#draws in large technical quotation marks

[somechubbynerd]

@fatrealitydragon‘s Maya, one of Taylor’s chonkier girlfriends.

[stoicbreviary]

Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 1

Much like the poems by Ellis Walker on Epictetus, I came across these sonnets by James Vila Blake on Marcus Aurelius quite by accident. This time, in search of poetry with a Stoic character, I found them scanned in an obscure corner of the internet, the digital equivalent of a dusty shelf in a back room, and I have yet to hold a physical copy in my hands. Though I have always preferred the feel of real paper, this version will surely do for the moment. 

I had never heard of the author before, and a bit of digging revealed that James Vila Blake (1842-1925) was a Unitarian minister, best known for his essays, sermons, and as an editor of hymns. Though I am largely unfamiliar with the Unitarian tradition, I was quite taken by his words on the mission of his church: 

Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another. 

Beyond all our theological bickering, it would be nice if more of us could hold to such basic principles. 

In his foreword, Rev. Blake explains how he came to write these poems, so I will only add how happy I was to see someone taking the time to reflect on the writings of Marcus Aurelius with such reverence and affection. If I had a gift for verse, I would attempt something similar, as a sort of homage, but I can only manage my cumbersome reflections. 

There are 31 sonnets here, each working from a specific passage in the Meditations, plus a proem and and epode. Blake includes these sections of the original text before the poems, both in the Greek and his own translation. 

Now while my Latin has become passable over the years, I have sadly never been able to move beyond the most rudimentary grammar and vocabulary for Greek, and so I cannot make any judgments about the quotations I see here. For the sake of completeness, I have included the Greek as it appears in the scan, fixing only the most obvious typos, and I have left the rest as it is. 

If you happen to have any talent in Greek, and you find glaring mistakes, which are quite likely in such a transcription, I would encourage you to embrace the task of a thorough edit. I'm sure a proper academic could do this in very little time, by comparing the Blake copy to a scholarly edition. Your effort would be of great help in keeping this fine work alive! 

—3/2010 

* * * * * 

Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius James Vila Blake THOS. P. HALPIN COMPANY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Copyright by JAMES VILA BLAKE, 1920 TO THE Rev. A. W. OXFORD, M. O. LONDON, ENGLAND 

FOREWORD When I had read the book of Marcus Aurelius many times, and was reading it after a long interval once again, which was also in company and aloud, I noticed the worthy matter for poetic treatment presented by the great Emperor’s noblest and most characteristic sayings. I marked such passages, and they remained for many years marked and no more. 

Then I remembered them, recurred to them, and found my former impression confirmed. Hence these heroic hymns, as perhaps I may call them, the sonnet appearing to me the poetic form most suitable and germane. Do or can the lofty thoughts herein versed, gain from verse? The reader must judge, and possibly the fortunes of the present recital may afford some indication whether the stern and high terseness of the original can profit by the expansion, diction and imagery of verse. 

Certainly in clarity, no; but in persuasiveness, possibly yes. The question seems much like a query whether excellent drawing in ink can gain by brush and color. What is proper matter for poesy, is a question belonging to poetic technics, and there is wide space and a thousand species between a geometrical demonstration or a bit of chemical nomenclature, and the heroics of a ballad; but at first blush perhaps it may be surmised that whatever thought is big enough and humane enough, may lay all Nature under contribution, and need not disdain the warrant of poetic fancy, trope, form or diction. 

As to the diction, for aught that appears, the word rondure which Shakespeare liked, is as good as roundness, or sphericity, or circularity, or curve, or curvature, or concavity, or convexity, or circumbendibus, and if this be granted, poetic language scores a point perhaps, though I have known poets and others look askance at “rondure.” 

The Greek and a prose rendering are placed together, and the sonnet opposite them. In the rendering I have not sought to give a literal transcription of the original, but rather the embosomed spirit and redolence of it. But it may be hoped this will be acceptable, since for those who might disapprove the Greek is added. 

