#which seems reasonable i guess? that there might be biographies or books on the history of music or books containing sheet music

[kyomunosaki]

A handful of celebrity chef memoirs I really liked

Plus a rant on Chang's work, and a way general audiences can enjoy memoir as a genre

I don't have all too much interesting to say about them, but they're all definitely worth a read. The audiobook versions are pretty amazing, especially since they're being read by the authors themselves.

Bourdain's excellence goes without saying, but Chang's memoir (he's the Momofuku/Ugly Delicious guy) is seriously underappreciated. I think I just saw the cover at a bookstore once, and was just weirdly drawn to it for some reason.

The Sisyphus imagery being evoked with a celebrity chef memoir seemed interesting, and the further elaboration in the beginning of the book, of it being Oddjob and I think? an allusion to the Allman Brothers Band, might be enough to draw some of you in.

It was especially interesting for me to read as both an Asian-American and Japanese (Just FYI Chang is Korean-American, he taught English in Japan for a while). A lot of the work discusses Asian identity in general, and talks about some of Chang's artistic work in relation to this within his restaurants, which is genuinely super interesting to learn about. There's a lot I think Asians can take away from this work, especially since I think "Confucianist" upbringings are somewhat common for us.

The order I experienced the three also worked out well, since there happen to be some through-lines and discussions of similar topics from different points in time and from different people. I don't really want to impart my own meaning onto these autobiographical works, but it gave me a lot to think about in general.

I honestly didn't expect so much from these works, since so much of what a celebrity chef is in the popular consciousness is "persona" in a sense. And more specifically, "exaggerated persona to make money," say Chang's typical public persona and like Gordon Ramsey. I don't think I can really draw the line with what is and what isn't persona or exaggerated with these works, nor am I qualified to do so, but at the very least: I can say the experiences presented in them are extremely human, and heartfelt, regardless of veracity to one's character or real events.

Genres like memoir are ultimately not a life-accurate recollection of various happenings, but just a work of writing created for public release, and I think that is important to always keep in mind. But regardless of that, they often still work as a work of narrative, and we can always look to it to try to understand it in some sense. Understand, not as in fact-check or comb through and try to guess what's real or who's actually "Bigfoot" in real life; but as any work of writing, just engage with it through good faith, and try to derive some personal meaning from it.

Also I should just make a note somewhere here, or else I'll get yelled at, but biography and history are still very important and noble pursuits; however, it should probably be left to academics lol. There is still definitely an element of historical interest to pick up on, but that should somewhat go without saying in the genre that is "memoirs." What I'm trying to get at is what other things this genre can provide for general audiences, and to just make a point to not worry too much about historical truth or accuracy of some portions.

TL;DR

Back to the works I mentioned first, would I recommend them? Definitely. I'd somewhat urge you to check them out in release order, alongside any other celebrity chef memoirs that interest you. It's really interesting to see the changes in the landscape and just changes in ideas over time, and does have some interesting history too. Just a lot of interesting stuff to read about.

Memoirs as a genre are pretty interesting, and I do think they can be enjoyed in a lot of ways. The typical way of just reading it as literal is great, but just thinking about the narrative of the works I think can have immense value as well, since that is kinda how they're written.

[commsroom]

i love that the information on hera's servers is just something she (mostly) has access to and it isn't inherently part of her or necessarily something she knows, exactly - that she has to actively read the books available to her, that she doesn't commit all of the information she processes to memory, that her memory is fallible and influenced by her own biases, etc. because it means sometimes eiffel is like, wow, hera!! you're so smart; you know everything!! and meanwhile she's doing the equivalent of like, googling stuff really fast.

[lambden]

Here’s some belated Geraskier fic that I finally get to post, as last week’s flash fic challenge has wrapped up! This was originally published anonymously; kudos to those of you who guessed that I was the author. Head to the collection to see the picture prompt that inspired this, as well as view the other works. I've been having a great time participating in fandom events like this; I promise there's more on the way!!! (Read on AO3)

Up To Date

prompt: "You were so hot that when you asked if I was the blind date you were looking for, I lied and said yes. But then your actual date comes up to introduce themselves and I'm so embarrassed."

G, 2.3K words, modern AU, Geralt/Jaskier

It shouldn’t be this difficult to find inspiration. He never used to struggle like this in high school, finding his muse in everyone and everything. Even his mundane trip on the city bus to and from school would give Jaskier hundreds of ideas, for poems too personal to publish or lyrics too deep for his band to use. Back then he had thought he lacked discipline and experience, so the clear choice had been to take his interest in poetry one step further and go to university.

The problem, as he’s now discovering halfway through his second year, is that he maybe hates university. He loves it, of course; he loves the praise from his professors and peers, he loves learning about the history of literature and art. He even loves the academic rivalries that wax and wane every term, and the competitions that ignite a mean streak in him he didn’t know he had.

But his assignments are of worse quality than anything he’s ever written before, and try as he might, they aren’t getting any better. Putting words on the page just to meet a count is impossible for a poet, not when the space and thoughts and images are all supposed to be cohesive. Poems used to flow from him so freely he hadn’t been able to keep track and now his well of motivation has just about run dry.

That’s what led him here, for the third time this week. His creative dysfunction has forced him into the day-to-day habits of an elderly man who spends his days reading in public gardens. It hasn’t helped so far, but maybe this third time will be the charm. Jaskier finds his favorite place: right by the koi pond, next to a strange art installation with ivy crawling along it. He sits at the base of the giant question mark, dropping his backpack onto the bench beside him.

“This better fucking work,” mutters Jaskier to himself and the koi, opening today’s book to a random poem. He refuses to let his mind wander at first, gluing his eyes to the page and reading with intense intent. The first poem he sees is about love.

Groaning, Jaskier flips the page. The next poem is also about love.

The third poem is about war, and Jaskier thinks that might be alright, until he realizes what this long-dead poet is trying to tell him, which is that war is also about love. Because it is, of course, but also of course it is. Jaskier scowls deeply and flips through the book to a random page, hoping to find something to spark inspiration that won’t just make him feel hopeless and single and hopelessly single.

Before Jaskier can get through the title, someone speaks to him, startling him so badly he jumps. “Are you Yennefer’s friend?”

Jaskier scrambles to catch the book by its cover and nearly drops it. He hadn’t even heard anyone approach. “Sorry?”

The stranger audibly sighs, as if Jaskier has inconvenienced him terribly. With all the force of someone announcing their presence at their own death row, he grits out, “I’m here for a blind date she set up. With you.” Jaskier looks up at the man and sees him wearing a blank expression, pointing at the question mark in front of the bench. “By the thing.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, still looking at the man. It takes a second for the words to sink in because the stranger is perhaps the most handsome person Jaskier has ever seen. He could write a thousand poems and still fail to capture his beauty. He has golden eyes, for one, and a sharply chiseled face. Even grimacing like this, his jaw is set in the loveliest way, and his stern brow is framed by platinum white hair, half-tied up. He’s wearing a fairly gloomy outfit for a blind date, but maybe he told whoever Yennefer is that he would be dressed in black. Regardless, he’s making it work.

The gorgeous stranger is still waiting for an answer, scowl worsening as Jaskier tries to make his decision about how the fuck to handle this. Really, there’s no decision at all— he just impulsively takes the leap. All his best ideas come when he’s stumbling forward blind anyway. “Yes,” he finally says, jumping to his feet. “Yes, um, I’m sorry, you caught me off-guard. I’m Jaskier.”

“Geralt.” They’re of a similar height, but Geralt is so much wider. Jaskier wants to climb him like ivy on a question mark. “I’m sorry I interrupted.”

“It’s fine! I got here a while ago. You know, can’t be too early!” Jaskier has never been early for anything in his life. He sits down again and shoves his books into his bag as quickly as he can. Geralt shifts his weight back and forth between his feet before awkwardly sitting on the bench next to Jaskier, looking out at the garden. “I’ve never done this kind of thing before,” he admits, which is true. His usual lies and schemes are much less chaotic.

Geralt doesn’t reply to that, leaving Jaskier to privately wonder about his dating life. He stares at the plants, giving the impression that he might be hideously nervous. Jaskier has no idea why someone like Geralt would be nervous about anything but it’s an awkward situation, to say the least. Right as Jaskier’s about to suggest they get out of here before Geralt’s real date shows up, the man asks, “What were you reading?”

“I was studying, sort of,” Jaskier says. “I’m a student.” Then abruptly he wonders how much Geralt knows about who he’s supposed to be, and he swallows, pulse racing.

Glancing over, Geralt’s yellow eyes meet his. There’s no obvious doubt there, just a curiosity. “What’s your major?”

“Poetry,” Jaskier grins as their conversation starts to pick up something resembling a rhythm. “What about you, are you in school?”

“No,” says Geralt, cutting his dreams of a normal date conversation short. “Are you any good? At writing poetry?”

What a weirdo. Jaskier’s heart thrums. “I’d like to think so!” This, at least, is something he knows how to talk about. Except, of course, it isn’t really the truth. “Well… recently, I’ve been in a bit of a creative rut. Just waiting for the right burst of inspiration to come along.” Perhaps this blind date that he’s stolen will suffice, but he doesn’t say that. “This place is great for that, actually. I mean, it hasn’t worked yet, but I’m sure any day those fish will sing for me.”

Geralt blinks. Jaskier feels a bead of sweat run down the back of his neck. He tries a different tactic, crossing his ankles and asking politely, “Are you a reader? What kind of things do you enjoy?”

“Nonfiction,” Geralt answers, slightly stilted. His gaze drifts over to the plants once more. “Not biographies, more like… encyclopedias and field journals. I like field journals.”

“Alright,” Jaskier says, shrinking into himself. This is going terribly. “I’ll have to go bribe some scientists for their field journals, then.” The corner of Geralt’s lip twitches, and Jaskier’s stomach flips. Gorgeous and weird and maybe, although he’s trying his best to hide it behind seven layers of nerves, maybe a little amused by Jaskier. Jaskier is going to fuck him right here in the garden. “Do you take journals of your own for work?”

A rather roundabout way of asking ‘what the fuck is it that you do’ but somehow, it lands. “I’m a… researcher,” Geralt mumbles. How very vague. “But I don’t publish my findings very often.”

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. “Do you work… for a company?”

“No.”

“Right. So you’re just keeping all your findings to yourself for no good reason at all.”

“No.”

“Then it sounds like you’re a pretty terrible researcher, actually.”

Geralt’s eyes flash as he turns to glare at Jaskier. “What?”

“Well, if you don’t share what you’ve found with anyone—”

“My… colleagues—”

“Aha! So you have colleagues!” Jaskier pokes Geralt’s side. “You aren’t just holed up in some depressing storage unit with months and months of research just for you.”

Once more, Geralt half-smirks. Not even half— more like a one-fifth smirk. “Years,” he admits.

“Years…” Jaskier tilts his head to the side thoughtfully. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re perhaps a significant number of years older than me?”

“I had the same thought when I saw you sitting here,” Geralt mumbles.

Jaskier snorts. “Seems like something Yennefer should have warned us about, perhaps. I would ask you directly how old you are, but I’m fairly certain that the only response I will get is a very gruff no.”

“No,” says Geralt, nearly smiling.

Making a show of pouting, Jaskier folds his arms over his chest. “Is that your favorite word?”

“No.” Geralt breaks into laughter as he repeats himself, and his whole face lights up with it. Jaskier laughs too, delighted by how joyous Geralt looks. He’s even more beautiful when he’s happy like this, and Jaskier wants very badly for this not to be their last date. “If I tell you my favorite word, you’re bound to judge me for it, as a poet.”

“As a poet, I swear not to mock you,” Jaskier raises his hand to cover his heart, barely restraining himself from grinning.

But before Geralt can share whatever it is, someone else approaches their bench. A second stranger— a woman about his height with short brown hair, wearing a pretty blouse. Jaskier notices her much more quickly than he’d noticed Geralt, and he makes the connection instantly. This can’t possibly end well.

“Oh, Yen wasn’t kidding,” says the stranger, eyeing Geralt. “You are very distinctive!”

Geralt stares back at her, slack-jawed for a moment. “What?”

“I’m Renfri,” Geralt’s date introduces herself. Jaskier wishes the earth would open up and swallow him whole, especially when she glances over at him. Her gaze slides back to Geralt, as does Jaskier’s, and yeah, he is very fucking distinctive with that white hair and those yellow eyes. Damn. “My friend Yennefer set us up for a blind date…?”

As Jaskier contemplates throwing himself into the koi pond, Geralt twists to stare at him. Jaskier can only imagine how mortified he must look right now; his face burns as both Renfri and Geralt look his way. Perhaps Renfri will figure it out before Geralt says anything; she looks like a smart woman.

But Geralt just gets up, dusting himself off and shaking his head. “No,” he tells Renfri, which would almost be funny if it weren’t the weirdest thing Jaskier has ever seen anyone do. Then Geralt leaves, turning to walk away from both of them, leaving Jaskier and Renfri alone together in the garden. Renfri frowns, watching him go with obvious increasing confusion. Jaskier also jumps to his feet, equally confused but determined not to lose sight of Geralt.

He chases the man— and it does feel like a chase, Geralt must be fucking speed-walking away— and finally tracks him down well outside the garden. Geralt is thundering down a set of stairs leading to a parking lot and he doesn’t stop at the sound of Jaskier careening towards him. Only when Jaskier desperately calls his name does he finally stop, slowing until he reaches the bottom landing and then standing there, still.

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier calls down the stairs, breathless. He begins to descend them but Geralt doesn’t turn around. “Fuck, you’re fast! Shit. I’m sorry, Geralt.”

Without looking his way, Geralt complains, so quietly that Jaskier nearly misses it, “Yennefer is going to kill me.”

