Living in the past

Moving on to the Persian books now. (Yes, my Persian sucks, but know what? Everyone else's sucks much worse.) Who knew that the Islamic Republic didn't use the Islamic Calendar? Had I, it would've saved me ten minutes of trying to reconcile the 2002 publication date in the provisional with the 1961 date give by my A.H. to C.E. conversion tables.

Speaking of Persian, I suspect many of you have seen some version of the AP article on Iranian linguistic purism. I find it fairly frustrating that none of the reports I've seen--not even in the blogosphere--cite the actual words in question. I'm sure they're all there on the Persian Academy[*] website, but it's all in Persian so I'm hosed.

[*] a.k.a. Farhangistān-i Zabān-i Īrān. +10 points for consistency in the choice of a native coinage (farhangistān) to translate "academy" rather than following the example of the Hebrew and Welsh bodies.

Hiding out

Lazy, candy-ass weekend. monshu suggested we cower inside while the landscape baked and steamed and I was too lame to refuse. Saturday was entirely a Lost Day, but it was bracketed nicely.

Friday night, we hooked up with bunj & e. for Pirates. (Bear Report: Kevin McNally [Gibbs] still looking delectable in those mutton chops. Kudos to whoever made the decision to take away Arenberg's [Pintel] shirt for the duration. And, so far, a welcome bucking of the Bears Always Die rule of thumb.) The whole thing made me really, really hungry for calamari; every time the kraken appeared, I was like, What I wouldn't do for 1,000 barrels of olive oil and a half-ton of paprika. Since avant-show dinner consisted of fast casual burritos for me and monshu and some measly scraps from Starbucks for our companions (thank you, Cubs traffic!), we ended up a jin ju so I could get my tentacles and everyone could get a big fruity drink.

Sunday night, the plan was to grill down on the deck and eat upstairs, but the west-side full-length windows greenhouse effect made the apartment less comfortable than the breezy shaded patio. Knowing that monshu had enough pork marinated for a sotni of Cossacks, I suggested we knock on the door of our across-the-hall neighbour. Well, whaddya know, new boyfriend! Total sweetheart, too. At his instigation, they'd made naranjillo ice cream with canned pulp from a local bodega and, lulo mio, was it to kill for! He has all the foodiness that the ex--a gorgeously stocky but hopelessly unadventurous Hoosier--lacked. At last, someone else who recognises the true natural superiority of pork! I'll have to give his family recipe for adobo a try one of these days, not to mention the technique of getting the Christmas turkey inebriated prior to slaughtering.

Guessing game redux: Curioser and curioser

The records could still use some clean-up--particularly the Arabic and Persian ones--but at least I've made a first pass through the pile. Lurking at the bottom was another late surprise. If I give you the title, can you guess the language? Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to reproduce the original orthography, but, as luck would have it, there's also an official Cyrillic-derived script in use:

Учар тәхсәдәки муқам авазы.

( Need more hints? )