Archive for: May, 2008

Location, Location, Location

May 29 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Recovering English Major

I’m curious about something. When you read, and have to place characters in buildings, does your imagination come up with completely new areas based on author description or does it appropriate what’ve you’ve got in your memory? I almost never think of a wholly new place. Every time I imagine a fictional place, it’s invariably based on somewhere I’ve lived or spent time. Like, we’re reading It now, and each of the characters homes gets described, though not in detail. Bill’s house looks like where I lived from 8th-10th grade. Ben and Mike live in variant’s of my grandma’s best friend’s house from when I was a kid. Bev lives in a squished version of where I lived from 4th-6th grade.

It’s funny, too, because the same locations get a lot of action for radically different stories. The house that Harriet the Spy lived in is also Grimmauld Place: my aunt Michele’s house. Anything described as a “cottage” ends up looking like my parent’s house with more bookshelves and no television. It’s also Spinner’s End (truncated, with yet more bookcases) and Malfoy Manor (unchanged but for color scheme).

Hogwarts, the inside, looks like a stone version of Pearsons Hall at Maryville College, where I lived my sophomore year. In reality it’s a giant “T” (longer on the cross than the stem) with incongruous pink carpet on the second and third floors, which are living spaces and dark wood on the first floor, which is the dining hall. Or it was when I was there, ten years ago. For that matter, the grounds of Hogwarts bear a striking resemblance to Maryville College as a whole, particularly the space between Pearsons and Thaw Halls. Instead of Willard House House and Lloyd Hall, there’s a lake full of giant squid. Maryville takes up a lot of my imaginative real estate. Isaac Newton and Daniel Waterhouse lived in something very much like my freshman dorm room.

Does anybody else do this? I’d like to hear what informs your imagination.

2 responses so far

Age of Conan Update

May 28 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Gaming

You know there’s something about a game when people post on the forums going,

“How come the Demonologists’s pets don’t have nipples? I paid for an M-level game and that’s what I want!”

The sentiment seems to be that there’s a lot of parental complaint. They want their kids to be able to play the excessively violent video game based on a movie that’s all about violence, with some sex on the side. Players, on the other hand, want a game that sticks with the universe created by the movie. Further, they want the game they paid for, nipples and all. One poster summed it up particularly eloquently:

“It’s not tits! It’s the trust!”

I haven’t played yet, but I can report that the textures are gorgeous and the physics are pretty realistic, given beheadings and gouts of blood.

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These Truths are Not So Much Self-Evident

May 28 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Speechifying

Have you all heard all the alarm bells going off lately, warning us about how a college education is quickly becoming the equivalent of setting a bunch of money on fire? I know they can be hard to hear over all the other ones. But I have seen one article after another about how higher education is in crisis, who’s to blame for it, and nothing much about what can or should be done about it.

It starts, to some extent, with a widely-read article from The Atlantic Online, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower. In it, an anonymous professor bemoans the state of higher education, as seen from the perspective of the guy who regularly has to fail the majority of his Comp 101 students. He writes about a woman pursuing a degree later in life, what would be termed a “non-traditional” student:

“I can’t believe it,” she said when she received her F. “I was so proud of myself for having written a college paper.” She most certainly hadn’t written a college paper, and she was a long way from doing so. Yet there she was in college, paying lots of tuition for the privilege of pursuing a degree, which she very likely needed to advance at work. Her deficits don’t make her a bad person or even unintelligent or unusual. Many people cannot write a research paper, and few have to do so in their workaday life. But let’s be frank: she wasn’t working at anything resembling a college level.

What he eventually gets at, after much politically correct tiptoe-ing, is that not every job that must be done needs a college degree. Except he doesn’t go quite far enough.

America, ever-idealistic, seems wary of the vocational-education track. We are not comfortable limiting anyone’s options. Telling someone that college is not for him seems harsh and classist and British, as though we were sentencing him to a life in the coal mines. I sympathize with this stance; I subscribe to the American ideal. Unfortunately, it is with me and my red pen that that ideal crashes and burns.

And he only says this after a series of very precise analogies, such as wanting the average child-welfare office to have an intimate knowlege of “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. read it if you’ve never read it. Then let your head spin around for awhile.