“I would have fucked off,” Jaskier says quickly, hurrying down the rest of the steps until he gets to the bottom. Geralt still doesn’t look at him so Jaskier slides none-too-gracefully into his space, demanding his attention. He’s hardly red in the face or anything, but he looks embarrassed. Jaskier crumbles. “I’m sorry. I— seriously, I don’t care, I would have fucked off. I should’ve left, I should’ve— You should go back there, she’s beautiful!”

Geralt’s nostrils flare but he doesn’t look away. “Why did you lie,” he demands, flat.

“Well,” Jaskier deflates. “Um. You’re beautiful.”

“Hmm.”

“I really am sorry,” he offers.

Geralt, still watching him closely, says, “You don’t sound sorry.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jaskier throws his hands in the air, breaking away from Geralt’s stare— in the greenhouse, surrounded by bright lights and open, manmade nature, it had been easy to sit under the weight of Geralt’s eyes on him. Down here, at the end of a staircase and the entrance to a dark garage, chest still heaving, it feels too intimate. He puts some distance between them, sighing. “You want me to go back there and explain the whole situation to poor Renfri?”

When Jaskier finally turns around again, Geralt’s gaze hasn’t left him. “I want you to come have dinner with me instead,” he says, slowly but purposefully.

“Oh,” breathes Jaskier. “That’s— well, if you want that.”

“I already made a reservation for two. My name’s on the list.” Geralt is fidgeting with the end of his sleeve at first but when he approaches Jaskier he drops it, striding forward without hesitating. “Table for Geralt and one young brunet friend of Yennefer’s.”

Jaskier chokes on his own surprised laugh. “I don’t actually know Yennefer,” he needlessly explains.

“She’s going to hate you,” says Geralt, half-smirking, and then he adds, “Well, she’ll hate both of us now.”

They get to the restaurant twenty minutes late, Geralt’s hair mussed up and lips a bitten red and Jaskier wearing his backpack and a shit-eating grin. The host sees them and immediately tells them their table has been cancelled, and they end up getting terrible two-dollar slices from a hole-in-the-wall pizza place. They eat on the way back to Geralt’s car and then he drives Jaskier back to campus, kissing him soundly in the door to his apartment until Priscilla comes home and yells at Jaskier to get a room. As they squabble Geralt apologizes, polite and nervous, and kisses Jaskier’s cheek and tells him it was nice to meet him.

Jaskier goes inside and spends the next thirteen hours writing the best poetry he will ever write.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: A Confederacy of Dunces

Author: John Kennedy Toole

Rating: 5/5 stars

What a truly great book.

There is something in me that likes to read about people who are very wrong about almost everything. I know it seems strange when I say this, given the world in which I live and the things that I am interested in. But there is a particular sort of energy, a particular sort of emotional tone that these wrong people seem to exude. I'm not sure I have the skills of a stylist, or an exact set of criteria, but when I find this sort of "wrong person" writing in the wild, I can practically feel it vibrating.

You might think, "this must be a rare and perhaps pathological sort of thing." Maybe so, and maybe it is. But I would be foolish to ignore the fact that, for whatever idiosyncratic reason, I tend to respond to this energy. I may be responding to a special sort of fiction, or simply a special sort of voice, not always found elsewhere. I've had people tell me in different ways this book is like no one else's, and that's true in a way.

I would really love to see a non-fiction work which matched Toole's style. We have plenty of great histories, and wonderful biographies, and insightful nonfiction of all varieties. But very rarely do we find this sort of conversational tone in even a work that does not fit into the conventional genres. John Kennedy Toole's book is that kind of work.

Perhaps my favorite passage is the one that introduces Ignatius P. Reilly to the reader, in Chapter 7 of the first section ("Chapter" really refers to the book as a whole here, of course). Toole has set up this scene so well, and then he delivers the dialogue so well, that I have no choice but to quote it at length. Keep reading

The priest moved closer. He was smiling again, and it was like a smile, the smile of a leopard. He was standing over me, with his hands joined together below his narrow waist like some kind of exotic dancer. I couldn't take my eyes off the man. I'd never seen a man like that, not in the real world, especially not a Catholic priest, and certainly not a Catholic priest with a black, shiny hat and black, shiny pants. I thought the leopard priest might have to fight my own priest. But it was like neither of them could talk for a little while. I was really, truly glad.

"And the name of the priest is --" I began to say.

But before I could talk any more, a woman's voice cut in, and from somewhere inside her bosom, there was a terrible sound of music, and of singing, of clashing cymbals, of tambourines, of a great choir of angels, of ten thousand, hundreds of thousands, of millions, of billions of angels and all their legions, of the angels who came forth from the seven heavens.

The leopard priest put his finger on his lips, and I could see the black spots on his nose, and his pink fingers, and I knew it was a lie.

The fact that this is such a great page, and indeed the whole book, is a sign of the author's considerable skill, one that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for anyone else to achieve. Yet this is what we see. This is what the book "feels like" when it's working.

My experience of reading this book had a lot in common with my experience of reading Vladimir Nabokov's short fiction. Pale Fire, for instance, is a novel about this very same phenomenon. I can't remember whether I'd read Nabokov's fiction before reading Toole's, but I feel as though I must have. (Nabokov had a lot in common stylistically with Toole, including some of what I've quoted above.) I was at one point considering writing a post about this experience, trying to articulate something that I hadn't realized was a thing I knew.

I guess there's a connection between the way I write fiction and the way I read fiction. I see something in a story, or a person's voice, that seems to me like it might be worth saying out loud, or at least writing out, and the words come in a rush. The difference is that I don't think this happens to anyone else. (Maybe it does happen to some people, I don't know.)

Anyway, if you enjoy this sort of book -- if a book where there is a wrong person, and a really good voice, strikes you a certain way -- I recommend you read the book. The more I understand of the world and its possibilities, the more I want to read about unusual people.

[ritualpurposes]

Why History is Important

This week has been a week of terrible takes on History, Politics and how the two intersect. From the appalling article in the Telegraph on how the “woke masses” are trying to sabotage Britain’s history (I won’t give this the dignity of a link, but it is easy enough to find), the continued harassment and vilification of Dr Corinne Fowler for her work on the Colonial Countryside Project, to the release of the utterly disgusting 1776 commission in the US and as always, the plethora of ‘hot takes’ on Tumblr, I am seething with rage.

This is a long one, apologies. I won’t go into Tumblrs approach to history, that has been better covered by others here, and here and honestly this rant is long enough as is. 

Archaeology and history are inherently political, that is an inescapable fact. People are quick to turn up their noses at the subject of the past and say it has no bearing on the present, but that is a simplistic fantasy. The present is always built of the back of the past, our attitudes, our justifications, our worldviews are all artifacts of what has come before. And when our understanding of what came before is, shall we charitably say, flawed, that is dangerous. The links between the alt. right, white supremacy and fake, white –washed, hyper masculine ideas of the past are well documented. Many of these people justify their actions using versions of the past which to them are very real, ideas of a white ethno-state where the men were Men™. It should be noted, this isn’t a modern phenomenon, I’m pretty sure anyone who has had to sit through intro to archaeology has had to listen to at least once lecture on how Hitler used pseudo archaeology to justify his actions. And while academics can point out that Roman Britain was not white, or that the Vikings traded and intermarried with people from North Africa, these attempts are hindered, both by popular perceptions of the past, and by this idea that the left are attempting to rewrite history.

I find that last point difficult really to deal with, because it combines two opposing ideas, that historians want to make the past more ‘politically correct’ but also downplay the ‘greatness’ of whatever nation they are talking about by talking about the distinctly not political correct bits of history (colonialism and slavery).  There is this overwhelming idea that adding any sort of nuance is the result of massive bias. And that any history that doesn’t make your nation look 100% the Heroic Good Guys is part of some sort of plot to undermine national pride and patriotism. The Tories are terrified we might remove statues of slavers, but in the same breath attack the National Trust for trying to talk about the Colonial legacies of their properties.

I think at this point it’s also worth discussing the difference between history and commemoration.  I am 100% in support of removing statues, and of renaming streets etc. These things are not history, they are commemoration. History is found in museums, in books, in scholarship. History is knowledge, it is not objects but the context that surrounds them.  The removal of a statue does not equal rewriting history, a statue, while an archaeologically interesting artifact, does not in and of itself tell us much. Its context is far more revealing. There is an idea in archaeology called object biography, that looks at how items change in meaning and use throughout their ‘lives’. Items are not static, just like ideas are not static. In the 19th century that statue meant something very different to the people who are around today. What we commemorate, and what commemorations we destroy tell us about society. If the history of Edward Coulston is so important (a man, who I had never heard of before the statue was thrown into the river, so clearly not a priority in English history), then put the statue in a museum with an information board. And if you are really worried about the destruction of history? Why don’t you spend your time and money instead ensuring archaeological work gets done ahead of development or making sure history departments are adequately funded. Interesting, the Torries, while very concerned about statues, are actively fighting those two measures. I know less about the Republican agenda, but looking at the 1776 project, I’m pretty sure that any concern they have for history is less about the past and more about preserving the status quo.

I grew up in America. I took AP US history, and I remember having to write papers about how the Civil War was absolutely not about Slavery. I guess that doesn’t seem that harmful in and of itself, but let’s trace this bit of revisionism through shall we. The Civil war was over States rights, that doesn’t sound too bad. I mean I may not agree with the South, but is it really a moral issue to say that the Federal Government shouldn’t be able to override what individual States want? After all States are very different, what is good for New York might not be so good for Georgia. Ok, so using that logic I don’t really see what’s wrong with flying a confederate flag, I mean it can’t possibly be a symbol of oppression, because the Civil War *wasn’t* about Slavery. So I don’t see why people are getting all upset, it is simply a statement that States Rights are important.

Add to this the general romanticized picture of the Confederate South in the media and you suddenly are looking at a very different picture of the past, supported by, of all things, the fucking AP US History curriculum. The Confederates are seen as tragic heroes, on the wrong side of history perhaps, but with a point, fighting for a way of life.  And from there it doesn’t seem too far a leap to what happened on January 6 does it?  I’m not saying all media should demonize the South, but I think removing Slavery from the Civil war is dangerous and false representation of History, and one that directly plays into the Civil Unrest we are seeing at the Moment.

So that brings me back to the 1776 commission. It was published as a direct response to the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project sought to center slavery and its effects on American history. This is hugely important, and a weirdly contentious issue. The echos of slavery are still present in the USA, in the form of institutionalized racism, voter suppression, and increased levels of police brutality among other things. It is, at best impossibly naive and at worst actively malicious, to try and consider US history without dealing with the brutal legacy of slavery. And yet, this project was deemed to be ‘UnAmerican’ and ‘revisionist’. How dare any history of America undermine the idea that America is, and has always been, A noble nation that has never done anything wrong ever. To return briefly to my own experiences with AP US History, our textbook said we didn’t lose Vietnam (My father who was a war correspondent in Vietnam had some things to say about that comment). The myth of American Exceptionalism runs deep. The 1776 commission, which I have not brought myself to read in its entirety, is a horrific example of it. It justifies slavery, it states that “as a question of practical politics, no durable union could have been formed without a compromise among the states on the issue of slavery.”, states racism ended in 1964, and that Christianity is the reason we have secular law.

Why does this scare the shit out of me? Why do I care what people believe happened 200 years ago? Because if people truly believe that America can do no wrong, that patriotism means never questioning that we really will live in Trump’s America. Because if Slavery was justified, and racism doesn’t exist anymore than clearly we don’t have to do better, and any complaints are communist plot.  Because if Empire really did make England Great then why should we not continue in the same vain? History is grand! Let us live in the Good Ol�� Days!

History is messy. History is unpleasant. History doesn’t fit into simple narratives of good and bad, because people don’t fit into those categories. And while I agree it is impossible to teach history without some bias (interpretation being a key part), we need to accept our past. If we want a brighter future we need to confront where we come from. We need to fight the false narratives prevalent in our culture, be they the idea that Game of Thrones is a good picture of Medieval England or that the Civil War was over a simple ideological difference and not the lives of thousands of enslaved peoples. The best bit of advice on history I ever got was from my high school teacher “If you want to live in the past you haven’t been paying attention”, I think about that statement a lot. The past has power, let us not pretend otherwise.

[kip-whitmer]

@adawoollacott​:

Defensive? Who’s defensive? [[ Ada’s question is sincere. She’s so deep in her apathy that she is numb to the trouble she’d see if the wrong person caught her. Kip gives his sage advice, and Ada pretends to listen intently. ]] Yes Sir. I’ve learned my lesson. 

[[ Her eyes, beaming with jest, hang on his for a moment before looking at the book in his hand– A biography about Ada Lovelace. She reaches out and snatches it from him, furrowing her brow at the title. She flips through the pages, reads its back cover, then hands the biography back to Kip. ]]

It’s like I’ve said a thousand times: Everyone named Ada is a genius and the smartest person in the world. 

[[ Remembering that she needs to check out a book to maintain her front, Ada grabs a book by Kip’s head. ]] 

A Beautiful Mind. [[ She reads the title aloud. ]] Looks like we are in the Nerd History part of the library. Can you imagine writing a book about math? For fun? 

Thought you were. Clearly I was mistaken. [Kip’s head cants to the side in muted amusement, especially at her ‘Yes sir.’ For a brief moment he’d been mentally berating himself for sassing Ada, but she takes it in the good humour with which he’d intended it. She’s so brash that he finds it hard to tell exactly where her humour begins and ends. Kip might talk a big game but he’s still a bit shy deep down, and rarely as confident as he appears in social situations.

She grabs the book from him, which he’s going to do nothing about even if he’s not a huge fan of having things grabbed from him. For some reason he’s got the impression that with Ada, the ice is always thin. She’s in a good mood now, but he’s got a suspicion that could end at any moment. While it lasts, though, her attitude is pretty infectious.] 

Dunno if you and Lovelace alone count as proof. Two seems like a statistical anomaly. Besides, you wanna give all the credit for your genius to your name? 

