Been a while. Have to wonder what spurs the communication bug. Is it simply lack of company? Possibly. Highly likely in fact. Anyhow. NAY approaching (New Academic Year) and things are bound to get busy. AS for me I am still escaping with bad writing in world I am sure I would not like to live in. Escape from what you ask? Who knows. Things are more or less optimal and yet Byzantine fantasies keep me occupied. Have a taste of bad prose:

The professor paused and turned to his students. It was early in the morning and a good 10 out of 17 were still in Morpheus' world, present bodily but absent in every other sense from the classroom. Two of the younger ones were looking at him with bright eyes. It was to be expected. Attaleiates’ great grandson Theodore and Psellos’ great granson Basileios Malesis sat on the front row proud to hear their professor read from the famous history of Skleros Seth, the foremost historian of his generation, still alive though impossibly old, and prolific like few others. Seth, who had been the son of a friend of their great grandfathers and one of Psellos’ last students had grown to become a sensation in Constantinopolitan letters. His Historia Leptomeres was a model of historical composition and was taught in every classroom. The professor turned to Theodore and before he could address him the 15 year old opened his mouth: "it is Thucydidean master. Seth starts with Thucydides’ staged dialogues, only he does something very interesting. This is not simply a set piece with each side presenting a dialogue to the agora. This is more novelistic. It is as if Seth wants us to know everything about the event. Clothes matter, tables and rolls of paper, even what the people felt, their hesitations. I have not seen this in Thucydides. I have not seen it in my great grand father’s work either. He cut straight to the chase. Not with Seth. He seems to have taken Achileas Tatios and the other Greek novelists and stole their techniques of detailed description. And I have to admit, he seems to have read a lot of Malesis’ great grandfather as well. All this emphasis in their inner thoughts is Psellos, it cannot be anything else." The master was once again awestruck. The young man before him was showing acumen that few mature readers, let alone students had shown in the many years of his teaching. He took another careful look at Theodore, clapped his hands to awake the two sleeping students at the end of the class and threw a reed stylus at a third who had fixed his gaze at the rear of Artemis’ statue standing at the crossroads just outside the school. He then addressed the young man with warmth that rarely escaped his body. "Theodore you’re truly right with this, and I may even argue that there is more. We are no longer in the realm of historiography. This class, by reading Skleros Seth is not just talking history. With Skleros we have politics weaved elegantly in the text. Have you noticed the configuration of the dialogue? Have you thought of the participants? Why does Skleros introduce devolution with those men and in the form of a dialogue? What does it mean that a man in a monk’s dress, known as a philosopher, a judge and ultimate authority are discussing politics? Do you see how the most important moment for the reform of our great empire’s system of governance is rooted by Seth in religion, philosophy, justice and victorious imperial power? Am I getting through to anyone of you? Does anyone other than Malesis and Theodore get it?" The silence was disappointing. The master started thinking that his classes would have to meet later in the day. The students before him were too sleepy, or simply too dumb.