Another daily dose of Greek wisdom-

Προs την Αναγκην ουδ' Αρηs ουκ ανθισταται

"Not even War can stand in the way of Necessity."

Courtesy of Sophokles. The quotation below from October 31st is the Socratic maxim, "Know thyself," although fans of The Matrix may remember it better as its Latin equivalent, "Temet Noste". I guess the Wachowski Brothers figured that the Roman alphabet would be a little easier on the eyes!

Hope everyone got a fistful of candy corn this Halloween. I had to teach on Thursday, but one of my students did bring in a whole lot of Russian chocolate. Considering I didn't even have to go door to door in costume for it, I guess I should consider myself lucky, since the fall here in New England has all but disappeared, and the past week has been positively winter-like, with nary a hint of Indian Summer to be found. I've never seen the leaves on the trees change color and then drop so quickly afterwards! Those brave children who did go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood were rewarded well this year, as our downstairs neighbors (who live for Halloween) transformed our triple-decker into a house of horror fit for a ghoul, ghost, or goblin, complete with a blacklit stairwell, spooky noises, and four bloated corpses hanging from the second-story porch. The folks downstairs always put on a good show, and last Thursday night was no exception, but the problem with our little Halloween theme park is that it tends to go up around Columbus Day and come down just in time for Thanksgiving. I already have problems with people who for some reason can't seem to let go of Christmas, putting their decorations out at the end of November and steadfastly refusing to remove one blinking light from their display until Valentine's Day, but now all of a sudden Halloween is beginning to creep backwards and forwards through the American calendar into another de facto "holiday season". I'm totally fine with the idea of corpses hanging off our porch for a week or two. Beyond that, however, and I start to worry. At least the downstairs neighbors aren't the sort of people whose idea of Halloween decorations is orange Christmas lights. I'll take stumbling up a blacklit stairwell festooned with glow-in-the-dark nasties, extra-large x-ray blowups, and a talking raven on the bannister that scares the living shit out of me every morning for another whole forty days over a house draped with Interchangeable Holiday Lighting (tm). Now that's a truly frightening thought!