Lesson 1, don’t panic, lesson 2 remember lesson 1 in times of panic.
uninstall the mysql gem:
sudo gem uninstall mysql
update your gems
sudo gem update --system; sudo gem pristine --allgo to /usr/local and remove references to mysql
follow Hivelogic’s tutorial on building mysql on Snow Leopard:
http://hivelogic.com/articles/compiling-mysql-on-snow-leopard/
you may need to reboot for whatever reason, I did.
rebuild sphinx
download 0.9.8.1 stable release: http://www.sphinxsearch.com/downloads.html
uncompress the tar file and cd into the directory.
env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" ./configure
make
sudo make install
Thanks to http://www.tommycampbell.net/ and http://hivelogic.com to guide me along.