My roommates and I have an ongoing disagreement concerning the refrigeration of maple syrup; I maintain that it is an unnecessary use of fridge space, whereas they feel that it is essential to the preservation of fine xylem sap. In both cases, I sense that the real spectre behind our choices is pure unadulterated ideology: we do it this way because our parents did, and warrant the matter unworthy of questioning. Well, today, I questioned it, and I'm afraid the internet ruled in their favor; syrup must be refrigerated, or it goes bad in a year or so. I have only one response to that: If it takes you a year to go through a bottle of syrup THEN YOU'RE DOING PANCAKES WRONG.
And now for something completely different.
I'm exactly the kind of guy who carries a comb up his sleeve, just in case. It's not for vanity, though. I find running finger down the teeth to be oddly soothing.
Later Days.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Twin Powers Prologue IV
Part I here.
Part II here.
Part III here.
And that's the prologue. If anyone wants to see the full thing, get in touch.
Later Days.
Part II here.
Part III here.
Finally, it was Jon who decided the matter for him. His little brother trotted up to him, face red with exertion. He was so exhausted by his journey that it was several seconds before he was ready to speak. Honestly, thought Josen, now what was the point of that? He hurried as fast as he could so he could tell me what time it was, and now he’s so warn out he can't tell me a damned thing. If he didn't have the family nose, I'd swear Mother had been guilty of infidelity. "It's been five hours now, brother," Jon panted, finally. He sank to the floor, and prostrated himself, still breathing heavily.
Josen rolled his eyes. There went another shred of family pride. Jon might be young, but that was no excuse for deliberately making oneself lose face. It struck Josen as quintessentially unfair that he, the member of his family that actually deserved some modicum of respect, had been put in a situation where any course of action would make him look like an idiot, whereas his brother seemed to go out of his way to don a jester's—
And just like that, Josen's course of action was made clear. "Excellent work, Jon," he said. He put his hand out and helped Jon to his feet. "Please go in and inform Lord Aginor of that fact."
Jon was taken aback, but he knew better than to ask questions. "All—all right." He walked over the oak door, opening it with great effort. Josen averted his eyes and took a prudent step backward, remaining just outside the line of sight of anyone who just happened to be standing by the door. I'm sorry, milord, Jon must have misunderstood me. I couldn’t stop him. Youthful exuberance, I'm afraid. You understand.
"Lord Aginor?" Jon called, peering around the corner of the door. "Are you— Oh."
"What is it, Jon?" asked Josen sharply. Some sort of edge had come into Jon's voice, and it was an edge far sharper than just a boy who had stumbled in on a coupling.
"Oh. Oh. Oh." Jon stood still for a moment then let the door shut. He pushed past Josen and ran down the corridor, at a pace even greater than the one when he arrived. The boy never looked back.
"Jon! Get back here this instant!" Seeing that his brother had no intention of heeding him, Josen strode towards the door. He paused before opening the door, hesitating briefly. Oh, come on, he told himself. How bad can it possibly be?
As soon as he entered, Josen was instantly assaulted with that ridiculous perfume that Lady Caitlin, for some obscure reason, had decided was essential to the proper upkeep of a bedchamber. A woman must always smell like a woman, as she put it. Privately, Jon was certain she did it purely because she knew that prolonged exposure to the stench put him into a sneezing fit, and she enjoyed watching him suffer.
Really, even if they did hate each other, she and Aginor were, in many ways, very much alike.
After anticipating something horrible enough to justify his brother’s actions, the first sight that caught Josen’s rapidly watering eyes was so mundane he nearly laughed aloud. The kitchen cat was on the floor, lapping up a pool of wine that had been spilt. God only knew how it had gotten in, but Josen took silent consolation that even Aginor couldn’t control its peregrinations. The wretched thing was obviously enjoying itself, emitting a surprisingly loud purr as it continuously twitched its tail from side to side. He idly kicked it away and it darted out of the room, delivering a parting hiss as it went. Jon must have seen the wine and assumed it was blood, he reasoned. He bent down and put a finger into the spillage and frowned. It was too thick, and too warm. Dear God, it is blood. With that knowledge came another sudden realization that underneath the putrid perfume lay another scent, the peculiar mingling of freshly spilt blood and freshly spilt bowels that followed the recently dead. It was a smell that Josen had not experienced first hand in quite some time—outside of his nightmares, at least. He followed the pool of blood back to its source, and saw what really should have been the first thing he noticed when he entered the bedchamber. Lady Caitlin sat on a chair next to the window, her arms wrapped around the pummel of a sword that was plunged into her stomach, all the way up to the hilt. At her feet lay the lord Aginor, his head twisted at such a great angle that it was clear his neck had been broken.
