Dancing with the statistical stars

When the wedding celebrations were done on Sunday, I headed south from Charlottesville to visit my old graduate school stomping grounds in Chapel Hill, and to catch up with former friends and colleagues. I spent Monday and Tuesday night visiting with my co-author, Marie Davidian, and her husband, Butch (Anastasios) Tsiatis.



Marie and Butch are both professors in the Statistics Department at N.C. State in Raleigh. When I visited they had just returned from the East Coast Classic ballroom dancing contest in Savannah, in which they snagged the top amateur award in their category.



Now, I was pretty happy with the charcoal-gray Giorgio Canali suit that I wore at Katie's wedding (purchased at Nordstrom's just for the occasion). But, as these pictures clearly indicate, I can never hope to match the sartorial splendor of Butch and Marie.


The gentleman with Marie in the middle picture is her dance instructor, Robert.

Marie and Butch have long been stars in the statistical firmament. Obviously, they are well on their way to total domination in the cutthroat world of ballroom dancing as well.

It was a great visit.

A most excellent wedding

I've been on the road (still am), so it's been hard to find time to update this blog. Not for want of news, though. The biggest and best piece of news is that the wedding of my charming, gorgeous, funny, witty, and talented god-daughter, Katie, to her equally charming, funny, witty and talented fiance, Adam*, went off without a hitch this past Saturday in Scottsville, VA. It was a terrific wedding, not a dry eye in the crowd, and a wonderful time was had by all. I particularly appreciated the chance to get to know Adam's family better (including his Aunt Barbara, who made the most righteous wedding cake pictured above, and took far better pictures of the wedding than I could manage), as well as the opportunity to see Paddy's family, who made the trip north from Huntsville, AL for the occasion. Celebrations lasted from Thursday evening to Sunday at noon, and it really was a terrific occasion. I could post photos for days, but will limit myself to one more, of the bride and groom:



* : oh, OK - Adam is a fine-looking young man, but I draw the line at 'gorgeous'. :-)

Some more wedding pictures can be found on my Flick'r photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaelstat/

Literary games (1)

No, not the Paul Auster kind. Let's start with the ever-popular "CHANGE ONE LETTER" game, in which the rule is to change one letter in an existing book title and give a brief description of the imagined result.

1. Wife of Pi

What is life like when you are married to one of nature's most famously irrational entities? Someone whose life and qualities seem to be fair game for mathematicians the world over? What if your spouse's digits are a topic of gossip worldwide - to the extent that geeks in internet chatrooms and idiots savants on PBS boast about their familiarity with those same digits? How does it feel to have your spouse's philandering relationship with that Eulerian trollop e immortalized for ever on the lavatory stall walls in engineering buildings and in math texts from Bratislava to Brazzaville, from Abkhazia to Zimbabwe? Even though some have said the relationship is purely an imaginary one.

"Wife of Pi" explores the story of an unsung heroine of mathematics, as Cherry Pi reveals what life is like as the spouse of one of nature's bad boiz. She clearly loves her man: "Sure he can be irrational, but life with him is just transcendental", she swoons, "I couldn't imagine it any other way".

2. A Thousand Splendid Subs

Jared's Story.

3. Goldilocks and the Three Beards


Once again, Goldi wondered just why it was that Fate had caused her to be trapped in an elevator with Kelly Preston, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes.

4. A la recherche du temps Perdue

A man. A madeline. A chicken. A dream. It takes a tough man to write an autobiography as tender as this.

5. Sexbiscuit

The Anna Nicole Smith story.

6. The Year of Jiving Dangerously

Indonesian authorities crack down on dirty dancing.

7. Caesar's Garlic Wars

Internecine strife threatens to bring down a pizza-making empire.

8. Fast Wood Nation

Listening to Viagra.

9. Mulder on the Orient Express

Obviously, Poirot's "explanation" of the murder was just part of a government coverup.

10. CEO Wulf

A business fable about the monster in the corner office.

Back in the U.S.A.

After a fairly horrific day of travel* yesterday, reporting in safe and sound from San Francisco. The kitties are happy and healthy (thanks, Brad!) and have been purring madly for the past 24 hours. Which, I think, means that they have forgiven me for my temporary absence.

And I am delighted to report that, despite the horrifically early hour (6am), I forced myself to overcome my natural reticence and engaged the taxi driver in conversation on the way to the airport. For the entire half-hour trip we chatted away, and not once was I stuck for words. The cab driver was so impressed that he kept asking me if I wasn't a Spanish teacher. So I felt pretty good about that aspect of the trip.

