a love letter to SUMPRODUCT

With shoutouts to INDEX, MATCH, and OFFSET.

All seriousness aside, it is amazing how much a smart application of a few simple functions in tandem can make you appear smart and efficient without requiring you to be so.

News for the curious

My progress in Russian lit continues. I'm on Pushkin at the moment, just his short stories. I should do Onegin and Godunov, I really should, but I'm not. Which reminds me, I just noticed that the name of the band "Modest Mouse" is probably a play on Mussorgsky. My chess has waned slightly, but I'm back to playing a little again. I sort of stopped while studying for that exam and did not quite get back on the ball. I played on the train previously, but now that time is reserved for reading. Such is life. I've been thinking about breaking out my guitar and that book again, it's been a few years and the neck is slightly warped, but I should be able to manage until I can fix or replace the thing. I suppose instead of this new project I should be learning more financial mathematics and looking for a new job in case they don't give me enough giant sacks of cash at my current one. Well, fair enough. Maybe. But I already own the books, the guitar, the chess sets, and what-have-you. If it comes down to it, it won't cost me anything to lay them aside temporarily since I didn't just go out and buy them.

Started on Gogol, already confused

UPDATE: In retrospect, I suppose the Russian role in the Greek Revolution wasn't that small, and then one considers the Russo-Turkish war immediately following it, so I suppose it makes sense that some provinicial who had some sort of military service could for some reason have paintings of figures from the Greek Revolution around the house. It's odd, but not incomprehensible.

I started on Gogol's Dead Souls because it quite fortunately arrived in the 12/31/07 post, but I am already slightly confused one of the characters. Mikhail Semyonovich Sobakevich (last name, of course, derived from "dog") is portrayed as being a bear whose furniture is essentially miniature versions of himself. What is incomprehensible: why does he have all those paintings of figures from the Greek Revolution? It seems rather random, despite the Russian involvement in the revolution. I have no problem with nonsense and randomness, but usually there is either some possible thread tying it together or it is completely nonsensical; what is hard to endure is something that may have some sense behind it which I cannot understand yet.

For Thou art our God and we know no other than Thee

Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship, the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One! We venerate Thy Cross, O Christ, and Thy Holy Resurrection we praise and glorify; for Thou art our God, and we know no other than Thee; we call on Thy name. Come, all you faithful, let us venerate Christ's Holy Resurrection! For, behold, through the Cross joy has come into all the world. Let us ever bless the Lord, praising His Resurrection. By enduring the Cross for us, He destroyed death by death!

The phrase in the title has been sticking in my head lately. It feels like it should come from the Psalms or at least something in the Scriptures, but I cannot quite find the reference. All my googling seems to turn up is this above hymn to the Resurrection and various other Orthodox sources which are clearly derivative. Even as vague a search as "you are our god" "know no other" (or with "Thou" appropriately substituted) does not have much luck. So, help on sources for this phrase (if any exist) would be appreciated. Obviously, the sentiment is found all over the Old Testament since it is the major theme of the work, but I want to find it expressed with these phrases in close proximity or in similar words.

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, il sait porter la croix.

I was surprised at how different the French is from the English. Well, I certainly do prefer the French.

Out of reading material

I seem to have run out of light reading material. Just having re-read Brothers Karamazov over Christmas, I no longer have any books that I can merely sit down and read. Of course, I have my books that I am working through for various reasons, but nothing for mere enjoyment. I recently took up the idea of reading the Bible cover-to-cover once more to consolidate my knowledge of it and to make sure I've gone through it all, recalling the example of a Protestant blowhard from days of yore on some other internet site. He was a bitter ex-Catholic who would go on long expositional tirades, heavy on direct quoting of Scripture, light on interpretation, but what interpretation there was was pretty wild. It came to pass that he revealed that, not only had he not read the entire Bible, but that there were significant gaps in his reading and that his absurd habit of quoting came from the fact that he could easily search, cut, and paste using this one Bible web site. While, of course, I could indeed say that I had read the whole thing, it really is to my shame that, for all we cared, I might as well have been in the same boat as him. Anyway! That is neither here nor there: the important thing is that now I seem to have an intense awareness of just how often Og, king of Bashan, is mentioned in the Old Testament. I also laboriously read through wise books written for wicked men who desire not to be such anymore (and, hopefully, take the advice to heart). The only things it seems I have around besides these are 60's works on Catholic liturgical reform and novels I've either read too recently or novels I don't want to read. Everything else is simply not suited to light reading (unless I really do feel like cracking open The Exact Sciences in Antiquity again, but that part of my life is long past).

Accordingly, using my various bookstore gift certificates obtained during the holiday season, I ordered several Russian novels to work through. I plan on re-acquainting myself with 19th century Russian literature and then plowing through the Soviet era. However, I would like to take suggestions for future thematic reading projects and possible syllabi. Probably 3000 pages would be the most I could stand to pay attention for at the moment, though I could certainly go into more depth later.

FYI, here are the books I'm planning on reading now, with more additions when I finish these depending on what trajectory I want to take. Some have been read before, but I felt the need to reread, others have been left off because I did not feel the need to reread (most notably, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and Fathers and Sons).

1. Brothers Karamazov - Just finished.
2. Tales of Belkin and other prose writings by Pushkin.
3. The Golovlyov Family by Shchedrin.
4. A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov.
5. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Leskov.
6. Oblomov by Goncharov.
7. Dead Souls by Gogol.
8. The Complete Short Novels of Chekhov.

I shall also probably check out the new Pevear and Volokhonsky War and Peace, but that would be quite an investment. There may be a film component, as well, since Wajda did Siberian Lady Macbeth and somebody else did Oblomov, so I may as well watch after reading the novels.