Verbum Latinum Hodie: argumentum

Here I am…and you thought I wouldn’t make it!!

Today’s Latin word of the day – argumentum, and perhaps especially the “use it in a sentence” example given, ilia argumenta visa sunt certa…strike a chord with me today.

On day two of coughing induced laryngitis,

A big bowl of pho does a body good – ilia argumenta visa sunt certa

The past few days I’ve been working remotely from one of our satellite campuses babysitting the HR team of a retail giant as they rent a block of our online student abandoned classrooms for a hiring event.  After a nearly idyllic week of gently imposed solitude interrupted by kind offers of “help yourself to a bagel” or “come join us for lunch” from my renters, today, my voicelessness made me feel completed isolated as I tried in vain to communicate with distant coworkers about things that I couldn’t seem to articulate in an email and they couldn’t hear me speak through the phone.  

Although I’ve always savored solitude, being trapped in it can lead one in all manner of odd directions…

ilia argumenta visa sunt certa

And last but not least, coming across it as I looked for something else, I still adore this portrait –

ilia argumenta visa sunt certa!

Cucumeri condiendi sunt Richard Armitage!

Cucumeri condiendi sunt is a Latin verb construction known as a passive periphrastic, which is made up a gerundive (a verbal adjective) used with “sum” (Latin for “to be”).  It functions to indicate obligation or necessity.  For instance…one might say:

Armitage amandus est

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Armitage MUST be loved…

(maybe so, but that ensemble is another story)

When a Latin speaker was trying to communicate absolute necessity of something, the passive periphrastic construction was the strongest way to do it.

Cucumeri condiendi sunt

The cucumbers must be pickled

Indeed they must…cucumbers wait for no man, woman or media event.  When they are ready, they are ready.

All in all, I sealed over 40 jars of cucumbers pickled in one form or another (that doesn’t include the several gallons that are cooling in refrigerated versions of the same in various kitchens) over the last week or so.   Having put Picklepalooza 2016 behind me, I’m glad I decided to do it, despite dragging my feet on the front end.  Bluntly, the pickles were really pissing me off.  You see, everything about the pickles is on the pickles’ schedule.  The pickles don’t care if I have other things to do, Cucumeri condiendi sunt when they condiendi sunt.

As I bowed to the pickle pressure, I also reflected that perhaps this is in part what bugs me so much about Armitage press events…the sort of implicitly necessary nature of them, and the fact that everything about them is on someone else’s terms.  As a fan, in theory, I want to participate in things related to Richard Armitage, but barring a few notable exceptions (the original Hobbit premiere is one) I invariably find myself somewhere between repelled and resentful of the whole media blitz operation.

A big part of the issue for me is that I simply don’t have the option of being able to dedicate live time to events like the Epix TCA Event where images and commentary flow out across several hours from various venues and segments of the event – they always conflict with some other obligation.  Invariably, if I try to pick things up piecemeal, I’m always left with the impression that I’ve missed something, or worse, I get totally overwhelmed with the magnitude of both the material coming out and the swell of response to it.  Presto!  There I am, either resentful that I missed something, or repelled by hoop-la and the chatter.  This is something that I have struggled with intermittently in my own approach to fandom – which may or may not ring a bell with others.

I’ve come to a couple of conclusions on this front.  Like the pickles, I will always have very little control over the timing or magnitude of the event.  However, unlike the pickles, which will turn and rot if they are not attended to, thanks to the efforts of so many other fans, those images and interviews are captured and can be sampled at a time and at a pace that I set.  This is a really important aspect of my fandom, that is, that *I* get to define it…that there is no “right way” to be a fan, no fandom scorecard recording participation or whether I like a suit or not…that what works for others may not for me, and vice versa and that my definition of my fandom is an ever evolving thing.   You know what?

That is just fine.

Show us your “molle latus” Richard Armitage!

#NERDALERT

I found something new to distract me from things I’m supposed to be doing for the people who pay me to do them…I now have a daily email subscription to a word of the day site that publishes for Latin.  I mean really, who *doesn’t* need that?!?

