Whitecaps roster - 2014 salary cap edition

Name	Salary counts	2013 cap hit	2014 cap hit
Signed
Sam Adekugbe	no	51,500.00	51,500.00
Bryce Alderson	no	80,000.00	80,000.00
Caleb Clarke	no	46,500.00	46,500.00
Russell Teibert	no	65,600.00	65,600.00
Omar Salgado	no	136,868.67	136,868.67
Kekuta Manneh	no	84,500.00	84,500.00
Jay DeMerit	yes	375,000.00	325,000.00
Jordan Harvey	yes	112,500.00	112,500.00
Eric Hurtado	yes	81,500.00	81,500.00
Gershon Koffie	yes	176,000.00	176,000.00
Matt Watson	yes	79,251.98	79,251.98
Aminu Abdallah	yes	46,500.00	46,500.00
Johnny Leveron	yes	71,187.50	71,187.50
Darren Mattocks	yes	212,000.00	212,000.00
Carlyle Mitchell	yes	46,500.00	60,000.00
Andy O'Brien	yes	230,012.04	230,012.04
David Ousted	yes	166,156.25	200,000.00
Kenny Miller	yes	387,000.00	195,000.00
Nigel Reo-Coker	yes	237,362.50	387,000.00
		Total	2,175,951.52
Unsigned
Creative mid	yes		387,000.00
Starting RB	yes		150,000.00
Back-up RB	yes		60,000.00
Back-up GK	yes		70,000.00
Mehdi Ballouchy	yes	152,006.00	80,000.00
Andre Lewis	yes		80,000.00
Mamadou Diouf	yes		80,000.00
		Total	907,000.00
		Grand total	3,082,951.52
Christian Dean	no		100,000.00
Marco Carducci	no		35,000.00
Ben Fisk	no		60,000.00
Marco Bustos	no		46,500.00
Kianz Froese	no		46,500.00
Jackson Farmer	no		70,000.00

Here are my estimates for the Whitecaps' salary cap situation, as it stands on January 20. For updates, check out new posts on Two Fat Bastards.

1. The MLS salary cap for 2014 will be somewhere close to $3.097 million. 
2. If I haven't heard or thought differently, I have carried 2013 salaries over to 2014. There are some exceptions. I am considering building in a 2-5% raise for everyone. 
3. The table wouldn't fit further squad info that would explain why players are or aren't on the cap - suffice it to say that I think I'm pretty solid there. GA, homegrown, salary amounts, etc. 
4. I've guessed at DeMerit's salary based on a few things - it's much higher than other estimates I've seen ($200k, etc). I'd be willing to wager that he hasn't taken much of a pay cut.
5. Kenny Miller's amount is for a half-season as a DP. That could change quickly - so much depends on whether he'll be heading back to Scotland/Europe in the summer transfer window.
6. I've generously given our unsigned midfield playmaker a DP salary. Here's hoping we find someone whose skills demand it.
7. The amounts for the unsigned players are obviously estimates, but I've looked at a lot of salaries in the league for most positions, and I think I'm pretty solid there. We could pay more for a starting right back. If we pay more for a back-up keeper we're foolish.
8. The Homegrown Generation Adidas situation is not clear at all right now. We have no idea if Teibert remains a homegrown, if players ever transition to normal from homegrown, and so far it's unclear how much salary teams are allowed to allocate to Homegrown GA players above the league minimum before it counts against the cap. Yay MLS. 
9. I expect we'll see some signed players leave before the March 1 roster deadline - if I was a betting man, I would guess Abdallah won't be here, maybe Hurtado, maybe one CB.

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

The plan was to read Waiting For Godot, then read about it, and see how much made sense. I'm currently 50 pages through (it's 60 pages long), and I'm now convinced that it will much more valuable to me to have more background info.

So now the plan is to write down some thoughts/observations, then read about it, then finish it and finish my thoughts below. Here we go:

---

Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot, see, but they don't know why, they don't know when he's coming, and they don't know why they're waiting. Nor do they seem to remember much about anything. It's all absurd dialogue, quick banter, etc.

Along come a couple of odd ducks, Pozzo treating Lucky like a slave/horse - they engage in some wackery, and then they go. They come back, leave, etc. Boy enters, announces Godot's delayed arrival. Ten pages left.

I'm clearly missing a bunch of allegorical stuff. It's about God, I get that. (This just reminded me of High Fidelity: The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in the Time of Cholera - they're about girls, right?)