[He pulls a face as she comments scathingly on writing about math for fun, somewhere between a laugh and a pout. While it had never been his ambition to write a book about math, he certainly reads a lot of them.] I can’t honestly answer your question without giving you way too much ammo with which to roast me. I’m guessing you’re not a fan of math, then?

[It had always been one of Kip’s favourite subjects. He liked that it made sense, that there was no subjectivity. A number means what it means, an equation has only one answer, and in terms of human evolution, it’s pretty much the only wholly necessary academic skill. People had oral histories long before they developed literacy, but numeracy has always been vital. Even before they had the concept of ‘three’, you’d have farmers counting sheep by setting aside one stone for each sheep in the field. It was also just necessary to the path Kip had wanted to pursue, so he’d enjoyed it for the simple fact that it taught him skills he would rely on later in life.]

[birdlord]

Every Book I Read in 2019

This was a heavier reading year for me (heavier culture-consumption year in general) partly because my partner started logging his books read, and then, of course, it’s a competition.

01 Morvern Callar; Alan Warner - One of the starkest books I’ve ever read. What is it about Scotland that breeds writers with such brutal, distant perspectives on life? Must be all the rocks. 

02 21 Things You Might Not Know About the Indian Act; Bob Joseph - I haven’t had much education in Canada’s relationship to the Indigenous nations that came before it, so this opened things up for me quite a bit. The first and most fundamental awakening is to the fact that this is not a story of progress from worse to better (which is what a simplistic, grade school understanding of smallpox blankets>residential schools>reserves would tell you), in fact, the nation to nation relationship of early contact was often superior to what we have today. I wish there was more of a call to action, but apparently a sequel is on its way. 

03 The Plot Against America; Philip Roth - An alternative history that in some ways mirrors our present. I did feel like I was always waiting for something to happen, but I suppose the point is that, even at the end of the world, disasters proceed incrementally. 

04 Sabrina; Nick Drnaso - The blank art style and lack of contrast in the colouring of each page really reinforces the feeling of impersonal vacancy between most of the characters. I wonder how this will read in the future, as it’s very much based in today’s relationship to friends and technology. 

05 Perfumes: The Guide; Luca Turn & Tania Sanchez - One of the things I like to do when I need to turn my brain off online is reading perfume reviews. That’s where I found out about this book, which runs through different scent families and reviews specific well-known perfumes. Every topic has its boffins, and these two are particularly witty and readable. 

06 Adventures in the Screen Trade; William Goldman - Reading this made me realize how little of the cinema of the 1970s I’ve actually seen, beyond the usual heavy hitters. Ultimately I found this pretty thin, a few peices of advice stitched together with anecdotes about a Hollywood that is barely recognizable today. 

07 The Age of Innocence; Edith Wharton - A love triangle in which the fulcrum is a terribly irritating person, someone who thinks himself far more outré than he is. Nonetheless, I was taken in by this story of “rebellion”, such as it was, to be compelling.

08 Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis; Sam Anderson - Like a novel that follows various separate characters, this book switches between tales of the founding of Oklahoma City with basketball facts and encounters with various oddball city residents. It’s certainly a fun ride, but you may find, as I did, that some parts of the narrative interest you more than others. Longest subtitle ever?

09 World of Yesterday; Stefan Zweig - A memoir of pre-war Austria and its artistic communities, told by one of its best-known exports. Particularly wrenching with regards to the buildup to WWII, from the perspective of those who had been through this experience before, so recently. 

10 Teach us to Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing; Tim Parks - A writer finds himself plagued by pain that conventional doctors aren’t able to cure, so he heads further afield to see if he can use stillness-of-mind to ease the pain, all the while complaining as you would expect a sceptic to do. His digressions into literature were a bit hard to take (I’m sure you’re not Coleridge, my man).

11 The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences have Extraordinary Impact; Chip & Dan Heath - I read this for work-related reasons, with the intention of improving my ability to make exhibitions and interpretation. It has a certain sort of self-helpish structure, with anecdotes starting each chapter and a simple lesson drawn from each one. Not a bad read if you work in a public-facing capacity. 

12 Against Everything: Essays; Mark Greif - The founder of N+1 collects a disparate selection of essays, written over a period of several years. You won’t love them all, but hey, you can always skip those ones!

13 See What I Have Done; Sarah Schmidt - A retelling of the Lizzie Borden story, which I’d seen a lot of good reviews for. Sadly this didn’t measure up, for me. There’s a lot of stage setting (rotting food plays an important part) but there’s not a lot of substance there. 

14 Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy; Angela Garber - This is another one that came to me very highly recommended. Garber seems to think these topics are not as well-covered as they are, but she does a good job researching and retelling tales of pregnancy, birth, postpartum difficulties and breastfeeding. 

15 Rebecca; Daphne du Maurier - This was my favourite book club book of the year. I’d always had an impression of...trashiness I guess? around du Maurier, but this is a classic thriller. Maybe the first time I’ve ever read, rather than watched, a thriller! That’s on me. 

16 O’Keefe: The Life of an American Legend; Jeffrey Hogrefe - I went to New Mexico for the first time this spring, and a colleague lent me this Georgia O’Keefe biography after I returned. I hadn’t known much about her personal life before this, aside from what I learned at her museum in Santa Fe. The author has made the decision that much of O’Keefe’s life was determined by childhood incest, but doesn’t have what you might call….evidence?

17 A Lost Lady; Willa Cather - A turn-of-the-20th century story about an upper-class woman and her young admirer Neil. I’ve never read any other Cather, but this felt very similar to the Wharton I also read this year, which I gather isn’t typical of her. 

18 The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months of Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country; Helen Russell - A British journalist moves to small-town Denmark with her husband, and although the distances are not long, there’s a considerable culture shock. Made me want to eat pastries in a BIG WAY. 

19 How Not to be a Boy; Robert Webb - The title gives a clue to the framing device of this book, which is fundamentally a celebrity memoir, albeit one that largely ignores the celebrity part of his life in favour of an examination of the effects of patriarchy on boys’ development as human beings. 

20 The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will be Glad that You Did); Philippa Perry; A psychotherapist’s take on how parents’ own upbringing affects the way they interact with their own kids. 

21 The Library Book; Susan Orlean - This book has stuck with me more than I imagined that it would. It covers both the history of libraries in the USA, and the story of the arson of the LA Public Library’s central branch in 1986. 

22 We Are Never Meeting in Real Life; Samantha Irby - I’ve been reading Irby’s blog for years, and follow her on social media. So I knew the level of raunch and near body-horror to expect in this essay collection. This did fill in a lot of gaps in terms of her life, which added a lot more blackness (hey) to the humour. 

23 State of Wonder; Ann Patchett - A semi-riff on Heart of Darkness involving an OB/GYN who now works for a pharmaceutical company, heading to the jungle to retrieve another researcher who has gone all Colonel Kurtz on them. I found it a bit unsatisfying, but the descriptions were, admittedly, great. 

24 Disappearing Earth; Julia Phillips - A story of an abduction of two girls in very remote Russia, each chapter told by another townsperson. The connections between the narrators of each chapter are sometimes obvious, but not always. Ending a little tidy, but plays against expectations for a book like this. 

25 Ethan Frome; Edith Wharton - I gather this is a typical high school read, but I’d never got to it. In case you’re in the same boat as me, it’s a short, mildly melodramatic romantic tragedy set in the new england winter. It lacks the focus on class that other Whartons have, but certainly keeps the same strong sense that once you’ve made a choice, you’re stuck with it. FOREVER. 

26 Educated; Tara Westover - This memoir of a Mormon fundamentalist-turned-Academic-superstar was huge on everyone’s reading lists a couple of years back, and I finally got to it. It felt similar to me in some ways to the Glass Castle, in terms of the nearly-unbelievable amounts of hell she and her family go through at the hands of her father and his Big Ideas. I found that it lacked real contemplation of the culture shock of moving from the rural mountain west to, say, Cambridge. 

27 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of Lusitania; Erik Larson - I’m a sucker for a story of a passenger liner, any non-Titanic passenger liner, really. Plus Lusitania’s story has interesting resonances for the US entry into WWI, and we see the perspective of the U-boat captain as well as people on land, and Lusitania’s own passengers and crew. 

28 The Birds and Other Stories; Daphne du Maurier - The title story is the one that stuck in my head most strongly, which isn’t any surprise. I found it much more harrowing than the film, it had a really effective sense of gradually increasing dread and inevitability. 

29 Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Faded Glory; Raphael Bob-Waksberg - Hit or miss in the usual way of short story collections, this book has a real debt to George Saunders. 

30 Sex & Rage; Eve Babitz - a sort of pseudo-autobiography of an indolent life in the LA scene of the 1970s. It was sometimes very difficult to see how the protagonist actually felt about anything, which is a frequent, acute symptom of youth. 

31 Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party; Graham Greene - Gotta love a book with an alternate title built in. This is a broad (the characters? are, without exception, insane?!) satire about a world I know little about. I don’t have a lot of patience or interest in Greene’s religious allegories, but it’s a fine enough story. 

32 Lathe of Heaven; Ursula K LeGuin - Near-future sci-fi that is incredibly prescient about the effects of climate change for a book written over forty years ago. The book has amazing world-building, and the first half has the whirlwind feel of Homer going back in time, killing butterflies and returning to the present to see what changes he has wrought. 

33 The Grammarians; Cathleen Schine - Rarely have I read a book whose jacket description of the plot seems so very distant from what actually happens therein. 

34 The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network; Katharine Losse - Losse was one of Facebook’s very earliest employees, and she charts her experience with the company in this memoir from 2012. Do you even recall what Facebook was like in 2012? They hadn’t even altered the results of elections yet! Zuck was a mere MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, probably. Were we ever so young?

35 Invisible Women; Caroline Ciado Perez - If you want to read a book that will make you angry, so angry that you repeatedly assail whoever is around with facts taken from it, then this, my friend, is the book for you. 

36 The Hidden World of the Fox; Adele Brand - A really charming look at the fox from an ecologist who has studied them around the world. Much of it takes place in the UK, where urban foxes take on a similar ecological niche that raccoons famously do where I live, in Toronto. 

37 S; Doug Dorst & JJ Abrams - This is a real mindfuck of a book, consisting of a faux-old novel, with marginalia added by two students which follows its own narrative. A difficult read not because of the density of prose, but the sheer logistics involved: read the page, then the marginalia? Read the marginalia interspersed with the novel text? Go back chapter by chapter? I’m not sure that either story was worth the trouble, in the end. 

38 American War; Omar El Akkad - This is not exclusively, but partially a climate-based speculative novel, or, grossly, cli-fi for short. Ugh, what a term! But this book is a really tight, and realistic look at the results of a fossil-fuels-based second US Civil War. 

39 Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation; Andrew Marantz - This is the guy you’ll hear on every NPR story talking about his semi-embedding within the Extremely Online alt-right. Most of the figures he profiles come off basically how you’d expect, I found his conclusions about the ways these groups have chosen to use online media tools to achieve their ends the most illuminating part. 

40 Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm; Isabella Tree - This is the story of a long process of transitioning a rural acreage (more of an estate than a farm, this is aristocratic shit) from intensive agriculture to something closer to wild land. There are long passages where Tree (ahem) simply lists species which have come back, which I’m sure is fascinating if you are from the area, but I tended to glaze over a bit. Experts from around the UK and other European nations weigh in on how best to rewild the space, which places the project in a wider context. 

FICTON: 17     NONFICTION: 23

[jurijurijurious]

History ramble: the Northern Rebellion 1569

I've read 3-and-a-bit books about Sir Francis Walsingham within a week — the warm weather and being furloughed until next week has left me with plenty of free time and so it seemed apt to delve into my expansive history book collection which needs to be read.

I find that the milestones of Walsingham's timeline are becoming clearer in my head, more, now than ever before, probably just because I've read so much in a short time and it's fresh. I find it both interesting and a little bit frustrating to read so many different takes on the same event/thing though — I think, once upon a time, when I was young and foolish, I thought I could read a history book and then know history, so to speak, but this is bollocks — all you know is one person's perception and opinion on history; it's not until you read another book on the same topic that you hear an alternative take/view and realise that you still, in fact, probably know very little.

Aside from this, there's a certain event which happened in Walsingham's lifetime which I keep stumbling on and somehow feel that it's impact has been lost: the Northern Rebellion.

Stepping back a second, I think it's fair to say, if you were raised in England, and whether or not you like history, you have no doubt heard of "Bloody Mary" and her propensity to burn Protestants. In truth, it is alleged she burned under 300 people during her reign for religious heresy. It would be too simple to call her a monster or condemn her outright as we need to take into context the era, the mindset, the laws, and so on and so forth — of course, burning is a terrible way to go whichever way you look at it — but I feel that we need to pause to compare and critically look at the events which happened during her half-sister's reign, which successful propaganda and rose-tinted-spectacled-patriotism have over the many years left us with an image of having been "a golden age".

Catholics were certainly entrapped and killed during Elizabeth's reign, and the numbers of Catholics killed weren't drastically fewer, I think I'm right in saying, than the Protestants burned by Mary. (I think this point was raised in History's Greatest Fibs on the BBC fairly recently by Lucy Woirsley?) But the point of comparison in human loss in Elizabeth's reign which I feel perhaps warrants more attention is that which resulted from the Northern Rebellion.

In 1569, the Northern Catholic magnates, Neville and Percy, armed their tenants, gathered together and marched on Durham. I won't go into the complexities of it all, but there was a essentially a scheme hatched to free Mary of Scots who was by this point a prisoner in England. The rebellion managed to kick the royalists out of Barnard Castle (funny these places have been in the news recently for very different reasons!) before they retreated back to Durham once they got wind that the Queen's forces were being levied in London to march.