I felt pretty good about every aspect of the trip, when you get right down to it, except for the recurring stomach problems, which - while not serious - were fairly frequent, and somewhat uncomfortable. Don't know what I might have done differently in retrospect, some of the more extreme advice I received (brush your teeth with bottled water; don't take ice with your soft drinks; don't eat salad, etc.) seems frankly impractical.

But, in the end, this was just a minor inconvenience. I loved Guanajuato and - in particular - pretty much everyone I met on the trip was totally charming. (The occasional exceptions, I regret to report, could be classified securely in the 'ugly American' category, but they were fortunately few and far between.)

Back on the home front, a quick trip to Nordstrom's this afternoon took care of today's super-important errand. Yes, that's right - the elegant, charcoal-grey Italian suit, she is purchased, and will be ready for pick-up on Wednesday afternoon. Let nobody accuse this blogger of showing up like a slob for his only goddaughter's wedding. Eventual photographic documentation of this sartorial splurge seems inevitable, so be patient.

* you don't want to know, trust me.

Náhuatl tongue-twisters

Warning: doggerel directly ahead!

Popocatepetl

Sure, it's a volcano.

But it's also a word that'll test your mettle.

Itzcuintli

Sacred dog of the Aztecs, beloved by Frida Kahlo,

ugly as a Sharpei but not quite as crinkly

Quetzalcoatl

Not just a plumed serpent god beloved by D.H. Lawrence among others,

but also a word that's hard to say, in fact if it doesn't make you stammer and stutter,

I dunno what'll.

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_pYYff7qP0

¿Qué pasa?

Just catching up since Sunday. Monday evening was the long-awaited "cena de bienvenido" (not a moment too soon, as this is my last week). There were many new students, including a big group from California, but none at the advanced level. Which means that it's back to one-on-one in my conversation classes with Manuel every day. Learning a lot, but I tend to be pretty exhausted by the time 3 o'clock rolls around. Yesterday evening I had a very nice dinner with Renee and her husband Steve, both from Huntsville. Renee was my housemate at Aurora's during my first week here, and Steve just joined her on Saturday, staying for the week. I give him major points for signing up for the beginners' class at the school for the week. Tonight is the regular Café Social, probably followed by drinking and debauching at the 'Bar Ocho', which has the distinct advantage of being only a block from the hotel, so that I can roll home easily.

On the cultural side of things, not all of one's choices can be successful. I walked out of "Sin Lugar para los Debiles" (No Country for Old Men) somewhere around the half-hour mark, just as Javier Bardem was racking up his 10th victim, with disturbing relish and no end in sight. On the literary side, Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy" (which I picked up second-hand last week when my craving for something to read in English became too great) was a major disappointment. More accurately, the first 'story' of the trilogy, "City of Glass" was such an irritatingly self-referential, hyper-cerebral, 'what a clever boy am I', piece of vacuous pomo garbage that I have sworn off this particular 'writer' for life....

The plain people of Ireland: What was that? You're reading porno now?
The management: No, idiots! Not 'porno' as in 'pornography'. 'Pomo' as in 'post-modern'.
The plain people of Ireland: Are you sure? Looks like porno to us.
The management: What we have here is a font kerning issue. Look it up.
The plain people of Ireland: 'keming' - what's 'keming'?
The management: Oh, never mind....

Mysteries of Guanajuato

Like any good travel destination, Guanajuato does not reveal all of its charms at once, preferring to retain that certain air of mystery to keep the traveler is intrigued. There are at several mysteries of Guanajuato which continue to keep this particular visitor baffled. Here are two:

1. The bells.

Mexico is a Catholic country, and there are plenty of churches here in the city. Each equipped with a belfry. The mystery is what possible benighted schedule, if any, governs the sounding of the bells. On a typical evening, 8 o'clock will come and go, with barely a tintinnabulation (or whatever it is that bells do) to mark the occasion. Then, for no apparent reason, completely out of nowhere, 8:15 comes and every church in town goes crazy. It can take 5 minutes for the assorted pealing to come to an end.

Not that it's the same every night. That would be far too simple. Some evenings the eruption might be at 8:45. Or there might be two, one at 7:45, another at 8:30. The only consistency appears to be that the full campanological power is rarely unleashed directly on the hour. Because that would seem altogether far too reasonable.

