The American republic was founded, for the most part, by men with fine classical training, and anyone who takes the trouble to read the correspondence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson will see that their conversation is studded with discussions of points of grammar, ancient history,
I have been long considering a not too formal Italian class, partly to help people intending to participate in one of our Italian programs. When I proposed it recently, I received one positive response from the Cornells–at least from Papa Cornell.
Dr. Fleming and Rex begin a conversation on the plunge of the United States into anarcho-tyranny and on the American refusal to look reality in the face without flinching. In the next six (possibly seven) episodes, they will take up, one by one, the key events that turned a naive American boy into a Jeremiah, First up will be the downing of the U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960.
Van Houten, the Dutch chocolatier founded some two hundred years ago, is still in business today selling its brand of cocoa, but few remember the public-relations ploy that made it famous. Mayakovsky, in a poem written in 1914, recalls a man condemned to death by hanging who had been paid by the company to shout “Drink Van Houten’s cocoa!” from the scaffold as the sentence was being carried out.
Bowing to popular demand, the program in October we are planning will be held in Tuscany. My current thinking is to stay for 3-4 days in Florence and Arezzo, and from those bases we shall visit a few smaller places. Possible destinations include Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Pistoia.
Karl White writes in to ask which translations of Herodotus and Thucydides I recommend. In some ways, I am not the best person to ask, since I do not spend much time reading translations, but I have used a number of translations of the historians for classes.
So begins an epic poem that many readers even today regard as the best work of literature that has ever been written, equalled only by the Odyssey. I never cared for such judgments—the most important theologian, the 3 greatest western movies ever made, the world’s best hotdog. I leave the making of lists to newly wed brides who torture their husbands with “Honey Do lists” they post on the bathroom mirror.
Anyone interested in the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans–the languages, the literature, history, philosophy, etc–may wish to visit the Autodidact on Fleming.Foundation.
Before I say anything else about last week’s sojourn, I must mention the eatery where we dined on Wednesday. As it’s in Milan, not Palermo, where I keep such things under wraps, I make public its name and declare it one of the ten best in a lifetime of anxiously restrained gluttony.