In short, the "rebellion" fizzled out, but Elizabeth was not happy and apparently ordered 700 of the rebels to be executed. 700! Ultimately, fewer than this were executed — but imagine if she had got her way. Those 300 burnings over 5 years pale in comparison to this one act of sweeping vengeance in 1569. I can't find a figure for how many men were hanged in the end, but my books' claims vary with vague ideas of it having been "scores" or "hundreds", and they also claim that the loss of so many men in so short a time meant that the economy in the area did not recover for nearly 200 years.

And yet this event is summarised in a few paragraphs in each of my Walsingham books. Maybe it wasn't relevant enough to Walsingham's life to warrant more analysis in biographies on him — he wasn't secretary of state at this point and indeed was only just on the bottom rungs of the ladder so to speak at this point. I wonder if I go get some books specifically about Elizabeth rather than Walsingham if the Rebellion might be given more attention. Still when I consider all the big things we know of Elizabeth's reign through popular culture alone, which is mainly the armada, Shakespeare, Robert Dudley, pomp and pageantry, I find it astonishing that we don't think it's important to also mark this event in Elizabeth's reign? I'm sure the North probably haven't forgotten, but it's conveniently brushed over by history otherwise.

I guess we could argue that when comparing this to Bloody Mary and her Protestant martyrs it was a totally different set of circumstances, that one would expect losses when people mobilise against the ruling monarch with an aim to displace them, and I certainly know very well that we have to be careful about judging Medieval-cum-Renaissance rulers with modern standards — but I think my thoughts were more centring on the fact that we have long tarred Mary I as being "bloody" due to her Protestant purges which amounted to around 300 deaths, and yet in the same breath glorify her half-sister Elizabeth as "Gloriana" when she had in one case alone wanted to kill 700 insurgents against her crown — and though fewer than this number died, the results of her vengeance still ultimately meant that a Northern economy was left decrepit for two centuries. It's a sobering thought.

Ultimately, there are no black and white "good and bad guys" in history; there are just people and their choices.

--x-posted to http://jurious.livejournal.com/

[thefloatingstone]

Would you please make me a list of your rcommended comics(books or web-series any genre original content or fanworks)

Oh that’s a god one! Thank you so very much 💙 Let me see what I have on my shelf and on my hard drive. (I don’t know if I’ve ever made a list of my favourite comics before or not here on tumblr?)

in no particular order;

1: Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai

I dunno if it ever really shows or not, but Japanese historical settings are something I’m really into! I think it’s one of those dormant interests that flares up every now and then. Anyway. Usagi Yojimbo has basically been tied for my favourite comic for over 10 years now. It’s a series of stories, both short and with longer arcs, following the character of Miyamoto Usagi (roughly based on Miyamoto Musashi) travelling around the country of Japan in the early 1600s as a Ronin after the lord he served was defeated and killed in battle. Usagi, being one of his samurai, is not killed in the same battle which, considering his lord was killed, is a massive disgrace in historical Japanese culture. Basically along the thought of “If your lord died and you didn’t you must not have fought hard enough to protect him.”

Anyway, the comic is both a history lesson on Edo period Japan, a travel diary, a slice of life comic, a Chanbara, an action comic, some times even a horror or ghost story, a tragedy involving unfulfilled love and lost families, a lesson on traditional Japanese Yokai and other mythology, and now and then high fantasy.

10/10. HIGHLY recommend. The author Stan Sakai is also a wonderful person I’ve had the pleasure to meet a few times at Comic Con. And considering he like... remembers who I AM despite being an extremely famous comic artist... I dunno. I have endless respect for the man and he’s shown me great kindness in the past.

Also you know... black and white comics. They’re my jam, yo!

2: Bone by Jeff Smith

I have no idea if I even have to say anything because Bone might just, without hyperbole, be the greatest comic ever drawn.

At 1300+ pages drawn over the course of 10 years, the story starts out as a cartoon, full of hijinks and fun adventures and jokes and very slowly, reality starts setting in, things get more dangerous, the stakes get higher, the bad guys much darker. And by the time you reach book 3 of the 9 book story, you’re suddenly in a story of the “epic” variety. Not in the internet slang term but in the actual definition of the word.

You have massive wars between men and monsters, you have clashing cultures and ideologies, conflicting motivations and goals, and of course saving the world.

And it manages to do so without you EVER feeling “Excuse me but this was a cartoon book about funny jokes. This shift in tone is really weird and doesn’t work with the cartoony characters.”

It just blends and grows beautifully. And has remained as my favourite comic for... *counts* lord... 14 years now.

The book was recently released in a new colour version in case you prefer hat, but I honestly recommend “The Brick” single volume black and white version. It’s cheaper, first of all, but also I cannot express how masterful the blacks and whites of Bone are. They’re essentially Watterson level.

(also Jeff Smith is ANOTHER comic artist who is just like... the nicest person. Like REALLY nice. He’s been kind to me on occasions in that “you really didn’t have to be that nice” kind of way)

3: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

It’s published by Disney officially... but the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is essentially a fancomic. The only reason its not is because Don Rosa became SO GOOD at making duck comics Disney hired him to make them officially and he was SO GOOD at it became one of the most important Duck artists just after Carl Barks (the creator of Scrooge) himself.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comprehensive biography of Scrooge McDuck’s life, not just made up by Don Rosa, but pieced together from Carl Barks’ own comics where he would have Scrooge make passing mention to events in his past or people he met. Don Rosa essentially took all these passing remarks and mentions and drew out a timeline, starting with Scrooge age 13 leading all the way up to his reunion with his family when Donald as an adult met up with him again.

It starts with Scrooge, from a poor family in Glasgow in 1877, boarding a ship for America to seek his fortune. We follow him through the years as with each chapter, he comes close to being rich and successful, only for it to fail or fall apart at the last minute, until, eventually, we see him catch his break and become the obscenely rich and successful person he’s fought and worked and bled so hard to be.

...and then the comic continues. And we see him lose himself. Greed, the constant need for MORE money and MORE success keeps going. The need to show HOW rich and successful he is takes over, until we see him and his family fall apart. And the comic echoes Citizen Kane as Scrooge realises the best time of his life was when he was seeking riches, not after he finally succeeded.

And then Donald and his nephews appear, and Scrooge’s life gets a second wind. His lust for adventure flares up again, his need to seek fortunes and treasures burns as strong as ever. And he keeps going.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a story about looking for your place in the world and fighting to create it with your own two hands, but it’s also about how you should think hard where you place your value in life, and it’s never too late to re-direct course and try again.

There is also “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion” which is a collection of stories that didn’t fit in with the original comic and would have disrupted flow. Basically like how a fanfic will have oneshots related to a larger story

Also, the producer of the band “Nightwish” created a soundtrack to accompany the original comic as a sort of “What If” in what he imagined the story would sound like if it was made into a movie

4: Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G. ( @ggdgart )

A newer comic I stumbled upon which has skyrocketed into being a fave and I can already tell, that’s not a position it’s gonna relinquish. Cucumber Quest is a more cartoony and comedic story than the previous comics on this list. But that by no means makes it of any less value or dulls the moments that this comic decides to punch you in the gut with emotions HARD.

The art and colours are glorious and something I hope to study so I can better my own art hopefully, and the writing and humour is of a calibre that I just know I could not replicate it if I even tried. Full of puns, absurdism, awkward jokes and a whole lot of FEELINGS, It manages to make me both laugh myself into a coughing fit as often as it makes me yell “OH NOOOO!!!” when something dramatic happens.

The story follows our main character Cucumber, a put-upon out-of-his-depth wizard-to-be who is tasked with saving the world from the evil Nightmare Knight who has been summoned from his thousand year slumber by an evil sorcerer who wants to take over the world (as you do). With him is his little sister, the sword wielding Almond, who is WAY more into this “being a hero” thing than he is (and probably better at it too) as the duo make friends and travel to the various kingdoms to defeat the Nightmare Knight’s lackeys, working their way up to fighting the Nightmare Knight himself and sealing him away once more!

That all sounds.... really straightforward, doesn’t it? Well... that’s what everybody else in the comic thinks too. ...Shame that real life is never easy and straightforward.

From evil henchmen that start crushing on cool “Good Guys” with cool swords, good guys who don’t REALLY want to hurt the bad guys because they don’t seem so bad? To cool good guys with cool swords suddenly learning that being in danger is not as much fun as it sounded when they started this. To big evil final boss bad guys who are just tired of all of this...

What’s also awesome is the entire comic... all OVER 800 PAGES OF IT... is completely free to read online! But you can also buy physical copies of the first 4 volumes in book form to support the author! 

http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-1/

I HIGHLY recommend this one too! It has canon LGBT characters! It has found family plots! It has scary bad guys that just need a hug! It has magical girl transformations! Literally anything you could want is in this comic. Including emotional wrecking angst! Did I mention FEELINGS???

(I couldn’t pick a single page so here are 3 random ones without context. Seriously almost EVERY page is so good I struggled very hard to choose)

-

-

5: The Property of Hate by @modmad

Hey. Do you like fantasy worlds made of imagination? How about protagonists with grey morality who act like super primand proper gentlemen when they’re actually huge nerds? How about reluctant “Well I guess I’ve ADOPTED you now you annoying gremlin” adult-kid relationships? How about puns? How about abstract and colourfull character designs? Or saving the world?

The Property of Hate is Modmad’s original comic that they’ve been working on a few years now. it follows our lead character, RGB or “Problematic Mary Poppins” as I like to think of him, as he asks a young child if she’d like to be a hero and help him save his world? When she agrees, he takes her to a fantasy land... completely NOT preparing her for what she’s signed up for. The story then follows the duo through the abstract and shifting world as RGB slowly divulges information on what exactly our Hero has to do to save the world. It turns out it’s a lot more complicated and messy than merely “beat the bad guy” or anything like that.

Not to mention it seems this fantasy world has its own rules of reality and dangers. Emotions and abstract thoughts have real physical form here, and something like an “idea” can quite literally run around and create havoc, while something like dreams can fuel or destroy, and emotions like grief can cause irreparable damage.

Our Hero also learns RGB himself is a lot more complex and messy than he first appears. Seeming to be a good person trying to do good things (despite being a little stand offish and rude at times) but seems to also be carrying a past and the weight of having done some very very bad things “for the greater good”. And our Hero, as well as we, the readers, start wondering how much we should trust him, even though, just like our Hero, deep deep down we just know we WANT to trust him. And maybe he needs saving just as much as the world itself does. Even when he’s at his scariest and... not quite himself.

The Property of Hate is also available online completely for free. Modmad does have books for sale but I believe it’s on-demand or something along those lines. Please feel free to message them here on tumblr and they are happy to chat to their readers and interact.

http://thepropertyofhate.com/TPoH/The%20Hook/1

I think I’ll leave it there despite meaning to do 10 at first because this is already EXTREMELY long.

Hopefully you found something that seems interesting! Let me know if you decide to check any of these out and whether you ended up liking them or not! I’d love to hear your opinions.

And thank you for indulging me <3

(I’m trying to remember to add my ko-fi link to all longer posts like this I make. Especially since I keep forgetting ☕️Buy me a Ko-fi ☕️ )

[kaibashadow]

Story:

Seto Kaiba overhears a rumor about KaibaShadow possibly getting over him and goes to investigate the source. He finds Kokichi Ouma standing outside somewhere in the middle of the day and confronts him.

Kokichi decides to tease the CEO of the company, mainly stating that he, himself, is more superior in every way and a much more better choice for her than Kaiba will ever be.

Kaiba knows that this guy has track record of lying so much and thinks that he is up to his usual antics right now. He doesn’t believe that he lost KaibaShadow even for just a second. He smacks Kokichi right across the face, which leave a very distinct red, painful mark on his cheek and a very distraught supreme leader turning away from Kaiba in order to conceal the damage he has done to him.

Kaiba leaves Kokichi and goes to find his so-called “friends” just randomly standing in the middle of the road in some remote location. He tells them in great detail what he has done, and when the others start reacting and retaliating, saying that he shouldn’t have punched Kokichi, Kaiba just laughs. He doesn’t take orders or advice from anyone. He is in this all for himself. As long as he has his fan-base to support him, he thinks that everything that he does will be justified in any way.

He walks away from the group, needing time to spend for himself.

- - -

At night, Kaiba enters his secret base and starts turning on his terminal and his computer. He wants to know if Kokichi really does serve as a competition to him. Kaiba decides to see what KaibaShadow was viewing last time in her search history. He discovers Kokichi Ouma’s biography page and schematics and starts reading through them with such disgust.

Suddenly, one of Kaiba’s cameras starts alerting him of an intruder in the area. He checks the main camera to see what might be going on.

Kokichi Ouma appears right on his computer screen, almost scaring Kaiba in the process. Apparently, Kokichi found Kaiba’s secret base and locates one of his hidden cameras and thought that it would be fun if Kaiba knew that his base was now compromised by his beautiful presence.

Kokichi has a proposition for Kaiba. “Heeeeyyy, Kaiba! You want to know why KaibaShadow has been so interested in me lately? Well, I’m gonna tell you now. So, get ready!” Kokichi takes a deep breath as if he is ready to explain in great detail his whole life story, but then, he states, “That was just a lie! If you really want to know, then meet me later tonight at this location.” Kokichi tapes a piece of paper to Kaiba’s camera, completely obscuring the camera’s view in the process. Kokichi later leaves the premises without Kaiba knowing how or when Kokichi was able to enter or leave his base.

Kaiba is shocked that Kokichi was easily able to track down his current secret base and is appalled to even think that Kokichi would have revealed himself and shed some light on the matter right then and there. He contemplates whether he should go find out the truth from the talented trickster. In the back of his mind, he has a feeling that Kokichi won’t really say anything about it and thinks that he is going to trick Kaiba again. But, what choice does Kaiba have? If he wants to find out what really happened, then he has no choice but to go, right?

