here I go again -- my my, how can I resist you?
Insanely busy, going crazy, etc. When was the last time I posted? For that matter, where am I and what the hell is going on in my life? But as I was writing out strategies for Bookstore Y to market itself in Today's Ridiculous Bookstore-Unfriendly World (tm), I came upon this thought tangent. And what else are thought tangents for if not LiveJournal? Plus, I've been thinking about marketing, so I get to use boldface everywhere.
There's a lot of tales in ancient mythology (particularly Greek) about attempts to avoid prophesied death by doing pretty rough things, frequently involving killing children. Perseus is an example of this -- Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae. Danae's father, King Acrisius, set Danae and her son adrift on the sea because of a prophecy that Perseus would kill him.
Sometimes people will act all weird about stuff like this, as if it's totally crazy for a dude like Acrisius to kill his own daughter and grandson. But what people don't understand is that back in the day, this was actually a perfectly viable strategy. That is, in 95% of cases where concerned parents bricked their daughter up in the back room and left her to starve, said daughter would in fact starve to death and would not birth the foretold son who returned to kill his grandfather (or whatever the prophecy was).
Fashions in the manner of killing one's troublesomely fated children would fluctuate. Partly, this was determined by success rate -- "immure girl in tower and forbid anyone ever to see her" was a surprisingly effective strategy for escaping Fate, at 97%, whereas "stick infant in basket and send down river" only boasted 65% success. There were also PR debacles -- no one did the reed basket thing after the Moses incident. But it was also a matter of convenience, of course. Not everyone has the time, resources or inclination to build massive doomy dungeons for their family members.
Also, children in the neighborhood would totally spread prophesies to get each other in trouble.
"Ed took my favorite blocks and won't give them back. Let's tell everyone he's gonna kill his dad and marry his mom!"
"You got prophesied! You are so grounded!"
The above were common refrains among scampering kids in the agora.
Anyway so, seen in this context, it is clear that the stories passed down to us re: Greeks doing things like killing their fathers and marrying their mothers aren't really intended to be sobering parables about the remorselessness of the gods, or human helplessness in the vast universe. They're more of a "Wow, really?" ... the kind of thing where ancient peoples would tell the story, shake their heads, and be like, "Well ain't that the craziest thing?"
"Dude, did you hear Acrisius got killed by his son after all?"
"Jeez, poor guy. Who'da thunk that'd happen?"
"Yeah ... after all the effort he put into setting his daughter adrift in the sea. And I mean, he gave her a much nicer death than I gave my daughter last year -- I just flung the girl to the dogs."
"Just goes to show, man."
"Yeah." (pause, pull on beer) "Just goes to show."
...
And now that I've written that I might as well post some links.
Taxidermy!
Examples of taxidermy articles from antique "Popular Mechanics" magazines. Just trust me. It's awesome. And I even found it myself!
I assume you all heard that it's over for Geocities.
What this ending of Geocities does make me realize is, for all our scary talk of how we need to watch what our slutty, drunken selves put online because oh no someone who may pay us to do something might see it, is how not permanent so much of the web truly is.
from Audacia Ray.
Oh my God there's a "Journey to the West" TV show!
In case you've never heard of the Chinese epic Journey to the West, you have a treat awaiting you.
Journey to the West is a household legend and myth throughout East Asia, especially China, and among Chinese throughout the world. It is based on the real life monk Xuan Zang's (also known as Tripitaka or Tang San Zang) pilgrimage to India, to fetch back some Buddhist scriptures. Nonetheless, this fictional retelling focuses on San Zang's first disciple, the monkey king, Sun Wu Kong, who captured readers' hearts and imagination with his bold, daring, and mischievous personality. He was also very rebellious. As a matter of fact, Wu Cheng En wrote Journey to the West to criticize China's political system and society.
from my mom.
On the trail of Trebitsch Lincoln, 1920s triple agent
Searching at random I came across entries for Trebitsch in almost every year between 1921 and 1938. These were frequently of a piquant nature, tantalizing by reason of their brevity. Thus the entry for 1923: ''LINCOLN, Trebitsch (alias Patrick Keelan) Activities in connection with Chinese deputation to General Ludendorff respecting Sino-German relations.''
Or for 1924: ''LINCOLN, Trebitsch (alias Trautwein) Alleged sale of bogus German military plans to French authorities.''
As I moved into the volumes dealing with the 1930's, the arena of activity appeared to shift. 1931: ''Initiated as Buddhist priest.'' 1937: ''Japanese propaganda activity.'' 1938: ''Activity in Tibet.''
Found this one myself too, and all because I work in a ridiculous bookstore with obscure books about every which fact. I love my job, it's breaking my heart to know that I'm finally leaving. Even if it is a "finally".
(McSweeney's) ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.
