Musings

“There’s an archaeological site,” Someone Else said, “let’s stop.!”

And thus we had a wonderful guided tour of Sybaris—to the Greeks, or Copia—to the Romans. We saw the ruins of Copia, except for a stretch of the Greek’s road. (Read the Greek community’s history here.

You’re looking SSE toward the Roman center-of-town, which had a large circular city fountain, the theater, and at least one temple.

Apparently the coast side of Copia had a harbor and city gate, but the sea is now several hundred meters away. I guess sediment from the mountains washed down over the ruins protecting wall bases and floors, as well as the roads.

I’m not sure of the hydrology, but we saw and heard two busy pumps, keeping the water at bay. One place we could see the current water level, nearly 2m below the road—so the pumps must run continuously to keep the site from flooding—at least during rainy periods—and we experienced that recently. The yellow pipe is part of the water-removal system.

Thus, we have left Sicily, and are doing a quick perusal of the Ionian coast (Jonian is the spelling here). The B&B we stayed at hooked us up with a local Calabrian restaurant, and we dined with two French couples staying at the same B&B—a linguistic olympics for all of us, as we switched among French, English, and Italian, especially to discuss the foods we were eating. John used Google translate several times; for example, you gotta really know a language to know “white mulberry*” (Morus alba) in it—they were raw, fresh, sweet, and part of the fruit course along with dark, sweet cherries. Yum.

The white mulberries are probably a legacy of the silk industry. A town up the way, Catanzaro, was known historically for its velvet, silk and other textiles; I’m guessing that’s the link to the Morus alba trees….

* mûre

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Our sybaritic day

Azaleas ready to pop, after dark.

He had taken to smoking cigarettes and every time he made one we all stopped to watch. In his vest pocket he carried a sack of Bull Durham smoking tobacco with a round tag with a bull on it hanging out. He also had a thin packet of cigarette papers called LFFs—Loafer’s Last Friend. He would hold a paper curved in his fingers of his left hand and fill it with tobacco. He had a way of holding the sack in his right hand so he could pull it open and shut with his teeth. When the bag was back in his pocket, with the bull showing so we would remember jokes about it and laugh, he would roll the cigarette and seal it by drawing his tongue along it. Then he would h’ist his leg and strike a match on his tight pants.

This was what I liked most to see. He would stretch his duckings leg till the blue was almost white. Then he would draw the match toward him, barely letting the head touch the cloth, and it would flame up a reddish yellow. He would hold the match still till the flame was clear yellow and then light his cigarette. He let me try in, but I did not get my duckings leg tight enough and the match stick broke.

Lots to like here: “cigarette” is never nicknamed or shortened, LFF’s full title is presented blandly, the solid sentences, the graphic imagery. But, mostly: the detailed observation.

How much of Owens’s technology and terminology is…historical quaintness now?

Passage from William A. Owens’s 1966 This Stubborn Soil: A Frontier Boyhood, pp 159–160 in my paperback Vintage Book edition.

Posted at 9:27 PM | Comments Off on A watchful gaze…sees

Tucked away on a rock, I found this bronze sculpture over in the ABG. A cloud-layer made the sky dull, so my eyes looked down more than up, or I think I would have walked right by. I’m still not clear if it’s a frog or a toad*.

Some Southerners dodge this problem by calling this type of amphibian a toad-frog. There’s some wisdom to not fussing about taxonomic fine points.

More than anything, I think it resembles a dinosaur!

* Another Spanish lesson: rana o sapo = a frog or a toad.

Posted at 6:43 PM | 2 Comments »

We’d been calling them (green) stoppers, which is still alliterative, but (at least the local) official name—splash sticks—sounds far more Starbucks-y.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

I got such good material last week in NYC, I just had to use one more New York Snap. This is from the famous boat house in Central Park. Actually, it’s not the “boathouse” where you rent—I kid you not—”excursion crafts (row boats),” but the building where you can keep and refurbish your model sailboat—just sign up on the list on the bulletin board inside. Then, take your boat-treasure right out across the apron and set it afloat on the “Conservatory Water“—don’t get me started on that name! Anyway, this is the building’s carefully framed Certificate of Occupancy. Can you see the date in the upper right? 1954. The other thing I found interesting: down at the bottom of this clip: occupancy is limited to 5 male and 5 female. Just how do they figure that?

Some definitions:

Profane means non-sacred or outside the temple—thus, irreverent or blasphemous. The term is also used for general verbal expressions that sound or are intended to sound insulting, rude, or disrespectful.

To blaspheme is to speak irreverently about sacred or holy things (apologies for the circularity). Blasphemy has a religious component. Some countries ban blaspheming.

Obscene means outside the standards of decency and morality, and often is applied to sexual matters. What is obscene is contextual. And good luck with a universal distinction between obscenity and indecency.

Curses, strictly speaking (haha), invoke supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something. Cuss is an informal version of the word, in this context.

Swearing is to make a solemn statement; it’s also to use offensive language, often in anger.

Vulgarity is an indecorous expression specifically chosen for its unrefined character; it generally has a social and moral component, even if casually chosen.

Okay. Now, don’t confuse or blur these!

And note that they don’t all overlap. Remember this when listening to the current hubub about the Supremes’ latest decision on language and broadcasting. And remember that profanity, obscenity, etc. are contextual, both in the moment (who are the speaker and audience? what is conventional for them?) and within the social experiences of the user of the language.

So, “swear words” may be profane, obscene, vulgar, or curses, but rarely are all of them. Most common swear words in the US of A these days are obscene and vulgar. A few are profane and curses; to some, that makes them also vulgar. But, the overwhelming majority users of these words do not think of any of the common swear words as blasphemy—and may not be able to come up with any words they think of as blasphemy. See how complicated it is?

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

KW and I had a quick back-and-forth via email this morning about the sign in yesterday’s post, and I expanded the discussion by suggesting that she look at the Chinglish signs the NYTimes collected from Shanghai.

Then, this afternoon, we made a quick (and uncustomary) stop at Publix in Ansley Mall to look for dinner-food. We bought nothing (decided to go with tofu that’s in the fridge, with some BBQ and rice—versions one and two on this website), but I did come away with this sign photo.

Not surprisingly, I take issue with the “cheap” part—almost eight bucks is not “cheap” in my personal wine pricing scale. I’d have to go with under four bucks for that….

Nǐ hǎo is literally “you good” in Mandarin, but it means “hi ” or “hello” (it’s informal). According to WikiPee.

Posted at 5:00 PM | 2 Comments »

(In short:) Watch yer own dern kids!

AFPLS = Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Posted at 3:31 PM | 1 Comment »

First day of the year nice enough to sit in the sun and read—in the back yard!

Meanwhile, this guy (technically a grotesque, or a chimera) keeps the squirrels away….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

The narcissi are shooting up….

• Saw this on the register, when checking out with assorted vegetables, enough I hope will get us through the weekend: loose radishes.

Personally, I didn’t know they were socialized AT ALL!

• Heard this on Science Friday this afternoon (female voice, not sure who): journalism is event-driven and science is a process.

That distinction is worth pondering. Conflating events and process is a major logical error. And this conflation is all around us, even from people who should know better.

Apologies if you thought I was going to connect radishes and event/process….

Posted at 3:21 PM | 1 Comment »

My favorite late-night show that I almost always watch time-shifted, courtesy of Hulu….

I don’t know enough about economics to know if I agree/disagree with Krugman almost all of the time, but I do have a new interjection courtesy of him: gah!

Here’s a sample sentence: Leno’s return to the NBC 11:30 slot—gah!

Posted at 5:17 PM | 1 Comment »