September 15: Well, I tried

Maybe my problem is reading Dante in shirt & tie. I should try something more comfortable like this.

I've complained about the Dante translation before; the past couple of times the reading's been from the Inferno, so I can just turn to my Pinsky and figure it out. But what happens when it's Canto XXIV of the as-yet-untranslated-or-if-it-is-translated-unowned-by-me "Paradiso"? Nothing, that's what. (Note: long compound adjective probably one word in German.) I can't make head or tail of it. It doesn't help that our text appears to be a theological discussion:

“The deep things,” I replied, “which here I scan
Distinctly, are below from mortal eye
So hidden, they have in belief alone
Their being; on which credence, hope sublime
Is built: and, therefore substance, it intends.

As Dante did not say, Oy.

So....how was everyone's weekend? The wife and I saw "Burn After Reading," which we enjoyed very much. It's really too small a movie to have a summarizable theme, but if it did it would be that Americans are too dumb to be the proprietors of a giant national security establishment. I'd go along with that. But maybe that's for tomorrow, which is the Farewell Address.