#King Thoreau

[paperpeachy]

green grlz 👋

[hamletthedane]

i really don't think it's fair that you're being pilloried for your really reasonable ass defense of thoreau, given that the "his mom did his laundry" critique of him doesn't seem to be deployed as some sort of rallying cry for greater equity in the arts, it's people getting mad that they were assigned "on civil disobedience" in the eleventh grade and then flunked a quiz bc they didn't read it

Thank you anon, I really appreciate that 😊

Yes, I agree that most of the comments on that post are uuuuuh weirdly very personal ad hominem attacks that almost deliberately completely miss the point I was making. Very frustrating, but such are the risks of posting online I guess.

On the other hand, I’ve learned some very interesting things from the other (less…insane?) comments! @comedownstairsandsayhello linked this very interesting article from Rebecca Solnit on the subject: http://www.dreamythology.com/uploads/1/7/2/1/17214690/mysteries-thoreau-unsolved.pdf

And I just reblogged @chidorinnnnn’s tags, which I think take a better faith approach to critique of Thoreau. Great discussion there.

[articlesofnote]

SCoR - Section II, Ch. 2, Part A "Origins of Symbolic Universes"

I. Legitimation is a "second-order" objectivation of meaning: taking existing meanings and integrating them into more subjectively plausible wholes.

II. "Plausibility" has two levels; first, totality of institutional order should make sense to participants in different institutional processes i.e. a horizontal legitimation/integration

III. Second, the totality of an individual biography as it passes through successive institutional phases must be meaningful i.e. a vertical legitimation integration

IV. Legitimation is not necessary in the first phase of institutionalization, but becomes so when new institutional order must be transmitted to new generation, because the reasons for which the order was created are not going to be self-evident

V. Legitimation both explains and justifies: explanation ascribes cognitive validity to the objectivations of the institution; justification gives normative dignity to the practical imperatives of the institution. Both aspects require knowledge of the institution, which is itself a form of legitimation.

VI. Analytic distinctions can be made between different levels of legitimation. "Incipient" legitimation is basically statements like "this is how it is." This is the foundational level of taken-for-granted, self-evident "fact" on which higher-level legitimations are based, and which legitimations must reach to get incorporated into "tradition."

VII. Second level: Rudimentary propositions; explanatory schemes directly related to concrete actions i.e. "be good or the boogeyman will get you."

VIII. Third level: Explicit theorization; institution legitimated by a differentiated body of knowledge i.e. legitimations are not directly related to concrete actions and are prone to elaboration/proactive integration by theoretical practitioners.

IX. Fourth level: Symbolic universes; bodies of theory that integrate different provinces of meaning into a totality.

X. The symbolic "universe" is such because it is possible to place any/all experience within it; "Its meaning-bestowing capacity far exceeds the domain of social life, so that the individual may 'locate' himself within it even in his most solitary experiences."

XI. Within the universal level, a whole world is created in which all other perspectives are considered limited/situational; the limits of this universe are wholly dependent on the ingenuity and ambition of the legitimators, "the officially accredited definers of reality."

XII. The "crystallization" of symbolic universes follows a process and has a history, despite presenting as a full-blown and inevitable totality.

XIII. Symbolic universes provide a "nomic" (ordering) legitimation to both individual biography and institutional order.

XIV. That is, the symbolic universe dictates how to ascribe meaning to the subjective apprehension of reality i.e. dreams are "not reality", everyday life "is reality." Integration of "marginal" realities is vital, as these are the greatest threat to the fundamental "taken-for-grantedness" of "paramount" reality.

XV. In other words, the symbolic universe "puts everything in its right place."

XVI. The symbolic universe also provides integration of meanings within the paramount reality of everyday life, either with reference to lower-order legitimations ("it's against DMV policy, sir") or more powerfully, with reference to the symbolic universe itself ("it's against the laws of physics"), providing "profound significance" to even mundane activities (again, the horizontal integration)

XVII. The symbolic universe also provides order to an individual biography; one can see their life unfolding in accord with a larger scheme (again, the vertical integration)

XVIII. This legitimation also extends to individual, moment-to-moment subjective identity ("who am I?"), which is highly sensitive to external factors; the symbolic universe anchors "sane"/primary/paramount identities against transformations from other realities (dreams, play, stage, etc.)

XIX. A strategic aspect of a functioning symbolic universe is that it allows the individual to integrate the certainty of death ("the marginal situation par excellence") sufficiently to allow them to get through the day, and perhaps even to face the actual moment of death with equanimity i.e. to "die correctly."

