links for 2009-04-28

  • "Syllabub is (now) a dessert made of whipped cream, white wine, and sugar. It may be flavoured with something such as lemon or fruit.

    Whether it is a drink or something that you spoon depends on how much white wine you use, and how you handle the cream."

    "Syllabub used to also have beaten egg white in it, perhaps to reinforce the whipped cream. The beaten egg white has disappeared. Cider was often used instead of white wine."

  • "posset made of milk and ale, zythogala"
  • A bit like sops, "Ale Posset: Take a small piece of white bread, put it into a pint of milk and set it over the fire. Then put some nutmeg and sugar into a pint of ale, warm it, and when the milk boils pour it upon the ale. Let it stand a few minutes to clear."
  • "Fiction About Apiculture, the rule of Bees over Humans"
    (tags: fiction)
  • "The epic line, however, almost never divides down the middle, through tens of thousands of verses in Homer and others. There is no imaginable linguistic reason that a central diaeresis should be prohibited in a dactylic hexameter. The notion that language generates metre in ancient epic—a central assumption for a number of prominent Homerists—runs foul on this and many other simple and obvious facts of Homeric usage. There must be a musical desire behind this rhythmic choice, based on notions of balance and a pleasing asymmetry, and of the line as a whole event, which determines the shapes of phrases whether they are repeated or not; only this desire can make any sense of the notion of a ‘formula’, as a thing that satisfies it."
  • "Welcome to the website for A. P. David’s Dance of the Muses: Choral Theory and Ancient Greek Poetics …"
  • "But as the Earth Day green-hype winds down, it's also the media's job to let you know that the planet won't be saved in 10 Easy Steps. Small changes are an essential first move and I applaud all who make them. However, we don't get to check the Earth off the list after we've bought the hybrid and recycled. Going green is messy and complex. It takes time, dedication and a willingness to make new mistakes. And it requires all of our efforts. Not just those of a certain educational level, socio-economic strata, or hip/hippy threshold."
  • "If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. The long process to make higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative can begin with six major steps …"