El tonto instruido tiene más ancho campo para practicar su tontería.

The educated fool has a wider field in which to practice his folly.

(Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 1.96)

Please keep the corrections coming for my ‘Forthcoming Texts’ list. Using your comments and e-mails, I’ve deleted several works and added one or two, but there’s still plenty more I don’t know. For instance, why didn’t anyone tell me that Kannicht’s long-awaited edition of the fragments of Euripides, Volumes 5.1 and 5.2 of Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, is out? If I hadn’t seen it on the shelf at U.N.C. Wednesday night, I wouldn’t have known. The spines say ‘2004′, but I’ve looked for it more recently than that without finding it. Both volumes are on my desk now, since I’m getting ready to teach some Euripides (mostly but not entirely in translation), and the occasional fragment to sight-read will help keep the students on their toes. It’s easier to give actual fragments than bits ripped from the surviving plays — easier to decide where to begin and end, at least. (I hope no one from U.N.C. reads this, is equally surprised and gratified by the publication of TGF 5, and decides to recall the volumes.)

La civilización es un campamento mal empalizado en medio de tribus insumisas.

Civilization is a poorly-fortified camp surrounded by unpacified tribes.

(Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 1.268)

Austin Bay (þ Small Dead Animals) has a long post on the Human Relations side of al Qaeda, that is, the generous fringe benefits and not-so-generous salaries listed in a captured document. I was as surprised as everyone else to hear that terrorists have paid vacations, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been, since I’ve read Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. In one of my favorite passages, around four-fifths of the way through Chapter II, small-time terrorist and shop-owner Adolph Verloc is meeting with his contact Mr. Vladimir at what is obviously intended to be the Russian embassy in London. Mr. Vladimir is the first speaker:

“You’ll get your screw every month, and no more until something happens. And if nothing happens very soon you won’t get even that. What’s your ostensible occupation? What are you supposed to live by?”

“I keep a shop,” answered Mr. Verloc.

“A shop! What sort of shop?”

“Stationery, newspapers. My wife—”

“Your what?” interrupted Mr. Vladimir in his guttural Central Asian tones.

“My wife.” Mr. Verloc raised his husky voice slightly. “I am married.”

“That be damned for a yarn,” exclaimed the other in unfeigned astonishment. “Married! And you a professed anarchist, too! What is this confounded nonsense? But I suppose it’s merely a manner of speaking. Anarchists don’t marry. It’s well known. They can’t. It would be apostasy.”

“My wife isn’t one,” Mr. Verloc mumbled, sulkily. “Moreover, it’s no concern of yours.”

“Oh yes, it is,” snapped Mr. Vladimir. “I am beginning to be convinced that you are not at all the man for the work you’ve been employed on. Why you must have discredited yourself completely in your own world by your marriage. Couldn’t you have managed without? This is your virtuous attachment-eh? What with one sort of attachment and another you are doing away with your usefulness.”

Mr. Vladimir seems almost as surprised by the shop as by the wife, no doubt because keeping a shop is such a stereotypically bourgeois (not to mention English) occupation. Perhaps it would have helped if Verloc had told him that he sells pornography as well as stationery and newspapers.

I have updated the list of forthcoming editions of classical works (link in the left column), deleting those I know to have been published and adding about two dozen more from publisher’s websites, departmental websites, and private correspondence. I am grateful to all those who have sent necessary additions, corrections, and deletions, and will be glad to hear of any that I have missed. In particular, I have a strong impression that a few more of the works listed have appeared, though I have not seen them.

I just uploaded three jokes to the Ioci Antiqui page, which still leaves me five days behind. Next week is ‘Winter Break’, so I should be able to catch up soon. Now I have some Interim reports to compile before I go to bed.

. . . and I almost missed it. Today is the 200th anniversary of the death of Vicent Martín i Soler. He seems to be a mere footnote* today, but what I’ve heard of his operas (Una Cosa Rara and La Capricciosa Corretta on CD) was enough to convince me that it isn’t so much Mozart’s operas as classical opera in general that I like. Seeing Salieri’s Falstaff at Wolftrap and Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto on DVD helped. So why are these operas so rarely produced? It’s not as if Mozart’s mature operas are all that numerous. Anyway, to commemorate the occasion, I just played the overtures and a few arias from each of my CD sets. Now if only someone would record one or the other (or both!) on DVD, so I can follow the plot: I’ve never really been able to follow an opera well without seeing it, which makes listening to the CDs a frustratingly incomplete experience.

