Intermittent Almanac 01.03

Date January 3, 2008

In history:

  • 106 BC – Cicero is born. Over 2000 years ago he wrote: “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”
  • 1841 – Herman Melville begins an 18-month stint on the whaler Fairhaven, inspiring and informing a book that will be the source of more bad childhood jokes and more adult reader awe than anyone can say.
  • 1882 – Oscar Wilde arrives in the U.S. When asked if he has anything to declare he replies: “Just my genius.”
  • 1892 – J.R.R. Tolkien is born. The Lord of the Rings, which I still re-read every few years, was a central influence on far more people than would like to admit it. China Mieville doth protest too much…
  • 1945 – Stephen Stills is born. Why can’t he and Neil Young just get along? Check out this live performance of “Treetop Flyer”
  • 1956 – He Who Shall Not Be Named– I mean Mel Gibson is foisted upon us
  • 1959 – Alaska becomes the 49th state, though when it is -15F I wonder why…
  • 1962 – Francesca Lia Bock, author of one of the best “young adult” books ever written (Weetzie Bat) and a couple of collections of poetry.
  • 1977 – Apple Computer company is incorporated

Today is also the Feast of St. Genevieve, honoring neither of my former girlfriends of the same name.

From today’s reading (The Epic of Gilgamesh):

“You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping.”

and

“I stood alone before an aweful being. His face was sombre, like the black bird of the storm. He fell upon me with the talons of an eagle and he held me fast, pinioned with his claw, until I smothered. Then he transformed me so that my arms became wings covered with feathers, and led me away to the Hall of Irkalla, the Queen of Darkness, to the house from which none who enters ever returns, down the road from which there is no turning back. There the people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat. They are clothed like birds, with wings for covering, they see no light. I entered the house of dust and saw the kings of the earth, their crowns put away for ever; rulers and princes, all those who once wore kingly crowns and ruled the world in the days of old.”

TagsTags:

Comments are closed.