danielmitsui.substack.com/p/thomas-aqu...
06.03.2026 20:21
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
not particular to this post, but have you seen this yet, @parismarx.com? thought you might enjoy the sentiment.
this moment reveals all the things we've been lazily assuming can be valued quantitatively (and really, just meaning sheer productivity) as in reality not being able to be valued quantitatively.
so there's that.
There are several big sites with a lot of readable Old English manuscripts. This page of mine offers links to most of them ...
alliteration.net/historical-texts/translations-oe/
thx for the heads up! teaching an #oldenglish class right now, with a brief detour into volsunga saga, so this is where my head's at bigtime.
it's fun that you can tell where in time you are when reading the roman martyrology just by the names from anyone "in anglia" in a given entry—if it's æþeltruda et al. you're pre-12th cent, if it's "nicholas" et al. you're post.
when people say "ai" is "everywhere," it makes clear the extent to which they look at the internet throughout their days.
"each age gets the anglo-saxon oral poet it deserves."
—roberta frank.
i love how this woman writes.
when do i finally make time to read #oldfrisian poetry?!
remember when i used to post very close-up pictures of things almost daily. and that was pretty much it?
_the seafarer_ and _wanderer_ this week in class.
takeaway? you can cling all you want, ain't none of us getting out of here alive. #oldenglish
stapling my first paper exams in something like 7 or 8 years.
feels very professorial.
The blue of evening
not only is it #twinpeaks day, it's also the feast of king st. æþelberht of kent. what a world to be alive in.
OpenAI is a menace. Two recent stories make that clearer than ever.
One day you have Sam Altman denigrating humanity to defend AI. The next, WSJ reveals OpenAI could have alerted Canadian police of a potential mass shooter, but refused pressure from employees. That person went on to kill 8 people.
hear, hear!
itchin' to translate the #muspilli.
teaching _judith_ in one class and _beowulf_ in the other right now. feelin' fine. #oldenglish
I had an email exchange with a guy yesterday who insisted I was making a mistake not outsourcing my writing to an LLM. He said, "It knows more than you do." He couldn't understand that this was impossible because the work of writing is figuring out what "I" think.
i love being a professional academic. where else could a contrarian hermit find such acceptance and approval, i ask you?
i don't think there's much more to it. it's just a versicle (i think that'd be the technical term) that is said after certain readings during the office of vigils prior to the vatican ii liturgical reforms. (maybe it's said elsewhere too, but that's where i've come across it.)
thx, j-t!
for the love of all that is holy, does anyone have a clue when/how the "tu autem domine miserere nobis" response in the roman rite vigils got there?
'there are certain tastes, as of honey, certain humors and passions, as of the flesh. when those are either taken away or injured, notice how you feel.'
—guigo of the charterhouse, meditations
or, the monk formerly known as witiza.
3rd before the ides of february.
23rd moon.
+benedict of aniane, "the emporer's monk" (per the american cassinese ordo, tho the martyrologium romanum places him tomorrow)
What you come to remember becomes yourself. Learning will be to cultivate the awareness Of that governing order, now pure of the passions It composed; till, seeking it in itself, You may find at last the passion that composed it, Hear it both in its speech and in yourself. What you remember saves you. To remember Is not to rehearse, but to hear what never Has fallen silent. So your learning is, From the dead, order, and what sense of yourself Is memorable, what passion may be heard When there is nothing for you to say.
Learning a Dead Language, W.S. Merwin
(final two stanzas)
and here's the book it's all based on: litpress.org/Products/CS2...
curious about the history of monasticism, the rule of st. benedict, & maybe even how it was translated into #oldenglish in the 10th century?!
well you're in luck. @grahamscheper.bsky.social had me on his youtube channel to talk about all this, and it was a great time.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ene...
