There’s a line in one of Horace’s epistles that really caught my eye. In Latin it reads: Utque sacerdotis fugitiuus liba recuso, pane egeo iam mellitis potiore placentis Horace: Epistles, Book I, X No, I can’t translate it.* However, I was reading David Ferry’s 2001 translation and he renders it
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Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: Reading: A Canadian tragedy… or not?
The map above might show the making of a serious tragedy for Western and especially Canadian culture. It indicates in colour which nations read the most. Yellow is the second lowest group. Canada is coloured yellow. In this survey, Canada ranks 10th – from the bottom! Twenty countries above us
Continue readingPostArctica: Bookish Butch
Proud to say my favorite former used bookstore owner has won best blog in the GLBT category! Way to go, Caroline!! Canadian Blog Awards 2014 results Bookish Butch
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Lucretius and the Renaissance
It’s fairly clear, even after reading only a few verses, why Lucretius’s didactic poem, On the Nature of Things – De Rerum Natura – made such an impact on thought, philosophy, religion and science in the Renaissance. It must have been like a lighthouse in the dark night; a “Eureka” moment for
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Amo, Amas, Amat…. and what?
My well-thumbed copy of Eugene Ehrlich’s book, Amo, Amas, Amat and More, is dated 1985. It’s amusingly subtitled “How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others.” It’s still in print, it seems, or was as recently as 2006. I’ve read my copy on and
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Raisin and sourdough this week
While I haven’t tried to make a sourdough raisin bread yet, that idea occurred to me while I was making my latest breads, this week. I’m sure it would be a good mix, but I’ll have to build my levain up again, since I used all my countertop levain in
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Corn and other breads
The last loaf of January, 2014 was a machine-made corn bread, made using a recipe from Washburn’s & Butt’s 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes book that I’ve mentioned previously. It’s a good book for bread machine users. Unlike my previous efforts to tinker with bread recipes, I used the
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Dear Nathan – IMPORTANT INFORMATION
I got a phone message from Nathan! (The ‘consultant’ Ex Libris has assigned to my book.) It was the same voice mail that he’s left the past three or four times he’s called. He’s very persistent. Unfortunately for Nathan, I don’t answer telephone calls for which I do not recognize
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Reading Thucydides at last
Somewhere on one of my bookshelves, is an old Penguin paperback copy of History of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It’s a bit worn, pages lightly yellowed, glue a little brittle. It’s been sitting on the shelf, stacked with many other paperbacks, piled two deep, floor to ceiling, for the past
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Dear Nathan – Editors
Dear Nathan, I was thinking about who you should get to edit my manifesto. I mean manuscript. My eleventh grade English teacher came to mind, but after she was accused of gross vandalism, criminal harassment, stalking, and destruction of property … Continue reading →
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Dear Nathan
A few years ago, I decided to engage in some corporate espionage. I work in the field of book publishing, and I had been hearing rather a lot about vanity presses like Ex Libris. Normally, I don’t like naming the … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Water, water, everywhere
Hydration matters. Not just to athletes and long distance runners. It matters to bakers. How much water is in your dough is crucial to how the crumb develops. It’s amazing how a few grams more or less of water can make a real difference in the resulting loaf of bread.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: For want of a nail…
Bought a book at Loblaws (of all places) this week, one by Harry Turtledove: The Big Switch. It’s one of his many alternative history novels, about what might have happened if things had happened a certain way – a different way from what actually transpired – in the opening years
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Short and the Tall of It
This past week saw several new experiments in my bread laboratory. Okay, it’s a kitchen, but sometimes it feels like a lab, what with all the tinkering and testing I do. I just can’t seem to stop trying new things in bread. It would fee even more science-like if Susan
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The 2013 Great Gatsby
Watched the 2013 film of The Great Gatsby last night. The first half was spectacular, grandiose and captivating, if somewhat over the top. Like Busby Berkeley meets The Fifth Element. Extravaganza, spectacle and excess. The film doesn’t feel like it’s set in New York of the Jazz Age. It’s too
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Saving Fubsy from Lexicographical Caliginosity
Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Brands, Buzz & Going Viral
My third book for Municipal World, Brands, Buzz & Going Viral, has just been published as part of the Municipal Information Series. I received my author’s copies yesterday. I am very proud of this book; it took a lot of work to research and write. I enjoyed writing it. I hope
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Music of the Templars
For the past 25 years, I have had a mysterious page in Latin, held in a cheap picture frame, and stored in a closet for many years. It’s a two-sided page from a book, printed in black and red letters. I bought it at a used-book store in Toronto back
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Two more loaves, new lessons learned
Following up on my desire to make homemade raisin-cinnamon bread for Susan, I spent several hours collecting recipes online and entering their ingredients into a spreadsheet so i could compare them. Quite a range in the amounts of some (like cinnamon and sugar). Then an Amazon order arrived, which included
Continue readingChristy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Thoughts about the kid’s book The Stamp Collector
I borrowed the book The Stamp Collector from the library because I thought it might be another cute book about collections, and in a way it is but its also much darker and more relevant than that. The story starts like a folk tale with the city boy who loves stamps and
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