Rod Dreher, well known in these parts for inspiring the JKFO sentiment, takes it a step further and acknowledges that some people are smarter than others:

What I’m talking about is the taboo we have against admitting that some people are smarter than others, and the contemporary American disdain for the dignity of manual labor, and the gnostic egalitarianism of US culture, which holds that we create our own realities by force of will.

Yesterday I read an article at The American Spectator, Inhuman Humanities, that’s half book review, half jeremiad against what the author and many others consider an unprecedented nadir in higher education. It starts off apparently reifying Professor X’s sentiment:

With university costs topping $50,000 a year and the cost of food, fuel, insurance, and pretty much everything else rising, majoring in the Humanities seems to make little economic sense. Which is why universities in the US and the UK have seen dramatic decreases in the number of students majoring in English, philosophy, fine arts, classics and history. …. Indeed the Humanities are a tough sell in the best of times, and God knows it is tough to pay off those student loans on a barista’s wages. Today, business savvy students are demanding more bang for their buck, which translates into specialized training, not education.

But then goes on to talk about how a thorough grounding in the humanities, what you’re supposed to receive with your average bachelor’s degree and then chew on for the rest of your life, doesn’t exist anymore. It would be hard to get it even if you wanted it:

However it wasn’t the marketplace that killed the Humanities…. Rather, it was the one-two punch of political correctness and research specialization.

Of these, political correctness and its offspring diversity, multiculturalism and constructivism (which gave us such wonders as “rainforest math” and “African math”) have done the most damage. With more women than men on college campuses, and near majorities of foreign students, to say nothing of the distinctive viewpoints, experiences and traditions they bring, political correctness is seen as an “instrument of corrective justice” — payback for the sins of all of the Dead White Males that created the racist, patriarchic and imperial West.

That seems to be a final blow, though the author tries to suggest that political correctness has reached the end of its useful and is on the wane, being potshotted at by the occasional “Great Books” course. Nothing is bad, because there is no mutually agreed upon path by which a civilization ascends. That brutal relatively, which flies in the face of every instinct, leads to people pursuing degrees when they have no true need of them, when their competence is unquestioned but an arbitrary hierarchy demands their participation in a “conversation” that’s vastly more indoctrination than anything approaching genuine education.

Bringing it on home, the Civics Literacy Report Quiz backs that up. It’s by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which for full-disclosure’s sake is coming at this from a conservative direction, that is, full anti-PC tilt. Their conclusions:

College seniors know astoundingly little about America’s history, political thought, market economy and international relations. The overall average score for the approximately 7,000 seniors who took the American civic literacy exam was 54.2%, an “F.” That is consistent with the overall average of 53.2% posted by seniors last year. Not one college surveyed can boast that its seniors scored, on average, even a “C” in American civic knowledge.

I encourage you to take the quiz. It’s 60 questions long, but it’s eye opening. I scored 76.67%, which is a little better than the average Harvard senior, but I’ve got a couple years of education on them, all of it spent both studying and teaching American History.

And that’s what’s really sad. I don’t think I need as much education as I have. I think, most of the time, that I probably should’ve cut and run sometime around age 20 and attempted to get a job, and further training, in some field I have natural aptitude for, like printing. Without an M.A., I would not be considered qualified for the job I do now, despite the fact that the only thing I learned pursuing that degree that I ever use is how to keep a group of adults focused on a single topic for a period of several hours. And most of that is natural ability, I think, not a learned skill. I’d be able to stand up in front of people and just keep talking regardless of how many classes I ever took and how well I did in them. But I do have one, and it’s in American Studies, for crying out loud. I’d call that epic fail if I couldn’t look back on the experience and see just how very little actual history (of America or anywhere else) I studied and how much time I spent trying to make sense out of monographs on Victim Culture of the Week with appropriately fashionable *ism.

I’m grateful for the education I have, for the experiences it allowed me (both good and bad), and for the people I met. I am still paying for it, too. And I know plenty of people who are smarter than I am, or who at least seem to be, who are not still making a monthly payment for those smarts.

Let me know what you think. And if you take the quiz and want to talk about that, I’d like to hear about it. What I want to leave you with is this:

6x + y = 16

I tried for 20 minutes last night to remember how to figure that out. Eventually Christopher talked me through it. I wanted to cry from frustration.

14 responses so far

You Bet Your Fur

May 26 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Recovering English Major

What did you all think of your introduction to Derry? Don’t answer here (unless you really, really want to, I suppose). Discussion is happening at An Utter Waste of Time Forum, in The Losers Club.

