Small fragment of good news...
Apr. 24th, 2003 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanza...like one fine gold thread floating in the empty air.
Word has come from Baghdad that all the museum personnel are safe, that many of the Islamic manuscripts and some of the smaller objects were saved, that a few objects are being returned to the museum by the people who took them. But, oh, the Harp of Ur is gone, torn to pieces by looters who stripped its gold foil and smashed the rest.
And some of the looters were professionals: they broke the heads off the statues that were too big to take, knowing that antique heads command high prices from collectors.
Well. Time to stop moaning like Cassandra. No, not that Cassandra; the ancient Greek one, the Woe!Woe! one. Or like Masha in "The Seagull":
[Curtain up]
Medviedenko: Why are you always dressed in black?
Masha: I'm in mourning for my life.
*small raincloud hovers over Masha, soaking her*
Audience: O-kay... time to go home ...
Captain Kirk: Quit writing plays, Chekhov, and drive the damn ship.
[Curtain]
Word has come from Baghdad that all the museum personnel are safe, that many of the Islamic manuscripts and some of the smaller objects were saved, that a few objects are being returned to the museum by the people who took them. But, oh, the Harp of Ur is gone, torn to pieces by looters who stripped its gold foil and smashed the rest.
And some of the looters were professionals: they broke the heads off the statues that were too big to take, knowing that antique heads command high prices from collectors.
Well. Time to stop moaning like Cassandra. No, not that Cassandra; the ancient Greek one, the Woe!Woe! one. Or like Masha in "The Seagull":
[Curtain up]
Medviedenko: Why are you always dressed in black?
Masha: I'm in mourning for my life.
*small raincloud hovers over Masha, soaking her*
Audience: O-kay... time to go home ...
Captain Kirk: Quit writing plays, Chekhov, and drive the damn ship.
[Curtain]
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-12 03:43 pm (UTC)Now I'm just curious. What is it that you do? Or is that secret? You seem to be well versed in things classical and historical, so I wondered if you use such knowledge in your employment.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-13 06:59 am (UTC)They were, indeed, Woed Warriors. :-)
I am an editor by trade. The interest in classics is purely amateur, and dates to college, when I studied the stuff and doggedly flunked Greek for 4 straight years, and loved it.