You know, as I get older I get more and more bored by the handwringing of my elders over the death of writing. This article half-amuses me and half feels unbearably pretentious. The Internet is replacing print because it's a better technology, people, it's not because we kids are idiots who can't string a thought together. Oh well. Here endeth my rant.
from someone I definitely don't follow on Twitter. Because I don't use Twitter. Twitter is for the peasantry.
There's a lot of tales in ancient mythology (particularly Greek) about attempts to avoid prophesied death by doing pretty rough things, frequently involving killing children. Perseus is an example of this -- Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae. Danae's father, King Acrisius, set Danae and her son adrift on the sea because of a prophecy that Perseus would kill him.
Sometimes people will act all weird about stuff like this, as if it's totally crazy for a dude like Acrisius to kill his own daughter and grandson. But what people don't understand is that back in the day, this was actually a perfectly viable strategy. That is, in 95% of cases where concerned parents bricked their daughter up in the back room and left her to starve, said daughter would in fact starve to death and would not birth the foretold son who returned to kill his grandfather (or whatever the prophecy was).
Fashions in the manner of killing one's troublesomely fated children would fluctuate. Partly, this was determined by success rate -- "immure girl in tower and forbid anyone ever to see her" was a surprisingly effective strategy for escaping Fate, at 97%, whereas "stick infant in basket and send down river" only boasted 65% success. There were also PR debacles -- no one did the reed basket thing after the Moses incident. But it was also a matter of convenience, of course. Not everyone has the time, resources or inclination to build massive doomy dungeons for their family members.
Also, children in the neighborhood would totally spread prophesies to get each other in trouble.
"Ed took my favorite blocks and won't give them back. Let's tell everyone he's gonna kill his dad and marry his mom!"
"You got prophesied! You are so grounded!"
The above were common refrains among scampering kids in the agora.
Anyway so, seen in this context, it is clear that the stories passed down to us re: Greeks doing things like killing their fathers and marrying their mothers aren't really intended to be sobering parables about the remorselessness of the gods, or human helplessness in the vast universe. They're more of a "Wow, really?" ... the kind of thing where ancient peoples would tell the story, shake their heads, and be like, "Well ain't that the craziest thing?"
"Dude, did you hear Acrisius got killed by his son after all?"
"Jeez, poor guy. Who'da thunk that'd happen?"
"Yeah ... after all the effort he put into setting his daughter adrift in the sea. And I mean, he gave her a much nicer death than I gave my daughter last year -- I just flung the girl to the dogs."
"Just goes to show, man."
"Yeah." (pause, pull on beer) "Just goes to show."
...
And now that I've written that I might as well post some links.
Taxidermy!
Examples of taxidermy articles from antique "Popular Mechanics" magazines. Just trust me. It's awesome. And I even found it myself!
I assume you all heard that it's over for Geocities.
What this ending of Geocities does make me realize is, for all our scary talk of how we need to watch what our slutty, drunken selves put online because oh no someone who may pay us to do something might see it, is how not permanent so much of the web truly is.
from Audacia Ray.
Oh my God there's a "Journey to the West" TV show!
In case you've never heard of the Chinese epic Journey to the West, you have a treat awaiting you.
Journey to the West is a household legend and myth throughout East Asia, especially China, and among Chinese throughout the world. It is based on the real life monk Xuan Zang's (also known as Tripitaka or Tang San Zang) pilgrimage to India, to fetch back some Buddhist scriptures. Nonetheless, this fictional retelling focuses on San Zang's first disciple, the monkey king, Sun Wu Kong, who captured readers' hearts and imagination with his bold, daring, and mischievous personality. He was also very rebellious. As a matter of fact, Wu Cheng En wrote Journey to the West to criticize China's political system and society.
from my mom.
On the trail of Trebitsch Lincoln, 1920s triple agent
Searching at random I came across entries for Trebitsch in almost every year between 1921 and 1938. These were frequently of a piquant nature, tantalizing by reason of their brevity. Thus the entry for 1923: ''LINCOLN, Trebitsch (alias Patrick Keelan) Activities in connection with Chinese deputation to General Ludendorff respecting Sino-German relations.''
Or for 1924: ''LINCOLN, Trebitsch (alias Trautwein) Alleged sale of bogus German military plans to French authorities.''
As I moved into the volumes dealing with the 1930's, the arena of activity appeared to shift. 1931: ''Initiated as Buddhist priest.'' 1937: ''Japanese propaganda activity.'' 1938: ''Activity in Tibet.''
Found this one myself too, and all because I work in a ridiculous bookstore with obscure books about every which fact. I love my job, it's breaking my heart to know that I'm finally leaving. Even if it is a "finally".
(McSweeney's) ENG 371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.
You know, as I get older I get more and more bored by the handwringing of my elders over the death of writing. This article half-amuses me and half feels unbearably pretentious. The Internet is replacing print because it's a better technology, people, it's not because we kids are idiots who can't string a thought together. Oh well. Here endeth my rant.
from someone I definitely don't follow on Twitter. Because I don't use Twitter. Twitter is for the peasantry.