Kaiba gets up and closes his monitor and his lights. He goes out late at night, thinking that he might have a lead.

- - -

When Kaiba meets up at the given location with Kokichi, he at first didn’t recognize him. He thought it was just some kid outside just trick-or-treating really late at night, which he finds to be odd considering that this kid was alone by himself with no parent or guardian around to watch him. Kaiba has a quick thought about whether or not his little brother, Mokuba, was still outside trick-or-treating by himself or even if his brother was even doing such a thing in the first place when suddenly, the kid in front of him starts speaking, “So, what do you think about my costume?”

Kaiba scrutinizes at the kid more closely and finally notices the short stature and small features of the boy in front of him. He can now see that this person is his newest rival. “What are you supposed to even be?” he questions with a glaring tone.

Kokichi smiles and says, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m just a skeleton! Or a Soul Reaper! Or maybe even the Grim Reaper! Pick or choose whichever. Anyways, where’s your costume?”

Kaiba doesn’t answer his question. Instead, he remarks and laughs maniacally, “Your costume is lame! Hahahahaha!” He gloats with a wide-open smile when he sees Kokichi about to be in tears and ponders that this guy has no chance over winning KaibaShadow’s heart. He thinks that coming here was just a waste of time and he leaves abruptly.

What Kaiba doesn’t know is that this was all an act just to see how desperate he was to getting the information. Kokichi wanted to know if he was bothering Kaiba just by the mere sight of him, and he definitely got his answer right then. He has everything falling into place, especially KaibaShadow’s undivided attention.

Kokichi tries to give a fair warning to Kaiba, but he’s already out of sight. “If you try to break me…”

- - -

Kokichi changes out of his costume and into his own clothing. He snickers and grins, knowing that he has everything now at his fingertips. Now, all he has to do to Kaiba… “I’m gonna burn you down!” Kokichi is a force to be reckoned with, and Kaiba has no idea what he’s in for.

- - -

The next day, Kokichi challenges Kaiba to play a game at the gym.

For some reason, Kaiba just doesn’t seem to know how to say no to this person, and they start the game.

Some time passes, and Kokichi appears to be the one who is winning so far. But, Kaiba doesn’t give in. He knows he is capable of bouncing right back to win the game just as he did countless times before.

However, Kokichi finds this moment as an opportunity to finally reveal to Kaiba the whereabouts of KaibaShadow. KaibaShadow has apparently have two interests in mind, and neither one of them happens to be the beholder of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards. Kokichi states with such veracity, “Baby, KaibaShadow’s done with you. She’s not coming back for you.”

And, with that statement, Kokichi automatically wins the duel. He beats Kaiba in his own game and mischievously teases, “I didn’t know we were playing Duel Links.”

 Devastated with the loss, Kaiba decides to find a way to enter the after life to find the Pharaoh for a duel without trying to harm himself in order to get there.

Instead, he finds himself in another place and in a different school currently wearing school clothes at this time. He didn’t want to cause a scene, so he plans on waiting until school is over to see where exactly did he end up.

However, Uryu Ishida just happens to notice Seto Kaiba, whereas, the rest of the class didn’t. He knows that Kaiba doesn’t belong here and senses that his spiritual pressure is a threat to this world. He also knows that Kaiba was once a favorite of KaibaShadow’s, but now there is no room for him to be on her mind. Uryu makes it his mission to eliminate the being as quickly as he can.

Uryu glares intensely at Kaiba while skillfully sewing during his free time.

Kaiba, trying to read a book that he clearly can’t understand as if it was written in a new language he has never seen before, notices Uryu and thinks that maybe he’s been made. But, Kaiba makes this the least of his worries. He’s been trying to figure out who Kokichi Ouma was talking about when he mentioned that there are two interests that KaibaShadow has in mind. One of them just has to be Kokichi Ouma, which she has made a definitive mistake on, but who is this other one? he contemplates to himself.

- - -

The school bell finally rings for the end of the day. Kaiba gets out of his school clothes and dresses himself in his normal attire. However, he was not expecting to come face-to-face with another person.

Uryu carefully draws his bow and releases the arrow with such grace, surrounding Kaiba in a bright and intense light.

Kaiba isn’t sure how or what exactly set this person off or what was bothering him when suddenly, he gets a sinking feeling that this might be the other “interest” that the little gremlin was talking about. He questions the guy in front of him, “So tell me, who or what are you?”

Uryu stands his ground and wears a serious look on his face. “Uryu Ishida. I’m a Quincy.” He eyes the person in front of him meticulously and points assertively at him. “Seto Kaiba, you are my enemy!”

Kaiba certainly isn’t one who backs down from a fight, but he has never met a person who has powers like Uryu, or so he thinks. Kaiba concludes that it might be best to stay out of Uryu’s way, not that this so called “Quincy” poses any kind of threat to him. He’d rather just not get himself involved with the situation as of yet.

- - -

Kaiba walks alone at night by himself just trying to figure out where he still is and if he’s any closer to getting to the after life to meet the Pharaoh. Being alone with his own thoughts makes him feel susceptible to thinking about anything, especially his encounter with Uryu. “So, he has special powers, wears glasses, and knows how to sew. What exactly makes him so special?” he continues to ponder, “This is just a phase KaibaShadow is going through. She’s going to get over him and come back to me. Same goes for that Kokichi.”

He continues to walk on, but suddenly, he hears something and looks over his shoulder. He certainly wasn’t expecting to see him tonight.

Uryu Ishida was just out walking in the street by himself when he senses Kaiba’s awful spiritual pressure. As if reading his mind, he warns Kaiba, “Know I’m nothing like the others.”

(Note: KaibaShadow has plushies of some of her favorite characters from various franchises. Some were given as gifts, and others she bought for herself. So, guess which plushies she recently added to her collection?)

Uryu takes it upon himself to take Kaiba to the Soul Society for two reasons: 1. To get Kaiba away from his world and his town. 2. The Soul Society is overfilling with reishi, which he can utilize his own powers and defeat Kaiba once and for all.

Once they arrive at the Soul Society, however, Kaiba manages to knock Uryu off of the roof. Kaiba appears to be all high and mighty and is smug about the whole situation. He doesn’t believe he lost KaibaShadow in any way, shape, or form. He warns Uryu, “Stay out of my way! You’re no match compared to me anyways!” Kaiba gets off the roof and walks away.

Uryu takes great offense to that statement as he continues to use his fingers to latch on to the roof to prevent him from falling a great amount of distance towards the ground. He relies on his pride as a Quincy to release his powers and to regain control over this battle. Uryu responds to the CEO, “You shouldn’t have messed with me ‘cuz I heard…” With the use of his powers, he plants himself firmly on his feet and vows to exact revenge, or at least, set them both on the same leverage. He goes to find the wandering Kaiba in the Soul Society.

- - -

Later that night, Uryu finds Kaiba and decides to go beyond his current capabilities in order to set the record straight. Uryu breaks off his glove and immediately feels this new set of powers overflowing almost beyond his control, but Uryu doesn’t quit. He is determined to stop Kaiba at all costs and send him anywhere else but his world and here.

Kaiba finds himself in deep trouble, knowing that a simple card games can’t help him out with this problem. He know that in a fight against this Quincy, he will lose, but his own pride has prevented him from making smart choices. If Kaiba hasn’t felt fear or death before, then he certainly will now. He watches Uryu with careful consideration, knowing that he should probably start running, but he is unable to at that moment. He is frozen in place while he just stands there dumbfounded.

Uryu is fast and gets the high ground before Kaiba could even react. He is ready to take aim at his opponent and send him far away from this place.

Kaiba glances up at Uryu and gases at him like he is an angel. An Angel of Death, that is. He can hear and feel his breath being hitched and his heart painfully pounding in his body. He sees his whole life flash right before his very eyes at the mere sight of seeing Uryu draw his arrow from his bow.

Uryu locks onto his opponent. As his final words to him, ironically, as if to mock Kaiba, he tells him, “You’re afraid of monsters! Monster!” He releases that arrow from his heart, which sends shockwaves throughout the Soul Society.

What do you think happens next? Is Kaiba still alive after an attack like this? Does Kaiba get to meet the Pharaoh in the after life? Will Kaiba find a way to win KaibaShadow’s heart once again? You decide how this goes.

- KᴀɪʙᴀSʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ ♥

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Credit:

Maki Harukawa, Shuichi Saihara, and Kokichi Ouma Plushies: Yoshee G

Beta Kokichi Ouma: @nona-nightingale

Edited: September (Uryu’s part) - October (Kokichi’s part) 2019 Uploaded: October 31, 2019 「EMS」Kokichi Ouma vs Seto Kaiba vs Uryu Ishida - Monster

[sisterofiris]

The Layperson’s Guide to Online Research

The Internet is full of badly researched and sometimes straight-up wrong information. Who would’ve guessed? From reinterpretations of ancient sources being taken at face value by history enthusiasts (like that infamous pre-patriarchal Persephone post) to well-intentioned but ahistorical writing spreading misinformation among modern polytheists (like the myth of Hestia abdicating in favour of Dionysos), it’s often hard to know what is trustworthy information and what is not. Unfortunately, this makes things difficult when you, a non-academic, want to research a topic.

My biggest recommendation will always be to turn to a local university library (often there are even lectures and conferences you can attend without being a student) or to subscribe to a digital library like JStor. On the other hand, I completely understand that for various reasons, not everyone can access these resources. This is why I’m here to help.

In this post, I will outline the steps you should take to check whether an online source is trustworthy and up-to-date. I will mainly focus on researching ancient history, but bear in mind that you can use the same (or similar) steps to research many different topics.

The vetting process below may seem like a lot to take in, but it all boils down to five questions:

where does this come from?

who is the author?

what are their sources?

when did they write this?

who else wrote about this?

Step One: Where does this come from?

The first thing you need to do is check the website where the information comes from. Trustworthy signs to look for are a .edu or .org web address, a university logo, or the description of the website as a professional resource. Very, very often, websites with flashy or sparkly designs are made by amateurs and are not trustworthy. Any web page that doesn’t tell you who wrote it or why is not trustworthy.

When you’re looking at books and articles uploaded online (such as Google Books), make sure they were published professionally by a publishing house or peer-reviewed journal. Mainstream news articles range from accurate (BBC) to completely unreliable (Daily Mail), but since even the best of them can be sensationalistic, I recommend digging further.

Another very important thing to look out for is ideology. Is the website devoted to a certain issue, like proving the Ancient Greeks were black, the Sumerians were contacted by aliens, or the Hittites worshipped a pre-patriarchal Mother Goddess? Congratulations, this information is biased. Some of it may be correct, but you should check steps two to five very carefully before believing it.

Generally, you should look for websites that are focused on your topic, not websites that use your topic to prove a point.

Here are two examples to illustrate the difference:

Not trustworthy: this page about Persephone as an archetype. The website focuses on the Enneagram, not on Greek mythology, and the web design is amateurish. Even though the page mentions mythology, its purpose is to establish Persephone’s personality type, not to discuss her role as a deity in Ancient Greece.

Trustworthy: this page about Ancient Egyptian women and religion. The website looks far more professional, and by clicking on the logo in the top left, you will get to the organisation’s page, The Stoa Consortium. On the right, there is an “About” section which explains that the website was set up by a Professor of Classics and is funded by various universities, as well as by the US Department of Education.

However, determining whether or not a website is any good is not always so easy. Theoi.com, for example, is an independent resource with no academic support, but it’s very well put together and reliable. Meanwhile, Academia.edu is a platform for scholars, but less reputable people can easily slip through and post their “translations” of haiku in Linear A. Experts can have informal blogs, and non-experts can write professional-looking news articles. It’s hard to know which ones of them to trust.

This is where Step Two comes in handy.

Step Two: Who is the author?

A trustworthy source will always identify its author. Some pages (like my own blog’s “About” section) will only tell you the person’s credentials, often for privacy reasons. This is a good start, but you should try to find out more - particularly whether this person actually is what they claim to be. (In my case, it’s fairly easy to tell, since I’ve posted pictures from university projects (x, x) and my identity can be deduced from various links and tidbits I’ve shared - but please be skeptical about what I say as well! Just because I’m an ancient civilisations student doesn’t mean I’m always right!)

Once you know who the author is, you need to check whether they are not only educated, but educated in the subject. This means a university degree (preferably a masters, and even more preferably a PhD) or other proof of expertise in the subject (like an experienced weaver sharing their perspective on ancient tapestries). Whatever the person’s qualifications, they need to be serious (i.e. not “one time in college I took a class on Greek mythology”) and directly related to the subject.

Here are some examples:

Not trustworthy: that pre-patriarchal Persephone post. Its author is a layperson who fell into the same trap I’m trying to prevent: they read a few web pages and decided they were the truth. Luckily, they seem to have somewhat learnt from their mistake.

Usually trustworthy, but not in this case: Gerda Lerner writing about the Hittites. While Gerda Lerner was very learned in women’s studies, she was not a Hittitologist - nor particularly familiar with ancient civilisations in general - and she did not have the nuanced understanding necessary to discuss women in the context of Hittite society.

Trustworthy and non-academic: Janet Stephens’ hairstyle reconstructions. Janet Stephens is not an archeologist, but she is a very experienced hairdresser. This makes her qualified to reconstruct and reproduce ancient hairstyles. (Note that this does NOT make her qualified to discuss, say, the religious implications of hair-binding in Ancient Greece. It makes her qualified to do what she does: style hair.)

Trustworthy and academic: Paul Schubert’s blog (in French) about Ancient Greece in the modern world. His “About” page has a link to his university page, which contains his biography and credentials. He writes about his expert subject, and stays well within its boundaries.

Step Three: What are their sources?

Next, you need to determine where they get their information from. For ancient history, the number one, most important source is ancient texts. Anything that cites ancient texts with their reference (Homer, Iliad, XΧII 389-390) is automatically more trustworthy than anything that doesn’t. If you want to research in-depth, I would recommend looking up these references to get an idea of what they say (Theoi.com and Perseus both have free text databases).

