I

II

Saget, Steine, mir an, o sprecht, ihr hohen Paläste!
   Straßen, redet ein Wort! Genius, regst du dich nicht?
Ja, es ist alles beseelt in deinen heiligen Mauern,
   Ewige Roma; nur mir schweiget noch alles so still.
O wer flüstert mir zu, an welchem Fenster erblick ich
   Einst das holde Geschöpf, das mich versegend erquickt?
Ahn ich die Wege noch nicht, durch die ich immer und immer,
   Zu ihr und von ihr zu gehn, opfre die köstliche Zeit?
Noch betracht ich Kirch und Palast, Ruinen und Säulen,
   Wie ein bedächtiger Mann schicklich die Reise benutzt.
Doch bald ist es vorbei, denn wird ein einziger Tempel,
   Amors Tempel, nur sein, der den Geweihten empfängt.
Eine Welt zwar bist du, o Rom; doch ohne die Liebe
   Wäre die Welt nicht die Welt, wäre denn Rom auch nicht Rom.

—By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

II

Speaking of CFB, yesterday I mentioned Mandel's-mispick regarding BSU vs. Fresno State (“upset special”), and he similarly got Arizona State vs. Cal wrong:

The Sun Devils are undefeated. The Bears are floundering. All signs point toward an ASU blowout, right? Not so much. Dennis Erickson's offense is good, but not good enough to win a shootout with the Bears, whose own offense is due for an explosion following two straight disappointing outings.
Cal 34, Arizona State 29

As he later discussed, though, the Pac 10 has better-than-expected defenses this year, and that holds for ASU, which shut down the Bears. I missed the game.

I likewise missed OSU vs. Penn State, in which, as predicted, the Buckeye dominated, though Mandel called it 16–6–there was considerably more offense, though (37–17). There's little reason to compare reality with his predictions, though, since he also got Florida vs. Georgia wrong. These are just my own notes for posterity, for when I look back on the season and want to figure out what was going on when.

I need to book my holiday flight home to the 'rents rather soon, for I expect my father to call once he gets home from Fresno, and he'll want to know what I want for my birthday (alas, the Blade Runner Special Edition [briefcase] only comes out in December, though that means it could be an x-mas gift, not that I trust him to purchase it properly, so should leave that to my brother), as well as when I'm coming home. He offered to pay for the plane ticket. Since my job doesn't keep me on campus or in the office, per se, I can leave “early”—I'll come back the day after x-mas, though, since the MLA—in Chicago this year—starts on the 27th.

I found a good fare from Milwaukee; it still requires a stop, but is less than 50% the cost of flying from Madison itself. That's the problem with MadTown; we have three international airports (Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago [ORD; who'd go to Midway?]) within a couple hours, so our own airport is tiny and has to connect through other cities for just about everything.

Yesterday afternoon $FLATMATE called and informed me that he'd spent the last few days in a daze of furious writing and he needed a break; was I up for a movie? Hell yeah, so he came over, rested a bit (that is, fell asleep on the futon), and after he spoke with his girlfriend we put in Lars von Trier's The Kingdom (1994), which $FLATMATE has an an Asian import DVD. We can't read any of the text, but the Danish audio (and English subs) was available. The Down's Syndrome dishwashers are nearly nightmare-inducing, the type of thing you'd observe in a Lynch flick before going to bed. Just add something in blue—Silencio!—or a chopped off ear.

Plus Udo Kier.

I never saw the US adaption (Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital), though there are clearly images in the Danish version that would be impossible on USian network TV.

This afternoon, as I was in mid-writing for something else, $FLATMATE awoke, packed up, and left. I'll see him again on Wednesday.

Tonight I have several tasks ahead of me—in addition to buying that plane ticket and becoming an MLA member, which I've put off for too long—including putting the kitchen back together and moving everything out of my bedroom, for tomorrow morning the carpenter will be back, and my room will be drywalled and painted anew.

I brewed an extra pot of coffee; it will go in the fridge as iced coffee, a necessary energy-infusion in the coming week whenever I'm too tired to make a fres brew.

III

II

Speak to me, stones, oh say, you lofty palaces, tell me—
   Streets, are you lost for a word? Genius, how idly you sleep!
Yes—though within your sacred walls, oh perennial city,
   All is alive and astir, still all is silent for me.
Who shall whisper the secret, and where one day at a window
   Shall I first see her, when first burn with love's life-giving fire?
Oh, those well-trodden paths that will lead me to her and from her,
   Squandering my hours away—can I not guess at them yet?
Still I am gazing at churches and palaces, ruins and columns,
   Carefully seeing the sights, as a good traveller should.
But all this will be over soon, and the city a temple—
   Love's great temple, and I'll be its initiate then.
Rome, though you are a whole world, yet a world without love would be no world,
   And if there were no love, Rome would not even be Rome.

—Translated by David Luke