Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Finding myself unable to read constructively in the Lauree Lair, I took my little white binder with articles therein contained ins Bibliothek, worin ich read Korfmann's 2003 report on the excavations at Troia. I had earlier downloaded and printed the PDF file from the Troia Project website, because to sit before the computer reading these sorts of things would break my eyes (meine Augen brechen). Of course, one might point out that Malcolm X damaged his eyes reading hard-copy books and newspapers, but he did thus at night... in a jail cell.
If only I had a jail cell. I could incubate in my bedsheet, reading in solitary confinement everything my morbid little heart desires. To be alone with my books, snuggling Kermie to my chest, perhaps, is really the most I want from life. One would think such a lifestyle would not be expensive to maintain.
I reflected on this as I lay in the middle of one of the aisles devoted to the analysis of classical literature (I knew I would not be there trampled upon). There are so many books, but there exists only one Lauree (which the rest of the world must lament).
Korfmann's report proved informative, if a little disappointing. He wrote it in both German and English versions, which saved time I would have spent looking up every two words and provided some distractive amusement as I glanced between the two texts. At one point, on the English side, he wrote a sentence beginning, "We girded up our loins to..." I naturally sought out the corresponding German sentence, if only to add the German equivalent to my phrase vocabulary so that I might impress one of my German classes next week by somehow incorporating said phrase into conversation somewhere. Aber ich war enttäuscht. The German side contained only the other half of the sentence, with no reference at all to either loins or the activity of girding oneself.
A part of my paper will focus upon Korfmann's continual development and use of advancements in archaelogical and surveying technology (carbon-14 dating, magnetometers, and so forth). At the conclusion of one section detailing work classifying potsherds, Korfmann mentioned his staff were preoccupied with relocating previous finds from wooden to plastic crates. I hope I remember to document this important step.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 7:34 PM]