The text is accepted from “The Communings with Himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor of Rome, together with his Speeches and Sayings. A Revised Text and a Translation into English, by C. R. Haines, M.A.,, F.S.A. London, William Heinemann. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons.” 

—J. V. B. 

The Greek excerpts are taken by means of a photo-etching process. Of course the result would have been more elegant if I had employed a Greek compositor; but the virtue of the text is not affected, and J have done what I could under the conditions. 

* * * * * 

PROEM 

Marcus, thy stoic wit lacks naught in-door;  Out-door methinks thou shouldst be more at play,  Hill, vale, wood, brook, be fellows by thy way,  And wider wanderings on the sea-green shore.  Thou shouldst a stilly meadow pool explore  For doubled lustres of the early day,  Or soft reflections of capacious gray  That hath the meadow’s verdure tented o’er.  O if a rose had trembled to thy kiss  More than some culprit quailed before thy power,  Mayhap I had not now been writing this,  Thou being too great to gain thy day and hour.  Well, well, wide soul thou wert, kind heart, mind’s dower,  And to thee I am pious and submiss. 

* * * * * 1. Εωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιἔργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ. πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. ἐγὼ δὲ τεθεωρηκὼς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ὅτι καλόν, καὶ τοῦ κακοῦ, ὅτι αἰσχρόν, καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντος φύσιν, ὅτε μοι συγγενής, οὐχὶ αἵματος ἣ σπέρματος τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ νοῦ καὶ θείας ἀπομοίρας μέτοχος, οὔτε βλαβῆναι ὑπό τινος αὐτῶν δύναμαι: αἰσχρῷ γάρ με οὐδεὶς περιβαλεῖ: οὔτε ὀργίζεσθαι τῷ συγγενεῖ δύναμαι οὔτε ἀπέχθεσθαι αὐτῷ. 

At early morning warn yourself thus: Today I shall happen on busy-bodies, ungrateful fellows, insolent boors, deceitful plotters, spiteful churls, unkind neighbors. All these ills have befallen them by reason of their ignorance of good and evil. But I have understood the nature of the good, that it is beautiful, and of the evil, that it is ugly, and of the ill-behaved man himself, that he is of the same source, kith and kin, with me—not of the same blood and flesh, but sharing in reason and a divine part; for which cause I neither can be injured by any one of them (since no one can wrap me up in baseness) nor can I be angry or hold bitter feeling against this kinsman of mine. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1 

1. 

When the sun riseth, consider what he sees,  And tell thyself that surely through the day  Thou shalt see like the sun. Not hills, and trees  On them, green meads, kine grazing, lambs at play,  Soft clouds, and birds sipping at brooks—not these  I mean, albeit they sparkle wide away;  But surly men, churls, fops at insolent ease,  The gossip, knaves that envy, steal, betray.  But what! If so they be, be so must I?  Or to do like them, is that arms to meet them?  So hapless they in sense, ’tis mine to ply  My wisdom for them, not flout or ill-entreat them.  Fine wit ’s most dowered, and hath his best estate,  When civil most to wits less fortunate. 

[wanderingsofal]

Can you tell me (in general, not asking for specifics) what you do for your job and how fulfilling it is other than current uncertainty? I've never had a career, only part time work but I'm 30 and I have no idea "what I want to be when I grow up". Plus the only jobs I can ever think of as possibilities are retail, which are ಠ︵ಠ. I'm just looking for some insight from people I admire to get some direction. (If this is too personal a question I understand, so please dont feel pressured to reply.)

Hi! Thanks for asking! I’ll try to answer, though I’m not sure how helpful I can be - my career has been a series of just sort of ‘falling into it’ situations that led me to a job I honestly love, even with all the uncertainty.

My current position is pretty new for my agency. Technically, I’m an analyst. There’s several thousands of these sorts of positions if you’re looking at the job title, however they aren’t all the same. Most will involve some sort of data analysis/data science, but that’s where the similarities end. 

