New York at Dusk

There are times when I walk alone in the streets of New York, when I'm surrounded by looming glass behemoths against the deep blue dusk, when the air is crisp and a fine mist of rain coats the pavement, when the hum of human activity permeates the corners of the city -- times when I'm happy to be alive and grateful to live in such a magnificent, vibrant place. There's nowhere quite like New York.

I took this picture near Rockefeller Center a few weeks ago (the lights of Radio City Music Hall are visible in the lower left). Something about the lone building lit up against a swathe of clouds reminds me of Egypt, of obelisks and monuments erected by long-dead Pharaohs.

This photograph was taken from the High Line. The red-and-white illuminated building in the center is the Empire State Building (I love the way the spire disappears into the clouds). The polyhedral glass rooftop structure, I discovered, contains what appears to be a small library, replete with armchairs, lamps, and a few shelves of books. (That has to be one of the coolest library designs I've seen!)

I took this picture a month or two ago at the piers on the West Side. (The "BEA on a Boat" party happened on that boat, actually.) I was struck by the "halo effect" of the setting sun behind the mast; the boat and the play of light on the water reminds me of the elven ships sailing into the west in The Lord of the Rings.

There's something melancholy and fiercely beautiful about this city when you're alone, spending some quality time with it, just drinking it in.

What Would You Do with a Time Machine?

I've been asked the above question quite a few times (I think it happens to history majors fairly frequently), and my answer tends to vary depending on the classes I happen(ed) to be taking, the books in my bag, the day of the week, &c. By now, I do have a list of responses that I cycle through and explain in depth at parties (which, for me, are of the variety that includes social dancing, board games, home cooking, or karaoke).

This is an answer I've given before, because I think it's one of the great tragedies of the classical world:

I imagine the "Dark Ages" would have turned out quite differently had the libraries of Egypt, Rome, and all the other great ancient cities not burned. So much knowledge -- especially in the sciences -- was lost, setting human progress in the West back several centuries. If I had a time machine... I would definitely go back to save the second volume of Aristotle's Poetics, and Aristarchus's text on astronomy, and Ovid's Medea, and Euripides's lost plays...

In short, I would be both the best and worst Doctor's Companion ever.

Ozymandias (by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Today is the 188th anniversary of the death of the great English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his memory, I'm posting one of his most famous poems, "Ozymandias". (It is, of course, in many ways ironic that I should choose this particular poem on his death-day.)

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias was another name (as transliterated through the Greek by the early historian Diodorus) for Ramesses II, called "the Great", a pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt. He is often associated with the Exodus, though whether he was actually the inspiration for the Biblical character is still in dispute. Regardless, he was the longest-reigning pharaoh of his dynasty, outliving most of his family, and one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, maintaining peace and stability for most of his reign. The majority of his subjects, at the time of his death, had been born during his reign, and could not fathom the thought of a different man on the throne -- there was wild speculation that the world would end.

Shelley was one of the many artists who did not become famous or well-loved until after his death. He was more famous in his day for his radical and liberal politics (of course, supplemented by some reputation as a "minor lyricist"); his admirers were then were mainly other Victorian poets (most notably the pre-Raphaelites) and the politically like-minded. Now, however, his reputation is quite different -- he is widely recognized as a great poet (and of course, for marrying the Frankenstein lady).