lollardfish

Did everyone else know Biden's family history? Has he brought it up in this election cycle? (I'm sure voters in Delaware know it). It was news to me and genuinely moving.

I've always thought Biden was afflicted by "smartest guy" syndrome, which made him a good senator and would make him an interesting VP, but not a great candidate.

His debate tasks were very difficult tonight and he achieved them magnificently. Palin exceeded expectations, but moved few moderate voters I expect.

Obama on ESPN Radio.

Best line, re: the terrible domed stadium in Tampa, where his beloved White Sox are playing tonight:

"I'm gonna pass a law ... unless you're in Minnesota or Wisconsin, you're not allowed to have a dome!"

I am really bored with the Heroes badguy. It's been 3 seasons. Every so often they pretend like the character might develop. It doesn't.

Red Sox suspend season until John McCain solves our economic problems.

Hey. There's a bridge in Minneapolis opening tomorrow. So says "The News Hour."

John McCain's lies, the counterpoint to the list of flip-flops I posted the other day. Wait, not a counterpoint, more like another shovelful of manure.

John McCain said, today, that no one could name a single issue he's flip-flopped on.

Here's 76. Spread it around.

Q. How many Republicans does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Only one, but she's just going to put a sticker on the old lightbulb saying "This lightbulb has changed."

Today I went back to the Biblioteca Marciana where I feel much more at home than in the Archivio di Stato, having worked there for 4 weeks and 4 months in respective visits, albeit 6 and 5 years ago. This is the place where I wrote the first paragraph of my dissertation, this is the place where I figured out what my documents meant to my project, where I would storm out of the library and into San Marco to gaze at a mosaic and ponder. It’s a good place for me, and I’m excited to be back.

I warmed up with a little light reading on the mosaics of San Marco and gathering a few references for my paper I am (still!) finishing for the upcoming conference, then went into the manuscript room. I had a reference to a mss. From 1885 or so, but the numbering system has changed entirely. Once we figured out what numbering system it used to have, read a description of that document, found a book of corresponding numbers from the old system to the new system, I finally knew where my book was. I had an inventory of the mss. and was pretty excited, as there were some other translatio narratives which I hadn’t read yet, though I knew that they existed. This was going to be a gold mine.

Instead, I got a Gospel of St. Matthew, late, with the tiny glosses all around it. It took me a few minutes to skew my brain to read it and to trust the note in the front that told me I had the wrong book.

So instead we looked for a Greek .mss that seemed to be the right one, based on a note I had gotten from 1961 listing the contents. A 500-page Greek hagiographical codex showed up. Fortunately, I do read a little Greek, the TOC was in Latin, and I could be sure right away that this, took, was the wrong manuscript. So now I am panicked, because I believe that at some point … MY MANUSCRIPT WAS MISFILED! This does happen. The archivist was at a lost, but went to consult another librarian.

So I wait.

And wait.

And some bright minds confer.

And those bright minds figured out that I wrote 1890 instead of 1809 on my request form, in an entirely usual act of dyslexia for me (this is why I had trouble in math. Numbers liked to jump all over the place, I didn’t notice, I understood the concepts, but got the wrong answer. It infuriated me. It’s also why I love spellcheckers as they usually catch inversions).

So now I have my mss. and will stop writing this blog post while waiting nervously.