2. The hotel furniture.

I've had two weeks to ponder this, and it still has me beat. Did they have a contest? Did someone actually come up with a competition to see who could design the worst furniture ever? I'm not talking aesthetics here (though God knows some of it is pretty ugly). I'm just talking in terms of actual - you know - function. Because most of the furniture in my hotel room is actually completely useless. Bulky. But useless.

Unless, of course, you happen to be paraplegic. Or a midget. Or both.

You doubt me? You want photographic documentation? Be my guest:



Not actually usable by anyone who has, you know, knees.



Useful if you were thinking of entertaining a couple of the seven dwarves, maybe.



This almost hits the trifecta. It's bulky, hideously ugly, but is not completely useless, I suppose.

Best. Breakfast. Ever.

Sometimes life just hands you a little gift. Out of the blue, for no apparent reason. This morning was one of those times. (Out of respect for privacy, I've changed the names - everything else is just as it happened).

About 11am, and I had gone out in search of breakfast. I ended up in a little courtyard cafe near the center, and decided to risk the "hot cakes" with my coffee. Passing the time alternating between doing my homework for tomorrow's class and watching the world go by. At one of the other tables in the cafe, there were what appeared to be two elderly U.S. couples - with all the appearance of retired academics. Which is nothing unusual here in Guanajuato - at a guess, at least a quarter of the audience at the symphony on Friday night had been retired Americans. What was unusual about these folks is the way they were staring at me. Which bordered on being a little rude, to tell the truth.

At this point, I should explain something about my wardrobe. When you work at a company like Genentech for as long as I did (16 years), you end up with a lot of T-shirts. At times it seemed as if every company milestone, every new product launch, was celebrated with free T-shirts for all employees. Sometimes you ended up with T-shirts for projects you had barely worked on. Anyway, as luck would have it, this morning I was wearing one of my Lucentis T-shirts. Lucentis was a product I had done quite a bit of work on, and remains one of my proudest Genentech memories.

In brief, Lucentis is a drug that was developed to fight AMD (age-related macular degeneration), the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, and a condition against which there had previously been few effective treatments. Left untreated, AMD leads to a gradual, inexorable loss of central vision, with losses of 4 to 5 lines on an eye chart within 2 years being typical. Often it strikes otherwise healthy, active people and the effect on the quality of life can be devastating. As it turned out, Lucentis, which was approved for use in the U.S. before I left Genentech, is spectacularly effective in treating the disease. Its particular mechanism of action causes it not only to slow the loss of vision associated with the disease, but in many cases results in subjects regaining previously lost vision, often after only a single treatment (its major drawback is that it is given by intraocular injection, so there's a thqueamishness factor, but given the terrific effectiveness, this didn't seem to bother patients all that much).

Anyway, it's rare to get the chance to work on an experimental drug whose eventual results turn out to be as good as those for Lucentis, so I've always had fond memories of that particular project. But, back to this morning. What was causing my neighbors in the cafe to stare at me so oddly? You've guessed - it was the Lucentis T-shirt. Eventually, one of the two women approached and asked if I worked for Genentech. Upon learning that I had, pointing at my T-shirt, she asked if I had worked on Lucentis. When I said I had, she just burst into tears and hugged me. By now, I was a little teared up myself. She dragged me over to their table, saying all the time "You saved Frank's life. Mine too."

After introductions all around, it turned out that Frank, her husband, had developed wet AMD (the aggressive form of the disease) several years earlier, had been losing vision rapidly, when his ophthalmologist suggested enrolling him in one of the ongoing clinical trials for Lucentis, which was still an experimental therapy at that point. In his particular case, results had been immediate and striking, and he had been able to maintain vision with just a couple of maintenance shots since the trial had ended a couple of years ago.

It's a little embarrassing, truth be told, to be on the spot, soaking up all the credit for an effort you knew actually involved hundreds, if not thousands, of other employees. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good. It feels awesome. I've been roaming the streets of Guanajuato since then, with a huge grin on my face, humming to myself in a way that is making people look at me funny.

I didn't get to pay for my pancakes this morning. We chatted for a long time over breakfast, and I just kept thinking to myself - "what a gift". It's the kind of experience that life rewards you with occasionally when you work for a company like Genentech. I remember, on my first sabbatical, when I was travelling in Europe, this Dutch woman I'd never seen before in my life came up to me on a train in Germany, threw her arms around me and thanked me for saving her father's life (he had been treated with tPA during a heart attack). But I just wasn't particularly expecting anything unusual when I went out to breakfast this morning. Which made it all the more sweet, somehow.

