• Tag Archives Latin

  • Discipulus

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                              Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    An eternal schoolboy.  I sit with my legs crossed, feet tapping while I work on my Latin, that inferior position of student working its way into my 63rd year, an anxiety that I have charlie-3rd-gradetrained myself to use to my advantage, to push myself beyond my comfort zone.  So, in spite of stopping earlier, I came back down and finished translating the section from Virgil on Laocoon Speaking Out Against the Trojan Horse.  Guess what Laocoon says in this passage.  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!

    I like the feeling of wind and snow outside while I work here at my desk, Wheelock up on my reading desk, yellow pad to the right and my grammar and word aids to the left.

    Kate’s home from work now.  Gonna go upstairs.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Heavy, Man, Heavy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                           Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    File under the things we do for love.  Kate asked me, as a big favor, if I would clear the sidewalk and a path to the mailbox.  I agreed albeit reluctantly. Never again.  This type of snow, laden with water, dense and prone to packing tight when moved, is just too hard for me to clear.  It clogs up the snowblower, so the snowblower’s out.  Lifting it is beyond my frame’s capacity.  I knew it, but I did it anyhow.  Ouch.

    The snow took off the top of the cedar tree’s other trunk, too, so the whole thing will need to come down.  That means the chain saw, sometime soon.  That, I can do.

    After pushing some snow around, I harvested the last of the leeks, fine looking vegetables.  The greens, kale and chard in particular, will continue growing until the ground freezes, so I’ll probably have one more harvest from them, too.

    Most of the morning I tried to pack in some material not too different from the heavy snow:  Latin participles.  As participles, they share in the attributes of both the adjective–meaning declensions–and verbs–meaning tense and voice.  In addition the participles tense does not follow the verbs because the participle can cue action either concurrent, before or after the action of the verb.  In addition, just to confuse things, the present tense and the passive future tense use the verbs present tense stem to form the participle while the future tense and the passive perfect tense use the participle stem.  Yikes.

    I know, I know.  I’m doing this on purpose.  I’m just venting.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Humanities Literature Our Land and Home Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Declining With Pleasure

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                            New (Thanksgiving) Moon

    Did pretty well in the sight reading and translating today.  Felt good.  My english to latin was pretty good, too.  I still have trouble with a few tenses; well, ok, a lot of tenses, but they’re becoming clearer.  I’m gradually conceding that I will have to go not only word by word, but possible declension by possible declension, withholding judgment until I’ve worked out the one that makes the most sense.  This means any given sentence can have polyvalent meanings.   Not to come to translation too quickly is important, holding things in suspension until many options have been tried holds out the best hope for a satisfying translation.

    Working on Latin trains the mind, has an equivalence to gymnastics.  As I move further into the language and into the text of Ovid, it becomes more intriguing, like the study of art.  That’s a good sign for me since I’m dedicated to this work until I get through Ovid or until I can’t do it anymore.

    Corporate event tonight for Fairview Southdale, A Taste of Asia.  I have the Tibetan and Southeast Asian galleries.  6-8 pm.  Earning money as a docent.  Nice.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Humanities 📎and tagged

  • A Juggler of Ancient Words

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                 Waning Harvest Moon

    Today was a glorious day with puffy clouds, clear blue sky and temps in the high 50’s.  Instead of wandering through the woods I spent it trying to get outside Ovid’s Latin.  This is fun, a lot of fun, but it takes such concentration, holding words in the mind while spinning alternative translations, alternative parts of speech, taking one and putting it on a stick, then another, on another stick, and another on the right foot, all spinning, twisting, trying to come together or crash to the floor.  That’s what it’s like for me right now. I presume at some point it becomes less arduous; it must.  A juggler of ancient words.  At least for today.

    Tomorrow I’m back in a comfort zone with two Asia tours, one for 2nd and 3rd graders on a very specific mission, and a second with interior design students from the Arts Institute Internationale in Minneapolis.  I haven’t conducted tours for many kids of late; I think folks see me working with adults, with college students, that sort of thing, but I enjoy the kids, especially these ages, their energy, their enthusiasm, their fresh eyes.  With the interior design students I plan to visit all four period rooms in Japan and China, plus look at the tea wares, the Chinese furniture, in particular the folding chair and see the blown out roof technique in Japanese painting.