For a long moment, Josen gaped at the corpses of his former lord and lady, his mind racing with possibilities. "Well," he said, finally.
"This changes everything."
And that's the prologue. If anyone wants to see the full thing, get in touch.
Later Days.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Twin Powers Prologue III
Part I here.
Part II here.
It was quite a puzzle, and after the brief moment stretched into the first brief hour, Josen added to the puzzle his speculations on exactly what was going on behind the closed door. Eavesdropping, of course, was out of the question, as an action far below the position of a steward, and the oak door was too thick to hear anything through anyway. The obvious answer to what was going on was, well, obvious: a lord returning home to his admittedly still attractive wife after a long absence. That was certainly the assumption a majority of the manor's population was adopting, judging from first the snickers delivered by passer-bys, accompanied as time passed on, raised eyebrows on account of their lord's apparent prowess. Josen, for his part, snickered and raised his eyebrows right back, but inside he was seething. Idiots. They were all so stupid. One abrupt arrival and suddenly they were all willing to throw out everything they knew their rulers just so they could get in a few good chuckles and knowing nudges. And Josen had no choice to grin and nod. And wait.
It was all so humiliating. Josen had heard that in other castles, the lords purposefully told their stewards to wait outside the privies for them. The intent behind such an action was clear. The ruler was asserting his authority by impressing upon his servant the latter's utter lack of importance. In Josen's case, Aginor was sending him an message even more pointed: My wife is a vapid, foolish creature with limited use at best. I have spent years avoiding her, and she clearly means nothing to me. Now wait outside this door and do nothing while I fuck her. It didn’t matter that Josen himself was nearly certain that no fucking was actually taking place. What mattered was that everyone else thought there was. With one deliberate act, Aginor was wiping away every vestige of authority Josen ever had, removing every pretension of status Josen held in the eyes of the rest of the manor. And it was deliberate; there was no doubt about that. Sometimes Aginor's actions seemed petty, sometimes downright foolish, but they were always deliberate. If Aginor wanted Josen to stand outside while the rest of castle thought he was swiving his wife, then he had very definitely considered all the consequent events that would follow.
The question was, if Aginor wasn't bedding the Lady Caitlin, then what were they doing? If humiliating Josen was his sole concern, Josen had no illusions that Aginor could devise dozens of ways to do that without involving the woman the lord so studiously avoided. It had to be connected to their recent strange behavior, but beyond that, Josen couldn't fathom what it could be. Again, as he had several times in the past hours, he considered going in. After all, he argued mentally, he was the steward. If the two were discussing matters that were important enough to affect the entire manor, then he had a right, a responsibility, to be present. And if whatever they were discussing wasn't that important, well, then it didn't matter if he interrupted. Then he imagined Aginor's reaction to his intrusion. It would ultimately mean another damned reference that maybe Josen wasn't quite measuring up, that he was suffering from some sort of mental breakdown that rendered him incapable of serving as steward. By itself, the one transgression would be indicative of nothing, but they both knew that if some day caught Aginor's whim, he could trot out an entire list of bizzare actions on Josen's part, a catalog of strange acts more often or not prompted by Aginor's own manipulations, the combined sum of which would provide just enough justification to have him removed. Neither of them had ever explicitly made reference to this weight hovering over Josen, but they were both always aware of its presence—painfully aware, in Josen's case.
Besides, if he opened the door, he might walk in on them rutting.
Later Days.
Part II here.
It was quite a puzzle, and after the brief moment stretched into the first brief hour, Josen added to the puzzle his speculations on exactly what was going on behind the closed door. Eavesdropping, of course, was out of the question, as an action far below the position of a steward, and the oak door was too thick to hear anything through anyway. The obvious answer to what was going on was, well, obvious: a lord returning home to his admittedly still attractive wife after a long absence. That was certainly the assumption a majority of the manor's population was adopting, judging from first the snickers delivered by passer-bys, accompanied as time passed on, raised eyebrows on account of their lord's apparent prowess. Josen, for his part, snickered and raised his eyebrows right back, but inside he was seething. Idiots. They were all so stupid. One abrupt arrival and suddenly they were all willing to throw out everything they knew their rulers just so they could get in a few good chuckles and knowing nudges. And Josen had no choice to grin and nod. And wait.
