35: Archaeology, translation, the environment, cont.

The Italians say traduttore, traditore (translators are traitors), but I wonder if the person who first enunciated this small piece of specious wisdom was not carried away by its poetic sonance. From the diary: ‘S. describes such waste in industry – in the brewery, for instance, his job was to discard and smash bottles already filled with beer should the label on the bottle be affixed crookedly. Conveyor-belt economics demands it is cheaper to discard the whole product than put the bottle through the process again for removing the faulty label and relabelling.’

36: Metaphysics & other tics

color has already been
bred in, an aposematic
act, an unsubtle warning
to the traveller that not
everything is what it
seems to be. Metabolism

that is, metaphysics,

abounds. (LT, 14)