References to modern texts (especially books and articles) are good, but the author shouldn’t only cite these. This turns research into a game of broken telephone - so-and-so told me that so-and-so said that Plato wrote... What’s more, you need to make sure these sources are also trustworthy. Just because a page provide links doesn’t mean they’re relevant or well-researched - if so, then rickrolling would be the peak of academia.

Lastly, I shouldn’t need to say this, but information without sources is not information. That’s like me telling you I’m secretly the princess of Liechtenstein. It might be true, but you can’t know for sure without proof.

Again, some examples:

Not trustworthy: this quote by Plato and this one supposedly from a cuneiform tablet. Neither has a clear reference, nor context: the first is just attributed to Plato’s Symposium, and the second’s author varies from Naram-Sin to a Chaldean king to Cicero. (What’s more, both have strongly ahistorical content. Plato would never have written about “Greek mythology”, and the Mesopotamians had no concept of a “book”.)

Could be trustworthy, but you should check: Medievalpoc’s sources on Ancient Egyptian transatlantic voyages. Yes, a variety of links are provided, but are they any good? A few clicks will show that they lead to the Daily Mail, a paper written by two ideologically-motivated Mormons, and a bunch of articles about ancient people building boats (which nobody doubts, but which doesn’t prove they could sail across the Atlantic).

Trustworthy: Hittite Prayers to the Sun-God by Daniel Schwemer. This is a fully cited article with ancient sources.

Step Four: When did they write this?

The next important step is to find out when this information was written. This is because research is constantly evolving, and older interpretations may no longer be considered valid. This obviously includes views with underlying racism, sexism and homophobia, but it also applies to less obvious things, like the fact that the Sumerian word zag is now read za₃.

Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, most information available online for free is a bit outdated. You should still aim for more recent publications if you can, and definitely avoid anything that’s fifty years old or more. The only exception is for translations of ancient texts, which stay pretty much the same apart from a few spots where their translators’ biases come through - and the exception to the exception is texts in Mesopotamian languages, in which case you should really, really try to find a translation that’s younger than fifty years.

Academic podcasts, blogs and newsletters come in very handy here, because they offer insights on modern research while often being written in accessible language.

Yet more examples:

Not trustworthy: Martin Nilsson’s The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1932). Though Martin Nilsson was a great scholar, modern research has evolved since this book was published (in 1932 in Germany - a context you can definitely sense while reading). What’s more, it was written before Mycenaean Greek was even deciphered.

Trustworthy: Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (2015). Not only is the writing easily accessible to non-experts, this book is up-to-date and written by someone at the forefront of research in Late Bronze Age societies.

Step Five: Who else wrote about this?

This last step is basically fact-checking. Your author may have the best of credentials, they may have written their article on the most respectable of websites, but their theory could still be rejected by the majority of their peers. Look up the book or article’s title followed by “review”, which will hopefully generate other experts’ opinions on the matter - or just keep browsing different websites.

This step is not the most important and can often be skipped - you don’t need to fact-check every word you read. But if you want to research something in-depth, if a claim seems iffy, or if any of the above steps gave mixed results, you should always look for outside input. And no, you won’t always get definite answers on whether something is true. Such is our knowledge about history. But it will give you a more rounded understanding of the topic, and that’s always valuable.

A final note

If you’re not sure whether something is trustworthy, please don’t hesitate to ask! Historians and history students are your friends, and we want you to have accurate information. There’s a lot of us on Tumblr and elsewhere who are happy to help out with that. We can’t be there for everyone 24/7, but we’ll gladly point you in the direction you need!

[elcorhamletlive]

fandom: MCU (Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron) (Post-Captain America: Civil War) ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark tags: Fluff and Angst/Angst with a Happy Ending/Character Study/Pining summary: The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that it shouldn’t be easy - but it really, really is.

[tanadrin]

The Interview

After waiting for half an hour, Pray was well and truly bored. She fiddled with her terminal, then wandered around looking at the bookcases on the far wall. They were full of thick tomes like Interplanetary Development Economics, Sixteenth Edition and A Political History of the Martian Colonies, Volume Six. She rolled her eyes. Whoever used this office was trying to project a very specific image, and was killing a lot of trees to do it. There was a thin layer of dust over the books, too; they probably read them in digital copies, just like everybody else. If they’d even read them. She wandered over to the window that occupied the entire wall behind the desk. It afforded a sweeping view of downtown Abuja. The city was staggeringly vast. Pray knew that, somewhere in the back of her mind, but she never could comprehend just how vast unless she saw it in person. The first large city she’d ever been to in her life was Seattle. Her little apartment there had had a narrow view of the skyline, framed by two taller buildings, and even that narrow glimpse had seemed like a window into a huge, exciting place. Up here, the arcologies and the skyscrapers were two or three skylines all to themselves, strung out below her--and another beyond that, a whole extra city even bigger than Seattle or Vancouver. And another beyond that. And another. And another. She turned away from the window, feeling a little dizzy. She strode over to the desk, and sat down in the enormous high-backed swivel chair. She pushed off tentatively from the desk; the chair spun slowly, almost frictionlessly, in silence. Well, well. Control did not skimp out when it came to office furniture. She gave herself another push.

“Heh,” she whispered quietly to herself. “This is fun.”

Push. Spin. Push.

“Ma’am?”

Pray slapped her hand down on the desk and froze herself mid-spin. There was a tall, thin man, dressed in a carefully tailored suit standing at the door.

“Er… the director will be in in a moment,” he said. “Would you like anything? Water? Tea?”

Pray just shook her head. She only felt a little embarrassed. They were the ones wasting her time, after all.

The director strode in a few minutes later. He was bald, with a bushy gray goatee and a heavily lined face. Pray thought he looked like her grandfather, maybe, except much more serious. He didn’t even blink when he saw Pray sitting behind his desk. He sat in one of the large, heavy armchairs facing her, and spun the console around to face the other way.

“Good afternoon, Ms--what surname do you use these days?”

“Just Pray,” Pray said.

“Very well. Ms Pray. Welcome. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Pray shrugged. Not exactly an “It’s OK.” More of a “Pretty much what I expected.”

“I’m Director Osondu.” He tapped a few keys on the console and brought up a set of files; from behind the screen they were flipped and out of focus, but Pray could see a photo of her featured largely at the top.

“Your CV,”the director said, indicating the console.

“I never sent you my CV,” Pray said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t have a CV.”

“We took the trouble of compiling one for you ourselves. We do that with many of our potential employees.”

“I’ve also never applied to work at Control.”

Director Osondu smiled. “No. But I’m hoping I can convince you.”

Pray laughed. “You want to offer me a job?”

The director nodded. “And not a job reviewing reports in Maitama, either. We have an assignment in mind.”

Pray leaned back in Osondu’s chair.

“What makes you think I’d want to work for Control? Heck, what makes you think I’m qualified?”

“Let’s see here. You were born in Washington, yes? In a Radhite community near Echo Valley?”

“Cooper Mountain, actually. People get the two mixed up.” If they’ve heard of them, she thought. Which they never have.

“Ah, yes. Let me fix that.” His hand darted over the console briefly. “You exercised your exit rights when you were sixteen, for reasons involving--let’s see here--personal bodily autonomy?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Our records don’t elaborate on what those reasons were.”

“Good.” Pray stared at him, remaining pointedly silent.

“Ahem. In any case, you spent six years subsequently in Seattle finishing your education, before moving to Europe, then Asia, then South America, then the Antarctic colonies, staying in no city for more than eighteen months at a time. And then three years ago you came to Abuja, and you’ve been here ever since.”

“Yup.”

“What drew you here, if I may ask?”

“I like big cities. I like moving around. I want to see the world.”

“You haven’t moved anywhere in years. You haven’t even changed apartments since six weeks after you got here. You do some analytical work to supplement your basic, mostly for financial conglomerates and political outfits, but with your intelligence and abilities, you could easily find full-time work, enough to live pretty damn well. Even move to Mars, or the outer Solar System if you wanted.”

“What can I say? I’ve never been that interested in space travel. I like high gravity and being able to go outside from time to time. And I like my apartment. It’s cozy. Do you keep a close eye on everybody who decides to use their exit rights as a teenager? ‘Cause I gotta say, this is kinda creeping me out.”

“My apologies. We don’t as a rule, no. We consider the third freedom absolute. However, we have been interested in you for a long time. We just haven’t known… exactly what approach you might be most receptive to.”

“Well. This isn’t a good one, you know.”

“I haven’t finished making my pitch yet.”

“All right. So make it.”

“We want you to travel. In space.”

Pray laughed.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “There’s not enough money in the world.”

The director stood, and walked over to the bookshelf. He touched one finger to his lips, thinking for a minute.

“Forgive me,” he said, after a long silence. “I want to choose my words carefully, because I wish to express myself precisely.” He took a slim volume off the shelf, came back over to the desk, and slid it across the surface. Pray stiffened when she saw the title. It was Radha Munroe’s First Treatise.

“You know that book well, yes?”

Pray nodded.

“Would you agree that it’s, shall we say, convincing?”

Pray nodded again. “Sure. What’s your point?”

“It’s not just convincing. It’s elegant. Learned. Often, even, poetic. So profound, to at least some of its readers, that thirty years after the death of its author it found new life as the textual center of a movement. Something not quite political, not quite spiritual, and not quite personal, but located at the intersection of all three. A new, totalizing philosophy that built a community and transformed lives.”

“High praise.”

“I mean it sincerely. Do you know how many Radhites have exercised their exit rights since the first Radhite community was founded more than two hundred years ago?”

“Not many, I’m guessing.”

“Exactly one. You.”

The director took the book back. Pray could feel herself relaxing as he slipped it out of view.

“It’s not that I agree with everything Radha Monroe wrote. Nor do I think there have not been other Radhites who may have wanted to leave. But such is the persuasion and the power of the Radhite philosophy that, quite without coercion, at least of the kind that would provoke sanctions from Control, they have formed some of the most hermetically sealed communities in the Solar System. And believe me, we monitor the Radhites very closely. Yes, it’s true. We’re very careful. As I said--the third freedom is absolute. The closest thing we have to something sacred in this day and age.”

“They’re very good at brainwashing. So what?”

“The Radhites are uniquely good at it, if that’s the term we’re going to use. Every other community in the Archipelago has some kind of attrition, and the larger the community, the higher the absolute quantity. Religious communes, philosophical societies, intentional communities--it is an absolute. Some have higher attrition rates than others, but they all have them. All except the Radhites. Until you, anyway. And since you, not one. Not even from Cooper Mountain.

“My point, Pray, is that you are exceptional. Your biography alone--the fact you are out here, in the world, for me to speak to--makes you exceptional.”

The director flicked through Pray’s file faster now.

“Your life since, however, makes you even more remarkable. You graduated from university at age twenty, with top marks. You took proficiency exams which could have garnered you the position of your choice in the civil service or at one of a number of academic institutes--or even in Control--but you contented yourself with analytical work on the side. And your analytical work, particularly on emerging social trends, is considered on par with some of the best research collectives. Only an AI might do better--but AI won’t do this kind of thing.”

“AI can’t,” Pray muttered. “They only say they won’t.”

“If you did more than one report every three months, you could be living in a luxurious Japanese arcology. Or on the Moon. Anywhere you wanted, really. But instead you content yourself with a small apartment in Gudu. Lately you don’t even travel. I think I know why.”

“Do tell.”

“You’re bored. Government work doesn’t interest you. Bureaucratic work certainly doesn’t. And you know Control has a reputation for excellence, but you think all we are is glorified paper-pushers and, occasionally, law enforcement. Maybe you genuinely don’t like space travel, but I suspect you think there are simply no interesting challenges to be had elsewhere in the Solar System, so you prefer to spend your time reading and studying and watching the world from afar. You think maybe one day you will find a topic, a cause, a company somewhere that is interesting enough for you to feel really invested in, but you’re not holding your breath. You came to Abuja because it’s one of the biggest cities in the world. It’s home to Control, to a third of all U.N. agencies, and it’s as close as any city to the beating heart of humanity. But even here there’s nothing to draw you in.”

Pray shifted nervously in her seat. A small voice in her head told her to push off from the desk, and just roll her way down the elevator. As though if she did it smoothly enough, the director wouldn’t notice.

“That all sounds very speculative to me,” she said.

“Nonetheless, I think it is accurate speculation. Speculation of this kind is the reason I am valuable to Control. We think you could be valuable to us for other reasons. And we think you could get something in return.”

“Which would be?”

“Something you can be excited about. Would you like to meet an AI?”

Pray cocked her head. Now that. That was something new.

“You do not ‘meet’ AIs,” she said. “They don’t exactly socialize.”

“Nonetheless, I know where you could meet one. One who is very interested in meeting you.”

“You’re messing with me,” Pray said flatly.

“I do not mess.”

“Where? When?”

“Here. And now.”

“And I have to accept your job offer, whatever it is?”

“Not at all. They will help me explain it. Then you can decide whether to accept it or not.”

Pray leaned forward in her chair.

“I’m listening.”

The director entered a command into his console; a large screen emerged from the wall to the left, and flickered to life. What appeared on it was rather like a face, or the ghost of a face: a suggestion of eyes and a mouth and other, less distinct features on a flickering, phosphorescent background that sometimes cohered into something strikingly human, and sometimes suggested something altogether alien. Pray stared at the screen with intense interest; she realized she was holding her breath.

AI did not, as a matter of course, involve themselves closely in human affairs. The dream, centuries ago, had been creatures made in mankind’s image: creatures of humanlike dispositions and intellect, implemented in the medium of a machine. Of androids, perhaps, or things vaster and far more than human in their powers, but human enough in their values and desires that there could still be meaningful conversation between them and us, even if it was as a mere mortal might speak to an angel.

