Samhain New Thanksgiving Moon
Latin today. I spent several hours on Wednesday translating, or attempting to translate, one sentence in Ovid. One sentence. At this rate the world will have a long wait for the Ellis translation of the Metamorphosis. On the other hand, I’m getting a word by word, phrase by phrase introduction to this central text for understanding mythology and its appropriation in the Western literary tradition. Which is, after all, what I am after.
As chair of the Sierra Club’s legislative committee and in that role responsible for the Northstar chapter’s presence at the legislature, I’m still sorting through the results of Tuesday’s elections. They changed the entire direction of our 2011 effort, no doubt, but in what way we won’t know quite yet. A lot of thinking ahead. On Monday I’m going to attend a meeting of environmental lobbyists who will begin group discussion of what the playing field will look like.
Next week I have my first tour of the Thaw collection with the Rochester Friends of the Institute. My current plan is to select objects for that tour as Thaw selected his objects, i.e. by choosing the most aesthetically pleasing works. Most pleasing to me, that is. Here’s my current list: Yupik masks, raven-who-owns-the-sun frontlet, fish bowl, ferns basket, the medicine bag, the boy’s shirt, ledger book, Elgin artifacts.