XX. "It is in the legitimation of death that the transcending potency of symbolic universes manifests itself most clearly … on the level of meaning, the institutional order represents a shield against terror … by bestowing ultimate legitimation upon the protective structures of institutional order"

XXI. Symbolic universes also set the boundaries of what is relevant in terms of social interactions i.e. they delimit "social reality," defining in/out groups in various ways.

XXII. Symbolic universes also order history, representing a shared memory of a past and trajectory for a future along which people can locate themselves and events.

XXIII. Symbolic universes provide comprehensive integration of institutional processes, but are always faced with the presence of unintegrated/unintegrable realities, including other incommensurable symbolic universes, and required to keep chaos at bay. "All social reality is precarious. All societies are constructions in the face of chaos." Anomic terror is a constant possibility.

XXIV. Thus the origins of a symbolic universe can be seen in "the constitution of man" - a psychic pearl around the grit of chaotic reality from which we wish to protect ourselves as we are forced to exist within that reality. Symbolic universes push this desire to its farthest possible limit, eventually "[calling] upon the entire cosmos to signify the validity of human existence." ----

re: I - Second or even higher order; legitimations of legitimations of … - Any examples? "Why" questions can reveal, maybe?

re: II - "Make sense" : "subjective recognition of the appropriateness/reasonableness of situationally predominant/institutionally structured actions"

re: IV - Collision of different institutional orders forces some kind of integration - or destruction; might have triggered consciousness itself, see Jaynes "Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" also Popper "Origin and Goal of History"

re: V - Control of what people do and do not know is part of all institutional order? eg. "1984", or "don't provoke those questions" line from "The Illusionist", or my own experience of "professionalism." Also, "1984" underlines complicity of governed in the project of knowing "correctly" - "goodthink"

re: VI - "Emperor's new clothes" - higher order legitimations/structures can in some sense override individual sensory perception: people will see, or believe they see, or pretend they see, what they "should" see, eg. Feynman anecdote about history of electron charge measurements

re: VII, VIII - Bit of a "draw the owl" jump here, IMO - maybe I should elaborate this a bit more? (ha)

re: IX - Implication is that you cannot justify human institutions purely with respect to direct experience

re: X - Jack London? Thoreau?

re: XI - "Replication crisis" serious beyond itself because it de-legitimizes science in two ways: it suggests that this legitimating mechanism is not capable of sustaining a total symbolic universe ("there are some things we just can't know") AND it shows many current practitioners, and thus maybe the practice itself, are flawed.

re: XIII - Hint that institutional order and individual biography might have structural commonality: Ego as institution, institution as ego

re: XIV - Because the "marginal" realities ARE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED by people generally, they HAVE to be dealt with in legitimating schemes.

re: XVIII - Implication here is that every event you experience leaves SOME trace in identity: "this happened to me" -> "I am the kind of person to whom things like this can happen", and possible next step of internalization, "I am the kind of person to whom things like this SHOULD happen"

re: XIX - But also, offer a prospect of immortality? "You won't actually die, in THIS system" - parable of the dragon king again!

re: XX - A very important section! Ties legitimation to fundamental urge of complex systems to exist: fear of death is fear of not existing

re: XXII - i.e. "Western civilization"/"the Judeo-Christian tradition", etc. Clear in today's society we do NOT have a SINGLE symbolic universe.

[smallmariofindings]

In Super Paper Mario, after defeating King Croacus, he wilts, assuming a desaturated color scheme.

However, a minor glitch exists whereby if Thoreau is used on him during this, he will go back to his regular color scheme, appearing more vivid. The effect is purely visual and does not affect any interactions.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[nateconnolly]

Reading List for the Student and Youth Anti-Vietnam War Movement

Personal Statements by Draft Resisters and their Families

Muhammad Ali's speech

"I Picked Prison Over Fighting in Vietnam"

"We Won't Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors"

"Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War" (free sample of full-length book)

"Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came"

Prosecution of War Resisters

"Draft Card Burning"

"Constitutional Law - Free Speech - Draft Card Burning - U.S. v. Miller"

Civil Rights Speeches

"On Black People and War" by Malcolm X

The Liberation of Our People: Transcript of a Speech Delivered by Angela Y. Davis

"An Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Davis" by James Baldwin

"Beyond Vietnam" by Martin Luther King Jr.

People that got on a boat and delivered medical aid to Vietnam

"An American Boat Sailed to Vietnam During the War. Then It Disappeared"

Homosexuality Draft Exemptions

"Coming Out Against the Vietnam War"

"Psychiatry and Homosexuality Draft Exemptions during the Vietnam War"

Primary Documents Critical of the Youth Movement

"Nuremberg and Vietnam"

"What's Bugging the Students?"

