A Product Listing on Amazon

Years ago, for some period of time, I was obsessed with a problem Amazon was having: they weren't accurately listing the languages in which many of the books they sold were written. Books written in Latin with English prefaces were listed as English; books written in Greek with Latin prefaces were listed as Latin; books written in Latin with facing-page English translations might be listed as Latin or English. The thought of accurately describing a book's language with more than one word, such as "Latin primary text with English facing-page translation, English introduction, footnotes and commentary" seemed to be right out of the question. Whatever computer program Amazon used to fill in the"Language" box in the "Product details" section, below "Publisher" and above the ISBN's and dimensions and weight -- the very idea that a book might be in more than one language, did not seem to compute. The details given for dimensions and weight for all sorts of items sold on Amazon, not just books, continue to be equally divorced from reality, to the point where the information given on the amazon is so unreliable as to be useless.

I actually tried to get a job at Amazon correcting these language descriptions of books. The attempt did not go well. Eventually I was able to just let it go and get on with my life.

Last year I got ahold of Jean-Pierre Mahe's edition of the Coptic fragments of the Perfect Discourse from the Nag Hammadi library and the Armenian Hermetic Definitions, published in the city of Quebec in 1982.

 

So, that's an ancient primary text in Coptic, with, on the facing page, a French translation and passages from the Latin Asclepius almost as lengthy as the Coptic text, showing the relationship between the Coptic and Latin texts; and an ancient primary text in Armenian with facing-page translation in French; with a lengthy introduction and commentary in French, not to mention a bibliography as impressively polyglot as you might imagine. 

How would I fill in that line: "Language," in the product description, if I were Emperor of all Amazon? I think maybe something like: "primary texts in Coptic and Armenian, with ancient Latin for comparison with the Coptic, and facing-page translations and introduction and commentary in French."

That doesn't describe every single thing in this book, but I think it comes close enough to give a potential reader a fairly accurate idea of what would be facing them, if they wanted to read this book.

Amazon describes the language of the book as "English."

Now, I couldn't get away with calling this description 100% inaccurate, because of a few items in English in the aforementioned impressively polyglot bibliography, and a few brief citations from those several English items. Still, it is about as far as an exhaustive modern critical edition -- two critical editions, actually -- can be from being English. The publisher's name, the name of the series in which this volume appears -- Bibliotheque copte de Nag Hammadi -- the copyright notice, all are in French.

Languages in Prefaces

In the 4th edition of the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible traditionally used by the Catholic Church, published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft in 1994, there are prefaces to the first and 4th editions, in Latin, then in German, French and English. Just to be clear: this is the 4th edition of the Vulgate to be published by the Deutsche Biblegesellschaft. Many, many editions were published by others long before 1994, okay? This post is just about the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Okay!

In the Bibelgesellschaft's 2nd edition of the Septuaginta, the Greek translations of the Old Testament made by Jews in and/or around Alexandria in the 3rd and/or 2nd century BC, published in 2006, there are forwards to the 2nd edition in German, English and Greek, in that order, and then the forwards and introductory material to the first edition, first in German, then in English, Latin and Greek.

In their 27th edition of the Greek New Testament, published in 2007 with corrections but otherwise identical to the 1993 27th edition, there is a brief foreword to the 27th edition in German and then in English, and then a lengthy introduction, likewise first in German and then in English.

In the 1997 5th edition of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (so called because the Gesellschaft is headquartered in Stuttgart), the Hebrew Bible, of the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, there are forwards to the fifth and then to the first edition, first in German, then in English, French, Spanish and Latin. Then come many pages of Latin abbreviations. Then a few pages in which some of those abbreviations are translated into English. If I pretended that I was presently capable of explaining just exactly what all of these abbreviations are, I would be a fraud.

Why I Still Write With Ink on Paper

 

For one thing, I don't even know what a Remarkable or a Supernote is, to quote someone asking on Reddit why people still write in paper notebooks. I'm 61 years old, I'm a writer, and I resisted even using a typewriter until I saw the Internet in 1997. As with many other people, that changed things a bit for me, and I started using keyboards more than I had. But I still write a daily journal in ink in a paper notebook that fits in a pocket. Partly because I'm old, sure, but also for other reasons. 

