the all-befouling baby

complex, illogical, and patterned

[klapollo]

[kata4a]

I just bought a book stand and a new chair, which collectively I somehow decided it would be reasonable to refer to in conversation as "desk treats"

[kata4a]

"see, wouldn't I be a worse wife if you stopped losing your keys?"

[yorickless]

.

[k-simplex]

Met a bad bitch from the world of signifiers and took her to the world of the signified

[kata4a]

@quantumofawesome

[kata4a]

i feel like claude is always "weighing" things

[perdvivly]

I sent a package at the post office today and it was £5.45. The person working at the post office told me as much. I gave her 2 £5 notes and she gave me 2 £2 coins and a 5p coin. I assumed she misspoke and that the price was £5.95 and so I took the receipt and went back to my car. In my car I looked at the receipt and no, it did say £5.45. I briefly considered going back and saying that I think she forgot to give me a 50p coin. But I didn’t have any evidence that I could present to her that she hadn’t given it to me and then I’d concealed it so as to extract an extra 50p from her. Now, of course, she hadn’t actually accused me of this or anything at all because I didn’t go back in and talk to her about it. I felt vaguely uncomfortable at the level of trust I was assuming should be baseline in our interaction. Ultimately I decided I was willing to pay 50p not to have anything that might feel confrontational. I think this is probably a character defect I have and that if I were a better person I would have said something. Maybe I think that I should have given her the chance to display trust instead of assuming she wouldn’t. But would I in her place? It’s uncomfortable because she wasn’t acting on behalf of herself, her concerns are related to her employer. And it was very plausible that I had 50p worth of incentive to lie if I thought I might get 50p out of that lie. Of course, I didn’t, I wouldn’t tell a lie for 50p. But there’s no way she could know that… Okay well, perhaps she could count the money in the till and work out the days takings to figure out I was telling the truth. But what if this wasn’t the first mistake she’d made? Or what if that would consume her time that she could otherwise put to better use. I don’t think I need that 50p. It’s probably not going to be the difference between whether or not I eat tomorrow.

[k-simplex]

Every single time I think of the city and the city I remember that it was written by Umberto Eco. And then I think again and remember that it was written by Italo Calvino. Apparently something about the idea feels fundamentally Italian to me

[kata4a]

it's concerning to me that a lot of what i value in friendships and relationships is only really coherent in the context of a world full of struggle and adversity

[kata4a]

it seems to me like a pretty important part of our relationships is our willingness (and ability) to help the people we care about. (I almost wrote: our willingness to care for the people we care about. you can see how tightly these concepts are connected)

but it's difficult for me to characterize "help" without appealing to some kind of external struggle. what does it even mean to help someone if they'd be no worse off without help? it's hard for me to think of formulations that don't feel kind of laughably shallow

[kata4a]

got confused about how to interpret a particular clause in the aeneid and accidentally stumbled into a ~1000 year old philological debate oopsies!!

[kata4a]

i'm glad you asked! the clause in question is from book iv line 11, quem sese ore ferens. most of the sources I can find treat this as describing aeneas's physical beauty (e.g., pharr glosses it "how noble in appearance") but the tiered reader I'm using equates it with quam bene loquitur, i.e., "how well he speaks"

the literal sense of the phrase is something like, "how he carries himself by his os"† with the difficulty that os can refer either to the mouth specifically (and, therefore, metonymically, speech) or to one's mien or countenance. so there's a genuine ambiguity in how to interpret the line

or at least, that was my crude understanding; but since every other source I could find took this to be talking about aeneas's physical beauty, I started to get worried about the scholarly authority of the (relatively minor) text I was using, and asked claude how marginal the "speech" interpretation was, who pointed me to pease's stunningly thorough commentary on the poem

(seriously, click through that link—there's a full page or more of commentary for each single line in the aeneid)

and pease has this to say about quem sese ore ferens:

the Scholia Danielis are in doubt whether this refers to speech or appearance, yet if we have the same idea as in 3, 490: sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat (cf. Sil. 8, 72 (of Aeneas): noto sese ore ferebat) it seems likely that the appearance is intended; cf. also 1, 503: talem se laeta ferebat.

the scholia danielis of course (obviously!) refers to the ~11th century expansion (see servius's wikipedia page for some context on the manuscript tradition here) of the roman grammarian servius's commentary on the aeneid, which says: (§ 4.11 at the link)

QUEM SESE ORE FERENS cum eum ob virtutem laudet, addendo tamen os nec pulchritudinem denegaverit. 'ore' autem 'ferens' utrum oratione, an vultu, dubium est.

or (my translation)

QUEM SESE ORE FERENS while she praises his character, by adding "os" she does not deny his beauty. whether, though, 'ore ferens' refers to his speech or his countenance is unclear.

so: while the modern consensus (n.b.: I say "consensus" but it's not like I've checked that many independent sources) seems to prefer the "by his countenance" reading, there has been doubt over which reading is licensed for at least the last 1000 years

honestly, just the fact that both readings are possible suggests to me that the ambiguity itself is intended. we're talking about about one of the most highly acclaimed classical poets, after all. but I haven't really seen anybody taking this tack

†in fact the word that I'm translating as the verb carries is a participle, carrying. however, the combination of the participle with the exclamatory quem ("who") is difficult to render in english—with a selection of the previous line, it's something like "what guest has come among us, carrying himself in what way!"—and I have the impression that even in the original latin this is pretty contorted syntax

[kata4a]

english seems to have a lot of paired coordinates (neither—nor, both—and, the one—the other) where other languages use a reduplicated conjunction (ni—ni, と—と, alterum—alterum)

i guess english does have some—some. still, seems like one of the subtler idiosyncrasies of the language

[kata4a]

i'm sorry you can't call a grammar point "cum in verses" and expect me to take this language seriously

[kata4a]

it's concerning to me that a lot of what i value in friendships and relationships is only really coherent in the context of a world full of struggle and adversity

[kata4a]

got confused about how to interpret a particular clause in the aeneid and accidentally stumbled into a ~1000 year old philological debate oopsies!!

[kata4a]

reading latin poetry is something like, okay i understand all those words but they're weird together. wth is a "wet shadow"

[kata4a]

OHHH it's dew

[kata4a]

reading latin poetry is something like, okay i understand all those words but they're weird together. wth is a "wet shadow"

[tsarina-anadyomene]

it's kind of crazy that "guy gets brain tumor that makes him bisexual and then kills him" not only happened but in such close online proximity to me