This post is dedicated to all my former colleagues at Genentech, and to those on the Lucentis team in particular.

(And yes, I'm sorry, but it goes well beyond my current blogging skills to put that little trademark sign by Lucentis)

Doggerel

Guanajuato, it appears, has no strip clubs for men. Oddly enough, there is one for women. Which leads to the following rumination in (a kind of) verse:

Suppose you are a young man in search of a little nocturnal entertainment aquí en Guanajuato.
If you are foolish enough to ask for the location of the nearest strip joint, you may well elicit the response "You wanna what?! Oh,
no señor, we have no place for that kind of perversion en nuestra ciudad".
So you may just have to entertain yourself with some kind of improvised homemade sexual aid, knick-knack, or doo-dad.

If, on the other hand, you are una mujer of a certain edad,
Who wants to have a night out on the townm leaving los niños with their dad.
Then yes, if you want a night of bawdy entertainment, free of your ball & chain and los nippers,
Every Wednesday night you can come on down to the Rodeo lounge and be entertained by the finest of Mexican male estripers.

I make no apologies for the above. Remember, at times like this, I am merely an empty vessel, channeling the muse of awful doggerel.

Counting sheep

Suppose you are a shepherd in Swaledale. The annual sheep-shearing festival is coming up and you want to keep track of your flock. How do you keep count? Here's how:

1. Yan
2. tan
3. tether
4. mether
5. pip
6. azer
7. sezar
8. akker
9. conter
10. dick
11. yanadick
12. tanadick
13. tetheradick
14. metheradick
15. bumfit
16. yanabum
17. tanabum
18. tetherabum
19. metherabum
20. jigget

I find it hard to convey just how much joy the discovery of this little vigesimal counting system brought me.

If you would like to read more about this, and other similar schemes, here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera

I defy anyone to count out loud to twenty using this scheme and not have a big - sheepish - grin by the end.

Oh, OK, here's one more:

yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp. sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik, yan-a-dik, tan-a-dik, tethera-dik, pethera-dik, bumfit, yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumfit, tethera-bumfit, pethera-bumfit, figgot.

Apparently these schemes are also popular among knitters in the north of England and South of Scotland.

And here's a wee folksong:

Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp.
Yon owd yowe's far-welted, and this yowe's got a limp
Sethera, methera, hovera, and covera up to dik,
Aye, we can deal wi' 'em all, and wheer's me crook and stick?
I count 'em up to figgits, and figgits have a notch,
There's more to being a shepherd than being on watch;
There's swedes to chop and lambing time and snow upon the rick,
Sethera, methera, hovera, and covera up to dik.

Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..
From Caistor down to Spilsby from Sleaford up to Brigg,
There's Lincoln sheep all on the chalk, all hung wi' wool and big.
And I, here in Langton wi' this same old flock.,
Just as me grandad did afore they meddled with the clock.
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

We've bred our tups and gimmers for the wool and length and girth,
And sheep have lambed, have gone away all o'er all the earth.
They're bred in foreign flocks to give the wool its length and crimp,
Yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp.
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

They're like a lot of bairns, they are, like children of me own,
They fondle round about owd Shep afore they're strong and grown;
But they gets independent-like, before you know, they've gone,
But yet again, next lambing time we'll 'a' more to carry on.
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp,
Fifteen notches up to now and one yowe with a limp.
You reckons I should go away, you know I'll never go,
For lambing time's on top of us and it'll surely snow.
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

Well, one day I'll leave me yowes, I'll leave me yowes for good,
And then you'll know what breeding is in flocks and human blood;
For our Tom's come out o' t' army, his face as red as brick,
Sethera, methera, hovera, and covera up to dik.
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

Now lambing time come reg'lar-like, just as it's always been,
And shepherds have to winter 'em and tent 'em till they're weaned
My fambly had it 'fore I came, they'll have it when I sleep,
So we can count our lambing times as I am countin sheep
Yan, tan, tethera, tethera, pethera, pimp &c..

http://www.ramshornstudio.com/lincoln_sheep.htm

At the concert

Last night was Nastasia's final night here in Guanajuato, so we went to the concert at the Teatro Principal and went out drinking afterwards. Like the previous Friday, the concert was by the symphony orchestra at the University, this time under the considerably shakier baton of a different guest conductor. After the 3rd symphony by the Mexican composer Carlos Chavez (1899-1978), the rest of the program was strictly middle European - Wagner's Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin, followed by two works by (Richard) Strauss, "Don Juan" and the (hootchy-cootchy) "Dance of the Seven Veils" from "Salome".

