The right-wing obsession with Sparta is so weird to me. They were a culture that mandated pedophilia, were ruled by corrupt oligarchs, and eventually collapsed because of their dependence on slave labor and I see it now, that's on me.

Latin verse of the day: cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator (Juvenal, Satire 10.22) "a traveler who is empty-handed can sing in the mugger's face."

It's Friday night baby

Quasi fulmen Iovis Optimi Maximi ea cerevesia mea manu prehenditur

I made another blog post for the Pliny haters. This one's about his omissions of esse, which are neither very unusual nor very challenging for students, but people need something to complain about I guess magisterconway.blogspot.com/2026/02/comi...

Docere adulescentes Linguam Latinam est gaudium sublimum

quamquam errores typographici abundant, tamen vobis mittam, quia maximus fautor huius festi sum

FELIX FESTUM ASINI OMNES!!! If you'd like to read about it with your students, sing a fun song, and learn a historical dance buy my unit packet here! toutovlepo.itch.io/feast-of-the...

Today we were talking about historical Latin pronunciations as we sang Orientis Partibus for the Feast of the Ass. I used the English “vivat Regina” as an example. So at the end of class, a girl goes, “man I love Latin. What other class has you talking about Ass and Reginas?”

“Magister, what sound does the Half Life 2 letter make?”

melius rudis e corde quam eloquens e culo

de quadam Heu suprā lapidēs vitrumque frāctum rēpam. Tē cecidī vidēns canentem, rīdentemque, genīs colōre plēnīs, atque, clāviculās sub aerōsō līnō, cui gemitō velut labōre dēvictus bovis in jugō recumbēns. Illīc, ōs aperit fremitque. Lingua languida expositā, perit supīnus.

I knew I had a rough year but I didn’t realize it was a This-Year-Is-Your-Top-Song kind of rough year lmao

Ludebam hodie cum discipulis ludo Versipellis, cum ut solet quidam a versipellibus erat occisus. Rogante igitur me quomodo interficeri deberet, alius respondit, “kirkificatus est” 😮‍💨😮‍💨😭😭😭🥀🥀🥀💀💀💀

Shout out to past me for making desk work for all my Monday classes 😌

Refusing to hear that I don’t make a habit of celebrating my birthday, my students ambushed me in my room to give me a cake and sing happy birthday to me in Latin. I later learned that they found my birth date by through my voter registration information

Dūrat ab amne memoria fluēns vīvāx Michigantis Ad mare pervastum, nōmine Gitchi Gumī Aequor id effātur nōn umquam reddere captōs Cassiopēia cum fert hiemem orta polō

Infinitesimally closer

We’re getting there

Got a book deal, made friends, learned to speak a dead language, played DnD in said dead language, developed my political consciousness and found my local political home (now very much an IRL thing for me!) A lot of things in my life paid off this year that all started on social media

two weeks to go until the new term of #SeumasU I'm feeling excited and enthused about language teaching, which is a great thing! thepatrologist.com/shop/

Quī populō rapuit quoddam capitāle tribūtum Illō prō miserō lacrima nūlla mihi.

Mortifer heus pistōlā pulsus humī jacet ipse! Quid tamen est nōbīs? Hic status ante fuit.

*Vel fiat ut sis in casula rudi Vel fiat ut sis in aliis solis Vel fiat ut sis cum rapidis rotis** Villāve pulchrāve sponsā "Quomodo," tunc roges, "adivi?" "Dies adedi," me premat haec aqua. Dies abivit, sic subeunt aquae Et aere defuncto volemus. Amnis ad inferna vita solum est

Alii [Galli] immani magnitudine simulacra habent, quorum contexta viminibus membra vivis hominibus complent; quibus succensis circumventi flamma exanimantur homines. Caesar, De Bello Gallico 6.16

A coworker got mad at me this morning because the children of her student from 30 years ago took my class instead of hers lmao

On one hand the subtext of Ishmael and Queequeg’s first nights together is about as subtle as a freight train. On the other hand Ishmael being entirely oblivious and simply going on like they’re just very good friends is so, so much funnier

When a bar serves you warm beer, you should be able to take the owner out back and whip him with a scourge

My hold came in just in time for a weekend at the forge 🐋

to state the obvious: everyone in the regime believes it is someone else's kids who are going to be stitching the shoes together in the factories. but i think the majority of their supporters also think the factories are for others' kids. there's only so many jobs where you go to yale law like JD

lutnick et al are bringing the shoemaking jobs back for all of our kids. there isn't any more world in their plan where you have a side hustle flipping houses and everyone is elon musk. the colleges are closing, there's no more yale to PE pipeline for us rubes. surely you must see that guys

EVERY 30+ WHITE GUY NAMED JIMMY IS MR BEAST TO ME

Thinking abt this but from Phaedrus’ speech in relation to the endings of NGE and End of Evangelion, as phantoms and punishments. It’s interesting to me also that this version of the story is only found here in the Symposium

Heartbreaking: Lin Manuel Miranda is a writing credit on your favorite band’s new album

Real. I’ve had multiple students come up to me and say this. I’m so glad I’ve been following this closely enough that I was able to debunk it. I’d say utterly irresponsible, but I’m almost certain WSJ was just chomping at the bit to start a trans panic

Incredibly funny thing to get this mad about

Are there people (besides me) who go insane about the first line of Antigone the way the πολύτροπος people do? Just read an… insufficient translation and I’m trying to forgive the translator.

Today’s character from Latin 1, the emo elephant, Eland

Happy Birthday to Claudia Severa! Born on this day in the late first century CE. She wrote a birthday invitation to her friend, Sulpicia Lepidina, which survives among the Vindolanda tablets. #classicssky

Translating “Hwæt” as “okay so like..”

At least two of the knives in the last pic started as attempts to make the knife in the first pic. Finally catching up on comms. Only 14 months behind!!!!

Annual “I forgot how good and effective simple TPR is at basically every level” tweet

I just got some of the first art back from my artist, a former student in art school, and oh man it’s looking so so so good

My report to my chapter on the 2025 convention was picked up by Working Mass! Give it a read! working-mass.com/2025/08/22/o...

Got food poisoning this morning so I thought I was gonna have to power through my classes, but my students were able to speak Latin well enough to run the activity without me 😎 One of the kids is even using the accusative case correctly!!!!