It was all so humiliating. Josen had heard that in other castles, the lords purposefully told their stewards to wait outside the privies for them. The intent behind such an action was clear. The ruler was asserting his authority by impressing upon his servant the latter's utter lack of importance. In Josen's case, Aginor was sending him an message even more pointed: My wife is a vapid, foolish creature with limited use at best. I have spent years avoiding her, and she clearly means nothing to me. Now wait outside this door and do nothing while I fuck her. It didn’t matter that Josen himself was nearly certain that no fucking was actually taking place. What mattered was that everyone else thought there was. With one deliberate act, Aginor was wiping away every vestige of authority Josen ever had, removing every pretension of status Josen held in the eyes of the rest of the manor. And it was deliberate; there was no doubt about that. Sometimes Aginor's actions seemed petty, sometimes downright foolish, but they were always deliberate. If Aginor wanted Josen to stand outside while the rest of castle thought he was swiving his wife, then he had very definitely considered all the consequent events that would follow.
The question was, if Aginor wasn't bedding the Lady Caitlin, then what were they doing? If humiliating Josen was his sole concern, Josen had no illusions that Aginor could devise dozens of ways to do that without involving the woman the lord so studiously avoided. It had to be connected to their recent strange behavior, but beyond that, Josen couldn't fathom what it could be. Again, as he had several times in the past hours, he considered going in. After all, he argued mentally, he was the steward. If the two were discussing matters that were important enough to affect the entire manor, then he had a right, a responsibility, to be present. And if whatever they were discussing wasn't that important, well, then it didn't matter if he interrupted. Then he imagined Aginor's reaction to his intrusion. It would ultimately mean another damned reference that maybe Josen wasn't quite measuring up, that he was suffering from some sort of mental breakdown that rendered him incapable of serving as steward. By itself, the one transgression would be indicative of nothing, but they both knew that if some day caught Aginor's whim, he could trot out an entire list of bizzare actions on Josen's part, a catalog of strange acts more often or not prompted by Aginor's own manipulations, the combined sum of which would provide just enough justification to have him removed. Neither of them had ever explicitly made reference to this weight hovering over Josen, but they were both always aware of its presence—painfully aware, in Josen's case.
Besides, if he opened the door, he might walk in on them rutting.
Later Days.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Bibliophile: Thor to Sexbots
Long-time bibliophile readers know the drill: I look over the list of new books at my local university library, and comment briefly on what's new and hip in the literature world. (Hint: what's new and hip is generally not in the literary world at all.) And long-time readers also know that for the last few weeks, it's been a long haul, with the new items ranging from 7000 to 18000 items. This week, we have almost a normal amount, at an almost manageable 2651. Let's begin.
Debates in the digital humanities / Matthew K. Gold, editor. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2012.
The digital stuff is starting early this time around. The book starts with an essay by Matthew Kirschenbaum, entitled "What is Digital Humanities, and What's It Doing in English Departments?", which would be a question that I personally wouldn't mind an answer to, so I can tell it to those smug literature grad students the next time we have a English Grad Student Brag-Off. (We do those. It's pretty awesome, but we're exclusive, so someone like you probably hasn't heard of it.) There's also a chapter by Johanna Drucker, "Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship." I know Drucker from the work she's done on historical typography. That doesn't seem relevant here, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. There's also a chapter on Trending by Lev Manovich, and a blogpost by Ian Bogost (The Turtlenecked Hairshirt--you can find it here if you want it without the whole "paper" thing.). It actually seems like a book worth knowing about if you're in the discipline. You know, like me. Hmmm. But there's already one request on it, and I don't like poaching people's books unless it's really necessary. So we'll make a mental note, and wait a few weeks.
House and psychology : humanity is overrated / edited by Ted Cascio and Leonard L. Martin. Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, c2011.
I'm looking at this one purely for the subtitle. I imagine future books in the series will follow this pattern: "You're Not So Great." "People are Jerks." "We're Not Fond About Dogs, Either." Now, from the title, you may have assumed it's a book about grandiose mansions, but no, it's actually an anthology of psychology scholars who like the TV show House. ...Yeah.