There were some distinctly rough moments with the strings in the Wagner, but things recovered just fine for the Strauss. My favorite part had little to do with the music, and everything to do with the visual image. The dance of the seven veils calls for reinforcement in the percussion section - I was transfixed by the guy second from the left at the back of the percussion section, who matched the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin both in looks and weight, and whose only function appeared to be to play the triangle. Which he did very nicely - it just looked hilarious!

My first margarita aquí in Mexico later last night must be considered a mistake if the verdict of Monte is to be taken into account.

Enough already. I'm as tired of writing about my gastrointestinal progress or lack thereof as you must be reading about it.

Hasta pronto!

D

In the hotel

One of the advantages of staying at the hotel is the anonymity it provides. So that occasionally, one hears conversations like this one (reproduced here in its entiretly):

Speaker 1: So, I've figured out exactly what you should do with the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: Tell me.
Speaker 1: You should totally finish medical school. But then you should make it a point never to practice medicine.
Speaker 2: Why's that?
Speaker 1: That way, when you come south to work as a gunslinger here in Mexico, you will totally have earned the nickname "Doc".
Speaker 2: Awesome!

I need hardly add that both participants in this conversation were male.

Medias Naranjas

Earlier tonight I went to see this play, "Medias Naranjas", at the Teatro Principal. It could best be described as a series of short sketches, each depicting a different aspect of love ("medias naranjas", literally, 'two halves of an orange', is a Spanish expression meaning - roughly - 'soul mates').

Schnitzler it wasn't, but it was fun, and funny in places. I was just happy that I understood most (90%?) of it.

Cultural life in Guanajuato

So, apart from the six or seven hours of daily classes, what does life have to offer aquì en Guanajuato? Well, recently I've been availing myself of the CineClub at the University of Guanajuato, where for only $3.00 one can choose to see stuff that's a little more highbrow than Iron Man and Indiana Jones. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those two movies, which I fully intend to see once the crowds have died down.

On Sunday at the CineClub I went to see "Atonement"; yesterday, I saw Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: the Golden Age". Both excellent films, neither of which I would probably have gone to see in San Francisco (note to self - you should get out more).

Tonight I'm going to see a play ("Media Naranja") at the Teatro principal, and then tomorrow evening the University orchestra is putting on another concert. So there's no shortage of cultural fare, most of it remarkably good.

Sadly, I have to note that Monte is bothering me again, vengeful undiscriminating bastard that he is.

Extra Krispy

The somewhat heavyset gentleman depicted above, who is perched, Prometheus-like, overlooking the city of Guanajuato, is called Pipila, and is something of a local hero.

What, you might wonder, did Pipila do to attain his status as hero? Something to do with fire, one might guess.

Your guess would be correct. Did he bring fire to the people of Guanajuato?

Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. In a heroic action that once again proves that heroism probably depends on one's point of view, during assorted hostilities surrounding the revolutionary fervor of 1810, Pipila's contribution to the conflict was to bring fire to the Spaniards who had holed up in the Alhondiga fortress/granary pictured above, essentially burning everyone inside to a state of crispy goodness.

I guess the criteria for being a revolutionary hero were a little different back then. Then again, maybe not all that different.

Latin for the modern world

Not necessarily in the same order as in the original post:

1. Yo mama's so stupid when she found a coin with Caesar's name on it, she tried to give it back to him.
2. Yo mama's so fat, when she's in town Rome has 8 hills!
3. Yo mama wears combat boots.
4. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
5. Auntie Em. Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy.
6. If walking is all that good for you, how come our mail carrier looks like Jabba the Hutt?
7. Ask my opponent why he wants to tax American flags in order to fund gourmet meals for convicted murderers.
8. Taste laser death, alien insect scum!
9. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.
10. Man, that shit is potent --- I am like totally in the subjunctive.

No pans at the ...

Three classics

As promised, random sampling from my winter reading binge:

1. Eugene Onegin

Tatyana falls for Eugene, who rebuffs her (gently).
Time passes.
Tatyana marries a prince.
Eugene falls for Tatyana, who rebuffs him (gently).

