John Dugan
@sicsicsinefine
Classicist, Buffalonian, Boston native, US and Irish citizen. Posts mostly about my dog, travel, food, drink, and unwise fitness activities. aetate iam adfectus, sed tamen exercitatione robustus.
Flipping through the Odyssey pop book a former Buffalo grad student got my son from a bookstore in Tunisia where he was digging. Marvelous book, wonderful memories.
The last time the Red Sox won 15 in a row was 80 years ago and this kid was batting third:
Enjoy your fleeting moment in the spotlight of popular attention, dear Homerists. Once Nolan reads my pitch for a film version of the greatest story ever told, Cicero’s exile and return (obv.), it’ll be Ciceronians clogging your socials wall-to-wall.
Splendid morning biking the dunes in Provincetown, finishing at Race Point Beach.
If you’re out there, Mr Nolan, might I suggest a Polyphemus eyeball filled with heated nacho cheese? And you open the container with a plastic sharpened staff …
Woodcut from Venetian incunabulum of Livy showing Tanaquil and Lucumo arriving in Rome. Marvelous day in the Buffalo rare books collection.
Spent some time with Will’s First Folio this morning In Buffalo’s Rare Books room.
Spent rather a long time discussing this beautiful intaglio in my Roman Republic class. Octavian cosplaying Neptune in a hippocampus-drawn chariot that’s trampling Antony (or maybe Sextus Pompey)? Count me in. collections.mfa.org/objects/2425...
Not a fan of Iran’s leadership, but wish any member of the US congress were historically literate enough to casually drop a reference to Plutarch’s life of Pyrrhus (21.9).
About to lecture on Fulvius Nobilior’s temple of Hercules and the Muses. Will be using the Severan marble plan for all its worth, including this scrap of a 16th century drawing of a now lost chunk of the Forma Urbis Romae. Hoping this will help inspire the young with a sense of adventure.
Super bowl you say? How bout this artifact from the Catline’s run for the consulate in 63 BCE. Inscribed within is CASIUS LONGINV QUEI CATILINAE {SU} / SVFRAGATVR (“Cassius Longinus who is {su} supporting Catiline” (text and trans Berry 2020:21). Part of a get-out-the-vote food dole program.
Finally watched Das Leben der Anderen. Truly fantastic, and surprisingly cheering in the midst of our own dystopian present. The shots of Stasi HQ brought me right back to the oppressive bureaucratic nightmare of a building that a visited last May.
Something from a Connecticut insurance attorney to brighten your evening. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...