Back in school again so I decided to go up to 209 Randall again, I’m not sure why. It was night and guess who was lying on bed asleep? James’s first roommate, Robert Richards. He was last seen in New York, since he figured he could just read the 100 Great books on his own time. I would have thought he’d be in jail by now.

Do you know how The Peloponnesian War ends? "He [Tissaphernes] therefore decided to go and see them at the Hellespont in order to protest against what had happenned at Antandros and to clear himself as best he could from what they had to say against him with regard to the Phoenician fleet and other matters. He went first to Ephesus where he made a sacrifice to Artemis..." that is to say, it doesn't end at all. As Firestone said, Kafka didn't finish The Castle so I don't see why I should. But there is a surprise ending: in the last book Athens becomes an oligarchy. All that Pericles's funeral oration stuff about a democracy creating the best soldiers because they understand what they're fighting for and Athen's freedoms being a beacon to the world are out the window when they start seriously losing battles. Once the empire's in danger, it's the power of the strong over the weak. Same as ever, but it's still sad.

Crescent crescendo

While at band practice yesterday, executing a lovely crescendo, it suddenly occurred to me that the word “crescendo” is probably related to the word “crescent”. Crescendo= sound that is building or getting louder, crescent = the shape of the moon while it’s getting fuller. Sure enough, there’s a Latin word cresco, crescere, crevi, cretum meaning to grow or swell, present participle crescens, crescentis. But what about a moon that’s going from a half moon to a new moon? It’s still crescent in shape, but it’s not growing, it’s shrinking. My dictionary has the word decrescent as an adjective, meaning waning, but not as a noun. And if memory serves, the moon waxes on the right and wanes on the left, but usually when you see a crescent (such as on the Turkish flag) it’s on the left, meaning it’s really a decrescent, or would be if that were a word. Maybe the delightful flaky French roll should really be called a “decroissant”.

Another good bit in Thucydides I found in Book VII.44, when the Athenians wanted to attack Epipolae in Syracuse. (I believe that's in Sicily; the Penguin edition has such poorly drawn maps as to actually be more useless than no maps at all.) They found they couldn't breach the line by day so they decided to attack at night. However it was a complete failure, a terrible rout, because there was a lot of confusion in the darkness. "But it was the singing of the paean which did them as much, or even more harm than anything, because of the uncertainty caused by having much the same paean sung on both sides. Thus when the Argives and Corcyraeans and other Dorian elements in the army started singing their paean they produced as much panic among the Athenians as the enemy did." I had thought that a paean was a hymn of praise, but it's clearly a battle song here.

Out of Thin Air

Alright, here's a song I wrote over the weekend for Homeland Security and the hostages at RISD:

You know out of sight is never out of mind
Wherever I look, whatever I find
Whatever I see it's what you're just behind
All that I see has rendered me blind

You're hiding you're hiding
I'll find you ma chere
I'll find you I'll get you
Right out of thin air

You say I can't see you, you say it's forbidden
I no longer care if you did or you didn't
You said that you wouldn't, I thought you were kidding
Once I have found you, you'll still remain hidden

You're hiding you're hiding
I'll find you ma chere
I'll find you I'll get you
Right out of thin air

Tough Row

Oh wait, I get it now: "You're getting killed by what you don't know (= yourself)". I'll sharpen my pencil and tune my ukulele and see if I can write a song for Homeland Security this weekend. It's too bad Tom Ridge isn't the Secretary any more: his name rhymes with bridge and smidge and ligitig (-inous). I'm not sure what you can do with "Michael Chertoff".

So cool!

Not only is the NSA tapping any and all overseas phone calls, but apparently Homeland Security can open any packages sent through the mail. You know that Tom Ridge must've been, like, the biggest Brothers Twain fan in the whole world!

New Year's Greetings

Just got John Cale's new "Black Acetate" from a friend in Zurich. Very nice at first listen. Very frisky, like he was in concert two summers ago.
Do the hucklebuck