Thor : myth to Marvel / Martin Arnold. London ; New York : Continuum, 2011.
This a historical examination of applications of the Thor myth, from his Norse origins to
modern interpretations in Germany, Denmark, and the United States. (Marvel, geddit? geddit?)
High road : a novel / Terry Fallis. Toronto : Emblem, c2010.
Here's the sequel to that Terry Fallis book I didn't very much care for at all.
Breasts [videorecording] : a documentary / a documentary by Meema Spadola ; director, Meema Spadola, c1996.
There are a couple of things I'm interested in seeing in this documentary. In fact, I'd have to be an udder tit not to take a bit of a nip its way. Ah, wordplay. Honestly, I could never take this out. I wouldn't be able to stand the cool gaze of the librarians as they handed it over to me. Given the list of books I typically put on hold, they already have enough fodder against me.
Wired to care : how companies prosper when they create widespread empathy / Dev Patnaik ; with Peter Mortensen. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : FT Press, c2009.
On the one hand, arguing pragmatic reasons for companies to act morally appropriate seems to be from the same school of thought as paying children to behave rather than instilling any sort of decency, but on the other hand... well, anything that works, I guess.
Free ride : how digital parasites are destroying the culture business, and how the culture business can fight back / Robert Levine. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, c2011.
A cursory glance of the book's info blurb suggests that it's about digital piracy, Napster, Google's digitization push, and YouTube, and how the traditional media forms should act to get some ground back. So, under that basis, it's not really geared to get much support from people under 30 or so. But from some book reviews, it's a thoughtful book that refuses to treat the industries as villains, and offers some interesting alternative business models. Still not something I'm particularly interested in, but if that's you're thing...
I'll have what she's having : mapping social behavior / Alex Bentley, Mark Earls, and Michael J. O'Brien ; foreword by John Maeda. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2011.
I like the title. This may surprise, but I'm a big fan of When Harry Met Sally.
Cutting edges : contemporary collage / [edited by Robert Klanten, Hendrik Hellige, James Gallagher ; preface by James Gallagher]. Berlin : Gestalten, c2011.
Another clever title. I know I'm doing a lot of "quick glances" this time round, but... well, there's nothing that's really catching my eye.
Information highways and byways : from the telegraph to the 21st century / Irwin Lebow. New York : IEEE Press, c1995.
I'm sure I've commented on this before, but there's a tendency in new media studies to treat everything we do as, well, "new." As in, everything that occurs in a digital context has started with the 90s popularization of the Internet. Thus, any work that moves towards what's often called "media archaeology," the history and physical development of media, is responding to a prevalent, rather naive, trend. The downside to this version is that, being published in 1995, Lebow's book is almost an artifact of media archaeology itself.
Television and new media : must-click tv / Jennifer Gillan. New York : Routledge, 2011.
This book is about how television has transformed as a result of digital media innovations, in terms of things such as changes to programming, and turning TV shows into transmedia franchises. It would probably make a nice companion to Sheila Murphy's How Television Invented New Media, a book about how digital media has transformed as a result of television. (The media archaeology subject is still in my mind; hence the reference to a digital media history book, even if it's a recent, based in the 80s, sort of history.)
Cult telefantasy series : a critical analysis of The prisoner, Twin peaks, The X-files, Buffy the vampire slayer, Lost, Heroes, Doctor Who and Star Trek / Sue Short.
I do believe that's TV Geek Bingo. Or maybe Yahtzee. The book appears to be divided so that each chapter focuses on a different franchise, except for the last, which is on both the Doctor Who and Star Trek reboots. What draws it together is the concept that each tried, and some failed, to inspire an ongoing fandom based on its approach to fantasy, with The Prisoner starting the pattern. It's a rather pop book, but that's hardly a failing, given the pop focus.
Italo Calvino's architecture of lightness : the utopian imagination in an age of urban crisis / Letizia Modena. New York : Routledge, 2011.
Italo Calvino's one of my favorite writers. I'm glad to see people are still working with him.
Heinlein's juvenile novels : a cultural dictionary / C.W. Sullivan, III. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2011.
This caught my eye because I've written, very briefly, about Heinlein's juvenile books in other posts. Well, it's been a lot of time since the 1950s, so a book that explains and elaborates some of the cultural references may be warranted. The info I've gleaned on the book seems to suggest that it's emphasizing the connection between the space colonization stories and the settlement of North America, which really can't be overstated in terms of these stories' sources.