For this week, Chapter 3, which is a chunk more pages:

  • Six Phone Calls 1985
    1. Stanley Uris Takes a Bath
    2. Richie Tozier Takes a Powder
    3. Ben Hanscom Takes a Drink
    4. Eddie Kaspbrak Takes His Medicine
    5. Beverly Rogan Takes a Whuppin
    6. Bill Denbrough Takes Time Out
  • Derry: The First Interlude

I’ll spend some time today with the book and a calendar putting together a master list. I know I won’t be able to control the pace of my reading (except, perhaps, when it comes to Mike’s long long histories near the end of the book), so we’ll just pace the discussion.

“The turtle couldn’t help us,” he said suddenly.

Said Stan, to his wife. And I realized that the last time I read It, the final three Dark Tower books hadn’t come out yet. I knew there was a connection between them, but I had no idea how strong it was.

See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
“On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.

Mike Hanlon is calling his Ka-tet.

2 responses so far

Lexpionage of Ice and Fire V

May 23 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Fandom, Lexpionage

While this is not the end of ASoIaF lexpionage, these are the last two words that were new to me. Until September, at least, from this series, which makes me sad. A Feast for Crows is a pricktease of a book, if I may say so. Just enough story to keep you there, on the edge, but never anything really satisfying. The end of the book is powerful, but there’s a distinct sense of lack; it’s obvious there’s a ton of information missing. The turns of events with Sam Tarly, Cersei Baratheon, and Jaime Lannister are massively important, and tantalizing in their own way, but wow, if we knew what Dany and Tyrion were up to, it would be incredible.

We close off new words with war machines.

First, carrack:

Along the sacred strand of Old Wyk, longships lined the shore as far as the eye could see, their masts thrust up like spears. In the deeper waters rode prize cogs, carracks, and dromonds won in raid or war, too big to run ashore.

Obviously a ship of some sort. The Old Wyk is one of the larger of the Iron Isles, off the Eastern coast of Westeros, where they’re declaring their own king and/or queen even though the rest of the war for the Iron Throne is more or less over and locked up with the hybrid Baratheon-Lannister sigil.

A carrack is a galleon, or four-masted ship, usually used for merchant purposes. When I think of any medieval ship, this is what comes to mind. And I think maybe I’m not alone there, the Santa Maria of 1492 fame was a carrack. In the above passage, the dromond was a valuable capture, because it could be reused as a fighting ship. The carracks, I’m guessing, were full of goods and treasure.

The word itself has a fun history. It ends back in Greek, but goes through Arabian influenced Romance languages along the way. The Middle English, around 1350, was carrake, which came from the Middle French carraque. That word came from the Spanish word carraca, which the good people at Random House suspect comes from the Arabian word qaraqir, the plural form of qurqur, meaning “ship of burden.” That word can be traced back farther to Greek kerkouros.

Wikipedia gets even harder core, and theorizes that the Greek word, which literally means “shorn tail” (a carrack has a flat stern) comes, via Phoenician, from the Akkadian word kalakku. How amazing is that? Over all that time, through all those different languages, which met each other in part because this particular variety of ship let people transport goods over long distances in different depths of water. And always with a dorsal velar plosive (c, q, or k) in front and back, and a lateral (r or l) in the middle.

Then, mangonels:

To the south, meanwhile, Mace Tyrell had raised a city of tents outside Storm’s End and had two dozen mangonels flinging stones against the castle’s massive walls, thus far to small effect.

A mangonel is a siege engine for throwing things at castle walls. It’s Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin manganum, meaning catapult, ultimately derived from Greek manganon meaning war machine.

Another etymology disagrees, saying manganum is Vulgar Latin, derived from Greek manganon meaning “means of tricking or embellishing.” It theorizes that the PIE root is *mang, meaning “to embellish, dress, trim.” There’s some idea that this is also the root of the Old Prussian word manga, meaning “whore” and the Middle Persian word meng, meaning deception. I’d be interested to see how many words that get traced back to Proto Indo-European roots that have “ma” or “mo” sounds mean something dangerous or hurtful.

