Once when on a flight from Melbourne to Beijing on Cathy Pacific in December 2007, I decided to enter the inflight trivia quiz on the entertainment system. The hand held controller was unwieldy and when I went to enter my AsianFanatics forums user name, Vanadia, my hand slipped and it came out ‘Vgag’. I thought this name was endearingly ugly, so I adopted it as my WordPress identity. It seemed like the default nom de plume the fates had already chosen for me.
Blogs are essentially narcissistic and this one is about several of my current interests: history and archaeology: local politics and international affairs; Baroque music; local environmental activism and Taiwanese popular culture. My blogging mentor has suggested that if I hope to develop a faithful readership I should register separate blogs for each of these categories. So far I have refused: for me all these topics flow into each other and back again across osmotic frontiers. Maybe they will for my readers, too.
By the way, I once saw the motto ‘vivitur ingenio, cetera mortis erunt’ on an Albrecht Durer engraving at the National Gallery in St Kilda Road. Rougly translated it means: ‘One lives by the spirit; everything else will belong to death.’
I wouldn’t bother having separate blogs. My blog covers a diverse range of issues, and I hear no complaints (except, perhaps, the pleas of the ‘free-market thinktanks to curb my vociferous condemnation of their dogma).
By: Reuben van Bemmel on November 2, 2008
at 11:37 am
ur old hawr hawr hawr
By: Definitely not V on November 15, 2008
at 11:50 am
Does this comment refer to the issue of separate vs integrated blogs, or is it more broadly existential?
By: vgag on November 15, 2008
at 2:39 pm
Loved your review of Orlando, though it is something I would not get out of bed to see.
Also amused at your reference to blogs being “essentially narcissistic”, which certainly has been my view of the pastime…
By: D on December 8, 2008
at 6:05 pm
Thank you for your comment, O Philistine. I have never yet been to a performance of a work by Handel where I did not emerge feeling more cheerful than when I walked in.
By: vgag on December 9, 2008
at 4:17 pm
I had read your motto (vivitur ingenio etc.) on the sundial of an old house in the village of Crestet, near Vaison (France, department Vaucluse). This pentameter is the 38th line of the second elegy in Maecenatis obitum (Pseudo-Vergil). Excuse me : I am not such a fool as to have the ridiculous thought to teach you this source. Be indulgent, too, for the poor English writing of your humble French servant.
By: christian jaby on December 26, 2008
at 7:37 pm
Christian, Thanks for this fascinating information.
tibi maximas gratias ago!
I had no idea that the orginal source of the quotation was Maecenatis. Albrecht Durer had added it to an engraving of a humanist friend of his–I forget the man’s name. I think it was meant as a tribute to the man’s learning and dedication to his scholarly pursuits.
‘Mortis erunt’ means literally ‘of death’, but my Latin tutor told us that when the verb ‘to be’ is used like that it can mean ‘belong to’.
I’m going to post soon about ‘Latin mottos from around Melbourne’. You might be interested…
By: vgag on December 27, 2008
at 6:41 am
Your tutor is right : mortis is a genitive case of property, according to the rule : haec domus patris mei est, this house belongs to my father.
The man whose portrait was engraved in 1524 by Albrecht Duerer is Willibald Birckheimer, latine Bilibaldus Pirckeimerus.
A gathering of latin mottos in Australia will excite our interest. We are happy to get in touch with the latin scholars who are brilliantly working down under.
By: christian jaby on January 3, 2009
at 1:45 am
Salve, amice:
Thanks once again for this information about the Durer engraving. Our National Gallery in St Kilda Road, Melbourne, has a really extensive collection of Durer and for a special exhibition a few years ago, they had borrowed additional works from other museums. Many of them had Latin quotations inscribed, and I spent a wonderful few hours wandering through it, trying to impress my daughter by translating them!
I’m going to post soon about a quotation from (I think) Cato that appears in a mural in the old Latin classroom at Northcote High School, where I am currently the Head of Humanities.
I have already published a post about local Latin mottoes, and my Christmas post cites Horace. Have a look!
By: vgag on January 3, 2009
at 7:38 am
Glad you have also spotted a sacred kingfisher, on my urban walk on Nov 23 we saw one flitting around before ot entered its hollow in the tree overhaning Merri Creek behind Ceres.
By: nicole lowe on January 20, 2009
at 11:56 am
We may have seen the same one or a related one! I’ll look for the overhanging tree the next time I walk upstream. I think I saw one at Rushall Gorge a few days ago: a caught sight of a flash of blue and an arrow-straight flight path, but it disappeared into the trees on the opposite bank too quickly to be sure. C U at NHS!
By: vgag on January 21, 2009
at 7:09 am