venerdì 29 maggio 2015

A very telling Oscar

It would be too easy to show that the most prestigious awards in the entertainment industry are political and based on self-promotion, not actual merit. The most flagrant example at the time was when an ordinary film Crash won an Oscar for best film over Brokeback Mountain.

Man's journey towards ease and grace

The majority is always wrong. It is the most attractive aspect of democracy. Bad rulers are reelected, after all. The crowd waffles, cheers for one and then switches sides and root for the other. Such flagging has no effect on one's journey towards social and personal betterment, every scum politician knows itThis dialectical exchange of views may be compared with the disposition in prose or poetry of a single colon into two commata of approximately equal length (see Denniston). There’s barely a perceptible pause between them. It makes for ease and grace.




domenica 10 maggio 2015

Top or bottom? Ancients versus Moderns

The argument that a man into a homosexual relationship must be the top because he’s an active male in a heterosexual relationship can be turned on its head. Perhaps he craves being topped by another man because he doesn’t get that with his wife or girlfriend. One can have relationships with women until he falls with another man who is a stallion. The unavoidable implication of that argument is, however, that 'a real man' should always put an effort in a relationship. The superiority is based not on class but on merit. Compare this with the view of a well-respected free Roman citizen of the I century A.D.  - though  the Romans didn’t have a concept of heterosexuality or homosexuality:

aut si de multis nullus placet exitus, illud
nonnne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit?
pusio qui noctu non litigat, exigit a te
nulla iacens illic munuscula nec queritur quod
et lateri parcas nec quantum iussit anheles (Juvenal, VI, .

If none of these exits (different manners of killing oneself as a way of escaping insatiable women) pleases you
wouldn't a lad suit you better? a lad who would share your bed?
who wouldn't wrangle all night, wouldn't ask
little gifts when in bed, and would not complain
that your hips remained idle, that you didn't breath hard as he ordered.  
 

sabato 9 maggio 2015

Four reasons why I'm not a fascist

I'm on the left because I didn't vote for David Cameron (nor for Farage).
I'm on the left because unlike David Cameron I don't place profit above people or the environment.
I'm on the left because unlike David Cameron and his kind I don't want to succeed at the expense of other people.
I'm on the left because unlike David Cameron and his kind if I do suceed I'd rather use it as an opportunity to help other people rather than blame them for not doing well.

domenica 3 maggio 2015

Do Brits like their beer warm or cold?

The Brits have to decipher baffling American words all the time, even though one notices a huge amount of Americanisms used by Brit writers. On the other hand, if you are American it could take you years to realize that "having tea" is something more than having a drink, and includes supper. The Brits say pants when the Americans say undershorts, the Americans say pants when the Brits say trousers. In British English an out house is a shed, to an American speaker an out house is a an outdoor toilet. An American once asked in a forum if Brits liked their beer warm or cold.

Follia dell'iperbato

Follia dell'iperbato, come in questo verso di un frammento del nono libro dell'Antologia Greca:

πορφυρέᾐ δ᾽ ἀνέκοπτες ὕδωρ πεπιεσμένον αἰδοῖ

dove si parla della vergogna pupurea dell'Alfeo, che si trattiene dal coricarsi nel letto di Aretusa per non imbrattarlo di sangue.

Vera e propria schizofrenia stilistica, mente scissa, divisa, separata, dissociata. Mi divertivo, da studente, a prendere in giro qualche presuntuoso, qualche professore, qualche italianista (la maggior parte degli italianisti non conosce il greco, hanno misere nozioni dal liceo, non riescono a capirci niente se non hanno il testo a fronte). Dicevo, ad esempio, schizzzofrenia, alla romana, schizo che suonava come schizzo, cacatella di conoscenza, e mi facevano immancabilmente osservare che siccome era greco andava pronunciato schizo, con una sola zeta e per di più sonora, e allora rispondevo qualcosa nel greco della fine del sesto secolo, continuavo la conversazione come se fossi nell'agorà di Atene, e il povero professore arrossiva, come l'Alfeo, perché lo pronunciavo pure come nel greco bizantino, che era la vera pronuncia del greco dei tempi di Erodoto e Tucidide e Platone eccetera.