Always on the lookout for Armitage Classical connections, I couldn’t help but jump on the word for today:

 I love to use word association exercises in classes…it seems I also do it in my spare time.  In Latin.  Mollis popped up in my email and an image popped immediately into my head:

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From S1, Ep4 of Strikeback, here John Porter (Richard Armitage) learns via video conference with his daughter of the unexpected death of her mother.  It’s not a terribly long scene…only a few seconds, but the tenderness is palpable – pictured here in the expression on his face as he tries to visually commiserate with his daughter from a thousand miles away.  For me, we miss the very best bit of this scene in the screen caps…that is, when he reaches out one finger and strokes it down the screen to comfort her.

 *deaded*

In a very short collection of frames, Richard Armitage’s John Porter is heart wrenchingly showing us his latus molle (“soft side”).  I think it’s particularly effective because it stands in stark contrast to the preceding hour of John Porter – bad ass SAS commando on a mission.

Tenderness seems like an odd trait for such a person, in fact, Latin literature is full of pejorative uses of mollis in contexts that seek to characterize men as soft or effeminate.  In the case of John Porter though, the glimpses of mollis seem to be one of the biggest draws to a character who could have been really one dimensional. Throughout the Strikeback series, in little vignettes, Richard Armitage consistently brings a degree of mollis to John Porter that makes him a far more complex and interesting character.

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Small wonder he’s still solidly in my top 5!

Virtutes Romanae: Richard Armitage and Responsibilitas

I was talking to my Intro class yesterday about Plato’s Republic…specifically about the criteria required for one to become a Philosopher-King in Plato’s ideal state- yes, I know, it’s a veritable carnival of fun in Prof. Obscura’s classroom!  In any case, one of the criteria Plato identifies is an ideal age…40-ish, young enough to still be physically strong, and mature enough to employ reason.  The 18-20 year olds in the crowd are skeptical that the “olds” would make better kings, but I point out that, with age, comes experience which theoretically assists in the process.   One of the natural offshoots of this is the increased capacity for personal responsibility – accountability if you will.  Not only must the philosopher king be a good and just ruler, but as such, he must be able to accept responsibility for his decisions.

This is something that a lot of people, especially young people struggle with.  It is a daily parenting challenge for me…a pet peeve even.  Case in point.  Last summer, I won an iPad3…yes won – free to me – yay!!!  All was rosy for about two weeks until I asked my then 13 year old son to carry it to the car for me.  He did, and as I was coming out the door, I watched him accidentally drop it.  It landed on one corner on the concrete driveway.  The conversation went something like this:

Yeah, it looked a little something like this…

Me:  Did you just drop the iPad?

Him:  No..

Me:  I watched you do it.   Is it broken?  (I could plainly see that the display was severely cracked)

Him:  No – You should have put it in a case.  (true, but not the central point here)

Me:  Just admit that you dropped it and apologize – I know it was an accident

Him:  *insert cricket sound effect*

I wanted nothing more than for him to take responsibility for his actions – well, I wanted an unbroken iPad, but accidents do happen – however, he is incredibly stubborn about this kind of stuff to this day.  It is something that will almost certainly incite future battles between us.

This notion of personal responsibility and accountability is summed up in the Roman virtue of RESPONSIBILITAS… What?  OK, OK  – you caught me wordsmiths!  Responsibilitas is not actually a Latin word…the concepts related to responsibility really fall under the Virtutes Romanae of GRAVITAS, but I already talked about that one here, and this topic has been weighing on my mind.  Richard Armitage certainly embodies the qualities of GRAVITAS, and I’ve seen very little behavior in his public life that would suggest that he has any lingering adolescent tendency to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.  In fact, his professional reputation suggests exactly the opposite.  It is something to which we all could aspire.

Richard Armitage reacts and responds to a question with gravitas

There is no one who is infallible – we all make mistakes from time….we misspeak, we mishear, we misunderstand, we overreact.  Mistakes are a part of life, but how we choose to deal with them can define us.    Mistakes can be embarrassing, but attempts to wriggle out of them even more so, especially if we insinuate someone else’s culpability to excuse our own.  Perhaps the best, most responsible reaction is to say from the start, “Mea culpa – (Latin for  “my bad”)  I goofed, I misspoke, I misunderstood, I overreacted..boy is my face red!”   I’m challenging myself to do this as a matter of course – no matter how much toner I need to balance out my complexion.  You can hold me to it!