often rarer word
breathes life into old image
words weighty enough

From the review, The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat by Emily Hall, when she writes:

There is a bravura self-confidence in Wilson’s choices. In the first two lines of the poem, Achilles’ wrath, which sent so many heroes to their deaths, is called oulomenēn. This long, vowelly, mouth-filling participle is usually translated by a much slighter English word such as “direful”, “ruinous” or “destructive”. Wilson’s choice of “cataclysmic” proclaims her independence from tradition and the acuity of her ear. The word is weighty enough, both aurally and in import; its association with deluges also prefigures, subtly, Achilles’ fight with the River Scamander that forms the metaphysical climax of the poem. Often a rarer word breathes new life into an old image, such as “canister” for “bucket”. I enjoyed the fresh, contemporary feel of the dialogue, especially army banter: “delusional behaviour”, “I am done with listening to you”; “master strategist”.

Ms. Hall askes and answers the most important question in the line of this paragraph of the review:

New translations also proliferated. There were nearly 50 English-language versions in the 19th century, at least 30 in the 20th, and a dozen or more already in the 21st. Some are outstanding: Richmond Lattimore (1951) brilliantly reproduced Homer’s rolling dactylic hexameters; the trench-traumatised Robert Graves (1959) evoked Achilles’ alienation and brutality; Robert Fitzgerald (1974) grasped the Iliad’s pace and acoustic beauty and Christopher Logue (War Music, 1981) its visceral impact. Robert Fagles’s translation (1990) has relentless forward drive and readability. Do we really need another? If it is this one by Emily Wilson, then we certainly do.

the indefinable
creative ability
to produce better

I happened to pick up a copy of Life in Nelson’s Navy by Dudley Pope, (Annapolis, Md. : Naval Institute Press, 1981) and read:

Different nations produced different types of fighting ship. Often their needs varied, sometimes they had different geographical problems, occasionally they produced brilliant or uninspired or incompetent designers. Because of their shallow coasts, Dutch designers were given limits on the draught of their designs; Danish and Swedish designers usually had to make provisions for oars, or sweeps, in the smaller ships because, although tideless, the Skagerrak, Kattegat and Baltic could often be windless, and sometimes a current could run in the same direction for days on end so that ships had to be rowed against it.

British designers were left puzzled. French ships were longer — and faster. Spanish ships were shorter, beamier — and faster. Now the French were producing longer and beamier ships which were faster. The fact was the old rules about length and beam were being overturned; frigates particularly would have to be larger.

Designing was at this stage clearly a curious mixture of art and science: the science could be called experience, the art the indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce a ship that was better than that designed by a rival.

I liked that last bit.

A curious mixture of art and science.

The science could be called experience.

The art?

The indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce a ship that was better than that designed by a rival.

The indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce.

I find comfort knowing I will always be able unplug artificial intelligence.

Where are those Von Neumann machines anyway?

By the way, I happen to be aware that 1) The USS Constitution is the oldest ship still in active commission in any navy in the world and 2) It is the only ship in the US Navy to have sunk an enemy ship in action.

never at heart’s ease
loves no plays, hears no music …
very dangerous

Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mocked himself and scorned his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.

From Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act 1 Scene 2, Caesar is speaking.

Not naming names, pointing fingers but asking does this passage bring anyone to mind?

I would bet it does but I am not naming anyone.

But it put me in mind of asking about qualifications for public office.

The Constitution of United States is as about as barebones of the qualifications for for the high public offices of both Congress and Executive branch as you could get.

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States“

“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.“

“No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

The only difference in any of these is age based on the argument that the older you get the smarter you get.

It was Garrison Keillor I think, who wanted to ask politicians (but it might have been lecturers) if they had a dog and what kind of dog it was.

Mr. Lincoln told the story of a friendly Kentuckian he once rode with in a carriage. The man offered Lincoln a chew of tobacco. Then a cigar. And finally a sip of brandy. Each offer was politely declined. As they were parting, the Kentuckian said good-humoredly: “See here, stranger, you’re a clever but strange companion. I may never see you again, and I don’t want to offend you, but I want to say this: my experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has damned few virtues. Good-day.”

What might I want to know?

What qualifications might I put in place?

I could embrace the list presented by Big Bill in this speech of Julius Caesar’s in the his play of the same name.

Someone who heard music.

Someone who saw plays.

Someone who smiled.

Someone who could put their heart at ease even when they were in a room with someone greater than themselves.

Boy Howdy, I would settle just for someone who could put their heart at ease.

Lastly on the list I would go to another line of the play.

A line spoken by Brutus.

A funny thing about Brutus but I always took him to be the bad guy and Julius Caesar to have been the injured party.

I took the famous Et tu Brute as an indictment of the selfish, evil man Brutus was.

Truly it isn’t until late that I have come to understand the Mr. Caesar was like this feller in the news I alluded to.

And that Mr. Caesar was devoted to Mr. Caesar and all things Caesar at the expense of all and anything else.

Which brings me to that last qualification for office that Brutus brings to mind.

When asked why he did it, why he rose against Caesar, why didn’t he love Caesar, Brutus replies:

” … not that I loved Caesar less, 

but that I loved

Rome more.”

the secret to this
creative freedom lets be
plain, more capital

This is the second haiku from the same review … but it’s been a bad week for inspiration.

The first line of this restaurant review from the New Yorker reminds me of an exchange in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Read Window.

A neighbor on the courtyard of James Stewart is a song writer and Grace Kelly can hear him trying out a melody.

“There’s that song again. Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that?” askes Ms Kelly. ?

“Well, he gets it from the landlady once a month.” Replies Mr. Stewart.