    Art has so many facets.  It touches culture, spirituality, beauty, daring, courage, hope, despair, the full range of emotions and the most complicated of intellectual puzzles like perspective, color and form, all done in a range of materials that seems to have no point of exhaustion.  Then, add the human interaction with art, the relationship between object and viewer, and perspective becomes a prism spinning, never stopping, reflecting.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Asia Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Rusty Latin

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                                         Waning Harvest Moon

    Back into the Latin this morning with my tutor, Greg.  Boy, I got rusty in just two months off.  This language stuff requires constant attention.  When I went through college and sem, I took courses that I could set aside for weeks at a time, do a reading and note review in one big gulp, then be fine for a mid-term or a final.  I can’t do that with Latin.  It’s probably why I never learned a language.  The repeated application just didn’t suit the style I brought to learning.  Now, older, I’m more methodical, more patient with myself and feel no pressure for a grade.  Makes the process better, though not simpler.

    So.  This ends the intellectually demanding week I’ve had since Tuesday morning.  Whew.  A bit of let down now, a kick back and read.  Then, I’m going to pick up the Latin again this afternoon after the nap.  Strike while the mental iron is still hot.

    The weekend will see me finishing the bulb planting-24 tulips, harvesting carrots and beets and leeks and squash, maybe even some more greens.  I’ll also get the bees ready for their cardboard wraps, though I won’t put them on until sometime in November.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Feeling Rushed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                              Waxing Harvest Moon

    With Latin on Friday and my tour day on Thursday things can get a bit rushed.  I’m feeling a bit behind right now since my sententiae antiquae are not done and my translation of the reading remains.  The Baroque tour is done, however and I look forward to giving it twice tomorrow.  Tomorrow, too, is the Thaw exhibition lecture.

    Not sure when I’m going to get my sententiae done, especially the vexed English to Latin, maybe late tomorrow night, just like real school.  Over the weekend it’ll be bulbs, bulbs and the first draft of the Future of Liberal Thought.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Garden Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Diversity

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                            Waxing Harvest Moon

    Whew.  Sierra Club am.  Latin at noon.  Touring the Embarrassment of Riches show for Lindquest and Venum from 5:30 to 7:00.  A very diverse day.  Fun in that respect, but also tiring.

    Greg took me through some Latin readings to test my level of retention since we paused back in mid-summer.  He decided I was fine to pick up again where we left off in July.  Good to know my brain has not gone soft.

    Around 4 pm I took off for the cities and went to the Ford Bridge on 46th street.  Jon e-mailed me and asked for me to take some shots from the bridge looking north.  He wanted some of the fall colors.  Don’t know how good the images are, but I took them, then scooted over to the museum for my stint in the Embarrassment of Riches show.

    It came to me while touring this show that it validated many of those who came through in a way similar to African and Chinese galleries for their respective ethnic communities.  That is, these folks saw images that were of the world in which they moved.  They may not all be in it personally, but in working with clients they cross over many of these thresholds.

    A different experience than I had anticipated, but not a bad one.  Interesting, rather than revelatory.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Asia Humanities Politics 📎and tagged

  • Moving From the Theoretical to the Concrete

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                            Waxing Back to School Moon

    Kate has had a nasty cold since Monday and I can feel it trying to claw its way up my esophagus, making my throat scratchy.  My hope is that the recent two time bout I had with some bug in July, then August has revved up my immune system.  With rest I can pound this sucker down before it takes hold.

    Starting back on Latin today.  I took part of July, all of August and the last couple of weeks off with the bees and the vegetables and the orchard.  Thought I’d get work done on Ovid, review, but in fact I got very little done.  An old student habit of mine, if it’s not pressing, it’s not getting done.  I’m looking forward to the weekly sessions, building toward enough confidence to tackle Ovid and others on my own.  It’s a project, like the bees, that keeps the gears turning, not giving them a chance to rest.  Best that way.

