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I must study senjutsu and jujutsu that my sons may have liberty to study gakujutsu and gijutsu. My sons ought to study gakujutsu and gijutsu in order to give their children a right to study geijutsu and gayjutsu.
-Jon・Adamuzu, Edo Period
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
I enjoyed this book until the narrator went to jail and mended her ways. I put it down at that point, but after a few months I picked it back up and finished it. I would have liked a sharper edge to this story. A wrong harder to forgive or atone for. But I do appreciate the highlight of a bad mental habit: seeing your money as a pile of treasure that you can only deplete.
From my February Newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-125139737
Two years ago, Tim Morris collected all of his illustrations for my story Fellow Tetrapod. Check out some of his speculative evolution here.
I was both worried and annoyed. Is this what I had to look forward to with my daughters? This sullen incuriosity? This indulgent wallowing in victimhood? Are my daughters going to stay up all night watching disturbing videos and then fail to make their own?From my February newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-125139737
Cambias used to be one of the authors whose books I bought on sight. I still think about The Initiate and its meditation on moral desserts. The Godel Operation wasn’t as thoughtful, but it still had something to say about godlike AI and how not to be an egotist. The sequel, thought, had a hollow space inside it where there should have been an answer to the question, “what’s the point if your civilization is a sideshow to posthuman AIs?” In this, the third book, that hollow has grown enormous. There’s some action, some sex, some death, and none of it matters. I’ll pass on the next book.
From my February Newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-125139737
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"Oh, we don't really care about the other gods. There are so many of them and frankly we don't see any evidence for their existence."
"And you do see evidence for Apollo, Dionysus, and Hades."
"Reason, madness, and opportunity? Yes. We see them all regularly."
From Wealthgiver
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Two Etruscan sarcophagi showing embracing couples.
Reblogging again just to add that we know the names of these people. The ones on the left are Ramtha Vishnai (woman) and Arnth Tetnies. They are the parents of the man on the right, Larth Tetnies, who is buried with his wife Thanchvil Tarnai.
Etruscan names were top notch
As I was reading this to my kids, I kept thinking of Hayao Miyazaki. There's a scene where little princes Sophie and her foolish nurse are fleeing home as dusk falls and the goblins emerge. I could see Miyazaki’s blobby, wobbly-outlined style. I really wonder if he based Sheeta and Pazu on Sophie and Curdy.
From my February Newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-125139737
Into the Looking Glass by John Ringo
Fun and un-serious events occur after portals open up to a whole bunch of alien planets. There were some big ideas – one right at the end and seemingly attached to nothing. I guess, to the sequel? I wish Ringo had treated this book as a first draft and written another that was better thought out. General Pta-pta-pta needed a lot more screen time.
From my February Newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-125139737
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Anonymous asked:
Can you point me to any reference works or articles about metaphors for conlanging? I’m a beginner so I don’t know all the right terminology. Thanks in advance
A foundational work you could check is Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
It’s a fairly easy read that introduces the concept of conceptual metaphors, which can lead to a lot of interesting directions for you. I’m sure with some searching you can find a free PDF.
Just to give an idea, a conceptual metaphor is a basic metaphorical relationship that is pervasive in a language to the point that speakers don’t notice it.
One of their key examples is TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE and the extension TIME IS MONEY. From that metaphor we end up saying things like “spend time”, “save time”, or “waste time”, and generally have a relationship to the passage of time that we might not otherwise have. After all, you can’t actually stockpile a bunch of time — it just ticks on — but it does make sense to think of it this way when most of the population is paid by the hour.
Time is a big source of conceptual metaphors, especially when you get into how different cultures link time to space, but there’s lots more to look at in every corner of language.
Lakoff / Johnson is great for realizing just how deep and systematic metaphorical use of language, but the one thing that I was disappointed in was that they work entirely in English. I really wanted to see examples cited from other languages. This leaves one wondering about whether the metaphorical systems they discuss are universals or not. My own experience of other languages is that a lot of the metaphors are the same - for example, UP IS GOOD - but some are different - for example, direction of time. They mention in passing a language where the past is in front and the future behind (without examples); additionally some languages orient time vertically. Some languages have metaphorical systems with no equivalent in English. But the topic really needs more comparative treatment.
The past-forward-future-backward language they were referring to was probably Quechua.
THE PAST IS IN FRONT and THE FUTURE IS BEHIND is more common than that. I’ve seen it in Chinese, and it even exists historically in English (before and after).