For mine, I’m on a tech team for my agency, where we oversee the modernization of its programs and practices. As in, we upgraded the old MS DOS (a code language widely used in the 70s) systems into more modern languages with more capability. As someone who came from “the field” I oversee some of these projects as a subject matter expert, giving advice and guidance to the developers and making decisions on what features to add into the finished program. I also build reports on the data from our programs - anywhere from reports that go to our Fraud division to try and root out people who are taking advantage of new immigrants, to scheduling reports sent to upper management to show how well our field offices are doing in getting to all of our applicants in a timely manner. 

But the best part, the part I really really love, is that I also get to build some of these programs. From smaller local programs utilizing Microsoft Access, to large-scale web applications using more advanced coding languages. There’s just something about being able to sit down and sketch out what a program will look like, then see it taking shape under your fingers. I realize this will sound odd to a lot of people, but there’s a sort of high in building a button, then clicking on it, and watching your program do exactly what you told it to. 

I love working with code. It’s a different sort of ‘creation’ to writing or drawing, but it’s creation just the same. It’s taking a bunch of letters and symbols and lining them up exactly right so that something happens just when you want it to. It’s seeing something in your head, and then making that vision come to life. Code is logical. There is no grey area in code. There is just what works, and what doesn’t. And if your code doesn’t work, then you have to find out what’s wrong. There’s very little you can’t do with coding (inside of a computer at least). The only real limit is your imagination. 

Oh, I’ll complain (and have on here a few times) about losing commas or parenthesis, and spending hours looking for that one lost quotation mark. That’s an aspect of it too, yes. But even the mundane and sometimes tedious tasks are worth it when I can turn in a finished website that I made, and know it will be useful to someone. 

It’s worth it to note here that I do not have a Computer Sciences degree. I have a degree in Japanese. I taught myself nearly everything I know about coding, up until about a year ago when I started taking a class on a newer coding language so I could use it at work. Most code development uses an astonishing amount of google. I’ve heard a lot of senior developers say that to get good at coding, all you really need to do is know how to use google effectively.  

Before this job I had essentially the same job title, but I spent most of my time doing scheduling for interviews, and some minimal data analysis on what we needed to do to keep up quality service to our applicants. The job itself wasn’t fulfilling really - it was long hours, and pretty stressful due to the large workload and the fact that I was hired at a really bad time when the rest of the team had quit. But it was worth it because I was working to schedule asylum interviews, meaning I was helping people who desperately needed it. I likely wouldn’t have left that job if this exact position I’m now in hadn’t come up. 

And before that, my first “real job” outside of the Peace Corps, I was an office assistant. I answered email inquiries, did file management, and basic paperwork. It was boring. There was absolutely no mental challenge. But I found ways to do things I was more interested in. I modernized our spreadsheets and found better technical solutions to our case tracking issues. I was usually bored out of my mind, but there’s something to be said for an honest eight hour day with no threat of working late or being forced to come in early, and where you don’t take your work home with you. It wasn’t a good fit for me, but it was a great fit for some others I knew. 

I think the best advice I can give is just to start somewhere. Even if you have to take a less exciting job right off the bat. Everyone has to start in the less exciting jobs usually. But pick a company or an agency you want to work for, and get into an entry-level position. As you learn about the company, you’ll see more of the positions they offer, and figure out what you want to try to be. Then, if you have good supervisors, they’ll help you get there. That’s what the “boring” entry-level jobs are for - to take in new talent, and let them experience what life at the company is like while still doing necessary work. The good supervisors for those positions will be all about helping you grow your career and finding what path you want to take. 

From there, find the good people and follow them. That’s what truly makes a job good or bad, I’ve found. If the people you work with are good and honest and kind, then your job will be enjoyable. If the people you work with are mean or catty or closed-minded, it makes the job that much worse and even a dream job will become terrible in the long run. 

[sineala]

Author Meme

Author Name:

Sineala

Fandoms You Write For:

Currently, Marvel Comics. You may also remember me from The Eagle.