"On Civil Disobedience" (not the essay by Thoreau)

"The American Peace Movement and the National Security State, 1941-1971"

"Vietniks" (see also: David Miller's letter to the editor)

[scotianostra]

On August 15th 1771 Sir Walter Scott the poet and novelist was born in Edinburgh.

Walter survived polio as a toddler which left him with a limp and he used a cane the rest of his life. He was the first author to have international fame in his lifetime and is credited with inventing the historical novel.

Scott used the great storytelling tradition of the Highlands to help bring back the Scottish identity that had been cruelly crushed by the British. His Waverly novels were very popular in Europe and America starting Romanticism and influencing American writers such as Thoreau and Twain.

As well as popularising the historical novel, his books more or less invented tourism in Scotland. A family holiday to Loch Katrine inspired Scott to write the epic narrative poem The Lady of the Lake; a romantic, stirring tale of secret identity, love and loss. It was a publishing phenomenon and readers flocked to see the landscape Scott had described. Thus when travel entrepreneurs such as Thomas Cook began selling packaged railroad tours in the 1840s, Scotland was one of the most popular destinations. Victorians who had grown up on Scott’s Waverley novels, and now technology made it possible to reach these areas

Scott was a prolific writer, publishing two novels a year. Readers around the globe devoured his tales of historic Scotland and its noble, heroic people.

Composers in particular found inspiration in his work, among them Gaetano Donizetti who was inspired to write the tragic opera Lucia del Lammermoor based on Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor.  Franz Schubert was similarly moved, setting text from The Lady of the Lake to music to create his much-loved work Ave Maria.

When King George IIII visited Edinburgh in 1822 Scott was put in charge of the festivities. This was the first time a reigning monarch had made it north of the border in over 200 years and Scott masterminded a spectacular Scottish show in his honour.

He created a romantic - and, some argued, and still do argue, an unrealistic - vision of the Highlands on the streets of the capital with parades, gatherings of clans and swathes of tartan on display. King George himself lapped up this romantic symbolism, dressing in a kilt for the occasion and, like a 19th century influencer, prompting others to wear it too. It marked a turning point in the way the world saw Scotland, and the return of tartan to fashionable society following a ban enforced by the government in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion.

Scott’s influence in society allowed him to lobby on causes he held dear.Sir Walter Scott got involved in a number of political issues. Particularly, his interested in issues where the government was trying to impose things on Scotland. For example, the Bank of England wanted to withdraw the right of Scottish banks to print bank notes, it's testement to the man that he features on bank notes not just today, but going back to the days of smaller nbanks, like the Linen Bank in Scotland, The Bank of Scotland range of notes still carry his portrait. Scott He stirred up such a furore that the government backed down, so you have him to thank that your not carrying English bank notes around with you, imagine a life where we Scots couldn't have a good old moan about businesses in England refusing to take our money as payment!

Scott’s popularity as a poet was cemented in 1813 when he was given the opportunity to become Poet Laureate. However, he declined and Robert Southey accepted the position instead.

Having suffered a stroke in 1831, which resulted in apoplectic paralysis, his health continued to fail and Scott died on 21st September 1832 at Abbotsford, I hope to read and post more about Sir Walter Scott in just over a months time.

[study-with-aura]

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

I didn't have time to work on my reflective essay today, but that's okay. I can work on it Sunday if I need to. A lot is going on Sunday, but I will have a bit of time here and there to take a look at it.

Maybe I have too much in a day that I need to get done along with my extracurriculars. Then again, if my day wasn't packed, I would be lost. That happened some this summer, which is why outside of camp weeks, I kept adding things to do and creating schedules. Yes, I am a schedule and list person. I do allow room for flexibility, but I really love my lists and color coded schedules!

The next three days are my busiest, so if I do not post, that is why. I will do my best as I enjoy writing about the day!