New York is a phenomenal restaurant city, but rarely is it a thrillingly innovative one. As usual, we can blame capital: the cost of operating a food business in this viciously expensive town makes risktaking far too risky. So it’s exhilarating to have a meal that’s genuinely interesting. At Foxface Natural, a chic little restaurant in the East Village, the owners, Sivan Lahat and Ori Kushnir, are doing something almost rebellious in their apparent lack of regard for trends, or social media, or financial success.

The secret to this creative freedom is, let’s be plain, more capital. Lahat and Kushnir are devoted gastronomes; they’re also former techies who earned enough money to quit their day jobs and opened an idiosyncratic sandwich shop called Foxface—because they wanted to, and because they could—which became famous partly on the strength of a camel-meat pita. The sandwich shop is now closed, but the duo remains committed to menu as menagerie: at Foxface Natural, which opened this spring, you may encounter purple clams (with cucumber five ways), Boer goat (smoked, with a tomato-saffron sauce), pig’s blood (a sausage filling), or gooseneck barnacles that resemble dragon claws. “Where do you source your kangaroo?” I asked recently, staring down a marsupial tartare. The ruby meat was lean and subtle, tossed with punchy slivers of pickled rhubarb, spiced intoxicatingly with coriander, fenugreek, and turmeric. (The answer, of course, is Australia.)

There are recognizable flavors at Foxface and recognizable shapes but—in the talented hands of the chef David Santos—rarely both at once. The closest the kitchen comes to convention is a hulking cross-section of striped bass that’s roasted on the bone in a wood-burning oven and served over an explosively flavorful sauce inspired by chraime, a Sephardic tomato stew. That frizzy schnitzel adorning so many tables is a fried disk of sweetbreads, marshmallow light, adorned with chanterelles and corn—a study in yellows and golds. The pasta is a girella: a single, lengthy, snakelike pocket, presented in a spiral, like a jagged flower. Its fillings change; I tried it stuffed with golden tile-fish, buttery and sweet, set atop a sunset-orange sweep of sauce Nantua, bathed in a tarragon broth drizzled tableside.

Foxface engages its small space with satisfying efficiency: order the sourdough, lusciously soft, presented with a plate of cultured butter and a tiny tableau of pickles, and you might see a server pull down a loaf from a ledge on the wall, where a half-dozen boules are set on their sides, like books. Other shelves display bottles from Foxface’s pointedly unconventional wine list. Sitting at the dining bar one evening, I swirled a Vermentino-Moscato blend that looked like apple juice and tasted wild and metallic, like beautiful gasoline. It was strange, assured, unbothered, exquisite. (Dishes $11-$69.)

From a review of Foxface Natural in TABLES FOR TWO in the New Yorker, Sep 25, 2023, Issue 30 Volume 99.

phenomenal but
rarely is a thrillingly
innovative one

I am of two minds

Who gets to use the best words and word combinations?

Music Critics?

Or …

Restaurant Critics?

New York is a phenomenal restaurant city, but rarely is it a thrillingly innovative one. As usual, we can blame capital: the cost of operating a food business in this viciously expensive town makes risktaking far too risky. So it’s exhilarating to have a meal that’s genuinely interesting. At Foxface Natural, a chic little restaurant in the East Village, the owners, Sivan Lahat and Ori Kushnir, are doing something almost rebellious in their apparent lack of regard for trends, or social media, or financial success.

The secret to this creative freedom is, let’s be plain, more capital. Lahat and Kushnir are devoted gastronomes; they’re also former techies who earned enough money to quit their day jobs and opened an idiosyncratic sandwich shop called Foxface—because they wanted to, and because they could—which became famous partly on the strength of a camel-meat pita. The sandwich shop is now closed, but the duo remains committed to menu as menagerie: at Foxface Natural, which opened this spring, you may encounter purple clams (with cucumber five ways), Boer goat (smoked, with a tomato-saffron sauce), pig’s blood (a sausage filling), or gooseneck barnacles that resemble dragon claws. “Where do you source your kangaroo?” I asked recently, staring down a marsupial tartare. The ruby meat was lean and subtle, tossed with punchy slivers of pickled rhubarb, spiced intoxicatingly with coriander, fenugreek, and turmeric. (The answer, of course, is Australia.)

There are recognizable flavors at Foxface and recognizable shapes but—in the talented hands of the chef David Santos—rarely both at once. The closest the kitchen comes to convention is a hulking cross-section of striped bass that’s roasted on the bone in a wood-burning oven and served over an explosively flavorful sauce inspired by chraime, a Sephardic tomato stew. That frizzy schnitzel adorning so many tables is a fried disk of sweetbreads, marshmallow light, adorned with chanterelles and corn—a study in yellows and golds. The pasta is a girella: a single, lengthy, snakelike pocket, presented in a spiral, like a jagged flower. Its fillings change; I tried it stuffed with golden tile-fish, buttery and sweet, set atop a sunset-orange sweep of sauce Nantua, bathed in a tarragon broth drizzled tableside.

Foxface engages its small space with satisfying efficiency: order the sourdough, lusciously soft, presented with a plate of cultured butter and a tiny tableau of pickles, and you might see a server pull down a loaf from a ledge on the wall, where a half-dozen boules are set on their sides, like books. Other shelves display bottles from Foxface’s pointedly unconventional wine list. Sitting at the dining bar one evening, I swirled a Vermentino-Moscato blend that looked like apple juice and tasted wild and metallic, like beautiful gasoline. It was strange, assured, unbothered, exquisite. (Dishes $11-$69.)

From a review of Foxface Natural in TABLES FOR TWO in the New Yorker, Sep 25, 2023, Issue 30 Volume 99.