(no subject)

I have Hamlet as filtered through Bizet and interpreted by the cast of "Gilligan's Island" in my head.

(And I didn't even have to invent it.)

I think it's because I watched a little of Carmen Jones last night on AMC or some other channel, and the "toreador" song is stuck in my head, but with the alternative lyrics sung by the Skipper ("Neither a borrower nor a lender be / Do not forget: stay out of debt") in a bit of pop-cultural pointlessness from long ago which, apparently, has remained lurking somewhere in my memory.

A day of technical difficulties

Now you would think that a history of the reception of ancient astrology via the Arabs would be more fun and excitement than at which a stick might be shaken. But editing it is presenting me with tedious difficulties, thanks to my ignorance of (La)TeX, the author's (and his assistant's) inability to provide a different electronic format, and the inadequacy of conversion software.

The upshot is, after a couple of days of looking into the problem and asking expert advice, I can rescue the English text, but the numerous Greek words and special characters in Arabic transliteration will need to be retyped -- a particularly nightmarish prospect given the lengthy appendix consisting of long quotations from Greek and Arabic. (Never mind the few cases where Arabic AS Arabic appears -- that's just going to have to be treated as an illustration.)

Separately, I was having a Word 97 problem, but silas7 and julishka gave useful and successful advice, which I should have asked long before wasting time on the MS support site. (Incidentally, IE wouldn't display the site, but Netscape did...)


In other news, I had hoped to go hang out in Providence tomorrow and possibly Do Lunch with the Pancake Man, but it seems I will be working extra days this week, and if I hang out in any libraries at all it will need to be B.U.'s -- something came in through Interlibrary Loan that can't be removed from the library. Worse, it's on microfilm. Sigh.