Seven cities of gold / David Moles. 1st ed. Hornsea, England : PS Pub. Ltd., 2010.
This week's random fiction choice. It's an alternate history sci-fi novella, where the big idea is that Christianity was nearly wiped out by Muslim invasion in the 8th century, and exists now as a sort of backwater, fringe group. It's 66 pages and something of a collector's item (as I'm guessing from its $50 price tag), so getting it from a library would probably be your best bet to get your hands on it.
Oh... we're done the Humanities stuff, and there are still another 1000 entries. Oh dear.
Better than human : the promise and perils of enhancing ourselves / Allen Buchanan. New York : Oxford University Press, c2011
Buchanan makes the case that we should be looking for ways to enhance people, biologically. ...Here's a book begging for a humanities/posthumanist reading.
Fat China : how expanding waistlines are changing a nation / Paul French and Matthew Crabbe. London ; New York : Anthem Press, 2010.
American obesity goes global. Or so I assume without doing any sort of research.
Leonardo to the Internet : technology & culture from the Renaissance to the present / Thomas J. Misa. 2nd ed. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
And speaking of media archaeology... Well, that's certainly taking the long view. I suppose the next step is "Archimedes to Apps" or, even further back, "Cavemen to C++." Topics include technology via ruling families, rising industry, and expanding imperialism. And the 2nd edition update is a discussion on how unsustainable global expansion is contributing to general geopolitical instability. Ending on a positive note, then.
Robot ethics : the ethical and social implications of robotics / edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2012.
The very, very last entry on this week's list. I bet there's a million Asimov references in this. Topics include the morality of allowing or creating robots to serve in military, sexual, caregiving, and serving capacities, as well as whether robots could be considered moral beings themselves. I just keep thinking of the Futurama short where a documentary argues that widespread sexbots leads directly to the extinction of the human race. "Gosh, Mandy, across the street is a long way to go to make out. I think I'll just stay here and make out with my Marilyn Monroebot."
And on that lofty note of mechanical love-making, I draw another edition of biblophile to its end.
Later Days.
Debates in the digital humanities / Matthew K. Gold, editor. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2012.
The digital stuff is starting early this time around. The book starts with an essay by Matthew Kirschenbaum, entitled "What is Digital Humanities, and What's It Doing in English Departments?", which would be a question that I personally wouldn't mind an answer to, so I can tell it to those smug literature grad students the next time we have a English Grad Student Brag-Off. (We do those. It's pretty awesome, but we're exclusive, so someone like you probably hasn't heard of it.) There's also a chapter by Johanna Drucker, "Humanistic Theory and Digital Scholarship." I know Drucker from the work she's done on historical typography. That doesn't seem relevant here, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. There's also a chapter on Trending by Lev Manovich, and a blogpost by Ian Bogost (The Turtlenecked Hairshirt--you can find it here if you want it without the whole "paper" thing.). It actually seems like a book worth knowing about if you're in the discipline. You know, like me. Hmmm. But there's already one request on it, and I don't like poaching people's books unless it's really necessary. So we'll make a mental note, and wait a few weeks.
House and psychology : humanity is overrated / edited by Ted Cascio and Leonard L. Martin. Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley, c2011.
I'm looking at this one purely for the subtitle. I imagine future books in the series will follow this pattern: "You're Not So Great." "People are Jerks." "We're Not Fond About Dogs, Either." Now, from the title, you may have assumed it's a book about grandiose mansions, but no, it's actually an anthology of psychology scholars who like the TV show House. ...Yeah.
Thor : myth to Marvel / Martin Arnold. London ; New York : Continuum, 2011.
This a historical examination of applications of the Thor myth, from his Norse origins to
modern interpretations in Germany, Denmark, and the United States. (Marvel, geddit? geddit?)High road : a novel / Terry Fallis. Toronto : Emblem, c2010.
Here's the sequel to that Terry Fallis book I didn't very much care for at all.
Breasts [videorecording] : a documentary / a documentary by Meema Spadola ; director, Meema Spadola, c1996.
