I

XIX

‘Warum bist du, Geliebter, nicht heute zur Vigne gekommen?
   Einsam, wie ich versprach, wartet ich oben auf dich.’—
Best, schon war ich hinein; da sah ich zum Glücke den Oheim
   Neben den Stöcken, bemüht, hin sich und her sich zu drehn.
Schleichend eilt ich hinaus!—‘O welch ein Irrtum ergriff dich!
   Ein Scheuche nur wars, was dich vertrieb! Die Gestalt
Flickten wir emsig zusammen aus alten Kleidern und Rohren;
   Emsig half ich daran, selbst mir zu schaden bemüht.’—
Nun, des Alten Wunsch ist erfüllt; den losesten Vogel
   Scheucht' er heute, der ihm Gärchen und Nichte bestiehlt.

—By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

II

Today's short poem is XIX in the Luke/Vaget edition of Goethe's Roman Elegies. So says E.M. Wilkinson about the Elegies: “in their plastic beauty and unabashed sensuality, their blending of erotic tenderness with an enhanced sense of our cultural heritage, these pagan, highly civilized poems are unique in any modern language” (article on Goethe in The New Encyclopedia Britannica [Macropedia], xx. 184). Luke, in his introduction, provides the following background on the poems: “Though written in Weimar, the Roman Elegies are essentially the fruit of Goethe's prolonged sojourn in Italy, from October 1786 to April 1788. Their title, like that of Rainer Maria Rilke's famous Duino Elegies, refers primarily to the place in which they were conceived. Indeed, the Roman Elegies are inseparable from that locale, for it was in Rome that Goethe virtually re-invented himself as a poet—the poet now capable of writing these very Elegies” (xxvi). The poem I've cited today is perhaps not the best poem to stand in for the Elegies as a whole, though it demonstrates some nice wit and irony and is pleasing in its own right.

Yesterday at work I got bored so browsed for some news for nerds and stuff that matters, and a non-story on string theory at least provided a handful of pseudo-haikus. Note the lack of nature and seasonal references. I'm otherwise amused, though:

First ten dimensions,
then 16 more are added.
The GUT grows like mine.

Top, Bottom, Up, Down,
Left, Right, B, A, B, A. Wait.
That can't be correct.

Only two minutes
to describe the universe?
God needed six days!

Richard P Feynman,
what's your take on string theory?
BRANES BRANES BRANES BRANES BRAAAAAANNEEES

But what's it predict?
No measurements; not physics
But metaphysics.

I think fleece does a better job. And no discussion of string theory would or could be complete without the relevant xkcd strip.

ni alerted us to a Dell Latitude D600—end time Nov-04-07 21:48:36 PST—that is, like the seller's ex, quite a catch: “What is included in winning this auction is not only the laptop, but also everything else she left. Right now it is the laptop, the bag some cables, the power supply, some personal items, sunglasses, clothes and a book ‘the story of O’. I will be cleaning my place this weekend so the bounty will grow.” story of O; the bounty will grow ...

A friend was in Sandy Eggo this weekend and left his girlfriend's house (with her) at 12:40, the same time the Witch Creek fire broke out. They were on the 78 toward Julian, and by the time they arrived the fire had spread to 200 acres and the Highway Patrol were turning cars around. The smoke, meanwhile, had blown all the way to Ramona (the pest!). The result is that they didn't make it to the Julian Pie Company.

I'm not making apple pie or any pie today, but I did make some bread pudding. As toxicfur can attest, it's a tasty recipe. The whiskey sauce makes it worthwhile. Or more worthwhile. I picked up a few pieces for an impromptu costume for tonight's party—for which (the party) I also made the pudding—though it's almost 6:00 and I still need to adjust the mustache and beard (the only one I could find in the store was black, and I need blond or grey), make sure the clothes fit, and make a pipe.

“News” from Oregon: “Brewer, Ore. Candidate Bump Heads Over Campaign Site: The Boston brewers of Sam Adams beer got wind of campaign Web sites bearing their name in Portland's mayoral race and sent a letter to the people who registered the sites, saying would they please knock it off. Trouble is, the candidate is named Sam Adams and has been for a long time, since before the brew hit the market.”

If LOLCats weren't enough, if you just couldn't get enough, now you can get some LOLCode.

I think most already knew what an enlightened person Bill O'Reilly is, but now he admits that (even) tolerance of gays bothers him (“No, but tolerance. It's—you know, he's not going to be gay, but it's tolerance of it.”). That's just a random link.

Yesterday I meant to link to Nathan Rabin's most recent entry in his “My Year of Flops Case File,” No. 79, The Apple. The relevant paragraph is as follows:

When it comes to the trippy cinema of excess of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the eternal question “What were they thinking?” can be replaced with “What were they smoking/snorting/ingesting/freebasing?” In the case of The Apple I'm sure an itemized list could be assembled at the end of filming: pounds of cocaine, tubs of LSD, a truckload full of PCP, disco biscuits aplenty, and enough amphetamines to kill an entire stable of horses.

And my last purloined link of the day: Giant Squid Pumpkin.

III

XIX

‘Darling, why didn't you come today to the vineyard to meet me?
   I waited there by myself, just as I promised I would!’
‘Sweetheart, I came—but just then, by good luck, I caught sight of your uncle
   Busily watching the vines, turning his head to and fro;
So I crept out again quickly!’ ‘My dear, what a silly mistake! That's
   Only the scarecrow—so that scared you away! We all worked
Stitching the dummy together with sticks and old clothes, and I helped too
   Making it. So all that work brought me bad luck in the end!’
Well, the old man should be glad today to have startled a bird more
   Wanton than any, whose wiles steal both his fruit and his niece.

—Translated by David Luke