Are Vladimir and Estragon stand-ins for Russia and Spain? Seems too obvious. Both historically Christian nation/states/societies, though.

Pozzo represents some culture - maybe the Romans, with the chariot and such (Lucky is pulling him). Not sure what Lucky is - subservient masses? And then Boy comes in to say Godot is coming - is he Christ? Fits with the Romans narrative. Maybe Lucky is the Jews? Okay, starting to fit a bit more, it seems. Of course, it could be nothing to do with any of that...

How is this going to end... last ten pages, here I come. But I'm not feeling at all compelled.

---

I'll be honest, if I didn't know that this was about God, I wouldn't have known or guessed any of this.

(And then I go and read that it's not about God. Ah fuck.)

---

Okay, good stuff from Vladimir, ostensibly about helping a fallen Pozzo:

Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us... Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!

But then:

Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come... We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. 

(Pozzo remains unhelped...)

Okay, this is getting quite good. Funny.

What's with the boots/feet thing? Life is suffering? And then the suicide attempts - Beckett via Camus, standing on the abyss, just not shaking his fist?

---

So, that's it. As my friend Emily reminded me, the clichéd bit about this is that it's "a play in which nothing happens, twice."

I would love to see this performed. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are doing it on Broadway right now - I imagine it would be amazing, and friends have said as much.

We won! or why fans identify so closely with their teams

A friend of mine (we'll call him "Darren" for the purposes of this piece) wrote this:

I'm a big sports fan, but I try not to refer to the teams I support as 'we'. In this context, I'm a consumer, not a creator. This Mitchell and Webb piece is a wonderful illustration of this idea.

Haha, quite funny, etc. (Especially the bit about Spurs as a rival for the title. C'mon, you're havin' a laugh.)

I've been giving this a lot of thought. I share some of the aversion to the use of we, but often find myself slipping into it. And here's why:

[Insert good bit that opens "Darren" up to the idea of seeing himself as more than just a credit card.]

...and the high cost of hockey tickets and the dead audience at Canucks games may engender a sense of feeling like a wallet, true. I have no desire to consume a Canucks game again. But I can compare it with my experience and cheap price for tickets to the Whitecaps, or even catching the Whitecaps Reserves for free at Thunderbird Stadium.  Are we ever merely consumers, paying for services rendered? Surely not when I attend games for free. What about if I pay $1 to see a game? Or money for parking? At what point do I become just a consumer?

(This ignores, of course, the library-like atmosphere at some Premier League games, and the ultra-high cost of season tickets for, say, Arsenal, but that's not my experience as a soccer fan.)

I assume "Darren" meant it in a broad sense of the word consume, as in to take it in rather than actively participate. Technically true for many fans, but not for those of us that choose to participate in the more active forms of support. When I go to a soccer game, I am more than a consumer. We chant, we sing, we stand and applaud, we swear at the ref in rhyming couplets... We participate. And I'm not even talking about being part of the spectacle of tifo and flag-waving and such that is often seen as an integral part of some game experiences.

This (at times) turns into the 12th man aspect. Crowds influencing games, etc. There's a lot to be said about the value of home field advantage, the benefits of having an active, loud crowd, etc. There has been a lot written about this elsewhere, and I'm not about to repeat it all. Suffice it to say that it's a thing, with measurable thingness.

And how's this for measurable thingness: Unimpressed with the effort shown by the team who were losing 4-0, ultras (hardcore supporters) in Genoa demanded the shirts off the Genoa players' backs, mid-game. And they got them. Now let's pretend that Genoa didn't end up losing (which they were going to do no matter what.

I detest that, absolutely, but it sure is direct participation in a game.

I'd like to take it one step further, though, beyond trying to insist (backed up by fairly strong evidence) that fans influence the outcome of games, so therefore are part of the effort that leads to winning, and therefore can rightly say "We won." I'm going to write a bit about community.

Like everyone else, I belong to a lot of communities. I have a family, I have various friend-groups, am a Canadian citizen, a resident of Vancouver, a member of a political party and a social change movement, and so on.

When a community does something, I consider that we did it, as a group. We rent a house, we like to drink wine and beer, we used to be respected on the world stage, we are experiencing a craft beer revolution, we aim to make things better, and so on.

And we just missed out on the play-offs last year. The Whitecaps, that is.