Tasks Completed:

Algebra 2 - Completed worksheet on applications of systems of linear equations

American Literature - Copied vocabulary terms + read about Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" + read an excerpt from "Civil Disobedience" + typed up a response to literature (30/30)

Spanish 3 - Practiced reading my dialogue from yesterday + read the dialogue out loud to my dad (25/25)

Bible 2 - Read 1 Kings 7

Early American History - Read about Maryland, Carolina, and Georgia + read more about the original 13 colonies + read excerpt from The Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 + answered question + explored a world major historical event timeline for this period of history

Earth Science with Lab - Answered questions from yesterday's reading

Music Appreciation - Watched the listening guide on Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra + listened to the concerto + wrote out a music description using music vocabulary

Khan Academy - Completed US History Unit 2: Lesson 2.7-2.8

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 30 minutes (Spanish + French + Chinese) + completed daily quests

Piano - 60-minute piano lesson + practiced for two hours

Reading - Read pages 154-180 of The Do-Over by Lynn Painter

Chores -  Laundry + took trash and recycling out

Activities of the Day:

September Study (John 14:13-14, 2 Corinthians 5:20, Matthew 28: 18-19, Galatians 5:22-23, 2 Peter 1:4-7, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Jude 1:24)

Personal Bible Study (Luke 1)

Ballet

Pointe

Journal/Mindfulness

[burningvelvet]

“‘Rise like Lions after slumber / In unvanquishable number, / Shake your chains to earth like dew / Which in sleep had fallen on you — / Ye are many — they are few.’”

201 years ago today, the revolutionary English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in a boat wreck during a storm off the coast of Italy. He was a trailblazing poet, activist, anarchist, atheist, vegetarian, anti-monarchist, scholar, translator, chemist, and promoter of “free love.” He has influenced countless figures such as Karl Marx, James Joyce, Henry David Thoreau, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi. He was the husband of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. She was buried with his preserved heart as she requested; until death, she had kept it in her desk drawer wrapped up in his own poetry.

[the---hermit]

24 books in 2024

New year new attempt at this challenge I have never managed to finish. I am a mood reader so planning my reading ahead is always a failure. But I want to use this yearly tradition as a way to motivate myself with my goal of conquering my physcial tbr. So I will only include books I already own and that I want to finally read. Some I chose because they are quite new, some because they have been on my tbr for ages, and with some I just randomly picked while looking at my shelves.

Bi by Julia Shaw

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls 2 by Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli

Dubliners by James Joyce

Different Seasons by Stephen King

Sandman Overture by Neil Gaiman

Iliad by Homer

A Day Of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

Resurgir curated by Lorenzo Incarbone

Selve Oscure curated by La Bottega Dei Traduttori

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Babel by R.F. Kuang

L'Etranger by Albert Camus

La Strega E Il Capitano by Leonardo Sciascia

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

Il Libro Della Mitologia

I Pirati by Peter Lehr

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

The King In Yellow by Robert William Chambers

Mindhunter by John Douglas

Il manuale Dell'inquisitore

Migrazione E Intolleranze by Umberto Eco

The Name Of The Rose by Umberto Eco

Nel Buio Della Casa by Fiore Manni and Michele Monteleone

Edit: I just realized that this year marks 10 years from when I first read the lord of the rings. Ever since then I wanted to reread it, attepted that even, but never really reread it cover to cover. So I decided that during the year I am giving myself the option of wither finishing this list or to skip 3 books of this list to instead reread my beloved lotr.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: The War on the West | Real Time with Bill Maher

New Rule: For all the progressives and academics who refer to Israel as an "outpost of Western civilization" like it's a bad thing, please note: Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that Liberals are supposed to adore.

Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women's rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech. Please somebody, stop us before we Enlighten again.

And since one can find all these concepts in today's Israel and virtually nowhere else in the Middle East, if anything, the world would be a better place if it had more Israels.

Of course, this message falls on deaf ears to the current crop who reduce everything to being only victims or victimizers, so Israel is lumped in as the toxic fruit of the victimizing West. The irony being that all marginalized people live better today because of western ideals, not in spite of them.

Martin Luther King used Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" to help shape the Civil Rights Movement. The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights owes its core to Rousseau and Voltaire. Kleisthenes never showed up for a sexual harassment seminar, but without him there's no democracy. The cop who murdered George Floyd got 21 years for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, an idea we got directly from John Locke, who no one in college would ever study anymore because he's so old, and so white, and so dead, and so Western.

Yes, that's how simple the Woke are. It's never about ideas. If it was, would they be cheering on Hamas for their liberation? Liberation? To do what? More freely preside over a country where there are no laws against sexual harassment, spousal rape, domestic violence, homophobia, honor killings or child marriage. This is who liberals think you should stand with? Women there should be so lucky as to get colonized by anybody else.

And for the record, the Jews didn't "colonize" Israel or anywhere ever, except maybe Boca Raton. Gaza wasn't seized by Israel like India or Kenya was by the British Empire. And the partitioning of the region wasn't decided by Jews, but by a vote of the United Nations in 1947 with everyone from Russia to Haiti voting for it. But apparently, they don't teach this at Drag Queen Story Hour anymore.

