Re: XY in DosBox (XP)

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 3/31/2004 01:39 PM -0500, Robert Holmgren wrote:
> Ha, very good. To tell the truth, what was bouncing around in my head was
> Catullus, who realizes that his boyfriend has been two-timing him because he
> detects his scent on somebody else; and he says something like "it must be
> YOU,
> and your [anatomical part]!" (I find myself constantly
> adapting/repeating/plagiarizing Catullus in my everyday speech -- a very
> private joke, that nobody catches. God, what a poet -- to my mind, one of the
> founding expressions of Western civilization. I've never understood the
> attribution of westernism to the Greeks. To me, they seem like pure
> orientals.
> Tossing their lives away for glory -- how dumb. But Catullus, now him I
> understand -- he was a New Yorker.)
Roman literature is not my field, and I've encountered your man only in
passing in those dreadful survey courses, but I've heard colleagues,
classics professors, arguing mightily about Catullus, the anomalous Roman.
You've moved me to pull some collections off the shelf. Meanwhile, your
phrase *they seem like pure orientals...tossing their lives away for glory*
struck me. I've been reading Japanese history and social psychology for
some five years now as background for a project, and one of the books that
talks about sacrifice in a fascinating and lyrical way is Ivan Morris' THE
NOBILITY OF FAILURE. Some new research calls into question some of his
conclusions, but what a read he is, trying hard to explain to Westerners
how in the East death defines life. Anyway, I look forward to encountering
the lusty Roman again. Thanks.

Michael Norman