Letter

Abortions are cheap,
And the unborn don't weep.
But what of the soul?
It too, we can throw in a hole,

I like the image there but the rhythm is awry. I considered “it too, we’ll throw in a hole” and “just toss it down a hole.” Neither seems fitting. By the way, my recent rhyming spree was prompted by my reading of Goethe’s Faust, which was prompted by my reading of Marlowe’s Faust. What are you reading? I know I already mentioned this book to you a long time ago, but I wish both of you would consider reading “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Goethe. Its not long and I couldn’t put it down, I read it for about 3 hours then stopped to watch a movie, but stopped the movie and went back to the book, besides you can easily find that book in the Cleveland library.

Unrelated sidenote: Did you know that Caesar was a celebrated fop? Many of the primary sources we have describe Caesar as “wearing his belt so low” or “loosely belted.” His dashing sense of style was deemed immoral by the traditional roman moralists ~ Cicero for example ~ but some prominent patricians on his mother’s side thought the youth’s dramatic flair would be welcomed by the “fashionably effete” Asians (Modern Day Turks).

I recently saw a special on the history channel about Turkish history and the stereotype is not altogether unjustified, a great many Turks are effeminate and dainty. Those tiny trim mustaches seen on Turkish villains in old British films were surprisingly consistent in the history channel’s presentation, not that I would put it past the history channel to consciously reinforce degrading stereotypes with the aim of barbarizing foreigners, regardless of their historically rich civilization. Although that presumes that the history channel is aware of just how irreparably degrading a bad mustache is in the eyes of the American Public.

The History channel’s most recent atrocity is a 4-hour long special on the History of Alien Encounters.

Caesar impressed the Asian’s so much that he was mocked his whole life for taking it up the ass from a King named Nicomedes. He also detested body hair and kept his entire body shaved, which might have been a difficult task during the year when he was appointed flamen dialis (Priest of Jupiter) because only a freeman using a bronze knife could cut his hair. But then again he was always a disrespectful little rule breaker anyway.

Marcus Antony found it greatly amusing to vomit in public. The people’s tribune was known to vomit on the Senate floor in order to disrupt unfavorable proceedings, which of course must have been hilarious, the only bodily fluid exhibiting more disrespect that I can think of would be excrement. In the future, I look forward to arguments about which bodily fluid conveys the greatest amount of disrespect. As I see it, there are only 3 candidates: piss, shit, and vomit.

At first I thought R. Kelly would qualify as the most famous expert on the subject of public degradation but then I realized that the U.S. military puts him in a distant second with all kinds of ingenious degradations, being naked on the bottom of a shit covered doggy pile, for example, would surely provide a lifetime of humiliating nightmares. Imagine an Oscar winner, pissing, shitting or vomiting on stage. It’s such fun to play that out in your head.

I wonder if modern society will ever return to the physical vulgarities ancient societies were so familiar with? During a famine preceding the French Revolution, a nobleman named Joseph Foulon said, “If the people are hungry, let them eat grass. Wait till I am minister, I will make them eat hay.” Well, the grass eating peasants get their hands on him on July 22, 1789, drag him to an infamous streetlight and on the 3rd attempt (first two ropes broke) finally succeed in hanging him. His body goes crowd surfing, his mouth is stuffed with grass and his head goes up on a pike. Comic vengeance smells so sweet! Perhaps I am that much more brutal than the rest of society? but I long for such physical vulgarities. Maybe that longing does not go so far as public beheadings, but I would love to see Clooney vomit at some dignified TV gala.

All civilizations were at an earlier time fascinated with blood, and most religions use it as an atonement of some type, and we Christians can settle for nothing less than the blood of God.

I’m just bursting with trivialities about Roman culture. I am bored and weary. Work is more horrible than I remembered. I sit next to a 60-year old Jamaican named Norma, and we argue about whether the student has demonstrated a minimal or general understanding of the text. Wretched drudgery and toil for naught.