Where You Post:

AO3.

Most Popular One-Shot:

As measured by hits, technically, the answer to this question is Slipping off the Page into Your Hands (616), my first Steve/Tony fic, which is a soulmates + identity porn retelling of about twenty years of comics canon. However I didn't really understand posting stories in chapters at the time and technically this is a 70,000-word one-shot. I'm very sorry. I won't do it again.

If you'd like one-shots with more reasonable word counts, I've got Think of This as Solving Problems (That Should Never Have Occurred) (616), a Steve/Tony amnesia + identity porn fic at 35,000 words, and also Follow in Your Footsteps (616), a Steve/Tony soulmate story at 7,000 words, which probably counts as a one-shot by everyone's standards.

You'll never guess what my favorite tropes are. *covers face with hands*

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

Thrust Issues (616), a 130,000-word Steve/Tony story in which Captain America has an extremely large penis and his BFF Iron Man would like to help him lose his virginity. I write only the finest and most classy of literature. It has eight sex scenes.

Favorite Story You Wrote:

Straight on till Morning (616), my Steve/Tony Star Trek AU. You mean I get to take two of my favorite fandoms and paste them together? I basically just had a whole lot of fun throwing in all my favorite tropes from both canons and trying to come up with a way to translate the Avengers characters into the Star Trek universe.

I'm also pretty proud of Double Time (616/Noir) because I feel like it was one of those stories that came off exactly how I imagined it in my head and that almost never happens.

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

Chosen Man (The Eagle), which I wrote when I first got into the fandom, then waited about two years without posting it, and then finally posted it when the fandom was mostly dead. I didn't have an outline and I actually didn't have a beta and I just kept writing until it looked like somehow I had an ending. (I also did pretty much the same thing with Arcadia (Pros). I guess I like to finish novel-length stories and then wait years before posting them. I have a lot of anxiety, okay? I sign up for challenges because otherwise I would literally never post anything.)

How Do You Choose Your Titles:

I was going to say it's all song titles but maybe it's more like 50% song titles. Most of the Eagle stories are quotations in Latin. I have a rule for myself that I'm not allowed to title the story in Latin unless it's actually set in Ancient Rome.

Do You Outline:

Definitely. I wouldn't be able to remember what was supposed to happen without it.

Complete:

263 stories. Ha. Um. Yes. Well. No, wait, there's that unfinished Eagle space AU story. 262, I guess. Maybe I should just mark that complete. It kind of has an ending? A couple of the stories are translations of Latin fic (mostly mine) into English.

In-Progress:

When My Heart Bleeds: The Madame Masque story that was going to be one of my RBBs this spring before RL intervened. An established-relationship Steve/Tony AU of the Avengers v3 Nefaria Protocols arc. Featuring Whitney Frost (of course), a whole lot of hurt/comfort, a very familiar flophouse, Tony's alcoholism rearing its ugly head, a very protective and occasionally terrifying Steve, and a bunch of Avengers attempting to do the right thing based on extremely limited information. Status: done, currently in beta. 150,000 words.

Untitled Star Trek AU Sequel: Steve and Tony are on the worst shore leave ever, and it's getting worse by the minute. The fate of the Federation hangs in the balance. It was supposed to be a nice relaxing shore leave and then everything went wrong. Currently 100,000 words and I am supposed to be working on it now so we will see how this goes. Still near the end of chapter 3 (out of 6). I’m going to finish! I swear! I wrote some words last night!

MTH 2018 Collaboration With Kiyaar: We've got... ideas. Definitely we have several of those. We're gonna destroy you.

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started:

My ideas file is huge. Here are some of the more complicated ideas and not the ones that are just, like, “Steve in his commercial art days ends up drawing gay porn for rent money" or “the RT node breaks Tony’s dick.”

1930s Thoroughbred racing AU: Steve is a jockey. Tony is an owner/trainer. Together, they're going to try to win the Triple Crown. And, you know, fall in love. And there will probably be some h/c as Steve will probably fall off a horse or two.