Contextually it’s easy to understand what the mangonel is. But combined with the etymology, I wanted to know how it was different than a catapult or a trebuchet—GRRM is very fond of trebuchet and references them all the time. Wikipedia says that the mangonel is merely a variety of catapult, older than the trebuchet, with less accuracy but higher velocity. It’s the catapult you use to break through the castle walls, not hurl things over them. In fact, what I visualize as a trebuchet is actually a mangonel. The trebuchet is actually a heavily counterweighted sling, while the mangonel is a torsion based. The trebuchet’s use of a sling rather than a cup or bucket for holding the projectile allows it to throw objects in a taller arc—up and over—rather than merely at, though I’m sure at worked well, too. Furthermore, a trebuchet uses leverage with a fulcrum, making more powerful and faster than the mangonel. The mangonel is more a ballista for blunt projectiles, wound by string to gain energy. A ballista is a giant crossbow, which I learned by getting addicted to Heroes of Might and Magic III.

War machines, siege engines, and two words that remind me that Persia and Arabia were once-upon-a-time conquering cultures. That’s exciting stuff.

3 responses so far

Double Super Secret Knowledge

May 22 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Speechifying

For some fun this morning, check out Secret Common Sense Knowledge Revealed. This is really what the internet is for, y’all. Giving people learning they might not otherwise have access to, such as:

The guy on the Bluetooth headset at Target is a douchebag. It’s not you.

There’s only one I don’t entire jive with:

I don’t know what a robe is for either.

I’m assuming here he means bathrobe. Bathrobes are for keeping you warm and not naked. “But why not just get dressed?” Why not, indeed. Sometimes you just want to lounge around and drink coffee and read on a Saturday morning. Right? I spent an hour in my bathrobe this morning, because Christopher slept in and I didn’t want to disturb him by turning on the lights so I could dress. My common sense tells me bathrobes are a-okay.

Anything you can think to add?

5 responses so far

Where’s The Camel Punching Quest?

May 21 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Gaming

I watched Conan the Barbarian Saturday night. And by “watched,” I mean, dozed on and off while my friends had better manners than me and manfully stayed awake the entire time. I think I saw most of the important parts (Arnold having sex, James Earl Jones shooting things with snakes). I would not have chosen to watch it, but we were with guests and when our host suggested, “Conan!” my husband shouted, “Yes!” like it was his favorite movie of all time. I pulled a face, and Irish Cavalry said, “There’s boobs. You like boobs.” I do. I wish there had been more boobs.

And then yesterday Christopher went out and bought Age of Conan, the MMORPG. I was tempted to roll my eyes, but then thought, you know, are there any boobs? Turns out, there are!

No matter how waning your interest may be in multiplayer RPGs, Conan the Barbarian fiction, or any combination of the two, I bet you still know this much: Age of Conan equals digitized jugs.

WTF? Nudity filter?

I think you’ll agree with me when I say, totally without irony, “w00t!”

But! As so often happens, this much awesome nudity has spawned controversy. Turns out some dweeb out there doesn’t want hot chicks getting in the way of his gaming and has started a petition for a no-nudity mod that would toggle the boobs on and off. I know I just saw Conan for the first time three days ago, but even I get that nakedness is half the point. The other half is violence.

So march on over to that link and see all the great suggestions for what to replace glorious naked breasts with. Here’s hoping someone’s started a petition to ban the No Boobs Guy from playing, and to buy him a copy of Kingdom Hearts or something. Cos, dude! Boobs!

8 responses so far

The Losers Club

May 20 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Recovering English Major

Commences.

At An Utter Waste of Time Forum, in The Loser’s Club, in a thread called “After the Flood, Festival.” You’ll have to register to get a username. It’s free, fast, easy.

Posting will be more or less unmoderated and you’re on your own as far as spoilers go, week to week. That is, if you haven’t read, don’t read the discussion. If you’re a second (or third, like me) time reader, be courteous. Tangents are welcomed, even encouraged. If you’re not having it fun, you’re doing it wrong.

2 responses so far

Toeing the Blurred Line

May 20 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Geekery

If the first rule of blogging is Never Blog About Work, how does that translate to microblogging?

Mid-morning, mid-Twitter, I suddenly realize that I could be wading into some iffy territory.

Thoughts?

6 responses so far

We All Float Down Here

May 19 2008 Published by Sarah, etc. under Recovering English Major

Today commences reading It by Stephen King. For this week:

  1. After the Flood (1957)
  2. After the Festival (1984)

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years, if it ever did end– began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

As soon as I get it together and do about emailing Shadowhelm, I’ll post discussion links.

6 responses so far

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