furoshiki

[Click for a larger view.]

Wikipedia explains:

風呂敷, furoshiki, a type of traditional Japanese wrapping cloth . . . frequently used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods.

In 2006, Yuriko Koike, then Japan’s Minister of the Environment, devised a contemporary version of furoshiki:

I’ve created what you might call a “mottainai furoshiki.” The Japanese word mottainai means it’s a shame for something to go to waste without having made use of its potential in full. The furoshiki is made of a fiber manufactured from recycled PET bottles, and has a birds-and-flowers motif drawn by Itoh Jakuchu, a painter of the mid-Edo era.

The above chart comes from Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. Note the tag in the lower-right corner.

(Thanks, Rachel!)

Further reading
Furoshiki (Wikipedia)
How to use furoshiki (Ministry of the Environment)
“Mottainai furoshiki” (Ministry of the Environment)