There are a couple of things I'm interested in seeing in this documentary. In fact, I'd have to be an udder tit not to take a bit of a nip its way. Ah, wordplay. Honestly, I could never take this out. I wouldn't be able to stand the cool gaze of the librarians as they handed it over to me. Given the list of books I typically put on hold, they already have enough fodder against me.
Wired to care : how companies prosper when they create widespread empathy / Dev Patnaik ; with Peter Mortensen. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : FT Press, c2009.
On the one hand, arguing pragmatic reasons for companies to act morally appropriate seems to be from the same school of thought as paying children to behave rather than instilling any sort of decency, but on the other hand... well, anything that works, I guess.
Free ride : how digital parasites are destroying the culture business, and how the culture business can fight back / Robert Levine. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, c2011.
A cursory glance of the book's info blurb suggests that it's about digital piracy, Napster, Google's digitization push, and YouTube, and how the traditional media forms should act to get some ground back. So, under that basis, it's not really geared to get much support from people under 30 or so. But from some book reviews, it's a thoughtful book that refuses to treat the industries as villains, and offers some interesting alternative business models. Still not something I'm particularly interested in, but if that's you're thing...
I'll have what she's having : mapping social behavior / Alex Bentley, Mark Earls, and Michael J. O'Brien ; foreword by John Maeda. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2011.
I like the title. This may surprise, but I'm a big fan of When Harry Met Sally.
Cutting edges : contemporary collage / [edited by Robert Klanten, Hendrik Hellige, James Gallagher ; preface by James Gallagher]. Berlin : Gestalten, c2011.
Another clever title. I know I'm doing a lot of "quick glances" this time round, but... well, there's nothing that's really catching my eye.
Information highways and byways : from the telegraph to the 21st century / Irwin Lebow. New York : IEEE Press, c1995.
I'm sure I've commented on this before, but there's a tendency in new media studies to treat everything we do as, well, "new." As in, everything that occurs in a digital context has started with the 90s popularization of the Internet. Thus, any work that moves towards what's often called "media archaeology," the history and physical development of media, is responding to a prevalent, rather naive, trend. The downside to this version is that, being published in 1995, Lebow's book is almost an artifact of media archaeology itself.
Television and new media : must-click tv / Jennifer Gillan. New York : Routledge, 2011.
This book is about how television has transformed as a result of digital media innovations, in terms of things such as changes to programming, and turning TV shows into transmedia franchises. It would probably make a nice companion to Sheila Murphy's How Television Invented New Media, a book about how digital media has transformed as a result of television. (The media archaeology subject is still in my mind; hence the reference to a digital media history book, even if it's a recent, based in the 80s, sort of history.)
Cult telefantasy series : a critical analysis of The prisoner, Twin peaks, The X-files, Buffy the vampire slayer, Lost, Heroes, Doctor Who and Star Trek / Sue Short.
I do believe that's TV Geek Bingo. Or maybe Yahtzee. The book appears to be divided so that each chapter focuses on a different franchise, except for the last, which is on both the Doctor Who and Star Trek reboots. What draws it together is the concept that each tried, and some failed, to inspire an ongoing fandom based on its approach to fantasy, with The Prisoner starting the pattern. It's a rather pop book, but that's hardly a failing, given the pop focus.
Italo Calvino's architecture of lightness : the utopian imagination in an age of urban crisis / Letizia Modena. New York : Routledge, 2011.
Italo Calvino's one of my favorite writers. I'm glad to see people are still working with him.
Heinlein's juvenile novels : a cultural dictionary / C.W. Sullivan, III. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., c2011.
This caught my eye because I've written, very briefly, about Heinlein's juvenile books in other posts. Well, it's been a lot of time since the 1950s, so a book that explains and elaborates some of the cultural references may be warranted. The info I've gleaned on the book seems to suggest that it's emphasizing the connection between the space colonization stories and the settlement of North America, which really can't be overstated in terms of these stories' sources.
Seven cities of gold / David Moles. 1st ed. Hornsea, England : PS Pub. Ltd., 2010.
This week's random fiction choice. It's an alternate history sci-fi novella, where the big idea is that Christianity was nearly wiped out by Muslim invasion in the 8th century, and exists now as a sort of backwater, fringe group. It's 66 pages and something of a collector's item (as I'm guessing from its $50 price tag), so getting it from a library would probably be your best bet to get your hands on it.
Oh... we're done the Humanities stuff, and there are still another 1000 entries. Oh dear.