Now it is true that for too long we didn't study enough Asian or African or Latin American history. But part of the reason for that is, frankly, there's not as much to study. Colleges replaced courses in Western Civ -- boo! Eyeroll! Dead white men, am I right? -- they replace that with World Civilization classes, which is fine in theory, but what it meant in practice is you read queer poetry of the African diaspora instead of Shakespeare. And I'm sure there's value in both, but as usual, America only ever overcorrects.

And so, we're at this place now where the words "western civ" became kind of a shorthand for "white people ruined everything." But they didn't ruin everything. No, they didn't live up to their own ideals for far too long and committed atrocities. But people back then were all atrocious, not just the white ones depending on who had the power.

But it was the western Enlightenment that gave rise to the notion that the law of the jungle should be curbed. Henry David Thoreau. John Stewart Mill. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Three-named dudes. It was all about three-named dudes. Three-named dudes like that were the OG social justice warriors. The ideas that came through Athens, Rome, London, Paris, and yes Philadelphia, are what make life good for most people in free societies today. That the individuals have value, and even the powers that be must submit to the rule of law. That punishment should not be cruel and unusual. That accused people get a trial. That there is such a thing as a war crime.

Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it's ever done? You think only white people colonized? Historians estimate that the very non-western Mr Genghis Khan killed 40 million people, and that was in the 13th century. He single-handedly may have reduced the world's population by 11%. On the other hand, he kind of made up for it, because he was such a prolific colonizer of vaginas that today an estimated 16 million people are his direct descendants.

So, stop saying "western civilization" like it's a contradiction in terms. It's not. You're thinking of "moderate Republican."

==

The people who snarl "western civilization" went to elite universities with air conditioning where they used their MacBook Pros and iPhones on extensive Wi-Fi networks.

[lucyav13]

Levels

Below we will analyze each of the worlds and some facts about 'em. Let's start!

Linealand Road

Lineland's Chapter 1-1 is a homage to the original Super Mario Bros. with its level design, which resembled the classic World 1-1 through its positioning of items, ? Blocks, and enemies like Goombas. The music is also remixed from the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme and the Super Mario World overworld theme. 

Its skies are full of strange, surreal mathematical formulas, such as (translated into literary form) "Fire Flower is greater than or equal to some kind of Block  divided by warp pipe". (As can be seen in the image)

Gloam Valley and Merlee's Mansion

The music of Merlee's Mansion has several interludes full of altered versions of Mimi's theme, however, the theme of Merlee herself is never heard throughout the entirety of Chapter 2.

The password 5963 can be read as 「ご苦労さま」 in Japanese, which means "You've been working very hard". Similarly, 41262816 can be read as「良い風呂に入る」, which means "Take a good bath"

The Bitlands

The Bitlands is a dimension located beyond Flipside Tower's yellow door in Super Paper Mario. It has a unique art style that makes the world look as if it was drawn on a grid, like pixel art. The overworld music in this world is an arrangement of the classic Ground Theme from Super Mario Bros. According to The InterNed, said overworld theme is titled "The Open Plane", while the music in the underground area beneath the two red pipes is titled "Nostalgic Underground", due to it being an arrangement of the Underground Theme from Super Mario Bros.

There is also a reference to the original Mario Bros in chapter 3-1

The Bitlands is also one of only two worlds where there is at least one boss in each section (Bowser in 3-1, who joins Mario's party after being defeated, Big Blooper in 3-2, Dimentio in 3-3, and Francis in 3-4), with Castle Bleck being the other world where this is the case.

Furthermore, including the optional Pixls, Barry and Tiptron, the player gets four Pixls in The Bitlands, which is more than in any other world in Super Paper Mario.

On the fortress that requires blowing up on a red X, there are some enemies that aren't normally attackable due to the fortress being too tall to jump on. These enemies don't require items to defeat though, as one can use Thoreau to grab the Bullet Bill Blaster's Bullet Bills and throw them back. One can also use Dashell, if obtained before Chapter 3, to jump off the fortress before it and use Princess Peach's Parasol to get on the fortress. This allows access to the other side of it that is normally otherwise inaccessible, and the ? Block that is normally destroyed with it can be hit (it gives a single coin).

This chapter is one of the ones with the most references, I will put all of these in a future part :)

Outer Space

Chapter 4 may not take place in the outer space above the , but rather that of another dimension. It was once the location of the kingdom. 

