He looks as if he knew a great deal that can never be any use to him

[sovay]

Signs of Incipient Geekdom #1381: A friend signs an e-mail "SC" and your first thought is, "Who signs an e-mail 'scilicet'?"

I suppose it should follow without saying that I spent this afternoon researching Roman laws on citizenship and resident aliens for no project of my own, except that someone asked me a question to which I did not know the answer and I was curious. The process turned out to involve rather more Cicero than I had bargained for. Why does no one ever ask me questions that involve rather more Anakreon, or Lucan, or even Lykophron?

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Comments

[kraada.livejournal.com]

My thought was "Who signs an e-mail 'Seal Clubber'?"

[sovay]

"Who signs an e-mail 'Seal Clubber'?"

I think we're working up to a diagnostic quiz here . . .

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Sobbing Cat?
Sick Cobbler?
Slow Cunnilingus?
Savvy Claimant?
Sauron's Cavalier?
Stephen Colbert?

[kraada.livejournal.com]

You hear a strange sound from out back, from your favorite SC, is it a:

a) Suckling Calf
b) Super Cowboy
c) Spent Cartridge
d) Sippin' Carafe
e) Sensual Catwoman

[sovay]

a) Suckling Calf
b) Super Cowboy
c) Spent Cartridge
d) Sippin' Carafe
e) Sensual Catwoman

I can only hope it's a sensual catwoman . . .

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Your favorite Sensual Catwoman asks you to go inside an grab an SC. Which do you grab?

a) Suede Corset
b) Soulful Clarinet
c) Swanky Car
d) Sinful Caress
e) Seinfeld's Crotch*

(*) The author of this quiz declares this action not sinful. And not a caress-like motion anyhow.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Well, shucks, it just ain't my back porch without the old sippin' carafe, no it ain't!

[kraada.livejournal.com]

While drinking from your old sippin' carafe you get an idea! You're going to create a never before seen SC! What do you create?

a) Sexy Comic
b) Sardonic Cactus
c) Submergible Colliseum
d) Stiletto Compressor
e) Striped Colloid

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Stiletto Compressor? That's just sad. I'll go with the Submergible Coliseum, wherein I shall hold gladiatorial tournaments.

The first fight shall be the Hydra versus

a) Sammy Colossus
b) The Skull Crusher
c) Sid Crustacean
d) Seymour Cataclysm
e) Serratia Coral

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Seymour Cataclysm enters the Submergible Coliseum, and draws his steel rimmed LPs from their protective sheaths. Two deft throws, and the hydra is headless. As the winner, Seymour is entitled to:

a) Silver Coins
b) Squealing Coeds
c) Splendid Clockwork
d) Scenic Circumstances
e) Scrumdiddlyumptious Chow

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

The mighty Seymour Cataclysm is escorted to a golden yacht where hundreds of Squealing Coeds await, already half-naked and giggling. The party really gets started when Snoop Dogg shows up wearing dyed fur and carrying a sacred chalice.

"Hey, yo, Crazy Cataclysm," said Dogg. "Your vicorizzle was fortoldizzle." The gladiator is now recognised by the title that was in fact always his birthright;

a) Star Child
b) Sovereign Consigliore
c) Sweet Caesar
d) Seismic Captain
e) Sapient Commander

[kraada.livejournal.com]

All around the world the newspapers proclaimed Seymore the Sovereign Consigliore, the Master Right-Hand Man. And since he was Lord of the Number Two, he had his choice of who to serve next. He chose to ally with:

a) Speedy Congresswomen
b) Sphinx Conglomerate
c) Spiritual Comptrollers
d) Spruce Conifers
e) Spartan Comrades

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately he chose the Sphinx Conglomerate. Constantly, he was given by them strange, enigmatic missions that frequently led to his bodily harm and, before long, his death.

It was unfortunate Seymour hadn't known the Sphinx Conglomerate was really controlled by a militant punk band of vegan feminists, who despised Seymour for cavorting with coeds and Snoop Dogg. The true name of this band was:

a) The Smashing Cucumbers
b) Slasher Concubines
c) Sylvia Corduroy
d) Sagacious Clitoris
e) Sound Cabbage

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Sagacious Clitoris, a band so mysterious and misunderstood that it is said that nobody can ever find them, and even if someone did, they wouldn't know what to do next. They prefer it this way, because it allows them to continue working to create:

a) Superb Clogging
b) Safari Cloisters
c) Sadistic Coincidences
d) Serious Cravats
e) Secret Crusaders

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

You guys are nuts. I loved this whole thread. This would make for a good game.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

The Safari Cloisters was the fortress hideaway of Sagacious Clitoris. Located in the depths of the African Veldt in Bulungi, they had designed as a combination nunnery/stronghold/vacation resort. Unfortunately for them, their efforts to get it up and running keep being thwarted by:

a) Studly Canadians
b) Sparks (charismatic)
c) Stupid Clevelanders
d) Savage chipmunks
e) Sophists (congenial)

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

lol--and will you actually end up creating something from all of this? I can't imagine not getting a tale out of it. I'm thinking of an entire story done up in oxymorons, revealing hidden connections as the plot twists itself right back to the start.

