From Chrisica@msn.com Sun Jan 28 04:35:23 2001 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW00.12) with ESMTP id EAA108810 for ; Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:35:22 -0800 Received: from smtp.email.msn.com (cpimssmtpu02.email.msn.com [207.46.181.18]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id EAA25558 for ; Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:35:22 -0800 Received: from 18spd - 63.27.34.171 by email.msn.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Sun, 28 Jan 2001 04:35:17 -0800 From: "Christopher Robbins" To: Cc: Subject: RE: Years - and It's Saturday Night Live in New York !` Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 07:35:18 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 In-Reply-To: Ever the fan of Zola, David Lupher headlines: >Chris Robbins crowed: >>Yes, for it is now obvious to all that my own nominee of 399 BC has swept >>the field entirely and gathered the laurels. > >Yes, but, Chris, remember that I was not asking simply for a single >significant *year* in antiquity, but for a hefty book devoted to >that---and only that---year. HA! One would be a fair fool indeed to seriously make such a "crow" in THIS forum. But I did append a minor qualifier, to wit: "It's just that it was the only entry. :-)" Note the "smiley" for textual analysis purposes. Izzy Stone's book would surely be one example. Gary Wills has written that Stone missed the point, but I rather think the gentleman was on to something. And a gentelman Izzy Stone indeed was, for I knew him personally. The Weekly and then Bi-Weekly were published door-to-door from his home in my hometown. I used to wonder how he ever found ANYTHING in the 44th St. house (that's DC not NYC). Open books, loose papers, journals, government documents, etc., all stacked nearly floor to ceiling everywhere and looking like a tornado had just ripped through the college library. But he did. The memory of Izzy gives me needed relief from my own chronic condition of LDS (literacy disorder syndrome). Except that I can't find anything. :-) It was actually Izzy who tempered me utimately viz Xenophon. The early 1980's, I think, though it seems a lot nearer. Xen brings us to BC 399 again too, albeit in Anatolia with Spartans. Strange this from Izzy, given the fault he would pile on the Thirty half a dozen years later. I had lain down the sword for a spell by that time. Now it was finance and mammon and business suits. And Gotham triumphant. But my own hardened memories as a mercenary commander and the the banaustic temper and passions that accompanied those times yet lingered, weaving the torn remaining fibers of romantic conception to a thin veil of opposition to the X-man, and others. I.F. Stone, as was usual, saw a larger picture. But surely, David, it is not just the "Princeton Affair" which gives warrant by the side door to Izzy's honorary classicist robes. A person who learned Attic Greek de novo in his 70's and then did the great bulk of his research in the original language. That, tto my view, is a item for note. But back to the books and matters classical too. It seems we are no longer speaking of books about a year, because there is a proposal on the table for books about a month. The rules, like the times, are a changin'. But why stop at a month? Why not a week, or even a day? That's it, let's put our minds to a book about a single day. Any day will do, so we can just pick one at random. How about, say, 16th June 1904. Now who on earth could find riches in something like that?! Abrazos para todo en este di'a del Super Tazo'n. CRR .