If on the second visit to the level the player answers "no" to the prompt to use the space helmet, Tippi will personally attempt to convince them otherwise. After that, if the player says "yes" thrice, she will abandon the player in frustration, resulting in a Game Over. Upon further visits, the helmet is equipped automatically once they pass through the door. (If you want me to write all the absurd Game Overs, leave it to me in the comments)

Land of the Cragnons

It is the home of the Cragnons, a prehistoric race of primitive people with televisions and stereo CD players seemingly made of rocks. It is also home to the enemies of the Cragnons, the Floro Sapiens, who live underground with their king, who is the boss of Chapter 5.

The setting of this Chapter is similar to Chapter 5's in the original Paper Mario. In both Chapters, Mario must venture into a mountainous area (in Paper Mario, it was Mt. Lavalava, and here, it was the Gap of Crag), they both featured a comically-incompetent adventurer accompanying him during the Chapter (in Paper Mario, it was Kolorado, while in Super Paper Mario, it was Flint Cragley), and both had a plant boss (in Paper Mario, it was Lava Piranha, while in Super Paper Mario, it was King Croacus IV). Mario also gets a kind of hammer in both areas (in Paper Mario, it was an Ultra Hammer, while in Super Paper Mario, he gets a hammer-like Pixl named Cudge.)

Near the end of the game, during the final battle with Super Dimentio, the Land of the Cragnons is destroyed by The Void, but is restored following the destruction of the Chaos Heart along with all other demolished dimensions.

Sammer's Kingdom

It is destroyed by The Void in the main story, leaving nothing but an empty white space, but is restored after the story's end.

This land is ruled by King Sammer. It is most notable for being the location of the Duel of 100 tournament, in which challengers face off against 100 Sammer Guys. Only the first 25 Sammer Guys are faced in Chapter 6-1, while the rest are encountered in the three other chapters. However, in the main story, only the first 20 Sammer Guys are battled, and only 30 Sammer Guys are encountered.

In addition to the Duel of 100, Tippi and Tiptron's Tattles mention various other events held in the Sammer's Kingdom, such as the Sammer Guy Break Hour, the annual Sammer Guy BBQ, the Sammy Awards, and the annual Sammer Quiz; however, Mario and friends are unable to attend any of these in person.

The kingdom appears to be based on Japan, with "Sammer Guy" being a pun on "samurai".

According to Garson of the Flipside bar, The Underwhere, 1,500 years prior to the events of Super Paper Mario, the younger sister of Merlumina was entrusted with a Pure Heart, to give to the Sammer Kingdom's ruler to protect. Upon meeting however, Merlumina's sister and the Sammer King fell in love and she stayed behind. The two eventually married and had 100 children. Ever since, the number 100 has been sacred to the Sammer Kingdom.

After finishing the game, the gang may start the Duel of 100 over. As before, Chapter 6-1 has Rounds 1-25. After defeating Sunshine Flood, Mario and co. will be able to continue on to 6-2.

If the player returns to Sammer's Kingdom after finishing the Duel of 100, King Sammer will be found on Gate 1. He will say the Age of the Sammer Guys ended and that he sent the Sammer Guys on a tropical vacation. He also jokes that he will replace them with kitty robots. When Tiptron uses Tattle on him, she reveals he is planning to turn the Duel of 100 Battle Gates into a water amusement park.

During the battle, as the players advance to the next sub-chapter, the number of flags seen on the stage will increase by one (i.e. one flag on every stage of Chapter 6-1, two in Chapter 6-2, and so on).

When the player tries to go to Gate 2 after completing the Duel of 100, they will discover that the door leading there cannot be used, as if it has become part of the background. When Tattle is used on the door, Tiptron will say the door is sealed, which might be because the other Gates disappeared, and they are currently working on the water amusement park there. Oddly, when the player uses Tattle on the very same door while in 3-D, Tiptron will say the player can open it by pressing , the same as her Tattle of any door.

The Underwhere

It is also called World -1 by one of the residents, a reference to the famous "Minus World" glitch from the original Super Mario Bros. Ruled by Queen Jaydes, The Underwhere makes up one half of the "afterlife" dimensions, and is where people who have been neither good nor bad from "all worlds" go when they die. Once there, the people become ghost-like creatures known as Shaydes (a corruption of the word "Shades").

The Underwhere can be compared to the Asphodel Meadows of the ancient Greek underworld, hence its name, which is a humorous play on the words "underworld" and "underwear". Queen Jaydes herself was named for the Greek god of the underworld, Hades, and there are numerous other aspects of The Underwhere taken from Greek mythology (listed below). However, the Underwhere's counterpart, The Overthere, where the sinless can spend eternity as angelic Nimbis, is more heavily based on Heaven than the Greek Elysian Fields. Bonechill's prison, the place where people go when they have been very bad in life, is equivalent to Tartarus, also from Greek mythology, although the fact that he was a fallen Nimbi and his association with ice does bear resemblance to the story of Lucifer, who, according to Dante's Inferno, is trapped in ice in the deepest circle of Hell.