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*A literal footnote about a metaphorical footnote: Una Cosa Rara was a big hit just before Don Giovanni, so much so that Mozart quotes a bit in the banquet scene and has the Don say “Bravo! Una Cosa Rara”.

I just uploaded the 100th joke to the Ioci Antiqui page — actually two versions of the same joke, by Lucilius (or Lucillius) in Greek and Martial in Latin. Like today’s Greek joke, tomorrow’s joke, from a prose author not yet quoted here, will feature a pun on the adjective oiktrós. Can anyone guess which joke I mean? I once posted it on another site, if that helps.

Over the last two or three months, spam comments on my two sites gradually increased from less than 200 per day, which was bad enough, to 300, then 400, then 500, and so on, peaking at around 900 per day, at which point they outnumbered genuine comments by 500:1 or more and forced me to spend half an hour or more per day deleting the filthy things. Though I have been unable to install any software solution, some time last week the flood suddenly turned into a trickle. I’m now getting a very manageable 30-40 per day, and the last two comments on this site were both genuine. It’s been months since I’ve had the pleasure of approving two in a row.

I wonder what happened. Were all the spam comments coming from a single spammer ? If so, has he been kicked off his ISP? Arrested? (I hope so.) Assassinated by rival spammers? (Even better, and there have been some hints that many of the comments were coming from Russia.) Or have his ill-gotten profits allowed him to retire to the Riviera and give up spamming entirely? Most disquieting: is my relief purely temporary? Perhaps spammers all take their vacations this time of year, or go to a spammer convention in Acapulco. Time will tell, but so far I’m enjoying the extra free time.

Earlier today I uploaded six jokes to the Ioci Antiqui page, covering February 1st through 6th. These are in a new PDF file for February, here.

Wanting to make a big pot of Mulligatawny a few nights ago, I finally got around to unpacking my Christmas blender. Consulting the manual, I was amused to discover that the Spanish name is the macho and sinister ‘licuadora’, while the French name is the wimpy and over-educated ‘mélangeur’. I suppose the effect is partially offset by the Spanish liquidator being grammatically feminine (would that make it a ‘liquidatrix’ in English?), while the French melange-maker is grammatically masculine.

Since one or two readers have asked, here is my mother’s recipe for Mulligatawny Soup. It is inexpensive, nourishing, and very tasty, basically a chicken stew with three differences: a. lots of garlic and curry for flavor, b. an apple substituted for the usual potatoes, and c. the whole thing run through the blender at the end. The only drawback is that it takes two or three hours to make. However, it is also very suitable for making with friends or relatives, since there’s a lot of slicing and dicing and stirring involved, and much of the time it can be left to simmer unwatched. I believe it comes from Singapore.

Mulligatawny Soup

In large pot, place:

1 1/2 quarts water
1 frying chicken, cut up
2 tsp salt
2 onions, quartered
1 stalk celery, sliced
3 carrots, sliced

Bring to a boil and simmer at least 30 mins. Remove chicken pieces from pot and allow to cool. Remove meat from bones and put meat back in pot. In frying pan, place:

1/4 cup oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tart apple (e.g. Granny Smith), peeled and chopped

Simmer 5 minutes or so, until onion is transparent. Blend in, to form a thick paste:

1/3 cup flour
2 tbsp curry powder

Take a ladle or two of broth from the pot and stir into the mixture in the frying pan (to help liquefy it), then pour entire contents of frying pan into pot. Bring to a boil once more, and simmer again for at least 30 minutes. Stir frequently, since the flour and meat tend to stick to the bottom. Add salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool, then mince mixture in blender, a pint or so at a time. Check the blender after each batch, since the giblets tend to get tangled with the blade.

Notes:

• The blender is necessary, and not only to mix the flavors properly. The soup looks mildly revolting before it is blended, with limp vegetables and oil floating on top.
• Freezes well.
• Microwaves well.
• If boiled long enough and blended fine enough, it ends up the consistency of oatmeal, and is very tasty spread (hot) on toast.
• It is a nourishing food (half meat, half vegetables) for those with jaw or teeth problems. I once had a student whose jaws were wired shut for a week after surgery. She was very grateful for this recipe, since it only takes a day or two to get thoroughly tired of oatmeal and milkshakes.
• Other than the flour and maybe the apple, there is nothing that would offend the shade of the late Dr. Atkins.
• I’m no expert, but I’m told the soup is also kosher, assuming the chicken was executed with the proper formalities and the flour and oil were properly prepared.