It's funny. You tell this with such assured detail that I'll end up relating it as fact to someone one day, telling about a vacation resort that was also a nunnery, somewhere in Africa--I won't remember the name, but I'll know they should be vigilant about a few odd things while visiting--a chipmunk infestation and Sophists grinning on the roadside.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Sagacious Clitoris are working to create a Superb Clogging routine for their stage performances. Something about the smashing of heavy wood with their feet against the floor excites a primal frenzy. The addition of celery, strewn across the floor and stuffed in their pockets, Morrissey style, heightens the pleasure.

However, their varied endeavours caused them to be too distracted to notice:

a) The Second Coming
b) A Storm of Comets
c) Stampeding Caribou
d) A Sudden Cyclone
e) A Severe Chill

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Does nobody remember Suzy Creamcheese?

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

"What's got into ya?"

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

I have to put that quote up on my fridge.

Oh, and thanks for the info on the quotes. Glad the one was H.D. since I have her collection sitting right on my end table, always. I'm sure I've read Eurydice from it; now I'll have to see where those lines came in.

Now, I want to check out the others. Thanks!

[sovay]

I have to put that quote up on my fridge.

Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy"—it's a brilliant poem. (And cropped up once in a Star Trek novel, where I was surprised to see it. A.C. Crispin's Time for Yesterday, I believe. Erm.)

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

PS If a friend signed a post "SC", I would think "South Carolina". Or possibly "Where's the A?"
Questions on Roman Law can always be directed to Professor Winroth...

[larryhammer]

Stupid Cicero.

---L.

[sovay]

. . . I can always be persuaded to read that into a text.

[larryhammer]

Amen. (Don't like the man, don't like his writings -- which makes it all the more annoying that from a social history perspective I have to be glad the letter collections survived.)

---L.

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

If anyone asks you what Cicero had to say about the timing of the consular elections of 63 BC, you can turf that to me.

[sovay]

about the timing of the consular elections of 63 BC

Alas, this was about the lex Papia of 65. But I will keep your offer in mind.

ObIrrelevant

[larryhammer]

I think Colleen McCollough is onto something in her reconstruction of the order of events around Cataline.

---L.

[sovay]

I have not read Colleen McCullough on Catiline; only Steven Saylor. Enlighten me?

[larryhammer]

Oy -- it's been a few years since I read the novel in question, but essentially, she notes that he's the only authority for some of the things during his consulate, and that the reactions to a trial that he implies happened before Cataline only make sense if it happened afterward. (Or possibly the other order around -- as I said, it's been a few years.) OTOH, Cicero's blowing a lot of cuttlefish ink to distract from how badly he mishandled the crisis.

I think this was in Caesar's Women. She devotes an appendix to her argument.

---L.

Re: ObIrrelevant

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

I'm sure.

If you ever have trouble getting to sleep, try my scintillating account, "Catiline and the Date of the Consular Elections of 63 B.C.," Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History IV (Collection Latomus, vol. 196), 1986:234-246. "Without coming to some conclusion, however, tentative, about when Catiline finally lost all hope of coming to power by constitutional means, it is impossible to assess the degree to which he was involved in the conspiracy that bears his name." This was my only journal article in ancient history before I started my new career, in survey research.

Re: ObIrrelevant

[larryhammer]

If I have occassion to track that down, I will. I've always been curious what the professionals thought of the hypothesis.

---L.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Ah, obviously the message was from Smith College.
And on another topic:

MELISSA:
Pray, what authors should she read
Who in Classics would succeed?

PSYCHE:
If you'd climb the Helicon,
You should read Anacreon,
Ovid's Metamorphoses,
Likewise Aristophanes,
And the works of Juvenal:
These are worth attention, all;
But, if you will be advised,
You will get them Bowdlerized!

CHORUS: Ah! we will get them Bowdlerized!

[--W. S. Gilbert, Princess Ida]

[sovay]

CHORUS: Ah! we will get them Bowdlerized!

God, no! I am still scarred by an edition of Catullus I found once that had put all the best lines into French.

[larryhammer]

Which is why you learned French?

---L.

[sovay]

Alas, no. (It was easier just to read the Latin . . . ) But I suppose now I could go back and see how literal the French obfuscation was. If that too was cleaned up, I will just be depressed.