And Pushkin whips the whole affair into this wonderfully frothy souffle, which any Russian will tell you is one of the summits of Russian poetry. It certainly disproves the notion that all of Russian literature is dark, brooding, and gloomy. The Penguin Classic translation is by Charles Johnston. Having just re-read the chapter about Onegin translations in Douglas Hofstadter's "Le Ton beau de marot", I'm inclined to seek out some of the other versions as well.



2. Madame Bovary



Flaubert is da bomb!

Seriously, who knew? I suppose if I had done French, rather than German, in high school I would have discovered Madame Bovary before now. Better late than never. Obviously, I knew what Madame Bovary was about before reading it. But I had no idea how brilliantly Flaubert would suck me in to the story. He pulls no punches, just lets the story unfold to its horrifying, inexorable conclusion.

What I hadn't expected were his unerring eye for the details of the life of the bourgeoisie, which he lays out for us in unsparing detail. Or how he manages to make us care about Emma, and to sympathise with her, even as she makes one misguided choice after the next. The flair with which he executes the set pieces. And the power of some of the images - Emma cramming her mouth with arsenic, the final stream of black liquid (like vomit) that flows from her mouth, just after the innkeeper's remark about how peaceful she looks.

It's not hard to understand why this book caused such a scandal upon publication.

Way to go, Gustave!



3. Dante's Inferno

When I finally decided, earlier this year, to try to plug some of the holes that my 'classical education' had somehow left unfilled, "The Inferno" was high on my list. Since I don't know any Italian, choosing a decent translation was one of the first questions to be addressed. I spent an hour in Cody's comparing various options (there are a gazillion translations out there) - this was one of two that I ended up buying. Surprisingly (to me at any rate), roughly half of the available translations chose the low road of not even bothering to preserve Dante's famous terza rima metric scheme, with the excuse that only a 'literal translation' can convey the meaning adequately. Fie on your lazy asses, say I - it obviously can be done, even if you are too lamebrained to try. So I rejected the 'literal translations' out of hand, for the same reason that I would not choose a translation of 'Eugene Onegin' that didn't at least try to preserve Pushkin's meter, when it is obviously such an intrinsic aspect of the work. I can't vouch for the fidelity of Carson's translation, but I liked it a lot. (I liked the other translation I read as well, but that's part of a different review). He does well by the terza rima, while managing to achieve an overall natural flow of the language. At times it is highly colloquial, which might disturb the purists:

"Ratbreath, when he heard this, rolled his eyes,

and hissed 'Don't listen, it's a dirty trick,

so he can jump. He must think we're not wise.'

And he, whose AKA was Señor Slick,

replied: 'It's dirt indeed, to get my comrades

in the shit; in fact, it's rather sick.'

Now Harley Quinn, unlike the other blades,

was eager for some sport. "

Canto XXII, lines 107-114.

As for the work itself, I think you all know the story. I haven't read "Purgatorio" or "Paradiso" yet - it seems highly likely to me that the "Inferno" is the most fun of the three, if only because it's entertaining to see how he uses it as a vehicle for getting even with his enemies. But, if you've been putting it off for years because you're intimidated by its status as a "classic", don't be put off any longer. It's actually a lot of fun, and easy to read. Comparing translations is an auxiliary source of entertainment, for those (like myself) who enjoy that kind of thing

Sunday Salmagundi (Part 2)

Useful Latin phrases for the modern world:

1. Mater tua tam stulta est ut cum invenerit nummum ferentem nomen caesaris, huic eum restituere conata sit.
2. Mater tua tam obesa est ut cum romae est, urbs habet octo colles.
3. Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus.
4. Mater tua caligas gerit!
5. Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
6. Mehercle, illa materia tam valida est ut funditus in modo subiunctivo sim.
7. Quaerite a competitore cur vectigal vexillis americanis imponere velit ad epulas comparandas homicidis condemnatis.
8. Si quidem pedibus ire tam salubre corpori est, cur similis est noster tabellarius forma illi iabbae hutico.
9. Amita Aemilia: te Kansiamque odi, canem mecum abduco - Dorothea.
10. Oppetite mortem lumine amplificato stimulata emissione radiorum, cimices extraterrestriales foedi!

Note that the majority of these phrases have been taken from the most excellent book: X-Treme Latin: All the Latin You Need to Know for Survival in the 21st Century, by Henry Beard.

The plain people of Ireland: But, but, but!

The management: What is it now, wretches?!

The plain people of Ireland: You haven't told us what these phrases mean.

The management: You have a point. Check back in a day or two. In the meantime, maybe you could amuse yourselves by guessing.