All-Time Low sequel(s): I swear I'm going to fix them, and that means h/c all the way up to the blizzard.

Double Time sequel: I don't know if I'm really going to write this, but it would be fun. It would be 616 Director/Commander -- Secret Invasion but this time it goes better because Steve is alive and that way Tony can actually focus on things that are not all-consuming grief. Also, this time Steve would know the Illuminati exist.

Other Star Trek AU: Assuming I am not completely burned out on Star Trek AUs after finishing the SotM sequel, Phoenix keeps drawing art for an entirely different Star Trek AU (trust me, it would be an entirely different Star Trek AU) and I would very much like to write something for it because it delights me so much.

Secret Sub Steve: That D/s AU I posted the premise of a while back, in which Steve is a sub (frankly, a pretty terrible sub) and Rebirth is intended to make him a dom. It does not, and Steve has to lie about who he is as he falls apart more and more... and then he meets Tony, who turns out to be the dom he has been waiting for.

Another D/s AU: In which Steve and Tony meet on an anonymous hook-up site and, gosh, they get along so well, these two complete strangers. It's like they've known each other for years.

Time-travel identity porn: A ToS-era story after Tony is Iron Man but before the Avengers show up, in which he is visited by a man from the future who says his name is Steve Rogers, he says he needs Tony's help to get home, he knows a whole lot of things about Tony that no one else does, and he's very, very easy to fall for.

Do You Accept Prompts:

Not outside of fannish auction situations; it stresses me out too much to try to write fic to specifications, but I make an exception for charity. Speaking of which, I am offering another story for MTH this year, and this time I promise it's going to be a short one (5k or so), so I will definitely finish it. So if you’ve ever wanted me to write you something short and sweet (or short and heartwrenching, you know, whichever), I can make that happen.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write:

I dunno, man. Either the sub Steve story or the ATL sequels. Honestly, I will just be happy to be finally done with the WIPs I am working on now. They are SO LONG.

Tagged By:

@mizzy2k

Tagging:

Anyone who wants to do it!

[panzani-marketing-department]

Elaboration on Visual Design 2.2

As promised, I'd like to elaborate on one of the specific choices Ethan and I made when designing our infographic.

One concept we were debating was how many icons to include on the infographic. We didn't want viewers to be overwhelmed with data and charts, and wanted the graphic to be pleasing to look at, which would mean leaning more toward images and less toward including hard data. However, at the same time, we viewers to understand the results of the study, so we had to include clear, large charts.

In the end, we opted to only include a few simple pictures of people. Our choice was informed by Tufte, who introduced the concept of “chartjunk”, unnecessary icons that distract from the actual data and subsequent conclusions that the viewer may draw from it (48). We thought that adding extra elements to the charts themselves would contribute to “chartjunk” and make the data unclear and difficult to understand at a quick glance.

An image with "chartjunk" is shown below, where the small gun icons are unnecessary and do not convey much additional meaning at all to the viewer.

The few images of people that we included gave the infographic a more humanistic feel. This is related to the idea that Dragga and Voss described, which is that including icons with data can make the display more human and relatable. We didn't feel particularly guilty about not including images, since the data from the study didn't cover anything violent or deadly. However, by including pictures of people, particularly next to quotations, viewers of the infographic can feel more of a connection with those in the study.

As a side note, the images of people we used qualify as pictures, according to Arnheim, because they portray people in an inexact replica by using their most important qualities (138). In comparison, the quotation marks that we used to indicate direct quotes from participants are signs, particularly signs of human speech (138).

Sources:

Arnheim, Rudolf. “Pictures, Symbols, and Signs.” Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World: A Critical Sourcebook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s P, 2004. 137-51.

Dragga, Sam & Dan Voss. “Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations.” Technical Communication 48 (2001): 265-74.

Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics P, 1990.

Images:

https://live.staticflickr.com/5046/5351196853_e75e8584f8_b.jpg, license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=ccsearch&atype=rich