In The Underwhere and its counterpart, The Overthere, many characters or places that are encountered are references to other things, in most cases the names are specifically based off of Greek Mythology.

Shayde, a corruption of Shade

Jaydes, a corruption of Hades

The Underwhere itself, a corruption of The Underworld

The River Twygz (twigs), a corruption of the River Styx

D-Man

Charold, the man who runs the ferry across the River Twygz, is a corruption of Charon

Underchomp, a reference to Cerberus (both act as three-headed dogs who guard the gates to the underworld

The three hags reference the three Moirai, or the Fates, in Greek mythology.

The Underwhere and The Overthere are comparable to Flipside and Flopside

A "beveragarium" that serves milk beneath Flipside is named "The Underwhere"; another one in Flopside is named "The Overthere."

This is the only chapter where none of Count Bleck's minions are fought.

(A/N): As you can see, I am missing chapter 8, because I have already exceeded the limit of images, but I will take a separate part of it because I think its story is worth it. I hope you liked it!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Genesis: The Creation of Woman, from: De Ætatibus Mundi Imagines, a literary and pictorial sketchbook. The author and illustrator of the manuscript is Francisco de Holanda, a Portuguese art essayist architect and painter of the court of Kings João III and Sebastião of Portugal. The book was prepared around 1545 in Portugal. Bibliotheca Nacional de España, Madrid. DIB/14/26

[Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

"Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature–not his Father but his Mother stirs within him, and he becomes immortal with her immortality. From time to time she claims kinship with us, and some globule from her veins steals up into our own."

Henry David Thoreau

[boldlycrookedsalad]

Literary Canon (from kissgrammar)

The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version [At a minimum, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, from the Old Testament; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Apocalypse from the New.] Whether or not you are Christian is irrelevant. The civilization in which we live is based on and permeated by the ideas and values expressed in this book. Understanding our civilization, the world in which we live, is probably impossible without having read -- and thought about -- at least the most famous books in the Bible. Historically, the King James Version is considered the most artistic, and thus has probably had the most literary influence.

Homer, The Iliad

Homer, The Odyssey

Sophocles, Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex)

Sophocles, Antigone

Plato, The Republic, especially "The Myth of the Cave"

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Saint Augustine, The Confessions

Dante, The Divine Comedy

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Giambattista Vico, Principles of a New Science

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Romeo and Juliet

King Lear

Hamlet

Othello

Macbeth

John Donne, "Holy Sonnet XIV"

John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

A Modest Proposal

Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Michel de Montaigne, Essays, especially "Of Experience"

Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

Moliere, The Misanthrope

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

Voltaire, Candide

Erasmus, In Praise of Folly

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts One & Two

Honore de Balzac, Old Goriot (also translated as Pere Goriot)

Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Emile Zola, Germinal

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House

William Blake

William Wordsworth

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lord Byron, Don Juan

John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

A Tale Of Two Cities

Hard Times

A Christmas Carol

Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven"

Samuel Butler, Erewhon

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

George Eliot- Silas Marner

Middlemarch

Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil

The Will To Power

The Birth of Tragedy

On the Genealogy of Morals

Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin

The Bronze Horseman

Nikolai Gogol -The Overcoat

Dead Souls

Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Fyodor Dostoevsky -Notes From the Underground

Crime and Punishment

Leo Tolstoy -The Death of Ivan Ilych

War and Peace

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

Emily Dickinson - "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"

"The Tint I Cannot Take"

"There's a Certain Slant of Light"

Walt Whitman  - "Song of Myself"

"The Sleepers"

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

"As I Ebbed With The Ocean of Life"

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown

The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Raven"

The Cask of Amontillado

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Kate Chopin -The Story of An Hour

The Awakening

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Henry James

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Luigi Pirandello

[jellogram]

It's Stephen King's wife telling him he needed to publish Carrie and it's Marianne Faithfull going uncredited on Rolling Stones songs and it's Thoreau's mother taking care of him while he was "off the grid" and it's that letter a little girl sent to Abe Lincoln saying he should grow a beard so he would look handsome and the women would tease their husbands into voting for him (not that the men would simply vote for him, but they'd do so because of their suffrageless wives) and it's Mozart's sister being the first prodigy of the family but no longer being taught piano once she reached marital age and it's Noah's wife being spared the flood just like Noah but the bible doesn't bother to mention her name and it's been happening since the dawn of time and how many of these women were there? I have to think it's all of them. I have to think this is every story, and these are just a few of the ones we know of.

