Octo-woobie (R.I.P.) has gone to sleep with the fishes. Miss Brown killerated him Thursday night. I got one final picture of him before his demise. He has been replaced by Mr. Puffer Fish (R.I.P.), who met an even quicker end than his hapless predecessor.
Mrs. Taylor, one of my high school English teachers, insisted that a book had not been read unless it contained marginalia. Her point was that books are tools, not sacred things, and that it’s important to use them to their fullest potential. That requires making margin notes and underlining or highlighting passages.
I guess I tend to agree with Mrs. Taylor. The Morford and Lenardon text was a staple of the classics department. Even if it was not required for a class, chances were, you’d end up needing to refer to it at some point. Likewise, the Lattimore translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. All three books are crammed with notes I took for various classes.
I think the interesting thing about marginalia is not so much the intrinsic information it contains, but the window it opens onto the moment in time when the notes were made.
red paper boat 