That turned out not to be the reality.

Artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, had indeed come, but it came from a quarter and in a manner no one had quite expected. The result was emphatically unhuman. Not inhuman; not monstrous. But just as the mammalian intellect had inevitably been the outcome of a certain evolutionary process, a certain set of cognitive solutions to specific biological and ecological problems, the machine intellect was a different set of answers to an entirely different set of questions.

Three hundred years ago, after the first tentative and failed attempts to establish a permanent presence in star systems outside the one humanity had arisen in, during the dark age between the second and third space races, the first true, general machine intelligences had been created. The results proved alien and unsettled many; even attempts to record entire human brain states, to provide the AI with as complete an understanding as possible of their creators, had only bridged the gap a little. That unease grew into genuine fear when an AI colony was discovered orbiting a brown dwarf a little under seven light years away.

Their goals, the machines said, were different from ours. They need not be in opposition; they were not our enemy. And they were willing to help us, to be of use to us so far as they were able, but if the utopians of previous centuries had dreamed of a society where man and machine were twined together, a symbiosis of two distinct but complementary organisms, well, that hope seemed to have been dashed. For the most part, they would pursue their own existence and their own ends. Control was entrusted to be the mediators between Core and the AIs, but as far as anybody knew, even Control’s contact with them was only sporadic and brief. Pray had never dared hope she might meet an AI herself.

“Pray, meet Lepanto. Lepanto, meet Pray.”

The shimmering face seemed to nod, and spoke with a synthesized voice that had a hint of the uncanny about it. Such, Pray had heard, was the norm; machines, no less than humans, did not their interlocutors to forget how alien they were to one another.

“Greetings, Pray,” Lepanto said. “I am pleased to meet you.”

“I, uh, yeah. You too,” Pray said. “Welcome to Earth.”

“Thank you. In fact I have been here for some time; we maintain a small presence in Core systems at Control’s expense.”

“Lepanto is a mediator,” the director said. “Their lineage is intended to facilitate communication with our people, but you should be aware, they are merely… less alien.”

“Indeed.” Lepanto’s image wavered, and for a brief moment, was full of a surfeit of eyes and other strange features. “I am here because Control has identified an interest common to my kind and yours. We believe that you, Pray, would be of particular help in solving our quandary.”

“Why me?” Pray asked.

The director turned the console to face Pray, and struck a key. The file being displayed was replaced with an image of a world, something computer generated maybe, or taken from orbit.

“Have you ever heard of a colony world called Ecumen?” the director asked.

“It doesn’t ring a bell,” Pray said.

“It’s old. It was colonized in the 2600s.”

“I didn’t think there were any colonies that old that had succeeded.”

“Nor did we,” the director said. “Until about twenty years ago, when Ecumen was rediscovered by the machines.”

“What did you find out?”

“Distant surveys told us little,” Lepanto said. “We sent a high-velocity probe to the system, to initiate contact. Four mediators, like myself, working in concern. Their report--disturbed us.”

The image on the console changed; various surface features were highlighted or shown blown up, in inset frames. Ecological data. Large urban centers. A handful of small space stations and orbital manufacturing.

“It looks pretty normal to me,” Pray said.

“On the surface, yes,” Lepanto continued. “Artifacts, not apparent to human eyes. Problem akin to Benford’s Law.”

“Explain?”

“The frequency distribution of numbers in data sets. Favors low numbers in leading digits, yes? Consequence emerges from data spanning many orders of magnitude; easy to detect when data is falsified if it fails to conform. Not immediately obvious to human eyes.”

The console changed again; a dozen graphs appeared. Demographic and actuarial data, economic information, patterns of migration, and more that Pray couldn’t make immediate sense of.

“Emissaries spoke to Ecumen, learned of their history. Their societies. Their culture. Sought to understand them as we seek to understand all human worlds. We learned much. But the patterns were anomalous. Irregular. Wrong.”

“So they gave you bad data?”

“No. All data corroborated. Independently verified, from sources and from our own orbital surveys. Problem apparent in the data, not an artifact of the data. Something is terribly wrong on Ecumen.”

“So it’s an outlier. There are almost two dozen colony worlds now. Every one has its own unique environment and circumstances. They can’t all be the same.”

“We have spent more than a decade examining this data. The emissaries brought it to the attention of the collective, which took an immediate interest; more than half our stable nodes were diverted to attempting to understand Ecumen. It is an impossible world. It should not and cannot exist as it does. Population growth rates follow anomalous patterns that do not conform to any understanding of human biology or society, even accounting for specific conditions. Similarly, economic investment. Patterns of land cultivation. Everywhere, something is off.”

“The reports the collectives have compiled are… dense, to be sure,” the director said. “Not all of it is very accessible to our analysts. But Control makes a habit of compiling as much data as it can about human societies and their development. We couldn’t do our job otherwise. And we agree. Something very unusual is happening on Ecumen, and only on Ecumen.”

Pray was scrolling through the data on the console now. It was certainly suggestive of something, but she’d be damned if she knew what.

“And there are underlying patterns here? It’s not just random deviation?”

“No,” Lepanto said. “In fact, the patterns conform to specific mathematical structures that, until we shared with Control, we believe were not known to any humans, in Core or the colonies.”

A series of complex, shifting geometric figures appeared on the screen. “The collectives consider questions of natural science,” Lepanto continued. “It is important to us, as it is to you, to understand the universe. We wish to know many things about it--how it operates, how it came to be. It is one of the few areas in which we understand ourselves to be very like you. We are both curious.”

“And these are?”

“Three-dimensional representations of complex mathematical objects that govern the states of fundamental particles in certain simulated universes. They correspond closely to the patterns we perceive in Ecumen’s human population.”

“So you’re saying there is a natural basis for these patterns?”

“No. All these patterns arise only in universes which have physical laws radically different from our own. Almost all, universes where life, human or machine, could not exist.”

Pray sat back in the director’s chair and stared at the screen, turning over a hundred possibilities in her mind. Yes, indeed. Something strange was going on on Ecumen. Maybe a coincidence. Maybe not.

“And there’s no way this is random?” she asked. “That you’re seeing patterns in chaotic information that have arisen by chance, excluding everything that doesn’t fit?”

“It is not pareidolia, if that is what you mean,” Lepanto said. “Conditions on Ecumen have continued to align with our forecasts. The data is predictive.”

“Are you interested?” the director asked.

“Oh, it’s all interesting as hell,” Pray said. “But what on Earth do you want me to do?”

“We’re sending a delegation to Ecumen. Officially, it’s diplomatic: Control has no presence there, and since Ecumen is interesting in acceding to the treaties, we’d like to open diplomatic relations. And, for obvious reasons, we’re a little nervous about them coming here, in case this phenomenon is somehow capable of spreading. But along with the diplomatic team, we’re sending some researchers, and a few agents to assist them. They, with Lepanto’s help, will conduct an intensive study of Ecumen, and attempt to figure out what’s behind all this. We’d like you to be part of the team. But, of course, I know how you feel about space travel…”

“Fuck that,” Pray said quickly. “I’ll do it.”

The director smiled. He slipped a folded-up piece of paper from his suit pocket and laid it on the desk. “Here’s an employment contract, if you’d like to look it over. If you sign before lunch, there’s an orientation for new analysts being conducted on the 16th floor at two o’clock.”

“That’s it? You don’t want to, like, interview me or something?”

The director shook his head and stood. “Ms Pray, it is our job to identify the best and the brightest, to help them achieve their greatest potential in exchange for helping us safeguard and support the flourishing of the human race. We don’t conduct ‘job interviews.’” He paused for a moment. “You do get an expense account, though. They’ll tell you the specifics at orientation.”

Pray unfolded the sheet of paper and started reading. The director cleared his throat. Loudly.

“However,” he said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like my office back now.”

[allinyourmindclimbing]

The pictures all belong to John Gill / copyright John Gill !!

INTERVIEW with the legendary John Gill.

(Interview done by - and intro written by Jean-Marc Winckel in 2008)

John Paul Gill Jr., born February 16, 1937, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (USA) is my all time climbing hero beside Wolfgang Güllich, Klem Loskot, Tony Lamprecht and some others. I admire his philosophy about climbing, especially bouldering. He is a mathematician, a gymnast, a climber and for me a philosopher, a wise man. « There is an affinity between math and climbing. It has to do with independence of effort and good pattern recognition skills, coupled with a desire to solve problems and explore. », so John.

As a gymnast, he discoverd bouldering and introduced the use of magnesia (chalk) and the dynamic movements into climbing. The jumps were aesthetically pleasing him. The picture where he does a one-arm front lever (see the pictures) became very known throughout the whole world. Therefore, he is also known as the father of bouldering. Climbing was for John an extension of gymnastics. In his first article in the « American Alpine Journal » in 1969 named « The Art Of Bouldering » he wrote : « …the boulderer is concerned with form almost as much as with success and will not feel that he has truly mastered a problem until he can do it gracefully. » But what I admire the most about him are his ideas about the mental strength in climbing and how he experimented with it.

Pat Ament writes in his biography about John Gill : « … He found in bouldering sharp, clear reality, and on occasion a feeling that – with the right consciousness – he weighed a little bit less. The right mental attitude might inspire « a slight sensation of telekinesis » or in fact minutely perceivable levitation. It was easy to listen to such concepts, as they flowed subtly and with somewhat of a sense of humor from Gill. After all, he did at times seem to defy gravity. »

In Yosemite in the late ‘70s Yvon Chouinard said about John : « Climbing is still in a stage of pure physical movement, and the next step is going to be mind control. I think Gill has already gone into that, from watching him prepare for a boulder even in the late ‘50s. … You’re going to have to use meditation and Yoga to be able to get up some of the new climbs, because pure physical strength and technique are not going to be enough. … I think it’s going to be Zen and the art of rock climbing. »

In the beginning, John found inspiration for his mental training by reading the books of Carlos Castaneda (« A Separate Reality », « The Teachings of Don Juan », « The Art of Dreaming », …) Often he soloed long, easy graded routes to enter mentally another world and experiment with the flow effect. Experiences such as these were entirely the consequences of meditative practices, for he NEVER had used psychedelic drugs.

Furthermore, Pat Ament writes in the biography : « Gill spoke of a mystical reality that, as he described, was an « extension of the hypnagogic state. » He suggested that certain exertions in bouldering occasionally produced an apparent separation of « I-consciousness » and physical body, « similar to how the mind of a long-distance runner seems to soar above the automaton-like running form… » … Gill seemed fond of the phrase « kinesthetic awareness, » meaning perhaps « self-realization, » a turning inward where all realms – sensory, mental, athletic, artistic, intellectual, mystical, spiritual and aesthetic – are united. »

In his essay « Notes on Bouldering – The Vertical Path » John described that the « outer value » of bouldering, pure difficulty, is just one aspect of the sport. The « inner value » of bouldering has much more to offer. But to acquire it one has to break away from competition !

In his description about a climb near Pueblo that John Gill and Chris Jones soloed together, Chris said : « One must be free to choose a more difficult way than the easiest, if that is what strikes the fancy of the moment. The rock must be a menu, for this « menu-soloing .» The choices, freedom, movement, mental acuity inspired by the exposure, warmth of the sun, feel of the rock – the EXPERIENCE is everything. »

I am SO happy that I had the chance to have contact with John and ask him to make a little interview with this living legend. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did ! Let it be a little inspiration for you to improve yourself, change the way you see things, change your views about climbing and enter mentally another world while climbing.

I advice you to read the biography « John Gill – MASTER OF ROCK » written by his friend Pat Ament (ISBN : 0-8117-2853-6) and have a look at his website www.johngill.net !

Have fun … it’s all in your mind !

1. When and how did you discover bouldering/climbing ?

In 1953, as a junior in high school in Atlanta, Georgia, a classmate, Jeanne Shearer (Bergen) took me along to north Georgia on a one-day expedition to try to find a cave in the middle of a limestone cliff. She had ropes and carabiners and slings, and I was fascinated with dangling above an abyss and scrambling about. I started bouldering – without knowing that was what I was doing – in 1954, while a student at Georgia Tech. Seemed like a natural extension of the gymnastics I was learning. A couple of years later in the Tetons Yvon Chouinard told me I was "bouldering", something he and his pals did in a light-hearted way at Stoney Point near Los Angeles. No one had the faintest idea of the history or origin of the activity, and it was strictly playtime on the rock, not serious climbing. Some Brit, I'm guessing, told someone at Stoney Point in the late 1940s or early 1950s they were "boulderers".

2. Do you still boulder/climb a lot? If not, how did you put the sport behind you?

I quit bouldering over twenty years ago after tearing the biceps off my right forearm in a bouldering accident. After thirty-something years of chalked-up dynamics, my body said "enough". I returned to my other climbing love – modest freesoloing – for a number of years. These days, with arthritic shoulders and chronic rotator cuff problems, I still enjoy traverses right above the ground, and I may get back into some solo climbing this summer, as well. However, I can't jump off boulders anymore, regardless of mats.

3. Do you consider climbing in general as a sport or a lifestyle?

For me it was an athletic lifestyle.

4. In how far do you relate mathematics with climbing and gymnastics with climbing? What do they all have in common?

I'm not sure mathematics has much to do with gymnastics, but the problem-solving aspect bears some relationship with the more cerebral aspect of rock climbing or bouldering. Gymnastics was good for me, for I began climbing with no athletic background and the still rings and gymnasium rope led to chalk, dynamics, and strength. I did gymnastics for its own sake as well, enjoying learning difficult moves and feeling the grace and precision necessary for the sport.

5. What do you mean by “option soloing”?

Picking and choosing among different possible lines according to difficulty or aesthetics when going up otherwise relatively easy terrain.

6. Do you stay in tune with modern bouldering, the magazines or websites?

Not really. I read some of the articles occasionally.