Better than human : the promise and perils of enhancing ourselves / Allen Buchanan. New York : Oxford University Press, c2011
Buchanan makes the case that we should be looking for ways to enhance people, biologically. ...Here's a book begging for a humanities/posthumanist reading.
Fat China : how expanding waistlines are changing a nation / Paul French and Matthew Crabbe. London ; New York : Anthem Press, 2010.
American obesity goes global. Or so I assume without doing any sort of research.
Leonardo to the Internet : technology & culture from the Renaissance to the present / Thomas J. Misa. 2nd ed. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
And speaking of media archaeology... Well, that's certainly taking the long view. I suppose the next step is "Archimedes to Apps" or, even further back, "Cavemen to C++." Topics include technology via ruling families, rising industry, and expanding imperialism. And the 2nd edition update is a discussion on how unsustainable global expansion is contributing to general geopolitical instability. Ending on a positive note, then.
Robot ethics : the ethical and social implications of robotics / edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2012.
The very, very last entry on this week's list. I bet there's a million Asimov references in this. Topics include the morality of allowing or creating robots to serve in military, sexual, caregiving, and serving capacities, as well as whether robots could be considered moral beings themselves. I just keep thinking of the Futurama short where a documentary argues that widespread sexbots leads directly to the extinction of the human race. "Gosh, Mandy, across the street is a long way to go to make out. I think I'll just stay here and make out with my Marilyn Monroebot."
And on that lofty note of mechanical love-making, I draw another edition of biblophile to its end.
Later Days.
Twin Powers Prologue II
Part I is here.
And as if his responsibilities as steward weren’t enough, Josen was also obliged to take over much of the more feminine upper crust duties, such as making sure the maids were properly doing their work. Such tasks were normally left to the lady of the house, but Lady Caitlin seemed disinclined to pursue such activities. Instead, she usually surrounded herself by those idiots that served as her ladies-in-waiting and idled away the days in sewing, or knitting, or some other useless activity. By all reports, the lady was almost completely silent during these sessions, remaining quiet while the women around her chatted endlessly. If someone who didn't know Lady Caitlin was to look at the situation, they might think she was pining for her long-absent husband—a belief that would last all of an instant once they learned of the true history behind the lord and lady of Aginor Manor.
It was no secret that Aginor and Caitlin were estranged; one needed to look no further than their courtship, an affair that brought the entire continent into conflict. Aginor had made arrangements with Caitlin’s father to marry her, but it seemed no one had bothered to ask the Lady Caitlin’s opinion of the betrothal. She ran off with the son of Lord Something-or-Other, and everything went rather downhill from there. The entire affair had ended only when Aginor almost literally wrenched Caitlin from the arms of her beloved, and, according to some accounts, wrenched the arms off as well. While Lady Caitlin never overtly displayed any sort of resentment towards Aginor, Josen thought it was impossible that she didn't feel some sort of hatred for the man who killed her first lover. And even putting aside the murder of one's true love, any affection Caitlin could foster for Aginor certainly wasn’t reciprocated. Aginor was not known as a caring individual, and for good reason. The idea that he could be warm and loving to anyone, even his wife, seemed as far-fetched a notion as meeting an affectionate mountain range. Their estrangement became even more pronounced after the birth of their children, the twin boys Trellis and Traenis. After that, Aginor seemed to hate being in the manor at all; that was when he began to ride in campaigns again, and rejoined the front lines. On his brief sojourns home, he and his wife avoided each other as much as possible.
An avoidance which made the current situation all the more peculiar. Josen had met Aginor's company, a small detachment that represented only a miniscule portion of Aginor’s entire force, at the manor gate. Josen was steadying himself to begin his report when Aginor brusquely told him to run ahead and tell Lady Caitlin he would meet with her in her bedchambers immediately after he had removed his riding gear, with the further instruction that Josen was to wait outside the door while they… talked. Well, that was what he said they'd be doing, at any rate. Lady Caitlin didn't seem the least bit surprised at her husband's sudden deviation from normal behavior; in fact she seemed almost—pleased at the prospect. While he was waiting for Aginor to finish with his horses—which had taken an exasperatingly long time—Josen took the opportunity to question both Caitlin's ladies-in-waiting and Aginor's soldiers. Both groups admitted that their respective masters had been acting strangely for the last month or so. In Aginor's case, this involved long hours of isolation from his men while conducting private meetings with strangers. In Caitlin's case, the newfound eccentricity was an almost manic increase in both appetite and energy, as if every experience was something new. It was probably no coincidence they both went through these changes at the same time, but how they managed to coordinate their transformations baffled Josen completely. Aginor had been on the battlefield the entire time, and nearly all communication between the castle and the outside world went directly through Josen. He knew without any doubt that no form of messages had passed between Caitlin and Aginor. So how did they manage to synchronize these changes from a distance of half a world?