I'm fascinated by other technologies besides pens on paper which are no longer generally considered cutting-edge. For example, mechanical watches: watches with no electricity, no batteries, powered by a spring. Revolvers as opposed to semiautomatics. Internal combustion engines, even though I'm a hair-on-fire climate activist. We should all be driving EV's or not driving at all. But I understand some of the resistance to change on this matter, the resistance which isn't built on ignorance, but on love for technologies which are being phased out. 

My brother, 59 years old, an automotive engineer and executive, tells me that offices often no longer have what we used to call office supply rooms: rooms full of paper and paper-related items such as pencils and pens and tape and staples.

So people our age are becoming odd, and started becoming odd long before we noticed it, I'm quite sure, writing in our paper pocket-sized notebooks with our fountain pens, which we clip in our waistcoat pockets alongside our pocket watches, sighting down the long barrels of our single-action revolvers while the barkeep fetches the ice-cream from the icebox for our sarsaparilla sodas, with our Model-T's idling outside besides the troughs, startling the horses. 

But there's more to it, and you don't have to be old to enjoy a good pen. I'm still very new to the pen and notebook subreddits, and so I still don't understand why everybody hates Cross pens. I still don't hate them. A two-piece Cross Bailey like the one in that picture, nice and heavy, with its rollerball and luxurious deep blue lacquer, nice and heavy, writing in a Zequenz signature notebook, is a sensual pleasure, a luxury many can afford, especially if they're no longer blowing money on gasoline. 

The EV Backlash in Wyoming and Boston

In Wyoming, it's typified by the new proposal in the state legislature -- a proposal which apparently is already dead -- to ban all sales of new EVs in the state by 2035. 

 

When a recent opinion piece in the Boston Globe refers to the backlash against EVs, by contrast, it's talking about the effort to ban all cars, regardless of powertrain.

I'm actually disappointed that the Wyoming EV ban is not gathering steam. I looked forward to urging EV enthusiasts to drive around Wyoming rather than through it, and to pointing out how people, and how few vehicles of any kind, are in Wyoming, so stop debating them on Reddit about whether EVs have enough range yet to be practical, and ignore them instead. I was joking when I said that the way to react to the Wyoming EV ban was to build a wall around the state -- but only partly joking. EVs are getting more and more positive reactions from the majority of the Earth populace. I say, let's get on with the EV transition, and the solar and wind transition, and just drive around those who are resisting the transition until they finally see all the advantages of joining in. 

Meanwhile, 510 EVs are already owned and registered in Wyoming. I suppose we ought to take a moment and acknowledge those EV owners. Well, maybe much more than a moment. On Reddit, instead of the ongoing feuding with the above-mentioned people who claim that EVs don't have enough range -- many of whom, perhaps most, are of course trolls -- we should focus more attention, and support, moral support if nothing else, on the people who actually own and drive EVs out there where all those trolls keep saying it can't be done. 

Ignore the trolls. Shine a light on EV owners in Wyoming. Report more on how they're getting it down out there. Photos. Details. CHARGING STATIONS MAPS! Might turn out to be just the kick in the pants needed by those in, say, Pennsylvania or Oregon, who claim that EVs ares still not a viable option for them.

The Right Watch

Some people -- who seem to be real old-money -- say that a man either should not wear a watch when wearing a tuxedo; or he should wear a simple 18 karat yellow gold dress watch with a white enamel face and no second hand, on an unobtrusive black leather strap.

Clearly, a lot of people either never heard the rules or are intentionally breaking them. Almost all of the male movie stars at the Oscars, and a few of the ladies, wear tuxedos. How many of them break the rule about the watch? Just about all of them, I think, or at least all of them who wear watches. I googled George Clooney because I thought he might have accidentally overheard the rule around 2005 or so. He's either never heard the rule, or he defies it.

George Clooney broke the rule AT HIS WEDDING.

I don't know whether James Bond has ever followed that rule.

And so maybe those old-money people, when they see video of movie stars in tuxedos with glaringly incorrect watches, over and over. And they sigh, "Oh well, movie stars just aren't our sort of people! Still"

Or -- maybe most old-money people have HEARD of the rule: either no watch or plain gold watch on black strap with tuxedo -- but, like many of the rest of us, they don't CARE much about following those old rules, and are sort of worried about their friends and relatives who still do, obsessively.

Fashion rules like the "correct' watch to wear with a tux, are useful in EXCLUDING people: one quick glance and you can see they don't belong to your class. They're a code, like a secret handshake.