Looks a bit weird when I write that. We. Like I kicked a ball in anger. Which of course I didn't.

(Now, I did buy game-worn gear - I have played in the actual shorts that star midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker wore in an actual game. But that doesn't count, does it?)

Some communities have strict definitions of who is and isn't a member. You likely aren't a member of my immediate family (Hi, Nina!). You may be a member of my soccer team, or a paid-up member of a political party. We may have raised a pint together.

But even for most communities with clear boundaries, there are always grey areas. Sylvie has aunties that aren't her actual aunts. New people sub in for my soccer teams sometimes. Citizenship is not always clear, nor are residency, race, sex, religion, etc.

I'm blathering on a bit in order to get to this: in true post-modern wankery fashion, I posit that group-membership is largely self-defined. Or at least it is often so ill-defined or impossible to define as to allow for self-inclusion. We can argue about this if you want.

Moving on...

There's a feeling one gets from being part of a group or community, a sense of belonging, of well-being, that the hard-hearted amongst you may deny has any meaning. Those people likely go to watch soccer in Vancouver, pay for their $25-50 ticket, buy overpriced beer, groan or cheer, and go home, satisfied they spent their money well on solid entertainment. The product on the field, and all that. And I'm sure those people enjoy soccer a lot. Like I enjoy a tv show that I pay Netflix to see (David Tennant is a very good Doctor, by the way). Thanks, Netflix, for engaging in a financial transaction with me.

For others, there's real meaning in that feeling. It doesn't matter that it comes at a financial cost. Feelings don't get to be sliced and diced and categorized.

Here's where I should pull up a bunch of quotes about all this. Something by Eduardo Galeano, perhaps, the most romantic writer soccer has ever known. Here's one:

“The ball laughs, radiant, in the air. He brings her down, puts her to sleep, showers her with compliments, dances with her, and seeing such things never before seen his admirers pity their unborn grandchildren who will never see them.”

I've lived those moments. I watched Camilo do this:

And if you look carefully you can see me in the crowd shot after Eric Hassli does this: 

And here's the relevant bit: I've lived those moments with other fans, and even with the players. In soccer it's common for goals to be celebrated with the fans. There is no fourth wall in soccer. 

Multiply that by the 30 goals that teams might score at home, the others on the road celebrated with traveling fans, the near-goals, the heartbreaking losses, and you start to get a sense of what the fans mean to the players, how they're a part of the same community, with everyone willing the team to glorious victory, and sharing in the defeats.

An occasional game here and there doesn't do the same thing. Neither does watching on tv - no matter how many Arsenal games I watch, I still say "Arsenal won!" when reporting back to Nina about my Saturday mornings.

I'm not entirely comfortable with the use of we when talking about a sports team, but I've succumbed to it, and made my peace with it. It's not something that is at all rational (despite my above rationalization) - it's irrational, based on an emotional attachment. It's beyond attachment, even, to belonging. I belong to the Whitecaps community. I celebrate with them, I travel to away games with them, we watch Reserves matches in the rain together, we win and we lose together, all of us.

I'm going to finish this up, despite barely convincing myself. Mostly because I'm tired, but partly because this isn't something that can be fully explained. I'll let Dennis Denuto sum up my feelings on the matter: 

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

I started this on Tuesday while Sylvie was playing with toy food. It's going to be a fun, quick read. Part fish-out-of-water, part travelogue, it's a pretty simple story so far, and the writing matches it.

Joe McGinniss is an American writer who was completely new to soccer. He has a bestseller that I almost read called The Selling of the President 1968, about the marketing of Nixon - a book I'm interested in reading.

After the World Cup was held in the US in 1994 he fell in love with the sport and decided to chase the story of a team from a tiny town in Italy that against all odds was promoted to the second tier/division of Italian soccer.

(For those new to this: soccer in most parts of the world works in a promotion/relegation pyramid - that is, the best teams move up to higher/better divisions and the worst teams move down at the end of each season.)

It's rather simple for any fan of the game - he actually explains (in just a sentence or two, luckily) how the game of soccer works. But so far it's fun, and I'm a sucker for a story about soccer in small towns in other countries.

I was thinking of what this book might mean, at the heart of it, but I feel like I'm pretentiously searching for something that isn't there. It's a travelogue/cultural immersion sort of book that the food world thrives on.

