[lit-ideas] There's Fire In Them Thar Fields
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:49:45 -0500
JL fiddles with Loeb while Argentina burns.
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/17/buenos-aires-choking-in-smoky-air/
No doubt our intrepid reader of all things Greek rejoices, remembering the
mysterious "Greek Fire" of the Byzantine Greeks that predated or own precious
WWII flame throwers and Vietnam napalm by some fifteen hundred years and which
set afire many a glorious wooden warship in its day. Lawrence will proud to
know that Greek Fire was first used against Muslim Arabs in the first Siege of
Constantinople (674), and in the second Siege of Constantinople (718). But
it's Istanbul, not Constantinople now -- so I guess the Arabs must have finally
discovered water.
But it was a Roman, not a Greek, who's famous for fiddling through fires and
though JL's Italian (or at least Ligurian) by blood and though blood is thicker
than water, it's not thicker than the tomes of Loeb, one of which, I'm sure,
recounts the bringing of fire by Prometheus to manly mankind, not to womanly,
she remained in the dark. Some claim fire is metaphor for intelligence, but I
think not. Some say were there's smoke, there's fire. I say, where there's
fire, there's smoke. Buenos Aires, now known as Malos Aires, can attest to
that. Fire in the fields, fire in the fields, hie ho the dairy-o, there's fire
in the fields. Let us hope that JL takes advantage of the situation and throws
his Loebs on the bonfire of vanities and cooks up some s'mores.
Mike Geary
unable to sleep knowing JL's River Plat is ablaze
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