What I'm unsure about is what present-day old money thinks about these rules. Are they clinging to them as snugly as ever, and do I know few or actually none of their names?

Or are they, quite frankly, attempting to broaden the gene pool?

I was about to say that Prince Harry had made a good health choice when he married an African-American, Meagan Markle, but I googled Meagan Markle first, and sure enough, Princess Meagan, one of America's most very white African-Americans --- is a direct descendant of King Henry III of England.

Dream Log: 'Game of Thrones' Alternate World

Last night I dreamed I was a minor character in "Game of Thrones." 

 

I was a mercenary, a sell sword, but I didn't want to fight, which meant that I and a couple of like-minded former comrades-in-arms were basically now drifters.

After drifting for a while we came to a large ominous-looking door in a wall. What was most ominous about the wall and the door was how 21st century they looked. This being "Game of Thrones" and all, things were supposed to look about 15th century, at the newest. After a moment of foreboding, we opened the door and walked into what looked like a 21st century university classroom, with an up-to-date professor at the head of group of today's students. 

It was all so completely unfamiliar!

Except... it wasn't. Not completely...

The professor saw us starting to figure things out and said, "Okay, okay," and directed some of the students to sit us down in the midst of them. 

It was the year 2023. Which meant the "Game of Thrones" world we had been living in... 

"Is a computer simulation," the professor said. 

Then we started to ask questions which were clearly more embarrassing, such as, What exactly were we doing roaming around a non-existent quasi-Medieval world, carrying swords, trying not to get into fights, thinking it was real and forgetting the present?

They seemed distinctly disinclined to answer any questions of those kind, instead trying to turn everything around on us, demanding to know just exactly what right we thought had to barge in here and interrupt them, and insisting that we return tomorrow at precisely one in the afternoon for processing.

I was having none of that, telling them we weren't guinea pigs and what kind of cold-blooded monsters were they, and pretty soon everybody was shouting, and one of them said she was calling security, and security was better-armed than just swords. I unbuckled my scabbard and threw my sword away, saying I did not want to be violent and hadn't threatened anyone. In the end we just walked out through a different door than the one we had come in, and we were in the middle of a present day university campus.

Louisville, Kentucky

There is definitely a whole lot of good-looking grass around Louisville. They call it the "bluegrass" region! I don't know whether it's blue, but it sure is green, and I for one thought that at dusk it looked blue in a particularly beautiful way. And there are beautiful horses all over the place. They call it "the land of beautiful horses and fast women." They probably shouldn't call it that. 

I've been to way too many bus stations across this odd land of our "united" states -- you know how many of them are actually nice places? Where you think to yourself, Hey, maybe I oughta stay here for a while? One. Yes, the one in Louisville. Buses in the US drive past all kinds of beautiful regions. But in Louisville, they actually stop there. 

Jefferson County, where Lousville is, has an estimated population of 710,000 humans. I mentioned the horses all over the place -- or at the very least, lining the Greyhound bus route. I also happen to know that it has been the home of several outstanding pit bulls who turned out to be perfectly wonderful nice doggies once they they were rescued from shelters or the streets and treated nice, overcoming the torture they'd received from some unfathomable people who'd fought them and then abandoned them. And then there was one who had just been mistreated too badly and stayed pretty crazy except around a couple of people. 

Louisville was the home of Muhammad Ali and Hunter S Thompson, and also of a guy who I considered a good friend of mine, although we only ever met on Facebook. He and his wife (another good friend) rescued the aforementioned pit bulls. He was also kind to people, offering his services as an attorney to people who had been arresting when protesting for good causes. He and his wife also took part in such protests.

And he also introduced me to the Louisville Can Opener. Google it, you'll thank me, and him. 

He loved pre-Raphaelite painting and realistic marble sculpture. I once tried to talk to him (on Facebook) about some non-representational art, Abstract Expressionism and such, and he wasn't going for it at all. I don't know if he was badly frightened by an Abstract Expressionist as a small child, or what. But that's okay. I learned a lot about the pre-Raphaelites from him. And about Catholicism. And Hermeticism, and Kabbalah, and Nordic Paganism.  And just generally about being a righteous dude.

Cancer took him much too soon, almost a year ago. He's in Catholic Heaven now, with some of the dogs he and his wife rescued (she's still at it, bless her kind heart), and in Valhalla -- they had to let him in, even thought he used his bravery in pacifistic pursuits. No way they were ever going to turn such a badass away -- and in the night sky.