I’m only suggesting Metaphors We Live By as an intro. There’s some comparative work building on it that will help with understanding different languages. We’ve covered some of that on the show before.
I never thought about "before" and "after" that way. Thank you for reminding me that I have a great past before me ;)
Funnier than Anna Karenina, more insightful than Vanity Fair. I wish it had focused more tightly on Katherine and Dorothy, whose relationship is the sweet counterpoint to the bitter ones with foolish husbands and untrustworthy peers. The conversation between Dorothy and her befuddled old husband is tragically perfect. I wish there was a sharper climax, though, and the superior husband isn't drawn with nearly the detail as the bad one. I definitely need to read it again.
From my February Newsletter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/february-storge-12513973
Three years ago, I learned about conodonts and made up some of my own. More here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63737156
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Anonymous asked:
Can you point me to any reference works or articles about metaphors for conlanging? I’m a beginner so I don’t know all the right terminology. Thanks in advance
A foundational work you could check is Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
It’s a fairly easy read that introduces the concept of conceptual metaphors, which can lead to a lot of interesting directions for you. I’m sure with some searching you can find a free PDF.
Just to give an idea, a conceptual metaphor is a basic metaphorical relationship that is pervasive in a language to the point that speakers don’t notice it.
One of their key examples is TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE and the extension TIME IS MONEY. From that metaphor we end up saying things like “spend time”, “save time”, or “waste time”, and generally have a relationship to the passage of time that we might not otherwise have. After all, you can’t actually stockpile a bunch of time — it just ticks on — but it does make sense to think of it this way when most of the population is paid by the hour.
Time is a big source of conceptual metaphors, especially when you get into how different cultures link time to space, but there’s lots more to look at in every corner of language.
Lakoff / Johnson is great for realizing just how deep and systematic metaphorical use of language, but the one thing that I was disappointed in was that they work entirely in English. I really wanted to see examples cited from other languages. This leaves one wondering about whether the metaphorical systems they discuss are universals or not. My own experience of other languages is that a lot of the metaphors are the same - for example, UP IS GOOD - but some are different - for example, direction of time. They mention in passing a language where the past is in front and the future behind (without examples); additionally some languages orient time vertically. Some languages have metaphorical systems with no equivalent in English. But the topic really needs more comparative treatment.
The past-forward-future-backward language they were referring to was probably Quechua.
She wanted help writing fiction, which is closer to my heart than English grammar and vocabulary. And, just a few years older than my daughter, she seemed to prefigure the dread shadow of the teenager.
From my February Newsletter
A year ago I wrote about the relationship between readers and writers:
"The metaphor I use in my own head is that a writer is the host and the reader a guest. You invite a stranger in, you sit with them, you serve them something good. Even if you don't have what they need, you're gentle with them. Likewise, as a guest, you're respectful. You might say "no existential risk, please," but you don't hand your host a list of demands. If this isn't the house for you, you just leave."
you can read the rest here: https://danielmbensen.substack.com/p/invitations
A year ago, I began serializing Petrolea, a novella about saving the robot rainforest.
Now, you can read the whole thing here.
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I first tried and failed to read Dostoyevski’s The Devils. Now that I’ve read Brothers Karamazov, I have a better idea of what he was driving at. These people are vicious, mean-spirited, self-defeating fools. Yes, and so are you, reader. Now watch: this is how you practice compassion.
From my January Newsletter:
Dragging a point out from lower down your post - WoW, CM Koseman! I knew about Snaiad & loved that but that was years ago, didn't know that he was doing new stuff AND that you knew him. Cool.
Devils was not my favorite Dostoyevsky either. Bros. K, Crime & Punishment or Notes from the Underground yes
@cmkosemenillustrated is still making art and publishing books, but I should say that All Tomorrows is substantially the same as the version he released as a PDF back in the '00s, with the addition of some "making-of" material in the back.
I think his next specevo project is a Snaiad book, but I might be wrong.
Notes from the Underground wasn't on my to-read list yet. I remedied that! Thank you!
Notes’ theme is a bit different from Crime and Brothers (which might be loosely grouped as No God / No Soul / No Morality / Murder OK) but still explores a nihilistically inclined little man. It is one book I sometimes hear as launching existentialism. Come to think of it, I should look at it again, cause the guy in it is starting to remind me a lot of the kind of guys nowadays who are isolated and lurk online all day getting radicalized.
The Double is also interesting kind of creepy little book. White Nights is Dostoyevsky’s attempt to write a romantic comedy.