In the end, there is a seriousness to it that I enjoyed. The first half floats along, painting a picture of a slightly buffoonish fan, stumbling through a world he doesn't really understand, but the second half explores some more difficult issues - death, morality, obsession. And it's worth the trip to get there. 

Beer in 2013

Beer in Vancouver in 2013:

Brewery: Brassneck, hands down. Stellar beer after stellar beer, produced in just a few months since they opened this Fall. Growler fill-ups available in 1.9L, 1L and 473mL sizes. Necessitates a weekly visit.

Beer: Driftwood Sartori 2013. Ridiculously good. Fresh, gorgeously hoppy, wonderfully balanced.

Go-to: Brassneck Passive Aggressive. I always fill up one bottle with PA, one with another. Driftwood Crooked Coast in the bottle.

Pleasant surprise: Brassneck Young B'stard. I loved seeing a mild bitter produced in Vancouver. 3.5%, not overly carbonated, and very, very smoothly delicious.

Disappointment: Central City ESB. It's muddy and too hoppy. Tastes like someone wanted to put a "westcoast" spin on a classic style.

Pub/drinking establishment: Hard to see past the usuals here, Alibi Room and St. Augustine's. But special mention should go to the new tasting lounges at Brassneck and 33 Acres.

Non-BC beer: Anchor Liberty Ale. I have no idea how mass-produced Anchor beers are, but this is a stellar beer that seems to be widely distributed. I always enjoyed their Steam, but this is a big step up.

Books for 2014

EDIT: Further purchases that I'm excited to read...

Michelle Orange - This is Running for Your Life (essays)

• Bought this on a whim at the bookstore (yay, Pulpfiction Commercial Drive). I love essays, I like the cover, and the first essay is called The Uses of Nostalgia and Some Thoughts on Ethan Hawke's Face. I know nothing about the author. 

Adam Gopnik - The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food (culture)

• Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, about raising a family in Paris. In this book he writes about food culture, another of my favourite reading topics. 

UPDATE: to add

Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (play)

• I think Borges wrote something about this, and then I spotted it at one of the best book shops I know - the guy who sells on Commercial, around 7th. A few pages in and it's so clearly an influence of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

This is aspirational for now. I'm finishing up Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, a wonderful collection of short fictions and essays (and, oddly, parables), and planning my next books as I look longingly at my book shelf.

As an aside, Nina and I have been toying with the idea of forming a book club. Standard stuff, read a book, talk about it with friends over wine and beer, etc. Might try to do something with this, might not.

The books, though. What do I want to read...

Ian Rankin - Standing in Another Man's Grave (detective/mystery)

• A new Rebus book (when there weren't meant to be any more...). I grew up reading comfortable westerns, and this is about as close as I get to that. Frustratingly repetitive at times, but it's a long series and I'll be quite happy to burn through this.

Ian Rankin - The Impossible Dead (detective/mystery)

• The series/character that Rankin moved on to after the (not-quite) final Rebus book. It's of a style, but Rankin updated the stereotypes somewhat, and he really is very good at his craft.

Joe McGinniss - The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (soccer history/memoir)

• A story of small-town soccer in Italy as experienced by an American new to the sport. A bit of travel tourism, sports history, culture, etc.

Adam Gopnik - Winter (musings, or something)

• I like to read the Massey Lectures every year. I've fallen off the wagon a bit of late, but Gopnik wrote one of my favourite books, Paris to the Moon, so I'm back, baby.

Lisa Moore - Alligator (fiction)

• Small-town Newfoundland, and the author won an award recently. That's all I know. 

Salman Rushdie - Fury (fiction)

• After reading his excellent memoir, Joseph Anton, I wanted to read more fiction by Rushdie, and I'll be damned if I'm going to try Midnight's Children for the third time...

Edmund White - The Flâneur (more musings)

• I love the word flâneur - it might be the most romantic word I know. White lived in Paris, and here he writes about his days there, wandering about the city, etc. I imagine the book is pretentious but fun.

Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote

• This is an ambitious move on my part. It's a bloody huge book. I'm looking for interested reading buddies to take this on with me. Borges has such high praise for this book, and since he's my latest authorial obsession...

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There, that's a decent list. I'd like to add a few more soccer books in there (most notably Dennis Bergkamp's well-received autobiography Stillness and Speed - here, watch one of the most beautiful goals ever scored). I'm certainly not as prolific a reader as I once was, or anywhere close to my friend Derrick's speed-datingreading regime...