Friday, February 24, 2012
Twin Powers Prologue I
We're going to try something a bit different. Recently, I mentioned to a friend of mine that I had a finished novel, and he asked if I'd send him a copy. So I dug through the archives, and blew off the electronic mothballs. And in doing so, I reminded myself that I'm still attached to this story. That I'm proud of it. That I've been thinking of it almost constantly for over a decade now. Thus, I thought, I should do something with it. And since I've got this public forum, I'd take it out, and run it through its paces. Over the next few days, then, I'll be posting the prologue of the story here on the blog--and maybe the first chapter, if there's any interest. I think I'll stick to about 500 word installments, to keep things manageable. If anyone wants to read more, contact me, and I'll hook you up with the full version. And if not... well, at least it got one more shot at the light of day.
Twin Powers
Prologue
1433
Spring
It was four hours now.
Josen knew precisely how long he had been standing in front of Lord Aginor's bedchambers, waiting. He knew because he had sent his little brother Jon to watch the grandfather clock in Aginor's study, and report to him every hour. Four hours, and Aginor's promise that he would return to his steward immediately "after a brief word with Lady Caitlin" was beginning to ring a little hollow. The stiffness in his legs made Josen again consider sending someone to fetch him a chair, or go for a brief walk, or leave entirely, and again he decided against any such course of action. He'd be damned if Aginor came out and saw him shirking his duty. Oh, the lord would never say anything, not over such a trivial matter, he’d just raise an eyebrow and give that irritating look of his, and an hour or so later make some sort of comment about Josen's duties perhaps being a little too hard on him. And Josen would grit his and offer some sort of congenial denial ignored by Aginor before it left his mouth. And the edges of Aginor’s own mouth would turn upward in the smallest way imaginable, a change so indiscernible that anyone who actually identified it as a smirk would be accused of being far too self-conscious, far too suspicious and—Josen was certain—completely right.
So instead, Josen remained rooted to the spot, grimly staring at the door in front of him. More than anyone else in the manor—with the possible exception of Lady Caitlin herself--he hated Aginor's sporadic visits home from the warfront. Aginor had chosen him to act as steward in his absence, under the official fiction that Josen was merely the advisor to his heir, Traenis Aginor the twenty-third. In reality, Traenis Aginor the twenty-third was four years old, occasionally burst into tears for no apparent reason, and had a tendency to walk into walls if he wasn't paying attention. For all intents and purposes, Josen ran Aginor Manor.
Or rather, he ran it while Aginor was away. Whenever the lord returned, he insisted on taking the reins of office for himself, usually staying just long enough to throw the order and state that Josen had so carefully crafted into chaos before whisking himself back to the battle against the rebels. And he always left one big mess behind for Josen to clean up. The simple truth was that Aginor had no skill in running a household. While he was generally known to be without peer when it came to strategy and tactics on the battlefield—or, at least, so he had been when he was younger; rumors trickling in from the frontline suggested that the lord was no longer quite as peerless as he used to be—years of experience in the art of warfare translated into a complete lack of understanding in all things domestic. Every time, without fail, he listened to Josen's report—his entire report, the man insisted on knowing every minute detail, from who was to be the new master-at-arms to how much seasoning the cooks were putting on the roast beef—and afterwards, he always insisted on making ridiculously minor changes that inevitably proved nearly impossible to implement, a failure that Josen would inevitably get blamed for at the next meeting. Josen had taken to getting roaring drunk after their little "household campaigns", as Aginor persisted in called them, and it was taking some serious will power on the steward's part to avoid imbibing beforehand as well.
Later Days.
Friday Random Quotations: Face Front
The face is at once the irreparable being-exposed of humans and the very opening in which they hide and stay hidden. The face is the only location of community, the only possible city.
Agamben, Giorgio and Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Translation). Means Without End: Notes on Politics.
Later Days.
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