Angels in the Architecture
I don't suppose there’s another architectural ornamentation that gives me the delight I receive from watching the angels ascending and descending on the West front of Bath Abbey.
And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
I really like this cover for a Chinese translation of my book How to Think:
Both How to Think and The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction have appeared in the PRC and Taiwan, and in both Traditional and Simplified characters. And for what it’s worth, the advances I’ve gotten for these editions have been larger than those for translations into European languages. The potential reading audience in Chinese is massive.
Although Finnish doesn’t have a direct equivalent of English’s “mustn’t grumble”, Lotta Sonninen admits, it has a few equivalents. “Vali vali” comes from “valittaminen”, meaning complaining: but there is also “marina”, “kitinä” and “jupina” (to complain under your breath or through gritted teeth); “urputtaminen” (to complain to someone about something they did); “nillittäminen” (to complain at length); and “avautuminen” (to complain at length with unnecessary frankness).
I’m largely a jupina guy myself.
STATUS BOARD
- Work: Getting towards the end of A Secular Age; starting Aristotle’s Rhetoric
- Music: Handel’s Concerti Grossi
- Reading: Still in Thomas Flanagan’s The Year of the French (not much time for reading recently)
- Podcasts: Sticky Notes is a truly delightful and instructive podcast on classical music hosted by the conductor Joshua Weilerstein
- Food: Right now I’m relying on my beloved to keep me fed, which she does excellently
- Drink: More Old Fashioneds, these using Woodford Reserve spiced cherry bitters