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Oh go on, watch this other amazing goal by Bergkamp:

Vocabulary in Borges' Labyrinths

I decided this needed its own spot. Here are the words I'm looking up as I read Borges' Labyrinths. Most are words I've never heard or never known, though some I've known or looked up in the past but forget.

Nina thinks he's using words just to use words - I'm not sure if it's Borges or the translator. I appreciate his use of language, but I'm not sure why. In some instances I think she's right.


Ursprache: A proto- or root language, from ur- and the German sprache.
apotheosis: The highest point in the development of something; culmination.
proconsul: A governor of a province in ancient Rome.
palimpsest: A writing material that has had the original writing erased in order to use it again.
propitious: Giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable.
numina: Deities
lustra: 5-year periods
vade mecum: A handbook carried for constant use.
deleble: Delible, able to be erased; I think it went untranslated from Spanish, as it's an obsolete spelling.
ab aeterno: From time immemorial. 
Basilides: An early Gnostic religious teacher in Egypt.
dithyramb: A wild choral hymn of ancient Greece, or any passionate writing.
perspicuous: Clearly expressed and easily understood.
apodictic: Clearly established or beyond dispute.
Tetragrammaton: The Hebrew name of God transliterated in four letters as YHWH or JHVH and articulated as Yahweh or Jehovah.
Pentateuch: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
cosmorama: An exhibition of perspective pictures of different places in the world, usually world landmarks.
crapulous: Of or relating to the drinking of alcohol or drunkenness.
oriel: A projection from the wall of a building, typically supported from the ground or by corbels.
vespers: A service of evening prayer in churches.
essaying: Trying or attempting.
condign: Appropriate or fitting/deserved.
conventicle: A secret or unlawful religious meeting.
cosmogonic: Story of the origin of the world.
perdurable: Permanent, imperishable.
exiguous: Meager, small.
nitid: Bright, lustrous.
astragals: A small semicircular molding around the top or bottom of a column.
pullulate: Breed or spread so as to become extremely common.
hypogea: Underground chambers.
vituperated: Used harsh language towards.
impugn: Criticize as false.
solecism: A grammatical mistake; a breach of good manners; a piece of incorrect behaviour.
theriaca: Medical concoction; panacea. (In this case an antidote to venom of The Serpent.)
fulminate: Express vehement protest.
adduce: Cite as evidence.
guerdon: A reward or recompense.
fustigate: Criticize severely; hit with a cudgel.
veronal: A barbital-based sleeping aid.
misanthropy: Dislike or hatred of mankind.
stylobate: The base of a colonnade.
teleology: The doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.
philology: The study of texts and their meaning.
apostrophe: A digression addressing someone not present.
pathetic (see note 1): Arousing pity, esp. through vulnerability or sadness; relating to the emotions.
exigent: Demanding, pressing.
appurtenance: Accessories; subordinate things.
subtilize: Elevate; sharpen.
lozenge (see note 2): A diamond or square shape.
sheave: A pulley.
concatenation: A group of things linked together (like a chain).
permute (see note 3): Submit to a process of alteration.
exegetical: Critical explanation or interpretation of a text, esp. of scripture.
propension: Propensity (archaic).
lapidary: Engraved on or suitable for engraving on stone and therefore elegant and concise.
educe: Bring out or develop (something latent or potential); infer (something) from data.

---

1. Borges (or the translator) uses pathetic quite often, and at times not really in a derisory fashion. As with apostrophe, I wondered if there wasn't a different meaning that we don't generally use.

2. This meaning is archaic - the shift to mean candy started in the 16th century, when it meant a square cake.

3. I'm not sure this is a correct translation, and yes, I know how presumptuous that is.

Themes in Borges' Labyrinths

For now this will just be a repository of thematic sentences or phrases from the stories in Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths, which I am quickly falling in love with.

The God's Script
The presence of god in everything, the religious experience, finding salvation, etc. There's a lot going on in this that I'm missing.

The Waiting
A haunting tale about waiting for fate, about dreaming reality. This story makes me sad.

The Zahir
A story of losing oneself inadvertently in obsession.

Averroes' Search
A meditation on meaning and knowledge.

Deutsches Requiem
A powerful exploration of the mindset of a committed Nazi.

The House of Asterion
The story of the Minotaur told from the perspective of the Minotaur. Led me to read about Grendel.