[natalieironside]

New England is a genre. Lovecraft is Emerson taken to a fantastical extreme. King and Thoreau aren't quite alike but do rhyme.

[notasfilosoficas]

“Las cosas no cambian; cambiamos”

Henry David Thoreau

Fue un escritor, poeta y filósofo estadounidense nacido en Concord Massachusetts en julio de 1817, de tendencia trascendentalista y de origen puritano, considerado uno de los padres fundadores de la literatura estadounidense y conceptualizador de las prácticas de desobediencia civil.

Nació en el seno de una modesta familia de Nueva Inglaterra, su padre era un fabricante de lápices, y su abuelo materno dirigió cuando era estudiante una de las primeras protestas estudiantiles registradas en las colonias americanas.

Henry era el tercero de cuatro hermanos y su casa ha sido restaurada por una organización sin fines de lucro y está abierta al público.

Estudió en el Harvard College entre 1833 y 1887, vivió en Hollis Hall y tomó cursos de retórica, clásicos, filosofía, matemáticas y ciencias.

En 1835 tomó una licencia para impartir cátedra en la escuela de Canton Massachusetts renunciando al negarse a aplicar el castigo corporal, abriendo entonces junto con su hermano John la Concord Academy una escuela de gramática en Concord, en donde introdujeron una enseñanza aplicando varios conceptos progresistas, que incluían caminatas por la naturaleza y visitas a tiendas y negocios locales.

En 1842 el hermano de Henry muere al cortarse mientras se afeitaba, cerrando la academia.

Conoció a Ralph Waldo Emerson a través de un amigo mutuo, el cual tomó interés personal  incluso paternalista por Henry, presentando al joven Henry a un círculo de escritores y pensadores locales, incluidos el ministro estadounidense de la iglesia unitaria de Boston William Ellery Channing, a la periodista y activista por los derechos de la mujer Margaret Fuller y al famoso novelista y cuentista Nathaniel Hawthorne padre del que fuera un prolífico escritor Julian Hawthorne.

En 1845 se estableció en una pequeña cabaña construida por él mismo cerca de los pantanos de Walden con la idea de simplificar su vida y dedicar su tiempo a la escritura y a observar la naturaleza.

Thoreau se negó a pagar impuestos que le imponía el gobierno como protesta contra la esclavitud en las Américas razón por la cual fue puesto en prisión. Por este episodio fue que Thoreau escribió “Desobediencia civil”, escrito en 1849, en donde describe la doctrina de la resistencia pacífica que habría de influir más tarde en destacados activistas como Martin Luther King.

En 1854, viviendo en casa de Emerson, publicó “Walden o Vida en el bosque”, en donde narraba los 2 años y dos meses que había pasado en solitario en Walden Pond, teniendo como compañía exclusivamente a la naturaleza, utilizando el paso de las cuatro estaciones para simbolizar el desarrollo humano. Aunque tuvo pocos admiradores, los críticos posteriores han considerado esta obra como un clásico estadounidense, que explora la simplicidad natural, la belleza y la armonía, como modelo para las condiciones sociales y culturales justas.

En 1851, Thoreau se sintió cada día mas interesado por la naturaleza, los viajes de exploración y la botánica. Fue un admirador del naturalista William Bartram y del naturalista y científico Charles Darwin, lo que lo llevó al final de sus días a realizar escritos sobre historia natural y científicos sobre la regeneración de los bosques después del fuego o la destrucción humana.

Fue un entusiasta de los viajes y de los relatos sobre excursiones a tierras inexploradas, tales como David Livingston, Fernando de Magallanes, James Cook entre otros.

Al final de su vida contrajo tuberculosis en 1835 y en 1860 después de una excursión enfermó de bronquitis, pasando y corrigiendo sus trabajos inéditos. Sus amigos estaban fascinados por su tranquila aceptación a la muerte.

Cuando su tía Luisa le preguntó ya en sus últimas semanas de vida si estaba en paz con Dios, Thoreau respondió: “No sabía que nos hubiésemos peleado”. 

Thoreau murió en mayo de 1862 a la edad de 44 años, “Ahora viene una buena navegación”, como una de sus últimas palabras.

Thoreau es considerado como uno de los escritores estadounidenses mas importantes, tanto por la claridad moderna de su estilo en prosa como por sus opiniones sobre naturaleza y política.

Fuente: Wikipedia y biografiasyvidas.com