    A few years back it was the MIA docent training.  Then the move into permaculture and vegetables and fruit.  That one’s still underway as I learn the complicated dance of seasons, cultivars, pests, harvest and storage.  The MIA training, for that matter, only gives you enough legs to get into the books and files yourself, training you to look and think about art, but each tour demands specific self-education on the objects and the purpose of that tour.

    (Minoan Gold Bee pendant from Crete, circa 2000 BC)

    Part of my impatience with the seminary experience is that I’ve moved so deeply into more concrete endeavors.  Art has the object as an anchor, then its history and context.  Latin has words, grammar and literature as well as Roman history.  Vegetables and fruit have real plants, particular plants with needs and products.  The bees have the bees themselves, the colonies, woodenware, hive management, pest control, honey extraction.  This is, probably, the world I was meant to inhabit, but philosophy and the church lead onto another ancientrail, that of the abstract and faraway rather than the particular and the near.  It’s not that I don’t have an affection, even a passion for the theoretical, I do, but I find my life more calm, less stressful when I work with art, with potatoes and garlic, with conjugations and declensions.

    I now have almost three decades of life devoted to the theoretical, the abstract and the political so I bring those skills and that learning to my present engagement with the mundane, but I no longer want to live in those worlds.  They are gardens others can tend better than I can.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Bees Commentary on Religion Faith and Spirituality Humanities Literature Politics 📎and tagged

  • Getting the Week Underway

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                               Full Grandchildren Moon

    Vega the wonder dog update.  Now the focus shifts to Vega.  Who has learned to open the patio door, both ways, with a quick twist of her super strong neck.  Last night Kate and I sat outside reading and talking, a pleasant evening.  Vega looked inside, saw her sister Rigel and Kona waiting to come outside.  She did what any nice big sister would do.  She went over and opened up the door, letting the two out.  Of course, like most three year olds she does not close the door.

    Hilo goes into the vet today to get her kidney values.  We have a little bit of hope that her condition will have improved since her physical.  Not likely, but she does seem to feel better now than she has.

    Working at memorizing verb conjugations while I’m off the weekly chapter preparations.  Took a yellow tablet to the nightstand last night, reading the perfect tense endings just before I went off to sleep.  Sure enough, I dreamed of Julius Caesar and the Appian Way.  No.  But, I do think I remembered the perfect tense endings. We’ll see later in the week.

    At 2pm today a designer from Mickman’s comes by to give us an estimate on a water feature for the two patio areas where we’ve had trouble keeping plants alive.  I want something simple, two-levels, with enough noise to shut out the minimal traffic noise from Round Lake Boulevard.  Hard to say what the cost will be until he looks at the site.

    (you know.  something like the pic. just kidding.)

    Now outside for a bit more weeding in the cool of the morning, then preparations for my tour tomorrow morning.  China, my favorite.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Garden Humanities 📎and tagged

  • Leviathan

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                             Waxing Grandchildren Moon

    I decided to take a month off from Latin tutorials.  Not from Latin, just the every week preparation of a new chapter.  I need to cement my learnings about verb conjugations, pronouns and certain uses of the ablatives and genitive.  Also, I need a break from expectations.

    Kate’s up seeing her Physiatrist, a regular check up on pain meds.  She considers Beewin her medical home since her health issues focus on spine deterioration and arthritis, both of which have pain management and physical fitness as key treatment components.

    Over the last two weeks I’ve had an ear infection and pink eye.  Good thing this 63 old kid has an in-house pediatrician.  I got expert care for these afflictions of the rug rat set.  Makes me feel young again, but not in a good way.

    Have you caught any of the Washington Post’s report on the US counter-terrorist establishment?  It’s a fascinating example of how a genuine problem can breed responses that I’m sure make sense to each person who created each entity.  The whole, probably largely invisible in the–I know it’s way overused, but I’m gonna use it anyway–silos of various bureaucracies, is a Hobbesian Leviathan.  Hard to know whether to be amused, frightened, outraged or complacent.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family GeekWorld Health Politics 📎and tagged