Emma Zunz
Enjoyable - a revenge killing that examines fate and retribution.

Story of the Warrior and the Captive
More on duality.

The Theologians
"Aurelian spoke with God and... He was so little interested in religious differences that He mistook him for [his chief rival]."

The Immortal 
"Death (or its allusion) makes men precious and pathetic."
"... shortly, I shall be all men, I shall be dead."

The Sect of the Phoenix
The secret one.

Three Versions of Judas
Was Judas the ultimate follower of Jesus? Was his sacrifice necessary, and should it therefore be celebrated?

The Secret Miracle
A Jewish author killed by firing squad composes his opus in his head while frozen in time for a year as the bullets hang in mid-air.

Death and the Compass
The French detective/Kabbalah one.

Theme of the Traitor and the Hero


The Library of Babel
Endless possibilities - what meaning can we find?

---

Funes the Memorious

"To think is to forget differences..."

The Shape of the Sword

"Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it... I am all other men, any man is all men."

The Circular Ruins

"With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another."

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

"Thinking, analyzing, inventing are not anomalous acts; they are the normal respiration of the intelligence."

The Lottery of Babylon

"Babylon is nothing else than an infinite game of chance."

The Garden of Forking Paths

"This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time."

Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

"A scattered dynasty of solitary men has changed the face of the world."

Reading Borges' Labyrinths

UPDATE - Argh, I appear to have lost some of this. Not worried about the vocab, as I've now published it elsewhere. But I had added two other thoughts that I can't recall now. Bah.


I'm going to post the random thoughts I have as I read Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths.

---

1. Quote on the back from David Foster Wallace, saying Borges is the link between modernism and post-modernism. Two stories in and I think I have a sense of what he means.

2. David Mitchell is either a big fan or remarkably informed by others that are. Reading The Garden of the Forking Paths felt like I was reading something by him.

EDIT: Oh look, he totally is. This is one of his top ten books, and he specifically references that story here.

3. I feel like I am missing so much. There are references to so many things that I don't know and don't really have the time to research. I looked up one reference to a Roman leader, and loved it.

4. The last time I had to use a dictionary this much was for Nabokov. Ursprache, apotheosis, etc.*

5. Was Borges an existentialist? Does everyone who reads The Lottery of Babylon think this? In essence, there is a "Company" that people think controls their lives via randomized life decisions. But as there is no proof that this Company exists, "Babylon is nothing else than an infinite game of chance."

6. I'd like to come away from each story with a coherent thought or theme or idea. So far I'm not sure this is possible.

7. I love the playfulness in his writing. Here he is contrasting the original Don Quixote with a modern exact replication of it:

The contrast in style is also vivid. The archaic style of Menard - quite foreign, after all - suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his forerunner who handles with ease the current Spanish of his time.

8, 9. (Notes 8 and 9 are lost to time. See above.)

10. I don't understand all or aspects of: Death and the Compass and The Sect of the Phoenix. I enjoyed both of them, but the meanings or themes are not entirely clear. The first is a bit of a hardboiled crime writing, following a detective trying to solve murders that appear to be based on the Kabbalah and featuring references to Zeno's paradoxes.

The second is apparently a riddle for which the answer is sex. Thanks, Wikipedia. Seems a bit tawdry and dull, to be honest.

11. Deutsches Requiem is a powerful story, one I'm interested in exploring further. That likely means just reading this piece for now, though I'd like to read about Schopenhauer. (Yes, that's a bit ambitious.)


(Check this space for more insightful insights soon!)

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* Dictionary so far

Ursprache: A proto- or root language, from ur- and the German sprache.
apotheosis: The highest point in the development of something; culmination.
proconsul: A governor of a province in ancient Rome.
palimpsest: A writing material that has had the original writing erased in order to use it again.
propitious: Giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorable.

You can shave when you want to

This afternoon I bought this safety razor.

I have been pretty fed up with the costs of Mach 3 cartridges for years and constantly buying and throwing away packaging and old cartridges, and after browsing at Revolucion a few weeks ago, I was ready to take the plunge. A quick stop at their store in Yaletown on the way home...

$39 later, I was the proud new owner of a Parker safety razor, a box of five razor blades, and some tips on how to shave.

Here are the results of my first shave:

I was a little nervous at first, but in the end it was pretty smooth, pretty easy, and only rarely did I feel like I might nick myself. Looking forward to years of low cost and minimal waste smooth shaves.