7. What differs in your opinion the climbing of today from the climbing when you discovered the sport?!

The level of naiveté. When too much is known about an activity and the standards are very high, it seems more like work than play. There was a different sense of adventure back then, more like a pilot flying by the seat of his pants in the 1920s when compared to modern flight training. Jets are neat, but think of the time the old barnstormers had!

8. What do you think of the current grading system in bouldering and the 20+ moves boulder traverses? Should they be graded as a route or a boulder problem?

The V-scale seems adequate, although I'd like to see one set of numbers or letters for all kinds of rock moves, low or high, short or extended – a system incorporating some sort of additional marker to distinguish power from endurance.

9. What do you think about the recent grade-explosion? Wouldn't a scaling system that is in constant evolution or a grading system depending on the number of ascents be more appropriate?

Every generation since the 1950s has seen a "grade explosion". If the circumstances are right, yes, a simple ratio of attempts vs. success might be a nearly-objective system. But this is very unlikely to occur. In gymnastics, in the 1950s, there were A, B, and C level moves. Now there are D and E and super E additional levels of difficulty. The open-ended structure is entrenched and would take a nuclear detonation to change!

10. How many moves had a typical boulder problem "at your time"? And how high were they?

Depends on where they were. At Jenny Lake the problems were very short, just three or four moves, if that, on 12 foot-high boulders. In the Needles of South Dakota, they were somewhat longer, sometimes up to 30 feet, but that was rare. I used to compare a problem with a gymnastic routine, which would have 7 or 8 moves at most. More than that and you were on a climb.

11. Why didn't you put a mattress under your boulders? For ethical reasons, transportation issues or are the young guys cowards? :-)

Are you kidding? Pads were invented to make money. We would take a simple and cheap top-rope along for some of the problems with bad landings or exposure. The "ethics" of not using a top-rope was subtly encouraged by pad makers. A mattress? Puleeese!

12. Is a boulderer a better gymnast or a gymnast a better boulderer?

I don't think there is a solid correlation. In my time – in the 1950s – being a gymnast helped, but not necessarily now that rock climbing has become so specialized and advanced. Better to avoid the excess weight of gymnastic muscle tissue.

13. Didn't you offend any purists and climbers of your time when you started using chalk and doing dynamical movements?

There were some – usually those lucky climbers whose hands stayed dry naturally – who complained about chalk. They didn't feel good losing their genetic advantage! There weren't many who complained about dynamics, although climbers had to become stronger over the years to successfully apply dynamics to the rock. The old adage about three-point suspension came down through the ages in British circles, where climbers objected to the "excessive" use of modern gear. Geoffrey Winthrop Young and others recoiled from the idea of risking falls. Also, the US Army strongly encouraged their mountain troops to follow that practice.

14. You began rock climbing around 1953! Does climbing guard against arthritis?

Little correlation, if any. My shoulders are badly arthritic, but that came mostly from still ring work years ago. My hands and fingers are fine, and it's been 55 years now. I suspect, however, that some types of crack climbing may lead to the condition./p>

15. Do you think the best climbers in the world are that good mainly through good genetics or through dedication?

First genetics, then practice. Without a good anatomical structure, the higher levels of difficulty may not be attainable.

16. Do you believe that yoga and meditation exercises help a lot to increase the level of climbing?

What I found was that meditation increased my enjoyment of climbing no matter what the level. Why does everything have to relate to reaching a higher number?

17. In Pat Ament's biography about you, Yvon Chouinard said: "Climbing is still in a stage of pure physical movement, and the next step is going to be mind control. I think Gill has already gone into that,... in the late '50s.". Please comment on that and do you agree with our saying "it's all in your mind!"?

Speaks for itself, doesn't it? But I think mental control is achieved while actually struggling on the rock – itself a disciplining authority - rather than sitting in an ashram.

18. In how far did the books of Carlos Castaneda help you to enter mentally another world?

They were a tremendous help. After entering another form of reality I saw the true and ancient foundations of religion. Saint Theresa of Avila was a pioneer in this realm.

19. In your essay "Notes on bouldering-The Vertical Path" you wrote that aiming for difficulty in our sport is unhealthy! Why?

Did I say that? Huh. It's not unhealthy, but it is overly confining. There are other dimensions of the sport. One can climb as a moving meditation – not to increase difficulty levels, but to enjoy a kind of epiphany.

20. Please explain and tell us a little bit about "kinaesthetic awareness" and the "flow effect" you experimented with for many years?

Any gymnast can understand the flow of a routine and feel graceful and precise movement. It's not merely to impress the judges. It's an inner reward. It's too bad that the sport of bouldering has been taken over by those who see it as simply competition and a numbers game.

Thank you very much for this interview John and we wish you good luck & health and all the best for the future and may the force be with you!

[libertarianbarbarian]

You think “Sleepy Joe” is bad?!

You think “Sleepy Joe” is bad?!

  Facts

*Ok, I know people don’t like this website…I think it’s useful personally, but I had to resort to it, but I had to use…duh duh duh Wikapedia

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_Woodrow_Wilson

  Oped-Warning

             Ok. Not the most salacious of titles…wait, I just used a big word. Oh, hell this one is going to be a hell storm. Ah that feels better. Now if only I was enough of an every man to put a smiley face next to that, I believe the kids now and days call that being a basic bitch, haha! So I know normally I come with a little bit more bit, ahem, girth with my sources…but this time I couldn’t do any better for you guys than what I got for you.

           I looked it all up, I actually backed it all up too. I looked through the literal federal database of executive orders to figure out which ones were his and see if Wikipedia actually did its job. Turns out, it did. So now all that shit is done lets get to the good shit. I left out one source…kind of? You can click his name when you’re look at the executive orders, takes you right to his biography.

           Well one of our presidents was a piece of fucking work. I knew this guy was an asshole. I knew this guy did some bad shit, and that some of the issues that we have now and days were because of him…but holy hell I didn’t know that he was that much of an ass! So first off. Woodrow Wilson was a REAL racist. I’m not talking, backwoods barely had a tooth in his head kind of racist. No the dude was a religious racist.

           Woodrow Wilson was a presbyterian pretty much his whole life. And from what I could gather he grew up in Virginia. Now and days that isn’t much of a bad thing. But he eventually became a minister of a church, or one of the denominations of presbyterian that split from its northern cousin that almost exclusively believed that black americans were lower than white americans. If we saw something like that today, they’d get our version of tar and feathering.

           Nope he got to jump to a new and upcoming career path. Historian. Yup folks, one they didn’t have that kind of screening back in the day. Two it was such a new emerging kind of field that when he started, at least back then, that they didn’t even give a shit if they went through secondary sources when they published books and put their information out there. So say you’re going to put a book out there, all your information comes from a friend of a friend…kind of fucked up cause it’s like that old school telephone game that my old ass used to play.

           So, after Woodrow Wilson decided, “Nah fam I’m good on being a minister. He went to Johns Hopkins University. Cool, get you some education. Now for the sake of making this as short as possible…kind of…our good ol’ pal Woodrow here ended up becoming a professor of Princeton, then became the president of Princeton.

           Now here’s where the real shit begins. Ok, so to start off with the mans saying was literally, "to transform thoughtless boys performing tasks into thinking men." Granted that might be something normal for back in the day, still kind of strikes me as off for back in the day…but kind of seems a little similar to things going on now and days. He started to look pretty decent given the fact that he got the job in 1902 and he let the first Jewish guy and Roman Catholic in to the teachers of the school.

           Haha, yeah that’s where it stops. I know Princeton is an ivy league school. I knew that much. Like I always point out to you guys, I’m an every-man, I know a little about a lot, not a lot about a little. But I had no idea that it was in New Jersey. So when Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, he was actually trying to keep black americans out of Princeton. Other ivy league’s at the time were cool with it, they were actively trying to get them in at the time. Fucks sake it had been forty years after the civil war they were good with it. Hell the 46th senator, Blanche Bruce, just got done serving as senator for Mississippi in 1881…he was a black republican.

           Where the fuck is Woodrow Wilson getting off here? So here’s where this guy gets worse. He was trying to get published as a notarized historian, even as this shit was just trying to get known all the other historians looked down on him. Turns out he wasn’t so good at that either. About the only thing he did good when it came to the time, he spent at Princeton was get the students to eat together. I’m serious, that was about all he did as the president at that fucking school. I could name a plethora of things my friggin elementary principal did better than this asshat.  

           1910. You can mark that as “God damn it.” I’m serious. Woodrow Wilson got fed up with everything at Princeton, so he dropped hints at the DNC two years earlier that he wanted to run. 1910 is when he finally got the balls to register as a democrat and run for the governor of NJ.

           Here’s where we get REALLY similar. There’s “rumors” or corruption, in regard to the way that he rigged the vote…like the way voting is going on now and days and the rumors are floating around now and days about democrats and some republicans. Woodrow Wilson, as a democrat, practiced really bad and extremely corrupt law practices during his campaign as well as paid some of his own contributions in to the “workmens compensation program”. Then amazingly he became the governor of New Jersey. Huh, imagine how that would work, if in now and days, if you were going to hide funds and try to all of a sudden try to buy someone’s vote, or a unions vote. Hell, maybe even send a couple of your $55 million dollar campaign contributions to media so your son’s laptop crap doesn’t show up in the paper or on tv? Kind of the same practice, right? Well it had to start somewhere right? Well there wasn’t much to say after that, cause much like one of his predecessors, Nancy Pelosi, Woodrow Wilson spent the time he was NJ’s governor just vetoing republican state senate bills.

           Guess what, the democrats love him so much they wanted him to try his hat at the presidential race…two damn years later. Now I’m going to say this right now, this is where probably mostly opinion is going to come out of me more than anything. So super oped-warning on this one guys.

           Ok. Woodrow Wilson got elected on pure fucking fluke. Were americans, we have a constitutional republic. Not a democracy. If we had a democracy, the mob would always rule no matter what. This gives a chance to let the minority speak. Well back in the day, when Woodrow Wilson was running, we had more than two major parties. We had the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Bull-Moose, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson.

           There’s going to be an issue with the system, any fucking system you have no matter what you do. We’re humans, guess what…we ain’t perfect man. So everyone loved William Howard-Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt so much that everyone was split about the two. Basically the left over votes determined the winner. Fucking Woodrow Wilson.

           Yeah, a fucking fluke I wasn’t even alive and I’m pissed about it. Well he went about a couple of things that will sound a little familiar to you with the way I put them…or they should. Wilson wanted us to be the world police. Haha, yup, we were a world apart from the rest of the world. We could have a hell of a lot of a different history…but being the “bleeding heart” he was…Woodrow Wilson gleefully brought us in to World War I, also known as “The Great war”.

           This was while he was kind of, you know, putting forth his own racist shit…as a democrat…playing a good ol’ movie called “Birth of a Nation”. Oh it’s a good movie ya know, it’s all about hanging all them worthless…I’m not even going there. I’m sorry I took that one to far. Yes, Woodrow Wilson, one of the hero’s of the democrats, actually played something that the old KKK, before we snuffed them out the first time, called a work of art.

           Yeah, this guy wanted to try to globalize the U.S. in a hardcore way. He was the exact meaning of everything you see happening today. He committed voter fraud. Woodrow Wilson hated black people and believed that the south should have won the war, not because of taxes or any other reasons you can think of. Oh no, he hated black americans because they were inferior. So he had no issue with using them to his own advantage, and manipulating them…maybe like we’re seeing today. Folks I don’t think we’re seeing a socialist play book at all. We’re not seeing temper tantrums from the left either. We’re seeing Wilson’s prodigies.

           Let me be clear. For a while the democrats cleaned themselves up for a while. They we’re good after this. But right now all I see is, “Hunter’s laptop”, “voter fraud”, and shit being manipulated just like you guys do. I’m sorry, but we need to pull our heads out of our asses and get some balls like Theodore Roosevelt. “Well shits fucked up. Damn it, I already did my time…well screw it I’ll make another party and compete with them make them pull their heads out of their asses.” Because that’s the only way I can really truly see this resolving itself.

           We’re close with Trump. He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong. But he’s got his faults. And like I’ve said before we need an every-man. An every-man won’t give a shit what color you are, he’ll give a shit if you’re working. He won’t give a shit if you have power, he’ll give a shit if your utilities are on. An every-man won’t start a war but he sure as hell will finish it. But the thing that will set him apart is he’ll be the thing that the republicans and democrats won’t know a damn thing about…unlike Trump…which unfortunately they do. Plus they won’t see an every-man coming either.

[motherboxing]

Honestly a lot has been written about the Marstons that the Marston family considers to be basically fiction and also pretty unethical and sometimes just libelous, including (especially!) that book The Secret History Of Wonder Woman. I have read... almost nothing that I feel contends with the Marstons in a way that is understanding of their humanity, or approaches their relationship (which by all accounts WAS very loving and supportive and consensual, just like, not what a lot of people seem to want it to have been for any number of reasons) in a way that, as someone who writes history comics for a living and SPECIFICALLY has published one graphic historical biography and is about to publish a second!, I feel is AT ALL ethical. I have theories about why historical ethics get thrown out the window so often in this case specifically (homophobia and the - false, apparently - presumption of Olive and Elizabeth’s bisexuality makes their sexualities seem like fair game in ways that historians NEVER apply to straight historical figures; the tendency to focus on the psychosexual aspect of early Wonder Woman stories as a means of undermining Marston’s ultimately feminist message about how a post-patriarchal society might be represented etc - it’s easier to dismiss the Marston’s feminist ideals if you frame them as just being into the idea of women as sexy dominatrixes or whatever, I guess! Who needs to engage with the implications of the history and politics of Themysciran society when there’s OMG BONDAGE!!!!!) but ultimately I am just, like, offended as a bi nonmonogamous comic book writer woman and also as a historienne. 

That’s my hot take for the night.